Kenny3760 goes to War

Recently I have been running the following list whilst waiting on parts to arrive from Maelstrom Games.

Baron
Lelith
3 units of 3 Blasterborn in twin cannon venoms
2 units of 5 haywire wyches in Venoms
1 unit of 7 haywire wyches in raider
10 Hellions
2 Ravagers
Razorwing


It's actually a pretty fun list to play. Wyches get straight upfield and into assault with Lelith alongside (note Lelith does NOT get combat drugs). Lelith is a monster once she gets going, FC just turns her into an out and out killer. However I don't feel she is worth the points in a competitive list, loads of fun though.
The Razorwing attracts fire like nothing else. It's amazing that once it's unloaded it's missiles that people will still target it over a Ravager, it just looks that impressive, love it. The army has been going pretty well but I have got word that my order has been dispatched and should be here before the end of the week. That means I'll have 2 raiders, 3 beastmasters and 5 Khymerae to build to get the list to where I want it as :

Baron
Heami
3 units of 3 Blasterborn in twin cannon venoms
3 wracks in a Raider
2 units of haywire wyches in Raiders
16 Hellions
Beast Pack 3 masters 4 flocks 6 kyhmerea
2 Ravagers
Razorwing

I'll do a bit of tactical analysis on why I've decided to go with this over the next couple of days, but right now I've got MoTD and a bottle of Red calling on me.

Well I’ve finally decided on the list I’m going to use for the last 2, 1750 point tournaments I will be attending this year. I’m going to go through the list and do a bit of analysis on the units, explain what their role is and why I have chosen them. Heres the list.

Baron Sathonyx

Heamonculus

3 Trueborn with Blasters, Venom with Dual Splinter Cannons (x 3)

3 Wracks, Raider with Dark Lance

7 Wyches, Haywire Grenades, Raider with Dark Lance (x2)

16 Hellions

3 Beastmasters, 4 Razorwing Flocks, 5 Khymerea

Ravager, 3 Dark Lances (x 2)

Razorwing, 4 Monoscythe missiles, 2 Dark Lances, Flickerfield

Originally the army started out as a fairly standard Venom spam list but has gradually evolved away from that. Sure it still has some very obvious choices from a power build point of view, but there are a few units that are not so common in a tournament setting.

Baron Sathonyx
Role: All around army boost and assault unit buff

4 reasons for taking this guy in my list,
• +1 for the roll at the start of the game
• making hellions into troops
• stealth on any unit he joins
• PGL

Well we are Dark Eldar, we want the Alpha strike, so why not increase your chances of getting it. I firmly believe that the Baron is a better choice than Vect for controlling this part of the game. If successful he allows you to choose your deployment zone that bests suits you to set up, whereas with Vect you can have no influence on that. But the cool thing is that perhaps you don’t want to be going first (daemons, drop pod assault) and he gives you the chance to manipulate that as well.

Hellions as troops, I know there are people out there who really don’t rate Hellions, but a large scoring unit of jump infantry, with an assault 2 poison weapon and 2 strength 4 attacks as base appeals to me.

Stealth on any unit, enough said really, makes your unit just that bit harder to kill, 2+ going to ground on an objective anybody.

PGL, just what we need on our Hellions or Beast unit as it assaults into cover.

For 105 points I believe this guy is a steal for almost any army, but when combined with a couple of the units in this list he really does begin to shine.

Heamonculus
Role: Pain token donator, sacrificial lamb, troop choice generator

No beating about the bush with this choice. He is here purely to pass on a pain token to the Hellions, after that I don’t care what he does, he is a small part in the bigger scheme of things. Oh yeah he also makes my 30 point unit of wracks scoring and that means my opponent has to hunt them down and kill them, if he can see them.

Blasterborn with Venom
Role: Anti-tank, Anti-infantry

This is a standard unit in almost all tournament lists and rightly so, 3 Blasters with an effective range of 33” can put the hurt on most armies out there. This is one unit that brings true duality to the table. Pop the transport with the Trueborn, then mow down the contents with the Venoms splinter cannon.

One complaint levelled against this unit is that it can be a bit of a suicide squad, as you have to get them out the transport to be able to fire if you moved more than 6”. I always aim to either swamp the target so that there is nothing left to return fire, or get these guys out into cover if needs be, this helps avoid the suicide tag.

Wracks with Raider
Role: Cheap objective holder, Anti-tank, Pain token donator

These guys provide the Baron with a pain token at the start of the game. Once they have carried out their primary role these guys scurry off and find a large piece of terrain to hide in.

The idea here is that to kill 30 points worth of non-effective models the enemy has to expend an unreasonable amount of effort. These dudes are going to ground for a 3+ cover save, until the last turn when they will sprint on to an objective.

Finally I can buy a Raider for these boys, cheapest one in the book!

Wyches with Raider
Role: Anti-tank, assault support, tarpitting

7 Wyches with Haywire Grenades, you’ve just got to love them for assaulting tanks. If they aren’t hitting automatically it means that tank is on the move and firing less guns at you. No other upgrades for these ladies, if they are not charging into a vehicle they will be supporting each other or another assault unit, they don’t need any upgrades to help them with this. Nice and cheap.

Bring a Raider along to help them get where they are needed or to provide another first turn anti-tank threat.

Hellions
Role: Anti-infantry, objective grabbing and a bit of anti-tank

16 Hellions, not everyone’s favourite unit, but I love these guys. One of the ideas of the army is to get these guys to be fearless as soon as possible, and with a bit of pain token shenanigans at the start of the game they will have 2 start with. An easy kill and they are there.

Whats the point, well you then have a large blob of fearless jump infantry with which to jump on objectives, who have stealth (with the Baron) for a 2+ going to ground save, with FnP to boot.
They can also happily assault most units with their assault 2 splinter pods to soften up the target before charging in. Short range AI fire will allow me to spread around the Venoms fire at other targets.

They are also a viable anti-tank threat. With S4 base and S5 on the charge this unit can generate enough attacks to threaten the rear armour of most vehicles in the game.

Beast Unit
Role: Assault Anti-infantry, Anti-tank

3 Beastmasters, 4 Razorwing flocks and 5 Khymerea

Now I’m going to be honest and say I’m going out on a limb with this unit. I’ve only tried them once and to be honest I was not impressed. However looking back I played them completely wrong, and having done a bit of research and serious thinking they are in.

So what changed my mind, stats that’s what.
This unit generates 50 attacks on the charge, 24 of which are rending, it has 28 wounds which unless you get hit with instant death wounds can be maintained with wound allocation tricks to keep the unit hanging around in combat.
I intend to run these guys close by the Hellions to make use of the Barons abilities on which ever unit would benefit the most from them in that turn.
And oh yeah 24 rending attacks will hurt up to AV12

Ravagers
Role: Anti-tank

What can you say about Ravagers that has not been said before. Quite simply the best anti-tank option available to us. 3 Dark Lances, nice and cheap, either fire to kill or move to hide or get a cover save. Only taking 2 this time so that I can squeeze in a Razorwing

Razorwing with Flickerfield
Role: Anti-infantry, Fire Magnet, Anti-tank

When I came to build this list I had more Raiders in it than previously, which meant I had less Venoms than before. I looked at the ratio of anti infantry and tank capability in the list and thought that long range AI was a bit lacking. Obvious choice to boost that without losing Raiders for Venoms was to get a Razorwing.
Nice 4 missile cargo with which to smack down those pesky lootas, fangs or horde units. The strength of the missile means that a well placed shot should be causing a few wounds on any unit it hits, which can only be good. Fire all 4 at an essential to kill unit.

But the fun doesn’t end there. I don’t know what it is about a Razorwing but it attracts fire like it’s going out of fashion, even when it’s dumped it’s missiles. So this is the only vehicle I’ve purchased a FF for, just to make it a bit harder to bring down and so that it attracts even more fire away from my 3 lance Ravagers. If it survives a round of shooting it can then contribute a couple of lance shots as a bonus.

Feel free to rip it apart or add some thoughts to it as you wish. The list is set though as the beast unit is built and painted apart from the masters who are built, one raider is built whilst the other has still to be started so there is no gooing back now. Everything else is built and painted. Once I get the last pieces done I'll pop up some pics of the army.

I think both the list and the analysis of it are good.

I think I personally would like an extra Venom more than the Wracks' Raider though.

Completely understand the venom/raider decision. It took me a good while to decide which way to go and in the end I decided a turn 1 AT strike was going to be more beneficial to the overall list.

Had another couple of games recently with the army. I'll spare the details but I will say bringing the beasts and razorwing in have certainly helped.

The double assault punch of the hellions and beasts certainly gives opponents a headache and the Razorwing draws far more firepower away from the ravagers than it ever should. If ever there was a case for making a model standout and shout shoot me this is it.

Awesome to hear this is starting to gel for you.

Been a bit quiet in here recently but preparations and practice heve continued.

Last week I had a game against a fairly typical BA list:

Mephiston, 3 Sanguinary priests, 4 assault squads in Twin-linked Ass Cannon R/backs, 3 MM attack bikes and 3 5 man dev squads.

Mission was loot (5 counters), pitched battle. Result was a convincing victory as he conceeded on his turn 5, with me holding 2 counters with Hellions and wracks, contesting 2 others with raiders, and the 5th in the open within reach of the Hellions going into a conga line, while he had an assault squad hiding behind a building. If the assault squad stepped out almost my whole army had them in their sights.
I had lost a ravager, a couple of venoms, 2 wych squads, beast unit and a couple of Hellions.

This week I have 2 games lined up. 1 against an Ork Kan/Big Mek/Boyz horde list. 9 Killa Kans, 80 + boys, 2 truks, gretchin, Kommandos, big mek and bike warboss. Plans here are to get rid of the Boys whilst keeping out of the 24" range of most of his AT weapons.

2nd game is against my usual gaming partner who is putting together a GK list for me to face. A coulple of possibilities there but I really expect psyfleman dreads and psycannon strike squads and ass cannon r/backs.

then it's down to Nottingham on Friday morning to Throne of Skulls for a wekend of beer dice and toy soldiers.

Posted up some pics of the army over here

https://thedarkcity.forummotion.com/t1456-throne-of-skulls-2011-army

Back from Throne of Skulls with mixed feelings.
Won 3 and lost 2. After losing the first 2 games I then tabled my next 3 opponents to finish off in good style.

I'll do a small bat rep later on opnce I've gathered my thoughts a bit more but high lights were

• Tabling Necrons
  Tabling Eldrad/Yriels skimmer spam
  Tabling Terminator heavy list
  Beast unit eating destroyers and terminators
  Baron

Lowlights

• Hellions
  Beast unit bouncing off tactical squad
  Dark lance epic fails all weekend
  Dice gods, they hate me

I had some appalling luck in all my games, some of which mattered, some of which didn't. I made poor decisions in the 2 games I lost but still had chances to win them with a couple of decent rolls.

The event itself was a lot of fun, pretty chilled and the guys I played against were all sound, good guys. The terrain was the usual mix of sparse and low, but decently done, its GW HQ after all. Food was decent enough and waiter service for the bar at your gaming table was a nice bonus.

I was down in Stirling over the weekend at Stirling Wargamers Rapid Fire tournament. I have put a small report on it here:

https://thedarkcity.forummotion.com/t1614-rapid-fire-1750-tournament


Thats the end of the tournaments for this year for me and also the end of this list in competitive play as it stands. I'll be re-vamping it over the next couple of months as I try to figure out how to overcome the inherant weakness of dark lances and our inability to burst open significant quantities of armour AV12 and above.

Overall the Barons list in its various configurations at 1750 this year has gone 10 wins and 6 losses or just over 60% winning ratio. It's not as high as I hoped for really and I didn't really achieve what I wanted to with it. Still there is always next year.

Beasts are very hit or miss, and surely not Anti-Tank unless you get very very lucky with the Birds, I find, but nice to see a "after-action review" on everything.

Rending attacks on kans is a pretty good bet actually.
20 attacks hitting on 3's nets around 13 hits so 2 rends. From there it's a 66% chance of glancing 33% of penning. Admittedly I got lucky getting through them so quickly but the main aim was to tarpit them down and stop them shooting at my transports and ravagers. The khymera give you a 50% chance of ignoring any damage they inflict as well.

I feel your darkligtht pain. At one of this years TOS i had 10 dark light shots and 2 heatlance shots against 1 landraider, okay it had popped smoke. End result, one assault canon knocked off. Neither of us could quite believe this. Okay so the reavers vaporise it next turn but this happened to me loads. I have found that, and it could be my de noob luck, haywire wyches will usaually kill or stop most things because people seem to forget they can do it and think they are safe in there boxes.