Nico's Wych Cult - 1850pts - New list, please comment

I recently started my Dark Eldar Wych Cult, I played a little at 500pts and now I started to think ahead to where I would like to go with this army.
You can find my 500pts list here and my project log here
The following list was constructed with the help of one of my local GW staff members.
C&C are very welcome!

HQ
- Succubus with Ago & Haywire Grenades 90

- Succubus with Ago & Haywire Grenades 90

Elites
- 4 Hekatrix Bloodbrides, 1 with S&I, Syren with Ago 92
Mounted in a venom with splintercannon & nightshields 75
(Succubus joins here)

- 4 Hekatrix Bloodbrides, 1 with S&I, Syren with Ago 92
Mounted in a venom with splintercannon & nightshields 75
(Succubus joins here)

Troops
- 10 Wyches, 2 with S&I, Hekatrix with Ago, Haywire grenades 170
Mounted in a raider with darklance 60

- 10 Wyches, 2 with S&I, Hekatrix with Ago, Haywire grenades 170
Mounted in a raider 60

- 10 Wyches, 2 with S&I, Hekatrix with Ago, Haywire grenades 170
Mounted in a raider 60

Fast
- 6 Reavers with 2 heat lances 156

- 6 Reavers with 2 heat lances 156

Heavy
- Ravager with Flickerfield 115

- Ravager with Flickerfield 115

- Talos 100


The general idea is to use the Talos to draw enemy fire while the raiders & the ravagers move towards the enemy and assault with the wyches as soon as possible (T2 I hope)
The reavers I will use as a mobile support unit to support where needed and the venoms with their mounted squads to kill high value targets


C&C very welcome!

I like your list in general, but the thing is that your Talos won't do anything, he won't draw fire either. I would have taken harlequin squad instead of Talos, believe me or not they do draw a lot of fire and they do survive well because of their 2d6x2 thing.
Moreover the fit wytch cult army idea.

I don't dislike the list, but I have a few thoughts;

1. Talos as distraction...hurm...

Okay, just consider this - for some *insane* reason you decide to play an army other than DE. You set up your weedy little man-girls in might mahreen armor on the board and thump your chest and declare yourself Lord Uppity Pants, Lord of Ultrasmurfmar.

An awesome DE play places his army across from your cowardly Space wimps, and you know you have to use your shooting powers as quick as possible to stomp the fearsome onslaught of DE butt-stomping that is about to come your way. You have some options of what to shoot first.

One option - is to shoot a MC that is moving around 12" top if it's lucky and will probably get into assault around Turn 3 unless you stomp towards it.
Second option - shoot the super fragile Raiders full of psychotic DE hopped up on drugs and carrying power weapons and magic 'own your Landraider' grenades, that can assault Turn 1 if you're dumb or they're lucky, or Turn 2 pretty much no matter what.

Do you see the issue? That Talos isn't going to distract anything but derp opponents, and derp opponents you can probably beat anyway I would tend to advise dropping him and getting an additional Ravager.

2. Bloodbrides - don't get me wrong, I love them and I also love some Venoms in this list, but I feel the army is suffering for it. Wyches are risky Troops, and you're not fielding as many of them as you could, and Wyches are basically just as good as Brides, but cost less and are scoring...think about that. I'd advise using the Bloodbride points to get one additional Raider of Wyches and use extra points towards something else in the Elite slots if you want some anti-infantry shooting (3 Trueborn w. 2 S.Cannons in a Venom w. 2 S.Cannons immediately springs to mind as a affordable but very shooty option - they won't last long, but after Turn 1 your Wyches ought to be able to handle your anti-infantry plans)

3. Shardnets? Shardnets are good - but they're a defensive tool. It looks to me like your Wyches are about stomping faces in. I would steer you towards damaging enhancing tools, like Gauntlets or Razorflails over the nets. Nets are best for small squads with HWGs that are planning to jump Dreads - not so much for big squads that are looking to murder everything they touch.

4. I'll also admit I'm slightly neutral towards the bikes. At the very least, for around 40 points cheaper I'd take an extra Ravager that will overall be better at killing mech than the bikes (Wych cults need most of their mech killing to happen Turn 1, because they're assaulting Turn 1-2, natch) The bikes are otherwise okay, because you will want some more anti-mech shooting. I personally prefer to use Warriors/Trueborn with Blasters, but theme-wise the bikes work better in a Cult.

As a themed wych cult list I like it apart from the Talos, for all the reasons given previously.

I'd probably drop the nightshields from the venoms along with the Talos and get another Ravager in to help out with opening armour, for your wyches to rip apart the contents.

+1 to Thor, although I wound admit the bloodbrides arent that bad in such a small unit, but I think his plan was to use them as a succubus caddie to run in and kill off a squad after two rounds. Considering most people MSU all day now (other than orks... but thats different) they should be able to pop out the other side and assault something else out next turn.

A big thanks to all of you!
Those are some really good comments!

I already have a harlequin squad at home (was not meant to be used in my army) but I could give them a try:)
I'm getting the Talos anyway because I just love the model, maybe I find a good way of using it someday =p

Since I have no codex anywhere near (I'm staying in Cologne for the weekend) I'm not posting a modified list before monday!

Grts

I've made a new armylist with some minor changes.
I haven't played it yet but I plan on using this list in a competition a few weeks from now
For the moment it is 1841 pts and I have no clue where to spend those remaining 9 pts.

HQ
- Succubus with agoniser & haywire grenades 90
- Succubus with agoniser & haywire grenades 90

Elites
- 4 Hekatrix Bloodbrides with razorflails & haywire grenades + Syren with agoniser 165
Mounted in a Venom with dual splinter cannon
- 4 Hekatrix Bloodbrides with razorflails & haywire grenades + Syren with agoniser 165
Mounted in a Venom with dual splinter cannon
- 6 Harlequins with Shadowseer, 4× Harlequin's kiss & Troupe Master with power weapon 174

Troops
- 10 Wyches with 1x Razorflails & Hekatrix with agoniser 205
Mounted in a Raider with Dark Lance & Enhanced aethersails
- 10 Wyches with 1x Razorflails & Hekatrix with agoniser 205
Mounted in a Raider with Dark Lance & Enhanced aethersails
- 10 Wyches with 1x Razorflails & Hekatrix with agoniser 205
Mounted in a Raider with Dark Lance & Enhanced aethersails

Fast Attack
- 6 Reavers with 2× Heat lance 156
- 6 Reavers with 2× Heat lance 156

Heavy Support
- Ravager with 3× Dark Lance 115
- Ravager with 3× Dark Lance 115


Please comment this list!
Is this competitive enough?

Grts
Nico

I would get the 3rd rav before getting a harlie unit. You need to be able to get the squishys out of their tin cans before you can squish them.

I personally dont like the flails because combat drugs can make them less effective for the points they cost. I like nets because they give staying power. Remember your trying to win the combat in your oppts assault phase so your not sitting out in the open to get shot to death. (especially as you can use the wychs as an anvil to your bloodbride hammer)

I would get flickers on the raiders. best 10 pts you can spend in the game IMO

Thx for the comment!
I took the clowns to draw fire.
The raiders don't have flickers because up till now, my raiders never survived turn 2, with or without flickers.
I took aethersails instead to ensure they end up near the enemy so the wyches can disembark and assault in turn 2

If I drop the harlequins, I can take my cronos (other player tend to be afraid of it and thus it draws a lot of fire...) and I would have enough spare points to give flickers to the raiders...

What do you think?

Grts
Nico

Its a nice list but like everyones said could do with a 3rd ravager for the anti-tank.

also add flickerfields to the tanks its an upgrade where it can swing the game in your favour.

so what I would do is alittle drastic, but it overall keeps the feel of the list.

First off like everyone has stated drop the harlies. I love harlies, but sadly they suffer in this edition, and there are a ton of better elites out there. Then I would also drop all the razorflails and the aethersails. Sure that damage output and extra movement are nice, but you really dont need that extra movement (12" deployment +24" movement means almost anywhere on the board for you to strike next turn) And the damage output, well you need the extra bodies in those Bloodbrides first. So you have 239 points to play with.

Ok, so now we move towards the additions. First off I would add in a Ravager w/ flickerfields and give all your current raiders and ravagers flickerfields as well, that leaves us with 74 points. So since we are going to increase the size of the bloodbrides, you need raiders. So for 10 points you up both venoms to raiders w/ flickerfields (you dont need the AI with all these wyches running around, plus you get more AT) So that leaves us with 64 points. Well each bloodbride costs 15 (since you have haywires) so that gives us 4 extra bloodbrides, which are ofc 2 per squad. So now you have 4 points left over (whoohoo!!!)

So for simplicity.
- Harlies
- Razorflails
- Aethersails

+ Ravager w/ Flickerfield
+ Flickerfields for all raiders/ravagers
+ change venoms to raiders
+ 4 more bloodbrides

Wow, Shadows Revenge summed up what I thought needed changes perfectly.

I think what is going to have a hard time doing well will be the bikes - they will draw more fire than the Talos would so you will have to be extra careful in how you deploy them. When I used a squad like this they just had a hard time surviving focused fire as opponents will usually freak when they see bikes.

Other than what's been said above I think that the wyches are overkill at the moment. Yes you will kill nearly everything you go against but that's not what you always want.

The best thing is to stay locked in combat for a turn so the opponent can't shoot you and then if you end just before you're turn they can do what you want straight away.

So todo that drop the wyches down to 7 or 8 per squad (leave the upgrades the same) and with that get more bloodbrides.

Just my 2 pennies.