Anti horde options

[Withershadow]

^ That is of little relevance when we're talking about Hellions. The stuff shooting down your Raiders and Ravagers won't be shooting at Hellions, they die just fine to all the basic anti-personnel guns carried by your opponent's troops.  10 lasguns with an order can kill like 6 Hellions on average.  I don't really see that as a massive opportunity cost compared to shooting those same lasguns at a venom and maybe taking a wound off of it.

 

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!

That's when you use Agents of Vect to cancel out their stratagem, and roll 5 dice trying to fish for more CPs.

 

I agree Scourges should not be suicide troops.  Haywire blasters have nice range to keep at a distance.  Blasters are a little more dangerous, especially now that you cannot use Fire and Fade same turn you deploy.  In fact, if Darklight is what you want from your Scourges, Dark Lances may be a better option simply for the increased range.

 

Shredders are most dangerous of all due to the close quarters required, but at the same time this type of unit is not the alpha strike armor removal unit like the haywire/blaster scourges.  I see the role of this unit to come in mid-game, and go after those straggler troops that may be hiding on a distant objective, or other small backfield units like Devastators.  Scourges with shredders can pretty reliably delete 10-man GEQ or 5-man MEQ units in a single volley.  Ideally, while this is going on, all your raiders and venoms and wyches and flyers etc. have engaged key enemy elements, so he is simply not in a position to attack the Scourges at all, or has far more pressing problems.

 

There is a battlereport that was posted recently which featured 2 shredder units against Necrons, and those guys cleaned up.

 

I got 3 units, and am tempted to get a 4th just for the weapons (at $25 a box, it's cheaper to just buy more scourges than try to scrounge for extra bits) and to save myself the effort of magnetizing options.  I know I want a shredder unit, and a haywire unit.  The other two are up in the air.  Another shredder and another haywire?  Maybe at least a couple of blasters just to have the option (although I was going to cannibalize the blasters for my Kabalites)? 

[Vel'Cona]

All good points, and I recall earlier some folks were pondering naked Scourges or possibly x4 Splinter Cannons as a Poisoned spam unit.  15 or 27 shots respectively isn't bad for the points involved, though I suppose the comparison at that point will fall to Venoms assuming said army list was planning to include them anyway.  All of this may OFC be redundant with the fact that we have to take Kabalite Warriors anyway, but it emphasizes that Scourges really are a Swiss Army Knife of sorts for DE.