Gettin in the basics before the new dex

Hi guys,

Im new to DE and trying to get to grips with the army style before the new dex hits, having mostly played Imperials and Chaos. I have a few games coming up this weekend, and was thinking of taking the following:

Haemy: Portal, ven blade (with wracks) 90pts
Haemy: Dark gate, Liquifier (with grots) 85pts

3 trueborn: Blasters, venom w 2x sc 141pts
3 trueborn: Blasters, venom w 2x sc 141pts
4 Grots: Liquifier 150pts (from portal)

5 Wych: HWG, venom w 2x sc 125pts
5 Wych: HWG, venom w 2x sc 125pts
5 Wych: HWG, venom w 2x sc 125pts
5 Wych: HWG, venom w 2x sc 125pts
5 Wych: HWG, venom w 2x sc 125pts
5 Wracks: Acoth w ven blade, liquifier, venom w 2x sc 130pts

Beast pack: 2 beastmasters, 2 razorwing flocks, 5 khymerae 114pts

Razorwing: Flickerfields 155pts
Talos: Haywire blasters, chain flails 115pts (from portal)

1750pts

Fairly standard from what I can gather, I wanted to avoid dark lances as much as possible due to the gaming group's bad memories of ''that guy'' with the lance spam a few years back...

Any advice or suggestions to help me chalk up my first win for the Dark City?

Welcome to the City.

Even with 21 lances you would not be that guy anymore with old dex. New I cannot comment on yet.

But for now talos normally don't want chain flails and even the cheap liguifier can be questioned as it got no fleet. Second heamy cannot fit with wracks in to the venom. It needs to be Raider (with Ether sails?)

Except the lack of t1 anti tank the list seems quite ok.

I'll agree that Dark Lances don't seem to have the bite they used to. Statistically speaking, it takes nine shots with them to wreck AV12 with 3 Hull Points, not taking either Explosions or Jinking/Cover/etc. saves into account.

And not that the Haywyches aren't going to put big messy holes in any vehicle they assault, but the list might still run into issues against dedicated mech regardless. Since all that poison you have won't do too much to the enemy's piñatas until you break them open to get to the goodies inside.

If you do find yourself needing more hitting power against vehicle spam, some non-Dark Lance left field solutions may be to take Shatterfield missles on the Razorwing. Catching a group from the side/rear with a full salvo of them can put some hits on. Or just throw caution to the wind and switch a couple Venoms for Raiders with Shock Prows. The practicality on that one is questionable, but you were running full tilt towards the enemy and didn't expect those cardboard pirate ships to survive anyway, right?

Oh, and flyers. Hopefully anything that might be across the table doesn't outclass your Razorwing too much, because that's about the only thing you have to combat them. Though there is a decent guide on outmaneuvering flyers to deny them the ability to do much damage on these forums somewhere if you haven't found and read it already yourself.