Smurfy Musings end of 2012 - Beginning of 6th for DE

Haven't been here in a LONG time but I thought I'd post my thoughts on DE as of late, I have been playing Necrons quite a lot as well as Chaos SM and finally finished my SM Biker army (And for Ravenwing to come out soon enough just makes me groan I might have to change it again with these new bikes...) But I figured I'd share some of the things I have been thinking as I go back to my DE to try to get them into use and out of the closet (Seriously, I only take the Jetfighters in Apoc games locally to go with my Flyer wave, all other times the DE usually stay at home.

For those of you new here, here's what people generally found to be good for DE back in 5th, for perspective -

Many Small Units (MSU) was one (if not the only) way to run DE full tilt. Exceptions for this were basically in medium-sized Reaver units and Beastpacks/Hellions. You basically went MSU to get more Transports (and in return - more firepower) on the field.

Drop-off-and assault was a lot easier to pull off. (Used to be able to go 12", disembark 2", fleet d6" in shooting, and assault 6" for a nice reliable 25" (assuming 3" for Fleet) for a nice bubble o danger

Venomspam or Raiderspam, but most successful, IMO, was a mix.

Ravagers, if you felt you had spare points, a Razorwing Jetfighter

Vect for Alpha Strike (Never was a proponent of this)

DE went for the last turn contest/hold by zooming with their Skimmers with dudes hiding inside to hold the point

Ramming + Shock Prows = Suicide death-to-tanks missile/Crater for cover/BLOS on a Wreck/ slow charges (Underrated and underused tactics)

Torment Grenade Launchers + Shock Prows/Pinning Tests - Another underrated and underused Tactic

Webway Portals, at least for me, lead to a dual army of empty gunboats and all the assault/short ranged infantry coming through the portals or in my table edge and then hopping on the rides, all situation dependent decisions and very flexible

And not to mention basically flood the field with lots of targets and lots of threats.

HQs taken - Duke for people who wanted somewhat of a Wych Cult, Vect for I don't know why beyond hoping a 20 Dark Lances would pen more than 5 Vehicles (Hint, usually they did not) before the enemy got to do anything. Baron, utility belt on the cheap. Archon, because of combat options, even though the Succubus was better bargain price, something flashy about the Archon . And lastly Mr. "I'm with this party because I have to be" Haemonculus. (Ok, a lil' underspoken for, has a good amount of gear to choose that might be useful and starts with a Free Pain Token)

Oh and GK/Crons came out and threw feces at us and made us cry.

How things have changed so far in 6E:

A move to larger units. MSU is still perfectly acceptable to do, even moreso with Kill Points only showing up 1/6 missions. The PROBLEM is that since scoring is important in 5/6 missions, you needa live through the game with your glass Scoring choices and can't hide in the transports while holding points. Perfect example of this is the transformation of IG lists slowly from Pure Mechanized to Hybrid, usually with 40-50 man blob of men that are practically the hardest guys to shift in the game. This unit can possibly eat Terminators of any sort and usually shoot with other elements in a IG list that can possibly get close enough to assault it and be detrimental to it (Like Trazyn/Purifiers)

Reinforcing - you gotta get out of your shell (Transport), lil' turtle, and make your 5+ Save Troops see the world to_win_games. Yeah, </3

Hull Points - Kinda a benefit for us aside from 2 HPs for the little Venoms but main downer is, even with Haywire Blasters, we have no glance-o-matics in the ENTIRE list from range (And Wychs, I'll recognize them as suicide units, fair?)

FNP got weaker, so did Furious Charge, Fearless got better yet worse at the same time (Bad side most people fail to notice - You can't Go To Ground if Fearless) So...Yeah </3

Overwatch - Hate it all you like, if you really think it's gonna decimate a unit before you hit them, try the tactic of charging with a expendable/ or durable unit (A Clawed Fiend is a perfect example, but won't be seen often) and once the opponent Overwatches him or gets locked with him, charge the other unit in to escape the Overwatch (This is how you deal with Tz Flamers, by the way)

Random charge ranges - Kinda bad, kinda good; is what it is. Bad? You have no certainties. Good? More potential range.

Plasma becoming more favorable than Melta - Bad for us again, mostly because Melta overkills everything we got.

Webway rules got the shaft in a big way - Can't assault the turn you arrive from Reserves now...

Challenges - Generally for DE this is bad, save for Shadowf Field/ Clone Field'd models (Urien), Drazhar, and Lelith. All which should go up in use mostly for this reason. Lelith is a EXCELLENT duelist.

Flyers - We got the short end of the stick here, outside of Flyers of our own, we have no real anti-Flyer (Even other armies with TL S7+ do fine in this backup department)

And lastly the biggest of them all - Allies - Mostly a downer for us, we have one realistic choice (Eldar) Thankfully we're Battle Bros with them and can pretty much think of Eldar/DE one army now. But downer is you can face some awesome (sarcasm) combo of SW/IG.

Whew, I want to type more before I call it done for this first post, so will post some of the key things I want to input what DE should be like nowadays -

Less Lances - Yes, you heard me, l see less armour, more ways to get the drop on a vehicle when it closes in, and generally just higher AVs (12+) in competitive circles than the masses of Razorbacks I used to see (This is also because of how Vehicle Damage results affect passengers, but really the passengers are almost fully safe now unless you get a lucky 6 on a pen, it goes both ways)

Poison by the bucket still good - Mostly because of more numbers in army lists, Average model count of a "good" (IMO) 2k army is now roughly 60. Last edition it was 45. (This from a SM point of view, and not just marines either, mind you)

Reavers - A big hit or miss unit; I love they can Turbo around with a good Cover Save and do damage still and never slowing till they need to possibly melt a vehicle, The problem is how do you guarantee something is not waiting where you will/can only stop and charge you? You can't and with Flyers in the mix now.

Survivability in the Cover Saves - Stealth/Shrouded/ shenanigans to AVOID GETTING SHOT seem much better since life sucks so hard for our Troops. I'm personally thinking of 1-2 big anchors of Troop units as my main scoring and going MSU with the rest. Outside Scoring, avoiding the Chaos SM Heldrake (or even with it, since if it shoots these it's not shooting Scoring, giving you a chance to deal with it) Harlequins went up a notch in my book again. Having a average of a 2+ Cover Save with the Shadowseer around the unit, a bigger unit or even possibly 2 units (With 2 other DE Elites thanks to Allied Eldar Harlequins too ) Seem like good offensive units that can prevent the enemy from having free reign. The clowns have a lot of tools to deal with many threats, use them!

Our new best buddy; the Eldar Farseer - Preferably on a Jetbike to support the fast DE army better. Gives us utility Psychic Powers AND one of the best Anti-Psyker equipments (Runes of Warding) still available. Though expensive, and I haven't even experimented with it yet, the Warlock Council is a fearsome thing in 6E unless your opponent has a Rune Priest/Runes of Warding himself.

Beastpack layouts - I'm a weird fool maybe, but I have given up on Khymerae due to the new shooting rules and easy ways to manipulate around that. So I have changed to simple pure Razorwing builds to entice people to shoot high calibre guns into them and me not worrying too much (This is usually where I put my Farseer with Baron, scoring them Invisibility or 4+ Invuls, Khymerae needed why?)

Haywire squads (Wychs/Bloodbrides or Trueborn (!)) are pretty much suicide melta, and you need them for those few times where luck is a pain in the arse on your side, it's kinda hard to mess up with Haywire status in the new rules. As a Necron player, the Cryptek with 4 Haywire shots usually kills off 90% of the vehicles in the game all on his own, usually only needing help vs 4 Hull Point vehicles.

Whew! That's all for now, I hope this is all helpful and informative and any input would be appreciated. Will add specifics on any questions people have too.

I'm a huge fan of harlequins these days too. A big problem tho are increasingly powerful flamers. I foresee it only getting worse with dark angels codex.

I feel that our best asset is and has been target saturation, venom spam will always be very good just because you have to target so many squads to take it out. Maxed ravager/venoms is going to be our absolute best list IMHO.

Caveat Emptor: All of my DE experience is still Theoryhammer, but I expect to start actually playing with them in the new year.

It seems to me that suppression fire, both Overwatch and Flamer require us, more than ever, to isolate parts of the enemy and attack them with multiple units. I know - easier said than done. When I get to use a stratagem, I'll let you know how it goes.

Maybe its from the reduction of land vehicles in my local meta but I've been finding the haywire wyches to be less and less useful. Most vehicle heavy lists I have been seeing have been either flyer heavy, or razorback ( or venom spam) and the wyches can only throw 1 grenade at a flyer at really limited range or they get shot to prices by razorbacks with assault cannons. So the standard blaster has been fairing alot better than a whole unit of haywire.

Totally agree with you on the beasts

The wyches are a suicide squad but if you get them in they will kill whatever vehicle they hit, I had a squad yesterday that wrecked a drop pod, land speeder then went on to finish off a couple of termies. My space marine friend thought haywire was unfair lol.

Seshiru wrote:

the wyches can only throw 1 grenade at a flyer at really limited range or they get shot to prices by razorbacks with assault cannons.

Can't they assault the razor backs?

I just meant that with assault cannon razorbacks they never survive long enough to get to assualt.
But that my just be due to the fact that I normally only run 2 units of wyches and the rest warriors, with everyone is my area fully understanding what haywire is. So the razorback spam players know to take out the wyches, which is no trouble for them.

drawing fire away from say some ravagers sitting in back can be very valuable though...

Personally have dropped Ravagers entirely, using a single Jet, sometimes dual; and tempted by the Talos now that it has more threat range and arguably more survivability than said Ravager these days.

Something I tried yesterday for a quick game on Christmas Eve - Swooping Hawks allied in. Cheaper than Scourges as they don't need any gear to make them effective vs infantry and tanks (Have Grenade Packs+Guns for Infantry, Haywire Grenades for tanks)

The biggest problem with Wychs I find is they are only doing that or hopefully eventually killing something via CC. This has always been their problem and would be easily remedied if they were allowed a special (Blaster/Shredder) per 4 models, ditto with their Wych Weapons, so you CAN feasibly fit a well tooled unit o 8 into a Raider with a IC. Or keep it at per 5 and up the Transport capacity to 12...This is why Drop Pods/Wave Serpents have 12 capacity...But enough fantasizing, for me they're suicide drops first and attempted combat aid second.

Razorback spam is disappearing, if someone takes it these days around here they're fighting a losing battle against bigger units and not being able to score while inside them. And if Assault Cannons go on Wychs rather than anything else in our list, that's a win. Same reason I take pure Razorwings - You're gonna shoot your S6 to instant kill a base or two or are you gonna try to kill a AV10 Skimmer?

Haywire sources aren't just Wychs though, like I said I tried Swooping Hawks AND have also tried Trueborn with them (Trueborn have them as insurance, last resort kinda deal)

Thinking about Eldar Allies now and I came up with this fun lil' shindig --

Baron Sathonyx + Jetbike Farseer + Shining Spears (In this case 4 including Exarch with the Skilled Rider Power.)

So what didn't I consider before that this unit gets?

- The Laser Lances are unique weapons, so keep their S6 and AP 3 status on the charge, which is still pretty dandy.
- The unit gets Assault and Defensive Grenades thanks to Baron. One thing the 'Spears needed to make them decent. Check.
- Baron gives the unit Stealth, which means +1 Cover to the unit, which for Jetbikes moving means a 4+ Cover Save. Nice, we're getting warmer.
- Baron gives the unit Hit and Run, Exarch power no longer needs to be bought for Exarch as it confers from a IC to his whole unit, including attached characters. Keep those lances @ S6 possibly, good good, warmer still.
- Skilled Rider from Exarch also confers to the entire unit. This makes it so the unit effectively ignores Dangerous Terrain Checks. Hot dog, but we're not done. It also adds +1 to Jink Saves...So with some 1+1 we got Jink @ 5+, Stealth making it 4+, and now Skilled Rider making it 3+! Turbo-Boosting in and then joining Baron nets you a 2+ Cover Save! Huzzah!
- But Smurfy, there are growing amounts of Ignore Cover stuff like Baleflamers. Well we do have a 2+ Invul on Baron and 4+ Invul on the Farseer, along with the Divination table to roll on (my personal Farseer rolls on it 3 times by exchanging 3 rulebook powers) so the whole unit can get 4+ Invuls possibly.
- The whole unit can benefit from Divination in general due to their lower amount of attacks the Psy Power Prescience helping keeping the unit accurate in assault.
- Dual-use of hunting vehicles from S6 Lances/Baron and Farseer's Witchblade.

Thoughts?

Smurfy wrote:

Razorback spam is disappearing, if someone takes it these days around here they're fighting a losing battle against bigger units and not being able to score while inside them. And if Assault Cannons go on Wychs rather than anything else in our list, that's a win. Same reason I take pure Razorwings - You're gonna shoot your S6 to instant kill a base or two or are you gonna try to kill a AV10 Skimmer?

To me this is a knee jerk reaction to 6th. Razorspam is still very viable. This shift towards 70+ marines on foot + plas/flamers means that the humble razorback is almost untouchable. It is just like it always has been, a reliant weapons platform. The only army Ive seen really suffer from 6th changes is BA, as while being fast razorbacks is nice, not being able to assault with your assault marines out of a tank hurts.

Quote :

Thinking about Eldar Allies now and I came up with this fun lil' shindig --

Baron Sathonyx + Jetbike Farseer + Shining Spears (In this case 4 including Exarch with the Skilled Rider Power.)

So what didn't I consider before that this unit gets?

- The Laser Lances are unique weapons, so keep their S6 and AP 3 status on the charge, which is still pretty dandy.
- The unit gets Assault and Defensive Grenades thanks to Baron. One thing the 'Spears needed to make them decent. Check.
- Baron gives the unit Stealth, which means +1 Cover to the unit, which for Jetbikes moving means a 4+ Cover Save. Nice, we're getting warmer.
- Baron gives the unit Hit and Run, Exarch power no longer needs to be bought for Exarch as it confers from a IC to his whole unit, including attached characters. Keep those lances @ S6 possibly, good good, warmer still.
- Skilled Rider from Exarch also confers to the entire unit. This makes it so the unit effectively ignores Dangerous Terrain Checks. Hot dog, but we're not done. It also adds +1 to Jink Saves...So with some 1+1 we got Jink @ 5+, Stealth making it 4+, and now Skilled Rider making it 3+! Turbo-Boosting in and then joining Baron nets you a 2+ Cover Save! Huzzah!
- But Smurfy, there are growing amounts of Ignore Cover stuff like Baleflamers. Well we do have a 2+ Invul on Baron and 4+ Invul on the Farseer, along with the Divination table to roll on (my personal Farseer rolls on it 3 times by exchanging 3 rulebook powers) so the whole unit can get 4+ Invuls possibly.
- The whole unit can benefit from Divination in general due to their lower amount of attacks the Psy Power Prescience helping keeping the unit accurate in assault.
- Dual-use of hunting vehicles from S6 Lances/Baron and Farseer's Witchblade.

Thoughts?

ive been looking at shining spears as well. They are fast enough, and running the exarch makes them tough with that skilled rider coversave. That being said running them with baron is an interesting option, as having a 3+ coversave at all times is quite interesting indeed. The only thing I can say is they are small in number, and high in points costs. You need to play them right, but overall I think they could work.

would be hard to give up the turbo-boost option by putting in the Baron

Smurfy wrote:

Baron Sathonyx + Jetbike Farseer + Shining Spears (In this case 4 including Exarch with the Skilled Rider Power.)

So what didn't I consider before that this unit gets?

- The Laser Lances are unique weapons, so keep their S6 and AP 3 status on the charge, which is still pretty dandy.
- The unit gets Assault and Defensive Grenades thanks to Baron. One thing the 'Spears needed to make them decent. Check.
- Baron gives the unit Stealth, which means +1 Cover to the unit, which for Jetbikes moving means a 4+ Cover Save. Nice, we're getting warmer.
- Baron gives the unit Hit and Run, Exarch power no longer needs to be bought for Exarch as it confers from a IC to his whole unit, including attached characters. Keep those lances @ S6 possibly, good good, warmer still.
- Skilled Rider from Exarch also confers to the entire unit. This makes it so the unit effectively ignores Dangerous Terrain Checks. Hot dog, but we're not done. It also adds +1 to Jink Saves...So with some 1+1 we got Jink @ 5+, Stealth making it 4+, and now Skilled Rider making it 3+! Turbo-Boosting in and then joining Baron nets you a 2+ Cover Save! Huzzah!
- But Smurfy, there are growing amounts of Ignore Cover stuff like Baleflamers. Well we do have a 2+ Invul on Baron and 4+ Invul on the Farseer, along with the Divination table to roll on (my personal Farseer rolls on it 3 times by exchanging 3 rulebook powers) so the whole unit can get 4+ Invuls possibly.
- The whole unit can benefit from Divination in general due to their lower amount of attacks the Psy Power Prescience helping keeping the unit accurate in assault.
- Dual-use of hunting vehicles from S6 Lances/Baron and Farseer's Witchblade

well im convinced! I'd love to try these out, covers a lot of bases. They are like fully drugged and pained out hellions but with increased toughness and better shooting. just more expensive for fewer bases, thats really the only drawback. Turbo boosting in and meeting Baron could be amazing too lol, getting deep in field and having a 2+ cover is awesome. Also the inclusion of Baron helps them against said blasts and flamers. I protected a s--- ton of hellions in my last game that way.

No bladevane?