2000p giving DL one more chance

So this is the last try ill give the DL i have been playing for like 7 years and my DL have so far just killed 2 monoliths and last night made 1 hull point on a chimera... getting a new die set b4 trying this to.

HQ
2x Lhameans

Troop
5x 5 kabalite (5 splinter rifles in venom with extra splinter cannon)

Fast
2x Scurges (4x heaywire blasters)
3x Rasorwing (Dark lances, night shields)

Heavy
6x Ravagers (3x Dark lances)

Any thoughts?

That's a lot of dark lances! Why not taking two Raider instead of a Ravager? You're more mobile and have much more hull points and if you jink, you're not losing that much fire power...

Meh, I'm not really much of a fan of dark lance spam in the current meta. They're fine for taking out vehicles and buildings, but expensive and not cost effective for taking out elite infantry(TEQ).

Furthermore, they're simply far too expensive to depend on to take out things like wraithknights when it takes(on average) 28 dark lance shots to kill a wraithknight in contact with a ruin. Last edition, it would have taken 18 shots, and poison would have hurt it. Now, wraithknights are a major concern for us, and we don't have the tools to deal with them. Since it's a gargantuan creature, even our fear/freakshow shenanigans don't work against it without bringing in allies to do the damage with psychic shriek, which is where I'm headed with this.

In the current meta, if you want to be competitive, I think allies are unfortunately -almost- a must. If you just want to play fluffy and stick to your chosen theme, I don't blame you one bit. And you can do so while still being effective, you just get taxed to do it, so it's not optimal. The how below the break.

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Solutions:

In a word: Reavers.

For MUCH MUCH more than a word, click me.:

Hm... the raider idea is not half bad, always had trubble getting to shoot all 3 DL anyway. Yea the reavers are nice i usualy run 12 of them but lately i have been squaring off against the guard and they ignore all cover, and the new montka formations are crazy strong. The wraith knight is a hard cookie, i usualy go with a Archon bomb to just insta gib it. But right now the guard is wreacking me alot more than eldar.

Archon bomb instagibbing a wraith knight? What do you mean?

Wraithknights are fearless, so archangel doesn't do anything at all to it, and all poison weapons only wound on a 6, while you'd require 28 blasters to shoot it to death in a ruin...so I'm having trouble understanding what sort of Archon bomb could instagib a WK.

If it's possible to do with DE, I'd love to hear how.

Archon bomb is sadly not DE only units, but get Eldar allied detatchement and a unit of wraithguards, a realy handy unit if most of your opponents usualy run titans.

Oh, right. And for the low low cost of 305 points too!

Unfortunately they're sort of a one-trick pony though, since they're super slow after their initial drop-in.

What sorts of guard are you facing? Do they run lots of infantry, only vehicles? I'm guessing towards the latter since you've taken so many DLs.

With the opponents you said you're facing in your current meta, Tau and Guard...it sounds like they're begging to meet a grotesquerie. I might take a few mutts to eat overwatch(Khymera in single-model squads).

Yea its a high cost unit but if they take out that baneblade/wraithknight/Hierophant in one turn im happy. And yes after that i mostly let them hold a point and soak damage.

The guart player can field everyting... right now hes playing around with the montka formations. The fact that buggs me the most is that he can have 2-3+ coversave on every infantry unit and at the same time negate all my coversave...

Well i most often play against Guard, Eldar, Tyranid, Orks, Tau, Chaos, Chaos deamons. And the only one i cant take is the Guard. The rest fall like nothing.

Grotesquerie? Are Grotesqes not T5? The guard have Democharges everywere and basilisks and alot of things like that, one nice hitt and they are dead.

The basilisk can't one shot a Grotesque as far as I know because it has Strength 9 but it needs 10.

Surprise him with a grotesquerie and when he is massing demolition charges take a shooty approach.

Yeah, they're T5 unless they get +1T from the grotesquerie chart, then they become T6.

But demo charges don't really mean much to grotesques. Demo charges are S8, and grots are 3 wound models that still get their FnP saves from the demo charges. Furthermore, since demo charges have a range of 6" and can't be used in melee against grots(who are not MCs), the guardsmen are risking killing themselves using them. Even if they DON'T kill themselves with scatter, if they're bold enough to be within range to use demo charges, they're about to eat some crow.

Equal points of grotesques vs. guardsmen: That's 3 grots against 21 guardsmen. The grots take 0.75 wounds on average in overwatch. They then kill 9 guardsmen on average in the initial charge. The remaining guardsmen do  0.65 unsaved wounds at initiative 3. Guardsmen lose combat by 8 and have to take a leadership test where they need double 1's not to run/get swept. So they're running, and since grots have initiative 4 vs the guards initiative 3, they're likely to die in a sweeping advance.

These are just AVERAGE results. You could completely wipe them, or they might have to take leadership on a 4-5 or less not to run. But they're NOT winning combat, all variance accounted for. Honestly, 1 grotesque could probably kill 21 guardsmen in CC in one round as long as the guardsmen didn't roll above average. If they did, it'd take 2 grots instead. Fortunately for us, they come in groups of 3.

P.S. Ohh, and all of those numbers are WITHOUT the grotesques bonuses from the grotesquerie.

I once used grotesques (not the grotesquerie!) and chewed through half his army. Even when only one grotesque was left it slaughtered several units.

Oh, i thought it was s10 on those. Hm mabey my grotesques will see some action once more. Still thinking 200 lasguns will end them tho xD

200 Lasguns ends everything, since that's 4000 points worth of upgrades on 15,000 points worth of units.

But remember that they start in transports that don't really hurt them when they blow up. So first turn, you flat out their raider 30" into enemy territory and jink the first time something shoots at them. Then hope they waste all their lascannon shots killing the raiders carrying the grots.

Then, the grots still get their FnP vs the lascannons, and don't get instakilled.

Now, if they somehow bring an orbital strike and have the balls to use it right next to their stuff, you might be toast. But so might they, in that case, with no scatter reduction on a S10 AP1 large blast.

Ment shots but still to get 200 guns thats 800p just go 50man conscript, give them order for extra shoot now you have 600 shoots, but i think conscripts are restricted but still thats 150 shots with one squad.

Would taking a grotesque unit of 4 and just trubo boost them forward first turn, and than deepstrike in that 1 chronos 1 talos 1 hemi, with a wwp do any good? get that fnp down to 4+ and giving them a even bigger consern?

Sorry, thought you meant lascannons, not guns. My mistake. Lasguns only wound grots on 6's, and with conscripts shooting, only hit on 5s. So with 50 conscripts shooting in rapid fire range(ha, good luck), with extra shot that's 150 shots which equals....49.5 hits, 8.2 wounds, 4.5 wounds unsaved after armour and FnP saves, on average. And once the grots charge, the lasguns are actually a liability, since it makes the conscripts have only 1 attack each in melee.

That would leave 3 grots left out of a 4 grot squad at 140 points, 10 points less than the cost of the conscripts shooting them. It's easy to determine how many wounds they'd do on the subsequent overwatch since they were hitting on 5's before, it'd be exactly half. So the wounded grot would die and there'd be about 2 unwounded grots left in the charge. They'd kill 5 conscripts on average, and the 45 conscripts would do 1.35 unsaved wounds on average. So they'd lose combat by 4 and likely retreat only to be swept in a sweeping advance. Unless, of course, he put a commisar in that unit, in which case, a 6th conscript dies and they stay locked in combat to have 6 more die the next turn, while 140 points of grots tie up 175 points of IG for the rest of the game. The grots are fearless and never going to run, and the conscripts are never going to do enough wounds to kill the final grot before round 5 or so.

Same scenario, except you have a khymera eat overwatch, and the conscripts didn't get to shoot at the grots before they charged? The grots kill 10 in 1 round, forcing a double 1 morale test and sweeping them on the first round. Or, with a commisar, they continue killing about 10 per round thereafter, and lose maybe 1 grot the entire fight.

Well im going to try out the grotesqs, making a list now. If i am not misstaken he dont have to overwatch the khymera, he can just wait and overwatch grotesqs.

New list:
2x realspace detatchment (going for throat not objectives)
2x formations

1 Dark artisan, spirit probe, wwp, stinger pod)
1 Grotesquraie 2x 3 grotesqs with Raider ( enhanced aethersails, nightshields, shock prow). And one hemi

2x lhaemens with raider (dl)
4x 5 kabalite warriors with shredder and venom (splinter cannon)
6x raider (dl)
4x 3 Reavers with cluster caltrops.

Actually, you can't shoot at anything if you're locked in combat, so as long as the khymera makes it into combat, he can't overwatch, even if he didn't overwatch the khymera.

I wouldn't call taking 6 raiders with dark lances "going for the throat". You could get almost 3 dark lance ravagers with that 360 points, and have 50% more dark lances with a front AV of 11 instead of 10, making them immune to bolter fire from the front.

If you're going for killy, get as many front-loaded weapons as possible. If you're going objective secured, THAT is when you get a bunch of raiders, but you get them in the troops slot so they can obsec objectives. In this particular list though, you NEED the lance shots. At 2k points, even with the 3 ravagers, you're kind of light on AT.

Shredder is also meh...

In attempting to stay mostly with what you're suggesting here, this is how I'd do it:

2 Formations
1 Dark artisan, spirit probe, ichor injector, stinger pod) 325

1 Grotesquraie 2x 3 grotesqs with Raider w/ nightshields 420
1 Haemonculus

2 CADs 1255
2x lhaemens with raider (dl)
4x 5 kabalite warriors and venom (splinter cannon)
4x 3 Reavers with cluster caltrops
3x Ravagers w/3 Dark Lances each
1x unit of 4 mandrakes w/nightfiend upgrade

TOTAL: 2000

It's almost the same thing you put together, it's just got obsec and 3 additional lance shots. Also, dropped the wwp from the dark artisan, since it's not making your army tougher to hurt from reserves. It's better to walk/run it up the table. It will still be able to charge the same things at the same time of the game.

You're currently just giving up objective secured for almost no logical reason at all(that I can tell).

Either way, good luck with whatever you decide!

Dont have the rules on me now but i was under the impression that i need to declare all charges, than he select overwatch. Was thinking "more hp, more targets, and i often run into trubble shooting the 3ed dl with the ravager, as in gets blocked by line of site.
Was thinking wwp to arrive next to grotesqs but mabey have them on the table to soak shoots instead.

Also if you would ignore what i have made and do a list of your own, how would that look?

I thought that you got to choose who charged first. That would mean that even if the dog dies to overwatch, your Grots will be able to charge without worry.

I have not been able to look it up in my rule book but done some reading and seems like i have had this one wrong. I thought that you declare all the charges than your opponent makes overwatch, and then you roll to see what unit makes it into the fray and who doesent.
But seems like i declare one charge and resolve it completly before declaring another charge... THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING!

Charge goes like this

1) Choose 1 unit to charge with
2) Pick unit to make the charge at
3) Opponent may Overwatch
4) Charge
5) Repeat with New unit

But about the Dark Lance Spam, This is something I always remind myself.
It takes 36 DL to kill 1 Knight (on average).

Remember that even Armor 11, you are still looking at a 50/50 to just get a pen hit, not counting the 33% chance to miss, and not counting a Glance roll, on average its 9 shots (without Explode hits) to kill a Rhino.

Yes, what fisheyes says is correct: Your opponent doesn't get to fire overwatch till you decide to resolve a charge. So you just choose the khymera first.

As for what I'd make if I would ignore what you've made...it might not even be DE. Haha, it would depend on what "restrictions" I was sticking to and what the houserules were in the format I was playing in. If I was going pure DE(which I never would with the current rules) in an ITC format that limited gargantuan lords of war to 1 per army, I'd probably do something like this:

2 CADs 1610
2x Lhameans in dual cannon venoms 150
3x 5 kabalite warriors in dual cannon venoms 315
1x 5 kabalite warriors in a raider w/Disintegrator cannon 95
5x 3 Reavers with cluster caltrops 315
5x Ravagers w/3 Dark Lances each 625
1x Ravager w/3 Disintegrator Cannons 110

1 Grotesquerie 390
2x 3 Units of Grotesques in raiders 320
1 Haemonculus 70

TOTAL: 2000 points

I still based this list off yours. It's difficult to make a list without SOME sort of theme, and I figured it may as well include models you have. But this is the type of list I would consider fielding if I was playing pure DE. It's a touch light on ranged AT, but against opponents that take a lot of mech, you can supplement your dark lances with cluster caltrops charges and such.

If I was ever going to take a RSR detachment, it'd probably look something like this:

RSR Detachment 345
Lhamean in venom with dual cannons 75
2 Kabalite Warriors in venoms with dual cannons 210
6x units of 1 Khymera 60(<-or replace with any other fast attack choice that is offensively good)

I'd take something like the RSR detachment above if I was trying to run an assaulty DE army in order to have inexpensive throwaway units to eat overwatch attacks. But as you can see, I put the minimum number of units into that detachment to reach my goal of having 6 units of individual khymera. That's the best way to use RSR. Only use it the minimum necessary to achieve your unit count objective.

But I would like to be clear: I generally don't play pure DE these days. I'm a competitive player that builds lists to win tournaments, and I don't find pure DE to be that competitive. So any list I build for ME will most likely be a combination of factions using the allies rules(chosen from eldar, DE, orks, necrons, tau, harlies, and now corsairs, since those are what I own...I should sell some armies.).

Well ill admit i have gotten a few new ideas from you now, so i have some lists to try out. And not so sure you can make a pure DE list with models i dont have (20k+ army).
With this new insight to overwatch i might try out to spam some khymeras and get a few charges in.

I'm actually reading the new Corsairs rules now, might try to ally them in.

Yeah, corsairs sound pretty cool. I've got a few tricks I intend to try with them myself, but I'm not going to publish them till I play in a GT or few with them.

Glad you were able to glean something from my gibberish! Good luck and let us know what you come up with!

Guardsmen blobs and Conscripts frequently have priests in them, so they're fearless without losing more men to Commissars, and can give all the guardsmen in their unit rerolls to wound, or rerolls on their saves. They might also have a flamer or 5. This might skew the results of your mathhammer a little.

Grotesques are still phenomenal against an army of S/T 3 infantry and either 12/10/10 or 14/13/10 vehicles. If there's ever a time worth including Grotesques (everytime ), it's this match up.

Personally, against Guard, I think this is one of the few match ups where mass Raiders are better off than Ravagers, due to the abundance of Str3 guns (lasguns) but lack of Str4 guns (bolters), access to orders that ignore cover, and strength 5+ heavy weapons literally everywhere.

His 200 lasgun shots can't hurt either of them anyway, but his Leman Russ with 29 St5 shots per turn, or his Vendetta with triple twin-linked Lascannons, or his Meltagun Veterans with Meltabombs and ignores cover order, will kill either of them without much trouble.

So I'd choose 4 Raiders over 2 Ravagers every single time.