Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

This past weekend I played in Astronomi-con's winnipeg event. In lieu of doing battle reports I wanted to instead give a review of how my army faired and how my unit builds and army overall performed. The event was 6 games @ 1500 points over 2 days (note AI units were permitted- no superheavies).

Here is what I brought:

HQ Succubus agonizer, blast pistol 100
Elites Bloodbridesx9 syren, agonizer, blast pistol, shardnet, 2x razorflail, raider 252
Elites Truebormx4 4x blaster, venom 2x s.cannon 173
Troops Wychsx10 hekatrix, agonizer, shardnet, hydra, haywire, raider 230
Troops Wychsx10 hekatrix, agonizer, shardnet, hydra, haywire, raider 230
Troops Warriorsx10 splinter cannon, raider, flicker 170
Heavy Ravager flicker 115
Heavy Ravager flicker 115
Heavy Ravager flicker 115

My opponents (approx):

Performance:

Succubus/bloodbrides in Raider: Unit was excellent. Won every combat it went into including against some tough BA units. However, the blast pistols may have fired once the entire game. It was either not needed by the time the 6" range was there, or fleet was needed. 30 points can be safely recovered from the pistols.
Rating: A

Trueborm in venom: Unit was fairly good, but sometimes took longer than I'd like to put the blasters on a good target. The venom was probably a bigger influence on most games.
Rating: B

Wychs in raider: These did what I expected for the most part. I threw them into kans against the first ork player to find that they can only really tarpit a unit of kans, they are not going to hit with haywire often enough to grind them down. The cost of the wych weapons on them don't seem to be worthwhile as their output is mostly reliant on the agonizer and getting pain tokens. If I'm looking for more points, ill start with the 20 on each unit for the wych weapons. Haywire grenades also didn't do too much, as any vehicle in danger of taking the grenades just moved at cruising speed making them poor targets for the grenades to have any effect. Haywire grenades may also go, put I'd rather keep them than the wych weapons.
Rating: B

Warriors in raider: This was the unit that did the least the whole event. Takes too long to set up compared to the rest of the army. I don't like putting them on the ground in front of the enemy to shoot - this is often a bad idea until I'm already winning.The result is that most turns it was 170 points for 1 DL and 1 splinter cannon.
Rating: D

Ravager: Tied with the Succubus/bloodbrides unit for star of the show. The ravagers popped enemy vehicles left and right. Only the KFF was able to really hold these guys back. The game I lost was because the KFF mech was saving every hit against the kans. Not much I can do about that. They were crazy good against oblitz though.
Rating: A

Overall: Orks were the biggest challenge, but most other armies just wilted at the number of darklance shots coming at them. Vulken, DOA, and CSM stood no chance at all. The other DE were a bit of a challenge but still were on their heels all game. Orks were the big challenge, especially with the KFF kans. The wychs' raiders were fine with no flickerfields, but I had a few occasions I wished I had nightshields on them.
Everyone always tells me that wychs need heamies to work. I never found that to be true. The squads all worked fine without one. Any problems the list faced were not related to lack of FNP on the wychs.

Therefore, I'm going to switch things up just a bit. This is what I am going to use going forward. Gotta build me 2 more venoms. I've been saying I wanted to change to something like this for a while, but this event showed me exactly why this build would be an improvement.

HQ Succubus agonizer 85
Elites Bloodbridesx9 syren, agonizer, shardnet, 2x razorflail, raider, nightshields 247
Elites Truebormx4 4x blaster, venom 2x s.cannon 173
Troops Wychsx10 hekatrix, agonizer, raider, nightshields 200
Troops Wychsx10 hekatrix, agonizer, raider, nightshields 200
Troops Warriorsx5 blaster, venom 2x s.cannon 125
Troops Warriorsx5 blaster, venom 2x s.cannon 125
Heavy Ravager flicker 115
Heavy Ravager flicker 115
Heavy Ravager flicker 115
1500

This incarnation fits in 2 more venoms while trimming some fat and losing a single raider. I feel this next incarnation will be very tight.

As a note on the event, the Ork player who beat me went on to lose only 1 game (to the CSM player I beat in the last round). The Ork player beat me by 1 point for the Best General prize. Last year I went 4-2 at astro with my C:SM, this year 5-1 with my DE (beating the Best General of last year round 1).

I am still not sure of an answer for KFF w/kans. Anyone else had experience or an answer for them?

Greetings.

I'm not sure I've seen any advocacy that haemonculi are mandatory additions to wyches. The idea has spread because of its effectiveness...but it isn't mandatory. I used to put my haemonculi with my beastmasters until it was FAQed, then after a struggle to figure out where to put the haemonculi (because I still wanted my shattershard and Crucible) realized what a great pairing it made with wyches. But mandatory? Nah...haemonculi aren't even a mandatory inclusion; just a force multiplier.

In terms of dealing with kan-walls, presuming that the splinter cannons dealt with the Lootas, they key is to keep out of their 24" rokkit range, or to break off from the KFF to pursue targets. The easiest way to do so is to recognize that they are *going* to shoot something, or get closer to you. Make the choice for them. When I play a kan-wall, I will flat out an empty vehicle right smack dab in front of the kan-wall. Either the kan wall makes a lateral shift and gains no ground to stay with the KFF, or it breaks around left and right, exposing kans. Having disrupted the movement, they're going to have to shoot or assault it, or both - needing 6+ to hit against a 5+ invulnerable save.

Your opponent had two KFF meks - presumably each attached to a unit of 20 boyz. I would ABSOLUTELY throw 10 wyches at 20 boyz and a KFF Mek. Especially if I have FNP. You're not going to kill enough to wipe them out, and they're going to have to defender's react to put the KFF into base contact first if he's within 6" of any of your stuff. And between the defender's react and pile-in, your wyches are going to be surrounded so that the kans can't jump into the mayhem. Its your job to make sure that you assault carefully and to make sure that your opponent follows the assault movement rules precisely - so that he can't give himself an advantage by shortcutting mandatory actions.

I'd like to say a lot more, but without knowing the mission, deployment, what his kans were equipped with...its hard to give more specific advice than that. Break up the Kan-wall's coherent mobility, pull the KFFs off in assault, don't let your opponent try hiding them out of combat, and target priority would depend on armaments.

Personally, it would have been taking down the Lootas first with as many (or all) splinter cannons as available...then decicing between the mega dread and the tank depending on what they were equipped with (whoever is a long range threat) as a target for lances, and ignoring the boyz and kans until they're midfield and you can go do something about it. 36" vs 24" if the Lootas are dead means you have longer range, superior firepower and superior mobility. Either a 12" move to get out, fleet and assault on the flanks of the boyz, or a 24" flat out towards their rear so that you can hit the boyz units from the rear/side flank and pull the KFFs AWAY from the kans with the pile-in.

I have to hand it to the first kan wall player, he played extremely well and didn't make any mistakes. I tried to pull his kans apart from the main force, but he was having none of it. At all times the kans were within KFF, and the Kans made an effective assault screen for the boys. It was a 5 objective mission with most of them close in the center of the board as possible, and eventually I had to make a move at him.

It didn't help that shooting my entire army at him with first turn resulted in only 2 lootas and the mega dread destroyed. Bad luck on rolls turn one gave him the chance to down a ravager with the lootas before I could wipe them out, which made it even harder to destroy the kan-wall.

edit: I did eventually get to assault him in a flank, but the kans and boys swarmed and put an end to the wychs after a couple turns of fighting. The bloodbrides transport went down early as well. His target priority was pretty good in taking out the ravagers then the bloodbrides raider.

Hrm...I can't see nine cans wrapping front and both sides of 60 boyz effectively enough to screen them (unless using 4" coherency, in which case you can assault between the kans) - I'd have to see a picture to believe it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Dracos wrote:It didn't help that shooting my entire army at him with first turn resulted in only 2 lootas and the mega dread destroyed.

I see that you only have one unit of trueborn, which hurts the AT department.

36 splinter cannon shots...in theory donig 24 hits and 12 wounds, and he should pass 6 of them. If you only got two, that's tough luck. :(

Just wanted to point out that 5 warriors cannot take a splinter cannon, just for future reference, must be a 10 man squad. Also I have found that Succubus is just a more expensive way to deliver an agoniser. I prefer haemy dropping off the wyches with a pain token and then staying in the raider to attempt to fly around and Liquify what he can get in range of.

Thanks for the report on your list, I like to see how others are fairing with the new DE. I find that my DE fair much better in games over 1000 points, I have played a bunch of 500-750 point games lately (campaign army) and have had a very hard time being consistent. I either table my opponent 2nd-3rd turn or get stuck footslogging and eventually die to too many shots.

I do not have any answers for orks as I have only played one low point game against them, but I am curious as to your tactics against CSM. They seem to be the army I have the most trouble with. Our CSM player always brings a couple oblits and a lash prince most of the time and I have a very hard time getting close to him without dying first. I am considering retrofire jets on my wych raider in lower point games.

Thanks for the read cheers.

Oh and venoms have been my best and most reliable shooter since I have started lol. Seems they get over looked a bit.

Edit: Nvm I guess the Warriorsx5 was a typo, just checked the point cost O.o sry.

Congrats on the strong performance, it sounds like your army did very well plus its always nice to see where you can make some improvements or changes.


I had a selfish question though, with regard to the CSM list, was there anything the player could have done to perform better or did you feel that your list was a fairly hard counter to his/hers?

I deployed in a corner which lessened my ability to hit one flank. Therefore he used the 6 kans to block one flank and the center. Come to think of it the issue was probably more with my deployment. If I had simply deployed as normal in the center he couldnt protect all the boys like that as I would have both flanks as options.

I had deployed in a corner to try and minimize which of his shooty units would get range early, but in the end I just reduced my options and made his deployment easier.

Mistake pinpointed


Automatically Appended Next Post:

minigun762 wrote:Congrats on the strong performance, it sounds like your army did very well plus its always nice to see where you can make some improvements or changes.


I had a selfish question though, with regard to the CSM list, was there anything the player could have done to perform better or did you feel that your list was a fairly hard counter to his/hers?

I don't think the CSM player had much of a chance tbh. It was a straight up VP mission. I won the roll and gave him first turn to make sure I knew where his oblitz were going. He deployed most of his stuff but saved the DPs in reserve with chosen outflanking. I reserved everything. Turn 2 I got 2 ravagers and 2 raiders plus the venom, I killed 4/6 oblitz and put 3 wounds on the DP that had come in from reserve.

The only real mistake he made was leaving his DPs in reserve, as he just gave me less to worry about and allowed me to concentrate on the oblitz.

Even with better deployment the problem was that oblitz go down pretty hard to ravagers and darklances in general. 2 Turns of concentrated firepower was all it took, the plague marines were kind of dead weight in the VP mission since they could be ignored until everything else was gone. Deploying the DPs would have forced me to react to them, but I still would have had time to pop the oblitz, at which point I could just fly in circles.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Glyph47 wrote:Edit: Nvm I guess the Warriorsx5 was a typo, just checked the point cost O.o sry.

yeah that's a typo

Dracos wrote:
I had deployed in a corner to try and minimize which of his shooty units would get range early, but in the end I just reduced my options and made his deployment easier.

Mistake pinpointed

Then it was a worthwhile discussion. : )

Dashofpepper wrote:Then it was a worthwhile discussion. : )

I really like your list. It has a lot of similarities to most of the lists I've been writing for mine. So far I only have about 750 pts though. I hope you don't mind if I steal your ideas =D

Of course others can use my list, that's why I posted it! The ideas in it are not exactly original through and through, although many would call the succubus and perhaps bloodbrides unconventional. Anyways, good luck and happy flaying!

thats a great list only thing i would do is give the raiders flickerfields and the ravager nightshields reason why is because nightshields are going to be a waste if your raider are movin across the board and ravagers would benefit more since plasma, shuriken, meltas will have a hard time being in range.

Hi, I'm curious to those Ork Imperial Armour units. Usually, Imperial Armour is not allowed, and it looks like he took three choices and ended up getting Best General, do you think that he was greatly helped by those choices? I see an AV 13 walker with KFF being quite resilient.

The walker actually wasn't bad for me, although I can see how others might have had issues. I know we shared 2 opponents, the CSM player and the Vulken list. We both tabled vulken easily but had opposite results against CSM.

The megadread was approx 180 points so he paid for thing, and it was probably less resilient against most things and more expensive than simply taking a 3rd unit of kans. I don't think the IA choices were over the top, and everyone else had the option of taking IA stuff too. All the ork player's IA stuff came from IA8, so check out that book if you want to see the stats/point costs of his stuff.

I think the ork player won as a function of the overall strength of his list and his skill on the table top. He is a very good player - have to give him the credit.

I like your list, i like it a lot.

I'm addicted to Haywire Grenades and completely loathesome about wych weapons.

My version:


Succubus - Agonizer

8x Bloodbrides - Syren with Agonizer // Raider, NS
4x Trueborn - 4x Blasters // Venom, 2nd SC

10 Wyches - Haywire Grenades, Hekatrix, Agonizer // Raider, NS
10 Wyches - Haywire Grenades, Hekatrix, Agonizer // Raider, NS
5 Warriors - Blaster // Venom, 2nd SC
5 Warriors - Blaster // Venom, 2nd SC

Ravager, NS
Ravager, NS
Ravager, NS

On ravagers flickers are >>> than nightshields. Ravagers are not going to outrange those 48+ weapons, and can avoid most 36 or under. You'll avoid more shots on your ravagers with flickers - I've tried both.

Nightshields are better used on raiders to avoid stuff like rapidfire or 24" or less weapons as you get in assault range.

edit: One interesting alternative in my above list involves dropping some of the bloodbrides wych weapons and the succubus for lady malys. I might give that a try for a few games as well.

Dracos wrote:On ravagers flickers are >>> than nightshields. Ravagers are not going to outrange those 48+ weapons, and can avoid most 36 or under. You'll avoid more shots on your ravagers with flickers - I've tried both.

Nightshields are better used on raiders to avoid stuff like rapidfire or 24" or less weapons as you get in assault range.

edit: One interesting alternative in my above list involves dropping some of the bloodbrides wych weapons and the succubus for lady malys. I might give that a try for a few games as well.

personally i take both on my ravagers. those things are really important and need all the protection they can get. Most of my opponents target them pretty heavily. On the other hand I can remember losing a game where I had all 3 alive and undamaged at the end of the game.