wych cult anti armour

Hey guys.
I'm new to Dark Elder, but have loved the models ever since the new range came out.
I'm going to build a wych cult army with flyer support.
Succubus as HQ
Wych's in raiders and venoms
Reavers and flyers are my must have units.

I'm going to try and stay away from Kabal support and definitely no coven. So no blaster born at this stage.

So I'd like some advice on how much anti armour is necessary?
How you achieve that?
Very interested to hear from pure wych cult players experiences.

Thanks

I'm not a pure cult player but I guess reavers with heat lances and Blaster are the way to go. But They are kind of expensive...

benmet wrote:

Hey guys.
I'm new to Dark Elder, but have loved the models ever since the new range came out.
I'm going to build a wych cult army with flyer support.
Succubus as HQ
Wych's in raiders and venoms
Reavers and flyers are my must have units.

I'm going to try and stay away from Kabal support and definitely no coven. So no blaster born at this stage.

So I'd like some advice on how much anti armour is necessary?
How you achieve that?
Very interested to hear from pure wych cult players experiences.

Thanks

You will need AT.

Razorwing jetfighters with lances,
Reavers with gravtalons and blasters,
Raiders with darklances and shockprows,
Blastpistols and hydra guantlets on all units.
S4 wyches (from drugs).
Succubi with blast pistols and glaives.

Take as many of these things as possible.
Remember you don't have to kill a tank, just charge it and prevent it shooting next turn.

Hydra gauntlets are good against tanks. 3 attacks each (with drug), rerolling to wound, AP-1, very cheap. Wyches have a decent chance to wound tanks in this edition

I'd kind of written off blast pistols. Are they really worth the 10pts, with only 6" range?

Hydra gauntlets on wych's... I hadn't even considered them.

How many dark lances should I try and include in 1500 points? Considering I'm not going to have many blasters?

I'm of the same opinion, I don't love blast pistols

Are you opposed to scourges?

I had 11 in my 2000 point list, and 4 blasters. So try for 7? 3 raiders and two planes

Just about to post a list in the army list section
Has 9 dl and 2 blasters. Have a look and see if there are any holes.

I'm not apposed to scourges. Actually quite like the models. Just trying for pure wych cult.

benmet wrote:

I'd kind of written off blast pistols. Are they really worth the 10pts, with only 6" range?

Blast pistols are OK as you can shoot a unit then charge another and shoot pistols in CC but you should have said you were willing to take ravagers. Ravagers are Kabal not Wych Cult.
I that case drop the blast pistols to save pts for DL ravagers.

benmet wrote:

Hydra gauntlets on wych's... I hadn't even considered them.

Like I said Hydra gauntlets can add a bit of AT if they have to.

Lances on the raiders you're taking are good for AT so that's three-four lances to get you going. A few blast pistols here and there can help finish stuff off and reavers with blasters can plink a wound or two off as well. Succubus can poke holes in transports with her CC but best option I'd think is a voidraven bomber or two

With wych cult, you should be maximizing anti-armor every chance you get, because anti-infantry just comes naturally with everything.

So flyers are in? They're your main source of Lances. Take at least one of each. Give every Succubus and every Wych sergeant a Blast Pistol. Avoid Venoms, just take everything in Raiders for Lances.

You don't have to kill every vehicle, either - a squad of wyches can surround one and keep it locked down.

Painjunky wrote:

Blast pistols are OK as you can shoot a unit then charge another and shoot pistols in CC

You can't fire pistols in the melee phase, can you ? You could shoot, charge, then you have to wait an entire turn before you can shoot again.

Chippen wrote:

With wych cult, you should be maximizing anti-armor every chance you get, because anti-infantry just comes naturally with everything.

So flyers are in? They're your main source of Lances. Take at least one of each. Give every Succubus and every Wych sergeant a Blast Pistol. Avoid Venoms, just take everything in Raiders for Lances.

You don't have to kill every vehicle, either - a squad of wyches can surround one and keep it locked down.

I concur. Maximize Darklight wherever possible.
Normally, I like to advocate for Disintegrators on Raiders as it is easier to "achieve something" each turn, but not in this case.

Moreover, I'd prefer Ravagers over Razorwings in the case of the cult. Sure, Razorwings are fluffier and give some good anti GEQ as well. But again, I think you need to maximize the Lances.

What about the voidraven? Still a flyer and has better anti armor capabilities than a razorwing.

Mppqlmd wrote:

Painjunky wrote:

Blast pistols are OK as you can shoot a unit then charge another and shoot pistols in CC

You can't fire pistols in the melee phase, can you ? You could shoot, charge, then you have to wait an entire turn before you can shoot again.

That is correct.

Is the void Raven really 50pts better than the razor? Str 9 vs Str 8 for the two lances.

Edit. Only 15 ish. Pts. Sounds reasonable

How do dark scythes go?

We've done the math out a couple times and scythes are better against anything you'll be facing.

2d3d3 simply does more reliable wounds than 2d6 does.

Either way buy missiles if you take a raven.

Yeah okay. Forgot they had to purchase the missiles. That pushes the points difference out again.

Clawed Fiends????? I can't believe no one has said Clawed Fiends! There cheap and do 2 damage per hit with -1 to saves and have 5 attacks at S5

Agreed with bedlam55, I think a pack of beasts seem like the best way to add a bit of meat to a wych cult list, taking the place of talos/grotesques with clawed fiends.

benmet wrote:

I'd kind of written off blast pistols. Are they really worth the 10pts, with only 6" range?

They aren't auto-take but they definitely shouldn't be written off. Wyches don't pack the greatest punch on their own because they're built for mini wars of melee attrition, the lack of damage becomes pretty apparent when you're using a lot of them. Since you can now shoot pistols in melee, which is exactly where you want your girls to be, you'll be getting to shoot with them fairly frequently. These are your ace against heavy infantry, elites etc.

and every kill counts. Due to our couple of ways to cripple leadership (pgl, PFP later on) You'll find the enemy making morale checks right at their max pretty often. So one kill could become two, which snowballs the combat, etc. If your wyches get the charge I usually find the blast pistols do way more than earn their points back

Thanks guys. I'm starting to feel like pure wych cult is going to be very spammy. How do you combat that?

I feel like there is going to be 2-3 units of wych's that only exist to use up the useless drugs. How do you combat that.

@benmet In this edition, no drug is useless.
Either specialize some wych unit (+1 toughness comes first) either diversify your army.

+1T drugs are great on reaver, +2Ld are great on Beastmaster (talking about clawed fiends..), +2Mov are great on Hellions, etc.

You can run multiples smalls unit to use those drugs, and even if you think they won't be that usefull, just keep them hidden out of line of sight and use them on later turns when both armies have melted (thinking about reavers here, really good to deal the missing blaster shot on the big meatwagon with 1hp left, or to steal an objective on the last turn)

While I agree that none of the drugs is useless in the true sense of the word, I would like to mention that some drugs are so much better that they feel useless.
The +1 attack and +1 str drug give a roughly 33%-50% increase (can actually be even 100% increase for str vs t6) in damage for the whole game
While the +1 to hit gives a +25% increase in damage for 1 turn (sometimes getting no use at all, on the first turn is rare to get into combat, I usually prefer not to get into combat till turn 3 so I get no use out of it, because from turn 3+ you hit on a 2+ anyway)
So yes it is not useless +25% damage for a turn is nice, but it is on a turn I usually don't need it much, and is much worse then a bigger bonus for around 4 turns.
Maybe they should make the PFP give a +1 str on turn 3 instead.

I love having the entire army with WS 2+. I think the drug needs to change, not the PfP. A drug debuffing the LD of nearby troops would be great (the type of drugs the Scarecrow uses in Batman).

Quote :

A drug debuffing the LD of nearby troops would be great

I feel like Phantasms already have that niche. Perhaps something akin to 5th edition Splintermind, where the unit starts off with +1 to PfP? 1st Turn Fleet would help increase our alpha-strike potential.