awbbie wrote:Hey guys I'm gearing up for a tournament in the future and this is my army list that I was constructing. If you have any tips or things I should remove/add please tell me.
I'll give some basic thoughts to what you are using and how to make it better - that said I think depending on how competitive you wish to be you could use with some more drastic revisions depending on your available models.
awbbie wrote:Haemonculus Ancient - Venom blade, stinger pistol, hexrifle, Dark Gate - 130
Already I saw someone noted that the Ancient upgrade is kind of...meh.
Hexrifle is one of the flat out most useless things in the dex - generally by the time its power ever works it will have shot the target to death anyway, and it's not that good at actually wounding anything - it's a glorified instant death lasrifle, think about that.
The rest of the loadout sort of looks super muddled and uncertain of what his job will even be - Haems are great because they're cheap and have access to some cool toys, but they are not jack of all trade
HQs and they certainly don't have the statline to carry your army like you seem to want this fellow to do. Since he's traveling with the Trueborn (no one else has room) he's really just there to shoot at stuff - equip him appropriately.
awbbie wrote:9 Trueborn - X2 splinter cannon, 4 shredders, shard carbines, Dracon, phantasom Grenade Launcher (pgl) 248
mounted in: Raider - Disintegrator Flickerfield, splinter racks, Tormentor Grenade launcher, splinter racks, Aethersails, chainsnares- 100
You want these guys to be your assault force?
You have noticed those Wyches and Bloodbrides, and Wracks, and Incubi, and Grotesques, and Talos(i?), and Beastmasters and everything else waving at you from inside the codex, yes? These guys are guardsmen with good initiative, they're not close combat units - the Dracon isn't needed, the splinter racks aren't needed (you literally have nothign equipped they'll even help), yadda, yadda, hey. Again, what is this unit's purpose - Trueborn can do a lot of good things - but they should only try to do one good thing at a time, you need to figure out what they're doing for you,
DE can't afford to just toss out max squads and figure it will sort out in the wash, we need to be a finely oiled murder machine on the way in.
awbbie wrote:3 groups of: 10 warriors - Shredder, Dark Lance, sybarite, pgl - 150 (speratly) 450 (all together)
mounted in: Raider - Nighshields, Splinter racks, Flickerfields, Aethersails, Grisly Trophies - 300 (all together)
Egads, again, I'm at a loss for where you're going with these.
DLs and Shredders have such different target priorities it blows the mind, you also have made an
AV 10 open topped vehicle cost 100 points - it will still die to a handful of bolters shooting at it. It feels like you're coming at a lot of these units with a Space Marine mentality, you need to shake that up and change it. I heard someone mention both me and Dash (and thanks for the advertising, cheques in the mail
), and you noted you found Dash's stuff - that's good. Also check out the link in my sig for the Tactica (it's a little more ground floor than Dash, he's more tournament focused which you're not fully ready for yet, you still need to learn to understand the basic core of the army and what you're doing with it before you'll fully appreciate what he's on about methinks).
Look at these Warriors - you're paying 250 for them each, for that you're getting;
2 Lance shots (1 if you move at all) Good versus mech and can hurt infantry but isn't a core value of the weapon.
8-16 S. Rifle shots depending on moving and range. Good versus infantry, useless versus mech.
A Shredder blast that is not good against vehicles and is 'okay' versus infantry unless it has armor, because then even the s. rifle starts competing in kill value.
1 Scoring unit.
Enhanced Aethersails for...some reason.
For 250 you could get 2x Venom w. Extra S.Cannons and 5 Warriors w. 1 Blaster
24 S. Cannon shots (at 36" range move or no move)
8-16 S. Rifle shots depending on moving and range.
2 Blaster shots (independently targetable, and independent of the S.Cannon shooting)
2 Scoring units.
Both of those units are just about as hard to kill as your one mega unit. That's a
DE type of build, it's maximizing firepower and understanding that what can kill 5
DE can probably kill 10, so why take the random extra guys? This doesn't mean you *have* to go Venomspam (oh dear lord, if only people could learn that Venomspam isn't the only option) but depending on what you want to do there are some very solid and aggressive ways to make it happen - and even when building max size
DE squads you want to keep them lean, mean, and focused on their job, and their job isn't running around with a heavy weapon that hurts tanks while also packing a infantry killing blast weapon with minimal range, that's crazy talk.
awbbie wrote:10 Scourges: x2 Heat Lance, x2 haywire blaster, solarite - 264
Again, basic problem here and a simple solution.
Heat Lances and Haywire Blasters have dramatically different ranges, and even have different targets they are better for.
If you split the Scourges into two five man squads you can compatmentalize the weapons, have more threats on the board, and also force the enemy to use more resources to kill you.
awbbie wrote:My stratgy can be summed up in shoot the begeezus out of the enemy and hope for the best. The warriors would generally hang around the perimitor and pile fire into their units (trying to say out of sight of the majority of the army)
By adjusting the Warriors towards either lance or anti-infantry work you can establish stationary gun emplacements with lances and/or get more aggressive and mobile killing platforms. I tend to advocate the mobile
DE because, as you noted, controlling
LoS in games is really vital.
awbbie wrote:while the scourgers would move up and disable the tanks with haywire blasters and then destroy them with Heat lances.
Requiring two turns - by splitting them up they can both be locking stuff up and moving in to wreck it all in one glorious turn.
awbbie wrote:The trueborn would then move forward and unleash volleys of fire on the non-vehicles. Or if it's a hord army the entire army would hang back while the haemonucli would pin key units or kill synapse creatures.
Statistically, the Haem has something along the lines of a 3% chance per shot of killing most synapse creatures, rarely better than 5% (I think 5% is his chance of popping a Librarian per shot, I just did that math recently). Generally speaking I would not count on that as any sort of plan, since that means, oh, say five shots to probably pop one synapse (25% chance is worth banking on I think).
Pinning is also...chancy, most foot hordes will be immune to the check anyway, and most armies will have enough leadership to be fine versus the check anyway. Besides, if you want pinning to be a strategy (you shouldn't) you need more than one gun that can pin - you're going to miss 33% of the time already, much less even managing to pin anyone - you'd need at least 10 Hexrifles to even begin to make this a viable thought.
awbbie wrote:During objective missions the warriors would zip around in raiders and during the last(s) turn(s) of the game would move up to occupy/contest objectives.
Another good reason they shouldn't have dark lances.
3,000 
Deathbringers 5500
