2000pt Duke Sliscus Deep Strike

This is the army that I have been building up for about a month now. I'm interested in critique and feedback. The original idea and playstyle for the army was written by Tropheus in his Deep Strike Tactica thread, found here: Link! The main difference between his concept, including this list (Link!, posted by Thor) and my current list are the amount of Venoms and anti-infantry weapons. I have so much credit to give to Tropheus and his friends for the idea: hopefully keeping the concept active on the forum goes some way towards repaying the debt!

HQ: 150

Duke MFing Sliscus

Elites: 438

3x
[3 Trueborn, 3 Blaster
Venom, Dual Cannon]

Troops: 925

5x
[4 Warriors, Blaster
Sybarite, Blaster Pistol
Raider, Dark Lance, Flickerfield]

1x
[4 Warriors, Blaster
Sybarite, Blaster Pistol
Venom, Dual Cannon]

Heavy Support: 485

2x
[Razorwing, 2 Disintegrators, 4 Monoscythe Missiles,
Splinter Cannon, Flickerfield]

1x
[Razorwing, 2 Disintegrators, 4 Monoscythe Missiles,
Flickerfield]

Total: 1998

The reason for the awkward (in my eyes) 4-5 split of Venoms to Raiders is simply a modelling concern- it's what I have, and two of those Raiders are really Ravagers in disguise. Now that I have the 3 Razorwings that are so clutch, I can start tuning the anti-infantry vs. anti-tank balance of the transports. Additionally, I might start looking at assault options. I am very interested to hear suggestions as to how I should go about making these decisions.

As far as competitiveness goes, I intend to take this army to a tournament on the 16th, and eventually to the NOVA GT at the end of August. The army has done quite well so far, taking down Marine armies of all types at my game store, including Blood Angels. I have yet to face Grey Knights, Guard, or Necrons yet, but I'm sure to see them on the 16th.

Thanks in advance for any happy thoughts or harsh crticisms: each is helpful in their own way.

well...if you are going for darklight/MSU spam, lose the raiders, get +1 Blasterborn/elite in and get nightshields for all vehicles. If sliscus' part is only the ds...venoms are smaller and so don't intend to mishap THAT often. The monoscythes are...how should i put it polightly...are a waste. Since you have enough points, switch them to shatterfields, or better, swapna out a few razors to voidraven implosion spam. S9 doesn't wonders against vehicles - except Wave Serpents front and side - and the implosion versions will hack open anything with a wound value. It IS far more expensive than a simple razor, but the benefits are...lets just say 2 voids and a termi split into combat squads are 80%+ toast, except if they have 3+ invul, then only 40%. But 2 termies killed for 60 pt? 48"? I take, and you still have the voidlances to hack them open for a 25-40% succes rate depending on Lady Average and the Dice Gods.

Grey knight: you need wyches w agoniser. A LOT! And as far as darklight goes, those shots wont hack open a lotte of trupes. High numbers grace, he will fail a few of them. And again, and again, and wow, 2 wyches left andrews the enemy squad of 10 is killed? And take haemis with archangel. ALL GK ARE PSYKERS!
Guard - take lots of heat lances, preferably on scourges andrews JB. And lots of wyches. Necron...well hope he wont get up, tarpit shooty parts with cc, stay away or be sure to cc or you WILL lose a lot of unites to those special stuf - s9 or 10ap1template assault1, rolls against Ld. Hack the transports openly fast, KILL THE SCARABS! and you will be 60% fine as soon as the troops are tarpited, the immortals are taken out and the distroyers are delt with. At least in our meta here. Necrons are a female on the street selling their body out for money, so that is going to be a tough call.

I am curious to see at least written bat rep on how did you not get cc'd to hell with BA?

And as i said: if you want to spam lances, than lose the raiders, get extra blasterborn and voidravens, or if they dont fits in theres points, upgrade to shatterfield wings.

On the idea that i did say i will provide shooty list i used:
So sliscus is good. 3*4blasterborn in venom w NSand two cannons, Ravagers w NS FF, at least 4*warriors w blaster, syba blastpistol in venom w nighshields and as meny scourges and/or reavers you can fit in, min 2 heatlances/haywire blasters per squad.
Sliscus - 150
3*4blasterborn in venom w NS cannon - 732
3*Ravager - 375
4*warriors w blaster syba w b.pistol venom NS cannon - 640

so far 1897. so scourges wont fit, reavers wont fit...add a nother sq of warriors for 160=2057. if they have a problem with that, make a squad of blasterborn in to cannonborn with sliscus, and watch 4 cannons wreck havoc on 3+ and the venoms two cannons as well.

First off, thanks for the reply. I'll admit it took me a while to read through and figure out, but that's fine.

The Venoms are less prone to mishap. If you read the thread I linked above, it mentions Deep Striking using just the flying base. I have since been told that this is wrong, as Deep Striking units need to be placed in the position they are intended to be in, including orientation. Simply put, if your reserve rolls are average or better, 1 mishap per turn is really nothing to worry about.

For missile choices- Monoscythes wound any T4 on a 2+, so I'm not interested in Shatterfields. Voidravens and their Implosion Missiles are really tempting, and I think I will try them out a few times. I would have to cut a squad of Warriors, which breaks my heart and seems so wrong, but it's probably worth it to experiment.

As a shooting army, I'm not interested in Wyches. Haemonculi I have considered, and the potential of the Deep Strike->Dark Gate is so high but so risky. You know, Deep Striking Wracks with a Liquifier wouldn't be unthinkable, but you're still at the mercy of the scatter...the beauty of the Blaster is that is usually doesn't care where you go. I've tried Scourges and liked them less then just having another Warrior squad in a boat, but they are the logical extension above 2000 points.

How did I do against Blood Angels? I drew on objectives and table quarters and lost on kill points. That was the game that convinced me I wanted 3 Missile platforms to cover the field in pie plates. It's a good thing.

Implosion Missiles are small blast, so its a waste on fragile unites. The choice in takeing a shatterwing or an implosion bomber depends on the enemy. If you are going up against IG, orks, nids, sm, shatterfield is good. If you go up against sm, demon, gk, nids, implosion ir recomended.

on the missiles: yes, monoscythe wound on 2+ for t4. Yes i can see your point there, but rerolling for wounds is just awesome for an extra 5pts per missile.

As an update on this post, I have an abridged tournament report, and some strategic thoughts!

Today I attended a 3-round, 1750 point tourney with missions that rotate through a primary, secondary, and tertiary goal (look up NOVA Mission packet if you want the exact detaIls) I played the main list minus two Raiders and Cannons on the Razorwings, plus 1 Blasterborn per squad. Here are the important points.

Round 1: Jump Pack Blood Angels (Primary: Table Objectives. Pitched Battle)

I won the roll, but decided to go second and Deep-Strike/Reserve everything to try and drop my initial wave on one side, then the actual units on the other. Big mistake, as the jump packs just laugh at that sort of strategy. I should have deployed all but the 'Wings and gotten shots in, wearing down his 3-4 Troops choices and conserving my Warriors. The army type was mismatched in his favor: mine needs to burst squads down quickly- his is full of FNP. The anti-tank had no tanks to shoot at, so rifles tried to do their best and didn't I should have just hung back and waited.

My opponent did fail some hilarious Psychic tests, and Mephiston even charged some Warriors and failed to hit with 5 attacks, drawing combat.

Result: Loss, mainly due to poor game plan, secondarily bad matchup

Round 2: Deathwing (Primary: Kill Points Secondary: Table Quarters, Tertiary Objectives, Dawn of War)

Deathwing! I know how to fight them. It involves blast templates. I had everything but the Razorwings walk on Turn 1, and actually got some Night Fight shooting in...to no wounds. Turn 2 great missile volleys take out some of his singleton Cyclone Missile Launchers. I inched my Venoms forward until my 12 blasters made his Belial squad do a double-take. Correct application of fire saw me not quite table him by Turn 5, when the game ended, but I had him in table quarters.

Result: Win, due to playing it slow and great matchup. All shooting vs. no shooting!

Round 3: Tau Crisis/Broadside Spam (Primary: Table Quarters, Secondary: Objectives Spearhead)

Two HQ suit squads, 3 Broadside squads. I won the roll, but big terrain made a on-the-line vehicle rush into his lines look risky. I instead opted to Deep Strike/Reserve, and he spread out to cover some fire lanes. My reserves and scatters were fine, but I messed up my method of massing firepower and ultimately let his shield drones survive far too long. The wound allocation was terrifying, and his model placement was spot-on, but I think I could have done better. We tied quarters, each controlling their side of the field, but his spare Fire Warriors were nicely camped on objectives.

Result: Loss, due to questionable deployment, incorrect target priority, slightly unfavorable matchup.


I am not pleased with my performance, but I am riding hindsight bias pretty hard right now. My recurrent thoughts seemed to be "It's not worth it to Deep Strike these Warriors in" and "god, that squad is so durable!". At least locally, tournament players are switching to large horde armies (BA guy) or ultra-tough infantry (Broadsides, Deathwing) to evade anti-tank heavy lists. If I was running Ravagers, I would have had no game whatsoever: there were no vehicles to shoot!

I'm going to submit that, through a combination of the current environment and "the codex was designed this way" that an all-shooting list is not good competitively. "Well, geez, CaptainBalroga, I could have told you that!" you might say, or "Duh, CaptainBalroga, you're just doing it wrong with all of this Deep Strike crap!" you could also say. I know I could have played better, but I'm not sure it would have been enough, especially against the Blood Angels. I'm going to shelve the list until 6th, when there could be a shakeup in rules and popular armies that gives the army better ability to deal damage and better matchups. Deep Strike is powerful, but Warriors aren't, and warping your army around full Deep Strike cuts off too many good units in our codex for not enough gain right now.

I would drop the sybarites and blast pistol, and get some deepstriking scourges or add in another blasterborn. paying 35 pts for a 6" blaster and LD9 isnt worth it.

Also I doubt this army is viable for NOVA unless you have some awesome luck with reserves. The Amount of games you have to play there means that sooner or later you are going to get one of those games where nothing comes in till T4 or later, which will hurt you in the longer run. With DE having no way to manipulate reserves currently, DS lists are very hard to make work consistantly.