Fury from the Labyrinth from TauOnline.Org

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Thanks to Lomendil for this.

The Webway is a powerful asset for a Lord of the Dark Kin. Used correctly it can deliever your deadliest minions right into the heart of the enemy army, without them having to be exposed to enemy fire. No more first-turn dependency, no more Raiders shot down still laden with Wyches or Incubi - now your best units can arrive in combat completely unscathed, and can more easily choose which units to shred to ribbons.

The best way I've found to use the Webway Portal (WWP) is the following basic strategy: footsloggers run the Portal into position, then deadly assault units rush out and slaughter anything within range.

The best units to carry the WWPs are Sybarites in large Warrior squads, Haemonculi, or Lords, all on foot. Putting them in Raiders is not wise, as will be explained later. You want at least two WWPs, it's too risky to just take one. Mind Wars, Vindicare Assassins, fast Infiltrators, ultra-fast assault units and lucky ordnance can all ruin your day if you only take one Webway Portal. It's usually a good idea to have an Independent Character carrying at least one of your Portals - the enemy will find it extremely hard to kill them before the portal is opened provided you always make sure another viable target is closer to shooters.

Accompanying the WWP carriers will be 'escort' units. In a 2000pt game you want at least two fast escorts; Hellions, Reavers, Warp Beasts and Lords on foot or mounted on a Skyboard or Jetbike. A minimal fast escort element of a tooled-up foot Archon and a full squad of Warp Beasts is enough, but more can be helpful and they do allow you to take the fight to the enemy in the first two turns. A couple of Sniper Squads (10 Warriors with 2 Dark Lances) can also be very useful to start with. Large Warrior squads (17+) make great escorts for Independant Characters. You might consider using Grotesques as a guarding squad for an IC. They will certainly be able to ignore a lot of incoming fire, though they are slowish as they cannot make Fleet-of-Foot moves.

All the WWP carrying units or characters are set up as far forwards as possible, making use of any available cover. On their first turn the WWP characters and guarding squads move and Fleet-Of-Foot forwards, the other units either run with them or attack anything nearby. It's vital to keep the WWP squads out of assaults.

On the second turn, it's a good idea to open at least one of the Portals. However, if you are playing against an assault-oriented army that is rushing towards you, you may as well open one or both portals on the first turn, or stand still and open both on the second turn. Opening one on the first turn is the safest - but does mean your Reserves will arrive piecemeal. However, if you wait until the second turn, then most if not all of your units in the Webway will arrive together on turn 3 in one massive wave to overwhelm the enemy.

In 2000pts, you should have 3 strong fast assault units as a minimum in the Webway. Of course, the more points you spend on escorts the less you'll have for units coming from the Webway and vice versa, so a good balance is essential. You'll want some good assault units in Raiders - Grotesques, Incubi, Wyches, Raider Squads with an Agonizer wielding Sybarite. Mounted in Raiders, they can strike anything within 20" of the portal (12" move, 2" disembark, 6" assault) and Wyches and Warriors can Fleet-Of-Foot too if need be. Taloi are very powerful when deployed from a Webway Portal. Using two in tandem assures lethal effectiveness - no vehicle or armoured squad is safe! A Ravager or two can be handy as well for blasting at units out of assault range, or softening up tough opponents before your units assault.

Now that your main attack units are on the table, your surviving 'escorts' now pitch in to tie up unengaged enemy squads, support the main assault units and blast away at anything in range.

This works with a Wych Cult too. I would use a Dracite to carry one portal, and a Warrior Squad Sybarite to carry another. A foot Archite provides a deadly-fast unit (6"move , d6" FOF, 12" combat drugs charge) that can act as both a guard for the WWP carriers and has the speed to join in the main melees that will develop once units come through the portal. Warp Beasts are also great at this role! They are utterly cheap but menacing, if they get destroyed it's only a mere 75pts gone, if enemies draw close then at a bare minimum they can tie them up for a turn and do some good damage in the process.

Some bad ideas for deploying WWPs

Units in Raiders as carriers: The Raider is now a liability to the squad inside if deployed on the battlefield at the start of the game. It's very hard to hide them, they have very light armour and are open-topped, Night Shields are ineffective against many weapons, and if shot down the squad inside is automatically pinned and suffers a lot of casualties if the Raider moved fast. Opponents tend to concentrate fire on them as they frequently carry dangerous assault troops. This combines with the extreme vulnerability of units in Raiders to make them extremely risky to use to carry WWPs.

What you don't want is your squad pinned and damaged in the middle of the board - but it's very hard to stop this happening. If you used a lot of squads in Raiders starting on the table then your opponent might shoot at the 'wrong' ones - but it's no guarantee and all those points spent mean less troops in the Webway. All said and done, footsloggers can get the portal as close as you need it to be, there simply is no point in using a faster but far riskier method.

Deep Striking Scourges/Raider Squads as WWP carriers: It is an extremely foolish tactic to try to Deep Strike WWPs using Scourges or Raider Squads with Screaming Jets. Both of these units are very vulnerable to enemy shooting and if Deep Striked anywhere near the enemy are likely to be destroyed in a turn. If Deep Striked far away to avoid enemy fire then that defeats the whole purpose of having the WWP!

Lastly, even assuming that the squad could survive, they'd have to wait until turn 4 to open the portal at the earliest (the earliest possible they can arrive is turn 2, and they can't Deep Strike and deploy a portal on the same turn), so finally on turn 5 the units in the Webway would be able to enter play. This is ridiculously late and they'd have hardly any time to achieve anything in the battle. An all round bad idea.

Some Sample lists

1500pts Kabal list

Starting on the board

Archon - Punisher, Tormentor Helm, Shadow Field, Combat Drugs, Hell Mask, Haywire Grenades, Gruesome Talisman, Animus Vitae, Trophy Rack

Haemonculi (2) - Scissorhands, Webway Portals

Warp Beasts (5 + Beastmaster)

Warriors (12) - 2x Dark Lance

Warriors (20) - 2x Splinter Cannon, 2x Blaster

Starting in the Webway

Wyches (10) - Wych Weapons, 2x Blaster, Succubus with Agonizer, Raider with Horrorfex and Trophy Racks

Talos

2000pts Kabal list

Starting on the board

Archon - Punisher, Tormentor Helm, Shadow Field, Combat Drugs, Hell Mask, Haywire Grenades, Plasma Grenades, Gruesome Talisman, Animus Vitae, Trophy Rack

Haemonculi (2) - Scissorhands, Webway Portals

Warp Beasts (5 + Beastmaster)

Warriors (10) - 2x Dark Lance

Warriors (17) - 2x Splinter Cannon, 2x Blaster

Starting in the Webway

Wyches (10) - Wych Weapons, 2x Blaster, Succubus with Agonizer, Raider with Horrorfex and Trophy Racks

Talos

Ravager - 3 Disintegrators

2000pts Wych Cult list

Starting on the board

Wych Archite - Punisher, Tormentor Helm, Combat Drugs, Shadow Field, Animus Vitae, Haywire Grenades

Wych Dracite - Agonizer, Splinter Pistol, Combat Drugs, Hell Mask, Webway Portal

Warriors (17) - 2x Blaster, 2x Splinter Cannon, Sybarite with Webway Portal

Warriors (10) - 2x Dark Lance

Warp Beasts (5 + Beastmaster)

Starting in the Webway

Wyches (10) - Wych Weapons, 2x Blaster, Succubus with Agonizer, Raider with Horrorfex and Trophy Racks

Wyches (10) - Wych Weapons, 2x Blaster, Succubus with Agonizer, Raider with Horrorfex

Ravager - 3 Disintegrator