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Wondering if is could be competitive: 1644

Duke Sliscus: 150

Haemonculus: Liquifier, shattershard: 75

4 Kabalite Trueborn: blasters, venom with splinter cannon: 173

4 Kabalite Trueborn: blasters, venom with splinter cannon: 173

4 Kabalite Trueborn: blasters, venom with splinter cannon: 173

9 Kabalites: raider with splinter racks: 151

5 wyches: haywire grenades, venom: 115

5 Wyches: haywire grenades, venom : 115

6 wracks: Liquifier, raider: 130

3 wracks: venom: 85

2 beastmasters: 4 razorwing flocks: 84

Ravager: dark lances, night shields: 115

Ravager: dark lances, night shields: 115

If I had the Eldar dex then I would be using wave serpents and a Farseer as allies but alas I don't so won't be. I wanted to include Sliscus as I originally had a squad of kabalites in a raider with splinter cannons but I he doesn't really fit in this list anymore. I might ditch him for more objective grabbing wracks or a second haemy.
Could this list be competitive? With all the Taudar and TauTau out there it seems a long shot.

Sliscus really needs to be in either a raider with some kabbies or a large 20 man footslogging unit to get the most out his 3+ to wound to the unit skill.

20 footslogging kabbies with mass splinter cannons might work.

Is be tempted to ditch the beastmasters and the bikes for a dissie ravager as you are short on long range shots really.

Shingen wrote:
Sliscus really needs to be in either a raider with some kabbies or a large 20 man footslogging unit to get the most out his 3+ to wound to the unit skill.

20 footslogging kabbies with mass splinter cannons might work.

Is be tempted to ditch the beastmasters and the bikes for a dissie ravager as you are short on long range shots really.

That's why I'm going to drop the duke as a squad of 20 kabalites is never going to be competitive. As for long range, playing DE competitively usually features squads skipping from cover to cover to close with the enemy and unleash their devastating, short range firepower. What the beastmasters bring is an incredibly cheap beatstick that puts out 24 rending attacks and has 22 wounds. They are too dangerous to leave roaming around and yet take a lot of dedicated firepower to remove. They are also really cheap at 84 points. I feel like they are more of a threat than a ravager for far less points. I think I'm going to ditch the duke and put in a second razorwing, a more maneuverable and arguably harder to kill unit.


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Then again I could instead add another unit if 5 wracks in a venom. An MSU army is far more likely to succeed in tournament environment than lance or disintegrator spam.

Just 2 troops choices is a huge problem for DE. I would drop all the Fast Attack and get more troops. I personally prefer Kabalites with blasters as troops.

You are very low on AA so going with disintegrators on the Razorwing is frankly baffling.

Nightshields aren't necessary on the Ravager.

 FlingitNow wrote:
Just 2 troops choices is a huge problem for DE. I would drop all the Fast Attack and get more troops. I personally prefer Kabalites with blasters as troops.

You are very low on AA so going with disintegrators on the Razorwing is frankly baffling.

Nightshields aren't necessary on the Ravager.

Ravagers fire at 36" with their lances. By using night shields they are next to untargetable by the enemy. Good point on the AA but as for the troops wracks are tougher and can and can handle squads on MEQ's they can also use their Liquifier gun to pretty nifty effect. They are probably better at holding objectives and are more useful in a venom spam army.

 FlingitNow wrote:
Nightshields aren't necessary on the Ravager.

I never leave home without NS on my Ravagers. A highly mobile high strength platform that is usually out of range for return fire is hard to beat.

Regarding troop choices: 3 units, each with only 5 bodies, is pretty light in my opinion. Especially considering you obviously want to get those into CC. It really appears that this list can only win games by attempting to table your opponent.

If I was playing against you, my target priority would be:
1. Target the venoms the wracks are trying to hide in.
2. Once those were down I'd make sure the wracks were buried with them.
3. Take out the trueborn venoms.

Once those 3 things were done, which should be pretty easy to do, any objective based game (which is most of them) would be over. It's not that hard to cause a venom to explode with a single shot. Assuming I brought any amount of S7 AP2 or better firepower, your entire army would be hosed.

I might up it to 2000 and stick a unit of kabalites in with a raider with splinter racks. I could then put the Duke in this unit make them poisoned (3+) and deepstrike a few of the venoms in.

Ravagers are 36" range most of what shoots at them is 48"-60" range so I don't get how they are untargetable? Even Broadsides have a 36" range so can walk that 6" to get into range.

If you're doing Venom Spam and have 2 Razorwings do you need MEQ killing from your infantry? You have AI by the bucket load more AT and AP2 is far more useful. Yeah the T4 is good but Wracks still fall over in a stiff breeze.

The point is they are hiding behind cover in venoms to get into combat. They are also deep sticking in if I put the Duke in. Would you suggest Incubi?


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clively wrote:

 FlingitNow wrote:
Nightshields aren't necessary on the Ravager.

I never leave home without NS on my Ravagers. A highly mobile high strength platform that is usually out of range for return fire is hard to beat.

Regarding troop choices: 3 units, each with only 5 bodies, is pretty light in my opinion. Especially considering you obviously want to get those into CC. It really appears that this list can only win games by attempting to table your opponent.

If I was playing against you, my target priority would be:
1. Target the venoms the wracks are trying to hide in.
2. Once those were down I'd make sure the wracks were buried with them.
3. Take out the trueborn venoms.

Once those 3 things were done, which should be pretty easy to do, any objective based game (which is most of them) would be over. It's not that hard to cause a venom to explode with a single shot. Assuming I brought any amount of S7 AP2 or better firepower, your entire army would be hosed.

what would you suggest then?

I'd suggest retooling your list based upon the likely games you are going to play.

First off, most of the missions are objective based. See below:

1. Crusade: D3+2
2. Purge: zero, VP based
3. Big Guns: D3+2. Heavy are scoring
4. Scouring: 6. FA are scoring
5. Emperor's Will: 2
6. Relic: 1


5 of the 6 are objective based. 2 transform certain units into scoring units. The one that isn't scoring is VP based.

The objective based ones have between 1 and 6 objectives, with an average of 4. This means you will normally need to capture (or deny) 3 to win. Having 3 fragile troops won't cut it.

To take advantage of Big Guns or Scouring you need to have Heavy and FA units. I normally take 2 ravagers to help. I'll also take 2 units of *at least* 6 bikes. The bikes are fast, annoying and easy to get into the position for late game denial (or scoring if you are playing scouring). The beasts you have are a solid choice.. but need something like Khymera's to provide a bit more muscle when they do get into combat. The Razorwing Flocks have a lot of attacks but Khymera's have more strength to help take down the power armor you are likely to face. Also their 4++ is good to make sure you get there.

Razorwing Flyers are fun.. but they don't come in until turn 2, and have a probability of not showing up until turn 3. Even when they do, they might get 1 or 2 turns of shooting off before either being destroyed are having to go back into ongoing reserves. So, putting 20% of your points into a unit with these limitations just isn't worth it UNLESS you know you are facing a lot of enemy fliers. In which case you might consider keeping them or using an Aegis (shudder).

The Relic presents an interesting problem for DE as we don't generally have the strength to hold it. Further, grabbing it usually boils down to whoever goes first. So, you need to be able to clear lots and lots of troops depending on who you are playing OR focus entirely on secondary objectives. Rerollable splinter rifle and blast weapons help (ie: warriors+raider+splinter racks). As do bikes (line breaker) and whatever can kill warlords and their attendants.

Purge is usually pretty hard for DE. Doubly so when you have 17 possible VP points in your list and at least 6 of them are fragile transports. Making matters worse is the hits we take when the transports invariably explode.

I'm not going to tell you what to run (or even what I do). However, I think that if you consider the games you are going to play then you'll come up with a better list. In 6th, more bodies in larger units (ie: 10 man squads) are generally better than smaller elite ones.


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 FlingitNow wrote:
Ravagers are 36" range most of what shoots at them is 48"-60" range so I don't get how they are untargetable? Even Broadsides have a 36" range so can walk that 6" to get into range.

If you're doing Venom Spam and have 2 Razorwings do you need MEQ killing from your infantry? You have AI by the bucket load more AT and AP2 is far more useful. Yeah the T4 is good but Wracks still fall over in a stiff breeze.

I think you mean to say, "most of what *can* shoot at them is 36"+ range. Which, at least in my meta, isn't all that common and usually limited only to one or two units that you can hide from with proper terrain and placement. I completely agree with the latter part of your post though.

Any better?

Take the blaster and lances off of the warriors.

If you move, then they can't shoot the lances. The blasters would require them to be within 18", which you generally don't want to do. Also, blaster shots should be reserved for tanks as they are almost wasted on anything else. If the warriors are shooting at a tank then most of them aren't shooting.

Where does the Haemi go? and why did you upgrade him with a shattershard?

If you drop the blaster and lances off the warriors and the shattershard from the haemi then you recoup around 95 points... which is another warrior unit. OR you could additionally drop 1 of the trueborn models and 1 blaster, which would give you enough points for a 3rd ravager... So many wonderful choices.

If you also drop the haemi (not sure why he's there) - then that's 3 khymera and another beastmaster added to your FA unit. Of course, if your plan is to keep him with the wracks - turning them into a scoring unit plus giving them Furious Charge - that is workable. I'd still drop the shattershard - it's just one shot at one model. Basically 15 points for a weapon which has a 21% chance of killing a single marine and does nothing against T6 things; you are better off trading that for another warrior.

*edit:
Scratch the part about putting the haemi with the wracks. You want Duke with them. Which means the Haemi doesn't really fit anywhere. He's not fast enough to keep up with the beast masters and he's wasting space on a raider if you want to put him with the warriors. ( if they are close enough for you to flame, then they are too close ). At best the tactics might be to start the haemi with the wracks (out of the raider) - then T1 have the wracks and Duke hop in and fly off leaving the Haemi to go hide somewhere... But I don't think the points are worth the token. Better off to get the khymera and extra beastmaster


*edit 2: Ahh.. you have to have the haemi in order for the wracks to be troops instead of elites... Split the wracks up into a group of 6 and a group of 3. Put 6 with Duke in the raider and 3 with the Haemi. Haemi + 3 go on a backfield objective while Duke +6 go assault something. Done right, your army is going to keep the enemy too busy to deal with the Haemi+3; which is almost a free objective point.

I think you mean to say, "most of what *can* shoot at them is 36"+ range

Wave Serpents have 60" range.
Autocannons, Missile launchers and Lascannons are 48" range.
Lootas are 48" range.

So the following armies main AT options are 48"-60" range:

Eldar, IG, Chaos, Marines, DAs, GKs, SWs, BAs, Orks.

Then Necrons can move 36" and still fire 24" so you're not getting away from them.

So Nightshields are good against other DE and debatably/situationally Tau.

As for the new list:

Well it's not Venom Spam anymore. Bigger units for DE are just a bad idea. Your units will die when something shoots at them. You need MSU with DE. The only units worth taking in larger amounts in that codex are Beast masters and Helions (potentially Reavers). Go back to the original idea and commit to that idea.

Firstly I was torn between making the kabalites dark light or splinter cannons but I suppose vanilla is preferable.
Secondly you are correct in thinking that the haemy goes with the wracks in the raider hence 9 as opposed to 10.
Thirdly the shattershard is a template weapon and due to its weird wound allocation characters can't 'look out sir'. I would fire this into Deathstars like Harliestar or Paladin star. It's widely considered one of the best choices for a haemy.


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I would say Duke should go with the Kabalites where his 3+ poison benefits them not with the wracks.


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 FlingitNow wrote:

I think you mean to say, "most of what *can* shoot at them is 36"+ range

Wave Serpents have 60" range.
Autocannons, Missile launchers and Lascannons are 48" range.
Lootas are 48" range.

So the following armies main AT options are 48"-60" range:

Eldar, IG, Chaos, Marines, DAs, GKs, SWs, BAs, Orks.

Then Necrons can move 36" and still fire 24" so you're not getting away from them.

So Nightshields are good against other DE and debatably/situationally Tau.

As for the new list:

Well it's not Venom Spam anymore. Bigger units for DE are just a bad idea. Your units will die when something shoots at them. You need MSU with DE. The only units worth taking in larger amounts in that codex are Beast masters and Helions (potentially Reavers). Go back to the original idea and commit to that idea.

split the larger Kabalite units put them in venoms?

I had to step away for my books but I *think* you just have to start the duke with the warriors to give them the 3+ but that they keep it if he detaches. Not 100% though, I don't run him. If you can then do that t1 and then move him with the wracks you are better off. Otherwise you are wasting his greatest strength which is his 2+ close combat poison. If he just stays with the warriors then you'd be better off dropping him and getting another warrior unit.

I'll have to take another look at shattershard. I thought it was just a shooting ( assault 1 ) weapon that forced the target to take a T test when hit. I don't see how that bypasses look out sir. Will definitely look closer.

Yep from the entry it looks like they stay with them as he's actually giving them the hyper toxins. Remember that he also allows transports to deep strike.

FlingItNow:

Yes, all those armies have 48" range weapon options. But they are usually confined to a single unit which you reach of and swat as a high priority target. The wave serpents are going to be a problem no matter what and I prefer an all comers list. So you send the trueborn after them to get in close if possible.

The main thing is preventing the biggest part of the possible opponents that are at the 36" range ( or less ) from shooting you. I run NS on all my boats and my experience has been that they are a necessity.

I'm starting to think that it would be better to remove one of the Kabalite units and use two squads of 5 wyches in venoms maxed out with haywire grenades. I'd probably keep the other one as a larger unit for the duke but I could split it into a 5 man and a 4 man squad both in venoms with 2 splinter cannons. This way the duke can transfer easier to the squad of 6 wracks as well.


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This list lacks any anti air though...

I think you should take your current list and play a few test games. You'll see what's lacking based on your local meta.

Some people have good luck with wyches... I haven't. They tend to squash a vehicle and die the following turn. Their low S and T really hurt when they try to assault power armor. I think it takes 10 wyches to effectively kill a 5 man tac squad but they are usually so beat down afterwards that they can't take on another target. If they cause a target vehicle to explode then you'll lose half of them... And bolter fire is murder. If assaulting a tau gun line, they are likely to not even make it. This is why people run beasts with khymeras.

The point is they are suicidal for only 60 points you could murder a landraider

That is true

Yes, all those armies have 48" range weapon options. But they are usually confined to a single unit which you reach of and swat as a high priority target.

Sorry what? Most Eldar armies at this point level will have 4 Wave Serpents. Orks will have 3 units of lootas. Whilst the Imperial armies will have 48" weapons on all their AT units that aren't melta so expect 3-4 at least for Marines 5+ for Guard. Likewise Necrons will be likely fielding around 4 Nightscythes. Yes if your opponent has only 1 ranged AT unit you can easily swat it. But then your opponent has an awful army you should easily beat anyway...

From the current list I would drop the Duke. That Kabalite unit sounds awesome but tends to not achieve a lot and is a lot of points in a soft target. With 18 poison shots in rapidfire range (adangerous place to be) you get 16 hits and nearly 11 wounds. That's less than 4 dead marines on average. Compare to 2 kabalite units for 250 points (saving you 51points) you have 32 poison shots with on average over 21 hits and nearly 11 wounds (literally no difference) but you have 2 blasters instead of 1 Dark Lance, 2 scoring units and the ability to sit a much safer 36" away and put 8 wounds a turn on someone.

Wyches are good in small units for tank hunting. They are perfect as is. They are worthless in big units because they still won't do enough damage in combat (a Wyche on the charge does the same damage in CC as an Ork who has been charged).