200 point escalation narrative event

Hey all! I recently joined a group doing a narrative event, and I am the lone DE player. We create a character and follow their progression through the story. They start out as an upgrade to a troop squad. I'm deciding to go the extra hard route and play Wych Cults by following a Hekatrix journey to become a Succubus.

The first round or 2 are 200 points, 1-2 troop 0-1 elite 0-1 fast attack, all with 0 upgrades except for your character being a unit upgrade. Vehicles are allowed if they have a 30 combined armor value, which will increase later.

My first round is:
4 Wyches w/ Hekatrix in a Venom (no upgrade to double splinter cannon sadly)
6 Hellions

It comes out to close to 200 points. There are objectives, so even if you don't win the battle, you can still win the objective. And the loser gets requisition points as well as the winner. These points will be used to increase army size and add upgrades.

I may be foolish doing Wych Cults, but I'd rather have a Succubus later on than an Archon to be honest.

What are your thoughts?

My 1st thoughts were, you've opted to take the worst 2 units in our Codex! lols

Do you have to build on the same list, or can you swap things out later on?

What is your thinking on taking hellions over reaver jetbikes?

CurstAlchemist wrote:

What is your thinking on taking hellions over reaver jetbikes?

This ^^^

Even without the CC, Reavers are great, especially at this points level.

Thinking it over a bit, I would also suggest a Raider, A10 & 3 S5 AP2 shots would easily outperform a rifle Venom imo & is cheaper.

If u HAVE to take Wyches, to be constructive as well as critical, I would maybe run:

Unbound DE 199

5 Wyches, incl. Hekatrix, Disi. Raider (115)
3 x Reavers (48)
3 x Mandrakes (36)

Ideally charge with Reavers, then Wyches to avoid the dreaded overwatch fails, or keep them in the Raider for as long as possible

Mandrakes, because they will get you the objective point, if it's in cover.

Good luck & let us know what u decide.

Thanks for the insight. I do not have any Mandrakes, so that is not an option for me right now. As for Reavers, I opted for the Hellions due to having more bodies on the field, and the Hellions also have more poison shots. 12>3/6. Having them zoom around for objectives would not be bad, but aside from the T4 I can only see upsides for the Hellions in this level. S4 or 5 depending on which drugs I roll at AP5 was hard to pass up.

As for the first question, no I do not have to take the same force and build upon it. I can do whatever I want. I have 2 games tonight, I'll do one with Hellions and one with Reavers and let you know how they end up. I'm trying to be that guy who thinks everything in the codex can work, so I'm trying it with Wyches and Hellions.

I had not thought of using a Raider. That would most definitely be better that this point level with a high number of Marine players. Dissies always perform well for me.

Wish me luck!

Good Luck!

I too was once that guy, one of my 1st boxes was Hellions as I thought they looked awesome, sadly they only now sit in my display army.

EDIT

Also, the Glaive is on my proxy Succubus, so 1 bit does get fielded

EDIT ENDS

They do look awesome zipping in & out of the Venoms & Reavers

Reavers just have too much to offer over Hellions, the 3+ Jink, HOW, H&R & the same combat drugs the Hellions do.

At lower point games, my Reavers have virtually always been my MVP's, usually distracting my foes from shooting other things, then surviving the said shooting

Yeah I am expecting the game with the reavers to go a bit better than the hellions. Although the things you mentioned about what reavers have over hellions... Don't hellions have hit and run? And also HoW (although being jump troops they have to charge X amount for it to work)?

Given the ultimate lucky situation when hellions live long enough and I get the Strength drugs, hellions can have S6. Although rare, that is incredibly high and can do tons of damage to vehicles.

I'm sure I'll lose my desire to make hellions worth it, but the models do look incredible. I hate for them to go to waste.

Yes, both Hellions and Reaver Jetbikes have Hit&Run. Hammer of Wrath's only requirement is that they successfully make their charge and that the model with HoW be in base to base or base to hull contact.

Wouldn't Hellions be S5 maximum (is there something I'm forgetting?) S3 Base, +1 S for the hellglaive then a possible +1 S if you luck into the drug.

Of course if you just want to use them that is fine, there aren't many times where someone would entertain the idea of taking Hellions and if this is a time where you feel you want to by all means do it.

Hey all, I got 3 games in tonight with this league. And I have to say that the hellions performed quite nicely. My opponent, tau, had never seen dark eldar before, and he will not soon forget them.

First game I used 5 hellions, Hekatrix +5 wyches in a raider. 200 points exactly. The hellions completely slaughtered his 3 stealth suits and then took on 3 breachers from the flank. 4 hellions died, but one escaped and ended up taking an objective. My wyches and raider took off to get my secret objective of slay the warlord. Needless to say, tau don't like disintegrator cannons to the face. Only losing 1 Wych to a round of fire, the remaining wyches killed 1 breachers during shooting, then overwhelmed the rest in CC. One 1 over watch shot went through the whole game.

The 2nd game I tried using jet bikes and although it was a close game, I lost in the end due to his stealth suits sitting on an objective and getting points. I liked the mobility of the reavers, but I missed that ranged fire power.

3rd game I went back to my hellions and got lucky with the strength drugs. So they were S5 and wounding things easily. Then turn 4 came around... Furious charge! S6 hellions! It was impressive and I rather enjoyed using them.

Fun games overall!

CurstAlchemist wrote:

Wouldn't Hellions be S5 maximum (is there something I'm forgetting?) S3 Base, +1 S for the hellglaive then a possible +1 S if you luck into the drug.

Furious charge for S6. So long as there are still Hellions about by that time.

So that was what I was forgetting.

Good to hear you had fun playing and that the Hellions did well for you.