The Black Buzzards - 1500 point list (attempt 4)

I'm starting to experiment with mixing Pain Engines into my list, as I don't field ravagers so one of the biggest problems with running Taloi becomes a non issue. Reavers can also easily provide cover for them which helps sure up another one of their weaknesses.

The concept of the army become something like a shepherd (talos) and his dogs (reavers).

I'm still not 100% sure on the Talos load outs. I went for liquifiers because they are a great all-round weapon (both defensive and offensive). I went for healtlances because they are effective and have a range band that works well with where the Talos wants to be. I didn't choose weapons with more range mainly because any turn spent shooting is a turn where the talos isn't using his run move to herd the enemy. That being said haywire could be useful.

Thoughts and criticisms wanted! Thanks.

List A: Double succubus:

HQ
Succubus, venom blade - 70
Succubus, venom blade - 70

TROOPS
9 wyches, Haywire, Hekatrix, venom blade, PGL - 133
Raider, Disintigrator - 60
9 wyches, Haywire, Hekatrix, venom blade, PGL - 133
Raider, Disintigrator - 60

FAST ATTACK
9 Reavers, 3 heat lances, arena champion, venom blade - 249
9 Reavers, 3 heat lances, arena champion, venom blade - 249
9 Reavers, 3 heat lances, arena champion, venom blade - 249

HEAVY
Talos, twin-linked liquifier gun, twin-linked heat lance - 115
Talos, twin-linked liquifier gun, twin-linked heat lance - 115

Total: 1503

List B: Archon:

HQ
Archon, SField, HBlade, STrap - 135

TROOPS
9 wyches, Hekatrix, venom blade, PGL - 133
Raider, Disintigrator - 60
9 wyches, Hekatrix, venom blade, PGL - 133
Raider, Disintigrator - 60

FAST ATTACK
9 Reavers, 3 heat lances, arena champion, venom blade - 249
9 Reavers, 3 heat lances, arena champion, venom blade - 249
9 Reavers, 3 heat lances, arena champion, venom blade - 249

HEAVY
Talos, twin-linked liquifier gun, twin-linked heat lance - 115
Talos, twin-linked liquifier gun, twin-linked heat lance - 115

Total: 1498


List A: Single Succubus (no haywire):

HQ
Succubus, venom blade - 70

TROOPS
6 wyches, Hekatrix, venom blade, PGL - 85
Raider, Disintigrator - 60
7 wyches, Hekatrix, venom blade, PGL - 95
Raider, Disintigrator - 60
7 wyches, Hekatrix, venom blade, PGL - 95
Raider, Disintigrator - 60

FAST ATTACK
9 Reavers, 3 heat lances, arena champion, venom blade - 249
9 Reavers, 3 heat lances, arena champion, venom blade - 249
9 Reavers, 3 heat lances, arena champion, venom blade - 249

HEAVY
Talos, twin-linked liquifier gun, twin-linked heat lance - 115
Talos, twin-linked liquifier gun, twin-linked heat lance - 115

Total: 1502

List B, I would drop 1 Wych from each unit and spend the points on Night shields for each Raider and a venom blade on your Archon (it's soo worth the 5 extra points)

I like the double succubus list but would again drop 1 wych from each unit for night shields.

You only have 2 scoring units, and they are pretty fragile so I feel that the night shields would help protect them a little more

I don't care for the single succubus list, but i don't know why. It seems pretty solid, but I think the lack of haywire grenades just doesn't sit well with me

Seshiru wrote:

You only have 2 scoring units, and they are pretty fragile so I feel that the night shields would help protect them a little more

I don't care for the single succubus list, but i don't know why. It seems pretty solid, but I think the lack of haywire grenades just doesn't sit well with me

About sums it up for me. I like the Succubus lists, Im reluctant to go with just 2 troop choices, but then you are trying lists that use other things as the core, not troops. You could be fine with just 2 I guess.

Would this be for the Salamanders match?

It looks like a heck of a lot of fun to play, but I have a question: How are your wyches not going to end up walking? Without any sort of protection on your raiders, I'm not seeing how they get out of turn one still floating.

The I normally have enough terrain to hide two raiders, so they tend to be safe the first turn. I just didn't find night shields that useful. If venoms could transport 6 models I would run them as they are easier to hide. The talos should provide some target saturation as they require similar weapons to take down. They are a lot tougher then any of our transports and people are terrified of them (they seem to have traumatised a lot of players in the past) they attract bullets like no tomorrow.

As for troops, only two troop choices is pretty bad. My list before had three wych wasn't great either. However the reavers do a great job at contesting. In 1/3 of the missions I have 4-5 scoring units (reavers or talos become scoring), and in 1/6 of the missions I don't need scoring units. So that leaves 1/2 the missions where it might be a problem.

Again these lists are in their infancy.

Blind_Baku wrote:

Would this be for the Salamanders match?

Yes it would. Should be a good list to test it against as it has a lot of reaver/pain engine cryptonite (cover ignoring, 2+ poison, speeders that can kite the engines etc). If it pulls through it will be a good sign.

The other thing I'm not sure about is haywire blasters, they would give me some ranged AT, but striping slightly less then a HP a turn doesn't strike me as very effective.

I'm also interested how Talos interact with the craters that raiders leave behind (now that MCs can benefit from area terrain).

I'd go for Nightshielded dissie ravagers and the first list, actually. Just imagine - if something want to get our of transport to shoot your troops - it is dead next turn, period.

Are you 100% sure about Talosi?

Azdrubael wrote:

I'd go for Nightshielded dissie ravagers and the first list, actually. Just imagine - if something want to get our of transport to shoot your troops - it is dead next turn, period.

Are you 100% sure about Talosi?

Well they are the experimental unit for this game, so they sort of have stay. However a dissie ravager could be interesting (worth testing at some point for sure), never really thought about it.

Looking at your history (of super awesome reaver wins) i'd go with double succubui and my main reason for thinking this is when, in any of your matches have the VP been close, ay? not one. So the easier VP from warlord doesnt matter as much when you have 3 reavers as linebraker last turn. The succubi are the teeth of the wyches, and if you went with Archon one then one wych squad would be just a toothless (super anti-tank...) speed bump.

Also im still a bit iffy on if you NEED the heatlances. One last thing was i was hoping you could play test a chronus for me, as i never see them in reports,let alone ones of your standerd. Is there any chance of a chronus in any of your lists?

alexwellace wrote:

Looking at your history (of super awesome reaver wins) i'd go with double succubui and my main reason for thinking this is when, in any of your matches have the VP been close, ay? not one. So the easier VP from warlord doesnt matter as much when you have 3 reavers as linebraker last turn.

For now, sure, but in time my enemies will adapt (unfortunately you only get ever get one VP for line breaker).

alexwellace wrote:

The succubi are the teeth of the wyches, and if you went with Archon one then one wych squad would be just a toothless (super anti-tank...) speed bump.

True they are, and they really make wyches work. The archon does pack a punch though, and is more survivable. So many choices!

alexwellace wrote:

Also im still a bit iffy on if you NEED the heatlances. One last thing was i was hoping you could play test a chronus for me, as i never see them in reports,let alone ones of your standerd. Is there any chance of a chronus in any of your lists?

Haywire might be a better option and a solution to one of my lists weaknesses (ceremite plating) and give me some long range AT.

As for a list with a cronos I do plan on experimenting with them at some point. At the moment Baku is experimenting with a cronos list Baku's Fun Footdar. He writes fantastic reports and has a game in a week or so.

I actually like the single succubus list better.

It provides you with 3 troop choices and because you have no haywires on them I think it will probably make them more survivable as there will be no risk of dying from exploding vehicles or troops jumping out of wrecked transports and gunning them down. They now have a specific role of assualting and mopping up infantry and securing objectives.
You have 11 heat lances in the list which should be more than enough for AT duties and the Talos could help out in this area if they get into charge range. The raider disintegrators can take care of speeders as well.

Got to say your battle reports are excellent reading, and the idea of 3 units of reavers is very interesting. I've been following them trying to figure out how to incorporate a single 6 reaver unit into my lists, but without much success so far.

Thanks for the advice and kind words kenny3760. I might have a solution for those six reavers you mentioned. But it's at the end of this long post.

New list:

HQ
Succubus, venom blade - 70
Succubus, venom blade - 70

TROOPS
8 wyches, Hekatrix, venom blade, haywire, PGL - 121
Raider, Disintigrator - 60
8 wyches, Hekatrix, venom blade, haywire, PGL - 121
Raider, Disintigrator - 60

FAST ATTACK
9 Reavers, 3 blasters, arena champion, venom blade - 258
9 Reavers, 3 blasters, arena champion, venom blade - 258
9 Reavers, 3 blasters, arena champion, venom blade - 258

HEAVY
Talos, twin-linked liquifier gun, twin-linked haywire - 110
Talos, twin-linked liquifier gun, twin-linked haywire - 110

Total: 1496

So what's changed? Signature double succubus (that cost the same as an archon, HBlade, SField, STrap, Vblade, so can easily be swapped around). Standard wych load out that has done well so far (kept haywire for now).

Now onto the reavers: Blasters! I hear you cry? But didn't you show us in this thread how awesome heatlances are? *Angry mob of disappointed TDC members tare Mush to pieces*

Let me explain, there is a method behind the madness! I used to run blaster reavers in 5th as they kept your reavers safe, when 6th hit and jink got introduced I went heat lances and thought I would never look back.

Then one day I decide to add pain engines to my list, and thought haywire would be a bad idea as most of my AT kills things outright rather then leave them with hull points to strip. So I thought Taloi with heat lances would be a better choice (they are faster as they can spend turns running rather the shooting).

Unfortunately then I remember the elephant in the room. the existence of Stormravens and Ceremite plating (meltas only roll 1d6) this is not a major problem for regular S8 melta guns, but it completely shuts down heat lances (damn it Ward!). Well is that really a problem don't you ignore flyers anyway? Yes I do normally ignore flyers, but that's because I can outmanoeuvre them to avoid their shooting, storm ravens can just go into hover mode and be impervious to all my AT and get a jink save while they are at it! This is a something I have been in denial about for a while.

I was just about to consider maybe getting some dark lances into my list when I was on The Dark City Chat and Orthien said "blasters? " or something to that effect.

Blasters... blasters... blasters... I muttered to myself as I looked over my simulated comparisons between heatlances and blasters. More expensive, not as reliable... But you used them in 5th and they worked? People use ravagers and they work? You need to be shielding the pain engines with your reavers so extra range could be useful. Hmm... I might be onto something here... Let's see blaster range 18", reaver move 12", so 30" range. Haywire blaster ranged 24", talos move 6", so range 30". Blasters don't always outright kill things so some reliable HP sniping haywire blasters would fit right in. Eureka!

Then I tried to reassure myself that blasters had other advantages too:

-Threat range against vehicles when coming in from reserve is 30" rather then 21".
-Reaver mobility means you should be hitting side armour most of the time and rear armour if it ever gets exposed (they can't keep a front facing against every reaver squad).
-Instant kill T4 models (crisis suits and paladins come to mind).
-Ignore FNP on T4 models.
-Safely engage flamer armoured fast vehicles and transports with flamer infantry (12" move 8" template 20" range, with the heat lance this could be risky).
-Less exposure to rapid fire.
-Allows the rest of the army to keep up.
-Because the front models of units get removed first it often meant your effective melta range was 6-7" (as you want the heatlances at the back), meaning that your squad will always be closer than 9".
-Better against MCs.
-Don't get affected by ceremite.
-Better against flyers as they have more range.

In short with blasters positioning becomes more important (side and rear armour) but range is less of an issue (18" vs 9"). Blasters also mean you can play the reavers less aggressively which may be better suited for more shooting orientated lists.

Finally, exploring all the options in 6th is probably sensible thing to do as some gems get buried in the sand and never see the light of day (Next grav talons and the double leadership tests!).

This all sounds good on paper, but the proof is in the eating of the pudding!

Thoughts?

I like this list the most thus far. The theory hammer behind you switch to blasters seems logical enough, be interesting to see the table play of it.