Help with tournament ideas

Hey guys, I am looking at playing in a very competative 1850 tournament in a few weeks. I decided to take DE because I think they can be a big spoiler to Tau (with NS), Daemons, and Eldar. I am having two issues with the list though.
The first is what to with seer council. My thought was to take a Haemonculi with the crucible, the only two issues are that the crucible tends to not be great against other armies (gotta hope for that 1/12 chance of failing ld 10). The other issue is trying to get the haemonculi close enough to the seer council to have the crucible go off. Any savvy player will know what it does and kill the haemonculi's boat and charge/shoot him off the table. I am wondering how you guys managed to get him in range, and if you think he is even worth taking.
The other issue is the age old debate of having enough anti tank. Currently I have 3 ravagers a quad gun and 2 6 man units of reavers with heat lances for my anti tank, and am debating if that is enough. I know we can spam lances, the issue is on other platforms they become very expencive to take and you need to give up 2 splinter cannons per lance, which is a huge opportunity cost.
Just looking for some ideas to help me improve my list and hopefully get it to a point wher I wouldnt mind taking it to adepticon over my daemons.

Hey I'm a long time 40K player, I've been playing DE for about 6 months or less.
This is what I've learned so far:
Dark Lances are ok against most armor..against AV14 you will struggle.Unless you are one of those high rollers.
I have found wyches in a venom with haywire grenades are the way to kill armor.
Throw one on the way in and then glance it to death..it does the trick.
Blaster are your friend in KW squads..more lance shots the better.
Splinter cannons are better and cheaper than DL's..more shots at range for those monstrous creatures and demons.

The crucible isn't reliable against psykers other than warlocks and other low leadership..it can work though and people don't expect it.
Sometimes gimmicks can work.

As for Tau..nightshields will help,but remember the riptards have 72 inch range and blacksun filters.
Also god help you if some one brings a broadside squad with heavy rail rifles,your vehicles will go up in smoke very fast..night fight wont help you(black sun filter,tooled up commander with no cover save BS).
More than likely you wont see railheads,if you do rethink your tactics and pray.
I had this happen to me at a friendly game(damn near was tabled),but not at a tourney.

You will need allies in any kind of big tourney.
I plan on running DE/Eldar at NOVA this year.,I'm taking out cousins with me.

They are a spoiler army and it's psych out job just pulling them out.

I think your right about demons and Eldar..Tau are where we will struggle.

Hope I helped,hell I ramble a lot!

I think serpent spam is one of our worst match ups. 3 ravagers and 1 blaster in the warrior squads will not be enough to overcome this. You could try wyches with haywire, but they are just as fast as we are so catching them will be hard and opportunistic. I look to my allies to help me with some AA and AT. I like coteaz and 3 x 3 acolyte squads with assault cannon razorbacks ( psybolt, of course). If i had the points to spare, specials in the henchmen squad could be ok too. A sky shield might be worth thinking about as well, 3+ cover from behind or 4+ inv on top is nice, especially when we have the speed and movement to use it properly. The amount of stuff you can completely hide behind it is what makes it wonderful.

I play tau. . .sad to say. I also play DE. The only thing DE should gun for against tau turn 1 are
A: broadsides with poison, low LD forces them to take a test and fall back
B: pathfinders with bikes
C: Troops, tau players dont take enough troops MAYBE 30 fire warriors max.

as the game goes on try to hit lances on suits once all their drones are dead from poison. Riptide is hard to shoot to death try assaulting him with wyches or something to tie him up. LEAVE his drones alive until combat. The reason being if the drones die and you can squad only 1 dead wych he has a LD test to make -1. If the ethereal wasnt taken his LD will be very low possibly allowing you to cut him down in melee. Think about this.

Also look into caltraps on bikes incase ethereals are taken. turbo boost behind the ether and make him put the str6 wounds on him. :-) fun times. Look out sir wont help every time

the thing i normally do against tau is turbo boost 2 raiders all my bikes and throw 15 hellions at them ASAP. they wont win in melee and you can tie the whole army up turn 2  

demons you wont have issues with if you pack enough poison