Anti horde options

[Shiboinky]

Hi everyone, I usually play on the more civilized size of the eldar race, but I have to admit that I've always loved the dark eldar's awesome models. With the new codex I've found myself playing with the idea of adding a small detachment of them to my craftworlds force. I'd say the area where my craftworlds lists tend to lack is in clearing hoards and massed infantry. What are some units in the dark eldar range (as far as we know from leaks, etc) that could serve this role?

 

Please help me figure out how to best add some spikes and leather to my eldar list!

[GrinNfool]

DE are pretty terrible historically at dealing with hordes.  That said... with the new codex coming out there are a few thing to potentially help them, but not sure you are going to see them be amazing vs hordes.

1) Wyches recent buffs in the index coupled with price drops could see them be a reasonable anti horde unit putting out high number of attacks, with some minor ap on a few weapons.  Other cult units are Reavers and Hellions not sure I would consider either anti horde, but they have uses, 

2) Obsidian Rose Kabal shredders, don't know how well these will work, but I think it has potential.  For 160 points at 18" you would have 2d6 s6 ap-1 shots 3 s5 ap-3 shots, and 13 poison shots, add another 7 inside of 15".  Its not fantastic by any means, but it seems functional for the price.  Any other faction of Kabal shredders range is 12 and can't see that working well.

3) A coven detachment could potentially carve through hordes.  Grotesques, and Taloses? Taloi? screw it multiple Talos put out a large number of reasonable str melee, while not being easy to kill, especially if you go prophets of flesh.  Wracks I am not sold on, they generally feel to expensive, and limited, but who knows might change my mind once I get to play with them a bit in the new codex.

[Shiboinky]

Thanks for the answer Grin. I appreciate the detail you went into. Unfortunately, I was hoping that getting some more info would help narrow my decision between the 3 subfactions down a little bit, but now I'm even more tempted to build a patrol of each lol. I am leaning more towards the coven at the moment tho, I've always loved the talos and I think grotesques could be converted pretty cheaply.

[Vel'Cona]

5 Scourges w/ 4 Splinter Cannons will now be 100 points, and drop in with 27 Poisoned Shots.  That'll put a dent in.  Another option is 10 Kabalite Warriors (Kabal of the Poisoned Tongue) w/ a Splinter Cannon in a Raider w/ Splinter Racks and Disintegrator; they'll drop in (Screaming Jets) with 24 Poisoned shots with average odds of 4 free hits, AND they meet your Troops choice requirement for a Patrol, too.  Finally, if you want to keep it super cheap, 5 Wyches (1 w/ Shardnet/Impaler) in a Venom gives you a decent little tarpit (use the Venom to soak Overwatch) and a nice smattering of poisoned shots, and should be around 100 points total in the new 'dex.

 

OFC, we'll know more when the full 'dex lands and we get some of these units on the table, but this is a decent start.

[GrinNfool]

5 Scourges w/ 4 Splinter Cannons will now be 100 points, and drop in with 27 Poisoned Shots.  That'll put a dent in.  Another option is 10 Kabalite Warriors (Kabal of the Poisoned Tongue) w/ a Splinter Cannon in a Raider w/ Splinter Racks and Disintegrator; they'll drop in (Screaming Jets) with 24 Poisoned shots with average odds of 4 free hits, AND they meet your Troops choice requirement for a Patrol, too.  Finally, if you want to keep it super cheap, 5 Wyches (1 w/ Shardnet/Impaler) in a Venom gives you a decent little tarpit (use the Venom to soak Overwatch) and a nice smattering of poisoned shots, and should be around 100 points total in the new 'dex.

 

OFC, we'll know more when the full 'dex lands and we get some of these units on the table, but this is a decent start.

Just to correct 1 thing, the splinter cannon doesn't benefit from racks, its rifles and pistols only according to the rule they put up.  I am pretty against racks personally because generally you want special weapons, however if 1 was going to run 10 kabalites w/o special weapons they MIGHT be ok?  Hard to get behind an average of .75 extra wounds at 12-24 and 1.5 under 12" for 10 points.  If it was 5 I might consider it but 10 just seems to be way to much for what you get.  Also I have a hard time getting my head around equipping scourges with splinter cannons, they normally shoot 15 splinter shots so you are paying 40 points for another 12 splinter shots, which equates to 4.5 wounds avg.  Meaning .1125 wounds per point which is better than +12" on 10 kabs w/ no weapons and splinter racks, but worse inside of 12".  Honestly if you want anti horde clearing on scourges might look at shredders.  Only 80 points for the scourges for 4d6 s6 ap-1 shots and 3 poison shots.  Gotta get w/in 12" of course, so not sure if I would recommend that.  In general I feel you are paying a premium for those scourges to be able to equip so many weapons (like trueborn), so not equipping them with blasters or haywire just feels incorrect lol, but entirely possible it works in practice.  Oh right to qualify why I don't like those ratios on the poison weapons, your opponent gets full saves, and even cover if you aren't flayed skull.

[Lord Asvaldir]

I wouldn't say it feels incorrect to not equip scourges with blasters or haywire blasters because they have a lot of good weapon options now, plus they are just so cheap that running them just stock with carbines isn't a bad idea either. I do really want to try shredder scourges for horde removal though, 4d6 s6 rerolling wounds vs infantry at ap-1 sounds pretty solid for dealing with stuff like guard. Just have to be careful with placement due to their short range.  

[Vel'Cona]

I think my biggest issue with Scourge/Shredders (Scourgers?) is that 12" range makes you vulnerable to anti-Deep Strike Strategems.  Since most of those want the unit dropping to be within 12", for the comparative bargain of 2 CP your opponent can just wipe your angry elf-birbs off the table before they even get to shoot.  Having >12" range gives you relative immunity to such shenanigans AND gives you a better chance at avoiding a counterattack (since you're further away).  It also lets you take better advantage of available cover when you drop in, which MAY keep your Scourges alive in some circumstances.

 

TL:DR; Scourges need not be suicide troops, though the Shredder is definitely leaning that direction in my book.  Though as a vicious Archon myself, I do like the idea of how many wounds they can deliver!

[Lord Asvaldir]

How many armies actually have anti deep strike stratagems though? I can only think of 2, maybe 3 armies that have that stratagem, and it's a bit situational. Guard have it, but only works on scions. Eldar have it, but doesn't depend on being with 12", just need line of sight and a nearby farseer. I think that means marines are the only army where it's not situational and it's just shoot at stuff within 12". I could be wrong, maybe more armies have it but if it's just the ones I listed deep striking in shredder armed scourges seems pretty solid. 

[Vel'Cona]

Don't know how your meta is, but Marines are a pretty safe bet around here 3/5 games :P  Good point though, it will only be a problem versus certain armies.  Has anyone had a look at the new Tau codex?  I'm wondering what their Deep Strike protection is, too . . .

[Lord Asvaldir]

Don't know about enough about the new tau codex so no idea. 

 

I actually have a pretty balanced meta these days, yeah more marine players than anything else but a very even balance between guard, ad mech, sisters, grey knights, eldar, nids, chaos and tau, so I don't feel like I face marines that often. 

[MoGuy]

 

 

I'm wondering what their Deep Strike protection is, too . . . 

 

Bubble wrapping. :P

[Calyptra]

I've always thought Scourges with shardcarbines were underappreciated. Ten Scourges shooting shardcarbines and rolling average dice should cause 10 wounds on anything that isn't a vehicle. If four of them have splinter cannons that becomes 14 wounds (which I'm not sure is worth the points here).

[Lord Asvaldir]

I've been running two squads of 5 scourges with shardcarbines for awhile, they pretty much never let me down. I might switch to a unit of 10 if I feel like they could really be buffed by stratagems but we'll see, not sure if there's anything that benefits them a lot yet besides fire&fade. 

[Vel'Cona]

Scourges definitely feel like a safe bet going into the new 'dex, in general.  Maybe we can roll out a thread for that to keep the "horde-clearing" topic moving in its own right.

 

I think duplicating the "unit of the week" discussions other subforums have tried might be in order, at least when the full release has settled down a bit.

[Lord Asvaldir]

I think that would be a good trend to start once we all have the codex in hand in a couple days. Man, just three days after waiting only two weeks, we're so close now. 

[Shiboinky]

I'm liking the idea of scourges. Being mercenaries, I could throw them in to the list regardless of what else I run.

 

I think they could be useful against the Necrons are gaining popularity in my meta. A dire avengers blade storm rule is somewhat wasted on a number of things in that army and the poison rule could help bring down the large units of wraiths/lichguard that people have been running.

[Withershadow]

Are infinite chain ossefactors also not an option? Sure you need some luck, but could conceivably erase a whole unit if you can keep making that 4+.

[GrinNfool]

Are infinite chain ossefactors also not an option? Sure you need some luck, but could conceivably erase a whole unit if you can keep making that 4+.

I'm not inclined to read it like that, especially when the weapon only costs 7 points lol.  The way I read it is if a model dies from the weapon, it takes a mortal wound.  After that a model is dying from a mortal wound, not the weapon shot.  I can certainly see people trying to argue the way you are reading it though.  Probably needs included in the FAQ.

[Lord Asvaldir]

Yeah I read it the same way. Still not a bad weapon to let the wracks do a little damage until they get into combat, or to pop a couple wounds on a tougher unit like terminators. 

[Calyptra]

So, I was wrong.

 

There have been very few constants in my life, but one of them is that for the past 20 years shredders have been terrible.

 

I don't remember if it was in this thread or another one where I said that I hadn't looked closely at them but was deeply suspicious on account of them being shredders.

 

Today, after seeing comments about shredders being awesome, I looked closer, and attempted to do math, and... shredders are awesome. I must have slipped sideways into the Berenstain universe.

 

Scourges with shredders are amazing. That is not a sentence I ever thought I'd write. I'd forgotten that Scourges could even take shredders, despite the fact that I just glued a squad together and am currently working on another, and there's a shredder right there on the sprue.

 

If I'm mathing this correctly, a unit of Scourges shooting 4 shredders and 1 shardcarbine will on average kill 8 Guardsmen, or 9 Orks, or 4 Marines, or 1 Terminator. That outperforms both splinter cannons and 10 Scourges with shardcarbines, and for less points. They'll even strip a wound off a Rhino.

 

You can get better burst damage from 10 Scourges who also have 4 splinter cannons - they'll kill 1 more Guardsman or 2 more Orks - but for 32 more points than that you can just bring 2 units of shredder Scourges.

 

I was wrong to be dismissive of shredders, and I'm sorry.

[Jacques Corbin]

Honestly, I am just considering a blob of 20 Hellions, PGL and Stunclaw/Splinter Pistol on Helliarch, with the Cursed Blade obsession, and Adrenalight for a combat drug. That is 40 poison shots hitting on 3+, and 61 attacks hitting at S5 also hitting on 3+. The only lose 1 model to morale means that taking casualties won't cause more of my hover board gangers to flee.

 

Just wish they would bring back the Baron...

[Withershadow]

I just wish they had some kind of defensive mechanic beyond power from pain. It’s really hard to get cover with them, so the -1 to hit stratagem is your only real defensive option. 10 Guardsmen with lasguns and frfsrf order kill 5-6 easy.

[Lord Asvaldir]

Yeah hellions can output a lot of shots/damage, but they fall like twigs in a stiff breeze and soon as anything shoots at them. I've also tried my unit of 10 hellions once so far, didn't do well but I'll have to try them out more. 

[shaun03]

In game I played over the weekend, went up against a Ork list.  Not to familiar with ork stuff I know there actually strong army overall.  He literally cover the table in green, it was so densely pack that, that he controled the footprint game, and made my void ravens useless, at first. 

 

I was using my Coven list ( dark creed). Without giving run down of each turn, cause the first he didn't move, as he wanted to try and force my ravens off the board, I was kinda of baffled that he didn't move a single unit. 

 

After some position play on my end and taking pop shots and using fire and fade to draw him out, He than after several minutes to moved horde army in a congo line to again control the table, any you that are old school WFB players remember the infamous zombie congo line he tried that.  Which left little no choice to other than drop all my bombs and fly off the table. Sense he put units in away that was able fly over, each of ravens (3) were able to target a different squad, at which one he goes :cuss i didn't realized those had bombs. 

 

So the crux of this 3 bombs hitting 3 different horde unit made a dent, happening all at once, was more mental than anything. The more I field the raven the more I like over razorwing, for horde control.  Yes 3 ravens are pricy and he play style forced them to be larger ineffective for points to kill ratios, but without them i would have beat by the green tide. 

[Jacques Corbin]

Yeah hellions can output a lot of shots/damage, but they fall like twigs in a stiff breeze and soon as anything shoots at them. I've also tried my unit of 10 hellions once so far, didn't do well but I'll have to try them out more.

Yeah, BUT, is the rest of my army getting shot at?