Haywire Wych Cult with Reaver Lord 1500

I'm looking to build a fluffy (ish) Wych Cult (esque) army which is passably competitive but requires both balls and finesse to play well with.  I love HW Wyches and really like the idea of a mass-HW army.

I've had a lot of success with my regular list & would like to try something a bit different.  Any constructive feedback is welcome.  I know it lacks "t1 lance fire" but it's not exactly lacking in anti-mech elsewhere (& as I say, I want it to be effective but hard to use!)

I'd especially like feedback on the Autarch build - I can't work out what to give him / if I should swap the blasters for heatlances in the Reaver unit for better synergy.

After a bit of trial and error this is what I've arrived at:

Duke Sliscus the Serpent 150

4 Kabalite Trueborn: 2× blaster; 2× splinter cannon; haywire grenades. 171
• Venom: splinter cannon.

5 Wyches: haywire grenades. 125 x5
• Venom: splinter cannon.


3 Beastmasters: 5× Khymerae; 4× Razorwing Flock. 156

6 Reavers: Arena Champion (venom blade); 2× blaster. 177


Autarch: Eldar jetbike; fusion gun; laser lance. 105

3 Windrider Guardians: shuriken cannon. 61

3 Windrider Guardians: shuriken cannon. 61

• I already have 6x Windriders made up to look like Reavers from my main list so they'll fit well with the aesthetic.  
  
  
• I plan on making a Reaver-Lord (think Sathonyx on a bike) for the Autarch who will run with the Reavers. He will give them another shooting option, allow them to pick on backfield units (hello Devastators) and can assault vehicles to finish them off with either the L-Lance or HW grenades he comes with.
  
  
• In additionally his Reserve shenanigans work well with the Duke's Deep Strike penchant (perhaps for DS the Duke and his Trueborn)
  
  
• Duke is there to provide Combat drugs buffs to the Wyches and rides with his Trueborn. Depending on range from enemy armour this means I'll get up to 2 blaster shots, a blast pistol and a trueborn chucking a HW grenade.
  
  
• Alternatively, if the opponent isn't packing much mech (nids etc.) they'll chill out in the deep field targeting high T units with the Spl Cannons.
  
  
• Wyches do what they do best - against any mech lists turbo boost first turn and cause mayhem (ideally if nightfighting to just over 18" from the enemy for a 3+ cover)
  
  Against hordes / more balanced lists they sit back unless an opportunity comes up for them to gang up on units in assault.
  
  
• Windriders can be reserved and come on at the 11th hour for some objective contesting / capturing (using the Autarch's reserve trick).
  
  Any thoughts?
  
  

Also does anyone have any thoughts on the beasts? I'm debating a second Reaver squad instead...

The Duke is great here, cause almost all guys in the army take drugs. But 2 Blasters on your splinterborns is something odd. When someone tries to make a unit, which supposed to be omni-purpose, it's a waste of points.
I would recommend you to take some dark lances in your list. You will lost 2-3 venoms before some wyches reach enemy vehicle.
I would also recommend you to take one raider with Wyches to put the Duke there after he gives the poison his Splinterborns. (Join him to the Splinterborns on deployment then Put him on a raider with Wyches on turn 1). Because he is a good Close-Combat fighter.

Could you show a picture of your reaver-like windriders? I like the idea of such a conversion and plan to do it myself.

I also thought about a Duke/Reaver List with wyches, trueborn for the poison buff and deep striking poison shots. I don't know about your allies, Do you really need them? First Idea: give the reaver-champion the Power-Maul with strengt +. So you can charge vehicles and put one or two hull points on them if the Blaster fail exploding it. Great against serpents i think. Also, if you use one big Reaver squads instead of two small ones, you might give them a pain-token from a haemunculus. With the Duke you will almost always get + one strength via combat drugs, furious Charge or at least plus one attack. Makes your Jetbikes CC Tank-Hunters and allows you to bring Wracks

SERAFF wrote:

The Duke is great here, cause almost all guys in the army take drugs. But 2 Blasters on your splinterborns is something odd. When someone tries to make a unit, which supposed to be omni-purpose, it's a waste of points.
I would recommend you to take some dark lances in your list. You will lost 2-3 venoms before some wyches reach enemy vehicle.
I would also recommend you to take one raider with Wyches to put the Duke there after he gives the poison his Splinterborns. (Join him to the Splinterborns on deployment then Put him on a raider with Wyches on turn 1). Because he is a good Close-Combat fighter.

Could you show a picture of your reaver-like windriders? I like the idea of such a conversion and plan to do it myself.

Will get a photo up when I next have them out (all packed up at the moment as I'm moving in a couple of days)

To be honest in this list I'd rather have the blasters then the 3+ splinter cannons (there's enough poison coming from the Venoms alone really). It was more a case of adding in the Spl cannons as a n afterthought to get some benefit from the Duke's ability. I do not want to field any more than 1 Kabalite unit in this list (& even that is a bit of a stretch). Perhaps I should just run the Duke with some Wyches in a Raider & ditch the Kabalites.

@miral wrote:

I also thought about a Duke/Reaver List with wyches, trueborn for the poison buff and deep striking poison shots. I don't know about your allies, Do you really need them? First Idea: give the reaver-champion the Power-Maul with strengt +. So you can charge vehicles and put one or two hull points on them if the Blaster fail exploding it. Great against serpents i think. Also, if you use one big Reaver squads instead of two small ones, you might give them a pain-token from a haemunculus. With the Duke you will almost always get + one strength via combat drugs, furious Charge or at least plus one attack. Makes your Jetbikes CC Tank-Hunters and allows you to bring Wracks

The allies are pretty much essential to the success of this list (or have been in the games I've played so far).  First of all it lets me field an Wych-Lord on a jetbike which is cool, secondly they provide some good late game objective capturing at a high T and good Armour Save.  They can also pop up in the rear arc of tanks and pop them (I tend to keep the windriders in reserve if I'm not going first / there are no good targets for them).

The Reavers do run as one big 6 man unit - I guess I could think about a power-maul on the arena champion.  At the moment the same role is being played by the laser-lance / haywire grenades on the Autarch (he comes with the HW free and it fits the theme of the army).

Actually I have been thinking about giving the Lord the Mantle of the Laughing God and having him zoom around hit and running things with his laser-lance with a 2+ rerollable cover save (he is a Reaver Lord after all so it fits that he'd have an amazing jink... (but that would mean the reavers are riding solo)

I understand why you say put in a haemonculus, but I'm not building this list to be super-competitive rather to be a bit fluffy and a challenge to play with.  I'm afraid on that front he just doesn't fit (I already have one very competitive Dark Eldar list and I'm looking for a bit of a challenge...)