hybrid lists and other questions?

hi guys, i started learning DE with a few games in 5th but shelved it when the rumour mill started up for 6th. now its here, i have some questions about intended playstyles and some things i have real trouble with:

troubles:
deep striking dreadies. wtf? i hate these things. the ability to come down wherever means i cant hide from the bugger, so if the initiative is stolen or i dont get first turn, i can kiss at least one raider and contents goodbye, with maybe one or two wyches left alive in my deployment zone.
i'm thinking of going all-haywire on my troops and having the remnants of the destroyed unit assualt it, but any more attention i give it plays into my opponents hands. because i cant all-reserve now, i'm guaranteed to lose one full transport + unit if i dont go first and have a good chance of loosing one to it in his first turn (50/50 cover saves). at the moment this represents 1/3 or 1/4 of my troops choices depending on point sizes played.

what do you guys do about this and how do you deal with drop podders/deep strikers?

overwatch:
oh god its horrible to charge wyches into guard squads, volley after volley of shots, followed by walls of flame.
i'm taking the PGL in future lists to make sure i at least get a 6++, but is anyone else finding that their 10 strong units are good for 2 combats maximum?
i'm thinking of x3 man jbikers to pre-assualt units on behalf of the wyches to save them the trouble (can only over watch once per phase) but seems like a lot of points to spend to save cheaper models. thoughts?

raider reliability:
i didnt buy a DE army because they are resilient, but with hull points and bonuses to high AP weapons, i seem to be losing even more of them in 6th and at an earlier stage too. how do you guys run gunboat lists? by the time i'm in weapons range, i get shot to bits and fall out of the sky, scattering the tiny remains of the squishy units all over the battlefield, ready to be mopped up by bolters.
is a gunboat list dependent on x3 ravagers and sitting back for a few turns? if so, nightshields all round?
at what point do you move forwards and engage?

hybrid lists:
due to the difficulties i've had in getting my troops to where i need them using the conventional measures, i was looking at running more of a hybrid list as an experiment. i was looking at sending up a unit of incubi or other resilient unit with archon + WWP in venom 1st turn to set up a portal for cronos and a couple of large wych units to come through (20 strong to weather overwatch fire). idea being that the cronos can pop a couple of models with its upgrades to grant FNP right off the bat. reserves reliability can be brought in via purchasable terrain if needs be.
other support would come from a large unit of jbikes, ravager and razorwing as well as raider mounted shooters.
i would look at having 2 wwp carriers around
is there any merit to this?


cheers guys

I will give this a shot but I can’t claim any experience with 6th yet – just theory from what happened in 5th translated into 6th as I see it. Anyways, here are my thoughts.

csjarrat wrote:

deep striking dreadies. wtf?

Fact of life, you can’t avoid it so you just have to live with it. Happened to me last month but I was running a 5th ed WWP list, wyches came out of the portal and jumped the Dread 2nd turn and dismantled it in the end of 3rd turn. However, what I offered on the table knowing he had a drop pod Dread was a given fact that the wwp deploying team was going to get flamed badly. Luck had it the wracks weathered the fire fairly well and held their ground and I was glad the Dread couldn’t assault the turn it arrived.

Now, in 6th, not much will change for me – I will continue using wracks as wwp escorts and they will be somewhat a meatshield until units emerge from the portal. Grotesques would even be better but I do not like using them as escorts but rather a dedicated assault unit (this might have to change for 6th!).

When I see a lot of drop podding or deepstrikers I tend to not get aggressive with portal position as your wwp escort becomes bait. I want my opponent to deepstrike deep into my zone so I can isolate them with more of my units than his units (and hope for some really bad scatter rolls).

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overwatch:

From what I have read from other DE players already getting games in, it is not as bad as we all make it out to be. I cannot attest to this but I think if you are smart in your charges you can minimize the damage. I would be more worried about failed assaults and taking risks of charges longer than 6” as losing your most forward wych can put you back another inch.

So my advice is maintaining a decent charge distance and charging other units into one target. If you are charging 10 wyches into 10 marines then you are not giving yourself a good chance to win the combat round let alone losing a wych or two before you arrive. 2 squads of wyches into 1 marine squad is what you should be doing and this has been true since 4th edition (they are a tarpit, not a hammer).

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raider reliability:

I almost quoted your rant – it was funny.

I would continue again from 4th edition to treat raiders as 1 turn transports. Sorry if you thought you can get 2 turns of reliable use out of them but the turn they hit the table they should be where you need them to be when they blow up (and providing 5+ craters or wreakage). Night fight in some games may help the survival but I run nightshields and FF on my raiders and there is no hesitation in what I need them to do – their upgrades should not be dictating how you play them. Nightshields for instance work wonders up close as most rapid fire guns are affected – doesn’t mean you can get stupid in rushing raiders, put some intelligence in where you rush the raiders and you find you will have an extra raider than you would normally have. Just remember raiders no longer contest objectives.

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hybrid lists:

Not crazy about Incubi escorts, you lose a turn to disembark and deploy the portal and then get the raider blown up with your incubi becoming pedestrians. I would rather see you use a shooting unit for escort duty or a wracks. Just count on the wracks being pedestrians and them walking to the nearest objective. Opponents pay wracks no mind when all they have is a flamer – try a hex rifle on an acothyst and have some fun even.

Cronos got a little boost but I still think its survivability will be the same from 5th to 6th – opponents will “freak” when it emerges and put every gun on it until it is dead even though its pretty harmless compared to other things.

Wyches on foot in a portal is a daring idea. Remember you cannot take 20 wyches, recheck the codex for the maximum size and have a blob of wyches is beyond my wisdom. I have used 2 squads of 10 wyches before and tuned it down to 1 squad of 10. Really didn’t need that many wyches and I thought hellions were better (this was 5th edition). Now, maybe the Baron with 20 hellions would be better. Get a token in there and have fun shooting and screening other units (maybe your wyches).

Terrain, interesting idea – jury is still out, I haven’t heard anyone use one of those yet. For whatever good terrain might give you you have to ask yourself, could I had just purchased more units for the same effect?

All the other support units you mention all got buffed in 6th, yes, try them out and my recommendation is to not try the WWP until you got some games under your belt. Do not feel the WWP is a good idea just because you do not have enough raiders – it is not easy to orchestrate a wwp if you are just starting out – to quote Evil Space Elves, “it’s a trap!”

Good luck and happy hunting!

Grumpy Kwi wrote:

I will give this a shot but I can’t claim any experience with 6th yet – just theory from what happened in 5th translated into 6th as I see it. Anyways, here are my thoughts.

csjarrat wrote:

deep striking dreadies. wtf?

Fact of life, you can’t avoid it so you just have to live with it. Happened to me last month but I was running a 5th ed WWP list, wyches came out of the portal and jumped the Dread 2nd turn and dismantled it in the end of 3rd turn. However, what I offered on the table knowing he had a drop pod Dread was a given fact that the wwp deploying team was going to get flamed badly. Luck had it the wracks weathered the fire fairly well and held their ground and I was glad the Dread couldn’t assault the turn it arrived.

Now, in 6th, not much will change for me – I will continue using wracks as wwp escorts and they will be somewhat a meatshield until units emerge from the portal. Grotesques would even be better but I do not like using them as escorts but rather a dedicated assault unit (this might have to change for 6th!).

When I see a lot of drop podding or deepstrikers I tend to not get aggressive with portal position as your wwp escort becomes bait. I want my opponent to deepstrike deep into my zone so I can isolate them with more of my units than his units (and hope for some really bad scatter rolls).

fair enough, i'm yet to use coven units (not what attracted me to the army) but feel i may have to change my approach on this one!

Quote :

overwatch:

From what I have read from other DE players already getting games in, it is not as bad as we all make it out to be. I cannot attest to this but I think if you are smart in your charges you can minimize the damage. I would be more worried about failed assaults and taking risks of charges longer than 6” as losing your most forward wych can put you back another inch.

So my advice is maintaining a decent charge distance and charging other units into one target. If you are charging 10 wyches into 10 marines then you are not giving yourself a good chance to win the combat round let alone losing a wych or two before you arrive. 2 squads of wyches into 1 marine squad is what you should be doing and this has been true since 4th edition (they are a tarpit, not a hammer).

i found myself really needing the fleet re-rolls to make sure i got in, so am loathe to put in a haemy to make them more survivable, seems like a real trade off. what i'm really hurting on is flamers. every squad has at least one it seems, and some have multiple (combi flamers). losing D3 models easily hurts, especially on a x10 strong squad if the other guys get lucky with overwatch. by the time i've weathered one or two charges there is usually only a fragment of the unit left.
this nis where i'm thinking that cronos and jbikes would be useful. cronos shoots and get people some tokens, jbikes declare a charge and get jink saves, taking the overwatch fire for the girls. then the girls get stuck in

Quote :

raider reliability:

I almost quoted your rant – it was funny.

I would continue again from 4th edition to treat raiders as 1 turn transports. Sorry if you thought you can get 2 turns of reliable use out of them but the turn they hit the table they should be where you need them to be when they blow up (and providing 5+ craters or wreakage). Night fight in some games may help the survival but I run nightshields and FF on my raiders and there is no hesitation in what I need them to do – their upgrades should not be dictating how you play them. Nightshields for instance work wonders up close as most rapid fire guns are affected – doesn’t mean you can get stupid in rushing raiders, put some intelligence in where you rush the raiders and you find you will have an extra raider than you would normally have. Just remember raiders no longer contest objectives.

yeah thats cool, i get that, its just that when one goes down, the entire wych squad dies now its S4 hits (i cant find anything in the brb that says open topped is only S3 but please correct me otherwise!!) its almost like the raider is a liability in some situations, especially given the range extention on rapid fire weapons and loss of hull points per glance. i've got a few games coming up this weekend so will try them out some more and also a hybrid list to check out wwps

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hybrid lists:

Not crazy about Incubi escorts, you lose a turn to disembark and deploy the portal and then get the raider blown up with your incubi becoming pedestrians. I would rather see you use a shooting unit for escort duty or a wracks. Just count on the wracks being pedestrians and them walking to the nearest objective. Opponents pay wracks no mind when all they have is a flamer – try a hex rifle on an acothyst and have some fun even.
i was thinking of incubus because of the 3+ save tbh, they should be able to go to ground and weather some shooting. the power weapons and high WS attacks would be useful in supporting the wyches once they arrive.

Cronos got a little boost but I still think its survivability will be the same from 5th to 6th – opponents will “freak” when it emerges and put every gun on it until it is dead even though its pretty harmless compared to other things.
thats the plan, anything that takes the heat off my girlies is good. it should arrive, get a couple of tokens for my girls and consider its work done

Wyches on foot in a portal is a daring idea. Remember you cannot take 20 wyches, recheck the codex for the maximum size and have a blob of wyches is beyond my wisdom. I have used 2 squads of 10 wyches before and tuned it down to 1 squad of 10. Really didn’t need that many wyches and I thought hellions were better (this was 5th edition). Now, maybe the Baron with 20 hellions would be better. Get a token in there and have fun shooting and screening other units (maybe your wyches).
ah pants, yeah 15 is max. thats fine mate, i've got 30 of the buggers so x2 15s works fine. i just feel i need more numbers to offset squishyness, but maybe thats my fantasy side coming through :-) hellions look awesome, would have bought some under 5th if people hadnt said they sucked bawls so much!

Terrain, interesting idea – jury is still out, I haven’t heard anyone use one of those yet. For whatever good terrain might give you you have to ask yourself, could I had just purchased more units for the same effect?
thats what i need to test. if a hybrid is all about getting the stuff through that portal at the right time, then it could be a good investment. of course nothing stops me from rolling less than 3 twice lol!

All the other support units you mention all got buffed in 6th, yes, try them out and my recommendation is to not try the WWP until you got some games under your belt. Do not feel the WWP is a good idea just because you do not have enough raiders – it is not easy to orchestrate a wwp if you are just starting out – to quote Evil Space Elves, “it’s a trap!”

Good luck and happy hunting!

cheers mate, thanks for your time

No worries, your ideas are fine, just wanted to help with your expectations.

Incubi are fine as escorts - they will end up burning a turn or two trying to get into CC.

Cronos is fine too - once you deliver that first token to someone the opponent will kill it immediately.

Other than that I hope you get on the tables and trying it out!

I think that a dedicated Hydra List thread is definitely on the cards for a few weeks time once we're all settling into the game a little more...

I'm actually quite excited now to try and make the WWP work - I think dual ability units (combat units with some shooting ability eg. pain engines and RJBs) will be pretty good choices for coming out of the WWP.

I was intrigued by buildings that affect reserves rolls: IIRC you can roll 3 dice and pick the one that is relevant - correct me if I'm wrong but you can choose to deliberately keep something in reserve by doing this can't you? I'm thinking (if I was in your shoes) I would roll up the reserve roll for the Chronos first and then if it arrived then roll for wyches, but if the chronos failed then I'd try to deliberately stall the wyches arrival...

dangerous beans wrote:

I'm actually quite excited now to try and make the WWP work - I think dual ability units (combat units with some shooting ability eg. pain engines and RJBs) will be pretty good choices for coming out of the WWP.

what do you think about a mixed trueborn unit? some with CC some with big guns?
on paper it looks ok, they put out a respectable number of shots and attacks and with PGL/ power axe dracon the'd be equipped to deal with most threats.

hi guys, just wanted to feed back my experiences with the list.
i ran a 1750 list against tau and against CSM this weekend.
i had:
-archon, power axe, shadowfield, webway portal.
x4 incubi
venom
(these guys were brutal and really resilient. they chewed through marines with no problem. they'll obviously ping off termies but MEQ was an easy fight for them. like the archon, can take a kicking and dish one out. archon got loads of kills with thrown plasma grenades too which was nice!)

x2 15 strong wyches with aggy heka and x1 hydra gauntlets
(did the job nicely, racked up plenty of kills. agoniser still a good choice due to S3)
x2 10 strong warriors with SC in raiders/ff and ns
(cant say i'm really fussed for these guys to be honest, fairly ineffective)

x9 strong RJB unit, x3 Caltrops + x2 blaster. champ with v.blade
(love the speed of this unit. i was far too aggressive with these in game one and went for a T1 caltrop kill on his suit commander (to get rid of the warlord trait!!). did a stack of wounds and then my opponent cacked himself and shot the entire army at them. cracking distraction but they didnt achieve much else lol. second game they wiped 3/4 a CSM squad with a t1 cltrop turbo into the corner, killed a demon prince and then became combat ineffective and skulked.)

ravager (hit and miss)
cronos (like it very much, brilliant pain token dispenser. i'd go with all 3 upgrades next time as was far more useful in CC than i first thought. that S5 ap2 really is nice)
razorwing (lost it in both games!! lucky sixes. not looking forward to having anything with skyfire on the board!!! did a fair bit of damage though, missiles are really brutal against infantry, also put a couple of glances on vehicles with them which was nice)

against tau, i got seriously shafted by reserves rolls thanks to him rolling the -1 to reserves warlord trait :-(
still got the win but the attack was very disjointed and i lost the vast majority of my units. thankfully it was big guns never tire and the cronos won it for me!
a slick approach of all my units with pain tokens thanks to the cronos would have had me overwhelming the tau lines and winning easily, it was a much harder game due to this and i think i'll need to look at ways of improving the reserves odds.

against CSM, a great alpha strike saw me well through the initial turns, but the 20 warriors in the list couldnt put out enough shooting to bring down x6 bezerkers over 3 turns and the one last remaining infantry model of his army won him the game lol!
learned a lot, and to be honest, i think hybrids will probably struggle to be built under 1750 as i really struggled to make everything fit!