Best Way to use Hellions?

I've been having some success with my Hellions so far, having only been using them for about a week now, but I wanted to see what you guys thought was the best way to use them. Currently they're moving up on the flank to harass heavy weapon teams and the like or charge into ongoing combats. They have good shooting as well so I'd like to take advantage of that.
Any thoughts?

First what size squad are you running?

I run a minimum of 15 per squad. Detaching a hemonculous turn 1 to give them a pain token then leaving to jump in a raider. If i get turn 1 I park them near or behind cover shoot out 30 poison shots AFTER my reevers have flown over a squad. This normally gives them 2 pain tokens.

At this point turn 2 they can shoot and assault about any squad they want.
keep in mind this is ignoring combat drugs. So each guy has 3 attacks str5 on the charge.
I do not take an agoniser in the squad because of points that puts them at 300 points for 15. Instead i take the sarg upgrade with a power weapon and normally just give him either a lance OR a sword. Lance is nice because hit and run he is constantly charging and the +1 str makes him 5 on the charge. you lose the +1 str bonus for the glaive keep that in mind.

deploy them spread out. put the sarg near center because of the size of the unit it's hard to get him in melee if he is in the back.

Target models you KNOW you wont kill in 1 round of combat IE a single carnifex a wraith lord/knight a riptide things like that. The reason being on their turn hit and run out so you can actually hit the things you want to hit the whole time. Ignore this step if they feed you a soft squishy squad. :-)

Happy Slave taking.

With a Baron, naturally =)

Yeah, 15 man squad. I have 2 Raiders that are taken for Splinterborn squad, they have Grisly Trophies and work as screen for Hellions, getting them 4+ cover. Baron is warlord and have Personal traits. Lots of good stuff for Hellions there.

So the general idea is to run them on a big mob with the Baron, and detach a Haemy on turn 1 to give them FNP?
I can see why FNP would help them a lot, them being very fragile otherwise with only a 6+ save and T3.....
So, if I'm running them with the Baron, do I use them in place of other Troops choices, or to back up Warriors?

TheMonkfish3000 wrote:

So the general idea is to run them on a big mob with the Baron, and detach a Haemy on turn 1 to give them FNP?
I can see why FNP would help them a lot, them being very fragile otherwise with only a 6+ save and T3.....
So, if I'm running them with the Baron, do I use them in place of other Troops choices, or to back up Warriors?

I feel that making hellions as troops isn't actually even that nice since they easily die and you are rarely maxing out on Fast Attack choices. You usually want as many troops as possible and hellions are just about as easily killed as kabalites, but more expensive and they don't want to stand around even less than most DE.
Feel free to try making ALL of your troops as hellions but don't expect that to work out so well! Hmm... or could it?   

I run them as fast I dont think paying the baron tax is worse putting them in troops because like Mngwa said they die easier than warriors and they are more expensive drawing more fire.

They've got a 5+ armour save, you may have made a typo. Definitely use them as a troop choice if you have the space, but don't use only hellions. You've seen the army lists page, you know how much crazy love there is for all our troop options. Troops bring dedicated transports, and Venoms & Raiders are the win. Warriors are always a solid backup, maybe a venom or two of haywyches, and I always try bring at least one squad of wracks.

I also feel the Baron "tax" isn't a tax at all. He makes hellions much more awesome; stealth, PGL, and Master of the Skies??? He's a force multiplier that helps you get first turn so the rest of your army can kill models before they open fire.

Laughingcarp wrote:

They've got a 5+ armour save, you may have made a typo. Definitely use them as a troop choice if you have the space, but don't use only hellions. You've seen the army lists page, you know how much crazy love there is for all our troop options. Troops bring dedicated transports, and Venoms & Raiders are the win. Warriors are always a solid backup, maybe a venom or two of haywyches, and I always try bring at least one squad of wracks.

I also feel the Baron "tax" isn't a tax at all. He makes hellions much more awesome; stealth, PGL, and Master of the Skies??? He's a force multiplier that helps you get first turn so the rest of your army can kill models before they open fire.

So my best bet is taking the Baron in a fair sized unit, backed up by Warriors and Wyches in transports then? So, a Haemonculus for the second HQ slot to give them FNP, and a unit of Wracks on the side?

Baron is a tax IF you are planning on running hellions as troops. I see him as a tax because i have no desire to play him because in my meta he couldn't go toe to toe with any of the armies that i play against weekly.

The upside is he is a solid HQ choice in and of himself like Carp said. He has a 20 point Grenade launcher built in, LD bonus and the ability to get you out of dodge faster and easier with master of the skies. also he gives stealth to a unit that really wants that cover save boost.

The haemonculous is just my opinion but getting them FNP asap is very important you have about a 16% chance of rolling it on drugs though so no worries there. Wracks as troops give you T 4 fnp troops to camp objectives in a venom, that's all i use mine for. . .also wall of death liquifier guns is funny.

All the advice I've ever read says yes, Baron in a 12-15 ish sized unit of hellions, and don't worry about buying many more. And in my experience it's well worth it. Tabled a Daemons army and the MVP of that match was definitely my hellion blob w/Baron.