Question from a likely future newcomer

I'm first and foremost a painter and i only play on a rare occassion nonetheless i like to make my armies playable for on the rare occassion i get to playing.

I'm currently working on Red Corsairs but around Christmas i'm gonna start up a new army/project.

I saw on ebay a nice offer for several boxes of DE stuff sold in Belgium my own country (so good shipping prices )

A batallion, a raider, 2 boxes of wyches and some other stuff.

I wonder though... are a mixed force of Wyches and Kaballite warriors good?
I especailly love the look of the regular DE soldiers so i'm definately going to end up painting up more than the batallion box ones. But this leaves me with 3 squads of Wyches... is it good for me to invest in them? In the army list section a lot of people tend to focus on one or the other...

The kits are so interchangeable it's definitely worth picking up the lot to do some customising. In games I personally always use both, although to a greater or lesser extent depending on the list.
As a bonus wyches make awesome Necromunda Escher gangers.!

They really are that mixable?
I do love a good kitbash... hmm good to know!

They are very much that mixable - all of our kits are highly interchangable because they were designed that way, it's really awesome.

Wyches took a hit in playability with 6th edition. They're still not bad, but competitively speaking usually you only see minimized 5 man squads with haywire grenades and not much else. As the meta shifts they may get their spot in the sun again, but they suffer quite a bit from Aggies now being AP 3 only, and Overwatch. I will say that I'm starting to think the power lance is the new sweet spot for them, though the Venom Blade remains a monstrously solid workhorse.

I think it's pretty unlikely that you'll want anything like 30 Wyches. You could try kitbashing with Warriors, though it may be a little tricky to make them look more like Warriors than Wyches (I guess the paint scheme will help). I did make some into Harlequins though and there's also the Escher idea. Or just sell some of the Wyches on. Still a good deal I assume.

Yes well its several lots. So I could just pick up the batallion, Scourges, 1 box of Wyches, a venom, a Raider and perhaps the venom and/or Talos.

Btw are the venom, Scourges and talos worth investing in?

Also that female 'hq' wych would she also do well as a Dracon 'Wych' to represent the leader of the Wych half of the army?

Venoms are universally accredited as good.
Scourges have some debate, but the usual feel is they are on the low side of good or high side of bad.
Talos also have some debate, but though they are basically considered 'good' you need to build your list differently to play them, and as such they tend to vary in functionality depending on the list, but most lists don't use them.

The Succubus could easily be played as a wide variety of HQ or squad leader type roles, ranging from a Syren to a Dracite with ease.

Thanks for the info. i'll go for the batallion, 1 box of Wyches, the Scourges the raider and the venom. But i'll not go for the Talos and the 2nd Wych box.

I'll be placing an order later on. I was thinking of having my army more or less comprize the following:

4 raiders
1 Archon with Incubi
A Succubus to be used as Dracon/head of the Wyches (2nd HQ)
3x Kaballite Warriors
2x Wyches
4 Raiders
3 Venoms
2 Ravagers

A good versatile force?

It is an extremely solid base.

Insomuch as the way the meta and rules work for 6th you may be a bit too heavy on assault and a bit too light on shooting, but that's not an intrinsically bad situation to be in as long as you understand what you're choosing.

Hmmm what do you think i should drop and replace then to make it more 'shooty'?

The easy answer would be 'some of the assault units'.
Without knowing the specific points and build it's hard to be too specific (and I'm lazy and probably wouldn't be in any case) but that is the core answer, if you're on the assaulty side and want to be on the shooty side, you cut assault and add shoot

Hmm i had the impression it was shooty with some assaultyness.
I would like to field my archon with the incubi because they're well... cool and one unit of wyches for sure (variety). I could remove the other wych unit and replace it with something else.

Btw love your avatar it cracks me up

You're running 7 transports - I thought 3 of them had Wyches in them, not only 2. If there are only 2 with Wychs, 1 with Incubi, and 3 with Warriors then what is in the 7th transport?

No idea. Like i said it's the initial purchase i'm gonna use to build things with.
It's a spare raider. In case I change things up.
As I was told you can't go wrong with raiders when expanding a force.

Question though i ordered the codex so don't quite know the details of it all yet.
But the venom basically transports a max of 5 man units but is mostly good as a fire support unit? Or so i read... This is correct?

Both the Venom and the Raider serve ably as transports *and* fire support platforms.
I believe most players overlook that the Raider is fire support as well because the Venom lets you roll larger handfuls of dice, but then again I think there's a reason so many DE players had 'tough' matchups versus mech heavy lists in 5th.

Both vehicles are also transports, what is inside the transport can range from meaningless to a potent threat depending on the build.

Yes, the Venom has a transport capacity of 5.

This is effective? I presume the venoms are thus mostly used for Kaballites with a heavy or special weapon of sorts to be quickly deployed and the two then team up to unleash fire or to bring a small squad like Incubi into combat?

Wyches usually go into Raiders as i presume you want to field them in large units?

In a very broad conceptual sense, yes, Raiders work better for assault units (which usually need to be larger than 5) and Venoms work well with shooting units that do not require being larger than 5. That said, you can still put a shooting uni in a Raider, and though there are a limited amount of viable choices, you can put an assault unit in a Venom. But note, simply because you have an assault unit of 5 men, that doesn't mean they should go in a Venom, maybe they should go in a Raider.

For instance - if I was fielding an army of 3x 5 Incubi (for some daft reason) and 6x 5 Wracks and nothing else, should I put them in Raiders or Venoms? The answer is - Raiders, because I will need the lances to pop open any transports so my assaulters can get into assault, and also to deal with any other vehicle threats because my army, otherwise, cannot deal with them.

The choice of Venom or Raider is mostly based around what type of weapon you need more of, not the size of the squad (well...y'know, unless the size is 6+, then the choice is made for you)

Interesting. In any case a raider more or less won't work as i hope to build the DE army out into my largest yet. With a snow theme. Try something a bit bolder.

I'll definitely mix the 2 sizes up just for visual aspects but i'm gonna keep your words in mind. And as I expand see which vehicule will be more suited as I go along.

Darthvegeta800 wrote:

I presume the venoms are thus mostly used for Kaballites with a heavy or special weapon of sorts to be quickly deployed

Warriors need to be ten-strong to get a heavy weapon, which means they can't take a Venom.

And some players use five Wyches with Haywire Grenades in Venoms.

As Thor665 says, often the tipping point will be whether you want the anti-infantry weapons of the Venom or the anti-tank (or alternatively anti-Terminator) weapons of the Raider.

At the bidding i eventally just got the batallion box and those winged fellows (Scourges)
So I think i'll go full Raider. I like having anti tank. I get the impression that the basic DE is already rather good at taking out the average foot soldier.
I will field a single Wych unit though. I got it. And some flavor is fun. Together with the Archon and his incubi, they should be the reactive 'hammers' of my force. (although i realize 'hammer' is perhaps an overstatement compared to some 40K cc expert units)

What you want is synergy between your transports and your infantry.

You could have infantry with DLs/Blasters, HWGs (for Wyches), etc and then you'd probably want the anti-infantry that two Splinter Cannons on the Venom provide.

If you're going for Raiders, then your infantry can and should be more geared towards and anti-infantry role themselves. This also has the advantage that it makes better use of power from pain.

Ben_S wrote:

What you want is synergy between your transports and your infantry.

You could have infantry with DLs/Blasters, HWGs (for Wyches), etc and then you'd probably want the anti-infantry that two Splinter Cannons on the Venom provide.

If you're going for Raiders, then your infantry can and should be more geared towards and anti-infantry role themselves. This also has the advantage that it makes better use of power from pain.

Thanks! For the last 15 years or so (!!? Oo;) I've mostly painted but i've gamed once in a while but traditionally i've always played PA forces: Black Legion, Grey Knights etc. Never something non Marine. So will be odd. December i'm doing the big purchase. I'm getting a little local discount and i'm putting the funding asside. Several raiders, a lot of warriors, 3 Ravagers. So it should be fine.
I'm still a bit undecided whether i'd already add 2 venoms but i think i'll wait with buying them... not sure it would be that good an idea to mix up to many different things before i'm used to the army.

a bit of a tip for you try and get ravangers insted of raiders mate as i made this mistake for the few quid extra you can down grade a ravanger model to a raider but you cant up grade a raider model to a ravanger and the ravanger dose do some realy good shooting atacks

Oh i'm getting some Ravagers anyway they're already on my list of purchases i must make.
From what i know of DE they already were 'must haves' in the previous codex.