1250 pt unbound concept

Putting up a 1250 pt assault oriented unbound list concept

Archon - 120
PGL, VB, SF

Succubus - 70
VB

Incubi - 178
4x, Klaivex, Raider w/ EA and FF

Grotesques - 230
4x, Aberration w/ VB, Raider w/ EA and FF

Beastpack - 156
3x BM, 5x Khy, 4x Raz

Reavers- 263
9x, 3x CC, AC w/ VB

Ravager - 115
3x DL, FF

Ravager - 115
3x DL, FF

How would you kill it?

And what would it kill?

P.S This list may be completely stupid. It totally is.

A basic venom-spam list would beat it with "objective secured" and tactics. Air would also give it a hard time. Combining these elements together would create a list that looked roughly like this:

HQ:
Haemonculus

Troops:
6x 5 Wyches w/Haywire Grenades
6x Venoms w/dual splinter cannons

Heavy Support:
3x Razorwing Jetfighters

How it would beat you:

Turn 1, they hide/jink while you turbo boost your melee forces towards them to close for melee. Your ravagers may fire, but they'll be firing at vehicles in cover if they have LoS at all.

Their turn, they turbo boost away from your melee forces, back over to the other side of the table, near your ravagers, basically playing keep-away from you.

Turn 2, you get to shoot your ravagers at more jinking venoms, you send your melee units back towards his units with turbo boost, and likely have killed a venom or two.

Their turn, 2 out of 3 Jetfighters arrive. 2 units of wyches exit their venoms and charge your ravagers. All remaining vehicles turbo boost out of melee range again. Ravagers die to lances from jetfighters, and haywire from wyches, leaving 2 units of wyches vulnerable to your melee units, but otherwise leaving your army without a ranged threat against vehicles.

Turn 3, You either charge some wyches and get tarpitted for a couple rounds, or you continue to play keep-away, chasing DE vehicles around the map.

After those 2 sacrificial wyches, they don't risk any more units to your melee. They simply use jetfighters to target vehicles, and splinter cannons to target infantry, while continuing to stay out of melee range until round 5 or so, at which point they use wyches to tarpit your infantry while their transports lock down objectives.

Either way, since every unit of wyches AND their transport has the "objective secured" rule, on any mission other than purge the alien, your chances of victory are probably pretty slim.

Is this method of fighting brave? Bold? Innovative? Even fun? Probably not. But it's most certainly effective if your goal is to win.

Run, run, run, run, then capture objectives. Game over.

I'd probably do what Betray did. Almost exactly.

So right, time to turn this concept upside down and make it into usable force.

As effective as suicide wyches are, they're not very fluffy.

I still want to keep the reavers, as they seem quite useful.

That said what are the chances of the current list being able to meet:

Drop Pod list
Astra Militarum Foot & Mech
Tyranid swarm
Tau gunline
Eldar shenanigans

Without breaking each army down one by one, this is the issue you run into: "Objective Secured".

With your list, you could kill all but 2 enemy units by the end of the game and still lose because those 2 units had objective secured and were within range of objectives. That is ultimately the problem with unbound lists. They just don't have the advantages that come with being battle-forged.

On the plus side, it takes very little to become battle-forged. If I were you, I'd drop the beastpack and bring the reavers down to a 6-man squad. This would give you 242 points. Enough to purchase two 5-man Warrior squads(Or 2 Wych squad w/haywire - My personal choice), and two venoms with dual splinter cannons. If you go with the warriors, that leaves you with 25 additional points to spend by my calculations. That's enough points to add a power sword and a soul trap to your archon. This means, if your archon manages to kill a character or monstrous creature, he will double his strength. With double strength, the AP3 power sword will come in handy.

After watching a few Skari battle reports, I got a glimpse of the tricks OS can do with the TO cards.

Actually adding some venom support isn't a bad idea per se. Doing calculations now.

How would a meager s3 archon kill an independent character (most of whom sport either 2+ or some godlike invul) or a monstrous creature in the first place? (the only ICs i can think of are Lord Commissars, Autarchs and Company Commanders or using the venom blade to do the stabbing)

Anyway revised list

Archon + Incubi (DC Raider w/ EA, FF, GT)
Succubus + Grotesque (DC Raider, w/ EA, FF, GT)
2x5 Haywyches (Venom)
1x5 Warriors (Venom)
1x6 Reavers w/ 2x CC + AC w/VB
2x DL Ravagers (w/FF)

Now with 6 objective secures and added some crucial fire support. This thing could actually work. The enemy is forced to make the decision between stopping the oncoming assault troops or focusing on the fire support. In a +250pt expansion, probably throw in a relatively large squad of beastpack (3 bm, 6 khym 4 raz, 2 clawed fiends) to function as a secondary/primary tank. Plus, the modelling opportunities.

Another list I theorized was this, with a focus on speed, adaptability and flexibility (and addition of being mostly made from the battleforce)

Archon w/ SF, VB, HWG, CD
1x7 Wyches, HG, Hek w/ VB (Raider w/ EA, FF, GT)
2x10 Warriors, Blaster, SC (Raider w/ FF, NS, SR)
1x6 Reavers, 2x CC, 2x Blaster, AC w/ VB
3x DL Ravager w/ FF

The key element in a majority of that list is the ability of each unit to have several different functions at any one point of the battle (very astartes indeed)- e.g, did the Reavers use jink that turn? No?, now jump out and smack a predator in the rear and move back out of LOS w/ assault move. No infantry for Wyches to tie up, but plenty of vehicles to claim? Haywire. Warriors faced with a transport in their way (after the ravagers fail)? Second chance. etc etc. The theory, that is.

PainReaver wrote:

How would a meager s3 archon kill an independent character (most of whom sport either 2+ or some godlike invul) or a monstrous creature in the first place? (the only ICs i can think of are Lord Commissars, Autarchs and Company Commanders or using the venom blade to do the stabbing)

Easy. He get's lots of attacks and pretty much hits everything on 3's.

Against high toughness MCs or ICs, you'd use the 2+ venom blade to do the stabbing. On things with lower toughness (4 or less), but with decent armor saves (3+/4+), you use the power weapon to ignore their armor. Most things, even ICs, in power armor/terminator armor don't have tons of wounds, so you just get into a challenge with them and normally only have to get 1 or 2 wounds through. You have a 2++ with your shadow field. You will probably kill them before they kill you. You obviously don't target their guy with the best save, but in a pinch, you can kill him too.

And other times, your shadow field will fail the first save you're required to take, and your archon will get insta-vaped by a plasma gun. But hey, them's the breaks. Doesn't mean it wasn't a good idea.