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I am playing around with a 1000 point list for a local league. Out of 8 games I have 7 losses and 1 tie... on the plus side I'm learning a lot and the last couple of games have been very very close.

My current list is:
Haemonculus - Hex Rifle and Animus Vitae

Trueborn - 4 blasters, 1 shardcarbine in a Venom with a SC

Warriors - 10 w/SC in a Raider with Splinter Racks, Flicker, Nightshields and Disintegrator.
Warriors - 10 w/SC in a Raider with Splinter Racks, Flicker, Nightshields and Disintegrator.
Warriors - 5 on foot.
Wyches - 5 w/Haywire in Venom with SC and Nightshields

Reavers - 6 with 2 caltrops.

A couple of lists I have recently faced include:
Necrons
Overlord
2 crypteks
2 groups of 5 man immortals
1 group of warriors
1 group of Deathmarks
1 Night Shroud Bomber

Space Wolves
Rune Priest
Long Fangs
2 groups of 10 man tac squads, each in a rhino
1 razorback

Imperial Guard
(not sure of HQ)
2 groups of 10 guardsman of some flavor.
Hydra
Valkyrie
2 Leman Russes


Recent game details:

The Necron game was Purge the Alien. I was successful in getting rid of the immortals, deathmarks and one of the crypteks plus some random warriors. Ended up losing 4 to 10. With the number of units I have this is a really tough mission.

The Space Wolf game was Emperors Will and was extremely close. Ended up being 5 to 5 (I had warlord, line breaker and my objective; he had first blood, line breaker and his.. barely). I ultimately lost this because I forgot to make a final bladevane attack with my Reavers against the last marine protecting his objective.

The IG game was a total massacre. Wyches managed to kill the hydra but not before I had already taken heavy causalities. I was tabled at the top of turn 5 when his valkyrie summarily executing my haemi.

------------------

Overall, my trueborn rarely did much. Their transport was usually shot out from under them very early on and the 18" range wasn't good enough. The Reavers certainly shined and killed more than their points each game while only being wiped out against the Necrons. Also, I've had better luck using disintegrators than dark lances. The DL's rarely hit while I usually cause 1 or 2 disintegrator wounds. Also, the splinter racks and nightshields on the raiders meant they were usually around until turn 5 while the warriors put out some really great poison shots.

I'm currently considering dropping the wyches and trueborn then adding a razorwing fighter and another group of warriors in a raider. The reason is simply that the wyches and their venom are usually smoked by the end of turn 2. It's possible I'm just not playing them right but I can't seem to get them into assault with anything that doesn't destroy the venom and most of the unit first. I think I either need to take 10 in a Raider or none at all. I did try two groups of wyches working in tandem but that didn't quite work out either.

The hexrifle hasn't done much in these games, but my goal is to simply use him to get a free pain token, pass it on then keep him pretty far back, with some warriors as ablative wounds, in order to my warlord alive. The hexrifle just gives him something to do at range. So far this has worked in denying slay the warlord to my opponent; only 1 came close to even damaging him (mawloc in a nid army).


With that in mind, what would you tweak to do better? The only limit I really have is that I won't use beasts (razorwing flock, etc). I just have no interest in owning those models, but I do have pretty much everything else in the book.

Let's start with the list.

Animus Vitae... Nope. Just nope. It's a CCW that can get you a PT for any close combat kill, but really, WS4 S3 A3(4 on charge, 2CCW bonus included), a character that could be challenged and be thrown into fighting a tough CC guy.

You should also drop that 1 shardcarbine trueborn, as you've noted, blasterborn is very easy to shoot down, as anything DE is, so you should minimise your loss whenever possible. Even if you don't get shot up before you get into range, the moment they are at that 18", after 1 turn of shooting and hopefully destroying the vehicle, they'll get shot up now. Whether or not blasterborn is an effective unit depends largely on 2 factors: 1) terrains, you want LOS blocking terrains as you move up the board, flat out whatever, but most importantly, stay out of sight, they're a single fragile unit with 12 poisoned shots and 4 S8 AP2 shots, I'd fire at them before they get into range too! 2) target saturation, you need other big targets on the board to draw attention away from your expensive blasterborn unit... So, while blasterborn is often said to be 1 of the best configurations DE have, they aren't the auto-win unit, in fact, I don't think we even have an auto-win.

Warriors gunboats, now I understand that the SC will allow you some early turn shooting, but remember it's usually the assault 4 profile that you're using, as you should be looking to move your gunboats up soon as possible, and once within 12" range, they really aren't offering that much when you have those TL shots, it also makes this unit a tad much more costly. Also could consider taking off that flickerfield, I'd say. If I was to run gunboats -I don't run them often-, I'd probably use early turns to flatout up the board so I can use those splinter racks rapid fire sooner. And yes, dissie is great, fire a few at a TEQ unit and you can laugh in their face for thinking their 2+ save is the bestest in the universe! But it's ultimately an AI weapon, which we really aren't in shortage of, the mass of wounds from poisoned spam will do just as good at taking out TEQ as a few dissies shots can, but what we lack is AT, our poisoned weapon and unit's natural strength can't even hurt an AV10 vehicle! While a single DL is hardly reliable, as you've noted, one more DL is still one more DL.

Warriors on foot, nope, just nope... But if you drop all those I mentioned above, you might be able to buy them a venom. Hell, you could even drop them for a minimal size sniper-wracks unit to snipe with your haemy while claiming backfield objective!

I'm rather interested to see why you're considering dropping your only 2 AT units for 2 more AI units(jetfighter is much better for AI despite its name indicating otherwise), what's your plan with that? Personally, I'd probably beef up the AT side of thing as your current list is so lacking in that, such as turning those reavers into AT reavers with blaster/heat lance(dropping the caltrops).

Grab a jet fighter cut out that equipment on the haem, ditch the foot kabalites and grab some in venoms. Try to maximize pain tokens wherever possible to compensate for our terrible terrible saves and toughness. If you ever face a deathstar or something large along those lines like a thirster or Avatar make sure you have a character with a shadowfield to neutralize them. I wouldn't have that many reavers in 1 unit. It might be worth pickin up the baron or duke sliscus in larger games to drop everything on top of you opponent. Keep you blasterborn hidden behind anything they can find until they can see something worthy to pop like a Russ or Valkyrie on hover. Remember you want to hit them hard and try not to get hit back...


Automatically Appended Next Post:
It's also worth noting razorwings. They move like bullets and hit
Iike a ton of bricks and can actually take hits! Rending is nice against those MEQ's. Definitely invest in a razorwing. It looks amazing, is impossible to hit and bloody hell it stings..

So, an updated list based on the above:

Haemonculus - Hex Rifle

Trueborn - 4 blasters in a Venom with a SC

Warriors - 10 in a Raider with Splinter Racks, Flicker, Nightshields and Dark Lance.
Warriors - 10 in a Raider with Splinter Racks, Flicker, Nightshields and Dark Lance.
Wracks - 5, one is Acoth w/Hex Rifle. Another has liquifier

Reavers - 6 with 2 caltrops.

Razorwing - no upgrades

Comes in at 1k exactly.

In the past couple of games, flicker field has saved me against units that ignores cover (like noise marines) so I think I'll keep those. The warriors on foot were supposed to stay back with the haemi to help hold a back field objective and I had never really considered using wracks at all. However the idea of having a second hex rifle on the field plus the fact they come with a PT I believe makes more sense.

I want to keep the caltrops. They've been averaging 3 to 4 dead MEQ a round by themselves which is a pretty good deal. I did have a razorwing in the first couple of league games and decided to try something different. The large blast was pretty effective though. Because they are normally using their bladevane attack, they rarely get the opportunity to actually shoot. I like to use at least 6 in order to avoid leadership tests when 1 falls, makes them a bit more survivable. After failing 6 leadership checks in a row on prior games it's a comfort thing.

So the idea then is to start the trueborn next to the haemi then run away with his pain token. Next the haemi moves in with the wracks and stays back somewhere they can plink away without too much worry. If something deep strikes close by, the liquifier and poisoned CC weapons out to help out.

The reavers run around slicing targets of opportunity and when knocked down enough hide until late game to make sure I get line breaker or contest. Trueborn need to stay hidden until they have something to hit in the opponents DZ. Warriors also put pressure on the opponent DZ to keep them on their side of the table or potentially get an objective. With nightshields this ought to be fairly easy to do. Razorwing is there to help against an enemy flyer (not many of those at this points level) or simply be AI.


Better?

Yes much better. If you continue to not like the blasterborn then try moving in the direction of AT (heat lance) Reavers.

I'd say drop the liquifier so you can give razorwing its flickerfield, unless you're looking to face infiltrators, outflankers, deepstrikers, or a pure assault list, I'd say most would just choose to shoot those wracks dead from afar, while your flyer could really benefit with the invulnerable: while most other flyers in this game have to go into dodge mode, and any ignore-cover skyfire can negate that jink save, ours can come with invulnerable, so don't waste that.

And well, while caltrops are obviously amazing, those guns aren't too bad either, but well, if you're happy, then go with caltrops. I think your list looks fine now, just remember to use terrains, like BaconUprising said, hide until the best moment then strike!

Second dropping the liquifier for a flickerfield. The wrack squad is about cover camping and shooting and scooting away. If something comes in that close, you can either kill it with assault or are dead anyways. At 1k, there is not that much to worry about. A flickerfield will always benefit you though.

Great. Thanks for the help!