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 flamingkillamajig wrote:

I have another question for going against knights. Since knights often have a 5+ inv. or 4+ inv. (if they boost it) would it not be good to spam lots of str 5 or 6 attacks that go through a little bit of armor (maybe ap -1 or -2) and maybe do a couple damage each.

That would probably be ideal, yes.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
Right now i hear people using dissies against knights

Well, they're basically exactly what you describe above, with an extra point of AP.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
though you just talked badly of hellions i'm rather curious if DS'ing them via webway (say about 40 of em) and giving them cursed blade obsession so they're all str 5 base. Then give one +1 attack and the other perhaps +1 to hit. For the 3 attacks group that amounts to about 60 attacks at str 5 but no ap and 2 damage. If i recall the numbers it was about 9 damage for the first unit of 20 against a knight. Not great but it's 280 pts. The next unit does almost 8 wounds. So about 17 wounds against a knight between both units out of deepstrike provided overwatch doesn't kill too many and they can all strike in combat. Which might take up a lot of space with 40 dudes but knights have big profiles.

This seems like quite a risk. Even with rerolls, charging from Deep Strike is far from guaranteed. And if you don't get the charge, then those units will get absolutely devastated. And even under ideal conditions - both squads charging from deep strike, not losing a single model to overwatch, the IK player not using the stratagem to let him strike first against the second squad etc., you're still only taking off about 2/3 of its wounds on average.

I'm just not convinced.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:

Dissie ravagers in comparison for 2 of them do about 18 shots, 12 hits, 4 wounds and 2 unsaved (vs a 4+ inv. save) which amounts to 4 wounds total and that's 250 pts between the 2. Of course vs anything without an inv. save it's different.

Are you including the rerolls to hit and to wound from the inevitable Black Heart Archon with Vect's Poetry Recital? Because that could well be a factor.

Otherwise, I think one major difference is that Ravagers and disinegrators are universally useful. They're the sort of model that most lists will want to include, whilst with Hellions you've basically got ~560pts of 'I hope my opponent brings Imperial Knights so that I can be mediocre against them'.

Another aspect is that Ravagers have far less risk and arguably less investment involved. You mentioned the point cost but didn't factor in that deep striking those two Hellion squads requires 3 CPs - which is pretty steep. What's more, whilst the Hellions might average more wounds against the Knights in theory, there is far more risk involved and far more opportunities for catastrophic failure. If the Knights are bubble-wrapped in some way, then the Hellions won't be able to get close enough to charge them. If the Hellions fail their charge (which is far from unlikely) then they're basically screwed. You're also hoping to take no or minimal losses on Overwatch, which isn't guaranteed. etc.

I don't know, it could potentially work but there seems to be an awful lot of risk involved.

Then again, I don't think Dark Eldar really have any solid answers to Knights without bringing allies. So maybe we'll just have to take whatever we can get. I guess the question is how much you want to tailor against Knights to the detriment of your lost against non-Knight opponents.

DE has no good Anti-knights other than HWB spam from Scourges and Talos, but then you are re-moving (scourges) one of DE's better shooting anti-infantry.

The problem isnt just DE tho, its everyone, who can kill a 3+/4++, T8, 28wound unit faster than it can remove your units to kill it? Not really anyone, thats one of the many reasons why its such a good unit right now. If CP wasnt so easy to get, taking off 18 wounds would make it easy to deal with and you can ignore it for a turn, but since it can always acting as "full wounds" thats not an option.

You either kill it in 1-2 turns or you ignore it. Luckily DE has enough cheap units that we can get Into combat and ignore it.

Take lots of Fly units that can melee turn 1-2 and ignore the knight if you dont think you can kill it, win on objectives not on killing 1 unit.

@vipoid: 3 CP is nothing in the grand scheme of things for a dark eldar player. People use that every time they use AoV and screaming jets usually takes about 4-5 CP from my list that i won't be using if i use this. Also if you decide to you can boost power from pain for one turn so you get +1 to hit on the hellions with extra attacks (it'll be acting as if it's turn 3 from turn 2 DS). That only takes 1 CP to do.

If you wish you can also take HWB spam with this. Scourge can DS as well. See it as more of another option. I don't think most knights do a lot of hits in melee but maybe i'm wrong. More anti-large in melee rather than anti-horde. If you surround them can they still just step out of combat? I can't remember if knights get that special rule vs infantry. If not maybe someone tried to cheat.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
@vipoid: 3 CP is nothing in the grand scheme of things for a dark eldar player.

Speaking as a DE player, 3CP is very much a big deal - especially when it's being spent on such a dubious unit.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
People use that every time they use AoV

Except that not everyone uses Black Heart and so not everyone has access to AoV or the CP regeneration.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
screaming jets usually takes about 4-5 CP from my list that i won't be using if i use this.

I'm actually glad you brought this up because it made me realise I'd been misreading Screaming Jets. I'd thought it worked the same as Webway Portal - 1CP for 1 unit, 3CP for 2 units.

I suspect I'll be using it more now.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
Also if you decide to you can boost power from pain for one turn so you get +1 to hit on the hellions with extra attacks (it'll be acting as if it's turn 3 from turn 2 DS). That only takes 1 CP to do.

You can but I'm still not convinced that Hellions are the best units for this.

Are you sure they're better than, say, Mandrakes? They don't have 2 damage on their weapons but they have -1AP, can cause Mortal Wounds, can deep strike without needing CP, are more consistent (no Combat Drugs to manage), and are effective from 18" away (making it harder to bubble-wrap against them and meaning they're not reliant on a risky charge from deep strike, though you'll still have the option).

Mandrakes also has 5++ -1 to hit, they are much more durable than Hellions, they are 3ppm more and i would take them every game over hellions.

So I have a tournament coming up next weekend and I will likely see at least 1 Raven Castellan. What is the consensus on protecting Ravagers and raiders from First turn alpha strikes? I'm thinking about burning 3-6 points to screaming jets them in turn 1 if I don't go first leaving just a handful of characters and two units of grotesques on the field to start. tournament is 1750 and I'll have anywhere between 10-12 command points to start. My thought is if I can knock out the Castellan in a couple rounds the grotesques and surviving vehicles can mop up the smash captains or dawn eagles and the likely guard battery.

 Amishprn86 wrote:
Mandrakes also has 5++ -1 to hit, they are much more durable than Hellions, they are 3ppm more and i would take them every game over hellions.

Yeah well how bout the both of you come up with a better way to handle knights than hellions that doesn't rely on eldar soup. I'll be waiting to hear one.

Our only other ok-ish option vs knights is haywire and people do eldar soup just to boost that even.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
Yeah well how bout the both of you come up with a better way to handle knights than hellions that doesn't rely on eldar soup.

Since when do Mandrakes in their own army count as 'soup'?

 flamingkillamajig wrote:

 Amishprn86 wrote:
Mandrakes also has 5++ -1 to hit, they are much more durable than Hellions, they are 3ppm more and i would take them every game over hellions.

Yeah well how bout the both of you come up with a better way to handle knights than hellions that doesn't rely on eldar soup. I'll be waiting to hear one.

Our only other ok-ish option vs knights is haywire and people do eldar soup just to boost that even.

You need CWE/Quins to kill knights, DE dont have enough unless you put in 700pts just to kill them, example, DS Scourges with HWB's with HWB Talos, Voidbombers S9, and MW's from the 2 stratagems for TGL's/Haywire.

If you are 100% keen on killing a knight via DE only, then you could do 30 HWB's from Scourges/Talos, make sure to use the Stratagem, a TGL stratagem, with 3 Voidbombers, and a max unit of Reavers for MW's turn 1 charge for back up if you can bomb 3x.

vindicare0412 wrote:
So I have a tournament coming up next weekend and I will likely see at least 1 Raven Castellan. What is the consensus on protecting Ravagers and raiders from First turn alpha strikes? I'm thinking about burning 3-6 points to screaming jets them in turn 1 if I don't go first leaving just a handful of characters and two units of grotesques on the field to start. tournament is 1750 and I'll have anywhere between 10-12 command points to start. My thought is if I can knock out the Castellan in a couple rounds the grotesques and surviving vehicles can mop up the smash captains or dawn eagles and the likely guard battery.

So... you *can* spend 1cp at a time for each of your 3 ravagers in reserve. 3 cp isn't too much of a tax to protect your ravagers from being shot at.

Screaming jets is one way. Threat saturation is another.. force target priority with something more durable like mass hwb taloi. Or some combo of these. Terrain and mission are the main determining factors but I'll add if your gonna scream jet multiples then make it count. For example 2x5 blasterborn in a raider and another 7 TB with Archon and full dark light in another. Round it out with flyers.

Theres what I got

Might be a fool question, but for the new codex did GW remove Tureborn? I keep seeing them in some of the older lists but I can not find them in my codex.

 guardpiper wrote:
Might be a fool question, but for the new codex did GW remove Tureborn? I keep seeing them in some of the older lists but I can not find them in my codex.

Yes, and Bloodbrides, just 2 more units removed from codex updates.

Some people still use them from the index entry... but yea they're gone now.

 whembly wrote:

vindicare0412 wrote:
So I have a tournament coming up next weekend and I will likely see at least 1 Raven Castellan. What is the consensus on protecting Ravagers and raiders from First turn alpha strikes? I'm thinking about burning 3-6 points to screaming jets them in turn 1 if I don't go first leaving just a handful of characters and two units of grotesques on the field to start. tournament is 1750 and I'll have anywhere between 10-12 command points to start. My thought is if I can knock out the Castellan in a couple rounds the grotesques and surviving vehicles can mop up the smash captains or dawn eagles and the likely guard battery.

So... you *can* spend 1cp at a time for each of your 3 ravagers in reserve. 3 cp isn't too much of a tax to protect your ravagers from being shot at.

And something that should generally be done.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Amishprn86 wrote:
DE has no good Anti-knights other than HWB spam from Scourges and Talos, but then you are re-moving (scourges) one of DE's better shooting anti-infantry.

The problem isnt just DE tho, its everyone, who can kill a 3+/4++, T8, 28wound unit faster than it can remove your units to kill it? Not really anyone, thats one of the many reasons why its such a good unit right now. If CP wasnt so easy to get, taking off 18 wounds would make it easy to deal with and you can ignore it for a turn, but since it can always acting as "full wounds" thats not an option.

You either kill it in 1-2 turns or you ignore it. Luckily DE has enough cheap units that we can get Into combat and ignore it.

Take lots of Fly units that can melee turn 1-2 and ignore the knight if you dont think you can kill it, win on objectives not on killing 1 unit.

I wouldn't completely redefine your list based on the Castellan. Rumor has it, it's seeing a nerf in the upcoming FAQ.

In general we seem to find ourselves in disagreement on these forums, but the plan of avoiding the Knight and playing the mission is the way to go. It's one big model. It'll hurt you, no question, but you should be able to deal with everything else if you write the Knight off as a loss. Remember, they've only got 1400 points other than the Knight.

When I play my Nids i run into super heavies frequently. Generally I kill everything else and just park on objectives to win. Of course Nids have even less answers than DE to super heavy.

 Marmatag wrote:

 whembly wrote:

vindicare0412 wrote:
So I have a tournament coming up next weekend and I will likely see at least 1 Raven Castellan. What is the consensus on protecting Ravagers and raiders from First turn alpha strikes? I'm thinking about burning 3-6 points to screaming jets them in turn 1 if I don't go first leaving just a handful of characters and two units of grotesques on the field to start. tournament is 1750 and I'll have anywhere between 10-12 command points to start. My thought is if I can knock out the Castellan in a couple rounds the grotesques and surviving vehicles can mop up the smash captains or dawn eagles and the likely guard battery.

So... you *can* spend 1cp at a time for each of your 3 ravagers in reserve. 3 cp isn't too much of a tax to protect your ravagers from being shot at.

And something that should generally be done.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Amishprn86 wrote:
DE has no good Anti-knights other than HWB spam from Scourges and Talos, but then you are re-moving (scourges) one of DE's better shooting anti-infantry.

The problem isnt just DE tho, its everyone, who can kill a 3+/4++, T8, 28wound unit faster than it can remove your units to kill it? Not really anyone, thats one of the many reasons why its such a good unit right now. If CP wasnt so easy to get, taking off 18 wounds would make it easy to deal with and you can ignore it for a turn, but since it can always acting as "full wounds" thats not an option.

You either kill it in 1-2 turns or you ignore it. Luckily DE has enough cheap units that we can get Into combat and ignore it.

Take lots of Fly units that can melee turn 1-2 and ignore the knight if you dont think you can kill it, win on objectives not on killing 1 unit.

I wouldn't completely redefine your list based on the Castellan. Rumor has it, it's seeing a nerf in the upcoming FAQ.

In general we seem to find ourselves in disagreement on these forums, but the plan of avoiding the Knight and playing the mission is the way to go. It's one big model. It'll hurt you, no question, but you should be able to deal with everything else if you write the Knight off as a loss. Remember, they've only got 1400 points other than the Knight.

When I play my Nids i run into super heavies frequently. Generally I kill everything else and just park on objectives to win. Of course Nids have even less answers than DE to super heavy.

Im not talking about rumors or future, i was talking about right now, b,c even if they are going up 100pts, you can still go up against a full knights list, something DE "can" struggle against if you take a TAC list, ESPECIALLY if Talos and Ravagers get nerf, if we and knights both get equal nerfs then its basically the same power levels as of right now (when fighting Mono DE vs Mono knights).

ALso i fully agree that you ignore it and kill everything else winning on objectives, but if someone asks how to kill knights and they want to kill them, then i'll give advice on that.

 Amishprn86 wrote:

 guardpiper wrote:
Might be a fool question, but for the new codex did GW remove Tureborn? I keep seeing them in some of the older lists but I can not find them in my codex.

Yes, and Bloodbrides, just 2 more units removed from codex updates.

Anyone else miss the old days, when new codices would add units rather than removing them?

 vipoid wrote:

 Amishprn86 wrote:

 guardpiper wrote:
Might be a fool question, but for the new codex did GW remove Tureborn? I keep seeing them in some of the older lists but I can not find them in my codex.

Yes, and Bloodbrides, just 2 more units removed from codex updates.

Anyone else miss the old days, when new codices would add units rather than removing them?

Oh for sure....

 vipoid wrote:

 Amishprn86 wrote:

 guardpiper wrote:
Might be a fool question, but for the new codex did GW remove Tureborn? I keep seeing them in some of the older lists but I can not find them in my codex.

Yes, and Bloodbrides, just 2 more units removed from codex updates.

Anyone else miss the old days, when new codices would add units rather than removing them?

I would have settled for having Vect back.

I'm interested in possibly starting Drukhari and was hoping someone could point me in the right direction as far as buying models go. How much value would I get by buying a Drukhari Start Collecting box or two? Looking for a semi-competitive build. What units should I expand a SC box with?

The Star collecting Box is basically a Wych Patrol thats about 300pts, Its great for new players and amazing to add to a already good Kabal/Coven army, as a starter army is not to good, DE Wyches needs support from Kabal and Coven, while Kabal and Coven can play mono easily, Wych is still a step behind.


If you want to start out with a more Comp DE list, then I would buy 2 Ravagers and 2 Boxes of Kabals, and at least 2 Venoms, the 2 Archons (You can convert these so no need to buy them), thats 6 boxes in total but it will get you a very Competitive 750pt army.

If you want to save money and you dont care if the Guys hang off the Venoms/Ravager, you can use the 2 crew that hangs off (4 boxes = 8 models) for a 5man and 2 Archons, so now you dont have to buy a 2nd Kabal box. (it would be 2 Venoms, 2 Ravagers, 1 Kabal) for 750pt army, Tho you WONT have a lot of Blasters/Shredders, you will for sure be missing special weapons (that 750pt list has 5 blasters in it) and it would b about 700pt list.

Sounds like Kabalites, Venoms, and Ravagers to start. Are the big fliers worth buying? Or should I just be spamming big combinations of the above three units?

 Retrogamer0001 wrote:
Sounds like Kabalites, Venoms, and Ravagers to start. Are the big fliers worth buying? Or should I just be spamming big combinations of the above three units?

Flyers are fine, the RWJF is a bit better for the points, many players will take both tho.

So I'm having an issue recently with a local players Nurgle list. I do not remember exactly what was in the list each time but most the time it consists of 2 DG Demon Princes and one Chaos Deamon one all with wings. 3 Plague Crawlers a unit of three Blight Haulers and Epidemius.

Even hitting on 4s the crawlers seem to put out enough bullets to drop my ravagers and everything has a high enough toughness that grotesques are far less effective in melee. Any help will be great.

Generally my list is a mix of prophets and black heart. Occasionally sprinkling in eldrad, a warlock, and a spirit seer. + Filler

Take Flyers for sure, hitting on 5+ compare to 4+, dont forget to use Lightning fast stratagem for -1 to hit as well, -6 to hit something means he wont shoot it.

A Void bomber and Hemlock will do lots of damage to them for sure, S9/12 means you would on 3+ instead of 4+/5+.

Anyone else notice on the Drukhari FAQ they updated a stance on the combination of the succubus with the Serpentin drug? WS 1+ is a thing and with the archite glaives -1 to hit we still hit on a roll of 2 since only natural rolls of 1 count as an auto-miss. I'm stoked to see that, archite glaive is still hot garbage but this makes it at least a bit more palatable.

If only they'd also bump up the CP we get for running our raiding party now so it becomes a viable building option as well as battalions for our army.

What? yeah that was always like that, a +1 and a -1 still stacks the same as any other modifiers, you always apply all modifiers. I thought everyone was playing it this way already lol.

 Amishprn86 wrote:
What? yeah that was always like that, a +1 and a -1 still stacks the same as any other modifiers, you always apply all modifiers. I thought everyone was playing it this way already lol.

I think we may be thinking of two separate things here. I`m aware that a +1 and a -1 modifier will stack to effectively cancel each other out but I`m not talking about stacking modifiers to hit in this instance. The drug I mentioned increases your WS by 1 making the WS2 Succubus WS1 instead, meaning she hits on a D6 roll of 1 or higher. The BRB tells us that a roll of 1 to hit is always a miss regardless of modifiers. With the archite glaive giving us -1 to hit if we rolled a 2 it would then be modified down to a 1, this matches our drugged up succubus WS1 so it meets the requirement to call it a hit, except the result is a 1 so it counts as an auto-fail. This FAQ clarifies for us that in this situation for the succubus only a natural roll of 1 to hit is considered a miss and so a 2 modified down to a 1 still hits. I hope that clears up what my intent with the last post was.

Hey, folks. Getting back into 40k.

I was looking at things like the PGL and other LD modifying things. My main opponent plays Space Wolves...I was wondering if I can use those tools to chip extra casualties off of his units.

For the Talos, can I stick it with a particular weapon or am I better magnetising a couple of options.

Okay, lastly, reading though this thread a bit I see that Ravagers seem to be run with Disintegrators as standard. I assume this is to shred SM on foot with some secondary ability to chip wounds off vehicles?

Leadersship damage is knida pointless unless you have a power the deals damage based off the leadership, almost every army can ignore Moral, Marines gets 2 chances to roll low for example and you can just send 2cp to completely ignore it, its pointless mostly.

Talos wants either Macro x2, or Chain-fails+Macro (this is more common and i agree with this way as best) and HWB's are just amazing now.

Dis Cannons are best b.c they in 8/10 situations are equal to more does more damage than Dark lances, and giving that, that they are 5pts cheaper, they are just better in every way. But this might change in Dec with the release of point balancing, they most likely will go upt o 20pts, but even then they most likely will still be better, mostly b.c infantry is more popular and they still do equal to a DL vs big targets (there are a couple situations that the DL is far better).
I personally run 2 Dis Ravagers, 1 DL ravager, 2 Dis RWJF and 1 DL RWJF (the DL RWJF is replaced with a bomber sometimes).