My covenesque 1500p - will we live long and prosper?

Greetings!

As a new inhabitant in the Dark City (recently moved here from Barbarus, although I will keep my summer resident there), I would be most grateful if you would comment on my intended force. I have created it purely from personal taste (it's not intended as a tounament list or anything, I play only friendly games), but I am curious on what my strengths and weaknesses are, in your eyes. I have left out all wych elements on purpose, even though they are lovely models. Perhaps the inheritance from Barbarus compels me to use coven models instead...

Here we go...

Archon w agoniser and phantasm grenade launcher, ghostplate & clone field
4 incubi, incl klaivex w demiklaives (and be maybe bloodstone)
Venom w splinter cannon

Haemonculus w agoniser or venom blade and liquifier gun or shattershard
9 wracks, incl acothyst, w liquifier gun
Raider w flickerfield

10 warriors w blaster
Raider w flickerfield

10 warriors w dark lance or blaster or both
Raider w flickerfield

5 scourges w 2 haywire blasters or splinter cannons

Ravager w flickerfield

Ravager w flickerfield

Talos w TL haywire and chainflails and extra cc-weapon

Edited: Probably some points left now

Where are my primary weaknesses? I promise, I will not torture you for long if you point them out to me.

Tactical considerations?

Grateful for feedback.

Im curious as why you would give warriors a dark lance and a blaster since they are mainly tank buster weapons and that means the turns your shooting at tanks your wasting the 9 splinter rifle shots. Swap them out for splinter cannons. If you want to have infantry with tank busting perhaps drop the archon and the incubi and put a unit of trueborn in the venom with 4 blasters. Also I would drop the ravager for a void bomber now that you have the points to do so. Supersonic with 2 void lances is better than 3 dark lances open topped vehicle. This is just the changes I would make and may not fit your style.

The Voidraven would be neat, absolutely. The ravager feels more like a classic though and the Voidraven still only has AV11 (or am I wrong?). Furthermore, the voidraven is mentioned to be crewed by speed freaks (arena folks)...

The reasoning behind the anti tank weaponry of my warrior squads, is along the lines that you have to open the can before you can eat the beans. I rarely see infantry that doesn't have transports and thus an extra darklight weapon might come in handy. Perhaps blasters on both squads would be preferred though, since the lance forces me to stand still. I can still mowe down infantry, a blaster shot kills infantry even better than a shard...

Trueborn with blasters are tempting. Perhaps instead of a warrior squad, but then I only have two troop choices left. Would it be wise to drop the Cronos? I'm not sure, the AP3 and the pain token distribution feels useful.

Your are correct on it being armor 11 and it is manned by a reaver elite but warriors arnt very coven either . I love my cronos aswell and i always find myself putting aside 100 points to gaurantee that he gets in there. I also runa talos except all I give him is chain flails and extra close combat weapon. I see your reasoning about wanting extra dark lances but warriors are poorly equipped to destroy vehicles which is what the dark lance/blaster is designed to do even if it does kill infantry well enough one model at a time. On your archon why a clone field over the shadow field there is the chance you will roll the 1 on the shadow field but that same chance is there that you will roll a 1 on your clones and thats probably not going to save you if your opponent decides he wants your archon dead. Maybe splinter racks on the raiders that carry warriors its 10 points and I always tell people not to go to crazy with points on raiders because you are going to lose them but getting to reroll hits is to good to pass up.

Hmmm, I'm just worried i won't have enough anti tank. Dedicating the warriors strictly to anti inf would probably mean I have to scrap one of the units and try to fit in a group of blaster toting trueborn in a transport.

Splinter racks? A 33% increase in performace of the splinter shooting. 6 or 8 wounds from a 9 man squad. Worth considering maybe, but I really don't want my raiders to be expensive, since I don't expect them to survive that long.

Against infantry hordes I suppose I have enough fire power as is, though. Monsters shouldn't be a problem either, with all the poisoned shooting. Against elites, with high armour and FnP (blood angels, grey knights etc), I don't know how this army will perform. And how will I fare against really shooty armies, like tau or IG?

HQ: Archon is better suited with the Shadowfield, its the same points and way better overall.

Hamie has terrible statline for an IC, I would try to stay away from combat with him (unless you have to ofc) and I like keeping him cheap, so Venom Blade and a Liquifer, maybe a shattershard for me.

Drop the klavex, he is another incubi's worth of points, and 4 incubi+archon is already going to blow out a squad.

Troops: I dont like special weapons on the Acothyst, as he losses an attack. Your already going to drown most squads in poison anyway, why need it???

Id stick with the AT warriors, but either go 10 with a DL and Blaster, or 5 with Blaster. The first giving you more AT, the second giving you more points to add more AT Also drop squad leader

FA: No leader... please... such wasted points...

HS: All is fine.

Your problem right now is lack of AT, all those points used in leader upgrades could go towards a Blasterborn squad.

No squad leaders... well, I'm used to including them due to need of power fists and/or power weapons, but here they don't really contribute. Ld9 of course, but you reckon it's not needed when they're not going into close combat?

5 warriors with a blaster sounds right for one of the squads. Actually, scrapping the squad leaders, and some fancy stuff on the HQs, and reducing both warrior squads to 5 and a blaster each, frees up enough points for 4 trueborn w blasters and haywire grenades (just in case) in a retrofired raider. Yay or ney?

Kurdush wrote:

I am curious on what my strengths and weaknesses are, in your eyes

All answers are based on this.

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Archon w agoniser and phantasm grenade launcher, ghostplate, clone field (maybe also blast pistol)
4 incubi, incl klaivex w demiklaives and bloodstone
Venom w splinter cannon

Klaivex serves no point not viable for a regular Incubi - if an enemy squad can survive your initial hit, and chooses to ignore the Incubi and murder the Archon, and can do so, then +1 leadership isn't going to make a difference at that stage vs. that opponent. Especially when you consider how many points you're burning for 'meh' upgrades there. Also, what's with all this shooting? You really don't think you'll be fleeting to get into assault Turn 1? Well...maybe, but any enemy that leaves your AV 10 skimmer alive for that long probably deserves to have you use a Bloodstone and maybe a blast pistol on him - but it will hardly make a difference at that stage, will it?
I think a Shadowfield would serve you better.

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Haemonculus w agoniser and liquifier gun or shattershard (and perhaps a hex rifle for fun, killing that dread knight in turn 1 would be a laugh)
9 wracks, incl acothyst w agoniser, w liquifier gun
Raider w flickerfield, perhaps disruptor?

The Hex Rifle is, hands down, one of the worst items in the codex. Seriously, crunch the numbers sometime. Functionally it works vs. multi wound units somewhere around 1% of the time. Seriously.
Other than that, this looks fine.

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10 warriors, incl sybarite, w blaster
Raider w flickerfield

10 warriors, incl sybarite, w dark lance
Raider w flickerfield

I don't have any issues with the lance in the one squad. I see no value to the Sybarite - statistically he isn't changing your leadership hopes vs. shooting, and if you're assaulted you're dead anyway.

I do think you have an unclear idea of what these units are doing for you. You could get the value of what you're getting here for less points, and better functionality in other ways.

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5 scourges, incl solarite, w 2 haywire blasters

Purpose of the solarite is...?
Serious question - if something kills 2 of you, causing a Ld check while not putting the solarite at the risk of death anyway, what is this mystical unit that is only going to put two wounds on Scourges? A squad of 5 Tac Marines will do more than that. This unit is built to be a suicide unit, drop in, blast with haywires, and force the enemy to deal with them. Either the enemy will be an idiot and leave them alone (in which case no Solarite needed) or the enemy will mush them like the easy to mush unit they are (in which case no Solarite needed)

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Ravager w flickerfield

Ravalicious.

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Talos w TL haywire and chainflails

Footslogging forward? Hmmm, okay... No big issues, though tactically he'll be a bit slow compared to your other assault tools, and will be easy to delegate as far as your opponent is concerned.

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Cronos w spirit syphoon

Please inform me of the units that are going to benefit from this guy by the time he starts generating tokens.
He'll be easy to kill - by the time he starts generating the only unit he'll really be helping is the Talos, and...seriously, you don't need to toss that many points after a Talos.
The Wracks flat out don't need him.
The Incubi will already be in assault and killing before he generates anything.
The Warriors are shooting from boats and don't need FNP, much less FC or Fearless.
The Scourges will either be deepstriking, in which case they are dead or not on the board yet - or if they're flying forward will already be dead or just don't really need FNP anyway...though you could give it to them for giggles.
So...he's there to help himself and the Talos.
Yay?

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Where are my primary weaknesses?

Primary weakness is you seem to have lack of focus about what units are doing and how they're doing it and for what purpose. You have stuff like those Warrior boats that don't seem focused, and the Chronos of uncertain purpose, and the Talos footslogging up when the rest of your army is assaulting Turn 1-2, and the shooting Archon squad.

Don't get me wrong, for friendly play this army looks fun and will probably do fine (depending how friendly your foes are ) But you do have a lot of points being burned on things that I'm not sure how you're planning to use them or for what.

I also, personally, think your Troop selections are sparse. Currently you have a couple of units doing things a Troop selection could do as well/better and for same/less points. I'd probably want to field more Troops because 1. it's fluffy 2. Generally people think armies that field more Troops are more friendly centric (this is a mistake, but, whatevs) and 3. because with 66% of missions being about objectives, it never hurts to have more Troops.

Final weakness I see is - you have one Ravager, one dark lance warrior, and 2 Raiders serving the job to open up transports so your Archon and Wracks will have stuff to Assault, so that doesn't give you a lot of time to pop open things before those guys are there wanting to assault. I'd probably want a bit more alpha strike lances in the army, or to adjust what sort of assault tools I was using.

And great answers they are, thanks. You are right about me having a lack of focus on what units are supposed to be doing, and how and why and perhaps even when and whence. I'm still only warming up with this army.

I'll drop most of the squad leaders for sure, no need to waste the points, since I guess the list is friendly enough anyway. The klavex might have a part to play thanks to his potentially higher strength with the demiklaves.

Apart from some thought about how to get the most out of every unit, and some equipment issues related to this, one conclusion is that the Cronos, convincingly sabred, might have to go to let a second Ravager enter the list. Some more AT feels urgent.

The Talos stays, since it will be a nuisance with the haywires (I plan on releasing it locked on a suitable target and hopefully hindering that target from doing much damage, the Excorsist or Land raider or similar is an ideal victim) and a threath thanks to the high strength attacks. He'll probably soak up some heavy shooting. Too bad heavy shooting isn't needed to take out the transports though...

The scourges... well they really are a sad lot. I have thought about how to make them useful, since I adore the models, but I struggle. Dual splinter cannon could probably be more efficient. The wealthy and daring scourges shouldn't go to combat to get themselves killed as soon as they show their beaks.

Thanks for the feedback.

Im going to have to disagree with you on the cronos thor. He is still a T7 S5 monsterous creature with 2 close combat attacks that can threaten low armored tanks. He also has 2 ap3 weapons and giving warriors FNP even if they are in a boat is still very helpful as that boat will eventually be destroyed I view him passing out tokens as more of a bonus then a reason to take him.

If the tokens are a bonus why not just take a Talos which is otherwsie superior? Str 7 and d6 attacks will own Str 5 and 2 any day of the week, really - especially when it comes to eating vehicles. The better WS certainly doesn't hurt either.

Warriors in boats don't need FNP - sure, I'd rather magically have it then not; but it's not like I need to take a Chronos for that, surely.

I think the Cronos is a wonderful item to have in the Dex...I'm just not sure I've figured out what sort of list he really belongs in; but certainly it has to be a list that wants to generate Pain Tokens as quickly as possible.

You cant say the Talos is superior when they do 2 totally different things. The chronos is ranged support and the talos is close combat mainly. The chronos being ranged helps negate the fact that he lags behind the army. The Talos still has to get there to be effective and I dont know many good players that let him get there.The chronos having a large blast and a flamer template has more killing potential then a talos with his d6 attacks against anything other than termies and obviously the talos pops tanks easier.

Ranged support? He has a flamer, and a 20 point upgrade to get a large blast marker that he can lob an "amazing" 18" with a BS of 3, also known as 'scattering 4+ inches over half the time' oh, and it hits at Str 3 - meaning you need to hit at least 3 MEQ to manage to kill one - and that presumes they're not in cover.

I could get more killing done more efficiently at range for similar points in a multitude of ways. If we want to talk about ranged support - then for what he does he's basically inferior to other Heavy, Troop, Elite, and probably even Fast Attack slots.

He *really* is about the token generation to my mind. At that point the reason to take him is for the tokens.

I mean, compare him and his killing potential to a 3 Dissie Rav if we want a 'same purpose' comparison. The Rav is in the same force org slot, costs 5 more points after getting the Cronos his vortex - will be able to start attacking Turn 1 (Cronos can manage Turn 2 if the enemy is aggressive, but other than that probably Turn 3) also has AP 3, but at better strength, and BS, and better ability to drop wounds on squads barring that blast marker really finding a nice home on a big mob. Also, I'll happily debate AV 11 at 36" range vs. T 7 at 18" (or less for flamer) range as far as survivability goes. Especially when the Cronos is an obvious charge to lock down range threat (really his big detractor in my mind - Str 5, WS 3, A 2? Five Tac Marines could lock him up for a few turns - if they had a fist they'd probably kill him, and he's functionally obligated to get into assault range to really start laying down pain - it's embarrassing).

A ravager can also be killed by one shot where a cronos can not. A ravager is also useless when the units around it are locked in close combat where a cronos is not. If your going to say a weapons bad based on its str then an army that needs 4+ to wound anything and with AP 5 on all are troops weapons.
The only armies that dont get their saves against splinter weapons are orcs and IG. Im not saying its the end all of are heavy choices im saying it is very good at what it does. Ive played maybe 3 games where it didnt take atleast its points back and then some. It comes down to your meta. where i play theres alot of IG players and tau and marines and not having to get into melee is very useful especially with blood angels and space wolves being as ridiculous in close combat as they are.

Judgex83 wrote:

A ravager can also be killed by one shot where a cronos can not. A ravager is also useless when the units around it are locked in close combat where a cronos is not.

A Ravager is also a threat to units anywhere on the map where a Cronos is not, a Ravager is protected intrinsically by range from a lot of weapons and a Cronos is not - we can go in circles on this one.
Plus, let's be frank, that h2h lockdown and range limitation is certainly as hindering (more so in my opinion - but certainly equal) to the limit that is the Ravager's liability to be one shot killed.

As a restatement - I agree the Cronos is viable and has purpose. I just think the purpose is pain tokens and not shooting capability. For its cost - its BS is terrible, and its ability to generate wounds reliably is terrible. It is, however, quite good at generating the occasional Pain Token, which as a force multiplier is an excellent tool for the DE army, though I'm not quite sure how to exploit it best due to the Cronos' other limitations.