1000 point, deciding between scourges or talos

Hello all!
I'm in a 40k campaign with my local gaming group and the next few games are going to be at the 1k level, and I'm torn between using scourges or a talos. Getting the scourges would make me go RSR, but we aren't doing too much maelstorm missiones so obsec isn't too important. Which do you think is better with the rest of my army?

List 1:
CAD
Archon, haywire grenades, huskblade, shadowfield, soul-trap
4-man Incubi squad with Klaivex in venom (archon rolls with them)
2X 5-man warrior squads with blaster in venom
2X quad-blaster scourges
empty venom
Talos

List 2:
RSR
*same as above list without Talos*
quad-haywire scourges

The Talos is a new addition to my army and I think it would be really cool to use, but I'm not sure if its more useful than the haywire scourges or not.

Personally, I wouldn't spend so many points on an archon that can't wound much in CC. You've got 140 points tied up in a CC character that wounds T4 on 5+ and can't pierce 2+ armour. If you were concerned with points efficiency, you could also fit a lot more things in your list just by making different upgrade decisions.

Example:

Succubus w/Archite Glaive and Haywire Grenade 95
3 Incubi w/Klaivex in a venom with dual cannons 135
2x 5 warriors in a venom w/ dual cannons 210
2x 5 Haywire Blaster Scourges 240
1x Venom w/Dual Splinter Cannons 65
Talos w/Twin-Linked Haywire Blaster 130
1x Ravager w/ 3 Dark Lances 125
TOTAL: 1000 points

This setup is pretty close to your original list, but adds a ravager instead of the blasters you had, swaps the blasters for haywire blasters on the scourges, adds a twin-linked haywire blaster to the talos, and swaps the archon for a succubus with archite glaive(who can now penetrate with AP2, and wound T4 on a 4+, 3+ after getting furious charge, or with +1S drugs.

It ends up giving you more firepower each turn, while simultaneously giving you more target saturation(more models).

The Archon is my campaign warlord, so I don't want to change him for fluff purposes. He doesn't need to penetrate 2+ either, as the Klaivex can eat challenges and tear through most units.
I don't actually have a Ravager, but I do plan on getting one eventually, otherwise I would run that as that list looks awesome, but as it is, blaster scourges are my main source of darklight weapons

Okay but your really spending 40pts for inferior armaments to put on your scourges. HWBSC are much more effective A-AV at range, and HLSC are significantly better A-AV at half range, and damn near as effective anti-personnel weapons in the same range. The difference between str6 and str8 is more or less non-existant (outside non-bike spacemarine IC sniping) against non-vehicles in most contexts, and not really worth the additional cost outlay. TBH I'd rather invest in a Solarite with a venomblade to make use of the Plasma grenades you have already effectively paid for.

So how about this?
Archon, haywire grenades, huskblade, shadowfield, soul trap
4-man Incubi squad with Klaivex in venom (archon rolls with them)
2X 5-man warrior squads with blaster in venom
2X quad-heat lance scourges
double heat lance scourge squad
Talos heat lance

I feel like the odd squad with only 2 heatlances could be better spent elsewhere. I would probably also recommend turning one squad into Haywire blasters so that your army range is tiered and your not necessarily running for a range that your opponent can be prepared to meet you at.

Other than that, and this is explicitly preferential and more addressed at the community: Isn't an agonizer better than a huskblade in this configuration since you will get reroll to wound's vs marines beginning on turn 4 (assuming 1 charge on the soul trap)?

I would say an agoniser is better in most cases, yes. The sole example of when it wouldn't be is when fighting in a challenge with a multi-wound character that has T3 or lower. I would have mentioned it in my original analysis, but seeing as I was recommending against the archon in general, I figured "why bother?"

I couldn't think of anything else to buy with the 100 points I had spare other than more scourges (which I never say no to) or a beastmaster pack. I think the scourges are better, but I'm open to suggestion

As for agonizer vs huskblade, the agonizer is most certainly better in almost every situation, but I just can't imagine my bling'd out Archon going with a whip instead of a sword.

stevethedestroyeofworlds wrote:

As for agonizer vs huskblade, the agonizer is most certainly better in almost every situation, but I just can't imagine my bling'd out Archon going with a whip instead of a sword.

You're in luck then, because agonisers come in all shapes and sizes, and can be represented by a sword, whip, knife, axe, whatever.

Dark Eldar Codex wrote:

An agoniser is an extremely sophisticated weapon that drives a victim’s sensorium haywire, causing excruciatingly severe pain as nerves burn out from overload. Though agonisers come in a variety of forms, the most common are toxin-soaked whips.

In our last codex, it went into more detail explaining what "variety of forms" meant. Every agoniser I ever use is represented by a sword.

BetrayTheWorld wrote:

You're in luck then, because agonisers come in all shapes and sizes, and can be represented by a sword, whip, knife, axe, whatever.

In our last codex, it went into more detail explaining what "variety of forms" meant. Every agoniser I ever use is represented by a sword.

Oh, I didn't know that
Well, Agnonizer it is!

Mine uses a Lance for his agoniser.

I like that list betray and Steve. Have you considered to get a big bunch of Khymera instead of the half scourges squad?

On the other hand, two heat lances might be enough to deep Strike and destroy a critical tank. If you're lucky....

CptMetal wrote:

Mine uses a Lance for his agoniser.

I like that list betray and Steve. Have you considered to get a big bunch of Khymera instead of the half scourges squad?

I did think about that, but I don't really want to proxy that many of the puppies. I do like them though, but the models are so expensive to get a bunch of

Quote :

On the other hand, two heat lances might be enough to deep Strike and destroy a critical tank. If you're lucky....

They can also do decently vs infantry, with the 9 poison shots and two lances. Not the best, but still something

So, I used the list with the heat-lance scourges today in a 2v2. It seems I underestimated how bad their lists were going to be, and my army kinda rolled over them. One squad of scourges popped the relic melta predator tank, another killed some guardians and a warlock, and the last one finished off a unit of guardians with a weapons platform that had been shot at by venoms. The Talos died before doing anything, which was sad.

Overall, it did really well, but that is also largely the fact that the enemy didn't really make good lists.

If your still interested in opinions on the Talos, I would say leave it. Its nice having at least 1 thing that can take a little punishment.

As for the scourge/beast debate, I love the beasties. But in many a game I would love to have some extra AP kicking around to kill off some heavy infantry/ light vehicles (two shots are not going to do much against AV 12-14)

fisheyes wrote:

If your still interested in opinions on the Talos, I would say leave it. Its nice having at least 1 thing that can take a little punishment.

yeah, its nice to have something to draw fire from my venoms

Quote :

As for the scourge/beast debate, I love the beasties. But in many a game I would love to have some extra AP kicking around to kill off some heavy infantry/ light vehicles (two shots are not going to do much against AV 12-14)

Yeah, having mobile ap2-1 is really nice, even with low ROF.