Here she blows

Hi all,

I'm not normally one to tailor lists, but I have this opponent who does it to me often enough and I really want to beat him! He runs Chaos Space Marines with a decent amount of either IG or Death Korps allies. Since he knows how deadly dark lances are, he will often eschew most armour against me in favour of infantry blobs and HWT w/ autocannons . I figured I would take a CC list with some ranged support and get into his face first turn with turbo boosting, followed by an almighty charge.

Anyways, here is my list - any constructive criticism is more than welcome (in fact, requested!).

Quote :

10 Wyches 115
Hekatrix, Venom Blade

10 Wyches 115
Hekatrix, Venom Blade

10 Wyches 115
Hekatrix, Venom Blade

3 x Raiders (For wyches) 210
Grisly trophies, Torment launchers, dissies

10 Kabalite Warriors 90

10 Kabalite Warriors 90

2 x Raider (For Kabs) 140
Splinter racks, DL

3 Trueborn 81
3 Blasters

Venom 65
2x Splinter Cannon

3 Trueborn 81
3 Blasters

Venom 65
2x Splinter Cannon

Archon 120
Shadowfield, Agoniser, Drugs

10 Harlequins 256
Shadowseer + Kiss, Troupe Master + Power Lance, 3 x Kisses

Razorwing Jetfighter 145

6 Reaver Jetbikes 162
2x Blasters

I think i would drop the Harlequins, i my experience they are not worth the points they cost, i think i would rather take 2-3 Beastmaster with 10Khymeras and 2 Flocks, so you generate a lot of attacks and they reach the enemy quite fast, your attack distance is between 14-24". It also save you some point you could invest in Splintercannon and/or Blaster for your Warriors or Splinter racks for the Raiders.
Whats with your Archon?Is he running alone?I would put him into a unit of Whyches, so he is also on a Raider and moves faster.
The rest I think looks ok.

I too would drop the Harlies as they arenot the best option when versus blobs, or as you say you want to turbo boost forwards, Harlies can't really do that as you'd be sacrafising a potentially more useful unit's transport.

You could drop that unit and get 2 Ravagers w/ Dark Lances. Even if he brings no mech, the Ravagers will still kill any termies, deamon princes, obliterators etc....

Reavers are cool, I prefer Heat Lances but thats just me...

Where does the Archon go? Footslogs it with the Harlies? Well, he''l need to go somewhere, I'd drop a Wyche to fit him in.

Lastly, be prepared to loose 2-3 Raiders/Venoms and perhaps half of each unit that he shoots at if you turbo boost forwards. Its just the way it goes with DE, so hug cover, anticiapte his moves, and charge forwards like a newly sharpened spearhead!

First off drop the upgrades on the raiders (atleast the torments and the trophies) they are superficial and arent really needed, and make AV10 vehicle more expensive than it needs to be.

As for the wyches, put a PGL on the hekatrix. This gives them stealth within 8" and can really help with overwatch. Combine stealth with charging through cover, and your set to tank any overwatch you get hit with except flamers

While I do like raider squads, I feel that you could get more into the list if you drop both warrior squads to 5 man w/ blasters in dual cannon venoms, that gives you 70 points to play with. Dropping two harlies w/o kisses makes that 106 pts, just enough to squeeze in a ravager w/ dissies for all your AP2 needs (I would also switch all the raiders back to lances at that point)

As for why you guys look down on harlies, they are an amazing unit this edition. Giving the 2+ coversave almost at all times, and the amount of damage they push out is extensive. They fit into almost every list, and are probably our best dedicated assault unit currently (yes, I would rate them even over Incubi)

The problem is your set up has two flaws. First off its the Archon. The reason the Archon exists in the unit is to give it an invul when they are outside of their precious cover. The way harliestar works though is they are Eldar harlies, and by fortuning them you get a re-rollable 2++. This in turn though slows down the harlies though, as even though they ignore cover's movement penalties, the Archon does not.

This unit setup leads you with a conundrum then. Do you leave the Archon in the unit, and potentially slow down the unit because of their much needed coversave? Or do you put him somewhere else, and not have the protection while outside of cover? A third option is to leave him with the Harlies, but always put the Archon outside of cover, but this leads to its own problems as he could be then focused fired on, putting a strain on his 2++ (unless you LoS ofc). Like I said its a conundrum, and I dont really have a good answer for you.

Personally if you want the harlies to get into combat with the opponent as soon as possible, I would drop a wych and put the Archon in there, and then use the points left over to give yourself a few more kisses. After a few games, try putting him back in with the harlies and see the difference, and see if you can deal with the Archon slowing down such a great assault unit.

Given your scenario, I would kit out your Razorwing with a Splinter Cannon and Disintegrators, for higher volume of fire. You could even take Dissies on all of your Raiders as well, change things up completely and give him a nice surprise if all he is expecting is DL's.

Whichever way you decide, let us know how it goes. Good luck!

Game went ok... but I did lose however.

I ended up swapping out a unit of kabs in raider for another 6 reavers w/ blasters.

Opponent ran CSM -

Quote :

*3 units of chaos space marines w/ flamers and autocannons, extra ccw. rhino.
*Havocs w/ 4 autocannons
*2 predators w/ autocannon, heavy bolters, combibolter, missile launcher
*Heldrake (curses!)
*6 Terminators of Tzeentch
*Huron Blackheart
*9 Close combat marines

Basically things were going really well for me, I had boosted all the raiders to his front line in the first turn and jetbikes took out all but 1 of the havocs w/ autocannons. Harlies and Archon moved into a large ruin in the centre of the battlefield. His turn he damaged a couple raiders and killed a few reavers, so I got quite lucky there.
Wyches jumped out and assaulted 2 units of CSM, but thanks to my horrifically awful dice rolling managed to kill absolutely nothing! Luckily they held. Failed to damage his predators with both units of venomborn much to my chagrin. Harlequins and Archon once again stalled by bad rolls for movement, so they end up stuck near the centre. I will definitely be putting Archon with the wyches next time!
Terminators deep strike in, but the Razorwing blows them to pieces. Then disaster strikes - the Heldrake. That thing can spit hot death from any orifice of it's body. Jetbikes are fried, harlequins are fried... No cover save. Once again Archon manages to roll a 1 for his first armor save taken and is burnt to a crisp (this happens to me in 9/10 games for some reason).
Wyches manage to kill and run down a CSM squad, but other unit fails to kill their respective enemies. I charge another 10 wyches into that same combat and manage to deal ... 0 wounds The dice gods abandoned me at this point... I'd rather not go into it.

I could taste victory but things did not go my way that day. I'm going to revise the list based on what I learned and from your suggestions - I will be back!