The We Can Do It Keep Your Chin Up Anti-Wishlist (WCDIKCUAW)

Alright, the Index has a lot of disappointments nestled in it and it's shocking the kind of toys horde and Codex armies have to play with right now, but I want to start the opposite of a wishlisting thread here.

What is working for you on the battlefield? What is still making your opponent grimace and raising hell? What kind of armies are you beating on the regular?

My MVPs right now are my Incubi. I typically run one squad of 5 in a Venom and tend to send it whether the Incubi can swing the tide of battle or cause a lot of mayhem in an enemy's line. I find I fail with them when my expectations are too high and they're sent in to a combat that sees them murdered when survivors attack back. 3+ save and 6+ FNP is great but we're still just 1W T3.

Strategy wise, I've been using a list whose vehicles are all Hard To Hit: an Air Wing (2RWJF/1VR) and 4 Venoms. I find this tends to make for really poor shooting phases on my opponent's end unless they have access to re-roll miss buffs. I also have been finding great success outmaneuvering most opponents and keeping 18" arm's length while my Beasts close in and my Incubi Venom circles looking for stragglers.

I've been running two units of Dark Lance Scourges as well to back up my Fliers' Dark Lances and Dark Scythes and they are a big hit. They can usually be wiped out in a shooting phase but it is really cool to bring them down and semi-available to be shot in your opponent's turn while you've also closed in with close combat units who are ready to disembark the next turn. It's a turn when your opponent should be focussing fire on a priority but the Scourges being there and being so deadly, and 36" away and so usually only susceptible to really big guns,almost always tends to split my opponent's fire more ineffectively.

ANYWAYS.

Yes, the Dark City is a place of doom and gloom and despair BUT let's not forget the love and joy and bliss that can be found and eaten just behind Mon-Keigh ribcages!

For me, this edition shines through our heavy weaponry.
The new rules for heavy weapons and splitfiring makes it super easy and effective to stick a dark lance in a squad of Kabalites inside a boat, and it's super cheap.
Ravagers are super cheap as well, and dissies and DL are both amazingly effective.

I have not lost yet in 8th edition, and in all my games the MVPs were dissies and DL.
So if GW can give us a tiny little extra edge in AI, i think we will be VERY good.


Overall a lot of our units have known a points decrease (kabalites, scourges, wyches) and, although it's the case for every army, it's nice to see !

Yeah, if I had to point to the biggest winner in the dex it would probably be some combo of the Dissie, the Dark Lance, and the Ravager.

Just to be different from the above I'll mention the Razorwing Jetfighter. Super cheap, able to work well against both infantry and mech, access to some of our best weapons, and arguably one of the best values of a flyer for any army at the moment.

I did stumble across a sorta anti horde setup for us as DE and it's in a place I'm sure isn't as worth it as I'm about to make it but a unit of scourge with 4 splinter cannons a PGL and 1 shard carbine ... That's a lot of shots that we can drop in at 18 inches to keep it fairly safe from charges and will probably cause
26 shots - 17.33 hits - 8.66 wounds - 5.77 damage (quick maths) so yer looking at roughly 6 dead models at a -1 from Phantasm (which can do (average) 2 shots - 1.33 hits - .22 wounds - .07 damage ... But that's not why we use it) so yer looking at a -6 to -7 on moral which means that they will (not using any moral ignoring bilge) lose a dice rolls worth of models so an additional 3.5 models so a total of 9.27 total models so 9-10 total lost from the squad. I haven't looked that hard but I think that's the best we can do from any one squad at 18 inches.

Lots of Raiders and Ravagers, i have a few DSing shock units (mandrakes especially). Horde isnt the problem for me, with huge range in movement and long shooting i just play the movement game.

My main AI is RWF and Claw Fiends, i play these every game just about. 10 RWF is costly but they still do work for holding hordes. Claw fiends have a nice punch, they can hurt all units in the game (Infantry style), from IG to multi wounds like terminators and even good against things with 3/4+ invuls, just need a few wounds to get through, not hard with a unit of 3 on the charge.

The reapers from Forgeworld have me curious. Since ravagers and razorwing jet fighters have been sold out on GWs site since the new edition dropped they might be a decent choice in an all DE force.

I like it b.c it gives be long range Lances but if someone gets close i have an extra Anti-Horde.

They are Heavy tho, so you really need to place them in a good spot, i always place it near last drop, sometimes as my last drop. They 6-7 games i played with it i only had to move it once per game at the most and that was always turns 5+

It has 3.5 lances on average. Because it has more lances on average, it will only get 12.5% fewer lance hits on a target than a Ravager if it moves while getting 17% more if it doesn't. It has more wounds than the Ravager. It has the Coven keyword and Haemy buffs it. It costs less. It has better CC.

Mathematically the extra firing mode is only better vs GEQ but it is a bonus. And if you fire this thing at infantry and kill something there is the bonus rule.

The one other downside is that there is 1 extra roll in its shooting, but of course that should favor you as much as it lets you down, and now we have CP for single important rolls.

I use them successfully interchangeably with Ravagers. I don't really understand why Reapers don't have more traction on this forum, they've been discussed many times and all math and people who tried them seem to agree they are good.

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On topic: I've had great success with DE in 8e, it's a totally different experience from trying to play pure DE in 7e, and I will agree with Mppqlmd (do you mind if I call you Minsc?) that our heavy weapons are a big winner.

Even though I don't spam them, the RWJF is probably my favorite this edition. I'm really happy that I bought a real one (I have 1 real and 1 proxy thing) despite how they weren't very good 7e. It is a beautiful model and it basically works in any list because of how versatile the missiles are. The 155 pts version always feels like good value for your points: it helps blow up tanks with its lances and kills infantry with its Shatterfields and occasionally poison. It can reach any point on the battlefield being a flyer with 48" and 36" guns and do something useful every turn. Love that thing.

I will agree with RWJF being improved this edition (as they can now split fire on the relevant targets for their loadout). However, I find their role has changed. Back in 7th they came on and put down a staggering alpha strike, 4 S 6 large blasts (which could be upgraded for even more oomph). That initial impact front-loaded their value and made them great horde clearers, as well as fantastic at drowning a high value unit in saves. After that they were "Just" firing their darklances or disintegrators, which ironically meant that a non-savvy foe might ignore them as they had already used up all their missiles

Now days they are a more consistent unit, but lack that initial impact. Not a bad thing, just a change in role.

Ravagers and Reapers are my go-to in this incarnation of our army. They're both pretty hot right now.

I've also been having a lot of fun running Beasts. I only use Khymerae right now but I like how much space they take and how they're either doing more in their points in damage or they're drawing away a decent amount of firepower from my vehicles.

I'm looking forward to expanding the beast pack to include 5 or more Razorwing Flocks and 3-6 Clawed Fiends.

If folk have been having fun running lots of Beasts or still play lots of Razorwing Flocks let us all know!

A lot of the time i run 6-10 RWF and 3 Claw Fiends with a Beastmaster, they always do what i want, they never been a disappointment.

I run a flyer wing of 2 RWJF and 1 VRB. They draw so much attention and dish out so much damage. I thought the positioning would be hard, but I haven't struggled with having anyone fly off the board.

I've also had luck with hellions with he +1 attack drug. They have killed some unprotected characters for me.

amishprn86 wrote:

A lot of the time i run 6-10 RWF and 3 Claw Fiends with a Beastmaster, they always do what i want, they never been a disappointment.

I'm definitely going to give this combo a try in the future. I've been wanting to make beastpacks work with a Ynnari list but, I haven't found the right balance or direction with the lists I've built to make it seem functional. Do you think it's better to stay DE or could this work better as Ynnari? I haven't played a Ynnari list since the new edition I've been enjoying regular DE to much.

Just the fact that all my stuff is in flying transports with huge mobility plus 3 razorwing jetfighters lets me dictate the pace of battle. the fighters let me pretty much choose where i want to place dark lance shots and the combination of raiders, venoms and ravagers let me pick apart one part of my opponents army while they try to take down my fliers. I have good anti infantry in the form of splinter cannons on venoms, kabalites in raiders and venoms and good counter assault with wyches and incubi. People really struggle against my DE atm and I love the power from pain. by the time i get stuff out of transports to assault stuff they tend to be rerolling charges and hitting on 2s. so nice =) I will be giving the reaper a try next time i play them ^^

Voidravens. I loved the model but they were worthless last edition, now they are a star in my lists. Scourges with Blasters, Dark Lances and Splinter Cannons have also been excellent. Beastmasters and Clawed Fiends have done nicely for me though I really need to expand on my beastpacks to get best use out of them. Mandrakes are an excellent backfield harassing unit and I'm finding that Talos, whilst not the monster killers they were last edition, are surprisingly good all rounders with Stinger Pods.