Venoms required?

I've creeped this forum for awhile now, first time posting. I'm a long time IG player but I also have a TON of old DE models. Unfortunately this means I don't have any venoms. I do, however, have almost 100 warriors(special/heavy weapons included), 60 or 70 wyches, 12 raiders, 3 ravagers, 16(?) reavers, and the FW jet(which I'd use as one of the codex flyers), plus some extra stuff that I don't see used much in army lists(talos, scourges, etc.).

So I guess the question is, can I be competitive without venoms? They put out an awful lot of hurt, but I'd like to keep a theme of old models if possible. Usual points for tournaments is 1500, 1750, and 1850; we like to switch it up a little.

My biggest concerns army wise are:

Necron teleporting army that's basically 3 10 man immortal units packed with characters to veil around the table, basically negating DE's speed. Not to mention every Necron eats vehicles all day, so exploding raiders is guaranteed.

Draigowing, generally allied with SM for a thunderfire cannon. Nothing says "F you raider" like 16 psycannon shots boosted by Coteaz. And we all know what ignore cover blasts do to stranded warriors/wyches.

CSM w/ Fateweaver demon allies. Flying MC's are a pain in the rump...especially when you only have a 1/9 chance of grounding them every turn. He also uses forgefiends, which are surprisingly fast and resilient...

Any tips, list ideas, suggestions, scorn   ...is welcome

Thanks!

Caboose

IamCaboose wrote:

So I guess the question is, can I be competitive without venoms?  They put out an awful lot of hurt, but I'd like to keep a theme of old models if possible.  Usual points for tournaments is 1500, 1750, and 1850; we like to switch it up a little.

Let me preface this by saying "I don't think 'competitive' is a term that really applies to 40k anymore. I am choosing to answer this with the concept of 'competitive' meaning playing games for fun with the desire to win more than you lose. Otherwise, unless you'd like to invest in Titans, no army is competitive nowadays, really."

Yes, you can be competitive without Venoms. You need to build with an awareness that you lack them, so you need your anti-infantry tools in some other form, but yes,

IamCaboose wrote:

My biggest concerns army wise are:

Necron teleporting army that's basically 3 10 man immortal units packed with characters to veil around the table, basically negating DE's speed.  Not to mention every Necron eats vehicles all day, so exploding raiders is guaranteed.

Draigowing, generally allied with SM for a thunderfire cannon.  Nothing says "F you raider" like 16 psycannon shots boosted by Coteaz.  And we all know what ignore cover blasts do to stranded warriors/wyches.

CSM w/ Fateweaver demon allies.  Flying MC's are a pain in the rump...especially when you only have a 1/9 chance of grounding them every turn.  He also uses forgefiends, which are surprisingly fast and resilient...

Any tips, list ideas, suggestions, scorn   ...is welcome

I don;t make lists, but here are my quick thoughts for tips;

Teleporting Crons are actually pretty low down my fear scale for Crons. Their teleports do not negate our speed, their teleports help showcase our speed because we can handle them wherever they appear. Now, lacking Venoms this becomes a touch harder, but you should still be able, with 24" rifles and 6" Raider/walk moves be able to threaten a hell of a lot of the board with your poison shooting. Also, if you are going to run any assault unit, they will also rather like to walk up and say 'hi' to the Crons, and most of our assault tools are easily fast enough to catch the Crons as well. Focus a unit at a time, and really, probably focus the rest of his army first - teleporting Immortals can only do so much damage at the end of the day.

Kill the TFC first - TFCs die really quickly and easily to DE. After that, he's a 24" range army versus a 36" range army that is generally considered one of, if not the, most mobile army in the game. It's even worse if you take Nightshields, because then he's an 18" army. Oooh, scary I am always a lot more scared of GK Razorbacks and Rifle Dreads than Draigo wing, we kill Draigo wing really well. Just edge in, stay on the outskirts and don't allow too many units to draw lines of sight to you and/or be in range. Unload punishing firepower into 1 squad at a time. He'll run out of Terms long before you run out of boats I'd wager.

The Flying Circus/Forgefiend build is pretty cool, and one I have contemplated using for my Daemons as well. It is a really expensive army though, and has a number of weaknesses. First off, our massed poison shooting is a Daemon's nightmare. most of them have mediocre saves in the final analysis, so they hate massed fire that can harm them. 10 warriors in a Raider can potentially be pumping out between 19-24 shots a round, hitting on a 6, wounding on a 4+ or 2+, and that's not good for Daemons. Any Daemon on the ground is dead meat. Grounding them is just about firing s.rifles till they fail a save and then pouncing on them with whatever is left. Also, though the build is nasty, at the point level you're saying you play at he's probably packing no more than 3-4 things all told if he's having to pay for Fateweaver too. Just stay calm, focus fire, and remember if it's an objective game that you don't need to kill the FMCs, just survive them.

I will sadly admit a lot of your problem issues...my first thought for solving them was 'well, you take your Venoms and...'

Here's a hint from one old-model player to another. You can, with rather minor effort, convert a Raider to a Venom. Even if you don't feel like breaking out a saw you can even just switch out the lance for two splinter cannons and do a bit of mild kitbashing/painting to differentiate them from Venoms and, hey, presto, Venoms.

If you go without Venoms though, some Gunboats or some Razorwing fighters are definitely your friends. You need to field enough stuff to help you kill the infantry that a lot of people will bring.