DE Progression list 1k ~ 2k

I would greatly appreciate any feedback that could be provided to me in regards to my tentative plans to purchase a DE army.

My 2k list would be
HQ
Baron Sathonyx

Elite
5 Incubit; Klav Onslaught
- Venom

5 Incubit; Klav Onslaught
- Venom

Troops
10 Kalabit warriors
- Raider; Splinter Racks, Flicker

10 Kalabit warriors
- Raider; Splinter Racks, Flicker

10 Kalabit warriors
- Raider; Splinter Racks, Flicker

14 Hellions; Hellarch, Stunfist

Fast
5 Beastmasters
-4 Khymerae
-7 Razorwing Flocks

5 Beastmasters
-4 Khymerae
-7 Razorwing Flocks

Heavy
Razorwing Jet fighters; 2Necro 2Shatter
Razorwing Jet fighters; 2Necro 2Shatter

My 1k list would be
HQ
Baron Sathonyx

Troops
10 Kalabit warriors
- Raider; Splinter Racks, Flicker

10 Kalabit warriors
- Raider; Splinter Racks, Flicker

10 Hellions; Hellarch, Stunfist

Fast
4 Beastmasters
-4 Khymerae
-6 Razorwing Flocks

4 Beastmasters
-4 Khymerae
-6 Razorwing Flocks

Advice would be greatly appreciated.

I am brand new to 40k with no experience (but a long table top wargaming history), the list is intended to be an all comers list for a league that will throw me against a wide variety of opponents. My goal is to buy one army that is modular (can be played at all point levels). Money is of relative concern, my thoughts to help lighten the burden is to buy the vampire counts bat swarms for the razor wing flocks (3 or 4 to base, should give me about 3 bases per purchase) and possibly the lord of the rings worgs for the Khymeras.

There are actually a few things I would change...

First up you have almost zero anti tank... 2 dark lances on raiders do not count!

Second, you have way over spent on the beast packs at 1k.

With the baron, IMO, you run either beasts or hellions and it's 1 solid unit that is supported by the rest of the army.

Personally I would go beasts...

Baron, 4 beast masters, 5 khymera, 6 razorwing flocks
2 x 10 warriors, blaster, raider, splinter racks, night shields
Razorwing with stock missiles, dark lances, flicker fields

Then ideally a 3rd troops choice... Wracks and a haemy maybe

Welcome, I'm sure you will do just fine in 40k.

As the baron now confers hit and run (6th ed change), a phantasm grenade launcher to beasts (you need grenades to strike first when assaulting through cover), not to mention now that beast/jump infantry now both have a 12" move the two really complement each other. They won't benefit from master of the skies, however they already ignore terrain and hit and run on a 2+ is good enough.

I would drop the hellions, they are not as good as they were due to the changes to cover saves (you used to be able to hide half the unit and the whole unit would benefit from cover, this is no longer the case) and go for a single unit of beast with the baron (it's effective and a lot of fun, takes a bit of time to master though).

Massaen's point on anti armour is true, you don't really have any. Although mechanised armies are not as prevalent as they were in 5th edition they are far from dead. For anti-armour it's hard to look past a ravager.

I would at least give the warriors a blaster and splinter cannon for more flexibility. I would drop the flikerfields as they are no longer necessary thanks to the 5+ jink save skimmers now get for moving (as long as you make sure they are in cover first turn).

As a general rule it's never a bad idea to upgrade the venom to two splinter cannons (a snake needs two fangs).

Incubi have a major weakness and that is they don't have grenades (meaning they will fight at initiative 1 if they charge through cover) so their high initiative gets wasted. Because of this they are normally run in a 4 man squad along with an Archon carrying a phantasm grenade launcher, in a venom.

Razorwings are mainly an anti infantry platform hence they normally swap their lances for disintegrators. You can either run them with stock missiles (to save points) or shatter missiles for a bit more power and some anti armour capability.

Hope that helps!

Correct me if I am wrong (please), my understanding of the game system when it comes to tanks is the following.

MOST vehicles have the following armor sets
10 all around
12 front/side 10 rear
14 front 12 side 10 rear
Most vehicles have 3 hull points

In close combat you always strike against rear armor

so the hellions being str 4 need a 6 to glance (9 guys on the charge plus baron is 27 str4 and 4 str6) on average the unit is doing 4.5 glances and the baron is doing 2.

Like wise the Beast master units (16 str 4 and 35 str3 with rending) on average the khems are doing 2.6 and the razor wings are doing 5.8 (a few pens). Once again well exceeding the average 3 hull points.

So the real problem is zooming fliers which I can not assault and Higher than average all around armor. I thought the Ravenwings would be best suited for anti air due to them being able to unload 2 dark lances each and up to 4 missles at those air transports. Keeping that role in mind I should probably drop the Necro missles off of them. They can additionally fill the role of anti heavy armor by providing more dark lances to the table. (my understanding is that ravagers fire against fliers at BS 1, as the last modifier to be applied is always hard to hit the arial assualt does not help them in this reguards)

I can see why i should be upgrading the venoms to splinter cannons (originally I had that purchase but dropped it due to point restrictions). And I can see why I should upgrade to a splinter cannon on the kalabite warriors once again dropped for points. What I am confused about is the recomendation of the blaster, it has a different AP, Range, and STR than the rest of the unit but has to fire at the same target as the unit. It seems kind of wasteful to throw a ton of poisned attacks away to capitolize on the blasters best targets. For 15 points I loose range, rerolls (splinter racks), and have to drop something else from the list to get a single 8/2 gun. I just don't see the rationality in that choice.

I like the hellions and beast masters a lot if it's not insta gibbing myself by taking the three units I would very much prefer to keep them

As for the Incubi, I have no issue at all with dropping them, or changing it into one unit of 4 + archon (as I still have a free floating HQ slot) and using the extra points or something else. They seemd to fit in with the fast and furious approach i've been trying to work towards and are in there for no other reason. They are the part of the list I am most willing to part with. What would be some good alternatives with the freed points?

I would appreciate an explination/answer to the above points so that I can better understand/judge my choice.
If I am following advice correctly I should:
Be aware that hellions are challenging to play in this edition
Drop the flicker fields, use those points to buy splinter cannons for the associatecd kalabite units

At 1k drop a unit of beast masters and bring anti tank with those points and any remaining floating points can bulk up the hellions/remaining beast master unit.

At 2k drop/adjust the the incubi to reflect
Another fast and geared up CC unit such as 4 Incubi w/ archon (grenades) in an upgraded venom
Anti Armor option, possibly a ravager or scourages with haywire blasters/heat lances

Am I on the right track? Is my analysis of my anti vehicle power correct?

Anti tank: Your understanding of tanks though correct in theory, never quite works out in practice. You can never assume a unit will get to into melee with a tank without taking casualties, this is especially true for a fragile unit like hellions. Your opponent can easilly exploit the fact that you need to get close to force you into a unfavourable situation when engaging the tank (out of position or counter charge to list a few). Some vehicles will just be too fast to catch. A good opponent will often bubble wrap his vehicles with disposable infantry units in order to prevent you from assaulting them. Finally there are a lot of vehicles out there with rear armour 11 and there are also walkers which you hit on front armour when in melee.

AA: The main problem here is that flyers can't be hit by blasts and therefore can't be hit by any of the missiles available to DE. If you really wan't AA the voidraven is probably your best bet (AV11 and void lances). On the bright side DE are a very mobile army and flyers have very restrictive movement so you can easily use this to reduce their impact on the game.

Blasters: If you have the points, its never a bad idea to get one on a warrior squad. Their range isn't an issue as more often then not you will want to be in rapid fire range 12" to get the most out of your splinter rifles. What the blaster does give you is a weapon that wounds most things on a 2+, ignore armour (a lot of marines out there), AT and instant death to multi wound T4 or less models. When fighting mechanised lists you will often find your poison weaponry has no viable targets or you really need to take out a vehicle, in situations like these an extra dark light weapon can be a real boon. In short it's not wasted against infantry and can come in handy against armour.

Hellions/Beasts/Incubi: If you like beasts and hellions I would take more of them instead of incubi. Incubi are dependent on archons and getting a second HQ would be spending a lot of points on characters.

How much AT?: It's hard to say. A 2000 point guard army can easilly have 15+ vehicles, similar can be said for space marines (in the 8+ region).

I hope that explains my reasoning behind the previous post.

Definantly, I really appreciate it, when i get home today I will drop the Incubi and look at the best means to aleviate the AT issue, with the revised 2k list i'll see what I can filter down to revamp the 1k to include a stronger AT element in that list as well.

I see your point about the units not being at full strength which is why I included the number of average hull points removed, both units are capable of stripping double to triple the hull points of a standard vehicle so even loosing 1/2 the unit before it hits the vehicle should still be a relatively moot point.

I had not considered needing to chase down out of the way vehicles though, so I will need to make sure my AT choices have the speed/range to meet this obstacle.

The 4 most common armies I have seen in the league so far are (no idea what point levels have been used in the games i'm watching but I think they we're close to 2k).
Necrons (usually fielding 2 NS with 5 warriors+cryptek, 3 annhilation barges, storm lord, LOTS of wraiths)
Tau (lots of suits with missle pods, no marker lights, recently incorporated several broadsides)
Blood Angels (3 AV12 transport fliers with multi meltas, apparently he can do some special jump move that lets him leave the vehicles even when it's zooming and several units of assualt marines)
Daemons (pretty heavy variety on this front but lots of bolts of change)

Most of these armies it appears have 2 things in common, they are light on melee assualt troops # wise, units are rarely bigger than 5. And a large amount of fliers.

My master plan is to punish their small unit sizes with the beastmaster units (which if my numbers are corrected can even take out 8 man assualt terminator squads and barely bat an eyelash) and use the hellions to drag out their ICs and stop their shennanigans (such as the thunderstorms). I doubt i'll win an air supperiority war but if I can stifle their command of the skies that is one more thing in my favor.

As a side note, I think I am going to try to squeeze in the pain allocation trick from this article http://www.thedarkcity.net/t1384-hellions-hellions-hellions. Will help in the anti vehicle department bumping them up to str5 on the charge from the begining of the game.

What about the following

My 1k list would be
HQ
Baron Sathonyx
Haemoculus

Troops
5 Wracks

10 Kalabit warriors, Splinter Cannon
- Raider; Splinter Racks,

10 Kalabit warriors, Splinter Cannon
- Raider; Splinter Racks

10 Hellions; Hellarch, Stunfist

Fast
4 Beastmasters
-3 Khymerae
-6 Razorwing Flocks

Heavy
Ravager

at 2k
HQ
Baron Sathonyx
Haemoculus

Troops
5 Wracks

10 Kalabit warriors, Splinter Cannon
- Raider; Splinter Racks,

10 Kalabit warriors, Splinter Cannon
- Raider; Splinter Racks,

10 Kalabit warriors, Splinter Cannon
- Raider; Splinter Racks

14 Hellions; Hellarch, Stunfist

Fast
5 Beastmasters
-4 Khymerae
-8 Razorwing Flocks

5 Beastmasters
-4 Khymerae
-8 Razorwing Flocks

5 Scourages, 2 haywire blasters

Heavy
Ravager, Grisly Trophies (sit near wracks to help them pass any leadership test they have)
Voidraven, 3 shatterfield missels
Voidraven, 3 shatterfield missels

How is this looking to you guys?

I'm just going to work on the 1K list, once you have a good idea about the "core" then you could work out the 2k list. The ravager brings in some needed anti tank, which helps. The wrack squad should be dropped to 3, as without pain token (thanks to the trick you mentioned) they will die so fast five is a waste of points, your better off just trying to hide the 3 as best you can. My biggest concern is the hellions, there are only 10 of them, and you are spending 80pts (haemi/wracks) to give them a 5+ save and a furious charge. This means you are effectively spending 250+ points on a 10 man T3 unit that will get shot to pieces by things like lootas, splinter cannons, multi lasers, autoguns, and basic bolters, las-rifles etc. For those 80pts you could get 5 more hellions and make the unit a bit tougher. Not to mention the pain token trick will prevent them from moving on their first turn.

There are effectively two ways of getting pain tokens, haemi or making a unit killy enough to get a pain token as quickly as possible. I think your better off trying to get a pain token by whittling a unit down with your army and then finishing them off with your hellions (Hellions are good at shooting).

I would also recommend turning your raiders sideways at the end of your movement so that your hellions can be out of line of sight or at least get a 4+ cover save (thanks to stealth). As shown below:

====> <====
o o o o o o o
o o o o o o o

In short drop the haemonculus and the wracks and get more hellions. They are shooty and you can use this to get pain tokens on them fast.

On a side note be careful about those necron barges, last time I checked they are armour 13 on all sides until they get a penetrating hit.