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So I've been thinking about kitting out my Scourges with Splinter Cannons and sending them to destroy MCs, Death Stars and Special Characters.

I know a lot of the time you will give Scourges AT weapons, but this means the majority of the weapons in your squad have no effect.

So, would AI Scourges be a viable unit?

I ran into these at the Semis for 'Ard Boyz (run by a friend of mine). They are BRUTAL.

I prefer having units be able to hunt anything. Especially in DE where everything can die really easily. So using a FA slot for a unit that is about double in price to a venom without having double the effect isn't that great since it also gives up anti tank ability. I prefer 2 HW blaster or DLs to go with the 3 carbines. 9 anti infantry shots and 2 anti tanks shots is fine, you don't really miss the 12 shots anti infantry shots in a DE army (one that has a fair number of venoms that is).

Thing is DE have anything else that is better at killing infantry. For instance, a 5 man squad of scourges with out anything is still as much as 2 venoms that has 9 more poison shots and more durable. Scourges are better as anti-tank, and then if you have no tanks to shoot at whatever special weapons can also be used to deal damage to infantry.

Short answer is no.

DE have access to cheaper and more efficient splinter cannons on Venoms, once you reach 84-108 poisoned shots at 36" anything else is overkill.

Scourges are good once you've filled out your other FOC and are looking for AT, just don't bother with haywire Blasters, they're almost completely useless vs GK and Crons.

My tactics are slightly different seeing as I use a WWP, but I jump them out and blaster a tank to death as soon as they come in (also giving them the option of deep-striking), then they still have 9 anti-infantry shots if necessary. It works better against anything short of a horde