AI Scourges

How have folks been faring with their Scourges? I feel like for their minimum points cost they're pretty okay to just drop behind enemy lines to pick off strays with their Shardcarbines or even capture a stray objective.

Anyone having much success using them NOT as AT deep strikers? Is there anyone who feels like doubling their firepower with Splinter Cannons is worth the extra points, or are they good enough naked?

lcfr wrote:

How have folks been faring with their Scourges? I feel like for their minimum points cost they're pretty okay to just drop behind enemy lines to pick off strays with their Shardcarbines or even capture a stray objective.

Anyone having much success using them NOT as AT deep strikers? Is there anyone who feels like doubling their firepower with Splinter Cannons is worth the extra points, or are they good enough naked?

I think they're a very solid AI choice.  However, I would never in a bajillion years take Splinter Cannons on them at 15 points a pop.

Hell, adding another Scourge to the group is only 14 points.

I am running 2x10 Scourge atm.

But I cheat and have a Farseer with Doom.

Works great

How are you equipping them? I figure they're best either with Lances, Blasters, or naked.

A Lance squadron can be quite deadly. However, naked (or with SC if you are like me and don't have enough models) can be absolutely brutal. Scourges actually won me a game tonight. They were my last unit, propped up on top of a ruin, and rained enough firepower to wipe out the sole unit of Genestealers my opponent had left. (To describe the game as bloody would be akin to calling DE sadistic - woefully inadequate, but technically true)

I use 10 with carbines, 2x5 with blasters. Very Versatile. If you need to mess his backfield, drop 2x5 and bubblewrap them with the 10. If you need objective, drop 10 onto one objective and 2x5 onto another. If you need a delaying wall somewhere, drop 10. I believe they are best used as such a combo. 5 scourges alone are not going to scare anyone.

Think Swooping Hawks or other deep strikers to put pressure could perform along the same lines?

Swooping hawks are MEH this edition. Scourges can put some better pressure on MEQ or better, Tau Suits, Synapse creatures, etc. Scourges actually mess backfield. Hawks just cost points and can escape.

I love swooping Hawks this edition. Being able to fly over a unit and cause mortal wounds is great.
Also the exarch Sunrifle is really good as it has a pretty good chance of wounding the enemy and giving theach enemy unit a -1 to hit. Which is really good. Especially if your are running flyers/venoms etc. Also Hawks can reposition really well during the game. They are a very versatile unit.

Scourges are more simple. Blast stuff to death with poision. Or give them special weapons to give them a different roll.

I am trying 20 Scourge atm in different configurations. But I tend to prefer all posion.
I might throw in some swooping Hawks as well

IDK... average 1 MW on flyover per 6 models costing 17pts each. Sounds like Mandrakes... Honestly, Mandrakes are better IMO. The only useable stuff IMO is using the 5-hawks squads to spam that -1 hit. from sunrifle.. which has about 15% chance to cause unsaved wound on MEQ, so naaah.

The sun rifle is assault 4. The odds are not that bad. Not great, but not bad.  

The Hawks have a very different job then mandrakes as well.  The Hawks give you a very mobile unit that can easily support any section of table multiple times a game and have longer range weapons. As for Hawks and dealing mortal wounds. While the power is not amazing you will see the numbers add up flyers over larger units for sure. Large blobs will take a good hit for instance. It is just an option that the Hawks have.  I think they are more of a utility unit

Mandrakes have a shorter threat range, are less mobile, but have a higher damage output.

I like both units a lot

I like neither.

aurynn wrote:

I like neither.

Dis right here.

colinsherlow wrote:

While the power is not amazing you will see the numbers add up flyers over larger units for sure. Large blobs will take a good hit for instance.

Since you MAX roll 1 dice per SH, it doesn't chance anything that you target large blobs over small troops. That rule is useless against vehicles, and you are on average dealing 1 mortal wound per 100 points you spent on your unit.
Since you can't do it when you land from reserve, and can't do it when you go back to reserve, you have to actually move 14" and fly OVER the ennemy. So even if you started you turn at 1" (how though ?) of the target unit, and that target unit is only 3 inches large, you'll end up max at 10 inch of them, and deal 1 mortal wound. Enemy turn, they have to roll 3 or more for the charge, and your 100 points unit is destroyed.
You could always advance, but then your lasblasters are even more useless, and wow, you can end up 15" of them (still chargeable, or you could just get rapidfired down). And remember, i considered you were nearly adjacent to them... Sorry, i can't see how you can use that rule against a big blob, and live until your next turn. And since the dmg is so miserable... To deal more than one Mortal Wound you have to invest something like 170 points in the unit.

If you took them in a Ynnari army, you can always get the movement with your SFD. Not as a primary strategy, but an interesting side benefit.

As an aside, can you use the flyover grenade pack when retreating from CC? Like, if you get charged and lived, can you use that to disengage and fly over the unit that charged you, and huck the grenades down on them?

Jimsolo wrote:

If you took them in a Ynnari army, you can always get the movement with your SFD.  Not as a primary strategy, but an interesting side benefit.

As an aside, can you use the flyover grenade pack when retreating from CC?  Like, if you get charged and lived, can you use that to disengage and fly over the unit that charged you, and huck the grenades down on them?

Yes, i think you can. But you have to retreat over them, which shortens your retreat.
And let's be honest : anyone not killing SH in CC is either a trash unit (not worth Mortal Wounding), or a single character (which you will never land a mortal wound on).

Just saying that the Hawks are not bad. They are a very mobile unit that can do a lot of different things. Blinding a unit of say conscripts or orks can be very useful. Making the them his on 6s. And if I have flyers pr venoms near by they can not shoot me because they need 7s. Not amazing, but it helps.

And yeah the rifle is not that great against vehicles. But if you are desperate is an option. Is the the mobility of the Hawks that I like the most.

But there are plenty units with same or better mobility, greater toughness or firepower. Hawks used to have great utility. Now they are just worse scourges with a low chance to actually use their utility and almost as expensive as Incubi. They are the Hellions of CWE.

I am not a fan of the Scourges in this edition. Yes they have a great Alpha Strike, but after that they are pretty much dead. not going to get past the turn they arrive. To squishy...

I want something that has a little staying power.

The hawks need 2 turns (one of no-shooting) to reposition. In an army (Aeldari) of Reavers, Supersonic planes, 14-16" skimmers, Windriders, Solitaire blitzing around the world, Tantalus moving 32" per turn, they are not even that mobile.

Tantalus is sooooooo good

Mppqlmd wrote:

And let's be honest : anyone not killing SH in CC is either a trash unit (not worth Mortal Wounding), or a single character (which you will never land a mortal wound on).

Okay, I can't cosign this one. CC in this edition has seemed fairly meat grindery to me, with even good-to-great CC units struggling to kill a unit of schlubs in a single turn. If my experience thus far has been a guide, the odds of Swooping Hawks surviving long enough to retreat seems fairly high. (At least, some of them at any rate.)

Ow I find HtH brutal to be honest. Either I pounce a unit with averything and kill it or get killed in return.

Whatever the orks touch in melee of my army is usually transformed into a fine red mist. Does not matter much if it are normal orks or something else. A normal unbuffed minimal unit of orks deals roughly 14 wounds (before saves). Not much in my list can withstand that. A full buffed unit of orks deals around 67 wounds (before saves) that could wipe out around half of my units if they could contact them all at the same time. Sure against our vehicles it is cut in half, but this still equals nearly 4 dead venoms (inc saves).

Jimsolo wrote:

Okay, I can't cosign this one.   CC in this edition has seemed fairly meat grindery to me, with even good-to-great CC units struggling to kill a unit of schlubs in a single turn.  If my experience thus far has been a guide, the odds of Swooping Hawks surviving long enough to retreat seems fairly high.  (At least, some of them at any rate.)

Looks like our experience of CC what different indeed.
But even in that case : every SH you lose is one less chance of mortal wounding.
But really, you think 6 wounds of T3 4+ can survive anything ?