A few thoughts

Hey!

I played a game against csm and won 9-8 in purge the alien. I am a new player to WH40k and I have a few thoughts I would like to share and hope some of you can give me some feedback on it

First off, I am surprised on how much our wyches suck against marines. My archon with a vb and 9 wyches took 2 full rounds to kill 3 plague marines, 4 rounds of combat... I even had 4 st with the wyches from combat drugs. He was a bit lucky with his saves but still.. My 5 incubi on the other hand was very effective against another plague marine squad, but got crushed by terminators..
I was ssurprised to find out that my transports and ic each give 1 point in purge the alien.

My poison shooting from venoms are really ineffective against marines. 2 splinter cannons that does no dam at all often, armor save 3 and the feel no pain.. ds cannons on ravagers kick ass tho! Though I lost 3 dark lances..

Reavers! Very nice unit, I need more practice with them, but I have been thinking about 9 with 3 cluster caltrops against imperial guard transports and artillery, with d6 st6 hits each on the side armor, could work? Expensive unit tho..

Oh! Almost forgot my beastmasters with pets, it took them 3 full rounds to kill 5 raptors.. what a waste of time. First time I used them, 3 bm, 4 dogs, 4 birds... Forgot about the rending rule tho.. but he forgot about the fear rule on his raptors, but not impressed by them.

My thoughts,
goofydk

Wyches are not a particularly effective assault unit these days. Their main use is with haywire grenades to take out any vehicles. They will always struggle against high armour and high toughness opponents.

Incubi should have been fine against normal terminators, although TH/SS can be problematic. Did you check the FAQ to see that Klaives are AP2?

Venoms are potentially devastating against infantry but statistically will likely only kill one Plague Marine per Venom due to good armour and FNP. Against lightly armoured troops they can be deadly. They can also force a lot of armour saves on heavier infantry but you need to use a lot of them.

Reavers can be nice but the caltrops are very expensive and pretty much force you to bladevane every turn to get your money's worth from them.

Beastmasters are very, very nice but you really need to run them with Baron Sathonyx to get the best from them. Giving them grenades and hit & run is priceless! Have to say that you must have had some pretty bad luck to take that long to kill those raptors. 40 attacks on the charge should take those raptors out first turn!

I agree with Adhemar's comments about Wyches being more anti-tank than a true melee unit these days.

One thing to keep in mind also is that Plague Marines are one of the more resilient units in the game with their T5 (doesn't matter to poison), defensive grenades, FNP, and Power Armor. I wouldn't feel completely disheartened from going up against them since a lot of armies have a hard time knocking them down truly effectively.

Keep the list as you have it and try a few more times. DE is my 3rd army and I've noticed that they are more about strategy than about the units and that a list that loses majorly in one game could come back and win overwhelmingly the next game. So play a few more games before thinking you need to make major tweaks to your troops.

I am also a relative newcomer to DE(8 months).
I love Wyches, but have to agree that they are limited in their uses. I find them useful as HWG vehicle killers, or I reserve them to sneak on as home objective grabbers. 5 can sneak on out of range of most interceptor guns.

The only other thing Wyches are ok at is tarpitting, thanks to 4++, but you need a Hek or an IC to keep the morale up.

My 1,500 lists all include Sliscus, 10 warriors, 5 Haywyches, 5 basic Wych/Hek in Reserve.

goofydk wrote:

Hey!

Reavers! Very nice unit, I need more practice with them, but I have been thinking about 9 with 3 cluster caltrops against imperial guard transports and artillery, with d6 st6 hits each on the side armor, could work? Expensive unit tho..

goofydk

Reavers are great, but you cannot bladevane/caltrop vehicles. I don't have my codex on me but I know it specifically says non-vehicle unit. I find that they work better with Heat Lances. It gives them flexibility (they can take out tanks, and still have bladevaning in their pocket if the opportunity arises)

Ahh ok thanks, i think you are right.

On another note, how so you guys deal with very strong units like a daemon prince or Dante (isn't that the name of the blood angel bad ads ic?) I saw a game in my club between smurfs and csm, and his daemon prince wiped more or less 1 unit a turn once it got into combat. Any special tactics against them? Can an archon with huskblade and shadowfielddeal with them?

goofydk wrote:

Ahh ok thanks, i think you are right.

On another note, how so you guys deal with very strong units like a daemon prince or Dante (isn't that the name of the blood angel bad ads ic?) I saw a game in my club between smurfs and csm, and his daemon prince wiped more or less 1 unit a turn once it got into combat. Any special tactics against them? Can an archon with huskblade and shadowfielddeal with them?

In terms of strategy against a DP, use the same strategy you would to take out a unit of tactical marines. DPs can get some good psychic blessings and wargear; however, in the end, it's still just a single model in power armor. Send enough shots at it and it'll fall like everything else. In the event that it has wings and is a Swooping FMC, point venoms at it to knock it out of the sky.

As for Dante, I haven't fought him enough to know him better. There's only 1 BA player in my local area and he rarely runs Dante.

Dante is T4, 4++ and not Eternal Warrior. He's also striking on Initiative 1. I don't really see a great problem dealing with him. A huskblade Archon should be making mincemeat of him. Daemon Princes can be tougher, especially if they have wings. Venoms are probably your best bet here.

Everything that Count Adhemar said, plus Wyches are really just tarpits after they crack those tin cans open.

Good thing against chaos is to bring Reavers obiously but more importantly just tar pit his units with other units like incubi in challenges. Champions of chaos say : a model with this special rule must accept or issue challenges when possible. Just spam it, i won games that way even though my Main Faction is Chaos Space Marines. - Gotta love the big fat papa hail Nurgle.

Unholyllama wrote:

In terms of strategy against a DP, use the same strategy you would to take out a unit of tactical marines.  DPs can get some good psychic blessings and wargear; however, in the end, it's still just a single model in power armor.  Send enough shots at it and it'll fall like everything else.  In the event that it has wings and is a Swooping FMC, point venoms at it to knock it out of the sky.

Against a flying Daemon Prince, Splinter Rack raider full of Kabalite Warriors is alright. With 10 or 20 twin linked splinter shots, you will be able to get some 6. Your range is shorter than with a venom, but you gain more reliability. It depends on your playstyle.

In any case, the key is to force as much saves as possible.

Our strength is not the strength of our weapons, always wounding on 4+, 50% of hits, (while other armies must make a choice between différent equipments S3-S4-S5-S6-... to deal with different problems).
Our strength is the number of shots we are able to deliver in a single turn, in order to create the opportunity for our opponent to fail saves. I was lucky enough to kill a DP with bladevanes on turn 1 (the DP was not in the air) : 9 reavers --> 9D3 attacks, I rolled 21 hits, S4, got something like 5-6 wounds, and my opponent failed his saves.

Splinter Rack = reliability of hits, Venom = huge quantity of shots at long range, Bladevane = autohit (but only S4)

The more we hit, the more we kill, but you already know that

A Wych costs 10pts
A Marine costs 14pts (plague marines considerably more)

Wyches are first and foremost vehicle killers, but they are still reasonable combat troops.
They just cant win all fights all the time.

Mine are used to pop vehicles, and eat over watch.
That arent great alone, but they make a fantastic first charger for a HQibi squad.

With a hydra gauntlet, and a venom blade on the Hekatrix Wyches are pretty nice in CC. I used mine against my brothers new thunder hammer/storm shield Vanguard Vets who were on a b-line for my Wraithknight. They killed 3 out of 5 guys on the charge, but a wound on Shrike with the venom blade but unfortunatley ran after that due to Shrike's fear rule (which is surprisingly effective when locked in combat the whole game).

I find Wyches are great at going and locking a unit down in a 2 turn slow death, when outfitted with gauntlets and a venom blade. They need a little wargear to become killy but at a mere 15 points I think its worth it. Especially against units without over watch TH/SS termies or vets for example. Their 4+ invul is infuriating for your opponent because of how cheap they are, and the fact that they almost always go first. They are situational, more like Eldar aspect warriors, but when used right and outfitted with some cheapy upgrades they can be invaluable.

Just don't use SC's and you'll be fine.

I think maybe the question about the Blood Angels Character was regarding Mephiston? The answer to him is blast him with as many AP2 shots as possible! Nurgle armies are a bit of a tricky match-up for DE, especially in melee. Our best strategy is to shoot as much as possible against them and deny them transports to keep them at arms reach. Read my post: Hexrifles for the win!, for a funny example of how well it can go if luck is on your side!