Hellions, Reavers or Scourges, which tool for which job?

so, what factors in to picking one or any of these units for your army?

so far the only unit I have any exp with are the hellions and think they're mostly for picking off small or weakened squads, and grabbing up objectives late game with the Baron.

also, how differently do you use hellions with or without the Baron?

There are such vast options available in the loadouts that this becomes hard to answer succinctly.

Hellions are, mostly, an assault unit - basically speaking an all around anti-infantry unit though, as the new rules really help bring their shooting back in as a primary tool. They have been proven to be a good primary assault tool as long as you build your army with this goal.

Reavers are mostly harassment of some stripe, able to hunt down small squads of infantry or to serve as tank hunters as well. The new rules have given them some nice perks, but I suspect they'll stick to their usual role nonetheless.

Scourges are not assault in any way, they are shooting tools. They can be equipped just to maul infantry quite well, but are usually used as a platform to bring Blasters/Haywire Blasters to the field in order to hunt and hurt vehicles.

I don't use Hellions without Baron, personally. I did a couple test runs with them as small harrasment squads and they were very substandard at it. To use them well you need at least 10, I suggest 15, and some favor the whole hog of 20. At that stage...why wouldn't you pay for the Baron to join them, since it's already now a big part of your army. I suppose they could still be a decent assault force sans Baron if you brought a lot of them, but they'd be more vulnerable due to lack of his cover bonus boost (or Shroud, or whatever the hell the new parlance is now, I'm still learning to change my words again).

If you run hellions you always take the baron, as they are a very mobile troop choice, especially with the changes to units in transports not being scoring. What I think hurt them this edition is cover, as in 5th you only needed half of them to be in cover for the whole unit to benefit, now the models out of cover will just get focus fired. Their role is anti-infantry and objective capture.

What makes scourges special is there ability to bring haywire blasters, so medium ranged anti tank (this thread has some interesting stuff about them link)

Reavers are very versatile and you can run them a whole bunch of different ways, in my opinion they are the best platform for heatlances DE have. Large squads got a huge boost with "jink" and "skilled rider". Here is a report to give you an idea of how they can play, the army list isn't balanced but it showcases the reavers ability to shoot/bladvane/assault and their mobility.

I hope that helps!

I would like to point out that you forgot Beastmasters. They are very fast (Ignore difficult terrain) and Razorwings are a great way to take out terminators in CC. I run 5 beastmasters, 5 Khymera's and 8 Razorwings. In formation I put the Khymera's and 4 beastmasters up front to absorb incoming fire if it's S6 or higher. In close combat the Khymera's take the wounds with a 4+ invul and the Razorwings dish out 40 rending attacks (48 during assault) that can kill power armor or even walkers with armor 12 or less.

Hellions IMO are a mobile shooting platform that can do some anti-tank and combat. I do my best never to assault space marines with them and to avoid being assaulted (sometimes it happens as I'm either loosing the game or put them in assault range to distract my opponent).

Reavers I'm still learning as I rarely took them last edition and when I did, they were AT only.

Scourges IMO are to fill a hole in your list. If you feel your a bit light in some area or need deep strikers, they are it.

Funny how our previously kinda meh FA slots are all suddenly very useful.

Beasts are an excellent assault unit that makes good use of the new rules. They're fast, aren't slowed down by cover, have multiple different initiative values (this is important when assaulting a unit with a 2+ save character) and multiple characters. They work great with the Baron, who gives them stealth, grenades, hit and run and ability to do some wound allocation schenanigance with the look out sir rule (run Baron in front, use his 2+ LOS to redistribute wounds to Razorwings and Khymerae depending whether they intagib the birds or not. If you fail the LOS roll, you still have a 2++ save).

Reavers are FAST. They now have a 4+ cover save all the time (and 3+ when turboboosting), and won't lose fnp to weapons with strenght less than 8. I see their primary role being the same as before, harassment. Turboboost to get into position (bladevane to weaken or kill enemy units), then hit enemy rear armour with heat lances and assault move to safety. Next turn turboboost again. They'll probably die pretty quickly, but will tie up a lot of fire in the meanwhile.

Scourges with HWB are reliable anti-tank. They're far more likely to strip away hull points than lances, altough they're less likely to get a one hit kill by causing an explosion. Great for when you need to destroy a vehicle (4 HWBs statistically destroy a 3 hp vehicle in one turn). They have a fairly good threat range, too, and can double as anti-infantry with their shardcarbines. They're quite fragile, tho, so I wouldn't run big squads (too expensive).

Hellions I wouldn't really compare to other FA, because let's face it, if you take them, you take the Baron. He gives them a huge boost, including making them troops (very handy now that you can't score from inside a vehicle and can only move 6'' before disembarking). Hellions shoot a lot and hit quite hard. Big squads can ovewhelm Marines and even small elite units like Terminators, altough generally I wouldn't charge units that aren't weakened first (it's not the DE way to fight fair!). Like a lot of our units, they're very fragile (5+ save and 5+ if they have fnp), so keep em in cover (with Baron you have stealth which boosts their surviveability a bit) and use your mobility. Without Baron they're not too great, so you should run a big squad with him to get the most use out of them (15-20 seems common. I'm running 14 cause I ran out of points). I think stunclaws are quite interesting in this edition, as they allow you to remove that 2+ save character from the enemy unit, and force him to fight the Baron 1 on 1 (giving you a reroll for your 2++ save for every 5 Hellions).

Nomic wrote:

I think stunclaws are quite interesting in this edition, as they allow you to remove that 2+ save character from the enemy unit, and force him to fight the Baron 1 on 1 (giving you a reroll for your 2++ save for every 5 Hellions).

Re-rollable shadow field! That's clever.

that's dirty, I'm so using it now.

We might be able to get even more dirty. Could someone with a rulebook please check how wounds on multi wound models works with lookout Sir!? It may be possible to put 4 wounds on a razorwing then nominate another one to start taking wounds. I'm on TDY and don't have my rulebook currently.

Just something to consider.

Nomic wrote:

Turboboost to get into position (bladevane to weaken or kill enemy units), then hit enemy rear armour with heat lances and assault move to safety. Next turn turboboost again. They'll probably die pretty quickly, but will tie up a lot of fire in the meanwhile.

Sorry to be a nay-sayer, but you can't shoot and use bladevanes in the same turn since the bladevanes can only be used when turbo-boosting (which is done in the shooting phase). Now chain snares are different, they're used in the movement phase so don't stop you shooting afterwards, plus they affect all units they move over not just one (you can also flat-out afterwards to get out of the way of any angry victims!

Can some one point me to the 4+/3+ save thing for reavers.... I can find the +1 from skilled rider and jink is 5+ so how do you get the extra +1??? Page number if possible. I must have glossed over something...

Massaen wrote:

Can some one point me to the 4+/3+ save thing for reavers.... I can find the +1 from skilled rider and jink is 5+ so how do you get the extra +1??? Page number if possible. I must have glossed over something...

Reread Jink, if you turbo-boost you get 4+ cover, +1 for skilled rider.

If you move, you get 4+ cover, if they turbo, they get 3+ cover.

Cobra7fac wrote:

We might be able to get even more dirty. Could someone with a rulebook please check how wounds on multi wound models works with lookout Sir!? It may be possible to put 4 wounds on a razorwing then nominate another one to start taking wounds. I'm on TDY and don't have my rulebook currently.

Just something to consider.

I wonder if it's arrogant to quote myself, oh well.

Anyway I checked the shooting section, combat section and the index but could not find anything to deny my earlier assumption. If anyone can find something to prove me wrong, please do, I don't want to be in error over this.

To explain it better, you have Baron, and 8 razorwing swarms that are taking S4 shots. For each successful Look out Sir! roll the Baron makes, you can choose a model (pg 18 BRB) to take the wound. So the first 4 wounds are put on Razorwings. When he takes another Look out Sir! roll, you can choose a new Razorwing at full health and put 4 more on that one. So on and so forth until you have 8 raazorwing bases with only 1 wound left on each. Meanwhile each of those bases gets the normal 5 attacks in CC.

So pretty much they can soak up 32 wounds at S5 or under and not loose a single model. However I do want to point out that 32 Look out Sir! rolls is about how many you need for the Baron to statistically roll double 1's and loose his shadowfield.

Questions?

Yes with "look out sir" you can bump wounds around. Remember though that you take the "Look out Sir" roll before you make the save (good for shadow fields) in mixed armour units. Alos a good opponent can easily manoeuvre his units to shoot around the baron.

Hellions were always great AT in 5th and still are, hitting even moving vehicles on a 3+ (if I've read the rules right). FnP has hurt them a bit, as has the reduction in cover saves, but overall I still think they are one of the best troop choices available to us, you can't run them without the Baron.

Reavers I see as primarily as a seek and destroy AT unit. 6 with 2 heat lances, point it at whatever vehicle you want dead and watch it pop.

Still to try out BM's this edition, but I see some good things posible with the Baron. Also BM's as characters in challenges should be hysterical, your character really wants to punch the face off my BM, be my guest.

Scourges I don't see a place for given the strengths of the other 3 FA choices. Wyches with HWG's will accomplish more than a 5 scourge unit with 2 HW blasters, more effectively, more reliably.

Ah, but do RJBs accomplish tankhunting better than Scourges - that's the real comparison, not a Troop slot to an FA slot.

so, does anyone take splinter scourges, or are carbine heavy squads better suited to trueborn?

Splinter Cannons on Venoms are generally what is taken when looking for anti-infantry shooting.

If I wanted a carbine squad, I'd probably go with Scourges, as they do it basically as well as Trueborn, but Trueborn do anti-tank quite better than Scourges.

I guess here's the next question, is there any synergy between our fast attack units? Or, do they step on each others toes?

Quote :

I think stunclaws are quite interesting in this edition, as they allow you to remove that 2+ save character from the enemy unit, and force him to fight the Baron 1 on 1 (giving you a reroll for your 2++ save for every 5 Hellions).

Can someone elaborate? I have no idea where you get that reroll from

From Moral Support

moral support's got to be damn scary from an Ork warboss or a nob, think of all of the re-rolls.

Moral suppoer only works when fighting in a challenge where one side has no other models in the combat but the challenged model. So don't go charging into 30 Orks and a Warboss with a single character.