Shadow Wars Wych Cult tactics

A friend of mine got the book, so I've been able to look at the rules now.

I don't understand why you would ever take any Debutantes at all, ever. I can't justify the loss of a point of WS on a model that needs to win combat plus the leadership issues with recruits for a savings of a lousy ten points.

What am I missing?

Perhaps that you play 6 games in a row in order to play 1 game and only get 100 pts to hire people and rearm between those games? I do think they are slightly overcosted tho.

They are cheapish almost expendable units, use them to soak fire away from the harder hitters and if they survive three games they level up to a wych.. 100pts after each game gets you a wych with splinter pistol. I would rather lose a debunante over a wych early game and reinforce with wyches later if needed.

Generally if there are Debutantes, I would run them alongside the wychs keeping the debutante out front to force your opponent to target them. At 1000 points you could just field a syren and 8 wychs with chainhooks and blade venom, but if you wanted some shooting then 1000 gets you splinter pistols on 2 wychs and syren and then take 4 debutantes.
As @Archon Vitcus said, 100pts between games is enough for the DE to replenish ranks or get some good equipment.

I'm sorry, I don't see it.

4 Debutantes instead of 4 Wyches saves you 40 points. What are spending those 40 points on that is worth replacing 4 actively dangerous models with 4 models which aren't dangerous and which are a liability in pinning and bottle tests?

There are plenty of ways around having to shoot at a Debutante in front. There's a skill for that, I think sniper weapons don't have to (though i'm not sure), but you don't have to shoot the closest target if it's easier to hit the one behind them, and there are ways of doing including moving so the Debutante is in cover, or blocking line of sight to the Debutante with one of your own guys. Also, blast and sustained fire weapons can hit the Wych behind the Debutante if they're close enough.

For 10 points, you can do exactly the same thing with a poorly equipped Wych. You lose all of the pinning/bottle test liability, and you get a model that can actually, you know, win combat. An 80 point Wych is at least an even match with - if not slightly better than - a 100 point Scout. A 70 point Debutante... isn't.

Part of my confusion may be coming from the fact that in the various Necromunda campaigns I've played in, Juves were only ever seen as investments - a cheap way to get a Ganger, if they survived. And sure, they got sacrificed occasionally, but nobody was actively attempting a Juve meatshield strategy. I dunno, maybe I just need to see it or try it - on paper at least, it doesn't look like a great plan to me.

One thing in its favor is the simplified Shadow War advancement system. Skavvies in Necromunda were *really* good at meatshield tactics. You had lots of dirt cheap fighters, and occasionally you'd actually want to thin their numbers in order to avoid starvation. (Alternatively, they had a cannibalism rule, so you could just sacrifice a Scavvy - or a captured enemy Ganger - between games.) What's more, they could spend 10 credits to before a game to bring D6 plague zombies. The trouble was, sacrificing that many expendable models to enemy gangs tended to turn the surviving Gangers into killing machines. I know some groups out there are using the Necromunda advancement system, so this is relevant.

(I miss my Scavvies. They got stolen years ago, along with my first Dark Eldar army and a Mordheim warband.)

That sucks your army was stolen

I think those 40 points can go into equipping wyches with both pistol and hook.

I tossed my list over on the army list section, no one responded. But in hindsight, I think I'd drop the mirror helms on the gauntlet brides and buy hooks for the pistol wyches.

I have 3 debutantes and they can be used for objectives as well as they get me to 9 bodies. Worse comes worst I can use them to assist in combat. After 3 missions they will advance into useful fighters.

I think a wych is useless without upgrades, that I can afford because of recruits

Today I played a game of shadowrun and it was pretty ridiculous.

Okay so to start off my local Warhammer store replaced 40k Thursdays with a shadowrun event. As much as I didn't care about the actual game it was that or not play anymore for like the next 2 months so my hand were tied. I even talked to the store manager I was all like, "Yo, how are we gonna do this if ain't nobody got the rulebook?" And the store manager was like "I have one for the store we can share that."

Good. Gravy.

Okay so I'm there early and I'm cranking out Wyches cause I'm thinking I'm going to run Dark Eldar as my force and there was a little points bonus in the campaign for having a well painted army but as the day goes on I'm thinking eh, I'd need like 6 of the things, and they're all ugly cause they were the first models I ever built/painted, so I'll run my Harlequins instead. My Harlequins are some of my best looking dudes, fully based, etc. So I look over the rules while people just begin to trickle in and get my force together, name my mans, name my force, write everything out on a handy dandy card, the works. Some other dude who's always on top of the newest releases shows up and does likewise and wants to get a trial game with his force. I said okay I was down for it and we start going over the rules. Now, there were the rules, and there was a little foldout that had like the rundown of the game on it for quick reference, and we were constantly swapping them around the entire store as more and more people showed up. By the end of the day this little boutique store was PACKED with people looking to play this darned game.

Now I just wanna take an aside and say I've been steamed at GW over this whole fiasco. Personally this game doesn't look that great to me, I'd rather be playing 40k. But they should have seen this coming a mile away and they didn't prepare AT ALL for the success of this release. What they shoulda done is released the basic rules for free on the website as a PDF and then given us the chance to buy the rulebook and the reprinted box set when they were ready. Instead they pulled a Nintendo by creating a false sense of scarcity to hype the game, which is great for them but terrible for the consumers. I've been arguing with people on their facebook page about this and it's an uphill battle trying to convince people they're being taken for a ride. Wait, why am I even playing this game? This guy they call Rountree has got his fingers in all our wallets.

So we set up and we start playing the game. It was 1000 points, with Death Clowns for Cutie facing off against some unnamed Genestealers being proxied as unnamed Necrons. I bought a Troupe Master named Karl, a Player named Mitch, and 2 Mimes named Moe and Moxy. I figured everyone should have a shooting attack and everyone needed a close combat weapon because that's what Harlequins do. Keep in mind I made this list without referencing the rulebook at all. All the clowns had swords because I didn't know what parry was but it sounded like a good thing to have and 15pts for a second close combat weapon that let me parry was tight. Mitch and Moxy got Shuriken pistols, Moe got a Prismatic grenade, Karl got a Fusion pistol for 100 points because I thought why not, and I upgraded his sword to a monomolecular blade for another 15 points. I also gave Moe a visor because I had 15 points laying around and it was use it or lose it, so I got a mental image of a clown wearing a mask and then also wearing a visor over the mask.

The game type was the one where you have 5 packages and you need to collect them and bring them to your board edge. The clowns moved 2" further than the Necrons, weren't slowed by terrain, didn't take fall damage, and when they ran the opponent's chance to hit went down by -2 instead of -1. Since they were always either out of LoS or in cover the Necrons were only hitting on 6s with their shots and I basically was able to run rings around them, collecting the packages and bringing them back to my side of the board. By the end of the game, which was extremely short, I'd secured 4/5 packages. There was 1 combat that happened and it was so one sided for my Mime it was silly.

So yeah, I think the clowns are probably a good pick. It'd be neat to play them against Dark Eldar.

Nice! glad the harlies are doing good. And yeah, getting a hold of these rules is a pain, but im in exams anyway so Im kinda glad our league cant start yet haha

GW did drop the ball with this release, but asking them to release a set of rules for free is a big ask. They should've had a copy of the rules, PdF, soft or had back covers, available for preorder as well for a modest price £20-£25. That was the only mistake they really made and they are amending that issue. They released all the kill team forces as free PDFs, and are even adding sisters and inquisitorial forces. They knew they messed up there's no need to harp on about it.

As for harlies being successful, I'm glad if that, I'm not sure how'll they'll do in the long game with their units being expensive but they do have a nice set of rules

I have had a few practice games and then a proper game last night with my wych kill team. At the start I had:

Syren: splinter pistol, agoniser
3 wyches: chainhook, pistol, blade venom
3 debutante: pistol, chainhook
1 bloodbride: shardnet and impaler

In the proper game I played ambush as the attacker against...wyches! essentially what happened was 3 of my wyches fired at one of his and took him down while my shardnet slit open another wych. my syren was taken out by his shardnet wych (entangle with our high initiative is dangerous o.0). As i had taken out 2 of his that was 25% of his forces so he took a leadership check...and rolled a 10. his forces bottled and i won! we both got lucky with our injury roles in that no one died or was taken out of acction for a game. my opponenet even got lucky in that the one taken out by my shardnet rolled a 6 and gained 2 mission complete instead on one. one step closer to a full fledged wych!. on my advance table I got to roll on the skill table and got dodge for my bloodbride (as my syren had been taken out she could not be chosen to get the skill). I chose also to add another recruit with a chainhook and blade venom as i have enough pistols for the occasional ambush.

In an earlier practice game the day before we played assassinate and I went against imperial guard. while he had done his list wrong (red dot sights on a grenade launcher? xD) we got to see the effects of cover to trying to shoot stuff and even though i was running cover to cover and LoS blocking terrain, it was hard to close on his leader who i had to assassinate to win the mission. That said, one did make it. a debatante with pistol and chainhook. his sergeant was slaughtered xD

combat drugs and our 4+ invul in combat is really good, as is chainhooks. we move waay faster then anything else but if we are shot at, it is likely that wych is going down. not guaranteed but likely. it really is about picking off enemy models abit at a time, keep to the mission and take advantage of running 12 and staying behind walls! loving it so far ^^ i'm using the metal wyches as my recruits and plastic as normal to know which is which.

"another recruit with a chain hook" Debutante or wych? You could afford a wych with the venom chian hook, or do you have to recruit debutantes?

I'm glad you did well! Also glad to hear that a regular debutante with a hook is still somewhat lethal

RedRegicide wrote:

"another recruit with a chain hook" Debutante or wych? You could afford a wych with the venom chian hook, or do you have to recruit debutantes?

I'm glad you did well! Also glad to hear that a regular debutante with a hook is still somewhat lethal

you can recruit a debutante and options for that model up to 100 points (so 70 for the debutante, 10 for the chainhook and then 10 for the blade venom) or do upgrades for your entire kill team up to 100 points (but you can't put extras on any debutantes you have, need to wait till they are full fledged wyches!).

Quote :

They knew they messed up there's no need to harp on about it.

Oh I'm harping on it, but mostly on their Facebook page. They're a corporation not my buddy from college they don't get to make mistakes without the consumers raking them over the coals. The only thing I can say is at least no one got beaten up and dragged out of a store when they sold out.

Played a game yesterday against Orks. I won, but largely because the Orks were defeated by their two ancient enemies: themselves and gravity. I mostly just showed up to watch it happen.

My opponent positioned his less important models ahead of his more important models in order to act as a screen, which seemed like a good idea until he started shooting high rate of fire weapons past them. Ork Initiative not being great, friendly fire knocked several Boyz off of edges, and the falls took them out of action. Another Boy failed a short jump between platforms while trying to charge me, fell on his head, and was similarly removed from play.

Fortunately, my friend plays Orks for a reason, and thought all of this was hilarious. He's also unlikely to make that mistake again.

Definitely looking forward to playing again. Definitely also don't care about 40k when I could be playing Shadow War instead. I can't wait to finish converting my new Wyches.

I've only heard good things about it! And yeah, this is a nuch needed break from larger games

T minus 2 days until I can build my force

These games remind me of Imperial Assault and Malifaux only with 40k models... which just makes me wish I was playing any of the above and not shadowrun.

I've loved the game so far and I haven't really met anyone who wasn't having fun with it.

Unrelated but I don't think it warrants it's own thread. Can you mute a member from the phone or do you have to go to the full site?

You could grab the desktop version through your phone and do it there, but I don't think you can actually do it through the mobile version.

Quote :

Unrelated but I don't think it warrants it's own thread. Can you mute a member from the phone or do you have to go to the full site?

I'm uninviting you from the afterparty for when I win the shadowrun event.

Strewth my heart is breaking.

Having played many games now I can tell you my list and how I feel.

Hydra Gauntlets are amazing
Agonisers are crap
Chain-Hooks and Blade venom is amazing
You want 9 Wychs (10 be nice but thats not viable)
Pistols of Debutante are good

My list is: 1000pts

Syren: Hydra Gauntlet
Bloodbride: Hydra Gauntlet
Bloodbride: Hydra Gauntlet
Wych: Chain hook, Blade Venom
Wych: Chain hook, Blade Venom
Wych: Chain hook, Blade Venom
Debutante: Splinter Pistol
Debutante: Splinter Pistol
Debutante: Blade Venom

The 3rd Debutante is there mostly for the 9th body, keeping her alittle more cheap with a BV.

Weapons and Upgrades i think are worth it:

HG's: sense you get +1S and -2 mod with reroll wounds on HG's it is leaps and bounds better than Agoniser, especially if you dont get +1S drug, needing 5's to wound with no reroll is a pain. HG's IMO is the best Wych weapon other than Blast Pistols

1/2 the attacks being Pistols is a great way to get some -2 mods with 4+ to wound, its cheap and effective

CH+BV is just a great cheap combo, Parry is AMAZING, if making sure they dont make you reroll that 6 will win fights. BV is needed as your Str is only 3, reroll to wound is a must when you need 5's

Blast Pistols: Later on this will be the best weapon, if you are playing 1 off games, then take the 2 pistols off the Debutantes and Give a Blast Pistol to your Syren, if you are playing a Campaign i wouldnt start with one. Theya re AMAZING but IMO b.c Multi-model combat is so important later on in the game that you will NEED a base of some gear of each model, anti parry, 4+ or reroll to wounds etc...

MirrorHelm are great as well, but mostly for campaigns, I wouldnt start with more than 1 if you wanted this, put it on a Syren or Bloodbride. IMO dont start with any and buy 2-3 after game 1.

EDIT: About Harlequins, yes they are REALLY strong, but IMO they are strong against shooting armies that dont take advantage of certain things.

I watch 2 Harlequins die to overwatch from Scouts, i've killed Harlequins and won with orcs even. the missions IMO are more unbalanced than the armies themselves, some heavily favor some builds/armies.

"1/2 attacks being 4+ wound and -2 rend" do you mean we get the poison rule in CC with pistols?

I agree with you conclusion on gauntlets. I think I'll take the net for the siren just for fun.

Agree with 9 bodies conclusion as well.

Did you actually pin anyone with the those debutante pistols?

RedRegicide wrote:

"1/2 attacks being 4+ wound and -2 rend" do you mean we get the poison rule in CC with pistols?

I agree with you conclusion on gauntlets. I think I'll take the net for the siren just for fun.

Agree with 9 bodies conclusion as well.

Did you actually pin anyone with the those debutante pistols?

Pistols get the profile in melee for 1/2 the attacks. Same profile (from what we have read no ammo roll either).

Pistols are a great melee weapon, IMO better than shooting, so mostly just run with them and use it in melee, i've shot the pistols only a couple times. a -2mod with 4+ to wound is really good. Chain hooks are somewhat better but if you dont get Str Drug needing 5's is harsh, so having a couple models that always wounds on a 4+ is nice, this also lets you keep them cheap (90pts) so if you need to replace them you are not replacing 110-150pts of model and wargear. You can afford to replace it and still get some better gear of something else.

Man that changes everything! It is so much easier to rationalize pistols now! Won't have to sacrifice WYSIWYG to avoid mutilating models, i can just buy them pistols

RedRegicide wrote:

Man that changes everything! It is so much easier to rationalize pistols now! Won't have to sacrifice WYSIWYG to avoid mutilating models, i can just buy them pistols

yeah and Blast Pistols are Extremely strong for only 50pts, the Harlequin pistol is 100pts IMO the Blast Pistol is better due unless you fighting Grey Knights

Blaster Pistol: S6, D3 damage, -4mod
Neuro Disruptor: Wound 2+, 1 damage, no armor saves

So it has 2+ always and No armor Saves, but 1 damage and 2x the cost

A Blast could need 3's to wound some things, but those wound could be 1,2 or 3 damage and its still a -4 mod, so Nids and 2 wound guys it out right kills (later on after a campaign when you can get 2-3 guys with 2 wounds and a harlequin with 3 wounds or warriors with 4 wounds this will be important but not right away)

The fact that it is 1/2 price is the tipping point, you can have 2 blast pistols now instead of 1 neuro.