How are you using scourges?

I've been running a unit of 5 scourges in my lists lately, but I'm not really sure how to get the best use out of them. I've tried them with 4 blasters and 4 shredders so far. With the blasters, I have kept them in deep strike and then brought them down to try to take out enemy vehicles/monsters but the damage is so swingy that I find they aren't super effective.

With the shredders, I either keep them in deep strike or deploy them and use them as a harasser unit, that can take out chaff or contest and objective. The shredder unit is nice because it's cheap, and gets a lot of shots against larger units, but is basically useless against marines or other multi-wound, high armor save units.

I'm considering trying out heat lances next, as even though they will hit on 4's after deep striking, I think the minimum 3 damage will make up for it. I've thought about trying haywire blasters as well, as they seem potentially powerful against vehicles with invulns, but again the damage there is going to be quite swingy.

What are the most effective tactics you've used for scourges?

It depends what you are up to. I use barebone scourges in DS for octarius mision, they play weIl together with mandrakes. When I use them with special weapons I mostly use shreders or heat lances (I preffer them over blasters). Worth noticing that I recently play the RSR batalion. So my archont gives reroll of 1 to hit. I try to position him in before scourges deep strikes so he could boost them.

I currently have trouble fitting them in my list. But when I played them in 8th, I just dropped them on top of some terrain on my side of the table wielding Dark Lances, so they could just give support fire to anything that entered my half of the table. It helped protecting objectives.
Since Dark Lances went from 1d6 to 3+1d3, I think it became only more effective.
They really need cover though, because they die too easily, and I mostly played them because I just love the models. But with enough scary things in your list, you can shift your opponents priority to something else. Talos are good for that.

I also use my Scourges mostly with 4 Lances. By deploying them in a nice cozy spot with good cover,
thats fine most of the time and 36" prevents them from moving, but they are still a priority target.
Well, they are glass cannons after all and we have to live with it. Thats the Drukhari way...

No love for deep-striking heat lance scourges?

Soulless Samurai wrote:

No love for deep-striking heat lance scourges?

I want to try those. But like I said, last time I used Scourges was in 8th, and Heat Lances weren't as good an option as they are now, mostly because you really don't want your Scourges to be within 9", which was needed to make Heat Lances work.

for my part, when i can afford the points, i love to have one Shredder squad and one Heat Lance squad (180 pts total).
That way you're never stuck with your pants down as both unit have their own niche role

If you can't afford that much point, Heat Lance is the way to go in my opinion (Dark Lance tends to be a little bit costly knowing they will almost always die after one shooting phase unless, as stated by some above, you'Re able to hide them (fire and fade is an excellent way to do that))

I almost always take 5 scourges with shredders. They are cheap enough to perform actions and good enough to clear chaf and excellent into hordes.

Last game they were crazy good and actually earned me 9 assasination points and got my 4th RoD.

Yeah I’m leaning towards just keeping them cheap with shredders. They will be excellent against non-MEQ’s and even against MEQ’s they can still capture objectives and maybe harass units a bit. Heat lances seem nice too, but the 4+ to hit after DS is somewhat concerning

I'd agree with using them with shredders, for a very mobile unit it seems a waste to keep them on the back line with DLs. Also I find after one salvo they become very high on your opponent' 'to kill' list. Also dropping them turn 2 to clear some chaff from an objective is a nice option for fairly cheap troops. They can be quite resilient when you use the 'hunt from the shadows' strategem.

I run my scourge in a 10 elf unit with 4 blasters
The best use I have found for blaster scourge is this:
Turn 3: bring in out of LOS for a rod
turn 4-5: use them to clean up any wounded/damaged large targets.

I've found this has mad them very successful with they style of play I use. but I rarely put them on the table in the beginning turns, I almost always deep strike them.

What's ROD?

CptMetal wrote:

What's ROD?

Retrieve Octarius Data.

2021 version has a different word in place of Octarius though.