Scourge "Based" army?

Hey all!

I've recently fallen in love with the Scourge models.  I'm thinking of picking some more up in the near future!

My question is; how would I go about a Scourge "based" army?  

Knowing that Fast Attack is limited to 3 in a anything up to 1999 point games, I'm tempted on fielding 2 or 3 full units of these bird-boys and girls.   However, what compliments them?  What would work well alongside a large quantity of winged psychopaths?  

HQs, Troops, and all other suggestions welcome!

1st step: Decide if you're going to run them as anti-tank or anti-infantry.
2nd step: Basically fill the rest of your army with the opposite.



Sounds silly, but it's legit advice.

If you run them as anti-infantry I'd take more Raiders and less Venoms than a 'conventional' list.
If you run them as anti-tank I'd probably switch out Ravagers for Razorwing Jetfighters.

Haywire scourges and wych Venoms is a list I want

An archon fitted with husk and soul trap and shadow field. Raider w wytches and then either gun boat kabalites or venom boys

if you kitted them as anti tank i would maybe consider talos's for heavy support...target saturation of big baddies and guys running and gunning might be fun...maybe even deep strike them to take out vehicles and to save other units like talos, idk really im just babbling...


do you plan to run squads of ten?

Now these are the crazy ideas I like!
Either way, be sure to take some haywire blasters. No matter where you bounce around on the battle field you're bound to get in range of some tanks at some point.
Your scourges are going to become a target priority whether they are dangerous or not.
2 squads of 10 with 10 reavers as back up is quite a headache for the opponent. It should buy you enough time and space to get your boats up close or in objective position.
"It's when the giant ignores the fly buzzing around its head. Then you will see purpose in its eyes. And when its gaze is upon you...That's when you strike the hardest."

-Jack-

20 scourges and 10 reavers is mighty expensive points wise lol, might want to consider reduced squad sizes...especially if you want to go anti tank hunting specifically with one of the scourge squads, whatever you do i would make sure you kit out each squad for one particular type of use

Maybe doing 2x10 with 4 sc is only 260 pts now add sum 2x10 warriors with sc in a raider 4 x 4 hwg wytchs hekatrix w/ venom blades in a venom with 2x sc now you got alot of at and AI to go around plus 6 troops

I would field them with a unit such as talos or cronos as these can soak up a lot more fire especially after obtaining a pain token and distract the opponent long enough for you to get enough kills with them to make them worth their points. Also talos are badass

I don't see why you'd have to kit out your scourges as either ALL AT or ALL AI. You could do a 2/1 split one way or another. That lets you have a more balanced force for the rest of the army because you can pick some AT and some AI for those as well.

I'd probably be giving thought to fielding a Haemi so I can have Wracks as troops due to the greater toughness of Wracks.

Thor665 wrote:

1st step: Decide if you're going to run them as anti-tank or anti-infantry.
2nd step: Basically fill the rest of your army with the opposite.

This is the best advice. If you mix AT/AI roles then you can only shoot at one of them each turn. Splinter fire is wasted on vehicles and the AT weaponry is low rate of fire which won't take down the hordes quickly enough. I would play large AI units or small AT units personally.

Malevolent-Storm wrote:

I don't see why you'd have to kit out your scourges as either ALL AT or ALL AI.  You could do a 2/1 split one way or another.  That lets you have a more balanced force for the rest of the army because you can pick some AT and some AI for those as well.

I suspect we're talking about taking 3 FA slots, all for Scourges. Then it would make sense to mix, 2 squads for AT and 1 for AI or w/e.

Now, if we're talkin about mixing weapon types within the squad, it gets less effective.

Equip 10 man scourge with a mix of weapon would offer options but makes them less optimal, most of the time. Plus they are kinda mobile (jump infants) so people want to utilize this to their movement to the most, sacrificing heavy weapons profile.

With this said, all AI would mean pure shardcarbines does the job well, you jump in front of them and the unload 30 shots. If you really wanna give them splint cannons, they would get 4 shots extra, 12 extra shots if you don't move 4 of the dudes. All good, they'll rip infantries.

Now, if we fit them for full AT duty, let's say 4 haywire blaster, each time you fire against vehicles,  only those 4 will be shooting for effect. The rest of the 18 shots will be useless and wasted. If you shoot infantry, you get 18 shots + 4 shots for effect, a little downgrade I'ld say. Mix em, say 2 haywire blaster and 2 splint cannons just for it, then you're shooting 2 shots at vehicles, 26-28 splint shots and 2 hwblaster shotsfor infantry. You see their full potential drops alot either against AT or AI...

So mix isn't really optimal, especially on these over expensive units. I'ld say, if you play all scourge, make them all AI, save points and let them do what they do best... You could attempt to assault and fill vehicles with plasma grenades with the scourges if you really want them to to deal with vehicles at that point.

As for AT, leave it for ravagers and wyches, perhaps?

For comparison, Space Marines tactical squads employ special and heavy weapons for AT and/or AI. They can do this very well, unlike our scourges. Because:
-All their weapon got str value, can threaten av 10 etc
-They don't have any special mobility, so you tend to be slow, heavy weapons will most likely not need to move for full effect. You can shoot heavy weapons no problems.
-Missile launchers got two profiles, one for tank one for aoe AI.
-Plasma guns are effective against anything.

A SM tact squad can be well equiped to handle AT and AI, not as good as scourges but still with reasonable success, for their cost! Not mixed weapons scourges, for their cost...

I imagine this, I just got inspired when writing this post. Scourge themed army:

3x 10man Scourge squads, all shardcarbines

3x Ravagers all DL

3x 5man wych squads, with haywire nades. (swap their legs for scourge legs and other parts!!!)

1x 10man Kab warrs (swap their legs for scourge legs and other parts!!!)

1x HQ with scourge parts

Basically, just build the other models with scourge parts. I believe that wyches look scourge-like if you just swap their legs, kabalites look scourge like with torsos and head swaps does alot. These guys have to earn their wings!

Haywire Scourges
2 Haywire Taloi and a Cronos?

Or 3 squads of scourges and three fighters.
Compared to a ten man assault squad with two meltas, they arent bad, but they are a lot less survivable, and we cant really afford to suicide them like we can wych and incubi squads

Yeah, I meant a whole squad equipped for AI or AT, not mixing weapons within the squad. Which you pick I think has more to do with what else you field. If you field 3 AT Ravs then sure AI the Scourges. If you are fielding SC Trueborn in double SC Venoms though, you might want to make a unit or two of Scourges AT.

I'm not sure how they would do when they count as scoring. You'd have jump pack troops but they'd be fragile and easy victory points for the other player.

I tend to agree that the carbines make them lean a little toward AI - even Kelly says as much on the GW web site's description of them. Deep striking near some MC or even a troop unit means they could really lay down some fire, but then they'd EAT fire the following turn, probably from 12" or less. Having said that, I went and looked at Plastikente's unit guide and he seems to lean towards equipping them as AT (since we have so much good AI). The thing is that means that even a 10 Scourge squad only has 2 AT weapons. I'm too good at rolling low to think that is a sufficient number and if you get these guys close enough to use Heat Lances ot Blasters, they probably won't survive the next turn. That is an awful expensive throw away unit with a serious chance of wiffing. Having said that, even the AT version of the unit is pretty decent at AI. 10 people getting 24 (8 * 3) carbine shots + 2 AT shots still = 26 shots. You only lose 4 shots which is less than a wound when the to hit, wound, and save are considered. It might be worth losing the 4 shots (6 if you have SC on the move) to pick up the ability to threaten vehicles. Depends on your local meta.

I'm thinking if I ran a "Scourge" force, I'd probably only field 2x10 scourges and not just because I only have 20 models. ;-) There is so much good stuff in our FA slot that I'd probably want to augment the Scourges with Reavers or Beastmasters.

Thematically, you could take the Baron and go for jump-troop stuff. Use Hellions as the troops and Scourges as the FA. You'd have to give some serious thought to how to compliment that though and those are both rather expensive troops.

@Malevolent-Storm: 10 Scourge gets 4 weapons, 2 weapons per 5. So if you equip them for AT duty (haywires), you need only to score 3 hits on most tanks and don't fail the haywire rules. Then you get shot up if you are not already in cover, which is hard to achieve if you're DS em.
Othwise, yes your scourges will be able to manage infantries well whether you equip them as AT or AI. Actually, maybe we should instead of AT or AI, say AT or AM. Since splinters are niec against MCs

My bad. It's what I get for posting before I had my coffee.

Sorry to wishlist but if Scourge had been jet pack units then they would see at lot more use at their current point level. Relentless move-shoot-move seems to be what this unit was made for, I'm not sure how they missed the cut. If you're going to go out and buy 20 scourge then ask your friends if you can play them as jet pack infantry. Won't work in tournaments but neither will jump pack scourge

How about making a kill-team squad with all scourges? Could that work at 200 points?

At 200 points, I don't see why not. That single squad or squad will be well equipped for anything that comes their way!

Just make a corsairs army and use scourge models for everyone that would have a jump pack.
I know it isn't DE any more but it justifies making and army basically entirely from those beautiful models.

fuhrmaaj wrote:

Sorry to wishlist but if Scourge had been jet pack units then they would see at lot more use at their current point level. Relentless move-shoot-move seems to be what this unit was made for, I'm not sure how they missed the cut. If you're going to go out and buy 20 scourge then ask your friends if you can play them as jet pack infantry. Won't work in tournaments but neither will jump pack scourge

Why another jump shoot jump unit? We do not need such preposterous tactics as the fish heads use. And I see the scourges else where, job wise.
They are the unit that finishes up the rests and that generally supports in either way. May it be AI or AT.

I would suggest a unit of 7 with 2 heat lances.
All the weapons are 18" range, the carbines are good against bad armour saves, the lanes are good against good armour saves. They could also finish off a squad in assault. They have PG, 4+/6++, maybe fnp and hammer of wrath attacks.

I would not send them in alone, but they are a good support in any way unit.

I guess an army of scourges should be modeled accordingly, as was already suggested.

Sláinte

Okay seeing as the Scourge kill team idea is now stuck in my head I made a topic about it in the army list section. Could any of you help out with brainstorming?
http://www.thedarkcity.net/t7607-kill-team-scourges-200-points