The Good, The Bad

Well had my first games today with the new Dex
1st 1500ps Vs Orc's
2nd 1750pts Vs Space Wovles

Against Orcs i used a Talos, Cronos combo which performed outstandingly, the talos took horrendous fire in the first 2 turns losing only 1 wound.
Archon, court bomb- brilliant, they DS's flamed, shot, assaulted, and made back double their points
HWB scourges- pathetic did only 2 HP damage the entire game, might bulk them out with DL's next time a just put them in good cover.
Mandrakes - better than before and managed to set orc bikes on fire with soul blaze twice.
venoms and razorwing performed as usual.

Against Space Wolves, (suppliment with 10 wolf rider's 4 of which were character's with 2+ 3++)

It Took 5 turns to kill all the rider's most through shooting but 1 in CC. The lack of an AP2 CC weapon for our Archons is big telling factor.
I decided to try a fully loaded Voidraven to see if it could do anything. it failed to inflict a single wound or hull point before being blown to bits. (It managed 2 turns of shooting)

6 reaver's with 2HL and 2CC were outstanding and 2 D6 rending HoW would have done heaps better if my opponent didn't roll the four 6's he needed for his 6+FNP roll.

Once again the Talos/Cronos combo worked well, and once again also the scourges failed miserably.

Overall everything seemed to work as expected.

Biggest Winner, Talos / Cronos combo

Biggest Loser, scourges and bomber

Hmm interesting about the HW scourges. Mine have performed admirably recently, likely down to playing against some fairly mech heavy lists. 2 squads of 5 with 4 HW were wrecking two vehicles a turn!

Voidraven. As expected. I have had no faith in that thing and still don't. Just an obscene amount of points for something very mediocre!

Grub wrote:

Hmm interesting about the HW scourges. Mine have performed admirably recently, likely down to playing against some fairly mech heavy lists. 2 squads of 5 with 4 HW were wrecking two vehicles a turn!

Voidraven. As expected. I have had no faith in that thing and still don't. Just an obscene amount of points for something very mediocre!

Haven't gotten in a game with the new dex yet, hope to on Tuesday! Nice to hear feedback from others to help me prep!

Having a Talos and Cronos always worked well for me in the last dex against marines.  They absorb an inordinate amount of bolter fire which is otherwise not hitting my weaker units.

Regarding HWB scourges, that's surprising.  Sounds like maybe a bunch of bad rolls..  I played regular blaster scourges against Tau today; they turned out very well.  To the point that I'll likely grab another box of them. Also I used mandrakes for the first time in over a year. They also did well in taking down part of the Tau gunline.

OTOH, the bomber doesn't surprise me.  It's pretty but very very expensive for what it does.

yes the bomber is a big disappointment,  despite a cool model it brings nothing to the table that can't be filled by razorwings with 2 DL's.
The only regular use i can see for it is  bare bones, (maybe NS),  anti air.  Fly on shoot, next turn jink then fly off. You've looking at probably a max of 3 turns of full  BS shooting.

And the PfP rule is awesome, no longer having to kill a unit/character, or take a haemy.
It seems to boost everyone at about the right time. making everything good at once.

Animus vitae didn't work thanks to me rolling two 1's on the to wound roll, but i can see the benefits of it when it finally works

Also surprised by the Scourges. What caused them to be so ineffective? Were dice rolls sub-par, or did they just get targeted early? Or were they superfluous with other AA options?

I had my first game with the new codex. It's to early to make a judgement, but haywire scourge were not very helpful. Reading the comments here seems to largely back up my experience too.

I think one unit will probably always be in my list, but more than that seems overkill unless vehicles are really common in your meta. Even then I think after one squad of haywire it may be better to have heat lance or blasters on additional squads. Those weapons are more versatile.

Are the Scourgewires just getting wiped before they can do stuff? Mine have been doing well hanging out in cover in the back field while reavers soak up fire. I have only played with them against Necrons sporting a fair amount of AV 13/14 and a space marine list with 2 landraiders, vindicators and predators. So the auto glance was very useful.i think they need to be supported though, blasterborn, reavers getting their attention, maybe even a Ravager. I can see HW not beng super effective against low armour value units though where a blaster would be more effective perhaps.

The lack of adaptability on the HWB scourges seemed to be the biggest problem. Great against armour no doubt at all, but once the armour was gone i was left with 4 S4 shots.
At least with HL's, blaster's or DL's you have the option of going after heavy armoured inf model's.

Yes that makes sense. Its certainly a unit that is good if you know what you are fighting. My most frequent opponents are typically a mech IG list, crisis suit Tau with Hammerheads and Space Marines supported by Knights. So for me, usually there is a surplus of vehicles to get rid of!

Perhaps try two units, one with haywires and one with blasters? That way you receive the best of both worlds?

I'm running two haywire right now and I'll probably build the third one with blasters, scatter won't hurt them as much as it would heat lances and I can use them for multiple targets as stated earlier.

I like the blaster more than heat lances also because I can ID toughness 4 models such as most space marine IC's (except for the stupid shield eternal.

I'm still assembling a lot of my new units, but I got two games in on Saturday myself using a lot of my old stuff. Both 1850, one vs Chaos and the other vs Necron. The score from both maelstrom games combined was 39-2, so my opponents definitely aren't happy with my new codex. Deepstriking firedragons and medusae both made me feel dirty.

Any use of Craftworld Eldar makes me feel unclean. Must wash now.

I've been disappointed with my Eldar lately (though I generally don't use serpents). I think the next time my Eldar allies see the table it will be something like: spirit Seer, wraith blades as troops,Then maybe any of; wraith knight, crimson hunter, or fire dragons.

I'm too busy loving the coven supplement right now lol

Grub wrote:

Any use of Craftworld Eldar makes me feel unclean. Must wash now.

You could always switch em out for blasterborn to get a nearly identical output. These were my first games running fire dragons and I opted to try them for dealing with imperial knights so I could ds, disembark, then run to whichever side doesn't have the shield for a quick kill. You wouldn't be able to do that part specifically, and the trueborn are more fragile and expensive, but I ended up keeping my squad in the vehicle and hopping from one rear armor arc to the next anyway.

Haha I know, my first proper army some 13-14 years ago was actually Eldar, but I got bored with them, felt too easy generally. Haven't used them with their new dex but playing against themI would expect to get bored and my friends irritated!

I don't like stuff which allows for abuse, allies are generally frowned upon in our local gaming group (except knights or generally imperium stuff because that tends to be ok). Simply because you can abuse your army, replace its shortfalls with whatever Ally you want. And IMO that takes away from the game. Tournaments yeah, go for it. Everyone wants to win by any means but normal games, I rather prefer a straight up fight. Would rather a tense game of cat and mouse which comes down to a single point or a single tactical decision rather than seeing who's death star combo is better!

Don't want to come across as down playing Eldar and their uses, I've seen great players use both true kin and space hippies very effectively and with great tactical insight, I just would rather try to get the job done without the need to resort to allies! (sorry for going off topic -Scourgewires for the win!)

Seems a bit unfair that Imperium can bring allies, including Knights, but anything else is frowned upon.

I've played one game with haywire scourges, they took down a dreadnought despite me rolling two turns of absolute rubbish (i think i managed two hits, one of which rolled a one for haywire effect). Then they held up Belial in combat thanks to invun and FNP.

Voidraven was ok, bomb missed, which was a huge disappointment, as there was belial and 5 terminators all clustered round having just arrived from deep strike. Otherwise, took down a dread and 5 tac marines. not quite making its points back, but my opponent had no anti air anyway.

Here's a thought about the quad gun though - drop the bomb on it, should clear enough models around it if it's on target that they can't fire it at the end of the movement phase. If you've not already shot it to death with poisoned weapons by then (should only take about 12 hits)

I agree, but there are quite a few imperium players out there. Should also say that the guys I play with if they do go imperium allies won't be ridiculous. Like 1 knight with an IG list or some guardsman and a lemon rusk with GK. Its also allies that make sense typically, not just any old ones! But its still kept to a minimum and I must say, its more fun...

I too have not had any luck with the Haywire Scourges. It is not that they are not viable, it is just that they are... underwhelming.
Last edition- 125 points got you a 12- 36" moving transport with 12 poison shots at 36" and 5 wyches with haywire.
That is a lot of shots at multiple targets with a tanking squad that has dual purpose versatility.

Now we pay what, 120 points for 4 haywire shots on a 12" moving platform with models that fall over dead if someone looks at them the wrong way?

Yeah, I struggle to see why people are happy with this trade off!

Its not about being happy with it, its about finding thicker bread for the crap sandwich GW served us.

Skulnbonz wrote:

Yeah, I struggle to see why people are happy with this trade off!

Possibly because 1 lascannon/melta shot can wipe out that entire unit, where against scourges there's a 1 in 6 chance that even if that lascannon or melta wounds, it does nothing.

The comparison isn't really relevant anyway, because it's on a completely different unit type - 4 haywire blasters on scourges used to cost way over 200 points.

As for underwhelming, statistically speaking, a scourge unit with 4 haywire blasters should strip off at least two hull points per turn (i think in decimal terms it's about 2.2) - the problem is because it's a game based on dice rolls, those dice rolls affect your perception of the unit's effectiveness - a couple of turns where you miss with three of your four shots really affects how you feel the unit has done, because you have this idea in your head that the unit should kill a tank a turn.

If you want decent, reliable anti tank irrespective of cost - have a look at a unit of three Taloi with twin haywire blasters. Threat at both range and up close, great toughness, good save, start with FNP. And as we know, they can soak up an awful lot of fire, particularly if they're close to a Cronos or in cover to protect against lascannons and the like.

The_Burning_Eye wrote:

Possibly because 1 lascannon/melta shot can wipe out that entire unit, where against scourges there's a 1 in 6 chance that even if that lascannon or melta wounds, it does nothing.

Are you really trying to justify the survivability of scourges over wyches in a venom?
Am i being punk'd here?

Skulnbonz wrote:

The_Burning_Eye wrote:

Possibly because 1 lascannon/melta shot can wipe out that entire unit, where against scourges there's a 1 in 6 chance that even if that lascannon or melta wounds, it does nothing.

Are you really trying to justify the survivability of scourges over wyches in a venom?
Am i being punk'd here?

No, I'm just saying that comparing a unit of infantry on foot with anti tank guns with a unit of infantry in a transport that's anti tank in combat isn't really a fair basis for assessing the two units.

I (and I'm sure most DE players) have had the one in a million lascannon shot that blows up the raider and kills everyone on board happen to me (more than once, and it certainly didn't take a million games to happen, haha!)

In that case, lets look at the survivability of the wych's in venoms against a blob of 30 guardsmen with lasguns.

0 wounds.

Scourges? Wiped from the board.

There is no comparison of survivability. The venom can jink, has armor 10 and for the most part will deliver their cargo intact. Scourges are suseptable to every single form of shooting on the board.
As for versatility-
4 haywire shots and 1 carbine, nada in hand to hand
versus
5 pistol/ 1 thrown haywire
12 36" range poison
5 haywire in HTH
4++ save in hth
Combat drugs....


the list goes on and on.

If you had a choice of 4 scourges for 120 pints with haywaire blasters
OR
5 wyches with haywire in a venom for 125,

and you choose scourges, you may need to rethink your list building decisions.

I Agree, DE were beaten down with a nerf stick, and we need to make the best with what we have, but what we have is crap compared to what we HAD, and people seem happy about it.

I admit I am a tad befuddled by it.