1500pt. Baron & Venoms

I am looking to expand my DE army, and after finally getting some solid 6th edition games in I have a (vague) idea of which way I want to go with them. The below list is the basic idea I am going for, but I would be open to any suggestions. I would say I am still relatively new to 6th, but from my games so far I have found that I really like Venoms. They are extremely fragile, but their offensive potential is great. I have also loved my Reavers, and was thinking about running two units of 6 (or maybe one of 9). but I couldn't figure out how to include them without severely cutting into my troops.

Baron Sathonyx

3x Trueborn - 3x Blasters
Venom - Splinter Cannon upgrade

5x Warriors - Blaster
Venom - Splinter Cannon upgrade

5x Warriors - Blaster
Venom - Splinter Cannon upgrade

5x Warriors - Blaster
Venom - Splinter Cannon upgrade

5x Wyches - Haywire Grenades
Venom - Splinter Cannon upgrade

5x Wyches - Haywire Grenades
Venom - Splinter Cannon upgrade

3x Beastmasters - Venom Blade
5x Khymerae
4x Razorwing Flocks

6x Reavers - Blaster

Ravager - Night Shield

Ravager

Ravager

This comes to 1500 point exactly. I am thinking of dropping the Venom Blade from the Beastmaster and the blaster from the Reaver in order to get Night Shields for the two other Ravagers. I don't think the loss of the venom blade will impact the beasts much, and even though I like having the AT option on my Reavers, I think I have fired at a tank once with them in my last 6 games (to little effect). I just think they perform much better as an infantry harassment unit, or late game objective contesting.

The list is pretty straight forward, Ravagers provide my only long range AT, but the wyches and blasterborn can do some damage when closer. The warriors will add their firepower where needed (mostly useful against MCs due to blaster and poisoned rifles), but can hunker down if needed. Reavers will do their thing and just be a pain in the neck. I usually like running a haemy, and use him to drop off a pain token first turn, but couldn't fit one in the army. Baron will join the beasts for obvious reason. The beasts will attempt to soak up fire and draw attention away from vehicles while the venoms dump loads of shots into any infantry that need to disappear.

I think the beasts are to small to be effective - they don't hit that hard or soak that well at that size. Had you considered adding the baron to the reavers?

This is a pretty good list. Really all I would do is swap out the reavers and the night shields on the ravager for another blasterborn squad. You have a very deadly army. And Massaen, I think the beasts are more there to hide the Baron in, and to provide some combat support. That's generally what that loadout is for. A squad like that can clear out 5-8 MEQ units, and if you get assaulted by something you don't like then you can hit and run.

Massaen - I am not sure I want to invest more points (or actual money haha) into the beasts unit. They seem to soak up fire and dish out enough pain as is. I would consider beefing them up in a larger game though. What would you add to the unit?

As for the Baron joining the Reavers, I don't see the point considering how I use my Reavers. I generally just turbo boost around using my blade vanes to hit infantry. Wouldn't the Baron prevent me from turbo boosting?

Flayed_Heart_Kabal - I like the idea of more blasterborn. My reservations are that I really like Reavers and can't see making a list without them due to the success I have had. Still, I can see how not having the redundancy with the blasterborn can limit my success with them. I'll try the list out both ways and see what I think.

Thanks for the suggestions guys, if you have any more please share!

I have some cool (effective ideas for this list with min changes). I am at work but I will try and get back on here later when I get home

Sounds good, I look forward to hearing back from you. I am stuck working late tonight so it gives me something to look forward to haha!

this will be the quick version as I have to go out and get my Draaank (drink) on!

first things first.

Yes I think would should get night shields for the ravagers. so dropping the blaster and the VB would be a good idea. I would usually say to either take all night shields or none, but that is just my preference. and at 1500 it might not be a big deal. if you have 6 bikes and only 1 blaster then I think that you are wasting points on it. if you took 2 I'd say leave the unit alone.

Now I love blasterborn, but I only really like them if I have 2-3 units. otherwise they tend to shoot one thing and die. when I only take 1 unit of trueborn I either give them 2 Scannons or 2 Dark lances. the reason for this is they can stay further back and avoid all the mid/short range shooting IMHO.

Did you ever consider not having the blasters on the warriors? I thought I would miss having them, but I dropped them and haven't really noticed the difference (the blasters were more situational than useful, and I lean towards always useful). they are after all mainly for capturing objectives. and without the blaster they seem less threatning. it's weird how I started making my troops less threatning (and they survive longer) and saving the points on making my other units better. the 45 points from the blaster could go towards making the beast back bigger or the reavers. with the VB, reaver blaster, warrior blasters and the night shield on the 1 ravanger you would have 75 points to play with. not bad hey!

would you consider take 2 units of 3 reavers instead of one unit of 6? reason being that you could also use the reavers to contest objectives late game if required. and 2 units are better than one. play with it. you might like it. I DO!!! ;-)

I would actually put the points into the beast pack. not because it makes the unit really killly, but because the unit has tons of wounds and is a major threat to your opponent. This unit with the baron takes a ton of firepower to kill. So you have a Giant super fast unit with 40-50 wound with stealth,rending and some 4++ and 2++ saves and grenades (offensive and defencive). this unit is good at armour busting and awesome at killing infintry. So with this unit being so threatning to your opponent they will likely (almost always in my experience-which is lots) try as hard as they can to kill the beast pack before they reach there lines. and if your opponent ignores the beasts then they will regret it as the beast pack will rip most units to shreads.This is great for you as this means the rest of your army wont be getting shot to pieces. meaning your reavers/ravangers/warrios ect will be staying around even longer. One other thing to consider is that the unit takes a lot of board space. meaning that you have a lot of control of the mid fields. if your opponent wants to get into your lines they will have to likely go through the beast unit,or go the long way around.
I like 4-5beastmasters, 6 flocks and 6-8 hounds. at 1500 points there isn't a lot that can deal with this unit

I could write a lot more about the beast pack, but I must be going. I also wish I had time to edit this and have written this more clearly. but this is my little ramble.

anyways I like your list. this is just a frw ideas that I have

What is it with all this baron+beasts nonsense? Baron Sathonyx is the leader of a huge gang of Hellions that exist outside the mainstream of Commoragh society. Beastmasters are part of the Wych cult arena shows which are the epitome of inclusivity in the dark city. Please tell me how that comes about? Suddenly Baron Sathonyx grows tired of building his vast Hellion empire and runs off to join the circus? Suddenly he's knocking about with a load of smelly creatures and some common-as-muck jumped-up stableboys he would'nt previously have been seen dead with. Goodness me, that's a turn-up for the books and no mistake! He'll probably be an Inquisitor of the Ordos Xenos by this time next year!

People use it because it is a good combo. Baron is a ganger and I am sure will work for the right price for anybody

Timatron wrote:

What is it with all this baron+beasts nonsense? Baron Sathonyx is the leader of a huge gang of Hellions that exist outside the mainstream of Commoragh society. Beastmasters are part of the Wych cult arena shows which are the epitome of inclusivity in the dark city. Please tell me how that comes about? Suddenly Baron Sathonyx grows tired of building his vast Hellion empire and runs off to join the circus? Suddenly he's knocking about with a load of smelly creatures and some common-as-muck jumped-up stableboys he would'nt previously have been seen dead with. Goodness me, that's a turn-up for the books and no mistake! He'll probably be an Inquisitor of the Ordos Xenos by this time next year!

Not all of us play fluffy lists. Baron goes better with beasts than hellions.

Good list in the OP. All though single blaster for reavers is not worht it in my opinion. Change it to calltrops and get more value out of blade vaneing. I wouldn't recommend night shields for ravagers. You don't want your Venoms shot instead of them.

It's not just the fluff issue. I would just never use a sick combo like that, unless it was a super-competitive tournament. When people come up against something that " at 1500 points there isn't a lot that can deal with this unit" in a friendly game, the bottom line is, they don't enjoy the game and have no fun playing. At every gaming club I've ever been to that would very quickly lose you potential opponents. I've seen them, the 3 or 4 powergamers that nobody else at the club will play against, taking longer to unpack their models than to play the game, not smiling at all during the battle, getting angry with each other and going home either arrogantly victorious or in grumpy defeat; I've seen them and like everyone else at the club, I've laughed at them for taking a game of sci-fi toy soldiers so seriously that they want to win so badly at the exclusion of everything else.

Thanks for all if the suggestions! I will try out variation of the list taking into account some of your suggestions.

Timatron - I would consider myself a pretty laid back gamer. After the gaming scene in my area dried up years ago I turned to playing against a small group of friends at home . Recently a store has opened in my area and the players there are bringing more competitive lists. I would in no way consider myself a WAAC player, and would never want a game to.not be enjoyable. I have other units in my Dark Eldar collection that I can mix and match with at will, so I can adjust the list at any time. Just because some brings a hard list doesn't mean they are a bad opponent, even though I think we have all played against someone similar to what you have described.

I bring hard lists almost always and win best gen/overall quite oftsin. BUT I also win sportsman ship a lot as well. It is a pretty even mix for me. I play competitive lists, and my opponents enjoy playing me in fun and competitive games. It makes me happy to know that I can bring a tough list, and my opponent still has a great game win or lose. I don't lose often, but I always enjoy my games. Usually my best games are the ones where I lose as I learn from my mistakes.

I love this game! Most WAAC guys I know are all really good guys, and don't care if they win or lose. But there is always that one guy at every event which is a total dick

Look, I wasn't having a real dig, just saying my opinion. It's different for everyone and I have no doubt we ALL love this game, hey, at the prices the models are, we'd have to! And BTW I am gonna start upping my competetiveness level pretty soon, the club I'm currently going to is a LOT more hardcore than my old home-town one I was referring to before, maybe the old beasts with shadowfield archon+ jetbike farseer, hopefully, new CW eldar book out soon I hear so we'll see. Happy gaming!