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So, just played against a 1750 Purifier Razorback/Dreadnought spam army and got my f@cking teeth kicked in. The player and I discussed, after the game, what went wrong. We both agreed I didn't make any errors in deployment and tactical choices throughout the game. 2 Ven Psyfle-Dreds, 2 normal Psyfle-Dreds, 1 Vindicare, 4 Razorbacks with Psybolt ammo and Purifiers/Halberds/Hammers, and Crowe. This is my first loss, as you can see from my sig, with this list. And it was a f#cking slaughter. In two turns it was 10kp to 2kp. At that point, I had a few warrior units, a haemonculus, a venom, and a ravager left. A few other things about to die next round. It was pointless, considering he still had 95% of his forces up and running. He did get first turn, obviously. I conceded and left the game, upset, and frustrated.

So, wtf are other DE players doing against this type of list?

First of all, make sure you're playing with an appropriate amount of terrain with enough of that terrain being LoS blocking terrain.

Secondly, if the GK player is going first, you need to do everything possible to make sure that he has as few shots as possible available on your models, and any of those shots he can make will get cover saves. If this is not practical, you might as well reserve your entire force.

If you're going first, you'll have to maneuver carefully to keep cover saves as much as possible for your vehicles (4+ cover is 50% better than a 5+ flicker field). Then you'll have to focus fire until vehicles are either destroyed or weapon destroyed, since they have the ability to ignore Shaken/Stunned. You'll need to do this at the longest possible range to minimize return fire from psycannons on the troops.

What is your DE list? If you have lots of venoms, and you ran into lots of enemy vehicles, you should see how thats a problem

Beastmasters are the key to victory. Also GK usually live in the 24" range, which is why I've decided to include Night Shields on all of my vehicles along with flickerfields.

Also my lists in the 1500-2k range tend to include 2 of everything. 2 Wyche, 2 Trueborn, 2 Beastmaster Squads, etc. I've started calling it the noah's ark list. All I do is modifiy how big the squad is, but allowing myself a combination of Blasters, Haywire Grenades, and Rending attacks lead to a solid balanced list the can take on all comers.

Let's see:

1) he is tough as nails, your bones are made of glass
2) he has purifiers, which means he torches you before your wyches can even strike
3) he has a ton of S7 shots vs your Av10 vehicles
4) he uses toughness to ignore stunned/shaken results
5) in CC, he is in power armor, while you wear 6+ and count on FNP, which his power weapons conveniently ignore
6) the vindicate hits on 2+ and rolls 4 dice for pen against your Av10

Why are you surprised?

That being said, I empathize. I got mauled a few times by GK myself as IG and Necrons.

I think GK's are arguably the toughest matchup for DE right now, even tougher than Space Wolves long-fang spam. Even if you were to go first, they have enough volume-of-fire to really hurt your vehicles even with cover. I know. My GK army, with 4 or 5 dreads, a vindicare, and psycannon purifiers in rhinos, have outshot and destroyed mechdar with 12 skimmers, witch hunter Immo-spam with 12 vehicles, mechguards with 13 vehicles (including 2 vendettas and a manticore), long-fang spam space wolves with 15 missile long fangs, 3 typhoons, razor-spam, 2 TL-las dreads and Bjorn and even a 9-broadside Tau list. And I don't even run razorbacks in my army! Part of it is because of the dreads, who are way better than any static heavy weapons squad could ever be, and part of it is because of Fortitude, one of the nastiest advantages of the grey knights.

Unfortunately, if you play fully meched-up DE, there's not much you can do but to rely on cover saves and trying to get first turn. It really is a rock-paper-scissors matchup, with purifier-dread GK's being scissors and raider/venom-spam DE being the paper. It is exactly because of the grey knights where I see the current competitive meta - the MSU army - taking another shift. For DE, consider building your list around beastpacks. I believe you can still have a decent all-comer's DE list incorporating beastpacks in it. Just something to think about.

Necrontyr40k wrote:2) he has purifiers, which means he torches you before your wyches can even strike.

At least the FAQ clarified it's a CC attack, which means wyches get 2 x 4+ saves.

@Saldiven
Obviously, I did all of those. Worse still, he got first turn, and it was Dawn Of War. And, he moved the minimum he could to get onto the board. Flickers and cover saves fail all the time. When you're going against dakka-dreds with str8 twin linked cannons, and razors with twin linked str6 guns, he hits 3/4 of the time with multiple shots at high str, against an open topped vehicle that just moved all out, essentially meaning that he can roll a 3 and wreck my vehicle. Please don't quote me GW tactica you found in the back of the book. :p

@Ashenshugar
Dakka Dreds live well outside the range of 24", as do Razorbacks. Beastpacks are looking more favorable. I have considered them. But, honestly, they're still not awesome in my eyes. Purifiers still basically strike first, and beast packs have a tough time against dreads.

@Necrontyr40k
Not surprised. I was expecting a shooting gallery, but I didn't think it was going to be that bad. I mean. . .wow, just wow.

@Jy2
I'm about as MSU as you can get. Look above for my thoughts on beastpacks.

1750
HQ: 140
Haemonculus, Liquifier, Crucible (80)
Haemonculus, Liquifier (60)

TROOPS: 666
Wyches x9, Haywire Grenades, Hekatrix, Agonizer, Raider, Aethersails, Shock Prow (208)
Wyches x9, Haywire Grenades, Hekatrix, Agonizer, Raider, Aethersails, Shock Prow (208)
Warriors x5, Blaster, Venom w/Dual Cannons (125)
Warriors x5, Blaster, Venom w/Dual Cannons (125)
Warriors x5, Blaster, Venom w/Dual Cannons (125)
Warriors x5, Blaster, Venom w/Dual Cannons (125)

ELITES: 519
True Born x4, Blasters x4, Venom w/Dual Cannons (173)
True Born x4, Blasters x4, Venom w/Dual Cannons (173)

HEAVY: 345
Ravager w/Flickers (115)
Ravager w/Flickers (115)
Ravager w/Flickers (115)

TOTAL: 1747

That's the list I used.

Another thing that really boned me was when my first Wyche raider got wrecked they also got pinned. . .*sigh* They were right in multi-assault range for the assassin and 3 razorbacks. . .and they got pinned. If that didnt happen I think I would've stood a fighting chance.

You don't use beastpacks on dreads, that's what Wyches and Ravagers are for. And I believe the dreads have a 36" range, You can outrange that with nightshields if you are careful, and have a free turn shooting. Once you include the beastmasters, you won't feel the need to use venoms as much. Maybe 2-3 venoms (carrying trueborn) to be able to snipe a single marine that's out of reach and not yet dead.

IMO A mech vet IG player would put the same hurt on you since you are running so many venoms. Maybe it's just me but I don't see why DE need to use so many venoms when you can close your eyes and pick anything in the DE book to tackle anything with flesh. The main reason to use beastmasters is they can handle chimeras and razorbacks very easily, and who cares if they get shot or lose initiative. Their wound allocation shinnanigans makes them very survivable.

Three things missing - more haywire grenades, webway portal, & maybe Lelith (just because of all those PW attacks, even against GK). Hard one though GK-DE

I agree if you had got in with the wyches maybe you would have lasted longer. Scourges too maybe? But not played them yet so not sure.

I normally dont play 1750, it's an irritating point level. My 2k features 3 wyche units, which I prefer over warriors by far, but at 1750 I couldn't fit another unit with hammy in. This army isn't made for portal tactics. Lelith is . . .okay.

@Ashenshugar
Autocannons are 48" range. Venoms are transports. I usually dump the contents first turn and blast something so the wyches can charge bodies. In this case I never got that chance.

@Ashenshugar. Rifleman Dreads use Autocannons, which are 48" range so there is no way you can outrange that. If you can bring enough shooting to shut down the Dreads then you might win a shooting war at 24", but that's a tough ask with Dark Lances.

@alexneufeld. Not sure what to say to that advice. He already has two units with Haywires which is plenty (considering he has a reasonably number of Darklight weapons, which are what you want to be killing vehicles with) and a Portal would be completely slowed in this list because he has nothing which needs to use it (and they only become efficient with 2+ units using it, otherwise just buy Raiders). In other lists that stuff can be helpful, but this style of list has no need for them at all. Lelith is terrible in any list against any opponent, Grey Knights have heaps of ways to deal with her (massed S6 shooting, ability to get to S6 in combat, force weapons on standard guys, even a normal troop unit can kill her with power weapon attacks).

Anyways, that list is solid, you even have the Crucible, which is almost tailoring for GK (not that its very reliable in any case). My first thought would be to see how much terrain was used, because DE cannot stand up on a shooting gallery board, certainly not if they are going second. The other question would be, based on the combination of the mission being played (in this case KP's) and known terrain setup, could your army stand up to a round of shooting before you start hitting back. If the answer to this question is no (which is pretty common for DE really) then why deploy at all.

If there was an obvious issue like not having enough anti tank firepower then that's pretty easy to fix, but tbh this sounds like a combination of bad terrain, some mistakes on your part (impossible to really judge, but its very common for people to play for the best outcomes rather than expecting average or even the worst outcomes) and quite likely so bad luck. Rifleman Dreads give all DE vehicle heavy lists fits but no more so than any other light vehicle, and GK's are are tough matchup but no moreso than any other shooty list.

@Powerguy
This wasn't a case of getting sacked in my deployment zone. Night Fighting rules were in effect. He got first turn and rolled in minimum distance. I held everything back to come in first turn accept for the Raider holding the crucible. I placed that behind cover that BLOS from almost every angle. The plan was to jet over the cover into his deployment zone and drop the crucible and hope it did something worth while. The rest of my vehicles rolled on first turn, everything went all out to get cover saves and to close distance. Since his dreds were touching his table edge, I felt the likely hood that my Ravagers would be able to hit them, even with Night Vision, was EXTREMELY low, I utilized what cover was available, negating around 40% of his fire from left or right angles. He deployed dreds half on left half on right. No way for me to avoid being seen completely. His Razors were in the middle. Their guns, only being str6, were less scary and I know I need to get into combat and throw some haywires and what not. Both wyche raiders were literally inches from the GKs' ready to pounce, but I still had another shooting phase to live through, as they had to go all out to get into that position. His shooting phase, he knocked out two ravagers, both raiders, pinned the crucible unit in the process and knocked out a venom. My shooting phase produced jack. From both true born units and three warrior units only managed to take down 2 razorbacks. Again, I know I needed to get the wyches into CC, otherwise he would shoot/charge them and wipe them out with multiple units. Wyches charged and killed 2 guys he killed 5 in turn. *sigh* The next turn he multicharged with his purifers into both units of trueborn and both wyche units, cleansing flame, so on and so on. .

I also consider GK shooty lists the worst of the bunch by far. BS4, Wh@reDreads, Purifier cheese spam. They ignore 1/3 of the damage table. . .They all have power weapons and super powers, IN6. Lots of their stuff is twin linked. Tau have BS3 primarily and are terrible in CC, kroot being a small acception. IG rely on alot of blast templates, which scatter quite often. Again, they're not really wizards in CC. GK are by far the worst of the bundle now. LF's and Dev's can at least get eaten up by splinter cannon fire. . .


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I think in the future my wyches are going straight for the dreds. If I can tie them up for a couple turns, or, h@ll, even take a few down with haywires, my army has a far better chance at survival. My list is going to change a bit. I'm dropping the crucible, its not really worth it since it only effects the squad leader and most have LD9-10 anyhow. The chances of it working are sh!t really.

Grim, Venoms are pretty pointless vs. mech armies. You had 6 of them. I'd reduce them to 2 giving you 4 additional moving dark matter shots from Raiders.

This is an all comers list for tourneys and what have you. I see what you're saying, I used to have it that way, but found venoms to be immensely helpful in a variety of situations.

Though your loss was bad, it sounded as if you had a fighting chance if only your wyches didn't get pinned. This reminds me of the time when my tyranids went up against dual-lash chaos. I got destroyed because my reserves - my trygons - came in piecemeal even with hive commander. He just systematically picked them apart with lash and then 9 oblit twin-linked plasmas. I lost in part because it was a bad matchup...but also in part to my dice. If only 2 or 3 trygons came in at the same time. It probably would've been a different game.

Although I can see how his list can destroy yours, I don't think it would be like that all the time. You still have a solid foundation for a list. It may be an uphill battle for you....just like it would be an uphill battle for tyranids against your army....but not impossible. I see you've got aethersails on your raiders. I think that's a good upgrade to get your wyches to where they need to. Even if he destroyed your wyche raider, you'd still be in position to launch an assault next turn (if only you don't do something like fail your pinning or morale test). 4++ and FNP means you've got a good chance of surviving Cleansing Flame (you should only lose 1.5 wyches out of 9).

Also, as saldiven suggested, consider Night Shields. They will make a difference, especially if you can wreck those razorbacks.

Tactics-wise, go for his transports first. Ignore his dreads, they're just too hard to kill. Grey Knights are as mobile as their rhinos/razors. Take them out and you've got an advantage, especially in objectives-based games. Also, if you take them out, then your night shields (if you take them) will make a difference as his psycannons won't be able to reach you. After you destroy them, then set your AT against his regular dreads, leaving the venerables for last. The key here is to take out the easier prey first. Also, by taking out the razors, your venoms now have some targets.

Now if that's what you tried and failed, then the only thing I can say is to keep on trying. I think that's your best shot at success against them.

Grim Smasha wrote:This is an all comers list for tourneys and what have you. I see what you're saying, I used to have it that way, but found venoms to be immensely helpful in a variety of situations.

Against mech Eldar, you'll going to struggle. All those Venoms will not have an effect in a mech environment. However, I understand that they are great vs. footsloggng lists.

wuestenfux wrote:

Grim Smasha wrote:This is an all comers list for tourneys and what have you. I see what you're saying, I used to have it that way, but found venoms to be immensely helpful in a variety of situations.

Against mech Eldar, you'll going to struggle. All those Venoms will not have an effect in a mech environment. However, I understand that they are great vs. footsloggng lists.

The venom is the dark horse of the DE codex. The common misconception is that venoms are useless against tanks. This is not the case. After 3 ravagers, the only place to get adequate anti tank is MSU blaster squads in venoms. Here, you get an amazingly affordable duality with mech spam. Also most Gk players use 6/5 man units. Venoms will eat 5 man MEQ's alive.

But that's the ugly truth, you're going to have a really hard time against GK.

Wuestenfux is right.

I have been praching against Venom spam since the trend started. Against solid mech lists you will lose in just about any KP mission, where you go second. And guess what? Most good lists are Mech, atm.

Venom spam is kinda like the original IG Leafblower lists. Sure, it looks scary the firs ttime you see it. And if it goes first, it can be downright nasty. Howerver, if it goes second it is pretty easy to silence the main threats of the list. This is even more true of Venom Spam than Leafblower, in that DE only have AV10 opentoped vehicles. If your opponent can start shooting you down turn one, there isn't much a chance of a comeback.

I hate to see people relying on lists that require the 50/50 chance of going first as their only chance of winning. This is the problem of venom spam in a heavy mech environment, and the fact that people bring a lot of longe range AT to deal with it.

@Wustenfux
The venoms drop the Trueborn and Warriors off. This list contains 23 lances +Haywire. That's more than sufficient. Trust me, you want those venoms when there are Hive Guard, Long Fangs, and Devs hiding about. They even do well against terminators. This isn't a matter of "oh, look, 4 more lances, I'm sure to win now!" This is a matter of beating the MOST ridiculous dreds in the game.

@jy2
I think what I'm going to try next time is tie the dreds up with wyches, use true born, ravagers, and warriors to crack transports, then dump zounds of splinter cannon fire on the occupants. That should reduce their numbers efficiently. He's then got a choice; let the wyches tie up his dreds for a couple turns or go after the warriors and true born while I continue to piece out his army with ravagers and splintercannon fire.

Grim Smasha wrote:
@jy2
I think what I'm going to try next time is tie the dreds up with wyches, use true born, ravagers, and warriors to crack transports, then dump zounds of splinter cannon fire on the occupants. That should reduce their numbers efficiently. He's then got a choice; let the wyches tie up his dreds for a couple turns or go after the warriors and true born while I continue to piece out his army with ravagers and splintercannon fire.

Sounds like a good plan to me. Just watch out for option #3...he counter-assaults your wyches-dread melee with his purifiers, thus also protecting them from splinter-cannon fire (that's what I would do).

But if you look at the overall picture, if you can keep him in his deployment zone in an objectives game, even if he is pummeling your forces, then the worst that will probably happen is a draw and the best-case scenario is that you win.

your list depends too much on your alpha strike. All the GK player has to do to win is deploy back closer to their table edge to beat your list. Your alpha strike won't happen till turn 2 at which point they will be able to pop smoke, kill all of your blasterborn and maybe a ravager with dreads and sit there and twiddle his thumbs as he has killed everything scary in your list. Also venoms, at least in my list, are theshit against tanks. I just do this:
>=sideways venom
M=Manticore
H=hydra
C=shimara
Parking lot
C C C C C
C M H MC
C C C C C

After first turn
C C C C C
C M H MC
C C C C C
> > > > > > >

Hello.

I play Dark Eldar. To date, the only game I have lost to Grey Knights was in a tournament game – Game #4 of the Railhead Rumble GT (which you can find in my battle reports). It was a Dawn of War mission against an extremely shooty Grey Knight army, and I didn’t read the mission thoroughly enough – I didn’t notice that it didn’t have Nightfight, so I moved onto the table flat out within range of his turn one shooting. I still almost had the game – the other key mistake was him casting Quicksilver on a unit of Purifiers after I assaulted him with my beast unit…and not knowing that he wasn’t allowed to do so.

My point is that Dark Eldar have the tools to deal with Grey Knights – whether you have those tools in your army, and whether you use them correctly can’t really be determined outside of an in-depth battle report or watching your game.

The best I can do is to try walking you through some thoughts and to see if anything clicks for you.

Dark Eldar like going first. We need to. To that end, I added Baron Sathonyx to my army solely to help facilitate that. Since I can’t have the Baron (who can’t embark because he’s jump infantry) wandering around alone, I added beasts to my army as well. They complement each other well. They have poor saves and he gives +1 cover. They have high initiative but no grenades, and he has a phantasm grenade launcher. The imbalance of combining jump infantry and cavalry can be offset in any movement phase as the situation dictates.

Don’t pay attention to disparaging of Venoms. Splinter Cannons can’t hurt tanks, but in a Grey Knight army, those razorbacks are full of troops…more often than not packing Psycannons. Splinter Cannons are invaluable if your anti-tank has done its job.

Grey Knights require a shift in mentality from traditional Dark Eldar thought processes. “Shaken is good enough” doesn’t apply to vehicles with Fortitude. On top of that, Grey Knight armies are often completely mechanized, leaving 6-10 vehicles of yours packing 12 shots apiece with nothing to shoot at until you forcibly disembark something (unless a Vindicare is floating around). While other armies present clear targets and priorities to choose from in terms of lethality (generally heavy, elite, then comparing firepower and mission to troops and fast attacks)…Grey Knights have lethality spread equally around – and wildly variant from GK build to GK build depending on type, HQ choice, and special powers.

I think that against a Grey Knight player (and increasingly against all mechanized lists), firepower should be distributed with the additional goal of having disembarked troops on the ground during your shooting phase. That isn’t to say that you should focus on troops…but my goal every shooting phase is to destroy the biggest threats to me while also making sure that all my weaponry has targets to shoot at. Against a Grey Knight player that is fully mechanized, that means the first turn might see less shooting at a Dreadnought than it otherwise might while I attempt to kill razorbacks. Rhinos if I must, but preferably razorbacks for obvious reasons. I don’t stop at shaken or stunned, but I *will* move on to another target if I get a “Weapon Destroyed” result. The alternative is having 96-108 shots NOT FIRING at anything. One squad on foot is plenty. Overkill perhaps – but again, the balance is having *a* target while the anti-tank concentrates on the most lethal targets.

Make sense? Kill the stuff that scares you the most, but factor in trying to insure that as much of your weaponry as is possible is being utilized at all times. “This has nothing to fire at” is typically an expression of poor planning, extremely poor luck, or in ultra-rare instances….so rare as to be virtually non-existent, extremely good luck.

If you’re getting shot off the table anyway, then add more guns. Your army has a mix of assault and a mix of ranged firepower – against the Grey Knight player you faced and lost to – apparently not enough shooting to neutralize his own shooting, and not enough assault to make it in and get the job done. I think that a Wych Cult is a fine army, as is a Kabal. I think that elements of Coven/Kabal/Cult go well together as enhancements, but not in equal portions to make a combined army. I’ve got a bare-bones squad of haywire grenade wyches in my army in case of emergency. They’re packing a haemonculi to make them more survivable. Why don’t you consider picking one of those themes instead of taking big chunks from each?



Automatically Appended Next Post:

Alerian wrote:
I hate to see people relying on lists that require the 50/50 chance of going first as their only chance of winning. This is the problem of venom spam in a heavy mech environment, and the fact that people bring a lot of longe range AT to deal with it.

With Dark Eldar, nothing is 50/50.

Grim Smasha wrote:@Saldiven
Obviously, I did all of those. Worse still, he got first turn, and it was Dawn Of War. And, he moved the minimum he could to get onto the board. Flickers and cover saves fail all the time. When you're going against dakka-dreds with str8 twin linked cannons, and razors with twin linked str6 guns, he hits 3/4 of the time with multiple shots at high str, against an open topped vehicle that just moved all out, essentially meaning that he can roll a 3 and wreck my vehicle. Please don't quote me GW tactica you found in the back of the book. :p

Go over your vehicle movement rules. If you move flat out in your turn, the enemy will not "blow you up on a 3+". It is only on your turn that immobilize (either through difficult terrain or your own shooting) actually result in a wreck.

Use that flat out appropriately, and focus on one section of his army, instead of tackling the full line at a time. If he deploys dreads left and right, and go for either, not both, while denying the rest fire on your troops.

Good luck.

gorium wrote:

Go over your vehicle movement rules. If you move flat out in your turn, the enemy will not "blow you up on a 3+". It is only on your turn that immobilize (either through difficult terrain or your own shooting) actually result in a wreck.

Use that flat out appropriately, and focus on one section of his army, instead of tackling the full line at a time. If he deploys dreads left and right, and go for either, not both, while denying the rest fire on your troops.

Good luck.

Perhaps you should take your own advice about going over vehicle movement rules? A 3+ on the vehicle penetration chart (+1 for being open-topped) results in an immobilized, wrecked, or destroyed result. A skimmer that has moved flat out that suffers an immobilized result is wrecked.

What you may be referring to is the consequences to the passengers. If you move flat out on your OWN turn and immobilize yourself (thereby wrecking your skimmer), the passengers may not disembark, and are instead all dead.

@Dash
Thank you. So, you're suggesting that going in a themed route is actually beneficial in this case? I will consider this.

@goriam
What dash said. And I went directly for a group of razorbacks not far apart. I did not spread fire. I shot until I pooped a transport, and moved on to the next. My wyches needed to be on cc.

Dashofpepper wrote:

gorium wrote:

Go over your vehicle movement rules. If you move flat out in your turn, the enemy will not "blow you up on a 3+". It is only on your turn that immobilize (either through difficult terrain or your own shooting) actually result in a wreck.

Use that flat out appropriately, and focus on one section of his army, instead of tackling the full line at a time. If he deploys dreads left and right, and go for either, not both, while denying the rest fire on your troops.

Good luck.

Perhaps you should take your own advice about going over vehicle movement rules? A 3+ on the vehicle penetration chart (+1 for being open-topped) results in an immobilized, wrecked, or destroyed result. A skimmer that has moved flat out that suffers an immobilized result is wrecked.

What you may be referring to is the consequences to the passengers. If you move flat out on your OWN turn and immobilize yourself (thereby wrecking your skimmer), the passengers may not disembark, and are instead all dead.

Oups.... yeah, I was thinking about the passengers in the vehicles (which was a concern in my gaming group recently). Ultimately, the important portion is the cargo in the vehicle, and as long as it is not too damaged, you can still take on the elite GK on the other side.

Sorry about the confusion created by that bad post.

Grim Smasha wrote:@Saldiven
Obviously, I did all of those. Worse still, he got first turn, and it was Dawn Of War. And, he moved the minimum he could to get onto the board. Flickers and cover saves fail all the time. When you're going against dakka-dreds with str8 twin linked cannons, and razors with twin linked str6 guns, he hits 3/4 of the time with multiple shots at high str, against an open topped vehicle that just moved all out, essentially meaning that he can roll a 3 and wreck my vehicle. Please don't quote me GW tactica you found in the back of the book. :p

Jeez, condescending much?

I've only recently come back to the game (with the advent of the new codex and some unexpected free time). That said, I've been playing DE since they came out, as my first and primary army.

I've only played about 4 or 5 games vs. various marine factions with the new codex thus far, but what I've discovered about the venom is this- while awesome, it has to have the right setup to be properly effective. I see a lot of remarks about blasterborn in them, but to be honest I think you are better taking shard carbines, and if you want some anti-tank, adding in some HW grenades. This vehicle is pure anti-infantry, and it only makes sense to put anti-infantry or assault squads in them, to my mind. Get it within 18 inches, and the 27 shots it has (with carbine trueborn and 2 splinter cannons) carve holes in the enemy line. Right now I run two venoms, one with a small incubi squad in it and another as described.

I like to keep my raiders as close to 2 to 1 to my venoms as possible. I'm still playing around with all the new features, but small hunter-killer squads of reavers with blasters seem like a better option than a venom (an anti-infantry vehicle) transporting blaster-born, short range anti-tank that can't move all that fast (compared to reavers and raiders, anyway).

Like I said, take it all with a grain of salt, since I'm just coming back to the game... but I was carving up MEQ's for about a decade before my sabbatical, so that might be worth a little bit. Or not.

TBH If I was you I would take the following:
HQ- Asdrubael Vect, Drahzar
Troops- 2 wych squads, both with 5 members
Elites- 1 4 man squad and 1 6 man squad of Incubi.
Transport- 2 raiders and a venom.
Venom had Drahzar and 4 Incubi in, Raiders had Kabalite Trueborn and Vect with 6 Incubi.
I played this list yesterday against a GK player and the only wounds I lost were on Incubi and a squad of wyches which I used to slow down an interceptor squad trying to get to my objective. I used my Kabalite Trueborn to get rid of Terminators and Vect and Drahzar both dealt with a Dreadknight and a Paladin Squad accompianied with a Grand Master, as well as the GK squad holding the objective. My DE special characters had the initiative needed to get rid of the GK before they could strike back with full force, they were the thing that kept my army alive. My raiders were only needed to deal with the Dreadnought and get rid of remaining terminators and the Librarian that accompianed them. At the end of the game he was tabled and my dead pile only had 7 or 8 models in it, as well as one raider. Staying out of LOS is the main thing here, hug cover like it's your best friend (it is).