New DE Player, need tactics advice

Greetings fellow space pirates!

I've been playing 40K for a few years, and have fielded a pretty successful competitive vanilla bike army for quite some time now. However, I am getting somewhat tired of painting/modeling power armor, and to be honest I need a new/awesome army to build. DE, with their high maneuverability, alpha-strike, and high target saturation, seemed like an obvious choice. Plus, no one at my store plays it.

I spent a lot of time really going into the codex, and I want to make a neat, non-spamming army that uses some probably not-too-often used units and tactics, and I could use some opinions. I don't want this to be a super-competitive army, to have a totally disappointed opponent at the bottom of turn 1 - I can already do that with the bike army.

Most of the list is pretty typical: suicide haywire Wyches in Raiders, a few Dakka Warrior Raiders, Ravagers, a Flyer, a Trueborn Dakka venom. These things are well-known to be good.

Specifically, I was interested in using units such as Reavers, Beastmasters, and Dakka Scourges. The Scourges are, in my opinion, some of the best in the range of GW models. I would attach my HQ units - Baron/Haemy to them, break off the Haemy to go into a Raider turn 1, and fly about causing damage, leaving the Scourges with a 2++ shield, 4++ cover from Stealth for hiding behind the Beastmasters, and lots of damage output. It's 260 points, but is this worthwhile? Reavers are a great distraction unit, and force an opponent to put some damage on it or face Lance Death. Beastmasters are just cool.

Any thoughts? Thanks in advance!

Wait so you want to use baron with scourges? Baron is best used either in hellions or beastmasters just because he boosts things that both of them need, such as PGL, stealth, (for BM), hit and run (for hellions) and of course the 2++. Ive honestly never heard of baron with scourges tho, and its an interesting idea. Only problem is the low squad count for scourges and the point cost.

So, If you want poison shots from the scourges+baron, hellions will do it better and synergize better with baron, or of course you could just use venoms. It might be interesting/useful to use baron to increase the survivability of the squad and be strong anti tank with some haywire or heat lance tho. With the Haemies pain token thats FNP, a 2++ shield, and stealth, that may be useful to have with say 4x haywires...

The problem with the Baron with Scourges IMHO is that the synergy is missing. The Baron is more a CC unit which works best with a CC unit like the Hellions or the Beastmaster and their beasts. Sticking him with Scourges makes you want to avoid CC, because Scourges bring the dakka. So, it's alot of points to have the Baron babysit the scourges.

Other than that, kudo's on trying whatever the hell you want. Go for it.

And if you want more insight on Reavers, check out Mushkilla's batreps.

Awesome, thanks for the feedback! That changes my focus a little bit. My original strategy was to run the scourges with Baron behind the BM pack to give stealth and 2++, Haemy that detaches for FNP. But I can definitely see that Scourge babysitting duty may not be the best idea for the Baron! I just feel that a 260-point investment with something that has only T3 4+/6++ FNP isn't that tough, and needed a boost. Also, I'm originally a marine player, I'm used to having my HQs sit around and babysit my terrible melee units. A 105 point awesome HQ is far less points than, say, my marine biker captain at 215 points, who almost never gets into melee (although he rips face when he does).

I am definitely in love with Reavers, and since I play a marine bike army I'm already pretty used to their tactics. 4+ constant cover save? Neat lance weapons? Run over dudes and hit them? Sign me up!

My local Meta are a lot of Nid players, lots of varied Guard players, Marines, some Crons, a few GK, but not much else, so DE seems like an awesome choice for fun games. I just don't want to spam Raiders/Venoms over and over, that isn't any fun to me. I have bikes for that.

Now I just need to figure out a neat paint scheme.

The Baron really isn't all that great in CC (he doesn't even have a power weapon)
After his +1 to go first the Baron provides: Stealth, Grenades, hit and run with re-roll, possibly leadership

For beasts, if your using the Khymera your probably not even getting much out of his stealth since the 4++ is generally better but it's still nice to have and going to ground in area terrian becomes a better option. So you end up benifiting from hit and run, +1 Leadership, and grenades.

He hellions, they already have access to hit and run (though the re-roll is nice) and can buy their own PGL you need the champion any way because they are a mellee unit and need a power weapon (so the leadership boost is a good back up for when the champ dies), so just stealth and re-rolls to Dangerous Terrian Tests. I think hellions got a lot worst this edition with the changes to cover, since you are trying to get across the board with them you can't just rely on "most my guys are in cover".

For Scourges, the stealth is nice for the scourges (since your not trying to get close you can just dig in and jump away as needed) and the hit and run lets you run away from mellee if you get assualted. Defensive grenades from the PGL is another good thing to have if you get assualted (12" move isn't enough to stay completely away from assualt). He also has 2 posioned shots at the same 18" that the Shard Carbines use. He can still reroll his failed dangerous terrain tests. Lastly he gives them a small leadership boost without needing to buy a champion.

Out of the three jump options the Beasts and Scourges actually benefit from everything he provides because they don't have an equivilent for each of his abilities they can get on their own and those abilities are all beneficial to them. Where the hellions don't really get much at all. Although beasts are generally considered to be a better unit than Scourges they both do synergize with the Baron

Ultra8th wrote:

I am definitely in love with Reavers, and since I play a marine bike army I'm already pretty used to their tactics. 4+ constant cover save? Neat lance weapons? Run over dudes and hit them? Sign me up!

If you like reavers these might be worth a read (shameless plug):

The Black Buzzards Battle Report
Reaver Guide Part 1
Reaver Guide Part 2

Hope that helps.

@Sheshiru: If u are refering to my advice then I'd have to say that I never said he's great at CC. He's just totally not dakka. He was ment for CC. He gets a +2 on his strength on the charge by the way. So that kinda makes up for his obvious weaknesses. I still say the points are better spend elsewhere then to have him babysit Scourges.

Nope, was just trying to point out that the Baron is more of a support character than anything else and as a support character he does give some good benefits to scourges.

But, as you pointed out it's a lot of points.

Although I would say if you are using Scourges already, and don't have a HQ that works with your list in some other way, then the Baron going in the Scourges is a good fit. You may be supprised at how powerful that unit really is as long as there is cover to use.

I used this unit in my last game with just 5 scourges, 2 of them had splinter cannons, and the baron attached. They wiped out a full unit of attack bikes with mulit-meltas and killed 4 marines in an assualt squad more than earning their points back.