Adapt Or Die.

Into week two of sixth.
Too early to make any big calls on if I love it. Hate it. Or meh. 
I do know, that my brain is constantly thinking of army ideas, tactics and even fluff for my list. Eek. Might be hooked. 
Either way, I think I've played 2-3 1750 or so games, and maybe 4 500 point games. And noticed that when playing 1750 it doesn't feel a whole lot different than 5th. Yea there is a lot of changes but it feels familiar. But at 500 where every model seems to matter more, it felt so different. Premeasuring to get Venoms/Ravager outta range. Remembering to throw grenades before I charge. Challenges to take hits off the squad. And learning how to kill a Chariot.
In 5th I tended to play Hellions/Wyches/Blasterborn/Voidravens or Duke/Wyches/Reaver/Ravagers. And I think both those concepts still work now.
So I'm taking pieces and ideas from both and putting them together. This is the list I'm going to play and optimize.

 Duke Silscus-150
5x Wyches w/HWG, Hek w/Agon in Venom w/EC-155
5x Wyches w/HWG, Hek w/Agon in Venom w/EC-155
8x Wyches w/HWG, Hek w/Agon in Raider w/GT-191
8x Wyches w/HWG, Hek w/Agon in Raider-186
4x BMs w/10x Khymarae 4x RWF-228
4x BMs w/10x Khymarae 4x RWF-228
5x Scourges w/HWB-130
Ravager w/NS-115
Ravager w/NS-115
Voidraven w/FF, 4x SF-195

Check the breakdown:


 Duke-Gives the troops of my army 2 rolls for drugs which is great because I tend to roll 1's a lot for drugs. Whichhh is not cool. He'll jump in with one of the Wych squads He's got his FF to dump wounds on, and isn't bad in a challenge. Looking at you Wolf Guard termis.

 Wyches-We all know they're still good in combat and great against vehicles. Duke giving them a little boost and more control over drugs. The squad sizes are to hit more targets and have a couple units in venoms that can go for objectives and provide fire support, but can still be aggressive if need be. Warriors just don't do it for me. Big squads will push in behind the beasts. Also after some heavy rule philosophy, when charged or after I've charged a chariot, I can use the HWG to bring down the chariot and cause some glances against that to go towards the combat.

 Beasts-Beasts will be the other half of the workhorse. Getting in the enemies face early and forcing them to deal with them. The beasts will open all rear armor besides Crons/LR's without some lucky rends. But Crons will have boys on foot to eat. 24" threat range is nasty. Harder to allocate wounds now to keep them alive but they will pull fire off the fragile vehicles. And can score in Scouring. Fuck yea!

 Scourges-Another scoring unit for scouring and an extra glance or 2 a turn. Also a denial unit in all missions. But mostly these guys will be holding fire till the end of the shooting phase and putting some shots on vehicles that need to be finished off of softened for assault.

 Ravagers-Still cheap and good. Nightshields to dance out of range of midfield armies.

 Voidraven-My anti air unless I get the Skyfire random objective, if they get played. 4 SFs to not be useless against ground targets as well. The lances can pen those Av12+ with ease and the mine will be saved for termis or recently deepstriked units.

 In the end I've got 14 KPS, about average. 4 Troops w/3 Fast and 3 Heavy. Lots of CC anti tank, some ranged. Anti Infantry in the form of close combat, missiles and 2 venoms. I need to try to split armies up and pick them apart, which is harder because they are more mobile now. Wyches are a little softened to CC from overwatch but I'm also shooting every turn before I charge, so it goes both ways.

The overall plan of attack is going to be aggressive, but not reckless.


Duke will hop in with the Wyches, probably the one with Trophies on the Raider. They're moving behind the beasts, maybe risking the flatout first turn to get in. And eventually tieing up and cutting through squads after the transports go down. Duke will challenge up and drop the Character while the Hekatrix gets some wounds on the squad. Or possibly the other way around if its a fist on the Sgt. Can't risk losing Duke. Other large squad will probably push more aggressive. Beast will run full on to mid as far forward as they can, even if they become more exposed. I need to put that pressure on early. And get those assaults turn 2 whether its against vehicles or troops.

With Dukes blast pistol and the Wyches being able to toss a haywire grenade at it before they charge, you can kill the vehicle by shooting it, then charge in to finish the squad. I would probably only do this if I had 1 HP remaing, 2 if I had one of the small squads throwing a grenade as well. So Duke and 1 Haywire shooting Duke hitting on a 2 and a Wyches 3 then at least glancing with a 2 and a 3 gives the unit about an 80% chance to take off a hull point on your average armor 11 transport. And even if you do fluff it, you can still charge the tank. And of course, take those shots before the rest of your army fires so if you don't pop it, maybe a ravager can. If you do pop it, you can thin out the squad if you have to. And if you fluff all those rolls, you need to give me my dice back.


The smaller squads of Wyches will move up behind, a little slower to protect the venoms. But close enough to charge into a squad or vehicle if necessary. They will most likely hunt any "runners" while putting shots from the Venoms downrange. They small squads are more then capable of dropping dreads now. No more exposing Ravagers to try to drop them. Those dreads will be dropped in 1 round of combat. 60% chance to strip a wound before the charge and then 5 attacks hitting on 3s and almost auto-glancing is a dead dread for sure. Even if I fluff it, the average dread has 2-3 attacks. Hitting once on 4s, wounding once usually. Then I still have a 50% chance to save that. Wyches are dread killing machines. Which will make it easier to pick apart parts of an army and less chance of dreads trying to just lock beasts in combat.

Its all going to come down to target priority though, and limiting damage coming in. So objectives need to be placed to force the enemy to split his forces. Need to keep my self mobile by avoiding fire with pre measuring. I feel my Heavy Support has only gotten better in Sixth. Always keeping my 5+ save on my Ravagers and being able to take NS's is great for dealing with mid, also with no chance of glances stopping my shooting they should be firing with atleast snapshots as long as they are alive. I'm pretty intimidated by the Nids list that are out and about. I think I can handle them though. Keeping away from that mid field shooting with my vehicles shouldn't be hard. The trick will be getting my CC units in without getting shot to bits first. Beasts will go after the Gaunts units and catch them early before they become too massive of units. Ravagers can kill one a turn. The raiders will toss extra shots out to if necessary to finish them. Wyches themselves will either pile in with the beasts or tarpit the warrior squads. Void will come in and either put templates on Gaunts of add some wounds onto MCs. Hopefully both depending on where they are. I really need first turn in those games though. Just killing one tervigon first is huge. It will be tough but I think the beasts can power though the Gaunts no problem. Some big template hits will be needed, Scourges will have to use the Carbines to drop the big guys.

I think this tournament is going to be a big impact on how most players change their lists and play the game. I may even have to go back to Venom spamming if infantry and Nids lists grow. Its gonna be fun either way and I'm sure I'll be back with more thoughts before and after the tournament.

Keep it Dark
Kabalite


P.S. Pics of shiny new painted stuff after camera charges.