Scourges or Hellions ? [SOLVED]

uhm. No. for a beginner Haywire blasters is the way to go.

Guys, it depends on meta. If you need to strip a few HP safely from 24", you want the HWB. If you need to kill a tank ASAP, you put in the heat lances. As others have said, blasters work best elsewhere (there is no discount for them in the scourges, and dark light weaponry is fairly Meh IMO).

But glad to see this back on topic.

But if you have no idea what you are doing hwb have a larger margin of error and resilience due to the increased range. I actually think heatlances have more utility over all, but are harder to use properly.

I tend to agree. HWB when you are exploring scourges. HL when you know what you are doing.

Probably unpopular opinion, but I think "depends on local meta" is a cop out answer that gets tossed around a lot. I can make an argument for the most absurd list building decisions, and just claim that it works in my meta. At this point, the dude is asking for beginner advice, so apply the 80/20 rule and forget about meta game, which he isn't in a position to play anyway(that's not a shot at OP, just the reality of the situation).

The reality is that when comparing HWB scourge to HL scourge, the HWB are for one thing and one thing only, and that is killing vehicles. They are dogshit against anything else. The Heat Lances offer more flexibility with slightly less vehicle killing ability. In my opinion, Heat Lances are the obvious choice for a beginner until said beginner has more flexibility in list building due to availability of models. At this point I just don't think OP can let a unit go to waste if his opponent doesn't bring a vehicle, which is entirely plausible at 500 points, or even 750 points in the case of some armies. If you ask me, for that reason the Heat Lances come out on top because they're literally never useless.

I think it more useful to try the single-purpose, safer (through range) approach just to get the feel of the unit. 36'' threat range is far far better than 21''. HLs are more "competitive" but I believe it more beneficial to every player to try out and find what he wants to use through experience and not net-knowledge. I dont deny what you say. I merely think that conclusions is for everyone to arrive to.

@aurynn That's an opinion I can totally understand and get behind, there's merits to it as well. What I mainly objected to was the "but muh meta" argument that was happening.

@OP, you basically have a choice - Run Scourge with Haywire Blasters, knowing they're specifically for killing vehicles, or run them with Heat Lances, trading some of the anti-vehicle effectiveness for the ability to also kill Monstrous Creatures and MEQ/TEQ. There are merits to both, both options are good in their own right, but they have to be played differently.

Maestitia wrote:

Don't want to ignite debate about Dark Pigeons, I just want to learn about squad compositions

18 messages later...

Amazing you guys ! Love how much passion and relevance you bring to this topic, I'm really glad to read all your comments, it was very instructive, especially for a noob like me.
So, first of all, THANKS ! Who said Dark Eldars were mean creatures ?

Well, well, well, with all those new info, I'll tend to build 2 squad of Scourges to test them in mini games.
I'll start with the 4HB to try them against tank ONLY if the opponent bring one of them on the battlefield.
Next, I'll buy an other with 4HL and try to enhance my skill about maneuvering them properly and see the difference between the 2 kind of game you've explained previously.

So I know the path of the Scourges, but can I go off-topic a few ?
It's about my 3 Reavers I listed before.
I give them CC but also HL, and I'm wondering if I should remove the HL to spend those 10 points elsewhere.
What do you think ?

Always in a purpose of beginner, to test weapons and units.

I use heat lances, but lawrence and others swear by blasters and use their reavers differently then I do. My argument for why I recommend HWB is the same as aurynn's, and for that reason, though I take heat lances and arena champions without fail, for you as a beginner I'd spend the points elsewhere since keeping the squad barebones is much better for learning how to control it.

Maestitia wrote:

So, first of all, THANKS ! Who said Dark Eldars were mean creatures ?

Well you are assuming we aren't deliberately misleading you so you suffer great pain for our amusement...

In terms of Reaver weapons, I like the Heat Lance just like amorrowlyday. However, often you will want to jink the Reavers, and then the special weapon is unlikely to hit. If you find you are jinking all the time then you could find a better use for the 10 points.

Against vehicles a Heat Lance is better at 0-9" than a Blaster, which is better at 9-18" from the target. The Blaster is better against high toughness infantry models, but we can normally deal with those easily with mass splinter fire instead (Gargantuans excepted here which we basically can't deal with properly at all).

If you take a list like the Tabletop Tactics guy (6 × 6 Reavers) you reduce the splinter fire in the rest of the army, so Blasters become the better choice to deal with Monstrous Creatures.

I agree with both above. The Reavers are not point and click unit. With all their options in movement and relative vulnerability it is good to start using them as assault unit as you can jink them all you like. You will learn to position your bikes with Cluster Caltrops properly, space the unit properly, etc. After that, you can add shooting and popping out and to cover so you dont have to jink, etc.

I also vote for heat lance scourges, they suicide well.

Well, since the title of the thread now has "[Solved]", I assume OP is happy with our answers.

OP, if you get in a game with the scourges, let us know how it goes please (so we know if our advice has any value

Yeah for sure ! But I've to paint 3 Reavers 1 Raider before