Raider mixed unit tactics

I've read a few threads talking about venoms vs. raiders and various benefits. I've been working on my list and given points limitations thought that to reduce drops it would be an option to mix 5 kabalites and 5 wyches in each raider (3) has anyone had any experience with this? Which cult do you use and why? Also what do people see as units that work well when mixed (e.g. wracks, wyches, incubi, mandrakes etc)

The idea behind this is not to bad, but in my opinion wytches have far to little impact in a group of 5. I only use 5 girl troupes if I use them to hold something in place that has zero meele output. I would rather opt for incubi(not a very good unit) or mandrakes, wich I love in raiders. And they pair perfectly with the range of your blaster unless you play black heart.

Ok, fair point. That's one way I want to use them, tag shooting units and engage screens, freeing up my remaining warriors to continue taking points and give ranged support. Might help if I post the list.


Kabal of the Flayed Skull Battalion Detachment
Archon + husk blade + Soul Thirst: 86pts
Drachon + splinter pistol + agonizer: 74pts
Venom + splintercannon: 75pts

5 Kabalite warriors + shredder: 38pts
5 Kabalite warriors + shredder: 38pts
5 Kabalite warriors + shredder: 38pts
3 Raiders: 240pts

5 Mandrakes: 80pts
5 Mandrakes: 80pts

Voidraven bomber + void lances + missiles: 165pts
Voidraven bomber + void lances + missiles: 165pts

Cult of Strife Battalion Detachment
Succubus + agonizer + blood dancer: 54pts +1 Toughness
Succubus + Shardnet + impaler: 55pts + 2 Movement
5 wyches: 40pts + 1 Attack
5 wyches: 40pts + 1 Strength
5 wyches: 40pts + 1 Weapon Skill


Prophets of Flesh Outrider Detachment
Haemonculus + stinger pistol + venom blade: 77pts diabolical soothsayer
2 Talos + macro-scalpel + chain flails + haywire blasters: 196pts
1 Talos + 2 Macro-scalpels + HWB: 99pts

5 Scourge + blasters: 128pts
5 Scourge + splinter cannons: 100pts
5 Scourge + haywire blasters: 92pts

Because I need the scourge, mandrakes, warriors and flyers free to disrupt play and hunt key target, the idea is to use the wyches and Talos to block melee threats and clear screens. Maybe I'm going the wrong way about it. Thoughts?

That seems unnecessarily silly.

The only mixed units I could see using in a Raider is something like, warrior squad, archon and court.

Ok, would you have any advice on the matter? A way of securing a double battalion, minimizing drops and providing a way of clearing screens?
Looking for advice as I say.

If your desire is to move forward aggressively, do not hesitate to mix the units, in fact, i would encourage it. Your list, however, is not designed to do that.
Also, I would NOT encourage putting your HQ choices alone in a venom, as if it blows up and you roll a "1", you are wasting a CP for a reroll or someone dies.
The reason mixing units wont work is that your list seems to be a little short on back end objective holders, like ravagers where you do not want to get close, just stay back and shoot.

So for your list above, i would run:
Succubus, Succubus, Arcon, Dracon(?) and 5 wyches in a raider and fly that puppy forward into the meat of the enemy army.
Then put 2x warriors in one raider, and 5 warriors in the venom. These can dance at the edge of their range, and hold back objectives as needed.
That leaves 2x wyches in 1 raider

This will have 2 raiders full of HTH goodness barreling down at the enemy, backed by Talos, so if the wyches don't hold, the talos will come and beat them down, with gunboats taking pot shots and mandrakes/scourges popping in to say "Hi" turn 2+.

Pretty solid list, you should do well.

Cheers for the detailed feedback, I'll give that a go as soon as I've got the complete army and post how it goes. Thank you

I worry about mixing units because in order to get your assault units close enough to do anything, you're putting the shooting units in a dangerous range as well.

Chippen wrote:

I worry about mixing units because in order to get your assault units close enough to do anything, you're putting the shooting units in a dangerous range as well.

Conversely, if you're bringing your shooting elements to bear, you're risking exposing them to the close combat elements of the enemy. So having CC units of your own can compliment your shooters well.

Except that’s not how this works. This isn’t real life, it’s an abstracted game where your opponent can still shoot your melee guys and charge your shooty guys. Not that a 5-man wych squad is worth anything at all as far as melee ability is concerned.

The key to success in tabletop wargames in general, and in 40k specifically, is to have units that are focused on one job. When you try to add flexibility to a unit’s role, you’re just making it suck at everything... and/or inflating its cost beyond reason where it becomes targeted first and eliminates a large portion of your strength. Specialization is one half of the problem, redundancy is the other. Pick one goal, and assign several units to it... because one will die, one will whiff it’s dice rolls, and the last will hopefully do the job.

withershadow wrote:

Except that’s not how this works. This isn’t real life, it’s an abstracted game where your opponent can still shoot your melee guys and charge your shooty guys.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. We're still talking about units inside raiders, aren't we? In which case, no they can't. Or are you saying that if you're opponent still has the available resources, they will kill the raider and both squads inside? In which case, yes, obviously. But if they have resources to available to kill a raider and 2 squads, then it really doesn't matter if the 2 squads had the same role or mixed roles--especially in 8th edition where the charger always goes first.

I'm not necessarily advocating for a squad of 5 wyches or any particular component of the list posted above, but I've used raiders with mixed units successfully and I enjoy it a lot. It gives incredible control of the mid-board by creating a gunline of raiders operating at the very edge of their most effective range. If the opponent wants to retaliate with close combat or short range shooting, or if they just want to get to midfield objectives, then they necessarily risk getting exposed to your CC half.

I agree that you want to build each individual unit as efficiently and with as singular a purpose as possible, but how we operate those individual units together is how 40k is actually won. Spending a few extra points to upgrade from a venom to a raider is a decision Drukhari players make very time we write a list. Considerations like minimizing drops, redundancy of poison, etc are ABSOLUTELY part of that decision and shouldn't just be marginalized because of some inflexible philosophy that having 2 units with different roles operating within the same footprint is bad, all the time, don't do it.

It does depend a bit on how you use those units. If they generally operate in a group then having three Raiders with 15 Kabalites and 15 Wyches can be fine, and you take away from your opponent the ability to prioritise the shooty or melee threat by having all three Raider loadouts the same.

If you need to split them up across the table then withershadow is right, as you end up with a transport that can't do enough shooting or melee to be useful due to the mixed purpose.

However, you aren't fixed to which units go in which transports these days, so depending on the deployment and opponent you could set things up with the list above either as:

3 Raiders each with Kabalites and Wyches
Venom with HQs (I think this is dangerous as Skulnzbonz highlighted)
or
Raider with 2 × Wyches
Raider with Wyches and HQs
Raider with 2 × Kabalites
Venom with Kabalites

withershadow wrote:

The key to success in tabletop wargames in general, and in 40k specifically, is to have units that are focused on one job. When you try to add flexibility to a unit’s role, you’re just making it suck at everything...

Could not disagree with this more. I Always kit my units to be multi-functional. Having a unit designed to do only one thing is a quick path to seeing that unit (and all the points spent for it) useless on the tabletop.

So I assume you NEVER take blasters in warrior squads, correct? Only shredders? Because warriors are anti-troop, while blasters are primarily anti armor.

Yeah, I'll pass. Every model in your army should be a threat in some way to every model your opponent may place on the table. A blaster is a threat to an imperial knight, the rest of the warriors are not, a blaster is NOT a threat to an ork horde, but the rest of the warriors are.

ALWAYS make your units dual threat.

I think his point (and I agree with this) is roles, not the specifics of what they target with that role or the loadout they take for that role. The "one job" we're talking about in this case is shooting vs assault.

So Wyches vs Kabs, not Shredder Kabs vs Blaster Kabs.

For Wyches vs Kabs, the Wyches have to get close, which endangers the Kabs in the boat with them more than is necessary. But if you keep the kabs at a safe distance, the Wyches aren't going to safely make the charge (or make it at all).

Ok, looking through the posts, everyone is making good points. I'm in the process of altering my list. given all of the points above, how about wyches and mandrakes in raiders? Mandrakes can give fire support but are also decent enough in melee so that it's not a waste if I need to wait one or two turns to enter into close range. Might also work to drop both units out, have them dual charge after the shooting phase to soften the unit up, or leave the mandrakes boarded and fire and fade them out of the hazard zone if I just need to lock a unit in combat with the wyches. I understand specialization as that's how I played 7th ed and won a lot, but I feel that 8th ed has a different dynamic.

Chippen wrote:

For Wyches vs Kabs, the Wyches have to get close, which endangers the Kabs in the boat with them more than is necessary. But if you keep the kabs at a safe distance, the Wyches aren't going to safely make the charge (or make it at all).

But is that really true though? The longest range weapon kabalites can get is 18" (unless you're using them to fire long range poison). Wyches disembark 3"+base diameter, move 8" and only need to get within 1" of the target. They can move just under 13" before charging, making a 6" charge very likely with re-rolls.

Skulnbonz wrote:

withershadow wrote:

The key to success in tabletop wargames in general, and in 40k specifically, is to have units that are focused on one job. When you try to add flexibility to a unit’s role, you’re just making it suck at everything...

Could not disagree with this more.  I Always kit my units to be multi-functional.  Having a unit designed to do only one thing is a quick path to seeing that unit (and all the points spent for it) useless on the tabletop.

So I assume you NEVER take blasters in warrior squads, correct? Only shredders? Because warriors are anti-troop, while blasters are primarily anti armor.

Yeah, I'll pass. Every model in your army should be a threat in some way to every model your opponent may place on the table. A blaster is a threat to an imperial knight, the rest of the warriors are not, a blaster is NOT a threat to an ork horde, but the rest of the warriors are.

ALWAYS make your units dual threat.

Okay, well your opinion then runs contrary to literally every winning list ever. Poison is garbage, so I didn't mind giving up that shooting to shoot a blaster in previous editions, and now you can split fire. What I'm talking about is more this approach of adding a 5-man wych unit to this warrior squad to "protect it from melee". You now have more than doubled your investment, did not improve their shooting ability whatsoever, and the 5-man wych squad is too weak in melee to really make any difference there. So you tried to "generalize", and ended up with a big pile of crap where cost/performance is concerned. For example a raider with a warrior squad and a wych squad is about the same cost as either two venoms with warrior squads, or a raider with a full wych squad. Either of the latter options add way more to the list, because they are goal-focused performance... you either shoot at 18", or you have a melee unit with significant numbers (for stratagem efficacy and getting up front attacks, etc.).

But let me guess, you give your Hekatrixes 10-point 6" blast pistols so they can be "dual threat".

I tend to put a shooty unit (5 kabs w/ blaster or 5 mandrakes) with 5 incubi. They offer extra protection after they have been dropped off. I did go expensive one game as well.

Kabal of the Poisoned Tongue
Archon with relic soul pistol (forgot name) for character hunting
3 Slyyth
1 Lhamaen
5 incubi
Dissie Raider

As I said, expensive, but has a lot of bark and bite. I usually deepstrike it in though so it is safe turn 1.

withershadow wrote:

Skulnbonz wrote:

withershadow wrote:

The key to success in tabletop wargames in general, and in 40k specifically, is to have units that are focused on one job. When you try to add flexibility to a unit’s role, you’re just making it suck at everything...

Could not disagree with this more.  I Always kit my units to be multi-functional.  Having a unit designed to do only one thing is a quick path to seeing that unit (and all the points spent for it) useless on the tabletop.

So I assume you NEVER take blasters in warrior squads, correct? Only shredders? Because warriors are anti-troop, while blasters are primarily anti armor.

Yeah, I'll pass. Every model in your army should be a threat in some way to every model your opponent may place on the table. A blaster is a threat to an imperial knight, the rest of the warriors are not, a blaster is NOT a threat to an ork horde, but the rest of the warriors are.

ALWAYS make your units dual threat.

What I'm talking about is more this approach of adding a 5-man wych unit to this warrior squad to "protect it from melee". You now have more than doubled your investment, did not improve their shooting ability whatsoever, and the 5-man wych squad is too weak in melee to really make any difference there. So you tried to "generalize", and ended up with a big pile of crap where cost/performance is concerned. For example a raider with a warrior squad and a wych squad is about the same cost as either two venoms with warrior squads, or a raider with a full wych squad.

2 venoms with warriors is about 50 points more expensive than a raider with warriors and wyches (unless you're taking warriors with no blasters). That isn't "about" the same.

I think you're just hung up on the idea of 5 wyches being ineffective, which I agree with. But using the worst example you can think of to denounce a tactic in general is a little disingenuous.

5 kabalites+5 Incubi has been solid for me, as has 5 kabalites+Archon and court. I imagine Mandrakes would fit nicely in this role (but I like to deep strike mine).

There are options that aren't 5 wyches available, and they can work.

withershadow wrote:

Okay, well your opinion then runs contrary to literally every winning list ever.

You feel free to netlist and copy other peoples success. I win almost every tournament I attend. Believe it or not, I do not care, but it is fact. So thanks, But I know what a winning list looks like.

Quote :

Poison is garbage

and here is where I know you are talking out of your a$$.

Quote :

........ bunch of gibberish commenting on crap I never said .................

But let me guess, you give your Hekatrixes 10-point 6" blast pistols so they can be "dual threat".

No, no I do not. I do not take wyches at all competitively because they still suck that way. Reavers even more so.

What makes wyches be dual threat is the combat drugs and large units. Thats it.  And even so, my tournament lists will not see:
Beastmasters, Beastpacks, reavers, Wyches, court of the arcon, incubi, and sadly, hellions, which have an amazing potential but no solid delivery system.

It will RARELY see: wracks, scourges, mandrakes.

The OP wanted to run wyches, and share rides with warriors in a raider. We just disagreed on weather it is viable.

I don't personally find much value in mixing unit types within transports, and you might find from experience that it doesn't really provide what you hope it would.

You've heard the arguments for and against, I think you're at the stage where you just need to try it out - practical tried and tested experience and how it jives with your playstyle is ultimately far more important than all the theoryhammer going on here, just have the humility to assess it critically and know when you're trying to draw blood from a stone.

That said...can we just not mock one another for our tactical preferences? If you think someone's giving bad advice just pitch your two cents, make your case, and move on, there's really no reason to insult the intelligence of others because they're making suboptimal choices - or because you believe they're making suboptimal choices.

We can agree to disagree. As advised above, I would suggest just trying this mixed approach, and seeing how it works for you in practice. Even if it is an unmitigated failure, it will still be valuable experience... far more valuable than any argument on the internet, certainly.

lcfr wrote:

That said...can we just not mock one another for our tactical preferences?

Well...I guess you have your answer.

Thanks guys, a lot of points that hace really helped. I'm working on a new list as I say and the advice really helps as it'll inform my purchase choices (starting a new army as I had to leave my old 7th ed one back in Germany). All round it seems that 5 wyches are not the way forward so I'll rethink how and if I want to use them

I wouldn't mix shooty units with CC in one raider. Most of our infantry goes in a transport and our transports are fast. Usually, I do well with good positioning of raider gunboats while my CC front line, which is mostly coven and HQs walks up the board. Wyches are used as fast attack units in transports or deep strike to hit special targets like large blobs of infantry or stuff like that.

On the one hand I wouldn't get any closer to the enemy as 18" to fire your blasters. If you do you will find your raider in range for charges. Of course your 5 wyches can then disembark and start fighting, but the raider with the warriors will probably have to retreat, which costs the warriors a full round of shooting. And 5 wyches aren't going to kill a lot. On the other hand you have to get closer to the enemy to give the wyches an opportunity to earn back their points. If the raider gets blown up far away from the enemy, your wyches can't do anything. And for sure they won't survive long in shooting.