Scourges

BetrayTheWorld wrote:

The level and number of nerfs made were inexcusable. I won't let people forget that. Definitely NOT "nailed it".

Sorry, it's not often that a Red Dawn clip becomes remotely relevant
Wow, this thread really got sidetracked into negative Nelly territory. Let's get back to the topic of the thread rather than having it devolve into "our codex sucks." I'm not saying that we have to love it, but if we're on a dedicated forum for Dark Eldar it certainly isn't going to invite fresh players if every thread becomes a Dark Eldar codex bashing thread. We can obviously disagree with each other's views but let's keep threads on topic.

How many scourges would you use to give them a better survivability? 5 dudes is a bit small if you don't want to sacrifice a special weapon as soon as someone is shooting at you...

I like haywire, point for point the best HP stripper in our dex... Problem is scourge are quite squishy.

Mine often survive most/all game. Mostly because raiders loaded with grotesquerie, then the grots, reavers, then more reavers, venoms, ravagers, allies and objs holders attract all the attention/firepower that can get LOS.

Scourges can do work.

CptMetal wrote:

How many scourges would you use to give them a better survivability? 5 dudes is a bit small if you don't want to sacrifice a special weapon as soon as someone is shooting at you...

None, honstly. 16 points/model is a bit much just for additional wounds.
When I'm worried that my Haywire Scourges aren't going to last long enough, I just bring another unit with another four Haywire Blasters. That way I'm not wasting their anti-tank potential.
Also, smaller units are less likely to mishap while deepstriking.

Rokuro wrote:

CptMetal wrote:

How many scourges would you use to give them a better survivability? 5 dudes is a bit small if you don't want to sacrifice a special weapon as soon as someone is shooting at you...

None, honstly. 16 points/model is a bit much just for additional wounds.
When I'm worried that my Haywire Scourges aren't going to last long enough, I just bring another unit with another four Haywire Blasters. That way I'm not wasting their anti-tank potential.
Also, smaller units are less likely to mishap while deepstriking.

Seconded. Don't waste ur points.

Yeah nevermind the intent, our rules make me wanna puke too.
Anyway, back to the topic of Scourges, yes?
I used 3 units, 1 w/ hwb, 1 w/ Blasters, 1 w/ Heat Lances and an Archon w/ Wwp.
The Heat Lances work good, even if a little expensive with Archon wwp.
The Blasters don't do much, even less as they start dying, Hwb neither. Except drawing a lot of fire.
Was thinking about using larger squads than five, to have Carbine Scourges as meatshield for the precious special weapons, is that a good idea?


Take this with a grain of salt though as i'm not overly experienced, results may vary.

Edit: Oops, i totally ignored that there was a page 2 lol.

Evil Space Elves wrote:

it certainly isn't going to invite fresh players if every thread becomes a Dark Eldar codex bashing thread.

Yeah, well, there's one disconnect. I view ignoring all the nerfs and being "positive" as simply lying to noobs to get them here. If people show up here wanting to play DE when they have ALL of the information presented to them, that's great. If they show up because some dillusional persona from the internet told them DE are amazing right now, that's a problem.

MarcoAvrelis wrote:

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. With 4+/6++ FNP, they're surprisingly hardy too.

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

This echoes my sentiment on scourges pretty well.

Coughs.* To steer up the thread: Most seem to be down-prioriticing the scourges while some actually see their use. Interesting. Tell us about your experience with them where you have used them to your fit!

Personally, I see possibility in using them as swarmer infantry that can kill tanks. After all, five haywire blasters can do some work in an area where units of various troops are fighting are fighting. At Times, units of scourges can be like a toothpick in the eye on the föe.

So, pirates, drop your anchor and let rotten scourges take wings...

Hellraiser wrote:

Coughs.* To steer up the thread: Most seem to be down-prioriticing the scourges while some actually see their use. Interesting. Tell us about your experience with them where you have used them to your fit!

Personally, I see possibility in using them as swarmer infantry that can kill tanks. After all, five haywire blasters can do some work in an area where units of various troops are fighting are fighting. At Times, units of scourges can be like a toothpick in the eye on the föe.

So, pirates, drop your anchor and let rotten scourges take wings...

I didn't say they were not good. I use them frequently. I just don't think they can deny area efficiently. For area denying, we have more efficient options.

Evil Space Elves wrote:

BetrayTheWorld wrote:

The level and number of nerfs made were inexcusable. I won't let people forget that. Definitely NOT "nailed it".

Sorry, it's not often that a Red Dawn clip becomes remotely relevant
Wow, this thread really got sidetracked into negative Nelly territory. Let's get back to the topic of the thread rather than having it devolve into "our codex sucks." I'm not saying that we have to love it, but if we're on a dedicated forum for Dark Eldar it certainly isn't going to invite fresh players if every thread becomes a Dark Eldar codex bashing thread. We can obviously disagree with each other's views but let's keep threads on topic.

Agreed. The idea with the thread is to see where we do have use of scourges.

Ps. clip made my day.

betraytheworld wrote:

Yeah, well, there's one disconnect. I view ignoring all the nerfs and being "positive" as simply lying to noobs to get them here. If people show up here wanting to play DE when they have ALL of the information presented to them, that's great. If they show up because some dillusional persona from the internet told them DE are amazing right now, that's a problem.

Why don't you start your own thread where you can compare the current from the old codexes instead. This criticism is unproductive and irrelevant!

No it isn't, and this response of yours is even less relevant. Context is everything and you are deliberately removing the context from that quote and attacking a stance that is not being made.

Your previous attempt to revive this conversation was equally offbased, ignoring the actual content contributed in previous comments, and in no way, shape or form attempted to interface with those criticisms. This conversation has been done to death in multiple iterations in tactics.

The simple fact is regardless of which build you take them in they are squishy if targeted and rely on more immediate threats attracting fire in their stead. For this reason they are ill suited to a number of roles suggested earlier on, such as zone control or Dark lance sniping, and at 16 points per model they are generally considered to be too expensive to take wound padding with, and are overly expensive to take as anti-infantry in any but the most horde-heavy metas.

If either of those caveats don't apply to your local meta then these generally non-optimal strategies could be effective, otherwise the tried and true of min-squads of mobile anti-tank (4 haywire blasters), or suicide deep strikers (4 heat lances), are the only roles that Scourges are actually the optimally cost effective options for. Will other people still have amazing games and win with less optimal choices? Of course. But it's naive to treat that snapshot as the whole world.

amorrowlyday wrote:

No it isn't, and this response of yours is even less relevant. Context is everything and you are deliberately removing the context from that quote and attacking a stance that is not being made.

Your previous attempt to revive this conversation was equally offbased, ignoring the actual content contributed in previous comments, and in no way, shape or form attempted to interface with those criticisms. This conversation has been done to death in multiple iterations in tactics.

The simple fact is regardless of which build you take them in they are squishy if targeted and rely on more immediate threats attracting fire in their stead. For this reason they are ill suited to a number of roles suggested earlier on, such as zone control or Dark lance sniping, and at 16 points per model they are generally considered to be too expensive to take wound padding with, and are overly expensive to take as anti-infantry in any but the most horde-heavy metas.

If either of those caveats don't apply to your local meta then these generally non-optimal strategies could be effective, otherwise the tried and true of min-squads of mobile anti-tank (4 haywire blasters), or suicide deep strikers (4 heat lances), are the only roles that Scourges are actually the optimally cost effective options for. Will other people still have amazing games and win with less optimal choices? Of course. But it's naive to treat that snapshot as the whole world.

This is not me trying to "sell" the idea of scourges. I am only bringing them up for discussion and replied to things in which I saw fit. Since the scourges are a completely reasonable unit to have a thread about I thought it would be wise to steer the discussion back to the topic since I saw very little actual discussion of their use in this second session.

Hellraiser wrote:

amorrowlyday wrote:

No it isn't, and this response of yours is even less relevant. Context is everything and you are deliberately removing the context from that quote and attacking a stance that is not being made.

Your previous attempt to revive this conversation was equally offbased, ignoring the actual content contributed in previous comments, and in no way, shape or form attempted to interface with those criticisms. This conversation has been done to death in multiple iterations in tactics.

The simple fact is regardless of which build you take them in they are squishy if targeted and rely on more immediate threats attracting fire in their stead. For this reason they are ill suited to a number of roles suggested earlier on, such as zone control or Dark lance sniping, and at 16 points per model they are generally considered to be too expensive to take wound padding with, and are overly expensive to take as anti-infantry in any but the most horde-heavy metas.

If either of those caveats don't apply to your local meta then these generally non-optimal strategies could be effective, otherwise the tried and true of min-squads of mobile anti-tank (4 haywire blasters), or suicide deep strikers (4 heat lances), are the only roles that Scourges are actually the optimally cost effective options for. Will other people still have amazing games and win with less optimal choices? Of course. But it's naive to treat that snapshot as the whole world.

This is not me trying to "sell" the idea of scourges. I am only bringing them up for discussion and replied to things in which I saw fit. Since the scourges are a completely reasonable unit to have a thread about I thought it would be wise to steer the discussion back to the topic since I saw very little actual discussion of their use in this second session.

It's perfectly fine to try to get your topic back on his track. You exposed an idea and it's not because it switched to "dark eldar sucks" that it means everything was told on this topic. YES, dark eldars have been nerfed. YES they sucked compared to OP armies. We ALL know that. It's told in virtually EVERY topic in this forum. Can we just focus on the questions people ask, instead repeating the same thing over and over, topic after topic?

Earlier in this post someone mentioned that if scourges move they have to snapfire. Are they not considered jump infantry?

JUMP units are not relentless, So If they move and attempt to fire a salvo or Heavy weapon they will suffer the associated penalties. Since no one takes Splinter cannons on Scourges the relevant bit is that this means they fire snapshots with dark lances. Every other choice is an assault weapon.

Ahh no way. I'm not nearly as excited about scourges now. I thought they had relentless. Thanks for clarification!

According to your last post you're giving them haywire blasters as per standard play. Why do you care if they have relentless?

I'm new to 40k and i can tell i'm missing something here. Do haywire blasters change relenteless in some way?

No, Haywire blasters do not interact with relentless at all as they are assault weapons. Relentless essentially says "I have not completed any movement action this turn even if I have". The only hand held infantry level weapons that have movement restrictions are Salvo and Heavy weapons. Salvo weapons use the first number if the model moved, and the second if they didn't in terms of number of shots. Heavy forces snapshots if the model moved.

Haywire blasters, by virtue of being Assault weapons do not interact with your ability to move or charge in any way except for the basic rule that they have to charge the unit they shot at (unless it's a dead transport in which case they can charge the evacuees).

Cool. I thought they wefe heavy weapons. Thanks for the knowledge.

Hellraiser wrote:

Why don't you start your own thread where you can compare the current from the old codexes instead. This criticism is unproductive and irrelevant!

If someone makes a statement in this thread contrary to the opinion that the new codex is nerfed, responding to that is relevant to the thread, as that's where the thread conversation was led. I see no one jumping to stop the original poster from mentioning his stance on the topic, but only my rebuttal. If you want to be the thread police, you have to do so on both the posts you agree with, AND those you don't. But fortunately you're not the thread police anyhow, nor the arbiter of what is or isn't related to the topic at hand.

Now this IS off topic, though tangentially related simply by your posting here: I'd totally believe it if I were told that you were an undercover GW employee. You have the traits I'd expect a rules team member to have. Full of fluffy enthusiasm for the dark kin, but with a distinct lack of understanding of the rules of 40k.

But to be honest, the constant mentioning of the fact that we were hit hard with the nerf bat and that we are doomed is quite tiring.

Me, personally, I have a problem keeping scourges alive because they always seem to be top priority. Maybe I could use them as distraction units for my grotesquerie.

I would think about taking more than a minimum squad for wound padding purposes in smaller games. Say... 1000 pts and down maybe. At least if you are only bringing one squad. Since the incoming fire in smaller games tend to be a little bit lighter, it could keep them effective for one extra turn.
In bigger games, min squad, max haywire.

Mathematically larger squads of un-upgraded Scourges (i.e carbine equipped Scourge) are quite efficient at killing infantry. Not as good as Venoms or gunboats but probably a close third. You could leverage this by fooling an opponent into thinking they weren't dangerous - as they prioritise those Venoms and/or gunboats your rapid moving Scourge are doing work on their troops unmolested. They'd make a decent surprise assault unit too. Pouring carbine fire into a unit and then charging them should make short work of anything that isn't a marine or combat specialised. Scourge equipped this way might theoretically make for a good objective assaulting force, particularly late game where they can be where they need to be and have the PfP boosts to give them the edge.

Other than the above theoretical Scourges come in two flavours. You have the suicide squad heat lancers who's job is to blow up that one thing that needs to die asap and to draw fire away from your other units once it's job is done. Use those to ensure you're other units get a turn of safety from fire. The other flavour is the haywire Scourge who's job is to float around the edges of battle popping any vehicle that dares try to breakout towards your backline or towards objectives. They're as much a deterrent as they are a destroyer. Use these to manipulate the battlefield to pin your opponent into area's you want them to be in. Haywire Scourge are also good for baiting enemy units to come out and deal with them, pulling them out of position for your other units to take advantage of.

Splinter canon Scourge can be very useful but are massively expensive for what they do. However if you can cleverly place them and they are unmolested by enemy fire the weight of their splinter fire is significant. They might have a role in utterly obliterating certain infantry squads in a single round of shooting, but you'd need to spend a turn getting them into position without retaliation for that to work (so you can maximise the salvo shots). As part of a super-alpha strike they might be useful as a one-shot. But their only advantage over a couple Venoms would be a safer DS. One unit is less likely to scatter badly than 2 and with a WP you only have one unit to get into position.

Dark Lance Scourge are frankly useless without relentless. Scourge should be buffed to have this rule so they can use the weapons that come on their sprues.

Blaster Scourge are kind of pointless when you can take Blasterborn to do the same job (and you can run them in a Venom for extra versatility). There's nothing blaster scourge can do that blasterborn can't also do but in a safer way.

I was looking at the mathematical options for killing infantry, and Scourges are marginally cheaper per splinter shot than Venoms, but suffer from being easier to kill. If you want a mobile splinter unit, Beastmasters are a slightly more efficient choice than Scourges, and can jump into cover without worrying about dangerous terrain. Hellions are similar but with a better melee attack and hit and run.

Splinter Cannon Scourges likewise are better replaced with Venoms, as moving nullifies their effectiveness.

Dark Lance Scourges are better replaced with a Ravager, and Blaster Scourges with Trueborn.

Seems Heat Lances and Haywire Blasters are the viable layouts, and generally as a suicide squad.