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Now then.

So, I'm entering my first ever tournament in July with a new army that I've never gamed with and is still barely half painted.

Please. Help. Me.

I've built an army list (below) that I like but I feel like I'm missing a lot of a) lance weapons b) more troops and c) more transport - I just can't really see how I can fit it all into a 1000 point list.

My list as follows;

HQ

Archon (150 points)
- Huskblade
- Haywire grenades
- Soul trap
- Shadow field
- Ghost Plate Armour

Lhamaen (10 points)
2x Sslyth (70 points)

Lelith (175 points) OR
Succubus (110 points)
- Electrocorrosive Whip
- Agoniser
- Haywire grenades

(I've put an option to replace Lelith in as one of the rules is that only 1 named character is allowed on table at a time, given a choice I'll be using her)

Elites

9 Bloodbrides (one of which is a Syren) (202 points)
- Razorflails
- Hydra Gauntlets
- Shardnet and Impaler
- Blast pistol
- Agoniser
- Phantasm Grenade Launcher

Troops

10 Warriors (one of which is a Sybarite) (150 points)
- Blaster
- Splinter Cannon
- Blast pistol
- Power Weapon

Fast Attack

5 Hellions (one beinga Helliarch) (95 points)
- Stunclaw

Transport

Raider (70 points)
- Flickerfield
- Dark Lance

And that's everything that I have.

If I take Lelith, my total is 922 points.
If I take my Succubus, my total is 857 points.

I'm thinking of dropping the Sslyth in favour of another Raider (identical set up as above), maybe down grade the Bloodbrides to Wyches and take more Warriors...?

More than open to criticism, as I don't want my backside handing to me on a plate in the first turn!

Thanks in advance.

Si


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Note - the army list above is built up of the models that I already have in my collection so I'd obviously prefer to use them than not.

If you're going to take the Court of the Archon, you have to take at least one of each type of creature.

You need a second troops choice, so downgrading the Bloodbrides would be the best option.

The Sybarite in the warrior squad won't be doing much with his gear if the rest of the squad is sitting back and shooting (what they're best at).

On the Succubus, if you take both special weapons, you can only use one per assault phase and she won't get the bonus attack for having two ccws.

The restriction on named characters is that you can't have two of the same in an army. I don't think you're limited to one named character per army.

Finally, it looks like you just need some more transports to build up your army. Dark Eldar really can't take the pounding they're bound to receive if they try to walk across the board.

Good luck.

Ah - thanks, I hadn't noticed that about the Court - there's an 80 point saving... Thanks




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On the Succubus, I love the idea of throwing her in against low initiative heavy hitters (power fists come to mind) and ECW'ing them down to half strength, avoiding instant death for the return swing.

The Agonisers there for... well why not, its an agoniser, they're like trousers - you dont leave home without 'em. Lol. That plus tougher enemies.

The model looks cool as hell too (if i do say so myself...) - I'll get a picture up when Im happy with the paint job.

I'll get with the downgrades then, then debate whether to add a talos or ravager for a heavy hitter. Cheers for your time buddy

About the whip. Keep in mind that you have to wound with it for its ability to work. That means a couple things:

Marines with power fists tend to only have one wound. If your opponent allocates a wound to that model, chances are it's already dead...at which point the whip's special ability doesn't do anything. Things with more than one wound that can also cause instant death tend to have a high toughness, which leads into:

You'll be hitting at Str 3 (4 if you have the Furious Charge pain token) so wounding high-toughness, high-strength models will be a challenge. You can't use the Agonizer's "always wounds on a 4+" if you want to be able to use the whip's special rule that turn. You have to choose one or the other to attack with.

Ork Nobz with power claws are about the only things that I can think of off-hand that the whip would be effective against. Well, maybe paladins.

You're going to need to buy alot of models. What you have right now is next to completely non-functional. Buy 3 Ravagers, thats a good start. Currently, your configuration is illegal as you only have one troop choice. Here is some other stuff. . .

Warriors: Blaster if they're on the move. Dark Lance is they're camping. Drop the SC, Blast Pistol, and the PW. You never want them that close to anything.

Wyches: Haywire, weapons if you choose and have the points, Agonizer is a must.

Hellions: Lose em. There's no exception without higher numbers. Don't bother to take the stun claw, its pretty much a let down.

Everything: Get everything that can a transport. You won't win the foot slogging game.

Again, my thanks for the advice. It's a pain to know that I was going in the wrong direction with my list but thats not to say that I dont appreciate (hope that makes sense without causing offense to anyone).

Out of the Ravagers and Talos, which would be more 'survivable'? I'd use them for tank hunting duties, so Ravagers with night shields and 3x DL, or Talos with TLHL, TLLG and extra CCW. I realise they've different styles of play, I think Im just trying to find an excuse to steer clear of the Ravs as Im not a fan of assembling / painting them, even though they'd probably fit the TH'ing duty better than the Talos.

You could get by with a Talos in 1k, but it's not going to be as adept at tank hunting because it's a lot slower and has a much shorter reach than the Ravagers. I would honestly say that you should do what you can to make peace with the fact that you're going to need ravagers, and just pull the trigger on them.

Ah damn it. As a point of interest, any thoughts on why they didnt make the Raider / Ravager a multi kit box set ala Talos / Cronos? Seems odd when all they'd need to do would add the sponson gun turrets to the sprues.

Well you can definitely make a raider out of the ravager kit, but it wouldn't be cost effective to do so. The parts are interchangeable. Like most other tank kits out there, GW packs in everything you need for a raider and builds the ravager off of that.

Fair play I guess.

So here's army list v2, as you can see its completely differnet. The idea would be to have the Ravs eliminate any heavy support / blast marker threats in the early stages, protected by their night shields and maneuvrability, when its safe(r) the reavers bladevane their way through a squad, pin them with caltrops, allowing the wyches to jump on and kick the living proverbial out of whats left. THe Raider would be 'parked' no morethan 6" away, so the torment grendae launcher would reduce the enemy squads Ld by 1, allowing the wyches to chase down the left overs and cut them out of the equation. Elaborate.... I wonder if it'll work!

Anyway here's the list:

HQ

Archon
- Huskblade
- Blast Pistol
- Soul Trap
- Shadow Field
- Combat Drugs

Troops

9 Wyches
- Hekatrix
- Hydra Gauntlets
- Haywire Grenades
- Blast Pistol
- Phantasm GrenadeLauncher
- Agoniser
- Mounted in Raider with Disintegrator Cannon, Flickershields & Torment Grenade Launcher

(The Archon would ride around with these guys, above)

10 Wyches
- Razor Flails
- Shardnet & Impaler
- Hekatrix
- Haywire Grenades
- Blast Pistol
- Phantasm GrenadeLauncher
- Agoniser
- Mounted in Raider with Disintegrator Cannon, Flickershields & Torment Grenade Launcher

Fast Attack

3 Reavers
- 1 Blaster
- Cluster Caltrops
- Grav Talon

Heavy Support

Ravager
- 1 Disintegrator Cannon and 2 Dark Lances
- Night Shields

Ravager
- 1 Disintegrator Cannon and 2 Dark Lances
- Night Shields

If I've done my maths correctly this adds up to 999 points. For a 1000 point army that's fully mobile, this seems pretty balanced - would you agree or are there further refinements needed do you think?

You would have to remove either Talon or Caltrops from reavers to make the list legal.
Never ever use both kinds of weapons on the same Ravager, all lance or all disintigrators, using both on the same platform just makes it bad at both roles.
I would recomend using Lances on all raiders and ravagers for now.

Fair play on the reaver comment, I was just trying to bump up my points at that point.

On the Ravs, thought I'd balance it out to take out tanks and Terminators - this seemed the best way as all DC or DL spread across both Ravs is having all eggs in one basket? Ie, they only have to shoot the DL armed Rav to destroy my biggest chance of taking out enemy armour, hence the spread... That is a question - I'm learning here, please bear with me. Would it be a massive fail to keep it this way?

Dark Lances are a must, disenagrators do nothing against tanks. You need as much lances as you can get.

FF tend to be much better than night shields. you need to get close to things to hit them, so FF have a much greater use.

Other than that, it's a sweet list.

All lances and flickers on the ravagers. Night shields are trash. You only have 36" range on those lances making the night shields useless against the things you want to hide from. . . Like missiles, autocannon, lascannon, cheese cannon, grot cannon(serious with thus one ) and so on. The reavers are useless as well. Take them in a 6 unit, 3's won't last long enough to deliver the payload.

At 1000 points, many of your units in this list are heavily upgraded. That means you're likely to risk being outnumbered or outgunned. Reaver jetbikes are cool, I love the models myself and run 6 of them with caltrops in a 2000pt list, but I think at 1k, you'd be better off dropping the blast pistols on hekatrix and archon, torment launchers from the raiders, the PGLs off the hekatrix, and the reavers entirely. Odds are, the PGL will not make a difference (I know this from experience), and you're almost always going to be running your wyches into the next combat rather than shooting with them and risking killing too many enemies and getting stuck short on the charge. EDIT: Also, you're taking along the haywire grenades already, so the blast pistols are somewhat redundant for killing vehicles and you've got an agonizer for tackling higher toughness troops.

Then I'd swap in a raider with 10 Warriors for some ranged firepower to hold objectives in deployment zones, etc. You could even equip the new raider with a flickerfield or forego that and put a splinter cannon into the squad.

Just my two cents, I know you're eager to use the models you've got, we all are, but saving the reavers for larger games will pay off in the long run, and the warriors will give you some tactical flexibility that you lacked before. (3 Man units of reaver jetbikes tend to die relatively fast).

I also agree with the comments about keeping lances on the ravagers, they're the best way to go. In larger games though, you could consider running one of 3 ravagers with disintegrators and that might do ok for elite hunting, but your mileage may vary.

There's nothing that a Venom with 5 warriors and a blaster cant do better than a Raider with 10 warriors, for less points too.

Yeah, I'm a bit of an upgrades whore, just cant get enough of those extras!!

I have been looking at mandrakes or incubi in a venom, alternatively a tiny 3 man trueborn squad with blasters and a HW of some sort in a venom, just cover hugging and wreaking havoc all of the tabletop. Quite liking that last option but maybe a 3 man squad will be too small whilst being quite points heavy - wdyt?