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How do.

Returning player here, looking for some critique on my list. I've done well at lower point value games, but am on the start of a losing streak so looking for some advice.

HQ

Urien Rakarth
Drazhar

2x 10 Kabalites, with dark lance, splinter cannon, shredder and blaster. PGL on the Sybarite.
1x 5 wracks, with liquifier, hex rifle, stinger pistol and ossefactor
1x 5 Incubi
1x 10 mandrakes
2x Raiders, each with a dark lance
1x venom with dual splinter cannons
1x ravager
1x Razorwing jet fighter
1x 3 reavers with heat lance and cluster caltrops
1x 5 scourges, with 4 dark lances
1x 2 Talos, each with a liquifier gun and haywire blasters

5 Kabalites with splinter rifles go with Drazhar and the Incubi in a raider. The remaining 5 special weapon Kabalites go in the venom.

The other squad of Kabalites go in the other raider.

Urien and the Wracks foot slog behind the Talos.

The mandrakes have been starting at the midfield for objective grabbing.

Issues I've encountered:

The mandrakes die immediately. I have yet to fire a single bale blast with them. I think I should be deploying them in my deployment zone instead and using their ability to upy downy them into a relatively safer / more effective area when the battle gets going.

The ravager is commonly getting blown up on turn 1 before it even gets to think about shooting.

I keep fething up with the Incubi and disembarking them too close to units with flamers, so 4 out of 5 of them died simply for stepping on the board today.

The Razorwing is doing ok, but does real easy. I get 1 turn of shooting out of it before it gets blown out of the sky.

The scourges are becoming notorious for rolling 1s on their attacks. I will be swapping to realspace raiders for future games, so that I can empower them earlier on. But doing so costs me the ability to charge my Incubi from a moving transport which makes me think I need to choose between the Incubi or the scourges.

The Talos have been my MVP's, soaking up a lot of fire and churning out some reliable damage.

The reavers have been disappointing. In one game they died before they got to move. In others, they've deployed from reserves using rapid ingress and then died to subsequent shooting 🤦🏼. In today's game, 2 got wiped out in turn 1 before they had even moved. The lone biker after this managed to get 2 turns of shooting, missing on one and, if I remember rightly, having the wound saved on the second.

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My opponents are either Sisters, or Chaos.

I've played sisters 2 or 3 times with this list and lost each time. I played against chaos once (a 1000 point battle) and won.

My Sororitas opponent brings:

Morvenn Vahl with 3 Paragon warsuits (feth this unit in particular)
2 squads of battle sisters
1 unit of sacresants with a palatine
Junith Erutia
2 penitent engines
1 castigator
1 exorcist
1 rhino (for the sacresants)
1 immolator (for 5 battle sisters and objective grabbing).

The battle line units don't really get involved, they sit on objectives in the backfield and farm miracle dice / command points.

The combination of Morvenn Vahls rerolls on everything, in a unit with a ridiculous amount of firepower, and the number of torrent weapons blazing through my low toughness, low save units is fething demoralising by itself.

The castigator just about blows through a vehicle with every shot, and the exorcist can reach anything that I have out of line of sight.

I do well at lower point value games, but at 1500, I'm struggling. I don't seem to have enough counters to all these big hitters.

Advice appreciated. Thanks.

First, split those action monkeys (aka Mandrakes) into two squads of 5.
You'll have more chances to do actions, snag objectives, etc. Position them off to your flanks in preparation for drawing secondaries that want squads in different locations - like Containment, Investigate signals, etc Keep them out of site if possible. Bounce them up/down as needed. If they never fire a shot but score you some points? That's just fine.

You know how you keep your fragile Ravager gunboat from being blown away T1?
Don't have it on the board.
Keep it in reserve. See where it's needed & bring it in T2/T3 to get Los on that spot. Combine it's fire power with that Razorwing
Same with the Scourges. Keep them in reserve, bring them in, & add their lances to whatever the Ravager + Razorwing are targeting.
The goal is to make the target GO AWAY. There's no such thing as overkill when you're shooting up Vhal & friends.
also, remember to make use of the scourges move after shoot ability. And arm the leader with a Blast Pistol.

I'm biased. I don't like Wracks. I don't like their models & I hate the mishmash of weapons.
I would drop these guys + Urien in favor of something more dangerous.
My choices would be A) another unit of Scourges, or B) another Talos + a Cronos (ok, not the most dangerous thing atm, but it is another pile of T7/w7/3+6++FNP5+ coming at the foe. + it has a useful Pain gimmick)
And when you switch to Real space Raiders you'll probably want to ditch the Wracks or Urien in favor of a Succubus anyways - because you need someone to carry The Art of Pain enhancement. And the Succubus is the cheapest option. Her job is NOT to go kill things. It's to remain alive on the board (not in a transport) as long as possible to generate those pain tokens. If she gets a chance to hold a home objective, do an action, etc? Bonus! Also, give her a Blast Pistol - just in case.

Question: Are you making use of the Grenade & Tank shock strats?
If a unit has the option to take a Phantasm Grenade Launcher? Take it.
Don't be afraid to use your Raiders & that Venom as battering rams. a Venom isn't the strongest thing, but sometimes all it takes is another MW or two to tilt a fight.

Nice, thank you so much for the detailed reply!

It's an interesting thought, starting my boats and scourges all in reserve. It's something I've shied away from due to fear of having what I do deploy completely wiped off the board. Still, throwing down a load of pain engines and maybe some Grotesques will give me the tough survivability to weather a turn of shooting. That and the art of pain succubus for token farming.

I assume you'd advocate for staying in the backfield on turn 1, to ensure we survive long enough for the rest of our units to arrive on turn 2?

Wracks aren't really doing it for me right now either. I will say they've helped Urien to survive, so he can follow and heal the Talos, otherwise the unit has been underwhelming. They have made a difference with some of their weapons, though I think they need to be played in the midfield where they can best split their fire into targets of most relevance for each weapon.

I am making use of the grenade stratagem, though I do have a habit of forgetting tank shock. We've also only recently discovered the ability to discard a secondary mission to gain a CP; we've only had 2 games with that in effect so stratagem usage will increase as time goes on.

What's your approach to fielding melee units in the Realspace Raiders detachment? I've been completely hamstrung by the inability to charge from a moving transport and, in true dark kin fashion, they die at the first hint of a sharp fart 🤣

I am looking at including Corsairs of Harlequins, what do you think to them?

Both give access to some psychic ability and the harlequins provide some much needed devastating wounds.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
New list

1500 points. Realspace Raiders

Archon
Succubus with art of pain

3x 10 Kabalites with all the weapons, in raiders

2x ravagers

1x 5 scourges with dark lances
1x 5 scourges with haywire blasters
2x 2 Talos with liquifier guns and haywire blasters

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I'd start the ravagers and haywire scourges in reserve. Deploy the rest in what cover I can, snipe targets of opportunity and pounce on turns 2+ when reserves come online.

Thoughts appreciated!

 kitch102 wrote:

What's your approach to fielding melee units in the Realspace Raiders detachment? I've been completely hamstrung by the inability to charge from a moving transport and, in true dark kin fashion, they die at the first hint of a sharp fart

My approach to melee involves shooting thigs to bitz & then charging what remains with ALL the Talos (so 6 here in 10th) + some Cronos & the opportunistic Tank Shock from a venom.
Now & then I'll field Drazar & and squad of Incubi in a Venom. They zip out behind cover in preparation of dismounting/moving/charging next turn. Just like if they were SM in a Rhino.
Once in a while I'll pull out my Beast Master & his hoard of creatures - just a big blob of melee moving up the field.

As for hanging back in the deployment zone? No, not me. I'm an aggressive player. Other than my Art of Pain succubus who's skulking about, I'm taking the fight to the foe.
If I need to be in my own backfield for some reason? Then the Mandrakes can handle it. Or one of the Venoms. Sometimes (but rarely) a Scourge squad since they like to stay at range....