Smallest Kabalite Raiding Party?

I'm still at the stage of playing about with lists to see what I can make. I took a look at the Kabalite Raiding Party formation to see if I had the models to do it (the answer: yes, just!), and this is what I got:

Archon - Husk Blade, Soul Trap, Animus Vitae, Shadowfield - 155
Court - Sslyth, 2x Medusae, Lhamaean, Venom+cannon - 150
3 Incubi + Klaivex, Venom+cannon - 155

5 Kabalites, Blaster, Venom+Cannon - 120
5 Kabalites, Blaster, Raider+Lance - 115
5 Kabalites, Blaster, Raider+Lance - 115
5 Kabalites, Blaster, Raider+Lance - 115
5 Kabalites, Blaster, Raider+Lance - 115
5 Kabalites, Blaster, Raider+Lance - 115

5 Scourges, 4 HWBs - 120
5 Hellions - 65

Ravager, 3 lances, night shields - 140

TOTAL: 1480

That means I can happily bring this lot along to my local GW next week as 1500 is the normal list size on game nights. I figure I'll just chuck 2 extra warriors in somewhere to eat most of the 20 spare points.

Any thoughts on the list in general, or changes that I might make (within the confines of the formation)? As far as I see it, the only real fat in this army is the Archon's gear. I went for CC, because I want him to ride with the court - but would anyone recommend a different build?

Grab an agoniser on the archon, miles better than the huskblade now!
Why not use the 20 points for an incubi over two warriors? Gives them a bit of a punt in cc while they should still get rampage from the klaivex

I'd question whether your court is CC oriented anyway? Only really the Lhamaean is dedicated outside of the archon. 1 sslyth won't make it a combat unit, I'd say you're better off dropping the lhamaean (I put a spare medusa head on mine to make an extra model) and making it a dedicated shooting unit.

If you really want a CC archon then put him with the Incubi, but as Grub says, take an agoniser.

With your list though I'd keep him with the court, maybe take a blaster but use him solely to deliver the medusae into template range.

The_Burning_Eye wrote:

I'd question whether your court is CC oriented anyway? Only really the Lhamaean is dedicated outside of the archon. 1 sslyth won't make it a combat unit, I'd say you're better off dropping the lhamaean (I put a spare medusa head on mine to make an extra model) and making it a dedicated shooting unit.

I'm actually quite limited with models for my court, otherwise I would take more Sslyth and make it a bit more cc-ish.  I put the spare medusae head on a sister of battle, because I figured that was a fitting end to an old enemy of my archon, so this list has both of my medusae models in it.  The only court unit which is essentially unlimited is lhamaeans, because I proxy them with wyches.

I take your point about the archon though; maybe I will reduce him to a blaster archon and just cruise around looking for things to shoot up. I could use the points that frees up to boost the warriors slightly and/or get the extra incubus.  I'm not 100% sold on that idea though; the idea with the 4-man squad is to try to avoid overkill in the first turn of combat.

Or pop him with the incubi of coarse. He doesn't synergise that well with them but against meq you will rinse

Took my Raiding party out for a spin yesterday.  Ended up facing a Tau list consisting of 5x6 Stealth Suits, Shadowsun, a Flyer and nothing else.

I won the roll-off and opted to make him deploy first, not twigging that because all of his stuff infiltrates, he deployed nothing.  I castled in a corner of the board and he then blobbed his squads opposite me, at the 18" limit.  Fortunately, the Labyrinthine cunning of my Archon allowed me to seize the initiative


Despite the huge number of guns I had on the table, the number of models also meant that I obscured some of my own lines of sight and couldn't concentrate my fire properly.  This meant that I had to settle for taking a few suits each off 3 squads, and failed to achieve first blood.  He replied by exploding my Ravager and a couple of Raiders, which took most of the occupants with them.

In Turn 2 I was in a very strong position, with most of his force within assault range.  I shot them up first, without much effect (damn 2+ cover save), except for my 2 Medusae, who did a great job of toasting some stealth suits in a ruin.  In the assault phase I used sacrificial warrior squads to soak up his evil overwatch and then charged the big boys in.  My Incubi charged Shadowsun's squad but had a mediocre round of combat, killing 4 suits but losing 1 Incubus in return.  The enemy broke, but I got a '1' for my sweeping advance and was outrun by the Tau.  Oh, the shame!

He spent his second turn firing everything at the Court in an attempt to kill the Archon and get the Kingslayer Tactical Objective as well as Slay the Warlord.  The minions went down one by one, leaving the Dread Archon Luseferous facing 8 burst cannon hits.  Fortunately, the trusty shadowfield saved him from any scratch.

We had to abandon the game there due to time, and I won 3 VPs to 2 on Tactical Objectives.  As he was down to 3 of 5 squads, all under half strength, I am confident that I would have finished him off if the game had continued.

The Kabalite Raiding Party seemed to perform quite well, but having only played 2 turns against quite an unusual list, I hardly feel that I've put them through their paces.  The 5+ cover on turn 1 was irrelevent, as he only shot at vehicles and they jinked for a better save.  The re-roll on the Warlord trait table got me labyrinthine cunning, which, in turn, saved me from a silly deployment order misjudgement by enabling me to seize the initiative.  The 1-turn advance on the PfP table was also useful, as the early arrival of FnP saved a few models from an untimely death.

That is a very obscure list to play against. 2+ are great but frankly overwhelming fire will always beat it, I also think you would have had him!

Obscure lists can sometimes throw people's games off, same as a new, big model - I think you did well to recover from the deployment mistake.

I'm keen to give the raiding party a go at some point, did you enjoy playing it?

I did enjoy playing it. Trying to squeeze that formation into 1500 points forced me to basically build an MSU list, which I don't normally do, and I found that I quite liked that style of play.

On the other hand, I had no spare points and so I missed some of my favourite units - Reavers and Haemies - so I doubt I'll be playing this list for every game.

Cool, I used an msu style list the other day too, and it was lots of fun (maybe that might have been cos I won...)