Preparing for upcoming tournament...

Greetings Commorites!

I've got a tournament coming up and I've been thinking up some kind of tactics that erupted into a list you see below. Hope to get as much feedback as possible!

Archon w/ venom blade, shadow field, haywire grenades

10 Kabalite warriors w/ splinter cannon, Raider w/ splinter racks

10 Kabalite warriors w/ splinter cannon, Raider w/ splinter racks

9 Wyches w/ Raider

6 Reavers w/ arena champion w/ venom blade, 2x heat lances.

2 Ravagers w/ triple lances

Razorwing w/ stock missiles, splinter cannon, disintegrator cannons and flickerfield

ALLIES - ELDAR cousins

Illic Nightspear

5 Pathfinders

Crimson hunter w/ stock equipment

Wraithknight w/ suncannon & shield, scatterlaser

1846 points in total

Tactics I've planned in my little head so far...

- Archon leads the Wyches, getting in cc asap

- Warriors blast from back and aim for objectives

- Reavers make their way where they're most needed, providing AT/AI

- Illic and pathfinders sit on an objective and snipe any nasty characters or support weapons from enemy ranks.

- Wraithknight blasts away for a couple of turns before crushing the enclosing targets in close combat. Other than that, I want him to be a attraction to any high strength fire from the enemy, leaving my more fragile units with a little more room to breathe.

- Ravagers/Crimson hunter obviously act as my main AT and the hunter fills up the role of any skyhunting.

- Razorwing hunts down large enemy units and heavy infantry and acts as the second main threat in my army.

Aand after a closer look to the challenge rules I'll probably just have faith in the klaivex to survive.. well at least he's more than a match on most characters

Aand another correction to ravagers' equipment, meant night shields instead of flickerfield.

The haemonculi giving the incubi two pain tokens (=furious charge AND feel no pain), they become 1) more resilient, and 2) 19x WS5 S5 AP2 attacks on charge is plain murder AND combined w/ 3 flamer attacks, they'll sweep the floor with pretty much anything average or below. But I wondered that is it a bit overkill squad?

The Incubi is a little overkill, and will likely be focused down with shooting. I'd consider putting enhanced sails on their raider so you can deploy it further back. Also I'd bring another raider, just in case the Incubi's gets blown sky high, you can jump in the other one.

The unit will be super fun when you get it into combat, though.

Totally agree I've thought of switching one venom for a raider but that would leave me 12 less shots, which I do need.. Guess I drop the Incubi down to 4 and drop the klaivex and night shields from the ravagers, replacing them with 5 HW wyches in another raider?

And come on guys! Over a hundred views and only one reply? Give me something, good or bad, all the same to me!

This list looks like a lot of fun - you have things in there that people would maybe criticise for not being optimal and such, but used right they'll hit really hard. I commend you for having the guts to field Illic and Pathfinders, they're expensive but will really annoy your opponent if you can keep them alive. Let us know how they work out for you, and the Wraithknight! I keep toying with the idea of one, and personally would definitely go suncannon/scattershield, but to each their own

Thanks Believer!

I have had the plan for so long to field the pathfinders but I haven't had a proper opportunity so far.
I will definitely post reports of how the list succeeds.

I've thought of tinkering the list a bit and drop the exarch upgrade on the hunter, taking venom blades on both haemonculi and up the raider with aethersails. how's this?

Sounds like a fair trade.

First battle behind... Didn't go so well..

I faced my friend's mechanized Sisters of battle army allied with purifier squad, castellan crowe and a psyfleman dread. We rolled the Emperor's Will mission and Vanguard strike deployment.

I could blame my lousy dice rolling but in the end, I could've played smarter.. My raider and incubi popped to blitz on the second turn and the haemonculi were hunted down by saint celestine. My second big mistake was to ignore the rhinos in the early game and try to damage the psyfleman and exorcist. This would've give me more targets for the pathfinders and venoms (which neither did do pretty much in the entire game). Both fliers worked pretty well and both were in the game still at turn 5. Wraithknight was the BOMB! It went down at the end of turn 5 but boy did it punish those sisters! On top of that, it sucked in the psyfle, melta and exorcist shooting from 1st to 4th turn, leaving ravagers and venoms to sit back in ease.

Was expecting the game was going to be tough, a mechanized army was amongst the list of foes I wouldn't want to face.

Tomorrow I'm trying to get another battle against Orks and I've got a hunch I'm facing 3 dakkajets, 2 battlewagons and a couple mobs of lootas. Wish me luck!

The second battle is over and I've got a bunch of ork heads hanging on the wall. If You want to know closely how it went, I've posted the Battle report on the forum:
http://www.thedarkcity.net/t7821-battle-report-vs-orks-1850-points#84168

The army performed like a charm, and though it wasn't "mop-the-floor" type of game at all, I was really pleased on my end of the game.

Seems like even if incubi make it to combat that there's too many bodies. They'll chew up most units, probably run them down, and be left in the open for your opponents shooting phase. Maybe just 4 with either a cheap succubus or combat archon. That said i'd think the "band" wagon, which may include me, would say that you're better off just dropping incubi for some more venoms (either scoringg warriors or trueborn), but thats going hyper competitive thinking. Incubi are a pretty fun unit that i've always wanted to try and think could do decent in semi-/local comp, but i've just never been able to get around having to buy more finecast  .

I'm pretty sure your rangers don't need illic. Not sure on his price cost, but i'd drop him for a farseer on jetbike for fortuning/guiding your ravagers or what ever needs it the most that turn. Could go for laughing god mantel if you think your opponents wont be denying cover saves, or hide him in ranger unit (especially if you aren't infiltrating them into cover that has an objective).

Good point WarlordEXE

About taking Illic, he gives pathfinders shrouded AND the sharpshot rule, so I'd definitely take him to lead them. Farseer would be great and I thought him as an option but for now, I'll stick with these guys.

Also a note for everyone, I've tinkered the list a bit, changing the overpriced incubi/haemonculi for reavers/archon. I also modified the troops a bit, dropping the venoms off, taking bigger kabalite units in raiders.

With the rest of the points I've thought of a HW wych unit in a Venom? Worth it?

Haywyches in venoms are great, but only if you bring more than one. One squad of them will just die, but three to four squads of them are too much of a threat for your opponent to ignore.

Well, I decided to spand the troops to max size now to keep them alive longer. I had to drop the shields off from the ravagers though.. :/

autopilot wrote:

Haywyches in venoms are great, but only if you bring more than one. One squad of them will just die, but three to four squads of them are too much of a threat for your opponent to ignore.

Very true! I had a game yesterday where I used Wyches for the first time in ages. I'd been so put off using them by the overwatch rules that I've taken to fielding a Haemonculus and Wracks instead, or just one squad of Wyches in a Venom. From experience, I can comfortably say they will achieve nothing fielded this way, unless your opponent doesn't understand the haywire rule. As soon as they start moving your opponent will focus a ton of fire on their transport, and unless you're extremely lucky it'll explode and kill them. Those that don't get killed then have to pass a pinning test and a morale check, because you will have lost two or three from a squad of five. But when I used them yesterday, there were two squads. Not only did they both make it all the way through the game, one of them actually managed to haywire something to death, for the first time in months. They aren't quite as good as they were, it's true - the enemy getting a free turn of snap shooting at them on the way to the charge is hard on them. But they can still be great, if you're prepared to dedicate enough of the list building process to making them work.

It's true that the wyches aren't what they used to. But they still got potential in the hands of a capable warlord. I've tarpitted two trygons with 2 units of 7 wyches long enough to my huskblade archon to bring them down. I've blown up 2 chimeras in one assault, preventing the veteran squad inside to flank my army. I've even hacked down half a platoon of guardsmen with a single squad of 9 accompanied by a haemonculus. Wyches can still be a fantastic shock unit once used right. But you got a point that now that people know what a single haywych squad is capable of, they're more than often brought down before they get to do any damage..