Sky Serpents gonna party like it's 1999

Someone wants to play me at 1999 which is quite a new points value for me so should be quite interesting. It's against Daemons but I'm not going to list tailor as this will be my 1999 all comers list. It's a progression of my current 1500/1650 list with added Beasts.
Let me know what you think.....



Duke Sliscus, 150pts

Baron Sathonyx, 105pts


9 Kabalite Warriors, 81pts
Raider, Enhanced aethersails, Splinter racks, 75pts

5 Kabalite Warriors, 45pts
Venom, additional Splinter cannon, 65pts

5 Kabalite Warriors, 45pts
Venom, additional Splinter cannon, 65pts

5 Wyches, Haywire grenades, 60pts
Venom, additional Splinter cannon, 65pts

5 Wyches, Haywire grenades, 60pts
Venom, additional Splinter cannon, 65pts


4 Beastmasters, 6 Khymerae, 4 Razorwing Flocks, 180pts


Ravager, Night shields, 115pts

Ravager, Night shields, 115pts

Razorwing Jetfighter, Flickerfield, 155pts


Farseer, Jetbike, Mantle of the laughing god, 155pts


3 Eldar Jetbikes, 51pts

3 Eldar Jetbikes, 51 pts


Crimson Hunter, 160pts


Warp Hunter, 125pts.

I know you love the Duke and all, but he seems expensive and not very useful when you've got the Baron in the list too. What does he actually give you?

Aside from that I would maybe beef up the beast pack a bit - a few more khymerae, and don't take any more beastmasters than you need to. This unit tends to be a target and you'll want to maximise the damage it can do to infantry and vehicles.

Apart from that it looks pretty good. That farseer will be an annoying git, flying around casting guide (& hopefully fortune on the beasts - another reason to make them a larger unit!) with very little anyone can do about it. I'd give him a singing spear though.
Maybe the exarch on the crimson hunter would also be worth it, but only if you can squeeze the points without losing too many troops (I'd ditch the ravagers night shields, but you're probably sold on them by now). You may find you don't need both units of jetbikes as all they really do is hide and then contest objectives.

I'm trying to decide if I would add eldar allies when working up to 2000pts, so would be interested to hear how you get on.

I realised a long time ago that at times, especially in the occasional ultra competitive environment that Duke is almost like a tax, I know full well that his points would be best spent elsewhere but ho hum... tis my love and theme etc.

I'm interested myself in how the Eldar will do, I have decent hopes for the Farseer and at times the Nightshade will just get blown out of the sky; the Warp Hunter however looks exciting and should draw a reasonable amount of fire. I'm not too sold on the Ravagers night shields, they can go but I wanted to give them a run of games and see if they helped their survivability that much.

Looking at this list, how would you scale it back down to 1500 and 1650 as I feel the Beasts would add a lot more to the pot.

Squierboy wrote:

I know you love the Duke and all, but he seems expensive and not very useful when you've got the Baron in the list too. What does he actually give you?

Umm, you do see his ranking? He's somewhat into that guy

I think you've taken a pretty nasty list. Every allied unit adds to the speed and firepower of an already mobile and deadly army. GJB's? Check. Farseer on JB? Check. Freaking awesomely wrong air superiority fighter? Check. MY FAVORITE ELDAR TANK OF ALL TIME? Check I think you find the night shields useful on the ravagers. The big las cannons and such will still be able to shoot the hell out of you, but annoying things like assault cannons will hate life. I just had a game against a SM player that tore the crap out of me using a Sky Talon. I immediately purchased a Crimson Hunter

I think the duke is well worth his points if you make use of all his rules, you have wyches so you've got the extra drugs roll covered, plenty of transports if you want to pull deep strike shenanigans, the only thing missing to my mind is a tooled up unit of splinterborn, but the Kabalite warriors aren't much worse tbh. Thought about giving the farseer a fusion gun?

Not used beasts so can't really comment on that side of things.

Night shields are good for ravagers, just keep them moving for jink and they'll do ok.

Sky Serpent wrote:

Duke Sliscus, 150pts

Baron Sathonyx, 105pts


9 Kabalite Warriors, 81pts
Raider, Enhanced aethersails, Splinter racks, 75pts

Fine, though I will admit I think the aethersails are a waste of points in a unit not needing to assault the back line of the board.

Sky Serpent wrote:

5 Kabalite Warriors, 45pts
Venom, additional Splinter cannon, 65pts

5 Kabalite Warriors, 45pts
Venom, additional Splinter cannon, 65pts

I dislike this because the Warriors are so much chaff. There's a reason that we give them Blasters. Functionally you're just trying to buy Venoms as cheap as possible here - that's what minimal Wrack squads are for. Okay, yes, these can also be desperate objective holders...but that's what the Eldar bikes are for. So, y'know, why not give these guys some Blasters and allow the passengers to be a serious threat in addition to their ride. As stands, once the Venom blows your opponent is going to ignore them unless they're within 12" or so of an objective - you want to not give him that luxury. I bet we can find 30 points to dramatically increase the danger of these units.

Sky Serpent wrote:

5 Wyches, Haywire grenades, 60pts
Venom, additional Splinter cannon, 65pts

5 Wyches, Haywire grenades, 60pts
Venom, additional Splinter cannon, 65pts

Fine.

Sky Serpent wrote:

4 Beastmasters, 6 Khymerae, 4 Razorwing Flocks, 180pts

I don't get this build - you're paying out 24 points (what did we need, 30... ) to get one Beastmaster and one Khymarae.



Why? If 5 Warp Doggies isn't enough to get the job done in your mind, why does 6? Do you really need 4 Look Out Sir tools instead of just 3? I feel like you're paying out a lot of points for an extremely minor gain in the hitting power of the unit. The only purpose of the Beastmasters is to accept derp challenges to protect the Baron and to allow you to use Look Out Sir to allocate to the appropriate Beasts when shot. That's it. Three of them will be good enough to allow you to get across the board and get stuck in. At that point it's the question of is 24 points worth +1 Khymarae? I, personally, do not think so. Five is a fine number for them, and if you want more you might as well take ten, not six.

I'd trim this unit.

Sky Serpent wrote:

Ravager, Night shields, 115pts

Ravager, Night shields, 115pts

Razorwing Jetfighter, Flickerfield, 155pts

Fine.

Sky Serpent wrote:

Farseer, Jetbike, Mantle of the laughing god, 155pts


3 Eldar Jetbikes, 51pts

3 Eldar Jetbikes, 51 pts

I think this is one of the best core combos available to the DE via allies right now.
I'm guessing the Jetseer is going with the Beasts, correct? (further lack of need for extra Beastmasters, as you'll be even harder to hurt, just saying)

Sky Serpent wrote:

Crimson Hunter, 160pts


Warp Hunter, 125pts.

This is your experimental sweep. I see the Warp Hunter as a useful tool considering your lack of templates (no Haems, egads!). I am a bit more neutral on the CH without an Autarch in the list - though I think it will pair nicely with the Razorwing as far as giving you some semi-decent air support.

The tricky bit is you have one flyer good at killing flyers, and one flyer good at killing ground units. Then you have no ability to control your reserve rolls. There *will* be a luck factor that will come into sharp play if you are playing against a flyer heavy enemy army.

Jetseer with mantle can't join a unit as it removes the independent character rule.

Good to know.