Troops choices and the humble warrior

Hey guys

I'm just starting to plan out a DE army, and I'm kind of getting the feeling that warriors are just kinda... well... sub-optimal for a lot of situations. Given that wyches, wracks and even hellions can be your troops options, there just doesn't seem to be much space to fit in the regular warriors.

Wyches are obviously great for lots of things, and particularly I can see them being a great option to tarpit enemy troops, but also are good in going forward to mess the bad guys (good guys?) up. Basically, they look good to me, either delivered via raiders or WWP.

Wracks are pretty tough, have poisoned attacks and liquifier guns, and heamonculi are so useful there'sno reason to not have wracks as troops. I figure that these guys can camp an objective and can go forth and murder is need be.

Obviously Baron Sathonyx is less of a dead-cert choice, but it seems to me that hellions are just great for nabbing objectives and they have good firepower, equal to splinter rifles anyway and way better CC ability.

The regular warriors just seem out classed. Their firepower can be ok, but nothing awesome. A single dark-lance doesn't get my attention. Now trueborns... That's a different question entirely...

So... am I missing something about warriors, or should I pretty much just ignore them ? I love the look of the warriors, and I love painting them for sure (more so than flesh anyway), and I guess it seems odd to me to make lists that are very warrior-lite. It's like a marine army made without anything in power armour.

My current plan is to run 2x wyches, 1x wracks as troops, then blasterborn (where do you guys get all those blasters btw ?), incubi, and talos/ravagers, and I get the feeling that I can be reasonably competitive that way, whereas warriors wouldn't be doing much most of the game.

Sorry for rambling btw

I think Warriors are fine. You basically get what You've payed for (scoring that may sit in cover and shoot. None other unit can do that. Even Hellions).

Also, they are only troops that can take tank without Raider (ok, Wyches can dog-run after them too). Considering both common AT and mech, that's good.

Onlt thing that I can complain is inability to take more than 1 Blaster. IMHO 1 per 5 would make 10 Warriors in Raider VERY good troop choice.

Dont strike off warriors just yet! They form the base of my small armies and used well they can be a very versatile and effective choice. I will usually field at least 2 squads of 10 warriors each with a blaster and a splinter cannon- which I will get on to later, 2 five men squads of Trueborn with shardcarbines and splintercannons and a 10 man squad of bloodbrides.

Why are warriors still good:
1) If your playing against high toughness enemies, lots of splinter fire can decimate expensive enemies
2) In a raider, a 10 man squad is amply protected, more manouverable and have more fire power then hellions
3) Warriors and wyches work very well together, you can tarpit and enemy down with wyches, which is always good, but with warriors in raiders nearby you can decimate entire squads and have no threat/little threat of being shot up...(see below for details of how)
4) They are cheap and will always cause some wounds
5) Shear firepower, which you can only really get from warriors can bring down anything

[3- send in 3 raider, 1 with wyches 2 with warriors, disembark the wyches and head towards the nearest squad, fire the warriors in the raiders at the other "danger squads" to weaken them. Wyches win (as always) and get a pain token, other danger squads will be weakened and forced to choose between the wyches and the 20x warriors in 2 raiders. Instinctivly the other player will almost always shoot at the raiders if they have AT and if they don't, the wyches will have FNP and hopefully a cover save from consolodation + the other squads will be at half strength. Repeat and win]

The 2 major weaknesses of warriors are: 1)Fragile 2) if they don't move they suck
To overcome 1) blast templates rip us apart, so put them in a raider and you now have a moving deathmobile and have to worry a lot less about small arms and (with NS and Flicks) you can also be safer from AT things. 2) Don't give them a DL. If they are static they will get ripped apart. A splinter cannon is an incredible weapon and should be used with warriors. Use a blaster for AT or better still, the DL on a raider. Always (from my experiance) have warriors in raiders. With a squad of wyches or bloodbrides for cc support or even wracks if you want something different, you will have a strong backbone to your army.

p.s. I have never used hellions but from what I can see, they are a good unit, but I wouldn't say lose all your warriors for them
and sorry for rambling

LostAlone wrote:

Given that wyches, wracks and even hellions can be your troops options, there just doesn't seem to be much space to fit in the regular warriors.

Yet, Wyches, Wracks, and Hellions all actually fill different roles than Warriors - so I think it's more that we have a fascinating spread of options rather than a limiting scope due to "better" options.

LostAlone wrote:

Wyches are obviously great for lots of things, and particularly I can see them being a great option to tarpit enemy troops, but also are good in going forward to mess the bad guys (good guys?) up. Basically, they look good to me, either delivered via raiders or WWP.

They also combo as one of the best answers to gunline/parking lot builds as well as Monoliths/Blessed Hull Landraiders via Haywire Grenades. They also combine tarpit and anti-mech by being one of our best tools versus Dreads.

LostAlone wrote:

Wracks are pretty tough, have poisoned attacks and liquifier guns, and heamonculi are so useful there'sno reason to not have wracks as troops. I figure that these guys can camp an objective and can go forth and murder is need be.

I'm against camping for DE in general - but, yeah, you basically hit the nail on the head. These guys are sort of a direct competition with Wyches. They're tougher versus non-power weapon Troops, but lack the ability to threaten mech functionally, however they also allow access to Liquifiers, which is huge, and can be the cheapest Troop option available, which is also huge.

LostAlone wrote:

Obviously Baron Sathonyx is less of a dead-cert choice, but it seems to me that hellions are just great for nabbing objectives and they have good firepower, equal to splinter rifles anyway and way better CC ability.

I'll choose to bite my tongue a bit here, but basically Hellions provide a sort of weird anti-infantry shooting + slight assault threat combo that I personally question as viable at all, though some people do love them. But their main thrust is they are good at killing the things Wracks are good at and are pretty mobile in a vague general sense though you may find Raiders/Venoms to provide better mobility and/or anti-infantry options.

LostAlone wrote:

So... am I missing something about warriors, or should I pretty much just ignore them ?

Ignoring Warriors is ignoring one of the best values in the book. I have run multiple successful tournament lists that field nothing *but* Warriors as my Troop slots, and I would consider them to be weaker if I tried to use any of the other options, let's break this down;

Warrior's Advantages over other Troop Slots

1. Affordability

The cheapest Troop option that is viable, is the Wrack - you can get 3 of them in a Raider/Venom and have them be pretty good. The second cheapest is...Warriors. Both Hellions and Wyches tend to be quite expensive to build in a method that is 'good' ('good' meaning useful in competitive play).

2. Adaptable

For a very affordable 125/130 you can get Warriors with poison guns, a Blaster, and a Venom with extra splinter cannons (or Raider with Flickerfields) - providing you multiple poison shots and also options for mech killing. This makes them the cheapest Troop slot that can serve multiple roles for your army - at 125-130 Wyches and Hellions are basically a joke and only good for maybe simple harassment or tarpit duties. Even the super affordable Wracks are basically locked into anti-infantry duty via assault and flamer with whatever their ride is. Meanwhile the Warriors can now threaten horde, MEQ, MCs, and mech ranging from Ork Trukks to Landraiders.

3. Range

They can also threaten all that stuff at range. Wracks need to be within 6" for maximum impact - and lack grenades so dislike cover. Hellions...well...can never really threaten Mech, and by the time they have other tools to deal with cover and other stuff cost as much as 2-3 Warrior squads so it's kind of a silly comparison. Wyches manage to eke into a 12" threat bubble as long as they get a good fleet roll - Warriors have a 12-18" threat bubble, and don't need to rely on a good fleet role, and are much cheaper than those Wyches. Also, before you make light of Dark Lances, recognize that a 36" range is...well, pretty darn strategically advantageous over the 18" Blaster (that none of the other Troop choices can even take...but Warriors can, y'know, once you learn that two squads of Trueborn isn't enough anti-mech shooting )

There are other specific advantages to Warriors, most of them based around designing a shooting themed army, but the above three are the core value marks that allow the Warriors to stand proud as, in my opinion, the *best* Troop choice of a Codex filled with very good Troop choices.

LostAlone wrote:

(where do you guys get all those blasters btw ?)

I convert Dark Lances and Shredders to make them - I also had a pile of old Blaster Warriors.

Many thanks for all the advice guys. I think I'm just not valuing splinter-rifles enough and I didn't even think about shooting out of transports. Also, I think I'm still thinking in terms of marines as to how much things cost so I'm not quite thinking how many units I can take.

I think it's a great way to use warriors, raiders and venoms really give them a great advantage. Also as a general tip to beginners, you don't want to hold objectives or places with DE because you can't win that! Best way to win obj games is to not hold obj and just focus on killing scoring units. Always keep it unfair as well, if your opponent spreads out his force, attack one side with everything and you are Guarenteed to win!