FOR THE LOVE OF CHRIST THE MAN'S NAME IS COTEAZ!!!

A great series of unit review and overall assessment of the Codex as a whole. You're damn right they're competitive, but they are a difficult army to get the hang of and are very unforgiving.

So where's your DE army Kirby? :p

I'd say it's a nice attempt to get the most bang for your buck out of the Duke, but falls a bit short.

The Hellions aren't helping anyone at the strength they are now. They're also your only non-transport unit, and as such will be shot to hell by whatever isn't going to bother shooting your transports. They'll probably fall victim just to the explosions of vehicles alone. Also, 5-strong really isn't enough to be intimidating nor effective. I'd either junk them, or fill them out.

The Wyches are SCREAMING for an agonizer. While I know it's a bit of a points-sink, the good it does for you over the Venom Blade is just plain silly. The whole rest of your squad is about torrenting with attacks, the Agonizer gives you a bit of insurance against armored targets, high-T armored targets, and Monstrous Creatures. This use for them becomes even more effective with the addition of a couple of shardnets, but that's less important in the long run. Sure, your venom blade will get out a wound or two on the MC, but it's most likely going to ignore it with either a 2+ or 3+ armor save. Knocking that out (Like against, say, a Dreadknight :P) is going to keep you in the game, tie up that big nasty, and slowly whittle it away so you can move on to bigger and better things.

The 9-man warrior squad isn't really helping anybody other than the fact that you need somewhere effective to stash the Duke. He's really much more effective in SC-units and Shardcarbine units so you can dance around at range. 95% of the time your raider should be moving, and therefore you're not getting >12" on those splinter rifles. If you're within 12" of something with those warriors, you're likely in melta/charge/not-so-fun range of the other aspects of your opponents' army.

You've basically got to options to roll with to keep this list functioning similarly to the way it is here. One, is to throw some Haemonculi into those Wych units to help them out. However, this would also bring your force back to more combat-emphasis, which I understand you'd like to back away from a little in light of the Grey Knights (i'm guessing just from the purifiers?). The other, is to go for the Baron. You could perhaps retool it to get more bang out of the Combat Drug buff from the Duke, but it would again change the look of the list quite a bit and put a lot more emphasis on charging rather than shooting. Also, we'd love to try to get a third Ravager in there, as there's really no better buy in the book for it's points.

Proposed Baron List:

Baron Sathonyx

3x Blaster Trueborn in Venom w/2x Cannons
3x Blaster Trueborn in Venom w/2x Cannons

12x Hellions, Helliarch w/Agonizer
8x Wyches w/Haywire Grenades, Hekatrix w/Agonizer, in Raider w/Flickerfields
7x Wyches w/Haywire Grenades, Hekatrix w/Agonizer, in Raider w/Flickerfields
5x Warriors w/Blaster in Venom w/2x Cannons
5x Warriors w/Blaster in Venom w/2x Cannons

Ravager w/Flickerfields
Ravager w/Flickerfields

TOTAL: 1498

Obviously it is open to personal tweaking and twisting like the Haywire Grenades, # of Wyches, Agonizer on Helliarch, etc, etc, etc.
However, I think you'll have a lot more success with this list than the previous one. Don't discount the Splinter Pods on the Hellions either. 24 poisoned shots before the charge is nothing to sneer at. Not to mention they have skilled rider, stealth, and grenades from the Baron. Also, the increased probability of the Baron allowing you to go first means that you'll have a more likely chance of getting off a first turn disruption charge with the Wyches versus either enemy immobile vehicles or other random squads.

I'd say you've got a solid foundation to the list, but it's a little too divergent at the "scary" position.

The Warriors + Ravagers is a great base and meat of the army, but the Poison-weaponry Trueborn are begging for the Duke, who in turn wouldn't be utilized to the fullest due to your lack of Combat Drugs. Malys is a nice anti-psyker and combat buff for a deathstar unit like a decent squad of Incubi, but then you're not really taking advantage of her redeployment opportunities. The PGL Archon + Incubi is a devastating combination, but are you really getting the most out of your 2 HQ choices at only 1500 points?

I'd say the solution is to retool slightly in one of a few different directions. I'd stay away from the Duke, as you've got plenty of Poisoned Weaponry with your Venoms and wouldn't use his Drug buff. The 2x Incubi+Archon units is a great principle, but I think it's a bit overkill at only 1500 points, particularly when nearly all of the lists anti-tank is coming from the Ravagers, which can quickly be silenced by enemy fire due to the lack of anti-tank target saturation.

Option 1:
10x Warriors --> 5x Warriors w/Blaster in Venom w/2x Cannons (-60 points)
Drop Malys (-130)
Drop Trueborn (-260)
Add 3x Trueborn w/Blasters in Venom w/2x Cannons (+146)
Add 3x Trueborn w/Blasters in Venom w/2x Cannons (+146)
Add 5x Scourges w/2x Heat Lances(+134)
Add 1x Incubi (+22)

Alternatively, if you'd really like to take advantage of Lady Malys' Redeployment abilities,
Change 10x Warriors + Raider to 20x Warriors w/2x DL + Sybarite (+55)
Drop Trueborn (-260)
Add 4x Trueborn w/2x DL (+98)
Add 4x Trueborn w/2x DL (+98)
Drop Klaivex upgrade (-15)
Add Incubus (+22)

It fills out Malys + Incubi's squad a bit, adds Dark Lance Saturation, and allows you to get the most out of that d3 repositioned units if need be. Personally, I prefer the first one, but it's entirely up to you. Alternatively, you could drop the Trueborn altogether, and go with the 2x Incubi units w/Archons and dump some Scourges w/Haywire Blasters, Blasters, or Heat Lances in there.

I think that with a shift towards a more "proper" amount of terrain will really help the DE to start to shine in the big-time tournaments.

That said, they'll never be quite as "stalwart" as some of the other armies out there, but, if played very well, can be quite devastating against any opposing army. I've played regularly against some pretty intimidating IG AV12-spam lists, basically the antithesis of DE, and managed to pull out some pretty awesome wins in the face of initiative seizing, lucky as hell Manticore firing (3 shots every turn for 2 of them), and having pain tokens waiting to happen in the form of disembarked Vet squads running off the table before I can assault.

It is a VERY difficult and unforgiving army to play, and I don't know if it will be able to stand the test of a 5-6 game GT without getting screwed by the dice gods, but it is a very intimidating army to play against and has the capability to completely delete parts of your opponent's army due to its speed and firepower.

I think it's more the fact that 3 is slightly more points-efficient than 4, whereas 4 is more reliable than 3. A delicate balance, and it often comes down to the choice between another blaster trueborn and important upgrades for other squads.

For instance, do you really need that 4th trueborn over an agonizer for your wych squad? 3 trueborn w/blasters still get the job done, whereas the agonizer is significantly more important to make that big squad of wyches function effectively.

Of course the agonizer necessity stirs up a whole other can of worms, but it does make the point.