Scourges or Hellions ? [SOLVED]

Hi there,

I've almost finished painting my first DE battle force including :

• 1 Raider (Dark Lance + Chain-Snares + Night Shield + Splinter Racks) - 95pts
  
• 10 Kabalites (9 Splinter Rifles + 1 Splinter Canon) - 105pts
  
• 3 Reavers ( 1 Cluster Calltrops + 1 Heat Lance) - 83pts
  

I've learned that wyches now suck, so I'm hesitating about the next unit I'll add to my force.
First the price of the box : around 30 bucks for Hellions or Scourges. I'll love to paint both of them, but I've to make a choice.

Here is my question : which of those units is the best for a beginner ? I've not played a single game yet, much gathering intelligence for now.

An other question : which equipment for both of them ?
Hellions are basically Wyches with high potential against low armored infantries such as cultists or guardsmen (Hellglaives).
Concerning Scourges, they are Kabalites which I can equip for hunting infantry (Sharcarbines) or for hunting tank (Haywire Blaster).
Anyway, both are jump infantry and I need to play them as it.

So what's your opinion ?
Thanks for reading.

PS : Venoms and raiders will be bought next.

Scourges. Haywire blasters or heat lances. very settled. Hellions are either the worst unit in the army/game or a an incredibly niche source of 20 wounds str5 on the charge starting turn 4 and HnR depending on who you ask either way hellions are not a good tool for beginners.

Don't think of Hellions as Wyches with jump boards, the comparison doesn't really work since it's not a straightforward asset swap. They are Reavers who can't afford jetbikes. and 3pts is not too much to pay for a jetbike.

Scourges are better in almost every way (slightly worse in melee). They are as mobile, more durable, have better ranged firepower, and have some great ranged options.
If you want to kill tanks, you have the choice of haywire for reliable, but kinda slow tank killing, or heat lances if you want to deep strike, melt something, and die.
While not as good as the other two options due to the price, I also like blasters on them, as its decent against everything, while the other two are more limited to vehicles, or in the heat lances case, vehicles and heavy infantry. Its much less reliable against tanks, so if its your only AT, definitely take haywire or heat lance.

As for the other weapons they can take, the heavy weapons are all bad due to lack of relentless, and the shredder has the issue of being a small blast, so isn't worth it.

Well, I dunno if I'd go that far. at 100pts for the squad shredders might well be worth it. If we had more/better AT options shredder squads might well have been a thing.

Other note: haywire/heatlance/blaster scourges are the only unit in the army that I have no qualms about discussing mixed weapons for. That isn't a good beginner decision though.

Thanks a lot folks !
Let's go for the anti-tank Scourge squad then !

EDIT : so what kind oh weapon for the Solarite (with 4 Haywire Blasters) ?

• Agoniser ? 25pts
  
• Power Lance ? 10pts
  
• Venom Blade ? 5pts
  
• Blast Pistol ? 15pts
  

Don't bother with anything on the solarite. Scourges suck in close combat and the don't want to be there despite those cc options.

In fact, don't bother with the solarite at all.

Agreed, dont get the Solarite please. It costs a bunch and adds no value to the unit. Scourges are our BEST anti tank unit in our codex, so treat them as such!

If you want to run wyches, you can always use them to "count-as" lhameans (from the Archons Court). The Lhamean has the damage output that wyches SHOULD have had (but 0 durability, so you are afraid of even overwatch. But for 10pts each, they put out a LOT of hurt).

I disagree. Solarites with venomblades are a direct inverse of giving a kabalite a blaster or taking a sybarite with a haywire grenade. Same price and everything. I consider it insurance and layover for when either all the transports are gone, or when the occupants try to bog you down. First thing to cut in order to find points tho.

Nope, a kabalite with a blaster can one shot a vehicle (results may vary) and a HW syb can shave some hull point off a a damaged vehicle. A solarite with a venom blade may kill 1 MEQ or 2 GEQ and die with the rest of the squad or stay locked in combat for the rest of the game.

Correct. The alternative is the unit kills nothing and gets swept. Don't play that game with me.

I confess that I have used Solarite with PowerLance more than once. It did its job in killing more than its worth in devastators or swallowed unfavourable challenge for Archon that charged the same unit, etc. But ofc the fifth scourge can just act as an ablative wound. Depends on the rest of the list ofc and the PfP. If you put them on board during deploy then its arguably bad idea upgrading the Solarite. if not, it can have its uses but dont take it "just because you can".

Scourge, 100% of the time. Heat Lances if you want versatility, Haywire Blasters for anti-vehicle.

Okayyy, forget about pigeon leader then, but what about the loss of ld 9 ? Nobody cares ?
But I've to pick 5 of them, so is the fifth going naked on battlefield or has he at least Shardcarbine ?

Don't want to ignite debate about Dark Pigeons, I just want to learn about squad compositions.
For this I use BattleScrib Mobile : 4 Haywires Blasters + 1 Sharcarbine = 120pts
Am I right ?

Yes.

As for the leadership 9 it's more or less irrelevant. If the moral check is being induced in shooting you're better off having the solarite having been one of the corpses, and if it's being induced in CC the ability to inflict a wound is as important. If 4 out of 5 people die and you did no wounds you're still likely getting swept at either leadership 4 or 5. If 2-3 people die best case scenario you're leadership 7 and statistically better than average to be safe BUT average case you're leadership 6 and are still statistically more likely to break and get swept. Again this is assuming the sgt isn't one of the corpses. If you only took 1 wound then with no sgt your leadership 7 and above coinflip in safety, if you have a sgt your leadership 8 and marginally safer, but not worth the 10pts, and if they inflicted a wound with their 5 point venomblade then you didn't lose the combat.

LD9 and the ability to tank challenges in and of itself is not worth 10pts. It might be worth 2/3 of a 15pt upgrade package tho.

That said what I should have prefaced this discussion or my previous comment with: like mixed weapons this is build specific and not a tool for beginners.

Yup, 4 special weapons and a shardcarabine. Remember to put the carabine in the front, so if you take a wound you don't lose a HWblaster/lance.

I think you want to restrict the weapon optons to haywire blaster or heat lance as those are discounted for Scourges. Blasters are a good weapon but are not 5 pts better than the other options.
As for the Solarite I have never considered using one. I think of Scourges as disposable and don't want to add 10% to the cost for an off chance of an improvement in combat.

While a Solarite might have uses, there's plenty of better uses for 10-15 points in the Dark Eldar codex.

Going to remind everyone that this is a 120 pt unit with 5 wounds, tasked with killing tanks. If you are getting assaulted, you are Warhammering wrong (or using your units as bait like a BOSS). SM Tactical sargents generally dont get equipped with power weapons, why on earth would you do this to your T3 shooting units?

Spend the points elsewhere, even a Sybarite in a warrior squad is a better place for CCW.

fisheyes wrote:

SM Tactical sargents generally dont get equipped with power weapons, why on earth would you do this to your T3 shooting units?

Because yours have Ini 5 and grenades, gets S5 on charge with PL T3 and puts out 4 attacks on charge and can charge 12+2d6''. And because expensive dudes like Devastators die as well as marines. That 36pts solarite with power lance can easily charge, challenge, put down 2 wounds easily, receiving none, rout and sweep the whole unit of devastators. The worst scenario is that you lock the devs in CC and they wont shoot 1 round. :-) So yeah... situational... but pretty awesome.

But while you're charging the devs you are not shooting at a tank. Wouldn't it better to spend the 20 points (for the solorite upgrade and power lance) to add to a fast close combat unit and leave the scourges to shoot an tanks. Examples would be points to towards an extra Grotesque or Sslyth, 2 Krymerae, 2 Lharmeans, an extra Reaver jetbike. I think they are all a better use of 20 points.

I would even go as far as saying spending 20 points on more shooting would be better than spending 20 points on the solorite and a power lance.

Also this gooes doublely for haywire blaster equipped scourges who should be near close combat unless things have gone wrong. The benefit of the solorite is so small and situationally I'd rather than spend points on things I think I'd get more out of every game.

Rathstar

Nah. My scourges usually go like this:
- Deepstrike
- Shoot tank
- Enemy turn sees most of them die. Usually all but one as spending an unit's worth of shooting on one infantry model is usually not worth it in their eyes. Until it moves and charges over 15 inches and starts raping. :-D

Also if I dont have a tank to shoot, I can shoot my assault blasters or HLs on infantry and finish them off in CC.

Its not as situational as you think. Those 36 points can make a mess of things. I wish I could take Power Lance with my other champions or HQs. But yea. its half the cost of a Venom and it can have nothing to charge safely (heavy weapons and units without overwatch).

Its all about the list. I woulndt even consider it without putting enough pressure on the enemy. As most people play shooty DE, I totally understand that this option looks very sub-par. However given PfP I still consider DE as secretly CC army. :-D

BTW I dont play HWB scourges as I play against variety of opponents and 30% of the times they would be next to useless...

Well, I congratulate you for playing in a meta where 5 T3 guys can DS into an enemy deployment area and not get obliterated.

In my area, they will get targeted by a squad of 10 bolters, and die/run off the board. For a beginner player working off the Get Started set, I think it would be better for him to assume the scourges will die very quickly (as occurs in most games) and equip them as such.

So going back to the origional question, take scourges with either HWB (if you need some sustained HP removal) or Heat lances for the single suicide drop. And keep them as cheap as possible (just maxing out the special weapons) so that you can spend it on other units.

My $0.02 anyway

Well in my meta the Tacticals are well forward when the Scourges arrive usually and the enemy backfield is usually Armour or Devastators - Scourges playfield. I do not play against castled SMs. :-D I could go on, but I dont want to deviate from the topic either, suffice to say it works for me if I build accordingly.

As for topic - I agree with fisheyes. Try HWB scourges, try Heat Lances. I wouldnt use Blasters, you have other options for those. Scourges' setups seem very similar in function but they play totally differently.

Meta be damned, we're talking about a beginner. He's not doing fancy tactical crap like building a list around a suicide squad of Scourge, he's wanting a general or multi purpose unit that he can buy without buyer's remorse later that's worth his investment.

In this case, there's no comparison given the options he listed - Scourge with Heat Lance is the way to go.