Played in an RTT today

I spoke to one of our regulars at the shop and said I wasn't gonna post about this but I decided eh, why the hell not. Today Warp Charged Gaming hosted an RTT at my local hobby shop and I schlepped on down for some dice rolling, feeling like someone dragged me on a bar crawl last night in spite of not drinking O_o weird. At any rate, I was running a "hobbled" version of a list I've been cutting for a while. No Eldar, no Scourges, no transports or Grotesques, not even a brigade *gasp*:

Cult of Strife Battalion:

Lelith
Succubus with Blast Pistol

2x 5 Wyches w/Hydra Gauntlets
20 Wyches w/2 Hydra Gauntlets, 1 Shardnet, 1 Agonizer

Beastmaster w/Agonizer

2x 12 Razorwing Flocks

Black Heart Battalion:

Archon, venom blade
Archon, Blaster, venom blade, phantasm grenade launcher

4x 5 warriors

3x Ravagers w/Disintegrators

Voidraven Bomber w/missiles

Prophets of Flesh Spearhead:

Haemonculus w/electro whip vexator mask

Chronos w/spirit siphon
2x Talos w/haywire, macro scalpels
1x Talos w/heat lance, macro scalpels

came in at a tidy 2000 points.

First match I lost to Dark Angels with long range predators and 3 flyers. Those bombers were nasty and the -2 to hit against most of the army had me reeling. Still, I did a decent job with dropping 20 Wyches on 3 Predators but I couldn't stick it. Dunno what I did wrong really except not push hard enough with more units, a lack of pressure meant my army was picked apart rather easily. Birds died fast but that wasn't really the issue. Better secondaries might have been a good idea too. I lost 29 to 33.

Game 2 was against space wolves and one of those big knights I'm too tired to think of the name. The Knight killed stuff, but Wyches and birds and boats basically ate everything around it and it eventually was the last man standing as I took everything else over. We ended a turn early due to time and I picked some bum objectives again, so I ended up winning 23 to 22.

Final game was against Mortarion, Typhus, and a horde of poxwalkers. Mortarion sling-shotted up the board, was blown to hell, and then the Wyches just ate everything around him. Also Typhus was in a position to eat Ravager fire after Mortarion died so the poxwalkers lost a lot of oomph in one turn. Ended up being like 31 to 16 or something.

Overall I played pretty bad, picked pretty bad objectives, conceded a fair number of mistakes, and had a good shakedown of my ideas, placing 4th out of 14. Some take aways, and the reason I made this topic in the first place:

- Heat Lances are better than Haywire Blasters on Talos unless you have Doom and you're running like upwards of 6 Talos. I know the math says otherwise but the math is wrong when a few piddling extra wounds to a vehicle aren't really going to matter. The key is, you're bringing those suckers to punk problem characters and elites. With strategic use of rerolls and the fact that Talos are living 9" away from opponents, they make the most of the weapon option and it tends to pay off when you need it.

- The Chronos isn't bad. It's a little anemic but those reroll 1s are very nice and it tanks just as hard as a Talos. A quality buy.

- I didn't used to believe in buying Wych weapons, now I believe in buying Wych weapons.

- The Voidraven Bomber is still a mixed bag and I can't make heads or tails of its effectiveness. This is the most vexing unit in my list because it either rolls a squad of elites like a boss or does absolute jack all game.

- Speaking of which, the Vexator Mask is mandatory for any list even thinking about getting into close combat. I've played with and without and it's just too necessary at this point to leave home.

- Ravagers are overhyped. Against -1 or especially -2 to hit their effectiveness tanks and when they hit an invul save they start having problems. Yes, they bracketed Mortarion in 1 go, but that same volley of fire failed to kill a -1 to hit land speeder handing out buffs. I really don't know if I'm going to keep these things in my list going forward.

- Having more than 1 Archon is pointless.

- Lelith tends to earn her keep, idk why more people don't run her.

That's about all I got, I'm sure some other things will come to mind. The list needs some tweaks but I need to decompress and figure out what those tweaks are. Perhaps dropping some Ravagers for Razorwing Jetfighters, or just running the Kabal as a spearhead with the Covens running as a battalion and dropping something else, idk. Something has to give though, I've been dialing this list in and it's getting closer to that magical, bird-laden sweet spot.

Nice summary. And interesting observations.

I've never been one for the big blob of 20 wyches. But this is the second battle report I've seen where they definitely earn their keep. I may need to revisit that.

I've also not played birds much this edition, but have been meaning to try them. you've convinced me to give them a go.

I hear you on the voidraven. I similarly find that it is either my MVP, or it is nothing for me in a game. Never seem to end up anywhere in the middle in terms of effectiveness.

Finally on the second Archon, I agree with your tactic to make the cheapest one possible. The second archon is basically a tax to play a batallion.

Big blobs of Wyches work very well against lists that don't have much shooting. I deployed them in that one and just ran them into poxwalkers. They must have killed at least 60 by themselves. Also when they get their charges off, they're very effective. I used them to drop on the Predator tanks and tie them up for a couple turns. If they miss their drop charge though or if the opponent can shoot them down before they can get to combat you're in trouble, but for well less than 200pts a squad it's worth the gamble.

The birds are so routinely valuable I've been running them almost nonstop since the codex dropped. The amount of frustration they can cause is insidious.

The thing with the Voidraven is I really like it, but half the time it only earns its points by being a big obnoxious thing my opponent has to shoot. It's hard to gauge it's value as a tank.

Yeah I did a video on the Archon a couple days ago actually. It's so baffling, I have no idea why they designed it the way they did.

Very interesting write up. I enjoy reading about lists that do relatively well without using what’s generally considered to be our strongest units like Grotesques, RWJF, Venoms, etc. I actually used a 20 man Wych blob in my last game and found it be pretty effective. Now I’m toying with the idea of trying 100+ Wyches in a game.

I agree with you about the Voidraven. It’s either my MVP or does nothing but soak up a turn of shooting before dying (which is still useful). I’m thinking about trying three of them and seeing if that makes them more effective.

Lelith never does anything a Succubus cant for me, so why spend the extra points? At least everytime i played her she didnt do any better.

Lelith operates on the same mechanics the birds do: she's disproportionately good for her points due to the mechanics of the game at the more extreme ends. I can throw her at just about anything with the Character keyword from a Chaos Lord to a Daemon Prince to a Knight Titan and she'll do reliable damage due to rerolls and Blood Dancer, especially with the Impaler. You don't want too much -AP on her because most Characters have invul saves that kick in after 1 or 2AP, and you want the extra damage as they all have more than 1 wound. Plus, that 3++ soaks so much.

I've run Venom spam and I was successful with it, but I was successful with it against Tyranids and Chaos Daemons, and all my issues this last round were against Vehicles, so something tells me Venoms are not the answer I'm looking for. Jetfighters might be though, as their damage output is comparable to Ravagers and they're much more flexible.

Always appreciate your unusual opinions TA. In my last game I fielded my first squad of 12 flocks and they did fine, but mostly were hilarious. I can't wait to get my second squad painted up. I also just got my hands on a Lelith so I'm excited to send her out there as well.

I think that it should be the goal of every DE player to get away from the Ravagers + Grots/Talos + Doomseer build. It's very effective, but we've gotta be more creative than that.

I'm hurting myself trying to come up with something to bring to Hammer in the New Year. That little GT is basically the Beast Coast Open in terms of roster and every round there's going to be a chance I'm gonna have to slug it out with someone who's got more trophies than I do models. I'm still struggling to come up with a proper list that can handle Knights, smash bros, Death Guard terminators, and Orks all at the same time.

TeenageAngst wrote:

I'm hurting myself trying to come up with something to bring to Hammer in the New Year. That little GT is basically the Beast Coast Open in terms of roster and every round there's going to be a chance I'm gonna have to slug it out with someone who's got more trophies than I do models. I'm still struggling to come up with a proper list that can handle Knights, smash bros, Death Guard terminators, and Orks all at the same time.

I feel like at a certain point when list building you have to throw your hands up and accept that you're not going to be able to be super effective against hordes and vehicles and face smashing characters. Taking all comers can only go so far.

Yeah but the pieces are all here, I just need to get to the point I can see the Matrix. Scatbikes I'm convinced are the new hotness but I cannot get them in (and the doom/jinx that detachment opens up) without dropping major components of my Dark Eldar list. The lists are CP hungry so that causes issues too.

Necrons and Tau are starting to become a problem too, the meta for sure is shifting.