Haywire spam

Hi guys,

Lost of DE players are complaining about lance fail these days.

That's why I started wondering whether a haywire spam list is viable. Sure, it won't KILL those damn vehicles right away, but sometimes it's enough when they don't shoot/move. Moreover, it's still possible to glance something to death. And on a 6, you still get a penetrating shot. Haywire weapons are assault, so you have more mobility and yes, they ARE reliable.

Maybe we don't need to destroy? Maybe suppressing is all that we need to play competitive games?

Does anyone have any experience with such lists? Today I will try to make a list and share it with you.

Cheers,
Finn

Considering suppressing is about all we do with our DL I would say yes, all we need is stunlocking to win in competitive play (thats why I have so much hate for GKs... and Necrons to some extent[although theirs isnt that bad as we know when we can stop shooting one target, GKs get their on their turn... Stupid Matt Ward...])

But I digress... Haywires are great tools at stunlocking tanks, but you have to look at where they are viable. Talos are great, but a Ravager is better. Wyches are great, but they get killed to easily standing out in the open throwing grenades all day. Scourges are great, but again we can only take 3 squads of them, and they lose their effectiveness against GKs and Crons (Ward Rage coming back...) So we have a problem here. Do we take something that is good against all other armies but 2 that are the newest codex's and hence we will most likely fight more of??? Or do we just stick with Reavers w/ Heat Lances which are good against any army and just stick with it... I prefer the latter.

Shadows Revenge wrote:

Considering suppressing is about all we do with our DL I would say yes, all we need is stunlocking to win in competitive play

Yes, this is my main assumption.

Shadows Revenge wrote:

Talos are great, but a Ravager is better.

Because Ravager has dark lances? As we generally agree that lances generally only surpress, why exactly is Ravager better? Because it can die to a single lucky fire warrior shooting at it? Because it's useless in close combat, while talos isn't? Making the assumption we want to change dark lances to something more reliable, the only advantage ravager has is it's speed.

Shadows Revenge wrote:

Scourges are great, but again we can only take 3 squads of them, and they lose their effectiveness against GKs and Crons (Ward Rage coming back...) So we have a problem here. Do we take something that is good against all other armies but 2 that are the newest codex's and hence we will most likely fight more of??? Or do we just stick with Reavers w/ Heat Lances which are good against any army and just stick with it... I prefer the latter.

GKs and Crons are not the only armies people play. We are looking for a reliable way to deal with razorspam, for example. Our 3 squads of scourges generally do something on each turn they shoot a vehicle. Cannot say the same about reavers - a) you need a squad of 6 to have two heat lances, and the cost becomes surprisingly high, b) you need to be close to use the heat lance effectively, which in many cases means death, c) scourges compete only with reavers in the same FOC slot.

In haywire list you are still going to have some darklight weaponry. Use it on stuff you need to DESTROY, like transports. Use the haywires on everything else, or stuff you cannot deal with using EMPs.

I'm not saying you're wrong. our codex allows us to play many different styles and in this topic I'm suggesting just another way to run the army. What matters is preference and I understand that it may not fit yours. But I'm still going to insist that it's as good as anything else, only different. It does less in terms of sheer damage the army inflicts, but is way more reliable. And reliability is something I'm looking for.

Finn wrote:

Shadows Revenge wrote:

Talos are great, but a Ravager is better.

Because Ravager has dark lances? As we generally agree that lances generally only surpress, why exactly is Ravager better? Because it can die to a single lucky fire warrior shooting at it? Because it's useless in close combat, while talos isn't? Making the assumption we want to change dark lances to something more reliable, the only advantage ravager has is it's speed.

The ravager is not only faster, but has more range, 3 weapons instead of one twin linked, may be useless in close combat, but doesn't need to get there and the Talos is not as tough, as it seems.
The weapons most likely to fire at ravagers are more than cappable to down a Talos.
With a T of 7 every weapon will pen the ravager only on a roll that is higher than the roll needed to wound the talos*. The Talos even can be wounded, by S4 and S5 weapons, that can't pen ravagers at all*.
Most AT weapons will deny the Talos' armor save, while allowing ravagers to take their flickerfield save.
If we assume that a vehicle is destroyed for every three penetrating hits, the Talos has three wounds and is easyer wounded, than the ravager penetrated, the Talos will go down even faster as a ravager. Only thing that could tip the chances in the Talos' favor and only so much, that it is destroyed around as easy as a ravager, is FnP. But to get FnP the Talos must destroy a unit of infantry, instead of what you bought it for, firing at tanks.
If additionally we take into acount, that a Talos costs around as much, as a ravager, the ravager is just more cost effective.

All in all I think that a Haywire heavy army can be played, and probably is a lot of fun to build and play, but it is neither the solution to all our problems, nor easy to pull off.

*assuming front or side armor

The only problem with haywire spam is that there aren't all that many units that can take haywire blasters (Scourges, Talos and... that's it); the rest of our units that are haywire capable are essentially dedicated assault units (except for Trueborn, but why are you giving them haywire grenades when they're not supposed to assault?), and they're supposed to be assaulting things that they can get locked in combat with so the enemy can't shoot at them.

If haywire blasters were more available (maybe as a weapon swap for Raiders, Ravagers and/or Venoms, or a special weapon option for Warriors and Trueborn), then a haywire spam list might be more viable. However, haywire blasters tend to fill more of a supporting role for darklights, and haywire grenades are really just insurance against Dreads and other close combat vehicles.

Ahh, the ravager vs the talos, of those twom I actuly prefer the talos. I run three of those, with chain flails and tl haywire blaster. The Talos is fantastic in cc, and stuns enemy vehicles, it also has power from pain. If an enemy lasconann locks mean at the ravanger it dies, my talos will just lose one wound. It's also cheap enough to take 3 of them in a 1500-point list. I have no clue why these guys aren't insanely popular.

I think I can help you with that.

Darklances have a strength of 8.
.............glances...............pens
AV10.........1/6...................4/6
AV11.........1/6...................3/6
AV12.........1/6...................2/6

AV13.........1/6...................1/6
AV14.........1/6...................0/6

The Haywire blaster has a fixed chance of 4/6 to glance and 1/6 to pen, so against all vehicles, that aren't protected from the lance rule the chance to penetrate is always higher for the DL. From twice as high to four times as high.
Of course the chance to affect a vehicle at all drops. From being on paar for AV10 vehicles to being 2/6 lower for AV12.

The problem is that in most cases these can't be compared 1on1, for example ravagers and taloi.

The ravager has 3 lances and costs about as much as a talos with 1 twin-linked haywire blaster.
So the ravager will statisticly score two hits per turn, wich lead to 2/6 glances and 8/6 pens against armor 10, 6/6 pens against armor 11 and 4/6 pens against armor 12, while the talos will score around 0,8 hits that result in 4/6 glances and 1/6 pens, so while the haywire blaster is on it's own the better weapon to affact a vehicle, it just can't hold up here.

I've had encouraging results at ~2k/2.5K spamming haywire wyches/b-brides (and I mean SPAMMING) for AT, while suppressing infantry (MEQ) with AP2. What I'm reading is not spamming.

2x heam each with webway, 170
1x 5x trueborn, blasters and venom / splinter cannon. ah, 230?
3x 9x whych haywire with raider and dissie. 534
3x 12x wych haywire either forward, or coming in on the webway...this seems to be a key decider. 396
2x 10 scourges, one with splinter cannons, one with D/Ls 240 / 320
3x ravagers with dissies. 315
add nightshields/flickerfields as desired.

20 AP2. A ridiculous number of haywire.

Total, 2000, close as no matter. Tweak to suit.

It's not perfect, I've had results from having my opponent conceding after 2(!) rounds, to having my wyches handed to me on a platter, but I think that's me, err, my lieutenants, more than the list. I think the key is going all in and putting so much on the table early and forcing the opponent make the wrong choice of what to kill early. If they don't kill the wyches, multi-assault with 10-15 squad size means 2-4 ineffectives per turn.

The reason I like this is the most d/l AT we can shoot per army is around 20. Simple probability says we hit 2/3 (~13) and against 12/13/14 suppress 1/2 about 6. That sounds like a lot, unless the opponent has a parking lot. Instead, a 10 whyches will hit 1/2 (presuming a 6 inch vehicle move) so 5 hits, and then we suppress 5/6 or 4+: not quite as good as all shooting. But, look, we have 6 squads, so not one suppressed vehicle, but 5 or 6.

It's risky, but OMG. The payoff can be huge. And hugely demoralizing to the opponent. Never, never, ever forget part of our gifts is messing with minds. Non-psychically, of course.

Finally, this list is/was designed to counter Termy armies, because I got tired of GK and DeathWing in our FLGS. This list is not especially effective against massed Orks. I don't think there is 'The One' build of The Kin against all armies.

good hunting, cousins!

Tiri Rana wrote:

The ravager has 3 lances and costs about as much as a talos with 1 twin-linked haywire blaster.
So the ravager will statisticly score two hits per turn, wich lead to 2/6 glances and 8/6 pens against armor 10, 6/6 pens against armor 11 and 4/6 pens against armor 12, while the talos will score around 0,8 hits that result in 4/6 glances and 1/6 pens, so while the haywire blaster is on it's own the better weapon to affact a vehicle, it just can't hold up here.

This is the entire debate sussed out very easily.

If we could get Haywire Blasters with Trueborn or Ravagers then - hey, party at my place - but they are basically unavailable to us except in very expensive Scourges, or on the lackluster shooting platform that is a Talos.

As such - they are a support weapon, and can never be more than that.