New Player, List ideas at 1k

Hey all!

So a group of my friends are doing an escalation league. We are all former tournament players in warhammer fantasy, many of us are former ETC and masters competitors. Since GW killed fantasy we have been playing tournaments in malifaux, kings of war, and the 9th age. BUT with 40k 8th ed we decided to give 40k a go. Needless to say, though we may be noobs in the 40k universe, we are experienced wargamers who err on the ultra competitive side.

With that in mind, we are starting an escalation league to dip our toes into 40k 8th ed. We are doing a 24 hr gaming event to kick off the escalation league in about a month, and I am looking for goals of what I need painted by then. I recently bought off eBay a large group of models, and I have some stuff in boxes (testament to a lifetime of hoarding minis I swore I would paint one day).

What I have:
30 wyches
20 kabalite warriors
12 reavers
10 Hellions
6 Clawed Fiends
5 Scourges
3 Raiders
2 Venoms
2 Ravagers
1 Voidraven

I am ok buying new HQ and a beast master, otherwise I want to make do with what I have already for the first weekend.

First weekend is 1k pts.

Currently thinking:

Archon with blast pistol
Succubus with blast pistol
10 Wyches (champ with blast pistol, 3x with hydra gauntlet)
10 Wyches (champ with blast pistol, 3x with hydra gauntlet)
8 Wyches (champ with blast pistol, 1x with hydra gauntlet)
Ravager with dark lance x3
3x raider with dark lance and shock prow

For reference, my group consists of: Nids, IG, chaos x2, elder, necrons, and probably a few more. Any advice you can give is appreciated. I am ok with painting up to 1500 pts and messing around with different units to experiment over the first 24 hour gaming event. Let me know what you think, and any suggestions for a noob in the 40k universe are appreciated!

Looks fine to me mate, decent enough to learn the game with at any rate. I think you're light an shooting output so I would be tempted to swap a group of wyches for a group of warriors

You have a few issues with your list, with the biggest being you have a cc force by without any agonisers, or other cc weapons. So once you get in close how are you going to do damage? The blast pistol is one attack every other fight (yes I know it is shooting phase) phase. The reason this is a problem is our Str is the bane of our cc existence. And couple that with our 0ap and you won't be getting many wounds per turn.

Like csjarrat said, I'm not sure how you will go vs hordes as your overall volume of attacks is not very high, unless all the models are involved in the fight (I'm looking at you conscripts and termagants), but I will be very interested to hear about it.

Thank you for your replies!

After reading your responses and reading a few other posts, as well as pouring over the army book, I tried to come up with other solutions. Here is what I am thinking.

Archon, Blast pistol, Huskblade
Succubus, Blast pistol, glaive

4x wyches, 1 with hydra gauntlets, + champ with agonizer
4x wyches, 1 with hydra gauntlets, + champ with agonizer
4x wyches, 1 with hydra gauntlets, + champ with agonizer
4x kabalite warriors, 1 with blaster, champ

Beast master with agonizer
3x clawed fiends

4x Scourge, 1 with dark lance, champ

Ravager

2x raider

A bit more AP here, still not great. Also more attacks, though I am not terribly happy with how fragile beast masters are. Also slightly more shooty and more versatile with the number of units.

I was looking over our army, and shooting we don't have much AP... and in combat other than Incubi and characters, our best AP in combat is -1. Are Incubi an auto include for us at this point? If so, I can get some, just would prefer to avoid having to get some until later in the escalation league. Mostly this is because I know Incubi are good, and don't need to playtest them to know that I should have some at 2k.

Another thing I was looking at is darts of 3x reavers and 1 with heat lance. Mobile, re roll to wound if in half range, S6 and D6 wounds means I am likely wounding on 5+. Problem I have with this is its 115 pts for that, which is the same cost as a raider with a dark lance, which is an objectively better weapon and that choice has more utility in general.

Anyway, any thoughts you have are appreciated!

My suggestion, a slight tweak of the above:

Battalion Detachment

Archon, Agoniser
Succubus, Glaive

2x 5 Warriors w/ Blaster
8 Wyches w/ Agoniser, Hydra Gauntlets
2 Raider w/ Lance

5 Scourges w/ 4x Dark Lance

2x Ravager w/ 3x Dark Lance

Works out to 1k on the nose. This is pretty much classic darklight spam and gives you plenty of high-strength firepower for killing tanks and big Tyranid monsters, but you might struggle if the Tyranid or IG guys bring a big horde of infantry. If you had the models I would have suggested 10 Scourges with Shardcarbines rather than the 5 with lances. That would potentially leave you enough extra points to swap the two warrior squads for minimal Wych squads with an Agoniser and Hydra Gauntlet each or give one Raider a Disintegrator for better anti-terminator/other heavy infantry firepower.