The Burning eye marches on

The list I used can be seen here

I didn't take detailed notes so it's just a very general report.

My opponent was using Iron Hands, and had a tooled up unkillable warlord (2+/4++/4+FNP) joining a unit of 5 THSS terminators. The was an ironclad (without drop pod - he forgot) a sicaran and then quite a bit of infantry (a 4xlascannon dev squad, two small lascannon squads and a grav squad).

I got the first turn (thankfully) and though I failed to do anything significant (lance fire was appalling and we were playing length of the table so haywire scourges were out of range) I managed to weather the return fire pretty well (sicaran had to move 12" and rolled appallingly for its shooting)

turn 2 the scourges took control, 2 HP's off the ironclad and another two from the heat lance unit off the sicaran, stunning it. I poured quite a bit of fire into the terminator unit, killing one. His shooting brough down a venom for first blood and put a few HP's on some raiders.

The terminators basically walked up the middle of the table (he didn't want to DS them as he figured I'd just have boosted out of range anyway - he'd have been right) but I had a stormer of a turn on turn 3, taking out the sicaran, the ironclad, all 5 terminators (lances did diddly squat, one gunboat with splinter racks and a 10-man squad of warriors both in rapid fire range did for them though - everything counts in large amounts!

That turn was basically the game I think, and I said as much to him at the time - I should note it took him until turn 6 to pass any of his 6+ FNP rolls - in the end even I was hoping for it to happen!

After that, it was really about mopping up, the heat lance scourges proved they have a secondary purpose by melting a few guys in power armour, and against admittedly limited return fire, their 4+ armour followed by 5+ FNP made them remarkably resilient (especially when I charged into combat where he couldn't bring those lascannons to bear). Sheer weight of fire brought down the rest, with one exception. His blasted warlord just would not die, I managed to cause one unsaved wound on him in the whole game (although to be fair, my lance fire was limited in being able to target him, first he was with the terminator unit then he spent a lot of time in combat chopping his way through my kabalite warriors.

In conclusion, I was really happy with how the list performed. My opponent's army was certainly not optimal, he'd got a lot of points invested in the terminator unit and his warlord, although the number of lascannons whilst quite frightening meant that deciding whether or not to jink with my raiders was a calculated gamble each time, and i often didn't try because the odds were against a single lascannon blowing up a raider anyway (he blew the lance off one, which I then used as mobile cover for the rest).

I'd be interested to see how the list performs against more of a horde style army, but I think there should still be enough volume fire there to cope (two venoms, two gunboats and a razorwing).

I'm developing this list to play at an 1850pt tournament, so I'd be interested to see what you'd add to make it up to that level (the one constraint, the list has to include a special character, so I'm thinking Urien Rakharth as neither of the other specials really gels that well with the purpose of a shooting army)

I can definitely see your reason for concern against a horde list.

I think if you add points, it needs to be for addressing that exact concern. Your force is GREAt against elite armies I am willing to bet but when your shooting is doing like... 20-30 points of damage at a pop to the enemy, there could be concerns. You gotta kill more at a time. The Kabalitees should not be taken lightly with splinter wracks in this regard so you dont have NO answers, but a true(ish) horde is definitely the next thing to address. otherwise a subpar force might upend you unexpectedly, which is always a bummer.

My first thoughts are taking a court, some templates, some sslyth and plenty of attacks in case i need to throw something into combat. Alternatively I'd also consider a decent sized grot unit with a genuine combat character in there (possibly Lelith, thanks to needing the special character).

The Grotesques, on their own ARE legitimate melee threats. No need for a character in there. The Court of the Archon is proven as far as I'm concerned, as a legit threat. Two Medusae and some Sslyth to accompany them in a Raider. Done. Very potent for that kind of anti-horde work.