Hellions

Running a new list that’s focused on some decent shooting with trueborn and some dark tech venoms.
Still have my 15 incubi and 3 badass heroes, but I’m not sure how to play my hellions.
I’m running two squads of 7 and while I’m getting good results thus far, it feels like they just screen and take shots while my real melee murderers get in close.
Any advice on using these dudes?

Could possibly use evicerating fly by strat to soften up some harder targets

That’s the plan, but running them up the board without being caught out is my biggest issue.
Getting charged before they can strike or just flanked and shot from behind terrain.
With true line of sight they’re hard to screen. I suppose I could use a raider to screen them

Uhm, have you tried to first strike? An Archon with the Animus Vitae in a Venom should do the trick.

IMO, you really want the Custom Cult of Test of Skill (+1 to wound vs Vehicles/Monsters) and Percise Killers (Blade artist on 5s to wound).

This gets around some of their weaknesses, mainly low AP and ability to punch vehicles/monsters with -1 damage.

I was running a full combat list for a while (30 Incubi + 15 Grots), and ended up getting knocked out of an RTT by a smart Eldar player who simply used terrain and models to block me in. Without much shooting, and no Fly units, I couldent get past his screens and ended up getting Tabled on Turn 3. Really missed having Hellions able to jump over the screens and murder his psykic characters for those sweet Abhor and TTA victory points.

Overall, I would use the Hellions in 2 roles.

1. Character assassins who are able to jump over screens to kill characters or tie up important vehicles

2. Extra wounds to help with a Pressure build mid-board staging (ie moving up to midboard [behind terrain] with a bunch of Coven units or Boats). Forcing your oponent to chose between killing the hellions or Grots or Boats. Its a risky play that requires a lot of knowledge of the opponents army and capabilities.

Overall, Hellions are part of a well balanced breakfast. I will no longer leave home without at least 1 unit of them.

Bonus point: Bloodbrides are becoming my "4th Incubi" unit. If you are taking the ToS/PK custom cult anyway, the Hellions make a spicy addition.

I thought about running them under a custom cult.
I’m absolutely loving my Bloodbrides and using the restricted cult of strife build on them with the morvanes agoniser.
Keeps a lot of those pesky “fall back and shoot” guys in check
So unfortunately, that means so long as I have them running strife, hellions are stuck with it.
I was hoping to use them for alpha striking a bit, but without the animus vitae, it might not be possible as well.
My last game, those 2 wounds came in clutch, eating a lot of damage and letting my boys drop in. Might be that I just need to be more patient with them and use them as a mid game brawler/flyover

Ya, back in the Pre-Tau meta I had seen some crazy builds that involved drowning the opponent in wounds, so they couldent kill it fast enough. 2W Hellions played a large role in the build.

Like with all DE units, it comes down to knowing where/when to use your stuff. Its very easy to throw your units away, and we dont have the point efficiency to do that very often

Update, dropping the morvanes for the extra cp for some deep strike potential and realizing that it be grim darkness of the future, no one falls back.
Also, I don’t play against tau like ever and I doubt it’s worth keeping that cp on hold for that.
So ToS/PK it is, gonna test it out tomorrow

Im thinking similar things.

Good luck on your raid.