DE Tournement Lists - Before and After

[DrLove42]

This past weekend I attended a local 1500pt tournement. My first real experience of hard gaming, with lots of strong lists.

I did reasonably well (2 games on the top table, ended up winning 3, losing 3 - overall position TBA). More coverage can be found on my blog Click here for a link ((http://drlove42.blogspot.com)

I used the following;

HQ (210pts)
Duke Sliscus – 150pts
Hemonculus with Venom Blade and Sting Pistol and Casket of Flensing– 70pts
Troops
10 Wracks, 2 Liquifier guns with Acothyst with Venom Blade 135pts
Raider with Flickerfields (70pt)
Warriors x20, With 1 Splinter Cannons, Dark Lance and Sybarite with Pistol and CCW (225pts)
Wych x 10, 1 Hydra Gauntlets, 1 Shardnet with Hekatrix with Blast Pistol and Agoniser, Haywire Grenades – 185pts
Heavy Support (340pts)
Ravager, 3 Dark Lances, Flickerfield 115pts
Ravager, 3 Dark Lances, Flickerfield 115pts
Talos, Chain Flails 110pts
Fast Attack (172pts)
Reavers x 6,2 with Cluster Caltrops 172pts
Elites (153pts)
4 Incubi, 88pts
Venom with 2nd Splinter Cannon 65pts

A few things became evident to me. Firstly my Wyches were incredibly expensive and didn't really do a lot. Also my 20 man unit was beardy as, but would run really easily after combat, usually off the board. Also the Reavers are beastly against low armoured guys, and not too slouchy against high armoured.

Also that my luck with the Duke is awful (Had to take 2 2++ in all his games, failed both of those, first wound both times, ran off the board before he could do anything in 2, turned into a Squig in another and failed to hit anything whenever he was in combat)

So home I come, with learnings in my heart. My losses came from GK with 3 Pysbolt Autocannon Dreads....can't believe how good they are for what they cost. Also that I can't deal with mech very much.
So a change in lists is needed. I present DE 2.0. And yes despite his luck I'm sticking with the Duke, he might recover one day

DE 1500
Duke -150
Hemon, with Stinger Pistol and Venom Blade - 60
Troops
10 x Warriors, with Dark Lance, and Sybarite with Venom Blade – 130
10 x Warriors with Cannon – 100pts
7 x Wyches, with 1 Hydra Gauntlets, Hekatrix with an Venom Blade – 85pts
5 x Wracks with Liquifier Gun – 60pts
Venom, with 2nd Splinter Cannon – 65pts
Heavy Support
Ravager with Flickerfield – 115
Ravager with Flickerfield – 115
Ravager with Flickerfield – 115
Fast Attack
6 Reavers, with 2 Caltrops – 172
Elites
4 Trueborn with 4 Blasters – 108
Venom with 2 Cannons - 65
4 Trueborn with 3 Blasters – 93
Venom with 2 Cannons - 65

The Duke deploys with the Cannon squad, the Hemo with which ever one he's needed more in (wait on drugs and deployment first). Plenty more Venoms cos massed fire power is wonderful.

[thecactusman17]

The Duke is not a front line combatant. While he can certainly dish it out in CC, the simple truth is that his biggest asset is going to always be the double-drug roll and giving the Warrriors 3+ poison. I like to put him with the warriors in a Raider so that when they are dumped out, he can take a save for them, drop out in front of everybody, and possibly countercharge an enemy unit.

The reason you are having problems vs. Mechanized is because you are using darklight weapons. Darklight are good weapons vs. Land Raiders and Leman Russ tanks, but honestly not much else. Against AV12 and 11, they are actually a little bit weaker than other weapons in the book. A good replacement is Haywire grenades, especiailly on the Wyches. in addition to being able to attack Walkers, they will be able to glance mech squadrons and difficult to kill things like Monoliths to death without difficulty. Alternatively, replace the Reavers' Cluster Caltrops with two heat lances, for that useful +1 damage result.

Personally, I'm not a big fan of Haemonculai, but if you like running them then I would suggest dropping the stinger pistol and venom blade and upgrading the Hekatrix to an Agonizer. Agonizers are what make Wyches useful. Even a 2+ wound is irrelevant if it is stopped by Ork armor.