I like it for the most part. Had a kabalite army since 5th edition and it looks like they'll be in good shape. Drazhar looks kind of underwhelming admittedly and I'd still be crazy to use wyches but most units look like they can be useful. Even Mandrakes look kinda interesting now and that has me excited. I also feel kinda disappointed that the Splinter Cannon has changed to rapid fire 3. I found it to be much more interesting with the 4 assault/heavy 6 but whatever, at least my lances are still mean.
Did you see the huge hellion buff?? they do 2 damage now which is neat, but you wound up to tough 7 on a 5+. However you now get to choose combat drugs.
Even though you can't choose the same one multiple times until all are chosen, start with one unit. Give it +2 move, now you have a 16 inch move! and can use command point for a charge roll!
And some deployments could have them start 18 inches away from the opponent's deployment zone. That is nuts.
Sad about venom spam, hella sad. No point upgrading to second splintercannon, just learn to play dark eldar more aggressive. I think you will see more of a balance between assault and shooting in armies.
Especially since some shooting weapons cost a lot. And the Vehicles that tend to carry them also cost a lot.
Definitely adding more incubi to my army. Mandrake now mandatory hq over lhamaean but archon getting free shadowfield rocks! Also you can take any harlequin unit or eldar unit in your detachments since they only have to share one faction 9Aeldari), just run an on foot farseer since he can't be targeted and cast doom and smite and for psychic defense. Rocking.
The new wound chart was a huge buff for an army full of S3 T3 kiddos.
The new Raiders and Venoms are vastly more resilient then the previous iterations, particularly to small arms fire. It use to take 27 bolter shots to drop a Venom, now it takes 72.
Drazhar and Lili aren't overwhelming but they do have nifty unit multipliers and they are considerable cheaper then they use to be. Starting turn 3 with PfP Incubbi and Wyches within range of them will be hitting on a 2+ with rerolls. Not bad.
I think Mandrakes came out like gang busters.
Still mulling over Talos and Chronos.
I think the new PfP mechanic is the best iteration yet. All the buffs are usefull to all units, and though there has been much wailing and gnashing of teeth over the new FNP replacement, I think a lot of people are forgetting that you will at least get to take it all the time now, instead of only against small arms fire.
DE are definitely coming out pretty unscathed compared to other factions, other than poor Venoms which seem to have got a bit shafted. We might actually see some DEHQs on the field now that they're so cheap!
Also, am I correct in seeing that Hellions can now use a transport? They don't have the Jump Pack keyword. Pretty funny stuff.
You're fething right they can! so lets do some math. You get a deployment where it is 18" away from enemy deployment zone. Hellions start embarked in raider. They disembark for free 3". They have +2 move combat drug. They move 14". Congratz, on their 1st move they are now in the opponent's deployment zone. They then charge and you use the re-roll from command point. They have 19" move, [Eidt: 16" move +3 inch disembark] roll an average of 7" charge, and only have to get within 1" of enemy model. This give them and average of 27" threat turn one. Make opponents weeeeeeep.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Venoms got nerfed but all poison weapons got a big buff. They now wound vehicles on 6"s and gargantuan creatures no longer exist. Hello Wraithknight. Goodbye wraithknight. Not that I expect to see wraithknights any more. They got hurt bad, will probably just see them with the sword and board and a farseer trying to fortune them to help them ignore wounds.
But being able to take any eldar or harlequin modle in the same detachment is neat since they share a faction. I know monobuild is cool and all but just take the farseer. They can't be singled out easily, have a good 7" move and will go along way to stopping other psykers. Plus just pick doom to greatly help those poor ass ravagers land those d6 dark lances or if you do take haywire, get those mortal wounds flowing
Venoms got nerfed but all poison weapons got a big buff.
You know, their shooting went down marginally but it's not nearly as much as people are making it out to be. A double Cannon Venom now has 12 shots at 34" and 6 shots at 52", versus 12 shots at 48". In most cases, the 34" range will be more then enough. In addition, they are much, much more resilient then before. Like almost 300% more in some cases.
And, like you said, the Cannon is significantly more versatile then it was before.
To be honest, I wouldn't even bother upgrading the second cannon. With the venom new movement and how a lot of units will be faster and closer then before I would just keep cheap as is. You still have 10 shots at 28" and I just see people using the new 9" away deployments since its too good. Just comes in, can assault and protects the unit. I'm taking 3 incubi units in venom as a huge deterrent to this. I think they are just swell for 18 points each.
Venoms didn't really get nerfed, consider a lot of things are faster and closer, the venom can move 16" and have 12 shots at 18" range with 2 cannons, or 10 shots at 12" range, or 8 shots at 18" with Cannon and twin rifle. The 4 extra shots between 12" and 18" is decent for 15 pts- but obviously not OMG why would you not take like before.
Reavers are going to be interesting, I think there role in the army has just changed to character hunting, give them a Blaster, or Heat Lance if you can spare the points, and get in close to those Captains.
Wracks being troops is good, particularly since you can take 2 Hexrifles in a 5 man unit now.
''You may re-roll wound rolls with this weapon. Wounds of a 6+ cause d3 mortal wounds''.
It doesn't say re-roll failed wound rolls, so I'm considering if you succeed to wound on a roll that isn't a 6+, can you re-roll it to try get that 6+? At first it seems like a pretty bad weapon, but a slightly better than 1 in 3 chance of doing D3 mortal wounds isn't terrible.
It's neat that you now don't have to charge the unit you shot at. So mandrakes could come in, shoot at a nearbye unit to soften it and then charge a hopefully squishy unit and cause damage in a couple spots at the same time
I'm a fan of the new beastmaster and clawed fiends. Looking at most unit buffs for characters, they usually allow rerolls of 1s. But the beastmaster allows all failed hit rolls to be rerolled. With clawed fiends hitting on 4+ and leadership 4, a beastmaster fixes those weaknesses perfectly, now that you can pick combat drugs and make him leadership 9. You would have to lose four clawed fiends in a turn to worry about morale.
The Haemonculus is crazy, one of our better close combat characters (Give him an electro-corrosive whip for a Dmg 2 agoniser) with 5 attacks for some reason! T5, and gives T5/T6/T7 to all coven units. THIS CAN INCLUDES RAIDERS AND VENOMS.
The Twin-linked weapons of the Talos got a buff to just be two weapons. Yeah, a Talos puts out the same fire power as a Double Cannon Venom, and is more likely to want to be rapid fire range to get it done. Heat lances are very good as well. This time around they get power from pain, giving them that great 6+ super FNP, fleet and hit on 2's in combat by turn 3.
Chronus seems to kinda suck, but the re-roll's to wound would be quite helpful to run around with the Talosi. 2 Talsoi with a following Chronus get into combat turn 3, that's 12 attacks that hit on 2's, wound on 3's, re-roll 1's, and do 2 dmg each. A great little kill squad.
The Voidraven is one of our most improved units, I think. The void mine is nasty, you can easily wipe out a 10 man of something like MEQs or Necron Immortals unit with it, taking morale into consideration. Straight through invul saves as well.
On the topic of Hellions & Scourges, does the Fly keyword prevent them from using transports, perhaps? I can't find anything that says so. It just doesn't seem right after all this time for them to be hopping in Raiders. Also, why does the transport entries specify 'Incubi or Drukhari Infantry' when Incubi are clearly Drukhari infantry? Seems a bit unnecessary.
Regarding the VR im actually struggling to think of a justification for taking the razorwing over it. The VR is only like 15 points more and comes with more wounds and better weapons.
I mean the fleshbane bomb is nice... I guess. But up to 10 mortal wounds that auto hit is better.
The bombing doesnt even count as a shooting attacks, so after raining mortal wounds on a target you can finish it off with your 2d3 dark scythes.
SeraphimXIX wrote: Regarding the VR im actually struggling to think of a justification for taking the razorwing over it. The VR is only like 15 points more and comes with more wounds and better weapons.
I mean the fleshbane bomb is nice... I guess. But up to 10 mortal wounds that auto hit is better.
The bombing doesnt even count as a shooting attacks, so after raining mortal wounds on a target you can finish it off with your 2d3 dark scythes.
Lets not forget that for both of them those missiles, unlike the bomb, are no longer One Use Only so you can be firing those missiles off all day long getting you plenty of extra shooting at S6/7 or Poison (2+). I think I might keep the Void Lances on the Voidraven, the extra range could be very useful whith the minimum movement and always turn 90 degrees requirements.
Kinda seems like Wracks are pretty good in this new version. For every five, we get one chance (although a slim one) to crank out some Mortal Wounds. On a troop choice, that's rare.
One thing to remember against certain armies is the requirement for a screen. I anticipate seeing a lot of turn 1 charges with things like a Trygon and a huge unit of genestealers. Or that combo x2... (happened to me already. It hurts!). That said, a beast master with the leadership drugs and a score of cheap razor wing flocks would do the trick. They are literally there to soak up a turn 1 charge. Plus if someone is foolish enough to assault them, whether or not they live is of no consequence since you can just fall back now, leaving them up to some serious ranged attacks and counter assaults.
I had played a game with 3x Crimson Hunter's and I must say they are extremely good. The razorwings should be good too with the dark lances and the ability to adapt to different situations with their missiles. Although the voidravens bomb is pretty dope...
One other thing to remember about the venoms, is that they not only have a 5++, but have a -1 to be hit. That means (approx) 16% less hits!
Overall I'm really excited about these changes and the added resiliency is much needed. I mean I get that they are supposed to be a glass cannon sort of effect, but when a strong gust of wind wrecks your whole army, that doesn't seem very fun.
Can anyone convince me why Lelith is any better than a stock Succubus? She costs more points and swings at Strength 3 (I guess +1 S combat drugs is the obvious choice). For a bucket load of attacks on a single model, I'd rather take a Solitaire. Am I missing something?
Oaka wrote: Can anyone convince me why Lelith is any better than a stock Succubus? She costs more points and swings at Strength 3 (I guess +1 S combat drugs is the obvious choice). For a bucket load of attacks on a single model, I'd rather take a Solitaire. Am I missing something?
- Solitaire is 117 points, looks to be stronger on the offensive, with 8-10 attacks with S4 AP-3 D1 or AP-1 D3. He can also move over Terrain/Units and has 12" movement, can Advance and Charge as well as fall back and shoot/charge in the same turn.
- Lelith is 125 points, has 5-7 Attacks with S4, 5 of which can be AP-4. She also buffs friendly Wych Cult Units, forces re-rolls on enemy fall backs and gets re-rolls on hit and wound rolls against characters.
- A normal Succubus with Archite Glaive and Blaster Pistol is 87 points, has "only" a 4+ invul save, S5(!) in melee, 4 Attacks, buffs friendly Wych cult units and forces a roll-off on enemy fall backs. If you give her +1WS via Combat Drugs, you'll even mitigate the Archite Glaive's Malus. If you can live with 3+ to hit in melee, you can give her 5 Attacks or S6 in melee. Oh, and she can fire a 6" BS2+ S8 AP-4 D3 shot in the shooting phase, which is not to be underestimated.
I find they are comparable but have different applications. My favourite so far is the Succubus though. Character assassination could become a big thing in 8th, however, so I can see Lelith becoming an important factor. Solitaire is by far the most mobile and very strong in melee, but he is not flat out the best, since with M12 he'll be pretty much on his own and doesn't confer any benefits to other units. I can see him being a nasty thorn in the enemy's side though.
I ran Lelith in a recent game and loved her. My biggest irritation with her and the succubus is the fact that their buff (unless im reading it wrong) seems to go away turn 3, when you start adding 1 to all rolls in the fight subphase.
It would seem if you add 1 to all your rolls, it is impossible to roll a 1 and get re-rolls...
The reason for Lelith is that she out-damages the Succubus against light infantry and most characters with the bonus attack from the Mane and the Penetrating Knives, especially if you snag her strength drugs, and you shouldn't discount the fact that she's a significant step up defensively with a 3++ rather than a 4++. I've been trying to get 6-7 power Levels per transport in my army, and in my test games, Lelith has done quite well.
As for Succubus/Lelith over Solitaire, No Escape is a really really good ability.
Khaine wrote: The Voidraven is one of our most improved units, I think. The void mine is nasty, you can easily wipe out a 10 man of something like MEQs or Necron Immortals unit with it, taking morale into consideration. Straight through invul saves as well.
On the topic of Hellions & Scourges, does the Fly keyword prevent them from using transports, perhaps? I can't find anything that says so. It just doesn't seem right after all this time for them to be hopping in Raiders. Also, why does the transport entries specify 'Incubi or Drukhari Infantry' when Incubi are clearly Drukhari infantry? Seems a bit unnecessary.
I don't see anything preventing Hellions or scourges to get into transports.
Btw, mandrakes in transports might be decent too, to fly around dealing mortal wounds.
As for the incubi, it's pretty weird indeed. It's now one of the 4 DE subfactions (with kabal, wych cult and haemonculus), but all incubis are also drukhari. The transport rule would only matter if you could get Incubi that are not drukhari, like if GW released some Ynarri incubis. In that case, they would have introduced the keyword so they don't need an errata. But the venoms themselves cannot become incubi faction, which doesn't make much sense if the plan is to create a non-drukhari incubi shrine with access to venom in the future.
the_scotsman wrote: I ran Lelith in a recent game and loved her. My biggest irritation with her and the succubus is the fact that their buff (unless im reading it wrong) seems to go away turn 3, when you start adding 1 to all rolls in the fight subphase.
It would seem if you add 1 to all your rolls, it is impossible to roll a 1 and get re-rolls...
There is a side excerpt for rerolls by the rules for Psychic phase. It says you reroll before any modifiers, so if you roll a 1, then you get to reroll it before adding 1, which makes any WS 3+ Wych unit always hit unless you roll double 1s after the Power from Pain buff.
Since characters can't join squads anymore, how does Lelith (or any of our HQs for that matter) go into assault and not... Die? At least before her high WS made most things hit her on 5s, but with fixed 3+s and 4+s it seems like a t3 3++ model wouldn't last long against Orks or marines or genestealers etc.
I've only used a shooty archon in a venom so far so I have no experience with our melee HQs.
SeraphimXIX wrote: Since characters can't join squads anymore, how does Lelith (or any of our HQs for that matter) go into assault and not... Die? At least before her high WS made most things hit her on 5s, but with fixed 3+s and 4+s it seems like a t3 3++ model wouldn't last long against Orks or marines or genestealers etc.
I've only used a shooty archon in a venom so far so I have no experience with our melee HQs.
You cant target characters unless they're the closest model to you typically. Snipers ignore that rule, but everyone else obeys it.
And keep in mind that unlike other factions' command squads, the court of the archon actually ALL individually has the Character rule, which actually makes them quite good. The biggest issue I've run into is that you can target their transport, so it's typically a good idea to give a court or succubus their own ride (Haemis will typically want to be footslogging behind their pets to give out their aura buffs, but the others definitely warrant a Venom)
the_scotsman wrote: I ran Lelith in a recent game and loved her. My biggest irritation with her and the succubus is the fact that their buff (unless im reading it wrong) seems to go away turn 3, when you start adding 1 to all rolls in the fight subphase.
It would seem if you add 1 to all your rolls, it is impossible to roll a 1 and get re-rolls...
There is a side excerpt for rerolls by the rules for Psychic phase. It says you reroll before any modifiers, so if you roll a 1, then you get to reroll it before adding 1, which makes any WS 3+ Wych unit always hit unless you roll double 1s after the Power from Pain buff.
Aha, this is excellent to hear, thank you. So lelith still gets to go into auto-hit mode (Also, remember that in the section on auras it states that units are always in range of their own auras, so a Succubus/Lelith is ALWAYS rerolling 1s because they count as a Wych Cult unit within 6".)
Also amusingly the Haemonculus' buff also applies to Venoms and Raiders he's near. The Wrack crew now makes the vehicle a little tougher!
Perhaps if you don't get the first turn it will benefit, but the toughness aura doesn't exist if the Haemonculus is in a transport, so pretty hard to keep up with those vehicles.
In the part regarding to hit rolls, it says rolls of 1 always fail regardless of any modifiers that may apply. So no auto hitting. It also says that for wounds and saves too, which is nice.
I haven't gotten too good of a look at all the changes to DE stuff yet (mainly waiting for the book) but I was wondering what peoples opinions are on an all coven list. Does it look decent or would it be better to add some kabal or harley stuff to it aswell?
Solosam47 wrote: I haven't gotten too good of a look at all the changes to DE stuff yet (mainly waiting for the book) but I was wondering what peoples opinions are on an all coven list. Does it look decent or would it be better to add some kabal or harley stuff to it aswell?
Right now it doesn't appear to be an effective army choice outside of Haemie/Wracks. Grotesques became more expensive and didn't gain any wounds (although, they did receive a 5++), lost rampage, and fearless. Talos/Cronos seem to be ok, but I haven't been sold.
I haven't had an opportunity to play 8th ed rules yet, but it appears that using Wracks and a Haemonculus as a t5 screen could be the best use of our troop slots.
Solosam47 wrote: I haven't gotten too good of a look at all the changes to DE stuff yet (mainly waiting for the book) but I was wondering what peoples opinions are on an all coven list. Does it look decent or would it be better to add some kabal or harley stuff to it aswell?
I would not advise going PURE coven (i.e. limited only to Raiders Venoms Haemis Wracks Grots and Pain Engines) because you'll have a bear of a time dealing with any kind of vehicle. You'll want to add Ravagers, maybe a Voidraven, especially if playing matched where stuff like double Heat Lance talos tails are prohibitively expensive. Playing narrative where you can have every talos and wrack squad fully pimped for a set cost you will probably fare a bit better, as double HLs is expensive but does help deal a lot of damage. Taloi are a lot worse at mulching vehicles than they used to be, sadly, given their lack of good AP.
A basic gameplan would be something like
-4 squads of wracks in 2 DL raiders, each squad with a Hexrifle, an Ichor Injector, and an Ossefactor
-2 Haemies/Urien (I actually really like Urien in this edition, he's pretty much unsnipe-able, and if you're going to be footslogging it up the board he'd better be)
-A suite of pain engines like maybe 2 taloi 1 chronos
-A big grot squad for some meat
-some dedicated longrange anti tank like Ravagers/flyers.
focus fire on transports with all your lances, try to get enemy infantry out in the open as much as possible, and present a huge front of T6/T8 wounds with effectively 4++ invulns on everything between Insensible/PFP turn 1. If you have a turn where a juicy character is out in the open, don't move the Raiders and whack him with 4 hexrifle shots, if the hexes lack a great target then move the raiders up. Basically, try to leapfrog the raiders to keep the haemi buff on them, because you really want everything to hit on turn 3 all together, when you've got everybody hitting on 2s or autohits in melee and they're all still in the haemi buff.
Shame the coven lost some umph in matched, I should have tried em when they had their formations.
So solo coven is out, where do people see the coven in competitive? Just Haemis and wracks with maybe a pain engine or two accompanied by other eldar units? Can Grots have a place or are they just gonna be way sided you think? Im beginning to think maybe a wrack grot haemi anvil to a harli hammer.
I think a pure coven list might work but you'll be relying on Haemi's for the +1T bubble a lot and Cronos for the wound regeneration bubble. However I think this would force you into a foot slogging list which has it's own vulnerabilities as well. The lack of reliable anti-tank in the list is a distinct problem though.
I had this in another thread where the first list is at 1,000 points and the second brings it up to a 2,000 point game, but this is what I'm thinking of trying:
The haemonculus go with the Wracks in a Raider increasing the toughness of both making them even more durable with T4 and T6 respectively. These guys with their 5++ save and power from pain save should should be able to hold an objective and weather an attack as well as dishing it out with the flamers and CC. Haemonculous take pot shots at characters with the Hexrifle and do 2dmg in CC with each attack from the whip. Kabalite Warriors are a harassment unit applying their three str8 weapons (including Raider) plus splinter fire where needed. Mandrakes can appear on the table to get the drop on a character with hopefully some mortal wounds or grab an objective when you really need it.
Bringing the list up to 2,000 points I would add:
Air Wing Detachment +1 Command Point
1 Drazhar
9 Incubi
1 Raider, Dark Lance, Shock Prow
1 Voidraven Bomber 2 Void Lances, w//missiles
1 Voidraven Bomber 2 Void Lances, w//missiles
1 Voidraven Bomber 2 Void Lances, w//missiles
Add 2 more Mandrakes to the original unit.
The Voidravens are amazing damage output now now and only a few points more than a twin dark lance Razorwing. Taking three adds the detachment for another Command Point giving you +4 (7 command points total) now in the list. Drazhar becomes the warlord and goes with the Incubi (so they hit on 2's now) in another Dark Lance Raider. The list should be able to handle T7 or T8 transports/Vehicles while having enough bodies to engage in CC or hold down objectives.
I think Haemonculi are going to always want to be on foot, and successful Coven lists will gravitate towards footslogging, for two reasons.
One, Haemi's bubble power turns off if he's in a transport, and two, if you don't have the haemi in the raider then you can fit 2 separate squads of wracks that gets you 1 extra acothyst compared to normal. In the games I've tried, the setup of 1 raider, and either 1 squad of wracks 1 squad of wyches or 2 squads of wracks has absolutely cleaned up. You can get 2 Hexrifles, 2 Ossefactors, and 2 Ichor Injectors and send the wracks off hunting high value monster targets while the pain engines and haemies go be bullies. Also, 5 hexrifles is about the point where they start being able to bring down 1 key character in the two turns your army is on the approach. 1 Commissar, or Apothecary, or Sanguinary priest your opponent won't have when the fighting starts.
The second half of your list I think is really solid, I would only worry about your ability to clean up low quality units and claim objectives (which is by number of models now, remember). Early drafts of competitive lists seem to indicate that we'll be seeing a lot of morale-immune or morale-don't care chaff squads of conscripts, gretchins, blazing horrors or poxwalkers, which double as proof against deep strike alpha strategies and grab loads of objectives.
If you were going to try and roll with that meta, Razorwing flocks backed up by a +2Ld'd beastmaster would be a quite solid option. To run counter it you might try something like a street-sweeper grotesque squad with liquifiers, or +A wyches with mass murderin' gear.
Honestly, I think the best way to run an Archon now will be cheap as chips with a power weapon and a Blaster. Cheapest HQ we now have that has a nice little Leadership bubble and adds a decent 2+ Blaster to the mix.
Gargantuan wrote: Which weapons are best for Archons? I'm thinking a blaster might be good and probably a huskblade. What do you guys think?
I'd take the Agonizer over the Huskblade. S3 means you'll never wound things on anything better than 4+, but a lot of times on 5+ and even 6+.
With the Agonizer you'll at least wound things half the time consistently.
The Blaster is just too good not to take. The same goes for the Phantasm Grenade Launcher.
Put him next to a few Sslyth Guards and he'll never die, kill things reliably in ranged combat, somewhat reliably in melee and strip the enemy of LD to make their losses more devastating, while boosting your own kabal troops whithin 6".
Grotesques became more expensive and didn't gain any wounds (although, they did receive a 5++), lost rampage, and fearless
You know, I was just running the numbers today, and the Grots have actually come out a little bit ahead on damage numbers. Assuming a 2 on Rampage (and assuming you actually are out numbered in the first place), the old Grots would average around 1.04 MEqs on the charge where as the new ones average around 1.11.
Hitting on a 3+ and AP -1 go a long way, there. Also, they aren't as nearly dependent on Rampage or Charging to peak those numbers.
Haven't done the math yet comparing the old flesh gauntlets to the new ones against multi wound models, yet, although I think they might come out ahead as well.
I played my first 8th ed. game on Tuesday, vs. my regular gaming buddy's Space Marines. From memory, the lists were something like:
Drukhari
Archon, Huskblade, Blast Pistol
Succubus, Glaive, Splinter Pistol (Combat Drugs: +1 WS)
Sslyth
10 Kabalites, Blaster, Dark Lance
10 Kabalites, Blaster, Splinter Cannon, Sybarite w S. Pistol, Agonizer and Phantasm Grenade Launcher in a Raider, Shock Prow, Disintegrator
10 Kabalites, Blaster, Splinter adrk Lance, Sybarite w S. Pistol, Agonizer and Phantasm Grenade Launcher in a Raider, Shock Prow, Dark Lance
10 Bloodbrides, 2 Hydra Gauntlets, 1 Razorflails, Syren with Agonizer, Phantasm Grenade Launcher and Blast Pistol (Combat Drugs: +1A) in a Raider, Shock Prow, Disintegrator
5 Incubi in a Venom with extra Cannon
5 Scourges, 4 Heat Lance, Solarite with Power Lance
5 Scourges, 4 Haywire Blasters
6 Reavers, 2 Heat Lance, Cluster Caltrops (Combat Drugs: +2 LD)
10 Hellions, Phantasm Grenade Launcher and Stunclaw (Combat Drugs: +1S)
Ravager, Shock Prow, 3 Dark Lance
Razorwing, 2 Disintegrator, Splinter Cannon
Venom, Extra Cannon, carried the Archon, Succubus and Sslyth
Space Marines:
Jump Chaplain, Plasma Pistol
Techmarine, Power Sword, Storm Bolter
Techmarine Gunner, Servoharness, Thunderfire
Apothecary
5 Tac Marines, Plasma, in a Razorback, twin Assault Cannon, Storm Bolter, HK Missile
5 Tac Marines, Flamer, in a Razorback, twin Lascannon, Storm Bolter, HK Missile
10 (?) Devastators, four Lascannons
5 Tac Marines, Missile Launcher
5 Tac Marines, Melta, Combi-Melta, in a Razorback, twin Assault Cannon, HK Missile
5 Assault Marines, two Plasma Pistols, Power Sword Sergeant?
Dreadnaught, twin Heavy Bolter, Storm Bolter
Dreadnaught, two twin Autocannon X2
2 X Land Speeder, Heavy Bolter and Assault Cannon
I may be missing something, that seems about right. 110 Power Levels, we just assembled armies we liked the look of and went for it.
My takeaways from the game about Drukhari:
Blood Brides are really good, seriously. The extra attack is fantastic compared to Wyches and the extra from Drugs makes them murder machines. Go Hydra Gauntlets, they are really good. The Succubus makes them pretty much never miss in conjunction with PFP bonuses, so Razorflails aren't that great. The minus one to saves in CC are better than you might think. Agonizer is same as ever. The speed and resilience of the Raider makes you able to deliver the more fragile units that pack a punch. Succubus with Glaive and +1 WS kills things dead. They killed most of the Devastators, a 5 man tac squad, the Power Sword Techmarine, and the Apothecary. Not bad at all for the points/Power Levels!
Archon is still not amazing, sadly. The Sslyth is decent but I never really got mixed up in combat with either model properly.
Incubi are dead killy still, but more fragile.
I didn't utilize my Hellions right, they did nada. This was my mistake, I think I should have charged a Dreadnaught or vehicle with them but I tried to use them in a supporting/sucking overwatch role. They died, and killed nothing. My Scourges had abysmal luck in shooting, but their saves plus PFP tanked a lot of wounds.
I made the mistake of engaging armour with Reavers with Heat Lance. It doesn't really work. Heat Lances are in a weird place and do way less against armour now. I think that both Scourges and Reavers have role-shifted to Elite or Character assassins rather than armour hunters, at least with Lances. Cluster Caltrop wording is terrible, it can be interpreted as you fall back or I fall back to trigger them. The latter makes more sense to me as Caltrops are usually a deterrent to pursuit, but it can be interpreted the other way too. The later is certainly better. I actually think the LD bump drugs may be a good way to go since though they are arguably tougher from the extra wounds, they really feel casualties.
The Razorwing did a LOT of work. It probably tied with my Brides for most killy unit. The Shatterfield Missile is solid.
Raiders are just so much more surviveable, it's much easier to get models around with them.
Dark Lances- bring them and bring several. Command rerolls make them much better. We need a reliable way to crack armour and Heat Lances aren't that anymore.
I was impressed with both the Phantasm Grenade Launcher and Darklight Grenades. Both can be very nasty. Power From Pain is now excellent and Combat Drugs not being random is great.
Overall, I really like the way Drukhari played. They feel much less dependent on your luck being consistently good and more about being tactical in movement and combat.
On Marines vs. Drukhari
The Assault Cannon and Missile Launcher (ank HK missile) are pretty nasty now, watch out. Both can make short work of our transports. Storm Bolters are awesome, not overwhelmingly so but they do pump out a lot of fire. Plan on having a rough time taking out Dreadnaughts and tanks unless you can hit them with a lot of Dark Lances or perhaps Monsters. We are WAY better at killing in Close Combat thanks to vast improvement on Wyches/Bloodbrides. The invulnerable save and starting with a 6+ to ignore Wounds is awesome when you can actually use them instead of being killed on the way in.
I used a Crimson Hunter wing in a game I played and they were absolutely fantastic. It was against tyranids and I was able to crush all of the monsters (and there were lots!). Those bright/dark lances are fantastic. Can't wait to try out the Razorwing (I like the flexibility of the missiles).
I've been hearing good things about Heat Lances but they are very pricy. Might be good against sniping characters as you say because with the reavers you're likely able to get into a better position with a super fast advance. Plus the combat drugs for extra movement can help with that too.
Not sure what to do with hellions but the 2 damage seems really good (except no AP if memory serves).
I think the wyches would be best served with hydra gauntlets as well. They are going to have an easier time hitting with the buffs from the succubus and the rerolling the wounding is for sure beneficial since you're likely wounding things on a 5+ (combat drugs notwithstanding).
I'm glad that we aren't flying around in wet paper airplanes anymore, haha.
So, I was running numbers for Scourges. Some interesting things. Scourge is 14 points based with the shardcarbine. Assault 3 poisony goodness. Scourge with Splinter Cannon is 29 points. Which means twice the cost of Scourges with shardcarbines. Since it's all poisony goodness, that means 2 Scourges put out exactly the same firepower at 18", only losing out 3 shots at 18"-36" range. Given how fast they are, it may be worth just running 10 man units of Scourges for 140 points - they dump out 30 poison shots a turn which isn't shabby at all. Alternatively, if you want to be able to play the distance game you probably want the 5 Scourges with 4 Splinter Cannons for 130 points - you still put out 27 shots at 18" range, but gain 12 shots at up to 36" range. The downside being you have less models to contest objectives, are easier to kill for VPs and start losing heavy weapons from the second casualty on.
I was also looking at all the assault anti-tank stuff against Toughness 8 vehicles. All this on Scourges.
4 Heat Lances 170 points
2.68 hits
.88 - maybe cause 3-5 wounds if within 9"
4 Blasters 130 points
2.68 hits
1.34 wound - 2 damage on average
4 Haywire Blasters 102 points
2.68 hits
1-2 mortal wounds, probably causes no wounds itself.
And for completeness
4 Dark Lances 150 points
2.68 hits
1.34 wound - 2-4 damage on average
Heat Lances are so bloody expensive and don't seem worth the extra cost. If they were the same cost as Blasters I'd still be tempted to take the Blasters just for Str 8 vs Str 6.
I also ran some math on Disintegrators vs Dark Lances against toughness 7-8 3+ save. They actually end up being very, very, very close in expected damage with Disintegrators only being slightly behind. And those are the best targets for Dark Lances. In the event the enemy runs a spam list, Disintegrators still get good value.
The only issue is the cost premium. Disintegrators cost 10 points more each compared to Dark Lances. And of course, they can only be found on vehicles. Still, spamming Disintegrators is a good way to cover both tough vehicles and still get value vs hordes.
Holy cow though, it looks like Dark Eldar Flyers are where it's at. Razorwings and Voidraven both seem to be better for the points than Ravagers, at roughly the same cost with all sorts of killy death. Voidraven being excellent against big tough things and Razorwings against most everything else. Plust that mine tho. Hope your opponent has a unit of monsters or sentinels or kans or buggies or what have you, because you can average 2 Mortal wounds a piece on vehicles or monsters in a single unit. Or just drop 7 or so on a unit with at least 10 guys.
I also ran the numbers on Shredders as a note. They are bad. Just very very bad. They are substantially worse than flamers against infantry and you are still better of with pretty much any other option.
Thanks for the math on Scourges Anarchist, very in line with what I was thinking. Due to Haywire & Heat Lances being trash this edition, Scourges are in a bit of a weird place - their best two options seem to be running them at base for the deepstrike splinter fire, or running them in a venom with 4 splinter cannons for a combined 18/39 shots at 36/18" range.
For Dark Lances, they seem outclassed by Ravagers, who have one less shot but are leagues more durable and able to move & shoot with no penalty. I hope they buff HLs and HBs in the future, as well as Shredders & Blasters, because the options for units like Scourges and Trueborn are looking a bit thin this edition.
I do think Heat Lances will be good against T6 Monsters and light vehicles, as well as things like Terminators. They have a use for sure. Requiring a 5 to wound on tanks makes them less reliable than I'd like. For single-shot weapons you need a degree of reliability if you hit. I actually never loved Dark Lances but they seem a necessary evil now.
I for one am ok with fliers being a little easier to take down but being a strong source of firepower.
On Disintegrators, I had the thought they might work better due to weight of fire but my dice were pretty cold against all the armour. Another game or two is probably in order soon.
Void raven with it's void mine will be a thing. Dark lances look good and even better on ravagers which sound like a must have now. Scourge sound decent but same role. Hellions sound like they won't suck as bad and might be worth taking (a shocker because they sucked in our 7th book). Reavers might not be as good but they have more wounds now, are still faster than almost everything else and they sound like a decent gun platform instead of melee now (which is a totally odd role change).
aushlo wrote: I do think Heat Lances will be good against T6 Monsters and light vehicles, as well as things like Terminators. They have a use for sure. Requiring a 5 to wound on tanks makes them less reliable than I'd like. For single-shot weapons you need a degree of reliability if you hit. I actually never loved Dark Lances but they seem a necessary evil now.
I for one am ok with fliers being a little easier to take down but being a strong source of firepower.
On Disintegrators, I had the thought they might work better due to weight of fire but my dice were pretty cold against all the armour. Another game or two is probably in order soon.
Heat Lances would be good at those things, if they weren't 25 points each. They are simply too expensive and limited. Blasters I think are fine overall for 15 points. 18" assault anti tank weapon for that price? Other races are paying 17 for 12" range Meltas. Which are better in their own way but Blasters are far more flexible ranged wise.
I wouldn't take them on Scourges though. Why give up a shardcarbine for them when you can just load a batch of trueborn in a Venom and be giving up only rifles?
aushlo wrote: I assume we pay extra for Heat Lances because of the platform being so fast.
I don't think that's really how weapon costing works this edition, mobility is factored into base cost. Blasters are the same on Warriors and Scourges after all!
Heat Lances are terribly overpriced, compare them to the cheaper 22 point Firepike for example, one extra AP is rubbish compared to +2 strength.
Anyone notice that Archons don't have combat drugs? What a kick in the nuts- my guess is they felt that leadership 11 archons (or 12 if you take the +1ld warlord trait!) would be too powerful in conjunction with his aura, but god damn he really does seem useless compared to his rival HQs. It's especially goofy that he can't take them yet the notoriously straight-edge Lelith can.
Anyway, how do you guys think we'll hold up in this horde/fast assault edition? I was watching Reecius' game against Frankie and Reece' kans really tore Frankie's Deldar a new one, though Frankie didn't do a very good job of trying to keep his raiders out of assault range.
I think we'll do just fine against horde. We have some of the best anti-infantry mobile firepower in the game. Probably need to really focus fire to make gaps for our transports though.
One concern I have is splinter cannon cost more than other factions anti infantry heavy weapons while wounding on 4+ instead of 3+. Plus they often get AP -1
Does the six shots make up for that? Can anyone run the numbers for heavy bolters, shuriken cannons?
Anyone try running blasterborn in a venom? Yo can get a squad of five with four blasters in it for only 115 points. Putting them in a venom with two splintercannons takes it up to 240 points..
That seems really not bad for a unit that's dishing out 4 str8 rend4 shots and 12 poison shots at 18".
You should never take the splinter cannon upgrade on venoms. You're paying the same price for the weapon with only a minor upgrade to damage output. Save the points and spend it on something else.
Splinter Cannons on Scourges are good if you want to load them onto a Venom and keep them as a gunboat. They effectively double its transport capacity and Scourges aren't affected by any aura anyway so you don't loose out on that.
They're an alternative to Blaster-born in Venoms or Raiders, only filling a different role.
Actually for only a few points extra, granting them double movement speed, <Fly>, Deepstrike, +1 Armor, 6+ Invul while losing -1A per model and the possible Archon aura giving them +1Ld, is there really any reason to take them over Trueborn unless strapped for points?
I've gotten a few games in now. I'm liking my Dark Eldar but there are a couple things I'm not sold on.
I'm not too keen on heat lances because they cost so much and have a hard time wounding the targets you want to shoot them at. Why are they so expensive when a multi-melta has a longer range and higher strength?
I also don't feel like blasters are right compared to a melta gun. You get a little more range, but lose the melta rule to roll two dice and pick the highest, and most importantly you're only d3 damage instead of d6 for basically the same cost.
Wyrlock wrote: Splinter Cannons on Scourges are good if you want to load them onto a Venom and keep them as a gunboat. They effectively double its transport capacity and Scourges aren't affected by any aura anyway so you don't loose out on that.
They're an alternative to Blaster-born in Venoms or Raiders, only filling a different role.
Actually for only a few points extra, granting them double movement speed, <Fly>, Deepstrike, +1 Armor, 6+ Invul while losing -1A per model and the possible Archon aura giving them +1Ld, is there really any reason to take them over Trueborn unless strapped for points?
It's better to utilize the Scourges ability to Deepstrike than to set them up in a Venom. You could use your first couple of deployments to place them in Deepstrike Reserve and watch your opponent place some units on the table.
It's a great way to counter deploy without exposing your strategy.
lessthanjeff wrote: I've gotten a few games in now. I'm liking my Dark Eldar but there are a couple things I'm not sold on.
I'm not too keen on heat lances because they cost so much and have a hard time wounding the targets you want to shoot them at. Why are they so expensive when a multi-melta has a longer range and higher strength?
I also don't feel like blasters are right compared to a melta gun. You get a little more range, but lose the melta rule to roll two dice and pick the highest, and most importantly you're only d3 damage instead of d6 for basically the same cost.
The change in how Melta works really hurt the Heat Lance, since you no longer get a bonus to wounding anymore S6 just doesnt cut it. I mean compared to standard Melta's and Fusion guns it's always traded strength for range and Lance and thats generally worked for it but thats now over.
Not sure why you're comparing the Blaster to the Heat Lance in that way since Dark Light weapons aren't supposed to be melta's, it's a cut down Dark Lance so having less range and and damage seems right, the fact it keeps S8 and AP-4 makes them pretty good, especially being Assault and 10pts cheaper than the Heat Lance.
lessthanjeff wrote: I've gotten a few games in now. I'm liking my Dark Eldar but there are a couple things I'm not sold on.
I'm not too keen on heat lances because they cost so much and have a hard time wounding the targets you want to shoot them at. Why are they so expensive when a multi-melta has a longer range and higher strength?
I also don't feel like blasters are right compared to a melta gun. You get a little more range, but lose the melta rule to roll two dice and pick the highest, and most importantly you're only d3 damage instead of d6 for basically the same cost.
The change in how Melta works really hurt the Heat Lance, since you no longer get a bonus to wounding anymore S6 just doesnt cut it. I mean compared to standard Melta's and Fusion guns it's always traded strength for range and Lance and thats generally worked for it but thats now over.
Not sure why you're comparing the Blaster to the Heat Lance in that way since Dark Light weapons aren't supposed to be melta's, it's a cut down Dark Lance so having less range and and damage seems right, the fact it keeps S8 and AP-4 makes them pretty good, especially being Assault and 10pts cheaper than the Heat Lance.
I didn't compare the blaster to the heat lance. I compared it to a melta gun, as in the imperial version. Look at the stats of those two and tell me which you would rather have for nearly the same cost. Their multi-melta going down to the melta gun doesn't cut their damage in half but our dark lance going down to the blaster does.
Thoughts on the soon to be released FW Drukhari vehicle rules?
From another thread
...The most detailed look I got was at the Dark Eldar stuff. Tantalus is 350 points w/ all gear. It's T7, has 18 wounds and 2 6-shot disintegrators. It's also S8 AP-2 in melee with 6 attacks. It can transport 16 models, and if your warlord is on board all Drukhari in LOS get to use his leadership as long as they aren't in cover. The reaper is 150 points all in. It has one gun that can fire either d6 darklance shots or 2d6 S6 AP0 shots - either way, if you hit the target can't advance. Also has a shock-prow equivalent by a different name for free.
What do you all think of loading up on a really Beast-heavy army? It seems to me that Razorwings, Khymerae and Clawed Fiends are all really efficient for their points.
They're still pretty cheap for what they offer. 3 S4 attacks hitting on a 3+ isn't bad for a unit that moves 10" and only costs 10 points. I think on their own they'd be a good option, it's only when looked at in comparison to the admittedly much better Razorwings that they look bad.
I don't use transports, so for me Khymerae are better than Wyches for around the same cost.
Robin5t wrote: What do you all think of loading up on a really Beast-heavy army? It seems to me that Razorwings, Khymerae and Clawed Fiends are all really efficient for their points.
I'm having a grand ole' time fielding lots of beasts with the Yncarne. Fixes their morale problem, more wounds means more 6s to ignore them, and lots of Aeldari wounds to tank up the Yncarne when it takes damage. Smaller beast units also trigger a lot of Soulbursts.
Now that everything can wound everything, talk of flooding the board with 120+ razorwing flocks, while ridiculous, is actually pretty deadly.
DirtyDeeds wrote: You should never take the splinter cannon upgrade on venoms. You're paying the same price for the weapon with only a minor upgrade to damage output. Save the points and spend it on something else.
DirtyDeeds wrote: You should never take the splinter cannon upgrade on venoms. You're paying the same price for the weapon with only a minor upgrade to damage output. Save the points and spend it on something else.
Is this true?
Yeah. You pay the same price to trade 1 Splinter Rifle (on a kabalite for instance) for a Splinter Cannon, thus tripling their firepower and adding 12" range, as you to do exchange 2 splinter rifles for a splinter cannon on the Venom, only adding 1/3 to the firepower and adding 12" range.
DirtyDeeds wrote: You should never take the splinter cannon upgrade on venoms. You're paying the same price for the weapon with only a minor upgrade to damage output. Save the points and spend it on something else.
Is this true?
Yeah. You pay the same price to trade 1 Splinter Rifle (on a kabalite for instance) for a Splinter Cannon, thus tripling their firepower and adding 12" range, as you to do exchange 2 splinter rifles for a splinter cannon on the Venom, only adding 1/3 to the firepower and adding 12" range.
This makes it generally an inefficient buy.
Actually, I think it's still a good buy on the venom. Sure, it's not as good as it was last edition. However, there are still 2 things to consider:
- Venoms are far more durable than Warriors. And I'd much rather have my heavy weapons on tougher platforms.
- In addition, unlike Warriors, Venoms can never be locked down by combat. They're also much faster than Warriors (granted, the Warriors can take a Raider, but for that price you could have had 2 Venoms with dual Splinter Cannons).
- It means both of the Venom's weapons have the same optimum range (18") and the same maximum range (36"). Their optimum range is already short enough without reducing it still further to a measly 12".
I think it's still a solid option and you're probably still going to get more value from those 15pts than you would if you spent them elsewhere in your army.
I've 3 games into 8, all with my DE, and I've got to say, I've been very pleasantly surprised with the Covens. My thoughts:
Haemonculi are a great HQ unit. That T boost is really worthwhile, and even if the Haemonculus was otherwise a pure tax, they may be worth it for that bubble. However, they're fighty little freaks! I've been really impressed with how they've held their own with Electrocorrosive Whips.
Wracks are super cheap for what they do. The Haemy toughness boost makes them a major pain to remove.
Grots are one of the units that surprised me. I thought they were a little bit overrated in 7th, even in the Grotesquerie (maybe that's because I have terrible luck). In 8th, with what looked like minimal changes, I was unimpressed. However, the following things are big:
a. 5++ invuln (obviously, that applies to all the Covens stuff). With a 5++ and the 6+++ FNP equivalent, you're saving about 45% of your wounds; close to a 4+. That's not too bad, and it makes them more resilient than they were in 7th in most cases.
b. A flat number of attacks means you can blob the Grotesques and not have to worry about losing Rampage like you did in 7th.
c. In most cases, with S5, you don't need to use Flesh Gauntlets; run the Monstrous Cleavers. That -1 AP is frequently useful.
d. PfP boosting to-hit rolls is awesome.
e. 7'' move is great.
I'm soooo thankful that my initial assessments of Grotesques was wrong. They've been a workhorse in my lists.
Speaking of workhorses, the Talos has been more effective and flexible than I would have guessed looking at the statline. I think you have to stick to a fairly restricted loadout, though; 2 Macro Scalpels and the twin Splinter Cannon. The Heat Lance on the Talos seems AWFUL to me -- that many points to statistically hit with only one of the shots, and need a 5+ to wound a vehicle? This weapon is broken in the bad way in 8th. Maybe it works on Reavers, but I don't see how it's going to do much for the Pain Engine. With Macro Scalpels, you keep the model relatively cheap, able to put out a lot of dakka, and a lot of attacks; it's a TACMC with 8'' of movement at a relatively low price point.
What I don't know -- I'm kind of skeptical about Urien Rakarth. Casket of Flensing is meh, and he's less flexible than your usual Haemonculus. I also think the Cronos looks pretty bad; it doesn't do much of anything, and its healing boon requires it to kill something in combat, which, without the built in AP2, seems less likely. Has anyone had success with the Cronos? I'd love to know what you're doing.
I don't know about Grots, whilst not a bad unit they are strictly worse than they were in 8th as they're 5pts more expensive, will have less attacks in small groups (and at 40pts each you're probably not running large groups), lost re-rolls to wound against T4 or less, and unlike most units of a similar size did not gain a wound so are more vulnerable to multi damage weapons. The invuln and WS3+ are a definite buff though. For me the problem is that Clawed Fiends with a Beast Master look like they might be better for less.
Talos looks great actually, The T6 isn't such a huge problem with the change to the wound chart and whilst the Ichor Injector is worse than useless now but the D2 and extra attacks from Macro Scalpels is great, and -1AP seems to get underestimated a lot.
I'm liking the Cronos, his biggest selling point is the re-roll 1's to wound for friendly Drukhari units (not just Coven), given how many attacks our CC units put out it's not to be underestimated at all, the regaining wounds is a nice bonus on top. Whilst it's shooting isn't great, the fact that it gets to use both of it's guns again and that SPlit Fire is now a thing is a definite boost as well, it's just a shame that the Spirit Probes regen ability doesn't trigger off of the shooting as well, but at 115pts that might have made it a bit too cheap.
Got my second game in today against my regular gaming buddy, once again vs. Space Marines. I mixed it up a bit and brought two squads of Warriors on foot with Lance and Blaster, four Grotesques and a Haemonculus in Raider, Cronos and Talos, Archon, a unit of ten Mandrakes, ten Hellions, Ravager, two kabalite squads in Raiders (splinter cannon and Blaster), ten Wracks in Raider and Heat Lance Scourges. I left Reavers, Bloodbrides and Razorwing Jetfighter at home for a change and to check out other units. Conclusions:
Mandrakes are nasty as hell. The amount of shots plus mortal wounds in shooting, and a respectable number of Str 4 attacks, makes them actually really solid. I never even managed a cover save situation but the invuls were going well and they were surprisingly tough. They killed off a full Devastator Squad (combat squadded no less), mostly in shooting, and drew a lot of fire/combat before being dragged down. Wracks hit a Dreadnaught, not the best for them, but once again made good Invuls and were a great tar pit. Grotesques are still deadly, maybe better for the -1 armour and five attacks all day. Missed the reroll to wound of last edition but I think they killed about the same number of Marines they ever did. Scourges killed a Storm Talon which was awesome. Hellions finished off a wounded Rhino and ate tons of fire before dying to a man- Str +1 as the way to go, they are actually pretty good transport killers with a little help. I was unimpressed with Talos and Cronos, my saves were garbage however. In total my opponent had four Razorbacks, two Storm Talons, two Dreadnaughts (one a Chaplain) and a Predator with Autocannon and Heavy Bolters. The sheer output of shots was pretty overwhelming and my dice for vehicle saves were ice cold, I was out almost all my skiffs turn two. In the end I really struggled against his armour, which I think may be a bit of a theme when we get in firefights with high rate of fire armour- our Dark Lances can be awesome but single shots hurt- save those Command Points.
vipoid wrote:Any thoughts on using Ynnari DE with Yvraine?
I have run Ynnari with Ravagers and Incubi in Raiders. Yvraine is good on her own, +1 to cast and deny is very optimal. And she isn't bad in combat either. Incubi are awesome. I have yet to regret bringing some in all my lists.
^ saw the comments above on the Tantalus. I think it looks super solid for the cost. It would be super cool to have a Flagship Tantalus for Yvraine in my lists. Cool factor wins games right? :p
The tantalus does not have 2 6shot disintegrators. It has pulse disintegrators which have 3 more strength. Mathmatically I think it may be our best anti tank weapon actually.
Also the leadership buff does NOT specify drukhari.
Also it "smites" every enemy unit within an inch when it charges. D3 mortal wounds on a 4+.
It costs about 100 points more than the 3 bare bone venoms I was running and carries everything i had in them so I think I may keep using mine for the foreseeable future.
Also the leadership buff does NOT specify drukhari.
Yes it's all friendly units. You can take an under strength unit of one Hekatrix with +2 Ld drugs, make her your warlord, and give your whole army Ld 10 without worrying about disembarking. Great for beasts and footsloggers, amazing for a teammate with a low leadership army.
Talos and grotesques are still among my favorite units. Mostly beacuse I've always played DE with assault oriented lists and I don't want to with pure pure shooting now. But since reavers got nerfed in close combat the only decent melee units we have are talos, grots and incubi, which are quite vulnerable though. Wyches can't really cause a lot of damage, I like them but I would play them only in a wych cult themed army. Hellions are garbage in close combat, only S4, no AP, few attacks. And they're extremely squishy.
Talos are good in big units of three with an haemonculus behind them. Grots are good in units of 4 plus the haemy in a raider.
I'm currently running some sort of grotesquerie with 2 units of 4 grots in raiders, one with an haemonculus and one with a succubus. 3 talos followed by the second haemonculus, then ravagers and kabalite in venoms.
The coven units seems the best ones in my experience, but ravagers are great anti tank tools and kabalites in venoms still quite useful. The haemy with elec. whip is decent in close combat, better than the archon and maybe even the succubus.
The razorwing blob plus beastmaster should be great, if only I had the models I could give them a try.
Also the leadership buff does NOT specify drukhari.
Yes it's all friendly units. You can take an under strength unit of one Hekatrix with +2 Ld drugs, make her your warlord, and give your whole army Ld 10 without worrying about disembarking. Great for beasts and footsloggers, amazing for a teammate with a low leadership army.
Wouldn't you have to pay the cost of a min sized wych squad for that hekatrix?
Hi guys, after a short time of hesitation with Tau for my second army I've settled with the Drukhari who I've loved since 7th edition for their aesthetics, tactics and fluff. However I settled with AdMech and now with 8th edition Drukhari looks more balanced then before and so I bought my first Start Collecting Drukhari a few days ago. However I have a few questions, as I am writing a 1500 pts draft list to know which boxes to buy next.
My favourite themes in the army are Raiders filled with Warriors, and the models from the Haemonculi covens, so I'd like to build an army around these. I'm planning on buying a second Start Collecting box as my next Drukhari purchase to have 2x 10 Kabalites and their Raiders. I didn't complete my list yet (I'll post it here once it's done) because obviously I don't know the army as much as you guys do so I'll ask for your wisdom I don't intend on playing tournaments or other really competitive events, only matched play in my store, but I'd like a solid list built around my favourite units and with a thematic I like, that can still win in a TAC situation (there's always opponents who don't do TAC lists sadly). So, questions:
- 2x Raiders with 10 Kabalite Warriors, each squad with a Blaster and a Splinter Cannon, one Raider with Dark Lance and the other with Disintegrator, good idea or not ? Looks like a nice antipersonnel firepower, with the Blasters and Dark Lance to harass vehicles/monsters, and the Disintegrator to kill some TEQ, but it's only theory;
- As an assault force, I'm thinking on one or two min squads of Wracks with Liquifier guns or Ossefactors supported by a Haemonculus. As they wield Assault weapons they could advance rather quickly to their targets and having T5 seems decent enough to survive a few shots in their general direction. One squad of 5 looks rather feeble however, should I go with two squads ? Or one big squad ?;
- HQs: Archon with Blast pistol and Agoniser, with two Sslyth bodyguards. The idea being sending him in CC, should I buy him a Venom to get close faster or would it be a waste ? Second HQ would be the Haemonculus with Stinger pistol and Flesh Gauntlet to fill the same role but footslogging with his Wrack friends;
- Reavers, I'll have 6 of them with the Start Collecting boxes but I don't know if I should include 3 or 6 in my army given their point cost, I'm thinking they may be nice character killers with their speed and equipped with Heat Lances, what do you think ?
- Hellions look really nice as CC units, especially with their disengage & charge ability. Not that I expect them to last a round against a skilled unit, but still. What's the general consensus about them and their role ?
- I seem to lack in the anti-vehicle department, but I don't know which platform should I use. A Ravager with Dark Lances looks like a solid choice, but I'm thinking about the Scourges and wonder if they could fill that role with their special weapons options. The Dark Lances, Haywire Blasters or just Blasters. I love the models so I'll get myself a box but I've yet to come with a good idea for their loadout.
- Could you tell me what's the use of the Talos and Cronos ? Their weapons options look so spread among possibilities that I have no idea what they're about. Are Grotesques good too ?
I think I'm done with the questions for now. I'd like to include Incubi too, I guess they should be in a Venom. Mandrakes look interesting but I don't know how to use them yet. Are Trueborns must-take units ? They look like they could resolve my anti-vehicle problem.
Thanks in advance for taking the time to read all this
Assault force: wracks are still meh, if you look for assault go with grotesques joined by an haemonculus.
Reavers: they've been quite nerfed in this edition, I think their best loadout is a unit of 6 dudes with 2 blasters, 2 grav talons and an agoniser. Maybe heat lances instead of blasters, but I always preferred the latter.
Hellions: IMHO they're still terrible, especially in close combat. Yes they can cause 2D but they're only S4 with no AP which means they can only inflict some wounds against troops. Multiwound models are usually T5+ and armor 4+ which invalidates pretty much all the hellions attacks.
Talos/cronos: I field a unit of three backed up by an haemonculus, and I like them. Not as deadly as they were in 7th but the compete with ravagers and raiders to take the anti tank which is positive and they're still decent in close combat. Cronos is overcosted for what it does, it's not useless but even in 7th I played it only in the specific formation.
Trueborns: I don't like them. A unit in a venom costs too many points and it's quite easy to kill it. If you need a distraction/bullet magnet they can be an option but ravagers are way better. I typically include a blaster in each unit of kabalite in venoms, having more bodies and special weapons spread across the bord is helpful.
Blackie wrote: Assault force: wracks are still meh, if you look for assault go with grotesques joined by an haemonculus.
Reavers: they've been quite nerfed in this edition, I think their best loadout is a unit of 6 dudes with 2 blasters, 2 grav talons and an agoniser. Maybe heat lances instead of blasters, but I always preferred the latter.
Hellions: IMHO they're still terrible, especially in close combat. Yes they can cause 2D but they're only S4 with no AP which means they can only inflict some wounds against troops. Multiwound models are usually T5+ and armor 4+ which invalidates pretty much all the hellions attacks.
Talos/cronos: I field a unit of three backed up by an haemonculus, and I like them. Not as deadly as they were in 7th but the compete with ravagers and raiders to take the anti tank which is positive and they're still decent in close combat. Cronos is overcosted for what it does, it's not useless but even in 7th I played it only in the specific formation.
Trueborns: I don't like them. A unit in a venom costs too many points and it's quite easy to kill it. If you need a distraction/bullet magnet they can be an option but ravagers are way better. I typically include a blaster in each unit of kabalite in venoms, having more bodies and special weapons spread across the bord is helpful.
Thanks for the advice. I think I'll skip Hellions for now, Reavers still look nice to me, I'll equip a squad of three with a Heat Lance and Grav-talon for character hunting, and another squad with a Blaster and Grav-talon to hunt units on objectives.Using the combat drugs for them looks like a good idea, don't which is best between the +1 attack (nice with the Agoniser), or the +1 WS. Maybe the +1 WS for the character hunter because I have bad rolls in CC haha
As for the Grotesques/Wracks comparison I don't know, 3 Grotesques with Liquifier Guns and Flesh Gauntlets cost 150 pts and two 5-man squads of Wracks with Liquifier Guns is 126 pts. I have more attacks with the Wracks that still wounds on 4+ (albeit without the chance for a mortal wound), and they're T5 compared to T6 of the Grotesques. I have 10 W in total with the Wracks against the 9 of the Grotesques. Overall it seems they balance each other, I can have 4 Liquifier Guns with the Wracks if I buy them with the Acothysts. By the way, is that correct ? It says "the Acothyst may take an item from the Weapons of Torture/Tools of Torment list", but the lists states that you may replace a melee/ranged weapon with weapons of the lists, so that implies I have to buy him a ranged weapon before replacing it. What's the answer ?
I'll skip Trueborns then, they look to be overcosted for just the ability to take more special weapons. As you said, spreading them in the army looks like a better plan, and the army is really mobile either way so no problem switching targets.
About the Scourges, I skipped over the Haywire Blasters as an option for their loadout because it seemed weak but now that I'm reading it again it looks nice with 4 of them in a squad. It basically deals mortal wounds to vehicles and with a little luck you could get a few D3 of them, it's nice against vehicles with invulnerable saves. However it seems better for finishing off vehicles rather than reliably wreck them like you could do with Dark Lances. Maybe a blend of both weapons ?
I'm still a fan of trueborn myself. Ran 4 units of them against the Guilliman Razorback and Devastator spam list and still managed a win thanks in large part to them. I like both the 5 man unit with just 2 dark lances for sitting back and I like the 5 man unit with 4 blasters and a phantasm grenade launcher. They're a versatile unit able to do decent damage to vehicles or clear out tough infantry models with ease. They cost less than the elite units of most other armies too.
So the idea is to have these Warriors harassing the enemy from afar to distract the enemy and weaken their gunline while staying close to an objective in case of the destruction of their Raider, while the Haemonculus and his fleshy friends make their way up by foot to go full CC after softening up their targets with the Liquifiers and such. My Scourges would take a part in destroying heavy targets and could use their mobility to grab on objective or such. I'll have them deep strike depending on my opponent's list and the terrain's setting. The Ravager would take the biggest part in destroying enemy heavy armour. The Reavers with the Heat Lance have character/leader assassination duty, while the other squad can do whatever they want, harass or grab objectives at the last minute. The Archon would seek CC with his Sslyth bodyguards, but sadly I didn't find the points to have them in a Venom.
Yeah if you have dudes in transports i'd say rapid fire and assault weapons esp. are much better on infantry inside them.
Anyway i played a few games and i'm not up to par yet. It's still very new for me and i haven't checked everything. For some reason i'm heavily considering getting hellions though (the previous worst unit of 7th edition). I feel like they might actually be ok now. You might even get a turn one charge if you're lucky and choosing combat drugs helps too.
Void raven seems to suck now. I thought the void mine would be good and it is but the issue is when it deploys turn one most juicy targets are mounted in transports or something and most of the rest of the voidraven attacks are just garbage.
I find scourge to be alright, reavers are way overpriced for what they do now (nerfed big time) and ravagers seem really good. I'm mixed on venoms because now they need to be closer to the enemy to get a lot of shots. Basically venoms do ok damage, are harder to hit and don't take vehicle degradation but a few multi wound attacks against it and it will fall hard. Ravagers seem really good now btw.
Also if i'm not wrong a vehicle moving normally counts for the infantry moving so infantry inside can shoot as per after moving if a vehicle didn't go flat out. If it did assault weapons should still be able to shoot on the warriors themselves.
Hellions are certainly better than before but still quite weak in close combat. That 2 damage is nullyfied by their low S and AP, they don't have a lot of attacks either. And they're quite vulnerable to any kind of firepower as well.
With only S4 with no ap the ideal hellions' targets are infantries but then their 2D becomes useless. Against multiwounds models they won't do anything, since wounding on 5s and with no AP means very little unsaved wounds.
I haven't found a room for hellions yet, not even in a 2000 points full wych cult list. I still prefer bikes, that says all.
Voidraven bombers are quite good actually, razorwing jetfighters are effective as well.
I think the issue is that they cost as much as elite units, yet their stats are what you'd expect from a ~5pt horde unit.
They also lack focus, in that they have a bit of shooting and a bit of melee, but they're not good at either (especially given their cost).
I'm thinking they're meant to be suicide squads and/or throwaway harassers. 10 of them with the +1A combat drug will mathematically kill 2 terminators per turn just in melee. Problem is that's 170 points, a terribly expensive suicide squad.
That said, with their fancy fall back shoot charge rule, if you get them in the backlines tying up a tank or something with big guns, they can do alright. If they came on from a table edge or something they might almost be worth it.
But, same as everything else in our list, they're just too expensive for what they do.
So, I just picked up a friend of mine's DE for a steal, and then on top of that, picked up sprues for about 30 Kabalites, also at steal, and I'm getting ready to do some stripping, remodelling, and painting, and I'm trying to figure out from all this what I should do with all these models and what I should aim for as far as lists.
So, all together, I'll probably have about 50 bodies worth of Kabalites (right now I've just got to squads already assembled as full 10s with power sword/blast pistol, blaster, dark lance, 7 splinter). From what I'm seeing, it seems like there's more value in running Trueborn than Warriors, and where you do run Warriors, small, unaltered squads just to hold objective were best, and dark lances aren't really worth the points for Trueborn, so I'm planning on just running 5 man squads with blasters and agonizer/blast pistol)
I've got 10 Wyches, 1x hydra gauntlets, 1x shardnet and impaler, 1x razorflails. From what I'm seeing, it seems like Wyches are worthless, but I keep seeing mixed things on whether Hekatrixes are.
I have 15 Reavers, right now every third is equipped with a heat lance, but I'm getting the impression that for the points and utility, blasters would be better, and I'm wondering if grav-talons are worthwhile.
15 Hellions,
I've got 10 scourges, which came to me kitted out in 5 man squads, each with one shredder, one blaster, one dark lance, and one heat lance. Based on a lot of what I'm seeing, should I re-outfit them to just have their standard shardcarbines, maybe splinter cannons, for a more anti-infantry deep-striking unit, and save the expensive weapons for units in vehicles?
5 incubi, trying to figure out if they're worth the points or not. I like the damage they do...I don't like how easy they die.
I've got a Crimson Hunter I'm converting into a Razorwing, in an anti-infantry setup, 2 disintegrator cannons and a splinter cannon
Other than that, I've just got 3 raiders (disintegrator cannons), a ravager (3 lances), 2 Archons (1 huskblade and blast pistol, one agonizer and splinter pistol), and I'm gonna kitbash together a Succubus.
Any thoughts?
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Blackie wrote: Hellions are certainly better than before but still quite weak in close combat. That 2 damage is nullyfied by their low S and AP, they don't have a lot of attacks either. And they're quite vulnerable to any kind of firepower as well.
With only S4 with no ap the ideal hellions' targets are infantries but then their 2D becomes useless. Against multiwounds models they won't do anything, since wounding on 5s and with no AP means very little unsaved wounds.
I haven't found a room for hellions yet, not even in a 2000 points full wych cult list. I still prefer bikes, that says all.
Voidraven bombers are quite good actually, razorwing jetfighters are effective as well.
I've noticed that in the couple games I've played with my DE so far. I love the Hellions, they're great models and they -seem- so great, but I can't get around the fact that I'm either wasting a damage on MEQ whose toughness and save they can actually get through, or I'm just wasting my time wailing on termies who they could kill if it wasn't for that 2+. The so-so firepower I don't mind, I just wish they had a bit of AP on those hellglaives.
Blasters and grav talons for reavers are solid options, I certainly prefer blasters over lances.
Wyches are not worthless but they need to be played very carefully and with a list that has synergy with them. Same for the incubi, they can be an effective anti elites tool but they're far from being auto-take options in a drukhari list.
The trueborn with blasters are a very solid option though, 5 man squads of warriors in venoms are not bad either.
1) So, all together, I'll probably have about 50 bodies worth of Kabalites (right now I've just got to squads already assembled as full 10s with power sword/blast pistol, blaster, dark lance, 7 splinter). From what I'm seeing, it seems like there's more value in running Trueborn than Warriors, and where you do run Warriors, small, unaltered squads just to hold objective were best, and dark lances aren't really worth the points for Trueborn, so I'm planning on just running 5 man squads with blasters and agonizer/blast pistol)
2) I've got 10 Wyches, 1x hydra gauntlets, 1x shardnet and impaler, 1x razorflails. From what I'm seeing, it seems like Wyches are worthless, but I keep seeing mixed things on whether Hekatrixes are.
3) I have 15 Reavers, right now every third is equipped with a heat lance, but I'm getting the impression that for the points and utility, blasters would be better, and I'm wondering if grav-talons are worthwhile.
4) 15 Hellions,
5) I've got 10 scourges, which came to me kitted out in 5 man squads, each with one shredder, one blaster, one dark lance, and one heat lance. Based on a lot of what I'm seeing, should I re-outfit them to just have their standard shardcarbines, maybe splinter cannons, for a more anti-infantry deep-striking unit, and save the expensive weapons for units in vehicles?
6) 5 incubi, trying to figure out if they're worth the points or not. I like the damage they do...I don't like how easy they die.
7) I've got a Crimson Hunter I'm converting into a Razorwing, in an anti-infantry setup, 2 disintegrator cannons and a splinter cannon
8) Other than that, I've just got 3 raiders (disintegrator cannons), a ravager (3 lances), 2 Archons (1 huskblade and blast pistol, one agonizer and splinter pistol), and I'm gonna kitbash together a Succubus.
Any thoughts?
9) I've noticed that in the couple games I've played with my DE so far. I love the Hellions, they're great models and they -seem- so great, but I can't get around the fact that I'm either wasting a damage on MEQ whose toughness and save they can actually get through, or I'm just wasting my time wailing on termies who they could kill if it wasn't for that 2+. The so-so firepower I don't mind, I just wish they had a bit of AP on those hellglaives.
(I've added numbers so that I can respond point-by-point.)
1) Trueborn do indeed tend to be better than Warriors - mainly because they are much better at specialising.
Anyway, if you do use Warriors, I'd recommend using either 10 with a PGL, Blaster and Dark Lance in a Raider or else 2 squads of 5 with Blasters and PGLs in a Raider. The former gives you a long-range AT weapon, the latter has no penalty for moving and allows you to split your squad as and when needed.
I'd never use Blast Pistols. Their range is far too short to make them worthwhile - especially given how expensive they are.
2) Wyches are indeed pretty awful. If you want to try them, go for it. However, I strongly recommend that you make sure your list has a solid core before adding wyches to it.
3) Blasters are definitely better than Heat Lances at the moment, and Grav Talons are indeed worth it to try and give them some meaningful impact in combat. Unfortunately, Reavers in general are rather overpriced at the moment, but I wish you luck with yours.
4) I'm not a fan of these but I've suggested some tactics at #9.
5) Personally, I'd recommend equipping them with either Dark Lances or Blasters (maybe one of each). Shardcarbines are alright, but given that you can get the same effect on basic troops and transports it seems like a waste to have it on your special/heavy weapon squad. In terms of Dark Lances vs Blasters, Blasters are cheaper and allow you to move and fire without penalty, but also mean that your fragile Scourges will have to be closer to the action. Dark Lances want you to get into position and then stay there as much as possible. However, even when moving the d6 damage means they're still as effective as Blasters against most vehicles and MCs. Up to you. If you're interested, this topic has been discussed at length on www.thedarkcity.net.
6) I've heard a lot of people say that Incubi are out best melee unit. Personally, I'm not a fan of melee stuff due to our new transport rules (since we can no longer disembark after the transport moves). However, others seem to have had a lot of success with them so I can only assume that they're doing something right. Again, I'd suggest heading over to thedarkcity.net and asking for some advice there.
7) Razorwings are great in 7th.
8) Regarding your Archons, Blasters are vastly preferable to Blast Pistols (or splinter pistols), so if you can swap to those (or proxy them) I'd highly recommend doing so. Also, Agonisers are better than Huskblades, but this is far more minor (I'd consider Achons to be primarily shooting units in 8th, so their melee weapon is of secondary importance). Also, you might want to give one a Huskblade just to help differentiate them, so there's that.
Regarding Raiders, there are by far our best transport in 8th (since the Venom was nerfed to hell). I'd recommend getting more if you can. If your group allows proxies, I'd consider trying the Ravager with Disintegrators and seeing if you prefer them to Dark Lances (I mention it because Scourges, Trueborn and Warriors can all bring Dark Lances but only Raiders and Ravagers can bring Disintegrators - and they're very good this edition).
In terms of a Succubus, I think she's an awful HQ but each to their own. If you're looking to convert one, might I suggest starting with a Hellion's Hellglaive as the basis for her own Glaive? Also, it's quite easy to get a left-handed Splinter Pistol by cutting the body of a Splinter Pistol off a Wych's hand, cutting the blade off a Wych's knife and then gluing the two together.
9) Yeah, this is one of the reasons I don't like Hellions (the other is that they're an 18pt model with T3 and a 5+ save). Personally, I've always seen them as more of a shooty unit than a melee one. If you want a different target for them, have you considered throwing them at vehicles (shoot something else first, obviously)? Aside from damage 2, their weapons are awful against vehicles. However, even if you don't do much damage, you'll prevent that vehicle from shooting at all in your opponent's turn. What's more, if you can encircle said vehicle (and it doesn't have the Fly rule) then it can't Fall Back - meaning your Hellions will be effectively locked in combat (meaning your opponent can't shoot them). Same goes for any non-flying infantry unit that they successfully encircle.
I don't know if this tactic appeals to you, but I mention it because hellions are one of the few units fast and numerous enough to pull it off. Also, the best part is that if they do stay locked in combat, they can break away with no penalty and then shoot and assault again afterwards.
I hope at least some of this is helpful. Good luck and welcome to the Dark Side.
(I've added numbers so that I can respond point-by-point.)
Spoiler:
1) Trueborn do indeed tend to be better than Warriors - mainly because they are much better at specialising.
Anyway, if you do use Warriors, I'd recommend using either 10 with a PGL, Blaster and Dark Lance in a Raider or else 2 squads of 5 with Blasters and PGLs in a Raider. The former gives you a long-range AT weapon, the latter has no penalty for moving and allows you to split your squad as and when needed.
I'd never use Blast Pistols. Their range is far too short to make them worthwhile - especially given how expensive they are.
I can see what you mean with the blast pistols. I honestly don't know that I've ever actually fired on, they just came to me modeled that way. I should have no shortage of splinter pistols, tho.
Spoiler:
3) Blasters are definitely better than Heat Lances at the moment, and Grav Talons are indeed worth it to try and give them some meaningful impact in combat. Unfortunately, Reavers in general are rather overpriced at the moment, but I wish you luck with yours.
Yeah, I'm not insanely in love with the price, but right now I am still in a bit of that "work with what you got" phase of buying a second-hand army. Still, I've gotten some decent utility out of them, and some nice survivability. Here's hoping GW means what they say about re-evaluating points throughout the edition and those prices come down. It does seem like compared to other units 20-22 pts would be a lot more realistic.
Spoiler:
5) Personally, I'd recommend equipping them with either Dark Lances or Blasters (maybe one of each). Shardcarbines are alright, but given that you can get the same effect on basic troops and transports it seems like a waste to have it on your special/heavy weapon squad. In terms of Dark Lances vs Blasters, Blasters are cheaper and allow you to move and fire without penalty, but also mean that your fragile Scourges will have to be closer to the action. Dark Lances want you to get into position and then stay there as much as possible. However, even when moving the d6 damage means they're still as effective as Blasters against most vehicles and MCs. Up to you. If you're interested, this topic has been discussed at length on www.thedarkcity.net.
So, with this, would you be recommending 1 DL, 1 Blaster per squad, and the rest with shardcarbines, or just splitting the whole squad evenly between DL and Blasters?
Spoiler:
8) Regarding your Archons, Blasters are vastly preferable to Blast Pistols (or splinter pistols), so if you can swap to those (or proxy them) I'd highly recommend doing so. Also, Agonisers are better than Huskblades, but this is far more minor (I'd consider Achons to be primarily shooting units in 8th, so their melee weapon is of secondary importance). Also, you might want to give one a Huskblade just to help differentiate them, so there's that.
If I'm being perfectly honest, I hadn't even noticed Archons could take blasters. They came to me modeled the way they are, so I just assumed they only got pistols and didn't read the wargear that close. I was already thinking I might switch the huskblade for an atomizer, since 6 points doesn't seem worth it for d3 damage on a weapon less likely to wound, or just painting it as a powersword. Definitely gonna be popping blasters in them, though.
Spoiler:
Regarding Raiders, there are by far our best transport in 8th (since the Venom was nerfed to hell). I'd recommend getting more if you can. If your group allows proxies, I'd consider trying the Ravager with Disintegrators and seeing if you prefer them to Dark Lances (I mention it because Scourges, Trueborn and Warriors can all bring Dark Lances but only Raiders and Ravagers can bring Disintegrators - and they're very good this edition).
See, I'm super glad to see somebody saying this, because my first instinct was to prefer the disintegrator cannon, I've gotten great utility out of them on my raiders, and had been proxying them on my ravager, but I kept seeing people insist 3 DL was better for the ravager. Personally, I'm a much bigger fan of keeping my vehicles anti-personnel and having infantry for tank-busting, so I think I'll follow your advice and my gut on this one.
I'd already found myself thinking, "man, I'ma need more Raiders". Too bad it's not still 7th when everyone though they were worthless and I could probably pick them up secondhand for a song. Oh well.
Spoiler:
In terms of a Succubus, I think she's an awful HQ but each to their own. If you're looking to convert one, might I suggest starting with a Hellion's Hellglaive as the basis for her own Glaive? Also, it's quite easy to get a left-handed Splinter Pistol by cutting the body of a Splinter Pistol off a Wych's hand, cutting the blade off a Wych's knife and then gluing the two together.
Great minds. Actually my thought had been if I cut one blade off a hellglaive and replaced it with the blade from a Wych heavy flail, it would be pretty much a dead ringer for the archite glaive.
I'm not hugely hot on the succubus either, but I'm trying to give those Hellions and Reavers a little more utility by letting them re-roll wounds.
Spoiler:
9) Yeah, this is one of the reasons I don't like Hellions (the other is that they're an 18pt model with T3 and a 5+ save). Personally, I've always seen them as more of a shooty unit than a melee one. If you want a different target for them, have you considered throwing them at vehicles (shoot something else first, obviously)? Aside from damage 2, their weapons are awful against vehicles. However, even if you don't do much damage, you'll prevent that vehicle from shooting at all in your opponent's turn. What's more, if you can encircle said vehicle (and it doesn't have the Fly rule) then it can't Fall Back - meaning your Hellions will be effectively locked in combat (meaning your opponent can't shoot them). Same goes for any non-flying infantry unit that they successfully encircle.
I don't know if this tactic appeals to you, but I mention it because hellions are one of the few units fast and numerous enough to pull it off. Also, the best part is that if they do stay locked in combat, they can break away with no penalty and then shoot and assault again afterwards.
This actually seems one of the more solid ways I've seen to make them worth their points, I'll definitely have to give that a try. I can think of at least one player I'm not fond of who I'd enjoy raging about me taking his Land Raider out of commission.
I hope at least some of this is helpful. Good luck and welcome to the Dark Side.
Extremely so. When it comes to expanding, I know I'm going to be starting by adding some 'Quins (my shop miraculously still has a copy of Death Masque, and I had my eye on it even when I wasn't playing anymore, because I love the models), but after that, any suggestions as to what other DE I should look at picking up, besides more Raiders? I haven't even really looked at the Haemonculus side of things.
I did make a Dark City account, looks like a good spot for DE players. A bit hard to not get drowned out by Spess Mehreens on here.
I can see what you mean with the blast pistols. I honestly don't know that I've ever actually fired on, they just came to me modeled that way. I should have no shortage of splinter pistols, tho.
Blast pistols are good, even mandatory I'd say if you want to assault the unit. Kabalite warriors are only shooting guys, that's why their sybarite should be naked with no upgrades. However if you run wyches always include an hekatrix with agoniser and blast pistol. Give a blast pistol to the succubus too if you want to user her.
So, with this, would you be recommending 1 DL, 1 Blaster per squad, and the rest with shardcarbines, or just splitting the whole squad evenly between DL and Blasters?
I'm sure he was recommending to take as many lances OR blasters you can stick in a single unit. Which means 5 scourges with 4 blasters OR with 4 dark lances. Mixing their loadout is not the best option since each weapon has a different style even if blasters and dark lances are both anti tanks.
Regarding Scourges, my suggestion is to run them in 5-man squads and give *every* model a Blaster or Dark Lance (except for the sergeant, obviously).
i.e.:
5 Scourges w/ 4x Dark Lance
or
5 Scourges w/ 4x Blaster
Being able to take 4 special or heavy weapons is typically the reason you're taking them in the first place, so I'd suggest making the most of it.
As for the sergeant, he can't take a heavy or special weapon, so either leave him with his Shardcarbine or give him a melee weapon and pistol as you choose. I certainly wouldn't aim for melee, but Agonisers are cheap and it may fit your fluff.
I can see what you mean with the blast pistols. I honestly don't know that I've ever actually fired on, they just came to me modeled that way. I should have no shortage of splinter pistols, tho.
Blast pistols are good, even mandatory I'd say if you want to assault the unit. Kabalite warriors are only shooting guys, that's why their sybarite should be naked with no upgrades. However if you run wyches always include an hekatrix with agoniser and blast pistol. Give a blast pistol to the succubus too if you want to user her.
So, with this, would you be recommending 1 DL, 1 Blaster per squad, and the rest with shardcarbines, or just splitting the whole squad evenly between DL and Blasters?
I'm sure he was recommending to take as many lances OR blasters you can stick in a single unit. Which means 5 scourges with 4 blasters OR with 4 dark lances. Mixing their loadout is not the best option since each weapon has a different style even if blasters and dark lances are both anti tanks.
vipoid wrote:Regarding Scourges, my suggestion is to run them in 5-man squads and give *every* model a Blaster or Dark Lance (except for the sergeant, obviously).
i.e.:
5 Scourges w/ 4x Dark Lance
or
5 Scourges w/ 4x Blaster
Being able to take 4 special or heavy weapons is typically the reason you're taking them in the first place, so I'd suggest making the most of it.
As for the sergeant, he can't take a heavy or special weapon, so either leave him with his Shardcarbine or give him a melee weapon and pistol as you choose. I certainly wouldn't aim for melee, but Agonisers are cheap and it may fit your fluff.
Ah, I feel ya. So blasters for a more mobile unit, Lances for a more entrenched unit.
Exactly. Though, either way I'd probably start them in reserve.
For Blasters I'd drop them down near their target (ideally in cover) on whatever turn seems most appropriate.
For Dark Lances I'd probably drop them into cover in an area that's in range of their target (and has good LoS to other parts of the board), but which is hopefully also out of range of most enemies.
In essence, I'd probably deploy the Dark Lance scourges in the same sort of place I'd deploy a Devastator squad - except I'd deep-strike them there on my first turn.
This means they'll be hitting on 4s but will guarantee that they get at least one turn of shooting before the enemy can retaliate.
For Elite model hunting Blasters are better. For AT options DL's are better, even if you move and take the 4+ to hit, they still on average do the same damage, without moving they do move. 4 Blaster Scourges are very Niche and unless your local meta you know they work for.
The 2 main purpose of Scourge vs Ravagers is the "You deploy when you want", so you can make sure they are not shot at turn 1 if you go 2nd. And Scourges are the cheapest way to get more Lances, if you want large numbers of Lances then Scourges are the way to go.
Otherwise depending on your threats the Ravager might be better.
Another way to play Scourges is a fast DS/moving cheap AI unit. Something DE is lacking for cheap, for 70pts you get a good amount of poison, with DS and fly on assault weapons. Splinter cannons being 15pts themselves are not justified b.c cost vs fragility.
Amishprn86 wrote: For Elite model hunting Blasters are better. For AT options DL's are better, even if you move and take the 4+ to hit, they still on average do the same damage, without moving they do move. 4 Blaster Scourges are very Niche and unless your local meta you know they work for.
The 2 main purpose of Scourge vs Ravagers is the "You deploy when you want", so you can make sure they are not shot at turn 1 if you go 2nd. And Scourges are the cheapest way to get more Lances, if you want large numbers of Lances then Scourges are the way to go.
Otherwise depending on your threats the Ravager might be better.
Another way to play Scourges is a fast DS/moving cheap AI unit. Something DE is lacking for cheap, for 70pts you get a good amount of poison, with DS and fly on assault weapons. Splinter cannons being 15pts themselves are not justified b.c cost vs fragility.
Edit: spelling and grammar
Yeah, if more people around here were running things like Guard or Ork hoards, I'd probably take the shardcarbines and run more straight Kabs and just drown them out with splinter rifles, but people around here run a ton of termies, so I think those blaster Scourges are gonna do me better, especially because with so many people running tiny little Termie armies, they're more often than not gonna be beating me for finishing deployment first, so deep strike is gonna help me more than another Ravager (plus, y'know, I only have one at present, and this rather crotchety woman who lives in my house and berates me about only spending "reasonable" amounts of money on 40k; not sure what she's doing here, keeps claiming she's my wife).
I'm still working out kinks, but as far as utilizing what I've got currently or can make with what I've got, I think I'm starting to suss out a decent 2000 list (I mean, probably not a winning tournament list, but I've never put a ton of priority on that). Thinking I'll try running an Archon w/ blaster and agonizer, 3 5x squads of Kabs w/ blaster and PGL, 2 5-man Trueborn w/ blasters, 10 Hellions, using vipoids suggestion of using them to tie down vehicles, 9 reavers w/ blaster and grav-talons, Scourges w/ 4x blaster, scourges w/ 4x dark lance, ravager w/ 3x disintegrator, razorwing w/ disintegrators and splinter cannons, and 3 raiders with disintegrators.
I figure that way I can pop one squad of Kabs and one squad of trueborn each in 2 of the raiders, and have big, durable mobile platforms with a ton bunch of high ap dakka to take our termies, but still a bit of splinter fire for troops and taking advantage of the law of averages, pop the third squad of kabs and the archon in the thirds raider, for a bit smaller blaster platform, deep strike and entrench the dark lances on a nice covery spot, bring the blaster scourges and reavers in on separate flanks and try to knock out squads so that they're left in a bad position to retaliate, and use the hellions to tie down units.and to provide a bit more splinter fire.
Just to chime in here a bit, witches are not that bad, but bloodbrides are a bit better for the cost since it's a small increase in price for an extra attack in cc. Same with the succubus, I have had good luck running her.
However I have a roll for them. And I take them in numbers.
20 bloodbrides, 1 succubus, 3 raiders with disintegrators. 2 squads of 10 get their own raiders, succubus gets the 3rd (sometimes I will also put some warriors in there for the why not, seems a waste to use a raider for 1 model but use what you have....)
They do exceptional for my intended target, which are large squads of genestealers. Their 4+ invulnerable save on top of 3 attacks per model and combat drugs (one squad gets +1 str, the other +1 attack) with the succubus granting rerolls and with her own drugs (+2" movement is what I normally give in case I need her to move without the raider) these ladies will put the hurt on something.
But they need a target worth the investment! Just taking a squad and throwing them out there is a bad game plan. My normal opponent takes a lot of genestealers, normally 20 to 30 in a game, and having something that removes the exploding 6's and can weather the storm of incoming attacks once they get into cc with me is important to me.
Oh, and if you do take them give them the max amount of hydra gauntlets you can, the other weapons are a joke but the hydra reroll failed wounds is very helpful.
So I am a veteran 40k gamer (marines, eldar, tau, admech [current army]) and I am interested in diving into Dark Eldar. I was wanting to get some feedback on my ideas for purchases to start out and my initial list I'm going to be building towards. I am thinking of getting the gangs of commoragh game, a start collecting box, a venom and a succubus or some scourge. Here's my initial list thought:
I can get all this done for right around $200, and it totals up to just shy of 1000 points as a starter force. I could make the reavers one unit and bump them to t5 with their drugs and use them as my bubble wrap for t1 chargers/deep strikers and have a nice hard hitting counter attack.
Any thoughts on different purchases? I also could go the double start collecting box route for more kabalite bodies and I'd get 2 raiders in the boxes, but 2 archons isn't as good as 1 archon and 1 succubus imo. Thanks for the advice!
Assaulting dedicated assault units, locking up heavy weapon infantry, and that's it really.
Ironically wyches do better in assault versus Terminators than against tacticals or intercessors due to lack of pistols. Pistols kill wyches quite well due to the lack of saves in the shooting phase. 5 pistol shots from BS4 S4 kills 2 wyches a shooting phase with average rolling. For comparison it would take 10 normal attacks in fight phase with WS 3+ and S4.
Blast pistols aren't terrible, they are useful on things like archons and succubus as you are likely to have a chance to shoot before assaulting if they make it to assault at some point.
Venoms aren't as bad as people make them out to be, they only have 6 wounds but don't suffer degradation from damage, raiders lose a lot of move as they degrade. They also have -1 to be hit. They aren't the gunboats they used to be, and honestly taking the twin splinter rifle and splinter Cannon is probably better than dual splinter Cannon for points/effectiveness. It's not great, but it's not the garbage some people think it is. A raider that has taken 5 wounds is moving it's passengers 10+ and has BS4+. A venom that has taken 5 wounds is surely close to going down but is going 16" when it moves and firing at full BS.
For comparison sake it takes 6 unbuffed BS3 lascannon shots rolling average damage to kill a venom, assuming the venom makes no invulnerable saves. 6 lascannon shots will on average be what you need to kill a raider as well, although a raider is more likely to make one of the 3 saves versus the 2 the venom needs to make so slightly in favor of the raider. So in terms of survivability they are actually quite close thanks to venom having nightshields.
Looking to supplement my harlequins with some long range anti tank. Ravagers are tje obvious choice, but was also looking at the fliers. Is there any reason to take the razorwing over the voidraven? I know that fully loaded its a little pricier but the weapons also seem to be on the next level(excluding fixed diseintegrator damage vs dark scythe)!
Punisher23 wrote: Looking to supplement my harlequins with some long range anti tank. Ravagers are tje obvious choice, but was also looking at the fliers. Is there any reason to take the razorwing over the voidraven? I know that fully loaded its a little pricier but the weapons also seem to be on the next level(excluding fixed diseintegrator damage vs dark scythe)!
For the Points Bombers are amazing, always take the Bomber from DE over anything else, and without missiles with the lances, here is the math so you can see.
For 14pts the Bomber gets you a Bomb, 2 more wounds and a -1 to hit, for 25pts more you can almost do 1 more wound if you wanted. but i like it cheaper
Edit: Fixed numbers b.c i was rounding, but i decided not to round.
Edit: number 19772654801: For Dedicated AT, Fusion/Melta is best, if you only need to kill 1-2 large tanks then take Fire Dragons, if you need to kill lots of small Rhinos take Fusion Pistols, these are the netter of the 2 options, the problem comes from 1-2 larger tanks with 2-3 rhino sizes or 2-3 heavy fliers like storm ravens. If its a vehicle heavy army then you need lots of damage in general.
Another option is Smite, Shadowseers can put lots of wounds on vehicles, most vehicles are 1pt Lower LD than the Sargents (same as the troops for most armies) so you have a good chance with the Hallucination Grenades and with smite thats 2d3 mortal wounds per shadowseer. Doesnt sound a lot, but with it as back up you can kill vehicles faster.
On paper they seem to have a lot going for them and I wouldn't mind making a small force with them as a focus.
Great in fun games, they are very hit or miss. If they were 4pts cheaper i think they be more viable. As is they cost a bit b.c they have rules bloat.
Pros:
DSing
-1 to hit
Invul
Cand o both Range and melee
Benefits from all PFP
Cons:
Mediocre damage
MW only on 6's with shooting
Low save (5++)
Slightly costly
I think I pretty much agree with your accessment.
They are kinda at the mercy of rolling 6s. Both to get your mortal wounds in shooting and to make your PFP saves.
But with a bit of luck I think they could do well.
Mandrakes aren't worth taking in units of 5. Units of 10? That's another story. Good option for taking out infantry, whether they're bubble wrap or a Devastator squad sitting backfield. They can also put some mortal wounds and force a lot of saves on invuln units. Plus with PfP you can reroll that charge distance.
Are they super competitive? Nah. Are they a good choice in a semi-spicy TAC list? Absolutely.
So, after my AdMech codex has dropped and having played two games to try it out, I'd like to chill out a bit of my AdMech because it's confusing me greatly for list building and next purchases reasons. I'll soon get started on painting my Start Collecting Drukhari and so I'll start writing up lists again. What are you guys hoping for when the Aeldari codex releases, hopefully next ? Points reductions, rework of some profiles ? Any ideas for Kabal traits we might have or might be fun ? I'm hoping for a Kabal themed on Haemonculi myself, they're what I love the most about the Drukhari.
Yeah i think the voidraven is only optimal when you don't take the missiles. The missiles just don't do enough for their points. Also voidraven's only good build now is void lances. This loadout is 169 points and isn't too pricey though the model costs a lot of money. I mean it only costs about as much as a ravager when you think about it.
So i have a question for you guys that i'm unsure about. If i take trueborn and give them all blasters should i load them up in venoms or raiders? At first i thought venoms were the obvious choice but then i heard about how raiders can fit 2 units of 5 into them. I could get up to 8 blasters in one raider which really throws out firepower but becomes a bullet magnet. Also regardless of the vehicle degrading the guys inside don't have their shooting degraded so that's a plus. However the bonus with the venom is yeah you don't have as much troop capacity but it moves faster and has -1 to hit. Now when you do significant damage to vehicles with armies such as the imperial guard their shooting gets significantly worse. Basically the sweet spot is getting their shooting from a 4+ to a 5+ and the venoms are an extra -1 to hit so if they're anti-tank it's boosted to a 6+ to hit them. So suddenly shooting at venoms with vehicles/monsters is now an awful choice for the enemy vehicles/monsters. Venoms also throw out some ok shooting and don't degrade. My issue is venoms and raiders cost about the same amount. So venoms can get expensive really fast.
I'm also thinking wracks with haemonculus to boost them could be good since if he's nearby they become toughness 5 and become a pretty good unit for 10 pts per model.
Ravagers seem really good. Haven't tried out the dissie loadout yet because my other ravagers need to get built first. It should be good if you're facing plenty of primaris or other 2 wound models with decent armor (which there are a lot of).
I've been having a great time with scourge with heat lances, blasters, shardcarbines and possibly dark lances. Dark lance seem to work better on ravagers or with more scourge to take casualties sadly. Basically DS'ing with scourge is pretty much mandatory but when they come in they just destroy in loads. I almost completely cleaned off an enemy on my first turn with them since he didn't use his DS'ing squads yet. It was against grey knights and i killed his rhino, 2 squads of dudes inside and almost wiped out his 5 sisters of silence (he had one left). Only things he had left on the board at the end of turn one was inquisitor greyfax and one sister of silence. Anyway thanks to them and the ravagers i basically cleaned him off the board by end of turn 4 and held the relic. So yeah scourge and ravagers are amazing even if it was 1,000 points only and grey knights are point heavy. Not only that but you can deepstrike scourge into cover or fly them into cover and they can fly out of combat and shoot the enemy. So yeah they're a really good unit.
1) HQ's need to be better and some cheaper (DE has the most over costed HQ in game for what it does).
2) Coven needs to be either cheaper or better
3) Splinter Cannons are trash
4) All Splinter weapons needs help
5) Some weapons are godly over costed; Shredder, Heat Lance, Blaster etc...
6) Reavers and Hellions are over costed and in the same roll ish, Reavers need rework in general
7) Wyches needs to be able to take more weapons 2 per 5 and Bloodbrides 4 per 5 (literally every other army works like this)
8 ) Court of Archon rule needs to change (if you take a T5 bodyguard, you can NOT use his toughness to take the wound, you have to use the T3 Archon)
9) Court is to costly
The "Top" units are Incubi, Ravager, Bomber
Then you have Trueborn, Mandrakes, Raider, Razorwing Jet, Scourges (both set ups AI with poison or DL)
Follow buy Clawfiends and Khymerae's
Then everything else.
As a person with a large DE army, that has tried every unit multi times against different opponents, its a very boring play style right now, you just take Ravagers, Bombers, Scourges with a few Kabals in a Raider or 2 for CP and cheap troops.
DE got gutted again in 8th, literally 6-7th took options away from units and again in 8th. I want those fething options back.
I agree, I can't stand the mono-shooting lists. In 7th I always had 15-18 reavers and either the grotesquerie or the corspethiefclaw, sometimes even the dark artisan in addition.
Now I still play with grotesques in raiders, I added incubi (which were useless in 7th) but had to cut off the bikes. And talos were nerfed as well, I sometimes include them (usually a max squad of 3) but they're nothing special. They mostly help messing some deep striking enemy units and soak the anti tank that ravagers, trueborn or flyers would have taken.
IMHO at very competitive levels dark eldar are better overall with their full shooting list, but I hate playing with that style, I feel like they got actually quite nerfed, like my orks.
I was playing dark eldar at tournaments but I just had to pass on them at the last big event I played. The fact is opponents are playing hordes right now and dark eldar just don't have the volume of shots/attacks to deal with it currently. In one game this past weekend, I faced one list with 160 orks and in another I faced 180 gaunts. The only reason I was able to kill them with my chaos army was through weight of fire like noise marines (who get 3 shots per model and another 3 when they die), quad heavy bolters (which can put out 12 shots for 80ish points) and khorne berserkers (getting 6 attacks per turn). I'm positive I would have gone 1-4 instead of 4-1 if I'd used Dark Eldar. Hold off on them till the codex for anything tournament related right now imo and just use them for more casual/fun games. (Also, -1 to hit doesn't matter at all when enemies are just running a dozen smiting characters embedded in the hordes).
lessthanjeff wrote: I was playing dark eldar at tournaments but I just had to pass on them at the last big event I played. The fact is opponents are playing hordes right now and dark eldar just don't have the volume of shots/attacks to deal with it currently. In one game this past weekend, I faced one list with 160 orks and in another I faced 180 gaunts. The only reason I was able to kill them with my chaos army was through weight of fire like noise marines (who get 3 shots per model and another 3 when they die), quad heavy bolters (which can put out 12 shots for 80ish points) and khorne berserkers (getting 6 attacks per turn). I'm positive I would have gone 1-4 instead of 4-1 if I'd used Dark Eldar. Hold off on them till the codex for anything tournament related right now imo and just use them for more casual/fun games. (Also, -1 to hit doesn't matter at all when enemies are just running a dozen smiting characters embedded in the hordes).
Have you ever tried units of 10 scourge deepstriking with shardcarbines? It costs 140 pts for 30 poisoned shots and you can usually get them where you want and drop right into cover possibly when you appear should you need it.
If that doesn't work perhaps units of 10 wracks with a haemonculus for the +1 toughness boost will work. I've been considering it myself.
DE weakness is hordes. Point for Point the Khymerae's are best (if they can get there) then i think it is bloodbrides next best... again they need to get there. (these number are for T3/4 5+ saves).
Scourges are great, but Poison isnt that good, sadly it always wounds on 4 and has 0 AP. 30 Shots will end up being 6-7 wounds.
For 140pts 6.5 wounds isnt very good as AI unit when they will die next turn. You only get 1 shot off on Scourges being 18" away from Orks, Guardsman/Conscripts, etc...
DE has no good answers to hordes atm.
All DE Anti-Horde items are way to costly and Poison is a trash weapon.
Amishprn86 wrote: DE weakness is hordes. Point for Point the Khymerae's are best (if they can get there) then i think it is bloodbrides next best... again they need to get there. (these number are for T3/4 5+ saves).
Scourges are great, but Poison isnt that good, sadly it always wounds on 4 and has 0 AP. 30 Shots will end up being 6-7 wounds.
For 140pts 6.5 wounds isnt very good as AI unit when they will die next turn. You only get 1 shot off on Scourges being 18" away from Orks, Guardsman/Conscripts, etc...
DE has no good answers to hordes atm.
All DE Anti-Horde items are way to costly and Poison is a trash weapon.
What about wracks though? I'll admit for strength 3 it's about the same as you were toughness 4 but with toughness 5 vs str 4 attacks it should be better. You are probably right about the other 2 though. Keep in mind i have only played a bit of 8th (probably 8 games).
Just a quick curious question - after the nerf to razorwing flocks (which I assume has now made them essentially useless), which of the other beast choices are actually worthwhile (if any)?
Considering adding a small melee counter force to my list, and am currently considering wracks/grotesques and beasts.
Niiru wrote: Just a quick curious question - after the nerf to razorwing flocks (which I assume has now made them essentially useless), which of the other beast choices are actually worthwhile (if any)?
Considering adding a small melee counter force to my list, and am currently considering wracks/grotesques and beasts.
Skip the Grots for sure. Wracks are okay ish with an Ossefactor and backed up by a Haemy, but still pretty expensive and if you're going for a decently competitive list, I'd still leaves those at home too. Clawed Fiends put out decent damage. Khymerae are the best anti-horde option we have.
Amishprn86 wrote: DE weakness is hordes. Point for Point the Khymerae's are best (if they can get there) then i think it is bloodbrides next best... again they need to get there. (these number are for T3/4 5+ saves).
Scourges are great, but Poison isnt that good, sadly it always wounds on 4 and has 0 AP. 30 Shots will end up being 6-7 wounds.
For 140pts 6.5 wounds isnt very good as AI unit when they will die next turn. You only get 1 shot off on Scourges being 18" away from Orks, Guardsman/Conscripts, etc...
DE has no good answers to hordes atm.
All DE Anti-Horde items are way to costly and Poison is a trash weapon.
What about wracks though? I'll admit for strength 3 it's about the same as you were toughness 4 but with toughness 5 vs str 4 attacks it should be better. You are probably right about the other 2 though. Keep in mind i have only played a bit of 8th (probably 8 games).
Wracks are poison, so Str doesnt matter for them, they also are 2 attacks, same as wyches, but they are better at holding objectives and a good body guard for a Haemonculus, they also get Electo Whips over Agonisers.
Personally with a 5++ and 6+++ T5 with Haemi, they have the same roll as Wyches. They stall out combat. 10 Wyches will do more Damage than 10 Wrack over time due to pistols in combat and the -1ap on the 3 weapons. But Wracks can have special weapons like the Liquidfire un and the Offesfactor. Both IMO are equal in what they do for the points. A S3 flamer with AP or a 1 shot higher chance to kill 1-2 guys. The Ossefactor has range tho.
The Problem with these options are, they are costly and needs a vehicle.
Grotesques are missing D3 attacks per guy from 7th, if Each Grot had 2more attacks base they would be worth it. But as is..... they are not.
Edit: If Haemonculus could get a WWP again, that would be a different story.
Niiru wrote: I do find it odd that Eldar in general gained the ability to use the webway a couple editions ago, and then lost it for... no reason at all?
Though it might be a codex thing.
Im guessing its going to be a Stratagem and didnt want to change it between Index to Codex, so they took it out for now.
Like a Before game starts, spend X command points to put a unit in reserves using the WWP, gaining a DS rule.
Edit: that means you can also DS turn 2 to re-roll charges. Imagine a 10man Incubi DSing and re-roll charges or a CP to re-roll 1 dice to get a 9" on turn 1. Or 10 Grots, Talos's etc....
Niiru wrote: I do find it odd that Eldar in general gained the ability to use the webway a couple editions ago, and then lost it for... no reason at all?
Though it might be a codex thing.
Im guessing its going to be a Stratagem and didnt want to change it between Index to Codex, so they took it out for now.
Like a Before game starts, spend X command points to put a unit in reserves using the WWP, gaining a DS rule.
Edit: that means you can also DS turn 2 to re-roll charges. Imagine a 10man Incubi DSing and re-roll charges or a CP to re-roll 1 dice to get a 9" on turn 1. Or 10 Grots, Talos's etc....
I suspect this is true, as this is pretty much the strategem Alpha Legion got, as well as one of the AdMech houses. Problem with this is that it should be a universal stratagem for all Eldar, and not just one single faction. We shall have to wait and see what they do in the craftworld codex! Not long to wait at least.
On my previous topic, which would be a better addition to an army - Wracks/Grotesques, or Fiends/Khymaera?
Niiru wrote: I do find it odd that Eldar in general gained the ability to use the webway a couple editions ago, and then lost it for... no reason at all?
Though it might be a codex thing.
Im guessing its going to be a Stratagem and didnt want to change it between Index to Codex, so they took it out for now.
Like a Before game starts, spend X command points to put a unit in reserves using the WWP, gaining a DS rule.
Edit: that means you can also DS turn 2 to re-roll charges. Imagine a 10man Incubi DSing and re-roll charges or a CP to re-roll 1 dice to get a 9" on turn 1. Or 10 Grots, Talos's etc....
I suspect this is true, as this is pretty much the strategem Alpha Legion got, as well as one of the AdMech houses. Problem with this is that it should be a universal stratagem for all Eldar, and not just one single faction. We shall have to wait and see what they do in the craftworld codex! Not long to wait at least.
On my previous topic, which would be a better addition to an army - Wracks/Grotesques, or Fiends/Khymaera?
DE should be full codex, i mean they live in there... Eldar on the other hand does have some WWP uses and so does Harlies, i could see it being limited in Eldar and Harlequins codex's but no limit in DE.
Niiru wrote: I do find it odd that Eldar in general gained the ability to use the webway a couple editions ago, and then lost it for... no reason at all?
Though it might be a codex thing.
Im guessing its going to be a Stratagem and didnt want to change it between Index to Codex, so they took it out for now.
Like a Before game starts, spend X command points to put a unit in reserves using the WWP, gaining a DS rule.
Edit: that means you can also DS turn 2 to re-roll charges. Imagine a 10man Incubi DSing and re-roll charges or a CP to re-roll 1 dice to get a 9" on turn 1. Or 10 Grots, Talos's etc....
I suspect this is true, as this is pretty much the strategem Alpha Legion got, as well as one of the AdMech houses. Problem with this is that it should be a universal stratagem for all Eldar, and not just one single faction. We shall have to wait and see what they do in the craftworld codex! Not long to wait at least.
On my previous topic, which would be a better addition to an army - Wracks/Grotesques, or Fiends/Khymaera?
DE should be full codex, i mean they live in there... Eldar on the other hand does have some WWP uses and so does Harlies, i could see it being limited in Eldar and Harlequins codex's but no limit in DE.
I could agree with this. Ulthwe I think is the main one who should get the webway stratagem, fluffwise. Though they also should be able to run seer councils and psykers, which they currently can't do. So we shall see.
I liked the old rules where DE had to carry the webway gate into the battlefield and deploy it. Can't remember when that was. 6th maybe.
5th you could take a 35pts WWP (it was a void mine template) and place it, it counted as impassabile terrain unless you are DE and you can DS out within 3" from it.
It was BY FAR my favorite thing to do, you could take 3 Haemis (back then 50pts each 3 = 1 HQ slot) making them 85pts each, but make a Wall of WWP's and appear behind them.
Essentially making a impassible wall that you can block off an area.
6-7th Codex (it was either late 6 or earily 7th) was just 1 unit could have No scatter DS within 1" for 35pts. Thats still REALLY good, but DE was such a low power scale it didnt help.
I was DSing 20 Grotesques with 2 Haemonculus tho, that was fun.
I typically play grots anyway, even if they aren't the monsters they used to be, 2x4 grots in raiders with an haemy to boost their toughness. IMHO they're the best melee DE unit, I have no luck with wyches and bloodbrides unless I play an entire list dedicated to a wych cult, and incubi are still part of my list but grots perform better. i can't play DE without at least 3 close combat oriented units.
I have no beasts so I can't speak for them, and hellions are really terrible, their only strenght is their speed, they're basically a tarpit unit, not a melee one. Talos are still decent but they hardly reach combat. Wracks even with an haemy nearby don't worth their points, IMHO they're among the worst units in the codex, their only purpose seems to let a player that wants a full coven list use a battallion detachment for having more CPs.
Amishprn86 wrote: Best DE melee unit is Incubi for sure, no questions about it.
Edit: For a TAC melee unit that is, for Hordes Beasts are technical best, but you have to run there
It really depends. Against low armored units incubi are not that great, and they can be wiped out by a single volley of shooting or close combat. Grotesques suffer from anti tank (but every AT shot that goes against them doesn't go towards ravagers and flyers) but they're way more durable against everything else. Grotesques are more versatile IMHO, incubi are amazing against elites or MEQs but pretty much useless if you face orks, AM, tyranids. I usually include a unit of trueborn in a venom to act as a needed distraction, a bullet magnet that allows incubi to attract lesser firepower.
About beasts I've only tried the flocks and a beastmaster by proxing some models, what are your experience about them? I've always loved the beastpack unit but since its models are utterly expensive and I haven't found some cheap alternatives to replace them or to be converted into them, I haven't really tried to include the beast in my games.
Amishprn86 wrote: Best DE melee unit is Incubi for sure, no questions about it.
Edit: For a TAC melee unit that is, for Hordes Beasts are technical best, but you have to run there
It really depends. Against low armored units incubi are not that great, and they can be wiped out by a single volley of shooting or close combat. Grotesques suffer from anti tank (but every AT shot that goes against them doesn't go towards ravagers and flyers) but they're way more durable against everything else. Grotesques are more versatile IMHO, incubi are amazing against elites or MEQs but pretty much useless if you face orks, AM, tyranids. I usually include a unit of trueborn in a venom to act as a needed distraction, a bullet magnet that allows incubi to attract lesser firepower.
About beasts I've only tried the flocks and a beastmaster by proxing some models, what are your experience about them? I've always loved the beastpack unit but since its models are utterly expensive and I haven't found some cheap alternatives to replace them or to be converted into them, I haven't really tried to include the beast in my games.
I've done the number vs TEQ, MEQ and GEQ. Incubi are the best damage output that can go in transports Per Point Spent. Survivability wasnt calculated. But being a person with 20 Grotesques and that have played them many games.... They are not worth the points IMO.
PS, I converted mine from Ogres and Talos bits, here is some of them if you cared, I hate finecast and mono-posed units, this was also something like 60% the cost as well.
Edit: If They get a bit cheaper or (this is what i want) the LG gun is a lot cheaper, i think Grots with LG will be amazing if they are around 30pts with that upgrade, i would re-do my models in a heartbeat and take 20 again.
I still think scourge with shardcarbines can do ok vs infantry hordes. Not great but ok. You have to deep strike them and put them into cover when they come in so they're on a 3+ armor save however. It can work though and the game where i did this vs a guard gun-line they actually were incredibly durable against the guardsmen and heavy weapons. So durable in fact that he had to use his super-heavy (the transport super heavy with marine killer gun) to start gunning the scourge down while they were in their cover.
Shard-carbines aren't necessarily bad, they're just poison weapons in an edition where poison 4+ is garbage.
For example, 30 shots for 130 points, but the thing is that against guardsmen that's just 30 lasgun shots. Against marines that's just 30 bolters. The damage just isn't there. You're right about boyz though. T4 with low/no save is probably the best target for our poison now.
What especially hurts is the loss of splinter racks. Bullet-boat raiders never again.
Yeah, poison isnt good as AI at all honestly. DE suffer from range AI, its their biggest weakness for sure atm.
Mandrakes might be the better AI unit with shooting IMO, DS+Shoot+charge, also they can go in vehicles, for the same Range. They at least can go threw armor and has a -1 to hit with a better invul.
Amishprn86 wrote: Yeah, poison isnt good as AI at all honestly. DE suffer from range AI, its their biggest weakness for sure atm.
Mandrakes might be the better AI unit with shooting IMO, DS+Shoot+charge, also they can go in vehicles, for the same Range. They at least can go threw armor and has a -1 to hit with a better invul.
While i understand what both of you are saying you're just talking about killing power. While i understand dark eldar can be about first strike and scourge can do that i mentioned putting scourge into cover. That makes the 4+ turn into a 3+ armor save. I mean it's not great but it's something. Mandrakes while -1 to hit is nice are still gonna die easily. It's toughness 3 and a 5+ save regardless. They're gonna eat it hard if they don't kill the enemy. Scourge however can survive ranged fire from small arms and can probably last vs hordes in melee somewhat. Also if you can survive the melee horde in combat you just fly out and shoot into the enemy again. Mandrakes can't fly and so must either run and not shoot or just stick in melee. If you take them in a transport then you have to add about 100 pts to the cost and suddenly mandrakes become a lot more expensive than shardcarbine scourge even if they get more durable.
Wyches or bloodbrides are different in that they get a 4+ inv. save in combat in the fight phase which is nice. They can also prevent enemies from leaving combat somewhat with their special ability which is great. Once again however you need transports to get them there. If you take the raider which i'm sure you should because it'd be hilariously expensive to take them in venoms unless you were taking the venoms anyway. It'd even be better to do two 5 man wych squads in a raider if you're going msu provided you don't want to take morale checks for the most part. Of course kill points would be a problem if that's a thing. Sadly both wyches and bloodbrides are strength 3.
Then there's the khymerae you guys mentioned which while good and average movement speed can't take a transport. It has decent strength of 4 however.
I was also considering razorwing flocks but it's a measly strength 2 and vs toughness 4 only wounds on 6's and vs orks that'd just be absolute garbage. Against guard or gaunts it'd be ok though. Not to mention morale is on models lost not wounds and they could just absorb all that fire. Not only that but they can fly. Of course you'd need a crap ton of those finecast (crap-cast) models and that'd cost a lot of real money in comparison to the other choices.
Edit: Lols whoops i forgot wych units could take combat drugs. I suppose +1 strength would be helpful for them in anti-horde but with plenty of units you have to choose different combat drugs.
----------
Anyway here's an alternate idea. What about spamming kabalite warriors on foot? I realize it's just a t3 warrior with 5+ armor but each can shoot a decent amount and they're about 7 pts each. You'd need to lay down a lot of firepower or melee to kill em all. I'll admit i didn't think it all the way through but at rapid fire it can get 2 shots. Maybe you could sorta gun-line the warriors somehow if you have ravagers and scourge taking out all the long ranged firepower. Against guard that would be ridiculous to try (at that point kabalites are guardsmen with 3+ to hit instead of 4+ to hit) but vs nids or orks you could probably lay down a lot of shots. Sadly you'd need to rapid fire em for best effect but you get more bodies and more shooting though they are fragile. Perhaps having dark eldar on foot is an alien idea though. I mean a scourge with shardcarbine costs the same as 2 warriors with splinter rifles. Mandrakes cost the same as almost 3 warriors with splinter rifles in points.
I'll admit i'm not totally comfortable with it myself and haven't thought it all the way through but you could have a crap ton of models for a dark eldar army doing that. I mean it's a weird idea but it's one i might try considering our options currently don't work and i'll try anything that might work in the hopes that it will. Perhaps i got this method of thinking playing dark eldar in 7th ed 40k and back then we were used to losing vs higher tiered armies (which was most of the ones still being played).
Anyway here's an alternate idea. What about spamming kabalite warriors on foot?
How many of them are we talking about? 5 dudes are 35 points for 5/10 poisoned shots, but they die like flies and you won't have that many poisoned shots you need to clear a real horde, unless bringing 100+ warriors. I think 3-4 unit of kabalites and 4-5 venoms with 2 splinter cannons (and eventually some shots from the flyers) can be a decent TAC built that do something against hordes. Clearly hordes would still be an hard counter for drukhari but we don't have a TAC option that is great against hordes and actually work against other armies.
If the Mandrakes get to shoot, and make the charge, I'm pretty sure they're the most efficient horde killer. If you don't make the charge though...
The only time you'd want to run footslogging Kabs is if you wanted a Brigade or you're Ynnari. That's a possibility when the Codex comes out but right now? There are better ways to spend 50/90 points.
So how are yall dealing with deep strike, super elite characters, and Psychics? Played in a tournament yesterday and was constantly getting floored by those two things, not to say I was a perfect general or anything as I made bad mistakes and dice were against me in some situations.
Game 1: I was against a grey knight army that had 2 dreadknight grandmasters (1 of them was the warlord) drago, 3 strike squads, 3 razor backs with twin assault cannons, a storm raven and a venerable dreadnought. The only tactic that I could think of and has been working for the most part was deploying units that I could afford to lose up field and trying to make a bubble where they couldn't deep strike to kill my more valuable targets like Ravagers. But with no psychers of my own he had free reign to do infinity gate, smite, vortex or to keep sanctuary on his warlord the entire time. the game ended with him at 3 to my 1 point.
Game 2: alpha legion chaos, I actually barely won this game score came down to 10-9 but I lost two of my Ravagers because I couldn't deny warp time.
Game 3: Nids with deepstriking swarm lord and mawloc super fast hive tyrant. I probably played this game wrong but once again it was not being able to properly deal with a deep striking swarm lord or being able to deny psychic spells.
I feel like I'm gonna have to just bring CW into my list even if its for just 1 farseer, still I don't know what to do about deep striking, I know other armies have the same issue but they get around that by being durable but that's something that DE don't have. I've been considering CW but I'm gonna have to wait and see what their codex gives them and I would really like to stay pure DE.
Ok so i had another game today vs nids this time and have to say i think i have some ideas on what to do. See he take 10 termagaunts with the upgraded weapon (something like 18" range str 4 ap 0 and 3 shots if he didn't get that wrong). Now these things are probably even more potent than my shardcarbine scourge at doing pretty much the same job. Not only that but he can replace his dudes every one of his turns as well with that monster (tervigon?).
If i had to do everything all over again i'd say i'd shoot with scourge and then maybe tie the termagaunts in combat with venoms or some other vehicle. Venoms tend to get ignored if they don't have units inside and they're harder to hit and for small arms fire harder to wound as well. If i charge a venom into the squad it forces the squad to either be bogged down into melee for a turn with me possibly leaving in my turn to gun him down with my shardcarbine scourge. That said i can't hit and run with leaving the enemy unit and charging it again. Alternatively i could probably bog it down with a venom and then throw some bloodbrides or something at the enemy hordes (whether melee or ranged). Bloodbrides could get the +1 attack, +1 toughness or +1 strength boost.
Either way i think i have a plan of what to do in the future.
I may still take the scourge because scourge can still deep strike which leaves the enemy guessing where i'll come in at and it could allow me to hit part of their army at a time while some of their army is left flailing in the wind. Mandrakes could also work this way. Considering mandrakes still get hit on 6's to overwatch (-1 to hit doesn't help here) mandrakes still might lose a lot of guys to overwatch if the termagaunts take the assault 3 guns like that guy did.
Was the Tervigon the HQ? And was it the only Synapse?
If its the Only Synapse then just kill it, the army will fall apart within a turn.
A very common thing to do is, 30 Gants, 10 with Devourers, when you shoot and kill the gants they pull off the cheap ones and repawn them next turn, so the really good costly ones never die.
Amishprn86 wrote: Was the Tervigon the HQ? And was it the only Synapse?
If its the Only Synapse then just kill it, the army will fall apart within a turn.
A very common thing to do is, 30 Gants, 10 with Devourers, when you shoot and kill the gants they pull off the cheap ones and repawn them next turn, so the really good costly ones never die.
He had other synapse i think. His warlord was a malanthrope i think (if he was doing it right) meaning i could not murder it and it gave all his shooty monsters in range a -1 to being hit (at least in shooting). It was a friend i scheduled playing with so we somewhat made armies to counter each other. He said he went shooty heavy because my army is just too fast to catch in melee (and i imagine most of my army can just fly right out of combat anyway).
Oh and he did exactly that with the termagaunts down to a T. In fact i'm wondering if he asked or read the internet for that tactic now. In one case i did murder his costly termagaunts in one unit since he conga-lined them out so tervigon would spawn more and to just get within range with one group he had to put his costly termagaunts in front and i managed to do about 25 unsaved wounds that turn or so. Which meant he had to peel off his good gaunts to remain near the tervigon. Not sure how good an idea that was as i don't play nids.
Wondering more and more if i should take void ravens with no missiles and just void lances with the void mine (it did ok this game and in some games void mine could be nice). The -1 to hit is nice as are the wounds, it's fast, has 360 degree arc, flies and 2 void lances are better than 2 dark lances. Really the only difference is 2 vs 3 but vs toughness 8 units like tanks and certain monsters it can matter and -1 to be hit is nothing to sniff at. In most cases i'd say it's better than the dark lance ravagers aside from being unable to really hide. I could truly see myself unsure which to pick over the other if i had a 2nd void raven again.
A Tyranid army will not fall apart without Synapse. Synapse rules have changed to mean that a non-synapse creature must shoot/charge the nearest enemy unit. That's it.
Against deep strikers, 4 units of kabs in Venoms can bubble wrap an entire half of the board depending on deployment map.
Chippen wrote: A Tyranid army will not fall apart without Synapse. Synapse rules have changed to mean that a non-synapse creature must shoot/charge the nearest enemy unit. That's it.
Against deep strikers, 4 units of kabs in Venoms can bubble wrap an entire half of the board depending on deployment map.
Depends on if they have IB and in units larger than 5, its easy to make them fail moral, and many units are LD 7-9 but you still need to take a test every turn, if fail shooting and charging the nearest unit is a great way to manipulate the units.
Depends on if they have IB and in units larger than 5, its easy to make them fail moral, and many units are LD 7-9 but you still need to take a test every turn, if fail shooting and charging the nearest unit is a great way to manipulate the units.
That's fair, but usually by the time you've shot down all the Synapse, the Genestealers are on you, where they want to be anyway.
What would you recommend as good sacrificial units to act as speed bumps? I've been working out how to keep my Chaos buddy's Khorne Beserkers off my ass.
Depends on if they have IB and in units larger than 5, its easy to make them fail moral, and many units are LD 7-9 but you still need to take a test every turn, if fail shooting and charging the nearest unit is a great way to manipulate the units.
That's fair, but usually by the time you've shot down all the Synapse, the Genestealers are on you, where they want to be anyway.
What would you recommend as good sacrificial units to act as speed bumps? I've been working out how to keep my Chaos buddy's Khorne Beserkers off my ass.
I've found Wracks with a haemie are good speed bumps, my friend plays orks and so having to deal with turn 1 assaults is rough, but I've found that a 10 man unit of wracks inside of the haemie bubble can hold off 30 ork boys for a turn.
Depends on if they have IB and in units larger than 5, its easy to make them fail moral, and many units are LD 7-9 but you still need to take a test every turn, if fail shooting and charging the nearest unit is a great way to manipulate the units.
That's fair, but usually by the time you've shot down all the Synapse, the Genestealers are on you, where they want to be anyway.
What would you recommend as good sacrificial units to act as speed bumps? I've been working out how to keep my Chaos buddy's Khorne Beserkers off my ass.
Are you talking genestealers? Keep in mind with the void raven build with void lance and void mine and no missiles it's actually pretty good vs a unit of 10 or so with invulnerable and/or armor saves. You roll up to 10 dice and for every 3+ you get it's a mortal wound (FnP being the exception). Trust me i would've killed for void mine to be as good vs necron immortals back during 7th. Could potentially handle some of the more annoying models and it's still similar to the 3 dark lance a ravager shoots out except void lances are strength 9 but it's only got 2. Flying is nice though in case you fight a melee army like nids. Of course voidraven missiles suck now. -1 to hit on voidravens as well as more wounds is nothing to sniff at either.
Depends on if they have IB and in units larger than 5, its easy to make them fail moral, and many units are LD 7-9 but you still need to take a test every turn, if fail shooting and charging the nearest unit is a great way to manipulate the units.
That's fair, but usually by the time you've shot down all the Synapse, the Genestealers are on you, where they want to be anyway.
What would you recommend as good sacrificial units to act as speed bumps? I've been working out how to keep my Chaos buddy's Khorne Beserkers off my ass.
Are you talking genestealers? Keep in mind with the void raven build with void lance and void mine and no missiles it's actually pretty good vs a unit of 10 or so with invulnerable and/or armor saves. You roll up to 10 dice and for every 3+ you get it's a mortal wound (FnP being the exception). Trust me i would've killed for void mine to be as good vs necron immortals back during 7th. Could potentially handle some of the more annoying models and it's still similar to the 3 dark lance a ravager shoots out except void lances are strength 9 but it's only got 2. Flying is nice though in case you fight a melee army like nids. Of course voidraven missiles suck now. -1 to hit on voidravens as well as more wounds is nothing to sniff at either.
I hate Void Lances, i always use the Scythes, i also take the Missiles, but thats just personal, i see them like SMML, those are around the same cost and it gives me another thing to shoot.
So if our HQ's are as bad as I'm reading... what HQ do you guys use? do you just suffer the archon?
I recently scored some dark eldar on the super cheap and am looking to list build for 2k and buy the missing pieces.
Currently I have 4 raiders, 1 ravager, 40 kabalite warriors, 8 hellions, 4 reavers (yeah, I know), and talos.
I was considering trying to convert some raiders into ravagers; I'm missing the side sponsons but I may mold some green stuff into notched pillars off the side and glue a darklance kabalite in there... still brain storming on that front.
What units would you guys suggest I add further, I've got 10 scourges on the way, and was CONSIDERING some flying vehicles, but im not sure if i want venoms when I have 4 raiders, that would require me converting some.
Pretty sure the Archon with a blaster is the best HQ. Hopefully they can tank some shooting with that 2++ and the blaster chips away at anything.
All the DEHQs are meant to be melee units but are comically bad at it - struggling to kill two marines a turn and they can't scratch vehicles. If they were lethal to characters it might give them a niche but they are not.
Has anyone run a heavy Covens list with success? The Haemi has the best aura buff, but it just seems to be buffing up mediocre units to me. Its like pre-Codex Death Guard, my stuff is a bit annoying to kill but the damage output is so low it doesn't matter.
The Troupe Master is a perfect example of what the Archon should be (albeit a 2++ until it fails).
DE as always suffered "We can hurt EVERYTHING with Poison and Lance... so we better make it over costed or under powered"
Huskblade is S3... WTF why is it User strength.
Then you say "well i'll take the Posion weapon" NOPE b.c that weapons is only 1 damage, -2ap and on a 4+ to wound, even against S3.
Ok then Power Sword, wrong again, its -3ap sure, but S3 1D.
I have like 15k DE (albeit 1k is 3rd ed models) and i shelved them for Harlequins, they literally are Wyches w/ Venoms but better in everyway. I take the Bomber and some Beasts, sometimes Ravagers out of the DE book still b.c those are fun/good.
IDK I have been ruining people with my DE. Seems like a lot of people are writing units off before they really tried making them shine.
Grotesques are still savage, you just have to use them smart. I stopped taking mine in large groups. I take a 5 man squad in almost every list currently. They are infantry which means they can mess around in terrain where a lot of things can't go, by that i mean, if you are afraid of a certain unit like a dread knight, just run them in a ruin. I use mine as a mid field denial unit, more like just past my deployment line. They absolutely delete hordes at turn 3 or with doom earlier. I have routinely blasted through 30 man ork mobs.
I also have been using 20 mandrakes, two groups of 10. They warp in where ever I want and delete a thing each while being mindful to make sure they also have another target to charge. Most opponents really struggle with what to do about them since they have a flat -1 to hit plus the invuln.
I don't bother taking transports anymore, 5 man warrior units with a blaster an thats it, use them to eat up space on the table and grab objectives while adding fire support where you need that extra wound or two. I own 9 venoms, 3 raiders and 6 ravagers. I only field the ravagers now. Our transports just are not worth the cost. If I need to tie something up I just use a ravager. A raider is the same base cost as a ravager, it's pointless to take them, simply get +1 toughness and 2 more gun slots with the ravager.
For HQ's I take a farseer and warlocks. Currently our HQ's are totally worthless and Doom makes everything in our army work better. Any horde in the game or any titan or elite unit will melt after it's been doomed.
That is the legit area to be bumed about, I charged a Dominus with Drazarh and Urien and I lost Drazarh handily before getting super lucky with uriens ichor injector ( I rerolled a successful wound with it fishing for the 6 and got it lol)
Mandrakes are good, one of the better units in the Codex, the problem is there is only a handful of good units.
Drazhar is IMO literally (And i mean literally in the literal since not figuratively) the Worst HQ in the game.
I'm not saying DE is bad, but lots of it is. I've table a few players before, but i had to use the same 4-5 units. Ravagers, Bombers, Mandrakes, Incubi basically, and a few Beasts.
Not sure if i feel it for incubi. Pretty sure you'd need a lot more of them to be as good now. I mean they're probably better at marine killing than dissie ravagers (which are meant for killing primaris marines) but other than that and a decent armor save it's not too special.
I still think scourge are good. Being able to deepstrike in just about everything is pretty good esp. where it'll hurt and where the enemy won't know where it's coming in at. I was able to force my last opponent (tyranids) to spread out his stuff because he didn't know where i was coming in at. Then i just come in all at one side.
They do well for a cheap melee unit, a 5man unit can be a good Threat.
I like to have Forward Threats, it makes them think about shooting my Ravagers/Bombers. If my Venom with 5 Incubi get to your Devastators, they will die. So do you want to shoot the Incubi or the Ravager. Incubi will kill heavy weapon infantry, and thats why i take them.
Agree with Amish here. The only thing I'd add is that if you're gonna invest in one melee threat, you gotta invest in more than one. I think you're always better doubling up on threats. 2x5 Incubi in two Venoms will always be better in my mind than 1x10 in a Raider.
If only I could justify taking Incubi over Harlie Troupes... but for pure DE they're a very good choice.
Chippen wrote: Agree with Amish here. The only thing I'd add is that if you're gonna invest in one melee threat, you gotta invest in more than one. I think you're always better doubling up on threats. 2x5 Incubi in two Venoms will always be better in my mind than 1x10 in a Raider.
If only I could justify taking Incubi over Harlie Troupes... but for pure DE they're a very good choice.
Literally my same problem, i love harlequins Troupes lol.
Amishprn86 wrote: They do well for a cheap melee unit, a 5man unit can be a good Threat.
I like to have Forward Threats, it makes them think about shooting my Ravagers/Bombers. If my Venom with 5 Incubi get to your Devastators, they will die. So do you want to shoot the Incubi or the Ravager. Incubi will kill heavy weapon infantry, and thats why i take them.
Incubi are actually really durable in terrain. a 5 man squad can easily hop into a ruin on an objective and become a major pain to remove.
I usually field two haemonculi with whips, but mostly because I can't play without grotesques or talos. 2 succubus when I run a full wych cult army. I don't like the archon, his only ability is the blaster shot IMHO, but it's not worse than the other HQs.
Named characters are all useless.
I like incubi, in my fav list they're one of the three melee units I always include. I take 5 of them in a venom with 2x4 grots in raiders. Incubi are more efficent point wise but I need at least three choppy units (I hate playing full shooty armies) and if I cut the grots I'd need 25ish incubi, which is crazy considering how much 5 of those dudes cost in terms of money. Wyches are only working in dedicated wych cult lists IMHO and I don't like wracks. So yeah incubi are a good close combat unit but you need some other melee unit in your list otherwise they become high priority target if the opponent fears to get assaulted.
I don't think scourges will fix the anti horde problem either. The horde I faced that convinced me to change lists for a tournament was 90 plaguebearers. It averages out to requiring 3 scourges to kill a single plaguebearer in a turn. That means you're paying 42 points to kill a 7 point model (and hoping they don't get them right back during the leadership check). Then the dozen malefic lords will smite you back and wipe the unit since scourges don't have enough range to shoot from far enough away.
I have not had the problems with the succubus that other people seem to be having. Give her +S against T3, +A against T4, extra attack warlord trait, and she can fairly reliably remove threats while she buffs up nearby hellions, Wyches and Reavers.
Tbh the only thing I don't like about our HQs is how GW hit themselves on the head with a rock after designing the transport capacities for imperial guard, eldar, Orks, Harlequins, Space Marines, and sisters of battle. It's SIX slots and TWELVE slots, so you can FIT A CHARACTER IN THERE with a regular squad you dunces!
Trancefate wrote: So if our HQ's are as bad as I'm reading... what HQ do you guys use? do you just suffer the archon?
I'm fond of the Haemonculus w/corrosive whip and hex rifle. Stick him in a 5 man unit of Wracks with another hex rfile on the acothyst and an ossefactor in the unit. Then go after objectives.
T5 (from Haemonculus), 5++, and PfP makes them our most durable troop choice. Come December all troops will be objective secured.
Gives 2 sniper shots at 36" and the potential of causing 3 mortal wounds (combined with the ossefactor). If a psyker gets with 12" pop the crucible for potentially 1-3 more mortal wounds.
I take 2 units of these in Maelstrom missions and increase the wracks to unit size 7 in a disintegrator raider or dump all of them into a Tantalus and drop them off at relevant objectives.
I don't necessarily take pleasure in being a wet blanket, but is it really fair to say "I don't think Deldar are that bad, you guys are dismissing alot of our good units" and then end your post with "oh btw my entire army depends on the psychic buffs from another codex' units to work properly"?
Trancefate wrote: So if our HQ's are as bad as I'm reading... what HQ do you guys use? do you just suffer the archon?
In my 2k battalion I'm building up for a tourney, I'm rocking 2x Archon w/ Blaster and Agoniser. Accurate Blasters are nothing to scoff at honestly. That's really the best option for pure DE. Haemonculus are fine if you're gonna just use them to survive an alpha strike by giving your vehicles the +1T. and since Wyches and Bloodbrides are not good, there's hardly a reason to take a Succubus other than DISTRACTION CARNIFEX
BlaxicanX wrote: I don't necessarily take pleasure in being a wet blanket, but is it really fair to say "I don't think Deldar are that bad, you guys are dismissing alot of our good units" and then end your post with "oh btw my entire army depends on the psychic buffs from another codex' units to work properly"?
I don't think anyone did that. Ravagers, Dissie RWJFs, Mandrakes, Kabs w/ Blaster in Venom, Voidravens, these are all good units on their own merits. But when the discussion turned to HQ it's hard to deny that Craftworld, Harlie, and Ynnari HQs are better.
Next question.... What in the world is the REAL difference between voidraven and razorwing jetfighter? They seem to be nearly identical with only minor variations to stat lines and the points are about the same as well.
What am I missing here?
Edit: I get that the razorwing is better against infantry so that makes a case for it... however if you put dark lances on it, does it not do the exact same thing as a voidraven with only nominally different missiles? Considering the razorwing jet fighter is almost half the cost of the voidraven im not sure why I would ever buy one.
Trancefate wrote: Next question.... What in the world is the REAL difference between voidraven and razorwing jetfighter? They seem to be nearly identical with only minor variations to stat lines and the points are about the same as well.
What am I missing here?
Edit: I get that the razorwing is better against infantry so that makes a case for it... however if you put dark lances on it, does it not do the exact same thing as a voidraven with only nominally different missiles? Considering the razorwing jet fighter is almost half the cost of the voidraven im not sure why I would ever buy one.
Read the stats for the void mine. That's entirely why plus it has more wounds than the razorwing jetfighter. Also void lances are slightly stronger which does matter vs toughness 8. Believe me when i say that.
Read the stats for the void mine. That's entirely why plus it has more wounds than the razorwing jetfighter. Also void lances are slightly stronger which does matter vs toughness 8. Believe me when i say that.
Just for reference, 2 Void Lances assuming hitting on 3s will deal, on average, 3.11 wounds to a T8 vehicle per turn. 2 Dark Lances will do 2.33. 3 Dark Lances deal 3.50. 2 Dark Scythes will deal 2.67.
If you're running a Voidraven, you do it for the mortal wounds, and you should be running Dark Scythes every time. They're only marginally worse against T8, but significantly better against everything else.
If you're after anti-T8, a triple lance Ravager is way more efficient.
On another note, how are y'all dealing with Kastelan Robots? Had my first game against Admech, dude had like 6 of em. They're pretty nasty. I'm guessing Incubi, mass poison, and mortal wounds are the best bet?
Part of why i like the void lances is due to 36" range vs the 24" of the dark scythes. I get your point on ravagers with dark lances but the enemy does seem to focus them down wherever they can (no -1 to hit for enemy shooting sadly). Not sure about dark scythes. Perhaps i should use em more for anti-tank and anti-monster which is obvious i'm sure. That said the str 8 tends to wound on 2's so it could be ok vs t4 multi wound models. I'll admit it took me till last game or so to fully get used to the idea of no firing arcs and having 360 degree weapon vision. I guess i'm just so used to old 40k.
Read the stats for the void mine. That's entirely why plus it has more wounds than the razorwing jetfighter. Also void lances are slightly stronger which does matter vs toughness 8. Believe me when i say that.
Just for reference, 2 Void Lances assuming hitting on 3s will deal, on average, 3.11 wounds to a T8 vehicle per turn. 2 Dark Lances will do 2.33. 3 Dark Lances deal 3.50. 2 Dark Scythes will deal 2.67.
If you're running a Voidraven, you do it for the mortal wounds, and you should be running Dark Scythes every time. They're only marginally worse against T8, but significantly better against everything else.
If you're after anti-T8, a triple lance Ravager is way more efficient.
On another note, how are y'all dealing with Kastelan Robots? Had my first game against Admech, dude had like 6 of em. They're pretty nasty. I'm guessing Incubi, mass poison, and mortal wounds are the best bet?
Great points thank you! So essentially although they are similar the bomber is going to pull ahead against VERY heavy armor, and when you really want the mortal wounds.
Personally i suggest you don't run void ravens with missiles but that's just me (does too little for the points). As far as money goes the model costs a lot but with the 2 guns and the void mine it's actually not that expensive points-wise. It's about 170 pts for all that and i don't think that's too bad considering the -1 to hit and all.
@chippen: I'm rather confused you say wyches are bad. What about vs horde armies? What are we supposed to do should somebody throw down orks, nids or guard? I mean are we supposed to concede on the spot? What is your counter to that?
It sounds like you know more about current dark eldar in 8th edition than me and probably have played more games but some of the logic is odd to me.
Orks and nids eat wyches for breakfast, 2x5 wyches with gauntlets and agonisers won't cripple a 30 man ork mob while the greenskins can obliterate wyches in return with the surviving orks. AM has so much firepower that wyches are not going to assault ever.
I found kabalite warriors being more effective against hordes. But we basically only have poison against hordes.
Great points thank you! So essentially although they are similar the bomber is going to pull ahead against VERY heavy armor, and when you really want the mortal wounds.
Well if you're looking for strict anti-armor, Ravagers and Scourge are more efficient sources of Lances. The exception is I guess if you're taking on some guard pure tank list fuckery.
flamingkillamajig wrote:
Personally i suggest you don't run void ravens with missiles but that's just me (does too little for the points). As far as money goes the model costs a lot but with the 2 guns and the void mine it's actually not that expensive points-wise. It's about 170 pts for all that and i don't think that's too bad considering the -1 to hit and all.
@chippen: I'm rather confused you say wyches are bad. What about vs horde armies? What are we supposed to do should somebody throw down orks, nids or guard? I mean are we supposed to concede on the spot? What is your counter to that?
It sounds like you know more about current dark eldar in 8th edition than me and probably have played more games but some of the logic is odd to me.
Agreed, I don't think missiles are worth the cost. You're paying 25 points for about 1 wound per turn on average against most targets.
It's not really logic, it's math. A full squad of Wyches kills 13.67 GEQs including pistols with the +1A drug and Hydra Gauntlets per turn. They're 102 pts plus the cost of the Raider (115) to get them into combat.
I do know that if they make the drop charge, Mandrakes are the most efficient GEQ killers we have. Khymerae are second place IIRC. They each have their own problems, but combine them with, say, Dissie Razorwings and mass poison from venoms+Kabs and you should be... okay ish. At least enough to reduce the threat from each squad.
I am a little curious about void lance vs dark scythes for a different reason however. The first is 36" and the 2nd is 24". I realize it's a flyer and is usually really fast but if i want to be on the outskirts of the enemy's army i have to be much closer if i take dark scythes. I mean vs dedicated anti-tank/anti-monster they'll usually have the range on the void raven but it will keep them out of range of some of the other stuff too.
flamingkillamajig wrote: I am a little curious about void lance vs dark scythes for a different reason however. The first is 36" and the 2nd is 24". I realize it's a flyer and is usually really fast but if i want to be on the outskirts of the enemy's army i have to be much closer if i take dark scythes. I mean vs dedicated anti-tank/anti-monster they'll usually have the range on the void raven but it will keep them out of range of some of the other stuff too.
Vs T8 Lances, Vs T7 and under Scythes
Scythes do 3.56 wounds to T7 3+ saves (no invul) (4.22 with CP re-roll)
Lances do 3.11 wounds to T7 3+ saves (no invul) (3.98 with CP re-roll)
Scythes do 2.66 wounds to T8 3+ saves (no invul)
Lances do 3.11 wounds to T8 3+ saves (no invul)
flamingkillamajig wrote: I am a little curious about void lance vs dark scythes for a different reason however. The first is 36" and the 2nd is 24". I realize it's a flyer and is usually really fast but if i want to be on the outskirts of the enemy's army i have to be much closer if i take dark scythes. I mean vs dedicated anti-tank/anti-monster they'll usually have the range on the void raven but it will keep them out of range of some of the other stuff too.
If that's the case, refer to my math above - 3 Dark Lances will do more damage with the same range, but more efficiently.
A couple questions... I have recently acquired some stuff, hence my being in this forum.
1) 4 of my raiders and my ravager have what appears to be disintegrator cannons (im pretty sure its NOT a dark lance) on their nose. Are these that bad?
The ravager has 2 dark lances. I want to convert a 5th raider into a ravager using heavy weapon kabalites but im not really sure how everything seems kinda janky. (I scoured for the bits to do the conversion and no one is selling)
2) Archon model doesn't seem to include a blaster, is this like with my chaos daemon princes where I just imagine the warp bolter is there? I wasn't planning on running blast pistol but every model I find has pistol.
Trancefate wrote: A couple questions... I have recently acquired some stuff, hence my being in this forum.
1) 4 of my raiders and my ravager have what appears to be disintegrator cannons (im pretty sure its NOT a dark lance) on their nose. Are these that bad?
Disintegrator cannons are actually quite effective weapons. But they're not dedicated anti tank, they're anti heavy infantries mainly. And since they cost 5 point more than lances people usually favor lances over cannons, but having a mix of both weapons is certainly better than bringing all lances and blasters.
The ravager has 2 dark lances. I want to convert a 5th raider into a ravager using heavy weapon kabalites but im not really sure how everything seems kinda janky. (I scoured for the bits to do the conversion and no one is selling)
An acceptable raider converted into a ravager could be a standard vehicle with two of the crew equipped with dark lances, and of course another lance in the front. Not sure about the older kit but the current one is quite easy to convert this way since it has several dudes on board and giving lances to a couple of them is not complicated.
2) Archon model doesn't seem to include a blaster, is this like with my chaos daemon princes where I just imagine the warp bolter is there? I wasn't planning on running blast pistol but every model I find has pistol.
Archon is a mono-pose model with splinter pistol and huskblade, if you want another loadout you must have spared bits from other kits. I gave mine an agoniser from the wyches box and the spared blaster from the scourges box. If WYSIWYG is not stricly required you can play the archon with a blaster even if the model actually doesn't have that specific weapon, but in formal events you may not be allowed to do that.
Thank you for all the answers. I try to keep anything I do rigid to whatever the most strict competitive ruleset is. I guess I have to do a conversion if I want a blaster archon, odd... I couldn't fathom cramming bolters onto my daemon princes. Also, I wonder how that would work with units that have more guns than can fit on the model logically. There are some units that have a single model with 3-5 weapons, do these not get granted leniency to WYSIWYG in tournaments?
Automatically Appended Next Post: Could I just, add a warlock into my army, willy nilly? Since we currently get no benefit from not just using [Aeldari] keyword... I have one archon w/ blast pistol & agonizer (whip) already, was gonna run him and another as blaster archons but if I have to mod them to do it then.... I'm looking at maybe getting a warlock as the second HQ of my batallion and using him exclusively for trying to drop DOOM on a priority target.
Yes, mixing and matching with the Aeldari keyword is perfectly legal. However, I'd be wary of buying new models given the Craftworld codex is on pre-order... today? Soon ish? Something like that.
If you have the bits from the Raider/Ravagers, you can snip the front of the guns and have a pin or magnet for each so you can swap out Disintegrator/Dark Lance.
Regarding the Archon, I just took a Blaster off a Kabalite sprue and put it on him. I would magnetize this and 1 out of every 5 Kabalites so you can swap them around.
Trancefate wrote: A couple questions... I have recently acquired some stuff, hence my being in this forum.
1) 4 of my raiders and my ravager have what appears to be disintegrator cannons (im pretty sure its NOT a dark lance) on their nose. Are these that bad?
Disintegrator cannons are actually quite effective weapons. But they're not dedicated anti tank, they're anti heavy infantries mainly. And since they cost 5 point more than lances people usually favor lances over cannons, but having a mix of both weapons is certainly better than bringing all lances and blasters.
The ravager has 2 dark lances. I want to convert a 5th raider into a ravager using heavy weapon kabalites but im not really sure how everything seems kinda janky. (I scoured for the bits to do the conversion and no one is selling)
An acceptable raider converted into a ravager could be a standard vehicle with two of the crew equipped with dark lances, and of course another lance in the front. Not sure about the older kit but the current one is quite easy to convert this way since it has several dudes on board and giving lances to a couple of them is not complicated.
2) Archon model doesn't seem to include a blaster, is this like with my chaos daemon princes where I just imagine the warp bolter is there? I wasn't planning on running blast pistol but every model I find has pistol.
Archon is a mono-pose model with splinter pistol and huskblade, if you want another loadout you must have spared bits from other kits. I gave mine an agoniser from the wyches box and the spared blaster from the scourges box. If WYSIWYG is not stricly required you can play the archon with a blaster even if the model actually doesn't have that specific weapon, but in formal events you may not be allowed to do that.
A great option for an extra blaster is to cut the head off of a blast pistol and off of a shredder, and glue the shredder stock to the blast pistol muzzle. Also, if you need a ton of blasters, it's fairly simple to make pressmolds of blaster muzzles, mold some out of putty, and then shredder, dark lance, and heat lance, and haywire blaster stocks can all be trimmed down into something passably similar to a blaster body by cutting off extraneous pieces,
A great option for an extra blaster is to cut the head off of a blast pistol and off of a shredder, and glue the shredder stock to the blast pistol muzzle. Also, if you need a ton of blasters, it's fairly simple to make pressmolds of blaster muzzles, mold some out of putty, and then shredder, dark lance, and heat lance, and haywire blaster stocks can all be trimmed down into something passably similar to a blaster body by cutting off extraneous pieces,
Nice thinking, I'll probly get a sprue or two of new kabalites just for conversion bits, and also look into press molding... I'm assuming that uses green stuff? I'm new to modeling in general so I'm having a BLAST doing this. So far I can't *(#&%*#%ing stand glueing/assembling but I am seriously enjoying watching my painting skills improve on every model.
A great option for an extra blaster is to cut the head off of a blast pistol and off of a shredder, and glue the shredder stock to the blast pistol muzzle. Also, if you need a ton of blasters, it's fairly simple to make pressmolds of blaster muzzles, mold some out of putty, and then shredder, dark lance, and heat lance, and haywire blaster stocks can all be trimmed down into something passably similar to a blaster body by cutting off extraneous pieces,
Nice thinking, I'll probly get a sprue or two of new kabalites just for conversion bits, and also look into press molding... I'm assuming that uses green stuff? I'm new to modeling in general so I'm having a BLAST doing this. So far I can't *(#&%*#%ing stand glueing/assembling but I am seriously enjoying watching my painting skills improve on every model.
That is one thing about starting the hobby, you see your skills improve really fast and you see it a lot, as someone that has been painting for a long time, i dont see that anymore
Shredders mixed with blast pistols work great, my trueborn are equipped with that kind of blasters. They look slightly different than regular blasters but still quite WYSIWYG, so giving those converted blasters to trueborn or the archon is completely acceptable. Keep the regular blasters for the kabalite warriors.
Had my first game of 1500pts with a buddy today, army wasn't ready, very lopsided, lacking heavy weapons. Played against Dark Angels. ultimately narrowly won on points cheese because my opponent simply didn't care about points, planned to wipe me, but had to leave.
List was something like: (I know some of these units were bad, I was using literally everything I owned from a dark eldar LOT I got on ebay dirt cheap to make 1500 pts)
The army looks wonky because those were the models I owned at the time (some stuff has come in the mail since then thankfully; MOAR DARKLIGHT!!)
I played against Azrael Parkinglot (marines re-rolling everything, is hot garbage, simply too powerful and no wonder every tournament top 5 looks like marine marine imperial marine marine)
His list was something like 30 tacs, 3 centurion dudes, azrael, lieutenant, 2 dreadnaughts, stormhawk.
The mission was "retrieval" from eternal war.
My takeaways about our army from the mission: (I've tabled this same player with a similar army 5/5 times with my Tzeentch daemon list, in impressive fashion mind you)
Archons are so amazingly bad. A 5+ save on a friggin HQ? It is hilariously that a basic marine has a better save than our HQ. Let's not mention the fact that the only way to make him useful is with a blaster and agonizer, and he only comes modellable (made-up word) with a power sword and splinter pistol... So to make this trash unit slightly less trash in a WYSIWYG environment I have to kit bash?
Hellions could be good, mine died on turn 1 before they got to play. This tells me that they could be good but are going to require CAREFUL positioning, also could just not be the right answer vs MEQ.
Reavers: Wow, I heard you guys, I believed you guys, Thedarkcity.net told me they were bad too... but WOW... I guess making them t5 they did protect my Archon from dying for a turn... LOL.. yay? 30 pts for a splinter rifle.
Kabalites: Splinter rifles on Kabs are okay, cause they are a nice value well costed troop with good options in the special and heavy departments and unit flexibility. The splinter CANNONS tho.... I really just haven't had luck with it.
Trueborn: Like the guys above, a nice solid flexible option to get weapons systems around. Could just be called Kabalite Heavy Squad or something in the codex to confuse people about them having the same models less.
Raiders: These guys did a great job keeping my squads firing all game, really couldn't ask for much more for the points.
Ravager: I need more, I'm gonna glue some heavy weapon guys to the side of a raider and make a ghetto ravager... I'll find a way to make it look better later, now I need some more darklight.
Scourges: I used 6 with shardcarbines and had the exact OPPOSITE of what I expected happen. I dropped in on my first turn broadside of a bunch of tac marines, unleashed 18 shots, and killed 0 models. What happened next however, was the scourges taking multiple rounds of fire from a dreadnought, centurions, and a tac squad, and LIVING (okay, one model, but still NOT DEAD haha!). I expected them to kill tac marines more effectively and die sooner.
Weaponry:
Splinter Weaponry: It'ts just.... BAD... am I doing it wrong? I'm firing 10, 20, 30 shots into marine squads and getting 1-3 guys... and the other 75% of the stuff on the table is basically immune to it. Tell me what these things are for again?
Blasters: Great weapons, our movespeed gets you in range easily, cannot complain.
Dark Lances: Wowza, these put in work, -4ap means things like stormhawk interceptor don't even get to attempt a save? KABOOM.
Disintegrator: Meh.. I feel like I had extremely bad luck so it's hard to have a trustworthy opinion on them. The 4 I had managed to kill a single marine and do 2 wounds to a dreadnought over 3 turns of shooting... I rolled poorly but they just seemed kind of MEH. Maybe against things with 2 wound infantry, or light vehicles/monsters they would be better.
Edit: Oh yeah, Talos, he got knocked to 1 wound in turn 1 and died before I could do much. Honestly I think the unit could be good based off the statline. It's not too far off from a daemon prince on some targets w/ a lower cost and half decent shooting. I would like to try a squad of 3 w/ twin liquifiers & macro scalpels marching w/ a haemonculous, that'd be 21 t8 wounds with 6d6 auto hitting -d3ap shots and 6 s6 -1ap 2dmg melee swings. I think I just found a decent Drukhari response to horde armies?
Trancefate wrote: Had my first game of 1500pts with a buddy today, army wasn't ready, very lopsided, lacking heavy weapons. Played against Dark Angels. ultimately narrowly won on points cheese because my opponent simply didn't care about points, planned to wipe me, but had to leave.
List was something like: (I know some of these units were bad, I was using literally everything I owned from a dark eldar LOT I got on ebay dirt cheap to make 1500 pts)
Oh yeah reavers suck now. Way over-costed. Talos is also probably bad. Splinter cannons suck now that they're rapid fire. The more spammed basic poison weapons tend to do better. Trueborn can't have 3 splinter cannons in one 5 man squad unless that's a typo or i misread. Kabilites in raiders seem bad in raiders due to raiders being so expensive. You need more hellions if you take them and they're very vulnerable even in 8th. Also don't take more than one hq unless you need it for Force Organization to be Battle Forged.
Don't insult the basic weapons of scourge. They can be ok. Ravagers are good. Hellions might be ok in numbers.
Trancefate wrote: Had my first game of 1500pts with a buddy today, army wasn't ready, very lopsided, lacking heavy weapons. Played against Dark Angels. ultimately narrowly won on points cheese because my opponent simply didn't care about points, planned to wipe me, but had to leave.
List was something like: (I know some of these units were bad, I was using literally everything I owned from a dark eldar LOT I got on ebay dirt cheap to make 1500 pts)
The army looks wonky because those were the models I owned at the time (some stuff has come in the mail since then thankfully; MOAR DARKLIGHT!!)
I played against Azrael Parkinglot (marines re-rolling everything, is hot garbage, simply too powerful and no wonder every tournament top 5 looks like marine marine imperial marine marine)
His list was something like 30 tacs, 3 centurion dudes, azrael, lieutenant, 2 dreadnaughts, stormhawk.
The mission was "retrieval" from eternal war.
My takeaways about our army from the mission: (I've tabled this same player with a similar army 5/5 times with my Tzeentch daemon list, in impressive fashion mind you)
Archons are so amazingly bad. A 5+ save on a friggin HQ? It is hilariously that a basic marine has a better save than our HQ. Let's not mention the fact that the only way to make him useful is with a blaster and agonizer, and he only comes modellable (made-up word) with a power sword and splinter pistol... So to make this trash unit slightly less trash in a WYSIWYG environment I have to kit bash?
Hellions could be good, mine died on turn 1 before they got to play. This tells me that they could be good but are going to require CAREFUL positioning, also could just not be the right answer vs MEQ.
Reavers: Wow, I heard you guys, I believed you guys, Thedarkcity.net told me they were bad too... but WOW... I guess making them t5 they did protect my Archon from dying for a turn... LOL.. yay? 30 pts for a splinter rifle.
Kabalites: Splinter rifles on Kabs are okay, cause they are a nice value well costed troop with good options in the special and heavy departments and unit flexibility. The splinter CANNONS tho.... I really just haven't had luck with it.
Trueborn: Like the guys above, a nice solid flexible option to get weapons systems around. Could just be called Kabalite Heavy Squad or something in the codex to confuse people about them having the same models less.
Raiders: These guys did a great job keeping my squads firing all game, really couldn't ask for much more for the points.
Ravager: I need more, I'm gonna glue some heavy weapon guys to the side of a raider and make a ghetto ravager... I'll find a way to make it look better later, now I need some more darklight.
Scourges: I used 6 with shardcarbines and had the exact OPPOSITE of what I expected happen. I dropped in on my first turn broadside of a bunch of tac marines, unleashed 18 shots, and killed 0 models. What happened next however, was the scourges taking multiple rounds of fire from a dreadnought, centurions, and a tac squad, and LIVING (okay, one model, but still NOT DEAD haha!). I expected them to kill tac marines more effectively and die sooner.
Weaponry:
Splinter Weaponry: It'ts just.... BAD... am I doing it wrong? I'm firing 10, 20, 30 shots into marine squads and getting 1-3 guys... and the other 75% of the stuff on the table is basically immune to it. Tell me what these things are for again?
Blasters: Great weapons, our movespeed gets you in range easily, cannot complain.
Dark Lances: Wowza, these put in work, -4ap means things like stormhawk interceptor don't even get to attempt a save? KABOOM.
Disintegrator: Meh.. I feel like I had extremely bad luck so it's hard to have a trustworthy opinion on them. The 4 I had managed to kill a single marine and do 2 wounds to a dreadnought over 3 turns of shooting... I rolled poorly but they just seemed kind of MEH. Maybe against things with 2 wound infantry, or light vehicles/monsters they would be better.
Edit: Oh yeah, Talos, he got knocked to 1 wound in turn 1 and died before I could do much. Honestly I think the unit could be good based off the statline. It's not too far off from a daemon prince on some targets w/ a lower cost and half decent shooting. I would like to try a squad of 3 w/ twin liquifiers & macro scalpels marching w/ a haemonculous, that'd be 21 t8 wounds with 6d6 auto hitting -d3ap shots and 6 s6 -1ap 2dmg melee swings. I think I just found a decent Drukhari response to horde armies?
You did remember that archon have this funky 2+ inv that goes off as soon you roll 1, do you? Hq aren't great but can at least be cheap, and agoniser can be represented by any melee weapon.
Splinter weapons must be spamed and used at rapid-fire range. You must drown your enemy in them to make them work. They aren't that great against anything with 3+save. They main utility comes against high T models that other armies troops would wound on 6' , witch don't favors us in horde meta. But hey, they are cheap, so you can spam them a loot. Don't buy any upgrades for splinter weapons. Instead take additional warriors squad, maybe venoms. Quantity over quality.
About Scourges, go with Mandrakes. The are gorgeous models and are incredibly good right now. They can shoot mortal wounds and have -1ap so they would be your preferable choice against MEQ and TEQ. Scourges are usually used with dark lances or haywire blasters thats what they are god with. Both options, Mandrakes and WireBirds give you this sweat -1ap that we lack.
No wonder that he shoot your hellions to the ground, since they can fly the can charge OVER any shielding unit to lock his backline in cc. Other than that only thing you could do was trying to outshoot him, witch obviously you couldn't. I also suggest getting flyers, they are really good. jetfighter>ravager.
Also, DE are more assault army (when we have gunlines, assault and combat armies.) and you faced against gunline. Make sure that you have a loot of terrain that block LOS or you will be wiped every game.
On another note, how are y'all dealing with Kastelan Robots? Had my first game against Admech, dude had like 6 of em. They're pretty nasty. I'm guessing Incubi, mass poison, and mortal wounds are the best bet?
Unfortunately the kastelans don't have the keyword you want for poison, they are vehicles so wounded on 6s.
Kastelans are a real problem for Drukhari, they put out 9 Strength 6 shots each, and can go into a different models where they can't move but double their shots.
They can spend a CP to be stuck in that mode at the end of any phase(like movement) then put out 18 shots each, likely with rerolls of some form to hit.
The best answer to them is then completely committing everything to shooting them, and I mean everything you have.
I would say assault is good but assaulting an unit that averages 3 S6 hits on overwatch per model is not good for dark Eldar. If you assault them I would try and get in with a raider filled with some assault unit, and charge the raider first hoping it survives so your squad can charge. At that point t the kastelans cannot move, so you have at least stopped their shooting but now have to beat down a bunch high toughness vehicle wounds with a save and an ++ save.
On another note, how are y'all dealing with Kastelan Robots? Had my first game against Admech, dude had like 6 of em. They're pretty nasty. I'm guessing Incubi, mass poison, and mortal wounds are the best bet?
Unfortunately the kastelans don't have the keyword you want for poison, they are vehicles so wounded on 6s.
Kastelans are a real problem for Drukhari, they put out 9 Strength 6 shots each, and can go into a different models where they can't move but double their shots.
They can spend a CP to be stuck in that mode at the end of any phase(like movement) then put out 18 shots each, likely with rerolls of some form to hit.
The best answer to them is then completely committing everything to shooting them, and I mean everything you have.
I would say assault is good but assaulting an unit that averages 3 S6 hits on overwatch per model is not good for dark Eldar. If you assault them I would try and get in with a raider filled with some assault unit, and charge the raider first hoping it survives so your squad can charge. At that point t the kastelans cannot move, so you have at least stopped their shooting but now have to beat down a bunch high toughness vehicle wounds with a save and an ++ save.
On tables with terrain you can try to avoid them.
You charge something close to them and then pile in to tag them into cc. They suck in CC. Beside robots maybe electropriests and dragoons may pose threat, but admech isn't that scary, but still it is matchup of codex vs index. Yet, it is worst codex that came so far. Darklances al day long into them. And haywire Scourges.
You did remember that archon have this funky 2+ inv that goes off as soon you roll 1, do you? Hq aren't great but can at least be cheap, and agoniser can be represented by any melee weapon.
Splinter weapons must be spamed and used at rapid-fire range. You must drown your enemy in them to make them work. They aren't that great against anything with 3+save. They main utility comes against high T models that other armies troops would wound on 6' , witch don't favors us in horde meta. But hey, they are cheap, so you can spam them a loot. Don't buy any upgrades for splinter weapons. Instead take additional warriors squad, maybe venoms. Quantity over quality.
About Scourges, go with Mandrakes. The are gorgeous models and are incredibly good right now. They can shoot mortal wounds and have -1ap so they would be your preferable choice against MEQ and TEQ. Scourges are usually used with dark lances or haywire blasters thats what they are god with. Both options, Mandrakes and WireBirds give you this sweat -1ap that we lack.
No wonder that he shoot your hellions to the ground, since they can fly the can charge OVER any shielding unit to lock his backline in cc. Other than that only thing you could do was trying to outshoot him, witch obviously you couldn't. I also suggest getting flyers, they are really good. jetfighter>ravager.
Also, DE are more assault army (when we have gunlines, assault and combat armies.) and you faced against gunline. Make sure that you have a loot of terrain that block LOS or you will be wiped every game.
Thanks for the advice and yes that was a typo
! I've got some things that I did not have at the time. A lance RWJF, some darklance/haywire blaster/splinter cannon scourges, 4 more darklance kabalites for another heavy trueborn squad or maybe converting a raider to ravager, some more basic kabalites and splinter cannons (meh), and a couple of venoms.
Blackie wrote: Orks and nids eat wyches for breakfast, 2x5 wyches with gauntlets and agonisers won't cripple a 30 man ork mob while the greenskins can obliterate wyches in return with the surviving orks. AM has so much firepower that wyches are not going to assault ever.
I found kabalite warriors being more effective against hordes. But we basically only have poison against hordes.
That's kinda my point with going against termagaunts being able to wipe out mandrakes or wyches and take some down in overwatch even. At that point the best we have is taking a raider or venom and charging into the enemy to take overwatch so that the melee units can go in without worrying about overwatch. That is legit a tactic we absolutely must employ vs heavy shooty units and shooty hordes. At least the one bonus to horde shooting is the strength and AP value tends to be garbage so anything with a decent toughness and armor save (like vehicles) can tank some shots.
As i said i was considering kabalite warriors myself. Extremely cheap and gives you bodies. In the case of attacks that go through armor they give you bodies. Problem being you'd probably be limited on squad size if you don't want them to all run away. 7 pts per guy is pretty freaking cheap though. To an extent i actually enjoy some more focus being placed on basic troops. It actually gives people a reason to buy them rather than focusing on death stars and super units.
Blackie wrote: Orks and nids eat wyches for breakfast, 2x5 wyches with gauntlets and agonisers won't cripple a 30 man ork mob while the greenskins can obliterate wyches in return with the surviving orks. AM has so much firepower that wyches are not going to assault ever.
I found kabalite warriors being more effective against hordes. But we basically only have poison against hordes.
one tactic that I've found myself using incredibly frequently against hordes is to heavily abuse the fact that our transports are very durable vs most chaff units (orks, gribblies, and conscripts all struggle to take a raider down) and the fact that our vehicles have extremely big hulls. Move up on a weedier flank of the blob, charge first with the raider, and plow that big, pointy shock prow right in the space between the enemy models.
You then have 3-7ish models cordoned off from the rest of the group that can fight the wyches, and for the whole rest of the blob the closest model is the raider, who is a pain in the butt to get around with 3" moves, or else they're closest to one of your other models and their only choice for a pile in move is to take free damage from some other unit. I find that most commonly, the opponent won't even take casualties from the few models engaged with the wyches, and instead they'll remove from the part of the blob that can't even get near combat, but even if they do play smart and pull for the Fall Back, a small number of wyches often doesn't kill enough to allow them to disengage. You can then either go for a surround (easy to do with the Raider there to assist) or just roll off for No Escape.
In my last game against guard Pre-codex, I tied up a full 50 man conscript blob for 4 full rounds of combat with 5 wyches and a Raider, and I only lost 4 wounds on the raider and 2 wyches for my trouble. and that was with him actively attempting to remove the models fighting the wyches first, I would just elect to attack with the wyches last and use their post-combat pile in to grab another couple of infantry.
Maybe I am being too extreme but I don't see what they do. Their damage output is very low, they are easy to shoot off the table if ever outside a transport (and transports will get shot down). A 4++ save is nice against certain elite assault units that have a low number of high S, high D attacks, but against things like Orks you just get dragged under.
As I see it Kabalite warriors are okay - I am almost tempted to say regardless of transports. Its ben heresy since 5th if not 3rd edition - but if FOC wasn't an issue they are cheap as chips and could easilly be spammed instead of having fairly crap vehicles. I'd probably rather take 18~ man+blaster squads than 6 in a venom. Flood the table with ObSec units that are inefficient to smite and can each put out a bit of punch. I don't want to buy the models to test this (and unfortunately FOC actually gets in the way for once) but I suspect it would better.
Both venoms and raiders seem intuitively too expensive for what you get. Sure they are harder to kill, and they can charge in and/or withdraw from combat but their damage output compared to the Codex release armies is awful.
Both flyers are good and ravagers are okay. And that is about where I would draw the line. Incubi are okay on paper but there is too much "if, if, if = great results". So many units are doing mediocre damage even if everything works out.
I kind of see the point of the above poster about raiders and venoms being too expensive, however depending on opposing army disentegrator is nice, and I find they still draw fire effectively even after I dismount the troops onto objectives. If I were to have the models available maybe i'd drop a raider or two, or a raider and a venom, and add another RWJF + kab squad, or a bomber, or a ravager.
Maybe I am being too extreme but I don't see what they do. Their damage output is very low, they are easy to shoot off the table if ever outside a transport (and transports will get shot down). A 4++ save is nice against certain elite assault units that have a low number of high S, high D attacks, but against things like Orks you just get dragged under.
As I see it Kabalite warriors are okay - I am almost tempted to say regardless of transports. Its ben heresy since 5th if not 3rd edition - but if FOC wasn't an issue they are cheap as chips and could easilly be spammed instead of having fairly crap vehicles. I'd probably rather take 18~ man+blaster squads than 6 in a venom. Flood the table with ObSec units that are inefficient to smite and can each put out a bit of punch. I don't want to buy the models to test this (and unfortunately FOC actually gets in the way for once) but I suspect it would better.
Both venoms and raiders seem intuitively too expensive for what you get. Sure they are harder to kill, and they can charge in and/or withdraw from combat but their damage output compared to the Codex release armies is awful.
Both flyers are good and ravagers are okay. And that is about where I would draw the line. Incubi are okay on paper but there is too much "if, if, if = great results". So many units are doing mediocre damage even if everything works out.
Not all units need to do damage, as long as they work as force multiplayer for units that do. Transports are kinda that way. T3 and mostly 1W isn't very durable, when 5+/6+++ is just 4+ for 1D attacks. That isn't much, so protection of transport really pays of. Just ask yourself, "Can I bring more daka per point instead of transport?" So while Kabalite warriors may not be super efficient in transport, trueborns with special weapons in venom will be. With close combat units it goes without saying, transport allows to do them damage, since they will have option to attack that preferred target instead of whatever your opponent will throw at you. They need to be at range.
Wyches aren't dedicated cc unit, they are tarpit unit. With careful positioning and engaging multiple units in cc they can lock themselves in combat for whole game where they have 4+ inv. They aren't your dps, they are crowd control, one of few right now in whole 8ed. As someone mentioned before, if you have empty rider/venom nearby wyches, and you are not using it to eat overwatch and prevent opponent from piling in full to wyches you are playing combat part of this game wrong. Assault part is far more complex than shooting. it isn't just math and probability. Positioning here is key, utilizing pile in and consolidate to its fullest potential. Imagine locking Magnus in cc with wyches. Yes they will die, but they stopped 10x more point from acting. Throwing them on boyz is stupid because they aren't typical cc unit. Thats breaking 1 rule of 40k, "shot the staby, stab the shoty".
.
Yes, wyches, incubis and transports will die, but everything in this game does so. Especially in 8ed.
Sadly tho, harlequins are just better Wyches i literally every way, other than a 50/50 chance for units to not fall back.
Wyches vs Kabal as cheap troops, Kabals win everytime as well, as they can shoot for a turn or 2 and get nto a good position to also charge, on average its 1 dead SM, but if you shoot them and charge a 1/2 dead unit on an objective with 5 guys, its going to be a 1 to 1 trade off for a couple rounds, which you should win b.c you psotion yourself to do so against only a couple SM and not a full unit.
Wyches can not tarpit dedicated foot infantry, b.c those units are to large, its only 5 wyches, thats only 5 wounds with a 4++ that will kill 1-2 guys at the most, then when they have 20+ attacks back wounding on 3/4+ it doesnt matter you have a 4++ and they might not fall back, only need to fail 5 saves.
From all my games that i used wyches in (i'm a large player on positioning and timing, as also a Harlequin player i am used to doing that) they dont do what they are made for in any shape or form.
Its just better to take Kabals and shoot for 2 turns then charge with them, you will actually kill guys and able to get the job done.
DE weakness is T3 hordes, we will stay that way till a codex comes out. I highles suggest adding in some Eldar Anti-Horde units via Walkers, Bikes, Vypers etc.. with mass fire weapons (Shuriken/Scatter) and Alaitoc.
Currently some of the best AI units are melee units for DE, Beasts, as an example, Mandrakes are also very good, if Mandrakes get cheaper by 25% (looking at eldar numbers and averages) i will for sure take 20 of these unless Coven gains a large buff.
DE transports are quite good IMHO. And they're very useful to target saturations otherwise ravagers and flyers will die by turn 2. Incubi in venoms, kabalites with a blaster in a venom, trueborns with blasters in venom are all juicy targets and may let your gun platform lives.
If you use 80 kabalites they will take all the anti infantry, which many armies bring en masse since the 8th edition's fear of hordes, and die even faster.
I wouldn't take any drukhari footslogging unit, only the sneaky mandrakes or fast stuff like beasts, and some characters like succubus or haemonculus.
Sadly, even with 80 poison shots, thats only 18 dead T3 5+ save guys, thats if all 80 are within 24" range.
Lets say you took 5 Raiders with 10 Kabals 1 with a SC, lets say your within 18" but not 12" (so you get 6 shots on the 5 SC's) thats 9x5 (45) and 6x5 (30) for 95 shots. Thats 21 dead Guardsman for a total of 1070pts. Yes you have 5 Lances, and you might kill a tank with them, the raider is really good, the point is that the guys are not.
DE Poison is NOT an Anti-Infantry weapon. SB's are better in every way.
Splinter Rifles NEEDS its Splinter Racks back, all Raiders should just come with them for free, and the Splinter cannon needs to be Assault 6 again, at 10pts.
If you want cc troop don't take wyches, simple. Harlequins will be better. Technically wracks should be our cc unit but they are simply to expensive for what they bring. Either they will need big cost reduction to 6-7 its like kabalites or some buff.
But as seen so far with codexes both things will be possible. I can even see "chapter tactic" that gives all splinter weapon -1AP.
As about mandrakes, guys they are good right now, not need of waiting. On dark city someone did the math, they are always in top5 and most of the time 1st or 2nd place vs any type of target. Im even wondering if it would work to put them inside transport and take them in mass.
Amishprn86 wrote: Sadly, even with 80 poison shots, thats only 18 dead T3 5+ save guys, thats if all 80 are within 24" range.
Lets say you took 5 Raiders with 10 Kabals 1 with a SC, lets say your within 18" but not 12" (so you get 6 shots on the 5 SC's) thats 9x5 (45) and 6x5 (30) for 95 shots. Thats 21 dead Guardsman for a total of 1070pts. Yes you have 5 Lances, and you might kill a tank with them, the raider is really good, the point is that the guys are not.
DE Poison is NOT an Anti-Infantry weapon. SB's are better in every way.
Splinter Rifles NEEDS its Splinter Racks back, all Raiders should just come with them for free, and the Splinter cannon needs to be Assault 6 again, at 10pts.
Let's wait for the codex to have a fair response about DE. I agree that something should be more effective and/or cheaper.
But don't compare them or their weapons to AM or stormbolters since these things are overpowered stuff, something that should toned down.
Putting them in a transport is a neat idea, you could take a Venom for them and if DSing would be better then just DS them, if not you have a -1 to hit 5++ vehicle for them, tho honestly i wish the Venom was better, i dont like poison in 8th and the Splinter cannons are WAY over costed. The Venom is just a lot cheaper and can go off at 16'+ a turn to get objectives, shut down other tanks, etc...
Amishprn86 wrote: Sadly, even with 80 poison shots, thats only 18 dead T3 5+ save guys, thats if all 80 are within 24" range.
Lets say you took 5 Raiders with 10 Kabals 1 with a SC, lets say your within 18" but not 12" (so you get 6 shots on the 5 SC's) thats 9x5 (45) and 6x5 (30) for 95 shots. Thats 21 dead Guardsman for a total of 1070pts. Yes you have 5 Lances, and you might kill a tank with them, the raider is really good, the point is that the guys are not.
DE Poison is NOT an Anti-Infantry weapon. SB's are better in every way.
Splinter Rifles NEEDS its Splinter Racks back, all Raiders should just come with them for free, and the Splinter cannon needs to be Assault 6 again, at 10pts.
Let's wait for the codex to have a fair response about DE. I agree that something should be more effective and/or cheaper.
But don't compare them or their weapons to AM or stormbolters since these things are overpowered stuff, something that should toned down.
But you need to report such things that underperform or need a bit tweaking. Otherwise it may not be touched. It is good idea to do summary of units and opinions after playtestinng, and then send them email. No whining, just solid data. It would be best to do it ASAP, because once codex is announced it will be to late.
I have to say, splinter fire is just the absolute worst option for any armies main spammable weapon that i've seen so far and it is pretty crippling. Wouldn't be such a problem if 2/3 of our units didn't have some kind of splinter weapon. As it stands, the poison mechanics are hot garbage and need rescued by a codex ASAP.
Amishprn86 wrote: Sadly, even with 80 poison shots, thats only 18 dead T3 5+ save guys, thats if all 80 are within 24" range.
Lets say you took 5 Raiders with 10 Kabals 1 with a SC, lets say your within 18" but not 12" (so you get 6 shots on the 5 SC's) thats 9x5 (45) and 6x5 (30) for 95 shots. Thats 21 dead Guardsman for a total of 1070pts. Yes you have 5 Lances, and you might kill a tank with them, the raider is really good, the point is that the guys are not.
DE Poison is NOT an Anti-Infantry weapon. SB's are better in every way.
Splinter Rifles NEEDS its Splinter Racks back, all Raiders should just come with them for free, and the Splinter cannon needs to be Assault 6 again, at 10pts.
Let's wait for the codex to have a fair response about DE. I agree that something should be more effective and/or cheaper.
But don't compare them or their weapons to AM or stormbolters since these things are overpowered stuff, something that should toned down.
But you need to report such things that underperform or need a bit tweaking. Otherwise it may not be touched. It is good idea to do summary of units and opinions after playtestinng, and then send them email. No whining, just solid data. It would be best to do it ASAP, because once codex is announced it will be to late.
Thedarkcity.net did a really nice report of what is bad/good, showed numbers etc.. and gave it to GW, we went through the full codex and had something like 20 people working on it (it was short and more to the point, but in a nice respectful way), GW acknowledge they read it b.c they even mention something in the letter that the header didnt talk about, so we know they read it, its up to them if they feel the same way now.
Amishprn86 wrote: Sadly, even with 80 poison shots, thats only 18 dead T3 5+ save guys, thats if all 80 are within 24" range.
Lets say you took 5 Raiders with 10 Kabals 1 with a SC, lets say your within 18" but not 12" (so you get 6 shots on the 5 SC's) thats 9x5 (45) and 6x5 (30) for 95 shots. Thats 21 dead Guardsman for a total of 1070pts. Yes you have 5 Lances, and you might kill a tank with them, the raider is really good, the point is that the guys are not.
DE Poison is NOT an Anti-Infantry weapon. SB's are better in every way.
Splinter Rifles NEEDS its Splinter Racks back, all Raiders should just come with them for free, and the Splinter cannon needs to be Assault 6 again, at 10pts.
Let's wait for the codex to have a fair response about DE. I agree that something should be more effective and/or cheaper.
But don't compare them or their weapons to AM or stormbolters since these things are overpowered stuff, something that should toned down.
But you need to report such things that underperform or need a bit tweaking. Otherwise it may not be touched. It is good idea to do summary of units and opinions after playtestinng, and then send them email. No whining, just solid data. It would be best to do it ASAP, because once codex is announced it will be to late.
Thedarkcity.net did a really nice report of what is bad/good, showed numbers etc.. and gave it to GW, we went through the full codex and had something like 20 people working on it (it was short and more to the point, but in a nice respectful way), GW acknowledge they read it b.c they even mention something in the letter that the header didnt talk about, so we know they read it, its up to them if they feel the same way now.
Well done guys, that is why we CAN have nice things.
Am I the only one wondering how they are gonna work with <kabal> <cult> <coven> keywords. We have like 3 chapters in one army. If they do it this way me may strongly benefit from mixing, like almost no other army can. Basically "make your own chapter tactic, chose 3."
DE is for sure a large collective of sub factions.
I doubt, but who knows. I expect that they are more likely to get more special rules, but will not benefit from any "chapter tactics" same way as ratlings and ogryns don't benefit from regimental doctrines.
Amishprn86 wrote: Putting them in a transport is a neat idea, you could take a Venom for them and if DSing would be better then just DS them, if not you have a -1 to hit 5++ vehicle for them, tho honestly i wish the Venom was better, i dont like poison in 8th and the Splinter cannons are WAY over costed. The Venom is just a lot cheaper and can go off at 16'+ a turn to get objectives, shut down other tanks, etc...
I have thought in the past about putting blasterborn inside a venom till i realized it's far more cost effective to just take a flyer or ravager for much better results. Also if you fill up a raider with 2 blasterborn squads then you risk making the raider too big a threat so that people focus fire it down (somewhere over 330 pts for 2 units of 5 trueborn each in the same raider).
Flyer gets -1 to being hit like the venom, they cost about as much, flyer is faster, flyer can never be bogged down in melee (unless the enemy has flying units which will be slower than yours) unlike the venom forcing you to not shoot with passengers if you retreat and flyer is much more durable.
You could also go about this with ravagers. Sure ravagers degrade but they have better range, better toughness, more wounds, can't be bogged down to prevent passenger shooting and cost about as much. I suppose ravagers don't have -1 to hit and that's nice and all but their heavy weapons count as assault weapons anyway so you don't have to worry about moving with them.
I dunno personally i find blasterborn in venoms or even raiders to be a waste of time and effort. Transports are just way too expensive now to justify the cost unless it's a really effective and expensive melee unit like incubi or grotesques. I mean if i took warriors outside of raiders i could more than double my numbers of warriors. The only good boost really is the durability of the transport protecting them but in the case of melee units it just transports them from A to B faster. They sadly don't get to rely on the durability of the raiders when their preferred combat hits. So i dunno maybe transports can be worth it for some ranged warriors (durability) and higher tier melee units. I suppose my issue is just some units are far more cost effective than transporting infantry.
Btw am i the only person giving Reavers a second look? Turns out if you take them with basic gear (bladevanes) and give them extra attacks or something from combat drugs and they can be ok for anti-horde in melee mostly. They don't need an expensive transport and they definitely have the speed to get there. The multiple wounds means they can also survive longer than some of the other units thrown at a horde.
If you give them the extra attacks it's 30 str 4 ap -1 attacks with the rest of the stats you all should know. Also 5 points for those cluster caltrops or grav talons should you need em.
They should also have the speed to get out of trouble should you need it. I mean it's still 300 pts which is a lot but the multiple wounds seems to help for morale purposes and keeping the unit alive. Anyway i dunno it could be worth a look.
The problem with 8 ed is the everything wounded everything. Drukhari always were glass cannon army that was hiding behind shenanigans to survive and have opportunity to deal damage.
That means reavers are to expensive for what they can bring. Yeah, almost everything is to expensive. Glass cannon will work only if its components are cheap enough that, you can lose few of them and in your turn reduce significantly your opponent firepower.
Hopefully we gone get many new toys, since there are things that isn't working as it was probably expected by designers (splinter weapons mainly). Not Markerlight-level of not working, but still something isn't right.
IMHO, I would just give all splinter weapons low S, but reroll to wound on everything that isn't vehicle. With no ap this should be balanced.
flamingkillamajig wrote: Btw am i the only person giving Reavers a second look? Turns out if you take them with basic gear (bladevanes) and give them extra attacks or something from combat drugs and they can be ok for anti-horde in melee mostly. They don't need an expensive transport and they definitely have the speed to get there. The multiple wounds means they can also survive longer than some of the other units thrown at a horde.
If you give them the extra attacks it's 30 str 4 ap -1 attacks with the rest of the stats you all should know. Also 5 points for those cluster caltrops or grav talons should you need em.
They should also have the speed to get out of trouble should you need it. I mean it's still 300 pts which is a lot but the multiple wounds seems to help for morale purposes and keeping the unit alive. Anyway i dunno it could be worth a look.
Here's the thing.
6 Reavers (including Arena Champion) with Grav Talon is 185 points. 10 Mandrakes are 190.
With the additional attack, the Reavers will do:
Shooting - 6 Splinter rifles in rapid fire range, kills 2.67 GEQ Melee - 19 total attacks of Bladevanes, kills 7.04 GEQ Total: 9.70 dead Guardsmen
Mandrakes:
Shooting - 10 Baleblasts kills 9.63 GEQ on the drop
Melee - 31 attacks (Mandrake sergeant gets 3, Mandrakes each get 2, they all get an additional 1 for a total of 31) of a Glimmersteel blade kills 9.19 GEQs If Mandrakes make the charge, total is 18.81
With just shooting the Mandrakes are as good as the Jetbikes are point for point. The Mandrakes can also guarantee first turn shooting, whereas the Jetbikes cannot guarantee shooting and charging.
flamingkillamajig wrote: Btw am i the only person giving Reavers a second look? Turns out if you take them with basic gear (bladevanes) and give them extra attacks or something from combat drugs and they can be ok for anti-horde in melee mostly. They don't need an expensive transport and they definitely have the speed to get there. The multiple wounds means they can also survive longer than some of the other units thrown at a horde.
If you give them the extra attacks it's 30 str 4 ap -1 attacks with the rest of the stats you all should know. Also 5 points for those cluster caltrops or grav talons should you need em.
They should also have the speed to get out of trouble should you need it. I mean it's still 300 pts which is a lot but the multiple wounds seems to help for morale purposes and keeping the unit alive. Anyway i dunno it could be worth a look.
Here's the thing.
6 Reavers (including Arena Champion) with Grav Talon is 185 points. 10 Mandrakes are 190.
With the additional attack, the Reavers will do:
Shooting - 6 Splinter rifles in rapid fire range, kills 2.67 GEQ Melee - 19 total attacks of Bladevanes, kills 7.04 GEQ Total: 9.70 dead Guardsmen
Mandrakes:
Shooting - 10 Baleblasts kills 9.63 GEQ on the drop
Melee - 31 attacks (Mandrake sergeant gets 3, Mandrakes each get 2, they all get an additional 1 for a total of 31) of a Glimmersteel blade kills 9.19 GEQs If Mandrakes make the charge, total is 18.81
With just shooting the Mandrakes are as good as the Jetbikes are point for point. The Mandrakes can also guarantee first turn shooting, whereas the Jetbikes cannot guarantee shooting and charging.
flamingkillamajig wrote: Btw am i the only person giving Reavers a second look? Turns out if you take them with basic gear (bladevanes) and give them extra attacks or something from combat drugs and they can be ok for anti-horde in melee mostly. They don't need an expensive transport and they definitely have the speed to get there. The multiple wounds means they can also survive longer than some of the other units thrown at a horde.
If you give them the extra attacks it's 30 str 4 ap -1 attacks with the rest of the stats you all should know. Also 5 points for those cluster caltrops or grav talons should you need em.
They should also have the speed to get out of trouble should you need it. I mean it's still 300 pts which is a lot but the multiple wounds seems to help for morale purposes and keeping the unit alive. Anyway i dunno it could be worth a look.
Here's the thing.
6 Reavers (including Arena Champion) with Grav Talon is 185 points. 10 Mandrakes are 190.
With the additional attack, the Reavers will do:
Shooting - 6 Splinter rifles in rapid fire range, kills 2.67 GEQ Melee - 19 total attacks of Bladevanes, kills 7.04 GEQ Total: 9.70 dead Guardsmen
Mandrakes:
Shooting - 10 Baleblasts kills 9.63 GEQ on the drop
Melee - 31 attacks (Mandrake sergeant gets 3, Mandrakes each get 2, they all get an additional 1 for a total of 31) of a Glimmersteel blade kills 9.19 GEQs If Mandrakes make the charge, total is 18.81
With just shooting the Mandrakes are as good as the Jetbikes are point for point. The Mandrakes can also guarantee first turn shooting, whereas the Jetbikes cannot guarantee shooting and charging.
It's no contest IMO.
Yeah and what about survival vs horde shooting. Let's say mandrakes take about 50 shots of str 4 ap - hits from termagaunts. The very thing i'm most worried about lately. I'd say it's about 200/27 for mandrakes so almost 8 dead and nearly over 150 points dead and that doesn't count morale which would murder them unless you take units of 5 (not counting turn 1 FnP). It's also about 4 dead from overwatch due to 6's always hitting (with 50 shots) provided you don't charge a venom or raider first. For reavers it's closer to 25/4 or about 6 wounds (90 pts) without the toughness boost and not considering FnP which kills just 3 reavers with t5 boost it kills 25/6 which is about 4 wounds and 2 reavers dead (60 points). Mandrakes are a lot more fragile. Sure you can get the shooting and the charge off but there will be other units there if the enemy decides to Fall Back and shoot with the rest of his termagaunts. Mandrakes can't survive that. One whole unit of 30 with the 10 upgraded guns and more gaunts being pooped out will kill that in one shooting phase. At least the reavers can fight again.
Considering i have to face at least 2 nid players at the local GW and this is something they legit do with termagaunts i think it's a legitimate concern for me.
-------
Btw i suppose you could get the shots and possibly melee first with mandrakes. You would get overwatched still. Also you have to make a 8-9" charge which is still a big gamble. I mean unless you hold back mandrakes till what turn 2 after your venoms and such get in place to tie down ranged squads after your mandrakes shoot, tie down with vehicles and then charge.
27 Mandrakes drop down turn 2 THEY will shoot FIRST
They are A2, S4 -1 thats 54 attacks. Thats 24 dead gants without any 6's rolled (3 MW on average) so 27 dead gants out of 50.
You charge your 3 units, on turn 2 you get to re-rolls or you can also CP a dice. Lets say 2 units get into the charge.
23 Gants shooting in OW will only kill 1.5 Mandrakes, lets say 2.
Now you have 18 Mandrakes that charged, doing 3 attacks each (+2 from Nightfiends) for a total of 56 attacks, killing another 20 gants.
You just killed 43 gants in total to your 2 Mandrakes, if only 1 unit of 8 charged thats still 10 more gants.
IDK how you came up with your numbers, but you need to re-think it.
I suppose i was thinking based on all the other squads of gaunts you didn't shoot. My point was more there will be probably just over 30 gaunts per squad of 10 mandrakes you can set up. Provided you can't make the charge all they have to do with the ones that were charged is back out of combat and then have the less depleted squads that weren't charged shoot at you. Wouldn't help if tervigons were pumping out more gaunts either but i suppose we're not concentrating on that.
My point is a unit of the 30 gaunts with 50 shots costs 170 pts or so. Basically you will have to have each mandrake squad to be able to handle one unit of termagaunts on their own if you want to win the point battle. Then there's the issue of thinking about this separate from the full game as there's usually tervigon support spawning more. So yeah you'd have to murder that thing with other units.
Anyway i dunno man i was trying to figure out something for anti-horde. I still say though mandrakes will get to shoot first and possibly assault but once they start getting hit by concentrated horde fire they will go down. I'm willing to try anything at this point though to handle hordes. It sounds like DE aren't very anti-horde at the moment. I suppose your way works if you do a turn 2 DS with mandrakes and you have a venom or raider in place to tie up the termagaunts in melee once the shooting is done. That said that's just more points spent holding down the horde.
I would not be shocked if your way works better. It's just handling the hordes at all is pretty tough right now.
It takes DE 2x longer (Literally) to kill hordes than almost every other army.
Since he is Nids, you can take the actual better AH, Khymerae's, if you DS in 2-3 5mans of Mandrakes and rush up 2 units of 12 Khymerae's you should do better than all Mandrakes.
IDK what GW was thinking about our poison weapons, thats DE problem honestly. Im so tired of Poison weapons being crap, it NEEDS to be Rifles: assault 2 SC: assault 6 Shardcarbine: assault 4
I consider reavers a tactical unit now, not a close combat one. They can be decent, but still overpriced, if you exploit their speed. Basically they're tarpits now, and not even particularly effective. I surely prefer them over to hellions though.
For 300 points you can take 4 grots in a raider, which are surely better against everything than reavers in melee. More durable than reavers and the transport can be useful even before and after deploying its cargo.
Mandrakes are amazing but awfully expensive in terms of money, I've never seen more than 10 actually and only a few times more than 5.
To be far i love the models and i got 3 units back in 5th when you could place Random tokens and you picked the one you wanted to spawn at, it was a silly tactic that force peoples movement/position into better spots for you.
I made this list for lulz and friendly game. But I would like for this game to last more than my opponents second turn. Any thoughts ? Advices? I think I can manage to pilot it, but i haven't really use beast at all to this time.
Blackie wrote: I consider reavers a tactical unit now, not a close combat one. They can be decent, but still overpriced, if you exploit their speed. Basically they're tarpits now, and not even particularly effective. I surely prefer them over to hellions though.
For 300 points you can take 4 grots in a raider, which are surely better against everything than reavers in melee. More durable than reavers and the transport can be useful even before and after deploying its cargo.
Mandrakes are amazing but awfully expensive in terms of money, I've never seen more than 10 actually and only a few times more than 5.
Yeah the grotesques would probably be better esp. with the raider as something to hold down the hordes so you don't get shot up.
Mandrakes do sound good but i think they are very fragile overall.
Would it be possible to do a combo team with wyches/bloodbrides and possibly mandrakes or grotesques? That way you can prevent the enemy from leaving combat and they can't do anything about it. One units holds the enemy in place while the other tears through them. Could probably be good for multi-assaults too with wyches/bloodbrides as they'd need to roll off for every unit in base contact with the wyches/bloodbrides to leave combat.
-------
I suppose one of my bigger questions lately is what to buy to add next to my dark eldar. I'm thinking wyches/bloodbrides could help significantly now. Pairing them with the grotesques i already have should work or at least that's the hope.
It's still going to cost 2 whole raiders to transport these things and that's about 200 pts total which is not always great. I really wish transports weren't so expensive in points these days. I tend to not want to transport anything just because of the massive points cost and it really does add up.
Blackie wrote: I consider reavers a tactical unit now, not a close combat one. They can be decent, but still overpriced, if you exploit their speed. Basically they're tarpits now, and not even particularly effective. I surely prefer them over to hellions though.
For 300 points you can take 4 grots in a raider, which are surely better against everything than reavers in melee. More durable than reavers and the transport can be useful even before and after deploying its cargo.
Mandrakes are amazing but awfully expensive in terms of money, I've never seen more than 10 actually and only a few times more than 5.
Yeah the grotesques would probably be better esp. with the raider as something to hold down the hordes so you don't get shot up.
Mandrakes do sound good but i think they are very fragile overall.
Would it be possible to do a combo team with wyches/bloodbrides and possibly mandrakes or grotesques? That way you can prevent the enemy from leaving combat and they can't do anything about it. One units holds the enemy in place while the other tears through them. Could probably be good for multi-assaults too with wyches/bloodbrides as they'd need to roll off for every unit in base contact with the wyches/bloodbrides to leave combat.
-------
I suppose one of my bigger questions lately is what to buy to add next to my dark eldar. I'm thinking wyches/bloodbrides could help significantly now. Pairing them with the grotesques i already have should work or at least that's the hope.
It's still going to cost 2 whole raiders to transport these things and that's about 200 pts total which is not always great. I really wish transports weren't so expensive in points these days. I tend to not want to transport anything just because of the massive points cost and it really does add up.
Don't be fooled by mandrakes. They aren't fragile, not super tanky, but that -1 to hit one of best defensive tools in game. It's no accident that raven guard, alpha legion, Stygies 8 and Alitoc are favorites of many. Id say they are easy and sure thing to buy. I don't think that they gone be hit by nerf bat so they are safe bet.
Other models thou... well what do you have now? What do you have available? And what do you fancy? Nor grotesques nor bloodbrides are competitive right now but they will do okay in more casual games.
I'm looking at the 10 unused splinter cannon kabalites and 5 splinter cannon scourge I have and wondering...What would it take for splinter cannons to be worth taking? Do you think they will get a simple points cost reduction? or some other type of codexy bonus?
Trancefate wrote: I'm looking at the 10 unused splinter cannon kabalites and 5 splinter cannon scourge I have and wondering...What would it take for splinter cannons to be worth taking? Do you think they will get a simple points cost reduction? or some other type of codexy bonus?
They're worth taking now IMO, simply because once you hit enough Lances, there's really not much else to take. Granted they're not super efficient compared to other armies, but compared to our other options, it's kind of a no-brainer.
Leave the Cannons off the Scourge, since Scourge come stock with Shardcarbines. You're better off taking another dude in the squad.
Best use? Cannonborn gunboat. 5 Trueborn can take two cannons , and when you put them in a double cannon Venom, that's a fuckload of (27) shots at 18". For 170 points, that's the most efficient poison we can get right now.
Trancefate wrote: I'm looking at the 10 unused splinter cannon kabalites and 5 splinter cannon scourge I have and wondering...What would it take for splinter cannons to be worth taking? Do you think they will get a simple points cost reduction? or some other type of codexy bonus?
They're worth taking now IMO, simply because once you hit enough Lances, there's really not much else to take. Granted they're not super efficient compared to other armies, but compared to our other options, it's kind of a no-brainer.
Leave the Cannons off the Scourge, since Scourge come stock with Shardcarbines. You're better off taking another dude in the squad.
Best use? Cannonborn gunboat. 5 Trueborn can take two cannons , and when you put them in a double cannon Venom, that's a fuckload of (27) shots at 18". For 170 points, that's the most efficient poison we can get right now.
Thats a decent option, im trying to work on my first list (a mono shooting army i got most the stuff from ebay). Right now im at 16 dark lances, 4 disintegrators, 8 blasters, 7 splinter cannons, and 27 splinter rifles in 2,000 points spread acrouss a couple of archons, 3x 10 man kab squad, 5 squads of trueborn, a scourge squad, a jet fighter, 2 ravagers, 2 raiders, and a venom.
I'm most curious about how the best vehicle setup would work...
Right now i'm using an 8man 2darklance trueborn squad with both archons in a raider,
2x double darklance trueborn squad in other raider,
2x triple blaster squads in venoms ( i only have 6 blasters or i'd run 4 each )
then 3 footslogging kab squads and a triple lance scourge squad.
Is this enough fire? I mostly play MEQ types so maybe thats why I'm having bad luck with splinters.
It's enough Lances, maybe. In general, Raiders are much less efficient for shooting squads as they're more expensive, not as tough to kill, and there's rarely a benefit for a shooting squad rolling 10 strong. If you want Lances, best bet are Ravagers/Flyers/Scourge. Stick your 5 man Kab/Trueborn squads in double cannon venoms.
Chippen wrote: It's enough Lances, maybe. In general, Raiders are much less efficient for shooting squads as they're more expensive, not as tough to kill, and there's rarely a benefit for a shooting squad rolling 10 strong. If you want Lances, best bet are Ravagers/Flyers/Scourge. Stick your 5 man Kab/Trueborn squads in double cannon venoms.
Actually i'm of the exact same mindset and i only would put trueborn in a venom with double splinter cannons (4 total with 2 on venom and 2 on trueborn). They're rapid fire and they can move pretty fast and have ok range. Park in some terrain for boosted saves from cover if possible. I might even add a couple shredders to the trueborn for extra firepower but the 12" range isn't flattering and would restrict the squad and force me to close in a bit.
As far as blasterborn in venoms go i still think ravagers are the better way to go for it.
Blackie wrote: I surely prefer them over to hellions though.
Man, am I the only one who doesn't hate Hellions? Last 4 games I've played, my hellions have gone one of two ways, either people ignored them because they didn't think they were a threat, and then found out just how bad 30 splinter shots followed by 31 cc attacks (especially with a Succubus backing them up) were when even TEQs will die to a single unlucky save roll, or else, having seen how badly my Hellions had wrecked other players, they wasted way too much dakka wiping them out, while my Blasterborn and Scourges were left free to knock out every big gun they had. I freaking love Hellions. I mean, I'm not saying I wouldn't mind a points reduction, but that's true of almost anything. But still, I love a big squad of hellions, and depending what kind of drugs you give them, they can fill all sorts of roles.
Blackie wrote: I surely prefer them over to hellions though.
Man, am I the only one who doesn't hate Hellions? Last 4 games I've played, my hellions have gone one of two ways, either people ignored them because they didn't think they were a threat, and then found out just how bad 30 splinter shots followed by 31 cc attacks (especially with a Succubus backing them up) were when even TEQs will die to a single unlucky save roll, or else, having seen how badly my Hellions had wrecked other players, they wasted way too much dakka wiping them out, while my Blasterborn and Scourges were left free to knock out every big gun they had. I freaking love Hellions. I mean, I'm not saying I wouldn't mind a points reduction, but that's true of almost anything. But still, I love a big squad of hellions, and depending what kind of drugs you give them, they can fill all sorts of roles.
They seem a bit fragile to me and they need to get there first. You'd have to duck in and out of cover almost constantly. Even with the toughness boost they sound kinda fragile.
As far as blasterborn in venoms go i still think ravagers are the better way to go for it.
I also prefer ravagers but blasterborn in a venom are almost invaluable to me. Not only because they can do serious damage if ingored but mostly because they usually soak a lot of anti tank leaving my 2 raiders full of grots and the venom that carries incubi untouched. And it can soak some of the anti tank that would have gone towards the ravagers as well. 3 ravagers, 2 with lances and 1 with disintegrator cannons, a venom with blasterborn and the lances mounted on raiders are the only anti tank I usually bring, sometimes I also give a blaster to 1-3 units of kabalites but only if I have the spared points, but it's usually too much anti tank even without scourges or flyers.
I'm curious, do people just not like raiders in general? Or are we split on them? I'm wondering if I should put 4 lances in a raider, or put some on foot.
Also, how do you feel about lances in venoms and blasters in a raider?
As it is i've got 7 warriors w/ lances and 6 w/ blasters im trying to find the optimal split for them in 2 raiders 2 venoms. Currently i've got 4 lances in a raider, 2 in another raider w/ both Archons, 2 lances on foot with trueborns, a lance on foot with a 10man Kab squad, and 2 venoms w/ 3 blasters each.
should add that I have 2 more footslogging 5 man kabalite squads that could be played around with here. Original goal was 1 squad of lances per raider w/ a 5man kabs that can disembark. Not sure if its riskier to have 2 lance squads in a raider or to have them exposed on foot.
Trancefate wrote: I'm curious, do people just not like raiders in general? Or are we split on them? I'm wondering if I should put 4 lances in a raider, or put some on foot.
Also, how do you feel about lances in venoms and blasters in a raider?
As it is i've got 7 warriors w/ lances and 6 w/ blasters im trying to find the optimal split for them in 2 raiders 2 venoms. Currently i've got 4 lances in a raider, 2 in another raider w/ both Archons, 2 lances on foot with trueborns, a lance on foot with a 10man Kab squad, and 2 venoms w/ 3 blasters each.
should add that I have 2 more footslogging 5 man kabalite squads that could be played around with here. Original goal was 1 squad of lances per raider w/ a 5man kabs that can disembark. Not sure if its riskier to have 2 lance squads in a raider or to have them exposed on foot.
I would not personally recommend lances in a Raider. Since models inside are subject to the same shooting restrictions as the vehicle (such as not being able to shoot if the model fell back), that means if you move, your lances are at a -1 for shooting heavy weapons. I'd personally recommend blasters on whatever is in the Raider (the speed will make up for the shorter range), and lances on more easily entrenchabl units, like Scourges
I'm curious, do people just not like raiders in general? Or are we split on them? I'm wondering if I should put 4 lances in a raider, or put some on foot.
I don't like shooty units on raiders. I'd only take incubi, wyches and grotesques in raiders, I prefer venoms for units like trueborn or kabalite warriors.
I love raiders, i always play with 3-4, I like the DL or DC on them, i HATE! poison in 8th and now that the venom cannon was nerfed, along with 10pts over costed... i hate the venoms.
I seriously would dbl all shooting of all poison weapons for DE, and still make them a bit cheaper.
Trancefate wrote: I'm curious, do people just not like raiders in general? Or are we split on them? I'm wondering if I should put 4 lances in a raider, or put some on foot.
If you want heavy weapons just go with flyers or ravagers. Think i said it before but point for point you get far more out of either than a unit of trueborn with blasters or dark lances in a raider. Seriously take the cost of razorwing jetfighter and compare it to a venom with trueborn and dark lances. Razorwing gets toughness 6, 10 wounds, can move and shoot dark lances without penalty and can even be loaded with a splinter cannon if you wish with a bunch of missiles for free and it's still -1 to hit in shooting and can only be hit in melee by flying units. I mean it's about 200 points for the venom with double splinter cannon and 2 dark lance trueborn and a razorwing is about 170 pts for 2 dark lance, 1 splinter cannon and missiles. A ravager with dark lances will land you about 155 pts with 3 lances, a unit that can move and still shoot without penalty and is toughness 6 with 10 wounds but no -1 to hit against shooting. There's honestly probably only one positive about venom+dark lance trueborn over the other option and that is it won't degrade but considering you only degrade after losing 5 wounds on a razorwing and venoms only have 6 wounds it's almost negligible as an advantage.
Meanwhile if you want 4 blasterborn in a venom try comparing it to a voidraven with dark scythes (2d3 shots so an average of 4 , str 8, ap-4, d3 damage). Double the wounds, same negative modifier to hit when shot at, toughness 6, 24" range main guns vs 18", can't be attacked in melee except by flyers, it can get in range by turn 1 vs turn 2 of the venom and blasterborn, by the time it degrades to half health the venom is already dead and so on. Void raven is under 170 pts with this loadout and the blasterborn with venom are about 215 pts.
While raiders would be nice for trueborn with blasters you have to take 2 squads and that gets point heavy and becomes a massive target and it's not that durable. Once i saw that i decided against it completely.
So yeah it's more a contest of whether to take ravagers or flyers but trueborn in venoms are usually not the way to go.
As far as the talk of poisoned goes i'm kinda of a similar mind now. If the enemy has power armored dudes hiding in cover poisoned shooting is absolute garbage. Basically 2+ terminator-esque saves on a regular space marine. You seriously can't complain about the new cover system when facing against basic guns as marines (pray they don't have cover nearby). Against hordes poisoned shooting is better but it's not good enough. It just isn't.
Razorwing is also just 2 DL, for 14pts? more the bomber is a better pick IMO. I normally take 4-5 Ravagers and a couple Bombers.
IMO Raiders are GREAT, i always take 3 Raiders.
With a trueborn unit wit 2 DL (3 total DL with the raider) you have 2 layers of units, if they raider dies you still have 2 DL's and 4-5 more wounds to go threw. You also get bodies at the same time. Raiders have won me games before.
I've table the stupid BA, Dante 3 Storm Raven list a couple times, and also have against 4 Razorback/Dev spam with Gman.
I normally take 4-5 Ravagers, 2 bombers, 3 Raiders with Trueborn x2DL and then lots of RWF (yes with the 14pts cost, they are still great DS bubble wraps and most importantly, TANK STOPPERS).
Its just... a very boring list, you have Raiders, Ravagers (basically the same) Bombers and 1 type of Beasts with 2 HQ's that dont do anytime.... literally dont do anything.
Trancefate wrote: I'm curious, do people just not like raiders in general? Or are we split on them? I'm wondering if I should put 4 lances in a raider, or put some on foot.
If you want heavy weapons just go with flyers or ravagers. Think i said it before but point for point you get far more out of either than a unit of trueborn with blasters or dark lances in a raider. Seriously take the cost of razorwing jetfighter and compare it to a venom with trueborn and dark lances. Razorwing gets toughness 6, 10 wounds, can move and shoot dark lances without penalty and can even be loaded with a splinter cannon if you wish with a bunch of missiles for free and it's still -1 to hit in shooting and can only be hit in melee by flying units. I mean it's about 200 points for the venom with double splinter cannon and 2 dark lance trueborn and a razorwing is about 170 pts for 2 dark lance, 1 splinter cannon and missiles. A ravager with dark lances will land you about 155 pts with 3 lances, a unit that can move and still shoot without penalty and is toughness 6 with 10 wounds but no -1 to hit against shooting. There's honestly probably only one positive about venom+dark lance trueborn over the other option and that is it won't degrade but considering you only degrade after losing 5 wounds on a razorwing and venoms only have 6 wounds it's almost negligible as an advantage.
Meanwhile if you want 4 blasterborn in a venom try comparing it to a voidraven with dark scythes (2d3 shots so an average of 4 , str 8, ap-4, d3 damage). Double the wounds, same negative modifier to hit when shot at, toughness 6, 24" range main guns vs 18", can't be attacked in melee except by flyers, it can get in range by turn 1 vs turn 2 of the venom and blasterborn, by the time it degrades to half health the venom is already dead and so on. Void raven is under 170 pts with this loadout and the blasterborn with venom are about 215 pts.
While raiders would be nice for trueborn with blasters you have to take 2 squads and that gets point heavy and becomes a massive target and it's not that durable. Once i saw that i decided against it completely.
So yeah it's more a contest of whether to take ravagers or flyers but trueborn in venoms are usually not the way to go.
As far as the talk of poisoned goes i'm kinda of a similar mind now. If the enemy has power armored dudes hiding in cover poisoned shooting is absolute garbage. Basically 2+ terminator-esque saves on a regular space marine. You seriously can't complain about the new cover system when facing against basic guns as marines (pray they don't have cover nearby). Against hordes poisoned shooting is better but it's not good enough. It just isn't.
Amishprn86 wrote:Razorwing is also just 2 DL, for 14pts? more the bomber is a better pick IMO. I normally take 4-5 Ravagers and a couple Bombers.
IMO Raiders are GREAT, i always take 3 Raiders.
With a trueborn unit wit 2 DL (3 total DL with the raider) you have 2 layers of units, if they raider dies you still have 2 DL's and 4-5 more wounds to go threw. You also get bodies at the same time. Raiders have won me games before.
I've table the stupid BA, Dante 3 Storm Raven list a couple times, and also have against 4 Razorback/Dev spam with Gman.
I normally take 4-5 Ravagers, 2 bombers, 3 Raiders with Trueborn x2DL and then lots of RWF (yes with the 14pts cost, they are still great DS bubble wraps and most importantly, TANK STOPPERS).
Its just... a very boring list, you have Raiders, Ravagers (basically the same) Bombers and 1 type of Beasts with 2 HQ's that dont do anytime.... literally dont do anything.
flamingkillamajig wrote:
Trancefate wrote: I'm curious, do people just not like raiders in general? Or are we split on them? I'm wondering if I should put 4 lances in a raider, or put some on foot.
If you want heavy weapons just go with flyers or ravagers. Think i said it before but point for point you get far more out of either than a unit of trueborn with blasters or dark lances in a raider. Seriously take the cost of razorwing jetfighter and compare it to a venom with trueborn and dark lances. Razorwing gets toughness 6, 10 wounds, can move and shoot dark lances without penalty and can even be loaded with a splinter cannon if you wish with a bunch of missiles for free and it's still -1 to hit in shooting and can only be hit in melee by flying units. I mean it's about 200 points for the venom with double splinter cannon and 2 dark lance trueborn and a razorwing is about 170 pts for 2 dark lance, 1 splinter cannon and missiles. A ravager with dark lances will land you about 155 pts with 3 lances, a unit that can move and still shoot without penalty and is toughness 6 with 10 wounds but no -1 to hit against shooting. There's honestly probably only one positive about venom+dark lance trueborn over the other option and that is it won't degrade but considering you only degrade after losing 5 wounds on a razorwing and venoms only have 6 wounds it's almost negligible as an advantage.
Meanwhile if you want 4 blasterborn in a venom try comparing it to a voidraven with dark scythes (2d3 shots so an average of 4 , str 8, ap-4, d3 damage). Double the wounds, same negative modifier to hit when shot at, toughness 6, 24" range main guns vs 18", can't be attacked in melee except by flyers, it can get in range by turn 1 vs turn 2 of the venom and blasterborn, by the time it degrades to half health the venom is already dead and so on. Void raven is under 170 pts with this loadout and the blasterborn with venom are about 215 pts.
While raiders would be nice for trueborn with blasters you have to take 2 squads and that gets point heavy and becomes a massive target and it's not that durable. Once i saw that i decided against it completely.
So yeah it's more a contest of whether to take ravagers or flyers but trueborn in venoms are usually not the way to go.
As far as the talk of poisoned goes i'm kinda of a similar mind now. If the enemy has power armored dudes hiding in cover poisoned shooting is absolute garbage. Basically 2+ terminator-esque saves on a regular space marine. You seriously can't complain about the new cover system when facing against basic guns as marines (pray they don't have cover nearby). Against hordes poisoned shooting is better but it's not good enough. It just isn't.
I feel like the extra layer of units is something people haven't touched on and may be missing in all the math hammer. You can split the units out for strategic positioning, you have an extra layer of wounds to remove before you start to lose dark lances, and you still get the protection of the vehicle.
If I was going to run a list without any trueborn lances or blasters i'd need to run basically pure vehicles with a couple cheap squads of kabalites. This just seems like you are asking to lose on victory points to some cheeky obsec shenanigans. I know the last time I was nearly tabled I actually won the game because I focused the opponents infantry down and they simply couldn't scatter to the objectives fast enough.
@trancefate: No i have a lot of scourge squads that i use. It's just usually between scourge and vehicles.
One game i fought against sisters of silence and either grey knights or custodes or both and i tabled the guy in a few turns. The alpha strike deep strike of scourge is really mean sometimes. Of course i'm not sure how many games he had under his belt so maybe i was a little too hard on him.
I find it kinda funny how against some armies ravagers with their long ranged guns can just sorta pick off elite dudes from a distance and in many cases they can't do much about it. Perhaps they have a bad list for facing that.
pessa wrote: Might seem like a stupid question, but what do you use for Trueborn? Can't seem to find any models.
I'm new to DE.
I assume just jazz up some warriors?
Trueborns don't have special models, they are simply Kabalites. Equate them to a marine heavy weapon squad vs. a tac squad.
I personally just use Kabalites, it doesn't cause much confusion if your opponent gets to see your army list. Once i've done painting everything else I own (main army, chaos daemons) I'm gonna use a separate color scheme on them (My dark eldar is a bargain basement of all second hand beat up lots from ebay, and badly needs stripped and repainted!).
flamingkillamajig wrote: @trancefate: No i have a lot of scourge squads that i use. It's just usually between scourge and vehicles.
One game i fought against sisters of silence and either grey knights or custodes or both and i tabled the guy in a few turns. The alpha strike deep strike of scourge is really mean sometimes. Of course i'm not sure how many games he had under his belt so maybe i was a little too hard on him.
I find it kinda funny how against some armies ravagers with their long ranged guns can just sorta pick off elite dudes from a distance and in many cases they can't do much about it. Perhaps they have a bad list for facing that.
That makes sense. I only own a couple ravagers and 1RWJF so I'm running a very infantry heavy list. Right now I have a squad of Haywire scourges, and a squad of Darklance scourges, runing alongside 2venom blasterborn squads, and 2 raiders w/ 4 lanceborn. The rest is filled out with cheap kabs and a couple 10man heavy squads to hit points.
I considered dropping some foot kabs to add a 3carbine/3cannon (what I own) squad of scourge ontop of that. Would lose 10 wounds and some bodies but gain way more splinterfire. The thing is I pretty much just play MEQ/TEQ and armored parkinglots... so my personal opinion on splinterfire and its mechanics are something along the lines of its ass-trash directly from the faucet that should have never made it into an index.
Keep in mind that's only against vehicles too and considering it is that's why i never take it. Also vehicles tend to have a crap ton of wounds and not much in the way of invulnerable saves.
How effective are these? The Haywire is obviously designed to kill vehicles ... but it's a bit beyond my limited mathhammer to know if that's so.
It all seems pretty random, does the haywire get the job done over blasters etc?
I specifically face Dark Angel's parking lot w/ Azrael who gives a nice invuln save bubble. They are mediocre to slightly sub par (they are pretty low cost) compared to blasters or lances however, when you take into consideration the MW going over invuln saves, it makes up for it.
A unit of scourges with 4 haywire blasters used to strip 50-75% of the HP off a vehicle, sometimes even 100% with some luck.
Now they can strip 10-15% or less.
Haywire should be completely re-written, I also have a unit of scourges all with that weapon and unless I proxy them to have lances there's no chance to bring them to combat.
Blackie wrote: A unit of scourges with 4 haywire blasters used to strip 50-75% of the HP off a vehicle, sometimes even 100% with some luck.
Now they can strip 10-15% or less.
Haywire should be completely re-written, I also have a unit of scourges all with that weapon and unless I proxy them to have lances there's no chance to bring them to combat.
Do what i did. I basically tore the arms of my off. It's even easier if you super glue the arms so that they come off easier should the new rules make a weapon type suck and another great.
Blackie wrote: A unit of scourges with 4 haywire blasters used to strip 50-75% of the HP off a vehicle, sometimes even 100% with some luck.
Now they can strip 10-15% or less.
Haywire should be completely re-written, I also have a unit of scourges all with that weapon and unless I proxy them to have lances there's no chance to bring them to combat.
Do what i did. I basically tore the arms of my off. It's even easier if you super glue the arms so that they come off easier should the new rules make a weapon type suck and another great.
Or dont change anything till the codex is out and just play count as, b.c everyone knows the codex are doing drastic changes....
I'll wait for the codex, but I'm currently thinking about magnetising them.
I'd really like some effective haywire blasters though, since I prefer the other options work better on other units. I've already got venoms and kabalites for poison shots and ravagers/raiders for dark lances. Never liked heat lances and I have 6 magnetised reavers that can be equipped with them.
Amishprn86 wrote: Isnt it just a 6+ invul tho? I mean... even if it was still a 5++ the Lances would still do more damage over all.
I mean... even with a 5++ the lance is still way more damage.
It will take 4 shots to make sure you get 1 MW. Thats same 4 shots is 4 damage on average. On average it does 4x HWB on a 5++
Haywire needs to be fixed, EDIT: I want it to be this To wound rolls "on a 2-3 it does 1MW, 4-5 2MW's, 6 3MW's" 5
Actually its a 4+ invuln save. If someone more capable than me can mathhammer that out i'd love to see it. My gut feeling is that with a 4+ invuln save the haywire blasters are gonna pull ahead per point against vehicles.
Amishprn86 wrote: Isnt it just a 6+ invul tho? I mean... even if it was still a 5++ the Lances would still do more damage over all.
I mean... even with a 5++ the lance is still way more damage.
It will take 4 shots to make sure you get 1 MW. Thats same 4 shots is 4 damage on average. On average it does 4x HWB on a 5++
Haywire needs to be fixed, EDIT: I want it to be this To wound rolls "on a 2-3 it does 1MW, 4-5 2MW's, 6 3MW's"
5
Actually its a 4+ invuln save. If someone more capable than me can mathhammer that out i'd love to see it. My gut feeling is that with a 4+ invuln save the haywire blasters are gonna pull ahead per point against vehicles.
That's super situational though. You'd have to be facing that type of army. It doesn't even have any side effects other than the mortal wounds. I mean maybe that's because they tried to simplify it but if it could shut down vehicle weapons somewhat or maybe make them shoot worse that'd be a nice addition. Just right now the haywire doesn't do it for me or almost anybody really. Perhaps they should just make it do more mortal wounds.
Amishprn86 wrote: Isnt it just a 6+ invul tho? I mean... even if it was still a 5++ the Lances would still do more damage over all.
I mean... even with a 5++ the lance is still way more damage.
It will take 4 shots to make sure you get 1 MW. Thats same 4 shots is 4 damage on average. On average it does 4x HWB on a 5++
Haywire needs to be fixed, EDIT: I want it to be this To wound rolls "on a 2-3 it does 1MW, 4-5 2MW's, 6 3MW's"
5
Actually its a 4+ invuln save. If someone more capable than me can mathhammer that out i'd love to see it. My gut feeling is that with a 4+ invuln save the haywire blasters are gonna pull ahead per point against vehicles.
That's super situational though. You'd have to be facing that type of army. It doesn't even have any side effects other than the mortal wounds. I mean maybe that's because they tried to simplify it but if it could shut down vehicle weapons somewhat or maybe make them shoot worse that'd be a nice addition. Just right now the haywire doesn't do it for me or almost anybody really. Perhaps they should just make it do more mortal wounds.
Oh yeah you are 100% correct, they are too situational and even then only kind of viable. I was just commenting that in my particular situation they are actually capable of being okayish (since literally 19/20 of my games are against Azrael dark angels)
Haywires need a buff for sure. I think the MW are fine where they are because honestly, buffing that could send them overboard quickly. I think they could definitely use to be a little more reliable though. Maybe a bump to 6str, -2ap, d2/d3 dmg?
Amishprn86 wrote: Ok well a 5++ the DL was 4x better... so its still better against a 4++ lol, 1 wound sometimes vs D6 wounds sometimes....
Just went through and found the math for scourges against t8 vehicles on 2nd page, interesting. This really makes me think the only way to fix haywires is to give them str6 ap-2 and maybe another point of dmg.
Problem with Haywire Blasters is that before, they had a specific Haywire rule that basically was the reason they existed. Now that Haywire isn't a thing, the only thing those Haywire Blasters can really become is a plasma equivalent. Which honestly I'd like on Scourge.
Chippen wrote: Problem with Haywire Blasters is that before, they had a specific Haywire rule that basically was the reason they existed. Now that Haywire isn't a thing, the only thing those Haywire Blasters can really become is a plasma equivalent. Which honestly I'd like on Scourge.
I could see that being an easy move for them to make. Maybe they could give the haywire some kind of AoE effect, the current MW rule could affect vehicles within 6'' of the target or something similar. That would be fluffy for the "haywire" part, and further focus on its niche of clearing massed vehicles.
If Haywire rules did something else like make vehicles -1 to hit, or 1/2 their movement etc... then having 2-3 spread out in your army could be worth it.
Taking this list to play my dark angels buddy later.
This basically uses every model I own short of some reavers, hellions, a single talos, and some haywire/splinter cannon scourges.
I think my next purchases to streamline this army should be a Voidraven, or maybe another RWJF. I'm also considering maybe a tantalus or reaper... Thoughts?
I'm coming over to the side of the Voidraven instead of RWJF altogether. The Dark Scythes average better than Dark Lances on literally every target. And I'd trade a single Splinter Cannon for the void mine any day. Just skip the missiles, and it's hella cheap for what you get.
Your next purchases should be Venoms. Are the Tantalus and Reaper good? Yeah. I haven't played them but on paper they're pretty sweet. Are they that much better than regular ol' non-FW options? Not if you ask me. You'll get significantly better returns out of another Ravager, some Venoms, and a Voidraven over changing out Ravagers for Reapers.
Rule of thumb - Venoms for shooty passengers, Raiders for choppy passengers. Since you have no choppy passengers...
Chippen wrote: I'm coming over to the side of the Voidraven instead of RWJF altogether. The Dark Scythes average better than Dark Lances on literally every target. And I'd trade a single Splinter Cannon for the void mine any day. Just skip the missiles, and it's hella cheap for what you get.
Your next purchases should be Venoms. Are the Tantalus and Reaper good? Yeah. I haven't played them but on paper they're pretty sweet. Are they that much better than regular ol' non-FW options? Not if you ask me. You'll get significantly better returns out of another Ravager, some Venoms, and a Voidraven over changing out Ravagers for Reapers.
Rule of thumb - Venoms for shooty passengers, Raiders for choppy passengers. Since you have no choppy passengers...
Makes sense, so maybe in a perfect world I swap out both raiders for venoms, then I free up 60ish points and have 2 squads of double lance guys on foot. If I drop the double lance squads left out at that point we're up to 260ish salvaged points, which nets me enough for another bird or ravager + 100 left over.
The only time/reason to take footsloggers is if you have a weird number of points left and you just want to camp an objective in the backfield while providing deep strike screen for your Ravagers or whatever. If you can find the points for a Flyer Wing of Dark Scythe Voidravens sans missiles, do it. If not, use your two from the Battalion on those. Then magnetize them so you can throw on the Void Lances if you find yourself seeing a lot of Leman Russ tanks or something. You DEFINITELY want at least two (and that goes for most everything in your list) as we're too fragile not to have redundancy.
Remember, DE don't really try to table people. Lists like Bobby G gunlines take the sledgehammer approach, we're more like a scalpel. If you try to have a slugfest, you'll lose the game most of the time. Spend two turns taking out what's dangerous then play objectives. That's how I've been winning. To do this, you want mobile ObSec. That's why even though offensively, Blasterborn in a Venom are better than 5xKabs w/ Blaster in a Venom, I take 4 of the latter and none of the former.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Amishprn86 wrote: I love the Voidbomber! I always take it over RWJF's
Seems like you and I are the only ones who do this. I barely see Voidravens at all. I put up a post on that other forum we both frequent to find out why, because I can't figure it out.
Amishprn86 wrote: I love the Voidbomber! I always take it over RWJF's
I have one void raven and no razorwings. I dunno if i need many more. Perhaps just a 2nd one. I wish void ravens didn't cost so much money (80 USD) even if they are good. The void mine is good but it seems like a risky maneuver sometimes that could endanger the void raven. I know i should do non-void lance but i'm unsure if the range difference will put the void raven in range of more weapons. That said dark scythes should work fairly well. Less chances of a miss.
Lately i'm more concerned about anti-horde rather than anything else. I had to order some wyches at GW to be shipped to the store (the store was sold out). I think bloodbrides should work well when combined with grotesques. Wyches will hold the enemy in place (preventing retreat) while grotesques will chop through basic soldiers. Hopefully it works out.
Chippen wrote: Seems like you and I are the only ones who do this. I barely see Voidravens at all. I put up a post on that other forum we both frequent to find out why, because I can't figure it out.
I think this is because I can find RWJF's for $20-40 on ebay and some other options depending on luck. Voidravens seem to be about double the price. When you consider the cost difference in dollars, with the fact that the two units are indeed very similar, it makes sense.
Seems like you and I are the only ones who do this. I barely see Voidravens at all. I put up a post on that other forum we both frequent to find out why, because I can't figure it out.
That's because 8th edition is still pretty new and in 7th jetfighters were better than bombers. Drukhari didn't received a codex yet so many players, including me, are not buying new models at the moment. Furthemore the jetfighter is way cheaper in terms of money. Those are the reasons why you don't see many bombers even if they're definitely more effective than jetfighters now.
Heck, even if they made the mortal wound automatic on a hit, or a 2+ to mimic what it was before, Haywire Blasters would be terrible.
As it stands even if they become super super cheap with points drops I wouldn't run them, because it's a waste to equip such expensive models with them. Their current damage output is just pathetic.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Chippen wrote: I'm coming over to the side of the Voidraven instead of RWJF altogether. The Dark Scythes average better than Dark Lances on literally every target. And I'd trade a single Splinter Cannon for the void mine any day. Just skip the missiles, and it's hella cheap for what you get.
Your next purchases should be Venoms. Are the Tantalus and Reaper good? Yeah. I haven't played them but on paper they're pretty sweet. Are they that much better than regular ol' non-FW options? Not if you ask me. You'll get significantly better returns out of another Ravager, some Venoms, and a Voidraven over changing out Ravagers for Reapers.
Rule of thumb - Venoms for shooty passengers, Raiders for choppy passengers. Since you have no choppy passengers...
For me, the double-squad and the extra DL has me running Raiders for everything. what does the venom do for you? In terms of points per splinter shot you get more out of the Raider, and you can load it with darkfire weaponry goodness. 2x squads with Blaster Blast pistol and phantasms in a DL raider are my go-to competitive troop unit. I only use Venoms for HQ transport (archons+courts, the odd succubus) or blasterborn.
As a side note, wish list for our codex: Please, please give us min squad size 4 for the two elite bodyguard units (Bloodbrides+Trueborn) and Incubi.That would 100% make Venoms a thing for me again.
A squad of scourges with 4 haywire blasters should deal 8-12 wounds to vehicles to be worthy. In 7th edition they could strip 50-100% of the wounds when targeting a vehicle, they should now have a similar efficency to justify the inclusion in a list.
For me, the double-squad and the extra DL has me running Raiders for everything. what does the venom do for you? In terms of points per splinter shot you get more out of the Raider, and you can load it with darkfire weaponry goodness. 2x squads with Blaster Blast pistol and phantasms in a DL raider are my go-to competitive troop unit. I only use Venoms for HQ transport (archons+courts, the odd succubus) or blasterborn.
You most certainly do not get more splinter shots per point in a Raider. Your example was 2x5 Kab squads, so that's 3 Splinter rifles each, 6 total. Best case scenario, 12 shots (and you have to be at 12" which is bad news bears).
A double cannon venom with one of those squads costs I think, 158? 95 for Venom, 63 for kab squad. I would personally never take that Blast pistol but I'll leave it in for the sake of your example.
At 12", that's 20 poison shots.
At a much safer 18", that's 16 compared to the 6 from your Raider.
Meanwhile, assuming your same Kabalite squad setup, a Venom squad would pay 158 points for:
2x Splinter Cannons
1x Blast Pistol
1x Blaster
3x Splinter Rifles
In addition, you have to take that Raider (and the Venom setup) to 12". That's a dead transport against even a half decent list.
The way I run my Kabs is to drop that Blast Pistol and let the PGL stay on an Archon for 2+ hits, so I pay 145 points and I get to stay at a safe(r) 18".
Oh, and the Venom gets -1 to hit in shooting
Other non-math advantages:
- area denial - on a short edge deployment, you can lock down half the board with 4 venoms
- fewer eggs in one basket
- redundancy as you'll certainly take more given they're cheaper
- no loss of effectiveness at various wound levels. That Raider's Lance won't do you much good hitting on a 5+
It's no contest, really. Honestly, Blasters are just kind of pretty good anyway so I'll spend my points on more Lances and Dissies.
So I played against Dark Angels w/ my list from earlier (a couple posts back, trueborn heavy).... Im going to assume everyone saying Dark Eldarr were in a good place after indexes was talking sideways or hadn't seen codex armies yet.
I am really having trouble seeing how Dark Eldar can ever compete as a shooting army without the re-roll auras. My opponent must have turned 50-60 misses and failed wounds into hits.
Meanwhile I spent two entire turns and 16 darklance shots to kill one razorback.
Azrael giving everything a 4++ invuln and rerolling hits coupled with rerolling failed wounds of 1 made it just too strong to get around.
Fun facts: A basic marine has better saves and toughness than our HQ.
Our splinters cannot hurt anything effectively, marine bolters can literally take down our troop transports. Lascannons have more str than darklances, oh their heavies have more range too.
Marines get to re roll misses and wounds where we don't.
Our toughness is lower, our saves are lower...
All for what? A couple inches of move speed on a handful of units?
I'll be playing my daemons until these guys get a codex.
Edit to ask: How do you guys kill terminators? it seemed like disintegrator cannons were good for it but it's hard to field too many of those. Dark lances aren't efficient for it points wise, and splinter weaponry makes their 2+ save laugh.
So if I'm reading it right, he took a very competitive list and you took what is honestly not a very good one.
You had Raiders which as I outlined in a post above are just not even close to Venoms for shooty troops. That -1 to hit is especially good against reroll miss armies due to how the reroll gak works.
Blasters are also just on the upper end of mediocre if you ask me. You have to go to 18" which puts you in bolter and plasma rapid fire threat range, and D3 damage is kind of decent at best.
With an optimization of your list and me knowing better how his list looked, I could give you more specific advice, but don't let one game where your dice were not hot turn you off of DE. We're good, but still unforgiving.
Edit to ask: How do you guys kill terminators? it seemed like disintegrator cannons were good for it but it's hard to field too many of those. Dark lances aren't efficient for it points wise, and splinter weaponry makes their 2+ save laugh.
Dissies, Clawed Fiends, Blasters/Dark Scythes, and just generally leaving them nowhere to drop and when they do drop, get the feth away from them.
So if I'm reading it right, he took a very competitive list and you took what is honestly not a very good one. You had Raiders which as I outlined in a post above are just not even close to Venoms for shooty troops. That -1 to hit is especially good against reroll miss armies due to how the reroll gak works. Blasters are also just on the upper end of mediocre if you ask me. You have to go to 18" which puts you in bolter and plasma rapid fire threat range, and D3 damage is kind of decent at best.
With an optimization of your list and me knowing better how his list looked, I could give you more specific advice, but don't let one game where your dice were not hot turn you off of DE. We're good, but still unforgiving.
Edit to ask: How do you guys kill terminators? it seemed like disintegrator cannons were good for it but it's hard to field too many of those. Dark lances aren't efficient for it points wise, and splinter weaponry makes their 2+ save laugh.
Dissies, Clawed Fiends, Blasters/Dark Scythes, and just generally leaving them nowhere to drop and when they do drop, get the feth away from them.
I get all that, although opinions on raider vs. venom and blasters seem to differ wildly.
However here's the thing:
Chippen wrote: but don't let one game where your dice were not hot turn you off of DE.
That is something that literally can't happen to an army that re-rolls. My first two darklance shots killed a predator, and my next 16 killed a razorback. The problem is that the gameplay for the army feels off in that it is just WILDLY inconsistent compared to marines. I mean are Dark Eldarr supposed to be extremely less accurate than a marine? I felt more like an ORK running around hitting roughly 1/3 of the shots that my opponent was.
When you break it down we have similar stats on our weaopns, the only real difference is their army is resistant to chance, in a game about dice rolling.
My experience is that drowning Terminators in sheer weight of fire isn't actually the worst way for us to take them out.
It's not ideal without any AP on splinter weaponry but you can get a lot of Kabalites for the price of a single Terminator; throw enough shots at them and they'll start rolling 1s eventually.
Burnage wrote: My experience is that drowning Terminators in sheer weight of fire isn't actually the worst way for us to take them out.
It's not ideal without any AP on splinter weaponry but you can get a lot of Kabalites for the price of a single Terminator; throw enough shots at them and they'll start rolling 1s eventually.
I actually had an archon kill two of them in melee, agonizer isn't horrible on them.
For me, the double-squad and the extra DL has me running Raiders for everything. what does the venom do for you? In terms of points per splinter shot you get more out of the Raider, and you can load it with darkfire weaponry goodness. 2x squads with Blaster Blast pistol and phantasms in a DL raider are my go-to competitive troop unit. I only use Venoms for HQ transport (archons+courts, the odd succubus) or blasterborn.
You most certainly do not get more splinter shots per point in a Raider. Your example was 2x5 Kab squads, so that's 3 Splinter rifles each, 6 total. Best case scenario, 12 shots (and you have to be at 12" which is bad news bears).
A double cannon venom with one of those squads costs I think, 158? 95 for Venom, 63 for kab squad. I would personally never take that Blast pistol but I'll leave it in for the sake of your example.
At 12", that's 20 poison shots.
At a much safer 18", that's 16 compared to the 6 from your Raider.
Meanwhile, assuming your same Kabalite squad setup, a Venom squad would pay 158 points for:
2x Splinter Cannons
1x Blast Pistol
1x Blaster
3x Splinter Rifles
In addition, you have to take that Raider (and the Venom setup) to 12". That's a dead transport against even a half decent list.
The way I run my Kabs is to drop that Blast Pistol and let the PGL stay on an Archon for 2+ hits, so I pay 145 points and I get to stay at a safe(r) 18".
Oh, and the Venom gets -1 to hit in shooting
Other non-math advantages:
- area denial - on a short edge deployment, you can lock down half the board with 4 venoms
- fewer eggs in one basket
- redundancy as you'll certainly take more given they're cheaper
- no loss of effectiveness at various wound levels. That Raider's Lance won't do you much good hitting on a 5+
It's no contest, really. Honestly, Blasters are just kind of pretty good anyway so I'll spend my points on more Lances and Dissies.
fair point. I guess looking at the full splinter loadout (which is what I was thinking of when I said "more splinter per points" - i.e. sybarite with phantasm and rifle, full squad with just rifles, splinter cannon at 10 in the Raider) you do end up with 118 points for double cannon venom with 5x SRs+phantasm, 200 points for DL Raider with 9xSRs+phantasm+1xSC. So given that you get roughly 2 of the venoms for 1 Raider, you end up with 3 more SC's+1 more SR for similar points. So for a splintery build it's certainly more optimal. I think I do prefer my Raider for my Darkfire build, which actually has proven surprisingly survivable because they're such small squads and our vehicles no longer explode and kill everyone inside. Typically, my opponents haven't been willing to waste a ton of firepower trying to kill warriors while my melee units are up in their grill, and the blasty spam warriors have racked up some impressive casualty counts even getting into the 8" range to use the pistols. At one point they even rolled super hot and chunked a Baneblade for 11 hit points.
I guess I've been allowing units other than Warriors take the anti-infantry spotlight is that I have a lot of melee units that really only do anti-infantry, like Hellions, wyches and Reavers. Not entirely optimal, but Wych Cult units are in a marginally more usable spot than they were last edition and I've been using the heck out of them.
I'm unsure about this but i'm thinking about using more incubi rather than a bunch of horde killing units. The reason being they can handle hordes about as well as anything, they have a 3+ armor save (so can shrug off horde attacks) and they have more utility in case you're not fighting a horde army like say a MEQ army or even if you have to do a little damage against some tanks. Granted the wyches are probably more survivable against anything that goes through a good chunk of armor but with mortal wounds the invulnerable save in combat can be much more irrelevant in many ways.
Incubi can't deal with hordes, actually they really suffer hordes. They're quite good against elites instead.
The 3+ armor in invalidated by the T3 and the absence of any invuln. They don't have that many attacks to clear a 30 man squad, while they can be wiped out by the survivors even if incubi charged first.
I usually bring them in this edition, a squad of 5 in a venom. Quite effective if used like a scalpel, I think you need other assault units though otherwise it would be easy for the opponent to avoid them.
Blackie wrote: Incubi can't deal with hordes, actually they really suffer hordes. They're quite good against elites instead.
The 3+ armor in invalidated by the T3 and the absence of any invuln. They don't have that many attacks to clear a 30 man squad, while they can be wiped out by the survivors even if incubi charged first.
I usually bring them in this edition, a squad of 5 in a venom. Quite effective if used like a scalpel, I think you need other assault units though otherwise it would be easy for the opponent to avoid them.
This right here. I'm not sure what can slaughter hordes for the DE besides massed poison shots. I run into the problem that my opponents either weather my five man squad to kill them with massed melee attacks, or just fall back and wipe them out that way. If anything they're a nice distraction to have to screen for a shooty army.
If we get a deepstrike stratagem in the next Codex I'll probably run a ten man squad to free up a venom/raider for something else.
Agreed, if you run one assault unit, you're asking it to be blown off the table. If you're going to do any assaulting, you gotta invest some points into it.
If we get Webway in Chapter Approved, I'm probably buying a gak ton of Clawed Fiends.
Heck, if we get the webway stratagem I'm running 20 Kabalites with 2 Splinter Cannons and 2 Shredders, just to jump out and say boo at hordes of guardsmen.
Not sure about all that, 16 splinter rifles in rapid fire range, 2 splinter cannons in rapid fire range, and 3 shredders kill 11.26 Guardsmen on average.
Blackie wrote: Incubi can't deal with hordes, actually they really suffer hordes. They're quite good against elites instead.
The 3+ armor in invalidated by the T3 and the absence of any invuln. They don't have that many attacks to clear a 30 man squad, while they can be wiped out by the survivors even if incubi charged first.
I usually bring them in this edition, a squad of 5 in a venom. Quite effective if used like a scalpel, I think you need other assault units though otherwise it would be easy for the opponent to avoid them.
This right here. I'm not sure what can slaughter hordes for the DE besides massed poison shots. I run into the problem that my opponents either weather my five man squad to kill them with massed melee attacks, or just fall back and wipe them out that way. If anything they're a nice distraction to have to screen for a shooty army.
If we get a deepstrike stratagem in the next Codex I'll probably run a ten man squad to free up a venom/raider for something else.
DE doesnt have a good Horde killing option sadly, poison vs infantry (especially T3) is terrible
the_scotsman wrote: Heck, if we get the webway stratagem I'm running 20 Kabalites with 2 Splinter Cannons and 2 Shredders, just to jump out and say boo at hordes of guardsmen.
This isnt like CWE with Guardians where they are T4 and 6 will rend, poison isnt good unless its T5+ and then your killing elites not infantry. Your talking about 186pts to kill12 Guardsman's, that 186pts out in the open as T3 5+/6+++ that only killed 12 5-6pt dudes. 15-16 if they are 6+ armor.
The problem with DE is that they are meant to shoot and Melee, but we cant get to melee safely at all.
Blackie wrote: Incubi can't deal with hordes, actually they really suffer hordes. They're quite good against elites instead.
The 3+ armor in invalidated by the T3 and the absence of any invuln. They don't have that many attacks to clear a 30 man squad, while they can be wiped out by the survivors even if incubi charged first.
I usually bring them in this edition, a squad of 5 in a venom. Quite effective if used like a scalpel, I think you need other assault units though otherwise it would be easy for the opponent to avoid them.
This right here. I'm not sure what can slaughter hordes for the DE besides massed poison shots. I run into the problem that my opponents either weather my five man squad to kill them with massed melee attacks, or just fall back and wipe them out that way. If anything they're a nice distraction to have to screen for a shooty army.
If we get a deepstrike stratagem in the next Codex I'll probably run a ten man squad to free up a venom/raider for something else.
DE doesnt have a good Horde killing option sadly, poison vs infantry (especially T3) is terrible
the_scotsman wrote: Heck, if we get the webway stratagem I'm running 20 Kabalites with 2 Splinter Cannons and 2 Shredders, just to jump out and say boo at hordes of guardsmen.
This isnt like CWE with Guardians where they are T4 and 6 will rend, poison isnt good unless its T5+ and then your killing elites not infantry. Your talking about 186pts to kill12 Guardsman's, that 186pts out in the open as T3 5+/6+++ that only killed 12 5-6pt dudes. 15-16 if they are 6+ armor.
The problem with DE is that they are meant to shoot and Melee, but we cant get to melee safely at all.
how can we not get to melee safely? Raiders are just about perfect for that. You can use them to soak up all overwatch and subdivide the enemy unit however you like to prevent counterattack coming to our flimsier units.
The problem with our melee is we have nothing that does any damage. Practically nothing that will ever wound on better than a 4+, nothing with good multi-damage, and most of our units have pretty low attacks.
Automatically Appended Next Post: As a side note, the Faeit rumors for Chapter Approved appear to be correct.
If they are, is there any good way to use the rumored changes?
-Wych Cult warlord trait literally does nothing turns 1-2 when applied to the Succubus' only good weapon because of the -1 to hit. Skip this in favor of the FNP trait or +1A on the charge trait still?
-Kabal trait seems similarly worthless because who runs a melee archon? skip in favor of FNP trait?
-Haemonculus Coven trait seems to be the only one worth considering, even though it fixes the nonexistent problem of your Haemonculi dying. However, since (at least until the codex drops and locks them into the Ichor Injector/Scissorhand/Stinger Pistol loadout from the plastic kit) the Haemonculus has the only good melee weapon of the three HQs in the Electrocorrosive Whip, I almost always bring him with the +1A trait. Is the haemonculus trait better than +1A on the charge?
-Stratagem seems solid, even if I am a little irritated that we don't get to use Vehicles with it and CWE do when our vehicles were the ones that came with Deep Strike as standard before. All our infantry get "ere we go" turn 2+, so if we want a reliable charge from deep strike we just have to wait one extra turn. What units are you going to use this with if any? I'm kind of feeling Helions personally.
-Relic pistol seems like a pretty solid way to save you the points for a blast pistol. Auto-include for Succubus or Haemonculus, IMO, but I'll probably continue to buy my Archon a blaster instead (while he can buy a blaster, at least.)
So I've read through here and I'm still curious how most people are handling HQs other than taking the minimum. Am I better off buying two blaster Archons their own venom and letting them zoom around, sticking them in a raider with a min squad of something, or just abandoning DEHQs for a different Aeldari key worded HQ (say a shadowseer with an a Troupe in a Starweaver)?
mef989 wrote: So I've read through here and I'm still curious how most people are handling HQs other than taking the minimum. Am I better off buying two blaster Archons their own venom and letting them zoom around, sticking them in a raider with a min squad of something, or just abandoning DEHQs for a different Aeldari key worded HQ (say a shadowseer with an a Troupe in a Starweaver)?
If you're sticking to pure DE, the HQs are.. okay? Accurate Blasters aren't terrible, neither is the Haemy Toughness buff on a Raider/Venom. The Succubus can run by herself and just provide some nice DISTRACTION CARNIFEX provided she isn't your Warlord.
But yeah if you want actual output, best way to go is something from Craftworld, or the Shadowseer with Troupe. Any psychic powers that are targeted at an enemy can still help us, so Doom is nice.
I take a Farseer Skyrunner as my warlord and then run with the cheapest DEHQs for detachment purposes. I'd prefer to go pure DE but a Farseer (especially with a small Craftworld detachment) just completely outstrips the native HQs in terms of usefulness.
Blackie wrote: Incubi can't deal with hordes, actually they really suffer hordes. They're quite good against elites instead.
The 3+ armor in invalidated by the T3 and the absence of any invuln. They don't have that many attacks to clear a 30 man squad, while they can be wiped out by the survivors even if incubi charged first.
I usually bring them in this edition, a squad of 5 in a venom. Quite effective if used like a scalpel, I think you need other assault units though otherwise it would be easy for the opponent to avoid them.
This right here. I'm not sure what can slaughter hordes for the DE besides massed poison shots. I run into the problem that my opponents either weather my five man squad to kill them with massed melee attacks, or just fall back and wipe them out that way. If anything they're a nice distraction to have to screen for a shooty army.
If we get a deepstrike stratagem in the next Codex I'll probably run a ten man squad to free up a venom/raider for something else.
DE doesnt have a good Horde killing option sadly, poison vs infantry (especially T3) is terrible
the_scotsman wrote: Heck, if we get the webway stratagem I'm running 20 Kabalites with 2 Splinter Cannons and 2 Shredders, just to jump out and say boo at hordes of guardsmen.
This isnt like CWE with Guardians where they are T4 and 6 will rend, poison isnt good unless its T5+ and then your killing elites not infantry. Your talking about 186pts to kill12 Guardsman's, that 186pts out in the open as T3 5+/6+++ that only killed 12 5-6pt dudes. 15-16 if they are 6+ armor.
The problem with DE is that they are meant to shoot and Melee, but we cant get to melee safely at all.
how can we not get to melee safely? Raiders are just about perfect for that. You can use them to soak up all overwatch and subdivide the enemy unit however you like to prevent counterattack coming to our flimsier units.
The problem with our melee is we have nothing that does any damage. Practically nothing that will ever wound on better than a 4+, nothing with good multi-damage, and most of our units have pretty low attacks.
I'm talking about Beasts, Hellions, and Grots, all has a problem, some are to costly, some cant get ot melee as safely, others are 1 turn wonders that can get shot off in 1 turn, or needs to much support.
Ive been doing great with just all kabals and spamming MSU Raiders/Ravagers/Beasts and 2 Haemonculus (they are better in melee than Succubus for the most part sadly).
Mandrakes are very good as well, i have 20, i need to try out all of them in a game rather than just 2x5.
I don't intend on playing tournaments or other really competitive events, only matched play in my store, but I'd like a solid list built around my favourite units and with a thematic I like, that can still win in a 
sad is that
