Second box of scourges.

aurynn wrote:

If I may add, I find Lances on scourges bad in real battles. I fight a lot of -1 to hits and that hurts the 4+ hit Lances badly. They look fine, even better than blasters in a vacuum of math. But they WILL fail you when facing anything with -1 to hit.

The key is to deepstrike them in a place where they won't have to move everyturn. Range 36" helps a lot.
When placed well, they will hit on 3+ everyturn after the first, and can control huge parts of the map while being hidden. That's the glory of deepstriking.

Anyway, i'm playing those all the time, and they performed a lot better than the poor blasters i tried to field in 8th edition.

Quote :

A bit out of topic but since the box doesnt contain 4 dark lances are you allowed to swap the weapon meanings. I mean can you have 4 scourges with shard carbines and assume they have dark lances while the one with the real dark lance is assumed to have the shard carbine...?

You could. But for the elegance of your army i would highly recommend converting them to all have the same weapon. Mine have a weapon that is a bit bizarre and can easily count as a DL or a haywire blaster. But it's all converted.

I find Scourges' best defence is being 36" away from the enemy so I play Dark Lances. Enemy units need to either go out of their way to tackle to them or they draw heavy long range fire (which will assuredly kill them but it means that these same guns aren't scratching wounds off my planes).

If I were more confident in my skill in the movement phase and positioning units I might prefer Blasters but 18" away leaves them super vulnerable in my experience.

Quote :

A bit out of topic but since the box doesnt contain 4 dark lances are you allowed to swap the weapon meanings.

If I recall correctly (there was a topic for that), you can get some more using other boxes, some of which are sometimes not really used.
There's some in kabalite warriors box (1), in Raider's box (1), in Ravager's box (3), and in RW Jet(2).
For Raider & ravager, if you mount dissies you can easyly free up some DL.

There are also several websites which sell seperate parts and you can have them cheaper (in france it's roughly 4-5€ each, but in UK & US it should be cheaper).

+ The models looks fantastic with them *-*

I have really struggled to use Scourge effectively in this edition. I'm not sure if it is just my local meta, but my opponents tend to take the Scourge out as target #1, regardless of the loadout. They do pose a threat, but are easily killed. I'm really finding that paying for heavy/special weapons on a T3 model hasn't proven to be a good investment for me so far.

So my question to you guys.... what are you doing with your Scourges to keep them alive long enough to be effective? I've tried deepstriking into cover with no luck.

Maybe I should consider keeping them out of LOS and use their movement to get them in position, and just know that I will always have to deal with the -1 to hit? I'm open to suggestions here!

merse24 wrote:

I have really struggled to use Scourge effectively in this edition.  I'm not sure if it is just my local meta, but my opponents tend to take the Scourge out as target #1, regardless of the loadout.  They do pose a threat, but are easily killed.  I'm really finding that paying for heavy/special weapons on a T3 model hasn't proven to be a good investment for me so far.

So my question to you guys....  what are you doing with your Scourges to keep them alive long enough to be effective?  I've tried deepstriking into cover with no luck.  

Maybe I should consider keeping them out of LOS and use their movement to get them in position, and just know that I will always have to deal with the -1 to hit?  I'm open to suggestions here!

If your opponent wants Scourges dead there is very little you can do about it, they are generally only 5 models with 1W a piece, T3 and limited armor.

That, however, is kind of the point, because you can get the special weapons very cheaply with them, so that you can afford having them die after they get off their first volley.

For survivability I would say there are a few primary considerations;

1. Drop them in cover - as you're already doing, +1 to their 4+ is nothing to sneeze at and will help them endure a lot of small arms fire substantially better.

2. Be mindful of line of sight blocking options - if you can's see them, toy can't shoot them. Dropping them with a solid wall protecting their flank from most of the enemy forces will go a long way towards boosting their longevity on the table.

3. Be mindful of range - if you drop them in the middle of a lot of units their life isn't going to last after their initial volley. However, even if all they're packing is Blasters that does mean that theoretically they can be 18" away from most targets, which at least eases them out of easy charge and easy rapid fire range for most units. The more they can play towards the edge of the opponent's army the less shooting/assault will be able to be brought to bear on them, which means your dice won't have to sing nearly as well to keep them alive.

4. Finally, just remember, as stated above, they are cheap and they are fragile, so be comfortable with the idea they can die - their crowning moment then is to absorb up firepower/attention that might have gone into something else, and as long as the rest of your army can kill things, that's a job well done for the Scourges.

I used them last night and they preformed well with there DL. I think im going to kit out another 5 with 4x DL. So when one dies I have another.

However the 6x mandrakes I will probably leave at home now. They just didn't seem to make there points back. They survived 2 shooting phases but only killed 3 marines.

I usually bring 2x4DL and drop them in a cover at max range from the enemy.
If a squad dies the other is still around to shoot.
Maybe bring something else to draw the heat, spread the threat throughout the table.
As Thor said do not bother if they die, the rest is still alive to do damage, we are not an elite force like Gray Knights, our guys are supposed to die fast and kill faster.

How about some more naked Scourges in the squad as ablative wounds?
Like 7 or 10 Scourges with 4 Dark lances?

You can pick who dies right?

Also unlike in 7th you can split fire.
So the Shardcarbine shots aren't automatically wasted on Tanks.
Unless you're out of range of infantry to shoot, of course.

And a bigger footprint is not dangerous anymore thanks to Deepstrike mishaps being gone.

Or are they too expensive for that?
I guess a dead naked Scourge is cheaper than a dead Dark lance one, no?

In theory it works, but the shard carabine guys would be wildly out of range for your target and if they are in range you would be using the lances wrong.
You could go the extra mile and use two squads with more lances if you want to commit your points in extra scourges.
You could also bring 10 scourges with 4 blasters, the range is the same, it would cost less then lances, but the thereat level would be aproximatly the same.

The catch with ablative wounds is how many points do you need to spend in order to successfully protect one of the lances/blasters.

So, let's say 7 Scourges is the magic number and that +3 bodies will allow you to protect a Blaster.
That's 42 points spent to protect your special weapon

A full 5 man Blaster Scourge squad costs 130 - so you're paying about 1/3 of the cost of buying an entire second unit for 3 ablative wounds. Is that worth it?

If you decide you need more ablative wounds (and I would suggest that if you want ablative wounds on a T3 4+ save unit you need to go big, +5 bodies will cost you over half of what a full additional squad would cost you. That means if you want to run two units of Scourges it would be cheaper to buy a third then to get ablative wounds for two of them - and if your goal is to have Blasters (or any given special weapon) that is clearly the more economical way to go, yeah?

It's why I tend not to buy in to ablative bodies most of the time - their point is to protect the special weapons, and if I don't buy ablative wounds I can just buy more of the weapons the wounds are there to protect, which increases my durability while also increasing my damage output.

Your mileage may vary, natch.
But that's the flip side of that thought.

I have got alot of good advice from all of you thanks. I am going to leave blasters for my Trueborn and Kabalites. Two units of dark lance scourges are the way I think will be best.

I think if guaranteed durability is your main concern then you need to pass Scourges over for a Ravager. Almost as much output and doesn't die to a soft breeze. But no matter how you slice it durability is not a strong suit for Scourges, it just doesn't need to be the deciding factor.

Actually, this is debatable. Scourges are less solid, but they are immune to first turns.
Ravagers are kinda solid, but vulnerable to first turn.
What do you prefer ? A unit that can die easily, but will always be able to shoot once, or a unit that is a little more solid, but can be focused to death before firing once ?
Answer : there is no correct answer

Mppqlmd wrote:

Actually, this is debatable. Scourges are less solid, but they are immune to first turns.
Ravagers are kinda solid, but vulnerable to first turn.
What do you prefer ? A unit that can die easily, but will always be able to shoot once, or a unit that is a little more solid, but can be focused to death before firing once ?
Answer : there is no correct answer

This is exactly how i feel about them as well.

AshCrow wrote:

Mppqlmd wrote:

Actually, this is debatable. Scourges are less solid, but they are immune to first turns.
Ravagers are kinda solid, but vulnerable to first turn.
What do you prefer ? A unit that can die easily, but will always be able to shoot once, or a unit that is a little more solid, but can be focused to death before firing once ?
Answer : there is no correct answer

This is exactly how i feel about them as well.

It depends on threats, if you drop 10 Mandrakes behind them and charge up 2 venoms of Incubi, i promise you they will not shoot the Ravagers (if you got 1st), if they go 1st make sure its out of LoS of AT guns, or at least in cover.

If you are playing gun boat style then yes the Ravager will be shot 1st and Scourge might be better.

For me Scourges dont work well b.c i always have 3-4 Melee units poking the range "I can change you next turn but you cant charge me" and they are major threats so the Ravagers do GREAT for me.

I agree with mandrakes. I haven't used them yet in 8th but they seem to be such a great deterrent. Psychologically and both in shooting/charge. Scourge I feel are quite the risk reward situation, at least with dark light. The off the table at least one turn is priceless and if they're ignored they can cause a ton of having, however if you look at them they die. I prefer my ravagers but I tend to mix in some scourge, mostly for the rule of cool and to gamble my points vs theirs.

Oh, what about takig 5 with just Shardcarbines?

IDk if someone suggested that yet, its a nice AI unit, 70pts for DS/Fly/Adanve able AI unit.

If Corsair Sky Reavers Band still had DS 9I hate FE for killing all things Corsairs) i would just use those for the same role.

I like to run them with carbines. A min unit is throwing 15 poison shots with killer movement and they're not that expensive with that loadout. However every time I use them I just load up wounds and my opponent disgusting resil saves them all .. stupid nurgle. So that's just unlucky rolls. Anyways, in my opinion they make great harassers vs infantry.