500pt Campaign List

Greetings all,

My local GW is running a campaign during the summer. Players start at entry level 0, and earn points through battles to increase their level.

Said level determines the amount of points you can bring, and also what restrictions apply.

Entry level is 500 points. No elites, heavy support, or special characters are allowed. No superheavies. Vehicles (dedicated transports) are allowed.

HQ
Haemonculus (70 pts)
Liquifier, Power Weapon, Splinter Pistol

Troops
5 Wracks, Venom (125)
Liquifier, Dual Splinter Cannons

5 Wracks, Venom (125)
Liquifier, Dual Splinter Cannons

9 Wyches, Raider (178)
Haywire, Dissie, FF

498 points total

My thinking: Venoms deal with (horde) infantry, Wracks take on MEQ targets and claim objectives. Haemie rides with Wyches to provide FNP and some Liquifier softening. They will take on the odd vehicle (won't be many there for now) and mop up hordes after the Venoms are done with them. Should the Raider survive, it'll focus on TEQ targets.

Thoughts?

Haemonculi are pretty bad at CC, so I'd drop the PW and splinter pistol, just sticking with the liquifier gun.

500 points compliments venom spam well, so I'd probably do something like this:

HQ:
Haemy (60)
Liquifier

Troops:
3 wracks, Venom (95)
Dual Splinter Cannons

3 wracks, Venom (95)
Dual Splinter Cannons

5 Wyches, Venom (125)
Haywire Grenades, Dual Splinter Cannons

5 Wyches, Venom (125)
Haywire Grenades, Dual Splinter Cannons

500 Points total.

It's very similar to your list, except it splits the wyches into 2 units, each in a venom. This will give you more targets for your enemy to shoot at, thus increasing the likelihood of one of the wyches units getting to the vehicle you're trying to pop. Also, 4 venoms is better than 2.

Basically, you'd be losing 2 liquifier guns for more target saturation, and 4 more splinter cannons. I'd put the Liquifier Haemy in with a unit of wracks, and might just keep him in the venom when the wracks disembark to spray his liquifier.

EDIT: If you prefer dissies to poison shots, you could swap out 3 of the venoms for raiders w/dissies & grisly trophies for the same price(I'd keep the 4th just in case of some high toughness stuff, even at 500pts). It's really a matter of preference on AP. Either 36 AP5 shots, or 9 AP2 shots. Or half & half. Either way, I'd spam our cheap vehicles at 500 points.

Thanks, Betray.

As for the number of Wych units: while I agree with you on target saturation, there won't be a whole lot of vehicles for them to pop due to the restrictions applied to the campaign - a Rhino or Drop Pod, perhaps a Wave Serpent here or there.
Of course, two smaller units can still go after the same infantry squad, but only one of them will take overwatch shots...

The 3-man Wrack units, in my experience, lose a lot of effectiveness without that Liquifier.

I had a 500 point tournament 6 or so months ago and got trashed my first round by an Eldar player who brought a waveserpent and a nightspinner/fire prism (don't remember which). I only had one unit that could hit armor too so he focused it down and killed it and the rest of the game was me trying to stay out of los.

I've had 500 point games using my chaos army too where I'm able to squeeze in a predator tank and maulerfiend/helbrute pretty easily. I think a lot of people have the idea to squeeze in a couple vehicles at low points because they know others will be limited on how to deal with them. I'd definitely recommend having the two different units for vehicles too.

Thanks, Jeff. Like I said, the lack of heavy support will, for now, make the games light on vehicles. The most I'd have to worry about are Wave Serpents, Rhinos, Drop Pods and other Dedicated Transports.

As for the list: I initially wanted to field Urien (not because of the list now, but the final army I have in mind), but not only are named characters disallowed for now, they won't be allowed in the campaign AT ALL. Forge your own narrative, they say.

Well fine then! As soon as points and other rules - won't go into them too much - allow, I'll add an Archon and let him run with the Wyches instead of the Haemie.

During the campaign, the list can change as often as I like, except for the HQ. Upgrades they get at the start have to stay the same throughout.
I eventually want to shape this into a Coven-centric list - as if you hadn't guessed - hence no Kabalites for now, but Wracks. I figured the Kabbies can't do much a Venom can't, eh? Add in the higher toughness, standard FNP, Poison weapons and Liquifier goodness.

DingK wrote:

The 3-man Wrack units, in my experience, lose a lot of effectiveness without that Liquifier.

Yeah, I get that. The point of having them in my counter-list wasn't for them to be individually effective at anything except CC against a small unit, and scoring. The main purpose of a 3-man wrack squad is to score, and let you buy another venom. It's the cheapest venom-tax you can get. And it scores.

EDIT: Also, not all vehicles come from heavy support. There may be lists that draw vehicles from the fast attack slot. Either way, you'll probably have other people who think as you are, that people can't fit many vehicles in at 500 points. Prove them wrong and they won't be so prepared for it.

BetrayTheWorld wrote:

EDIT: Also, not all vehicles come from heavy support. There may be lists that draw vehicles from the fast attack slot. Either way, you'll probably have other people who think as you are, that people can't fit many vehicles in at 500 points. Prove them wrong and they won't be so prepared for it.

Knowing my local meta, I'm actually counting on MEQ armies to sink points into TAC squads instead of transports.

For now, I think I'll stick to the 4 Venom list you suggested. The little AT I need at this point should be covered by the Wyches. I might try some pain token shenanigans with the Haemie during deployment to make one Wych unit a bit more durable.

Depending on mission, deployment and opponent, I can either drop the Wracks in my own backfield and let the Venoms circle the 36" mark, while rushing the Wyches into a flank. A slower, Infantry heavy list will instead get all four units into one flank. Eat poison, Mon-Keigh lowlifes!

I'll be off on holiday first, but I'll let you all know how it goes.

Good luck!