Scourges

General discussion about the use of scourges

The scourge can be many things to the foe. It can be a creeping horror, making him think twice before entering terrain, a shock-troop leashing out against tanks or as a supportive horde-shredder. The key is to keep units of scourge from being top-priority targets.

Tank Hunting:

The enemy army is advancing, gaining ground. His forces hold ground against incoming fire from raiders and venoms. A unit of scourge take ground in cover to counter the advance to shock and kill enemy tanks and heavy infantry.

Weapon: Blaster/Haywire blaster

Zoning

The enemy army relies on heavy support and transports. The enemy deploys to move towards objectives. The scourge move to high ground or cover to threaten enemy pathways. Sort of a tricky output. The idea is to use them to make the opponent avoid or bolster up areas.

Weapon: Dark Lance

Harassing

The enemy has a horde-like army. He brings lots of weak ground troops, swarming the field. Scourges move and kill.

Weapon: Anti-infantry

The main role of scourge is tank-hunters. They are not resilient enough to be zoners and we have better options for anti-infantry.

I find them great at tank hunting, and decent at killing high T units if loaded out with blasters.
My local gaming area is also rightly afraid of them, as every time I've used them they've melted something expensive, so their good for mind games, depending on who you're playing.

I thought you couldn't use Jump with Dark Lances as they're heavy weapons? Making them a poor man's devastator squad makes me just rather bring a Ravager. Blasters are okay, but I feel like any weapon you take on them to go deep strike and vehicle hunting are just going to trade them out so you might as well send them on suicide missions with the best weapons to crack open tanks. I really dig heat lances on these guys for that reason if you decided that you must run them at all.

Also, units with wings need terrain tests. :/

Also, Riptides.

Blasters are different than dark lances. They're assault, but only 18" range.

I use haywire blasters. They have 24" range so if I deep strike 12 inches from the target, assuming no mishap, I will get my shoes off. They have always been a one and done for me though.

Lance scourges are usually one turn wonders for me. Haywire ones last a little longer, but still die super fast.

Well the issue isnt whether they die. Dark eldar die by the handful when its the opponents turn. The question is, will they do their job when called upon. if yes, then use. if no, then don't.

You really cannot stop casualties. So them being one and done doesn't bother me. Everyone is expendable...save the Archon of course. =)

I'm not really sold on the idea of Blaster Scourges. Blasters may be effective against MEQs as well, but Haywire is just so much better against vehicles. Also, if I want a DS unit with four Blasters, Trueborn can do that and bring a Venom with two Splinter Cannons along.

Dumpeal wrote:

The main role of scourge is tank-hunters. They are not resilient enough to be zoners and we have better options for anti-infantry.

Main role is for tank-hunting - agreed.

A 36" radius is a rather large area, don't you think? They can work from there, especially from high ground. Concerning anti-infantry, four blasts in a large unit can do damage.

Please make sure you fully understand the subject before you post.

Rokuro wrote:

I'm not really sold on the idea of Blaster Scourges. Blasters may be effective against MEQs as well, but Haywire is just so much better against vehicles. Also, if I want a DS unit with four Blasters, Trueborn can do that and bring a Venom with two Splinter Cannons along.

You can bring one unit of trueborn with blasters in venom costing 190 points. That's a pretty heavy unit. Plan on using it as shock infantry?

You can also bring two units of scourges for a better price points wise. One unit of scourges with four blasters is also less costly than respective trueborn in venom. The choice is yours.

I just feel the scourges would be more liberating.

unorthodoxy wrote:

Well the issue isnt whether they die. Dark eldar die by the handful when its the opponents turn. The question is, will they do their job when called upon. if yes, then use. if no, then don't.

You really cannot stop casualties. So them being one and done doesn't bother me. Everyone is expendable...save the Archon of course. =)

Good point. If you walk into the field with the mentality that says "all my units are going to die before they can do anything" then why bother playing. Importantly, the trick should be to have other top-priority targets before considering fielding the unit.

Hellraiser wrote:

Dumpeal wrote:

The main role of scourge is tank-hunters. They are not resilient enough to be zoners and we have better options for anti-infantry.

Main role is for tank-hunting - agreed.

A 36" radius is a rather large area, don't you think? They can work from there, especially from high ground. Concerning anti-infantry, four blasts in a large unit can do damage.

Please make sure you fully understand the subject before you post.

36" radius is not an area as large as you would think. But the problem is not the range. The problem with a zoner unit is to keep it alive to keep it's zoning role. Denying a zone for a single turn is hardly a good investment. Plus, you need to put them on position, and when you do it, the first turn, you'll snapfire because you moved. In the following ennemy turn, he will simply kill your scourges and you won't have denied anything.

As for the shredder. I was intrigued at first. I don't have my codex near me, so I don't know the cost for them. I'll assume it's around 15pts. For 60 points, plus the points for scourges, I'm sure you can find something better at killing mobs. I would invest in grotesques. I know, a grot squad is more expensive, but it's a LOT more versatile.

stevethedestroyerofworlds wrote:

I find them great at tank hunting, and decent at killing high T units if loaded out with blasters.
My local gaming area is also rightly afraid of them, as every time I've used them they've melted something expensive, so their good for mind games, depending on who you're playing.

I can give you one example of a play I did with Scourges on a long table. They deployed on the left side of the field with Dark lances. The enemy was running a chaos battlecruiser army, deploying three tanks. Two on the left side. There was terrain in the midst of the field. The scoruges moved to cover, holding the left side. This is what made a huge difference to the game. Had he sent one tank, it would have been shot down. He would have needed at least two. The first thing he did after my Scourges were in position was to move the tanks to the right side.

dumpeal wrote:

36" radius is not an area as large as you would think. But the problem is not the range. The problem with a zoner unit is to keep it alive to keep it's zoning role. Denying a zone for a single turn is hardly a good investment. Plus, you need to put them on position, and when you do it, the first turn, you'll snapfire because you moved. In the following ennemy turn, he will simply kill your scourges and you won't have denied anything.

As for the shredder. I was intrigued at first. I don't have my codex near me, so I don't know the cost for them. I'll assume it's around 15pts. For 60 points, plus the points for scourges, I'm sure you can find something better at killing mobs. I would invest in grotesques. I know, a grot squad is more expensive, but it's a LOT more versatile.

I think the key here is to have higher priority targets other than the Scourges in play. I do run a lot of grots and they are hard to miss on the field, completely agree. They are one example of things the opponent will want to target. As mentioned, these areas are held even if the enemy army is elsewhere.

Suffice to say that it all boils down to what game you play and your opponent's army.

The only time I've seen use for blaster scourges are in low point games where I'd want the ability to take out either vehicles or heavy infantry quickly with the same unit.  Haywire is really the only way to go in most cases but...

If you're depending on haywire for your anti-tank, you'd best hope your opponent never learns about the schism of mars legacy which grants a 4+ fnp type save (which stacks with cover saves) on any haywire glances and pens.  

I've used it on my achilles a couple times against craftworlders and admech - against a dark eldar army it'd just be cruel.

Hellraiser wrote:

Please make sure you fully understand the subject before you post.

The irony is real.

Hellraiser wrote:

I just feel the scourges would be more liberating.

Hellraiser wrote:

I can give you one example of a play I did with Scourges on a long table. They deployed on the left side of the field with Dark lances.

The problem with dark lances on scourges is that they can't move and fire them, so you're basically wasting their mobility, which you pay for. You could get 5 trueborn with the same 4 dark lances for 35 points cheaper, and use that 35 points towards a bastion to put them in, guaranteeing AV14 protection and a high angle of fire.

BetrayTheWorld wrote:

You could get 5 trueborn with the same 4 dark lances for 35 points cheaper, and use that 35 points towards a bastion to put them in, guaranteeing AV14 protection and a high angle of fire.

Actually, Trueborn can only take two heavy weapons.

So they might be a viable option after all.
But I tend to use small true born squads with Lances instead. That's not one big juicy target.

Scourges with Lances seems an odd unit to me. About the same points per lance as a Ravager, but far easier to destroy. Mobile but with heavy weapons. Would be interesting if they had relentless or something to make Lances seem a real option.

Kantalla wrote:

Scourges with Lances seems an odd unit to me. About the same points per lance as a Ravager, but far easier to destroy. Mobile but with heavy weapons. Would be interesting if they had relentless or something to make Lances seem a real option.

It's to bad that the jack ass that wrote our codex hated us enough to not give scourages relentless or consider them jet pack infantry instead of jump infantry.

I usually have two units of 4hwb-scourges. They perform well, except when facing a cunning opponent who knows the importance of killing them quickly. When not, they usually kill a LR turn one, and then keep killing vehicles until there's no vehicles left to kill. with 4+/6++ FNP, they're surprisingly hardy too, and sometimes, they do other stuff too.

Although my scourges never been MVPs, they have almost always performed well.

CurstAlchemist wrote:

It's to bad that the jack ass that wrote our codex hated us enough to not give scourages relentless or consider them jet pack infantry instead of jump infantry.

Sorry, but I'm really sick of hearing this.
The 7th ed. codex authors didn't hate Dark Eldar, they just didn't take the project as serious as they should have. They wrote it to be compatible with 7th ed. rules and the official miniature line, not more, not less. And that was obviously not enough. But nobody at GW had the goal to make Dark Eldar, or any army for that matter, not worth playing.

Rokuro wrote:

CurstAlchemist wrote:

It's to bad that the jack ass that wrote our codex hated us enough to not give scourages relentless or consider them jet pack infantry instead of jump infantry.

Sorry, but I'm really sick of hearing this.
The 7th ed. codex authors didn't hate Dark Eldar, they just didn't take the project as serious as they should have. They wrote it to be compatible with 7th ed. rules and the official miniature line, not more, not less. And that was obviously not enough. But nobody at GW had the goal to make Dark Eldar, or any army for that matter, not worth playing.

It's true that there probably wasn't any maliciousness involved in the design of our codex but incompetence was certainly rampant!

Rokuro wrote:

Sorry, but I'm really sick of hearing this.
The 7th ed. codex authors didn't hate Dark Eldar, they just didn't take the project as serious as they should have. They wrote it to be compatible with 7th ed. rules and the official miniature line, not more, not less. And that was obviously not enough. But nobody at GW had the goal to make Dark Eldar, or any army for that matter, not worth playing.

Actually this isn't something I can blame on the writers of our 7th Edition codex for adding, they just copy pasted it from the 5th edition codex and didn't adjust it (this is why I shouldn't post when I'm not completely awake). With that said they definitely set out with an intent to strip down our codex and they succeeded, this edition removed much of the uniqueness of that the Dark Eldar had in the 5th edition Codex.

Whether it is 5th edition or 7th I don't really understand the purpose of giving a unit that uses it's mobility to stay alive a weapon that can't be properly harnessed to it's full potential.

Further, writing a codex so close to a new edition release without some foresight to new mechanics or changing trends is an unforgivable lapse in judgment. Incompetence to the point of negligence, and negligence deep enough that it can easily be mistaken for malice at a glance.

Rokuro wrote:

CurstAlchemist wrote:

It's to bad that the jack ass that wrote our codex hated us enough to not give scourages relentless or consider them jet pack infantry instead of jump infantry.

Sorry, but I'm really sick of hearing this.
The 7th ed. codex authors didn't hate Dark Eldar, they just didn't take the project as serious as they should have. They wrote it to be compatible with 7th ed. rules and the official miniature line, not more, not less. And that was obviously not enough. But nobody at GW had the goal to make Dark Eldar, or any army for that matter, not worth playing.

So much of this. Nailed it.

Evil Space Elves wrote:

Rokuro wrote:

CurstAlchemist wrote:

It's to bad that the jack ass that wrote our codex hated us enough to not give scourages relentless or consider them jet pack infantry instead of jump infantry.

Sorry, but I'm really sick of hearing this.
The 7th ed. codex authors didn't hate Dark Eldar, they just didn't take the project as serious as they should have. They wrote it to be compatible with 7th ed. rules and the official miniature line, not more, not less. And that was obviously not enough. But nobody at GW had the goal to make Dark Eldar, or any army for that matter, not worth playing.

So much of this. Nailed it.

I disagree. You can see by the characters that they removed that it was at least PARTIALLY a knee-jerk reaction to their lost sections of the lawsuit against chapterhouse. This was a time when the previous(then current) CEO openly admitted that he didn't think the game mattered at all, and that it was just about the models, so they made kneejerk rules decisions to get rid of all the characters that didn't have models without doing ANYTHING to fill that void.

Almost all our options became MORE limited as well. People make blanket statements about them not TRYING to make our codex worse, but they killed all our special characters amongst over 30 other direct nerfs like making huskblades AP3 and demiklaives +1S instead of +2S. Those stat nerfs are EVERYWHERE in the new codex, but people somehow seem to forget them. This in an edition that makes poison only effect GCs on 6's, while basically our entire army is armed with poison. The level and number of nerfs made were inexcusable. I won't let people forget that. Definitely NOT "nailed it".