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I think the idea is to drop the passengers off or keep them in reserves and use empty raiders.

Yeah, but their idea is that there wouldn't be any passengers. They'd be in a WWP or in the DZ with Dark Lances.

Ah. Of course.

Kill points are the only other concern I can think of. I love this idea, I'm just trying to play devil's advocate (as much as I hate that cliche).

I can't wait for the later codex for some race that makes this an actual design. AV10 fast skimmers loaded with explosives. 10 pts, double the distance and strength of explosions from a 6 on the damage table.

Monster Rain wrote:The only problem is that I thought that if you move a transport flat out and are wrecked on the same turn the passengers are killed.

Is this not the case? That's the only downside I could see, otherwise it's pretty brilliant really.

Yup, the idea is to keep the Raiders empty. See my original post or better yet Sir Pseudonymous' post that I quoted for a better explanation.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Mannahnin wrote:Yeah, but their idea is that there wouldn't be any passengers. They'd be in a WWP or in the DZ with Dark Lances.

^this too.

I don't know about ramming with Raiders, but I can definitely see venoms used for this purpose, due to flickerfield and the reduced need for anti-infantry for this match up.

I also think ramming vendettas and manticores can never fail, since any turn it fires is one where you lose a tank or more.

Venoms can't take shock prows, though, so as far as I understand it they can't ram (since tank shocks and ramming are introduced with "And tanks can do these two other cool things" or somesuch, with the shock prow explicitly stating "a vehicle with a shock prow can tank shock enemy units," implying that a deldar vehicle without a shock prow can't tank shock or ram). Without a shock prow they'd also inflict a weaker hit (if they could ram at all), and are more likely to take damage, since the shock prow increases their front armor by d3 while ramming, so a raider can end up (with luck) at AV13 (and will a be a minimum of AV11), and a ravager can get AV14 (with a minimum of AV12).


And yes, the idea is to take wyches or beastmasters and keep them in reserve while the empty raiders are deployed, then send them out the webway portal as they come in. Still risky, since it requires making sure your archon lives long enough, and gets far enough forward in the first turn to set the portal down (since otherwise you can end up with infantry coming in from your edge, which wouldn't work too well without available transports; hellions might work, if you declare that they're deepstriking so they'll always come in play farther forwards, which defeats the purpose of a webway, and doesn't provide you with any raiders to use as guided missiles...).

Sir Pseudonymous wrote: hellions might work, if you declare that they're deepstriking so they'll always come in play farther forwards, which defeats the purpose of a webway, and doesn't provide you with any raiders to use as guided missiles...).

Indeed, Venoms can not take Shock Prows otherwise I'd have suggested them over Raiders. And any means of a unit declared as in reserves, whether deepstriking or not, is able to make use of the WWP.

As someone said earlier the advantage of DE is mobility, and that is one a parking lot of Chimeras don't really have.
With more Dark Lances you can play the mobility game by spreading your units out at long range, the Chimeras have to move to range you and that cuts down the shooting they can do. The longer your sniper boats last the more likely your other units are to get close and do their thing.

Getting your more killy units in fast would be the other arm of that strat, I like Beast units and a second one running across the field would provide another target that your opponent has to honor. Once among the vehicles a large enough group should be able to hit a few in a multi-charge. The idea for this wouldn't be to kill the vehicles, rather just to stop them from shooting and/or moving for a turn or 2, so a glance is a perfectly acceptable result.

This could be done with just one Beast crew but I think you'd need a webway portal. The advantage with 2 groups is you can attach the Baron to the second one and follow in the (now) faster pack, making it a hammer/anvil situation. If your opponent focuses on either pack, then he's wasted a lot of firepower that could have been directed against your gunboats. If he focuses on the gunboats, then he sacrifices his formation and your beasts are going to make it into his parking lot with predictable results.

The "glance is as good as a pen" theory works as well with other units too, anything strength 4 or more can glance side armor, and I'm sure DE can find a few of those somewhere. Anything to reduce incoming fire works.

The problem seems to be that most of your options for going after mech guard involve changing your list in some way. And you seem to be reluctant to do that, simply spamming Dark Lances would make your odds better (though not great) but that would involve changes that you seem unwilling to make. So it comes down to tactics, forcing them to jump to your tune is viable with your list as is by spreading out and being as aggressive as possible with the beastmaster unit.

Then there is ramming, you don't have to change much to do this and I think it has the most possibility out of all the options. Also fits with you philosophy of any point spent on defense is one not spent on offense. Take shields and crap off your raiders and send them headlong at the enemy naked, any result is good. Ideally you get a destroyed Chimera and can try to repeat the tactic next turn, but worst case is your own raider breaks and now there is cover and you've taken away some mobility.

I really have to disagree with some of that.

The best solution, in my opinion, is to use raiders rather than venoms (yeah, venoms are awesome (12 36" wounds on 4+ shots at BS4 for 65 points? Awesome!), but they can't scratch vehicles), and use wyches with haywire grenades rather than warriors with blasters. Vect and Malys help here; let your opponent deploy first even if you win the roll off, hopefully he puts his troops on the front of his line, you put a single raider with haywire wyches where it can get a charge off on his most threatening tanks, and everything else clustered in a back corner where it'll be out of range of most of his weapons (flickerfields (add 1/6th to the cost to save 1/3rd of the time) and night shields (render meltas and rapidfire weapons useless, and greatly aid the concentrating fire from outside the range of most of his vehicles thing essentially to this strategy) are a must here), but can move close enough on your turn to open up on his flank with dark lances. You'll seize initiative on a 4+ with Vect; if you fail you roll the d3 for Malys and move your forward wych raider to safety (since Malys lets you move d3 units after both players have deployed); if you win move any other wych raiders you can up to join in the charge. First turn, you should either be out of range of almost all of his weapons, so you shouldn't lose more than a single raider or so, or be able to get a charge off with haywires, stunning or destroying your opponent's most dangerous vehicles, and devastating one flank with a dark lance alpha strike, leaving him unable to properly respond on his turn. Second turn, clean up his remaining tanks and mop up any unbroken infantry with the wyches and any warriors or venoms you might have.


Now, in order for a raider to ram at all, you need a shock prow. In order for it to ram effectively, it needs Enhanced Aethersails. At this point, for only 1/7th the cost you'll have it survive the ramming (which will autopen a chimera chassis if done right) completely untouched a third of the time (it'll survive more than that, depending on how far you moved and what you rolled for the shock prow), leaving it able to ram or fire its dark lance on its next turn.

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:I really have to disagree with some of that.

The best solution, in my opinion, is to use raiders rather than venoms (yeah, venoms are awesome (12 36" wounds on 4+ shots at BS4 for 65 points? Awesome!), but they can't scratch vehicles), and use wyches with haywire grenades rather than warriors with blasters. Vect and Malys help here; let your opponent deploy first even if you win the roll off, hopefully he puts his troops on the front of his line, you put a single raider with haywire wyches where it can get a charge off on his most threatening tanks, and everything else clustered in a back corner where it'll be out of range of most of his weapons (flickerfields (add 1/6th to the cost to save 1/3rd of the time) and night shields (render meltas and rapidfire weapons useless, and greatly aid the concentrating fire from outside the range of most of his vehicles thing essentially to this strategy) are a must here), but can move close enough on your turn to open up on his flank with dark lances. You'll seize initiative on a 4+ with Vect; if you fail you roll the d3 for Malys and move your forward wych raider to safety (since Malys lets you move d3 units after both players have deployed); if you win move any other wych raiders you can up to join in the charge. First turn, you should either be out of range of almost all of his weapons, so you shouldn't lose more than a single raider or so, or be able to get a charge off with haywires, stunning or destroying your opponent's most dangerous vehicles, and devastating one flank with a dark lance alpha strike, leaving him unable to properly respond on his turn. Second turn, clean up his remaining tanks and mop up any unbroken infantry with the wyches and any warriors or venoms you might have.


Now, in order for a raider to ram at all, you need a shock prow. In order for it to ram effectively, it needs Enhanced Aethersails. At this point, for only 1/7th the cost you'll have it survive the ramming (which will autopen a chimera chassis if done right) completely untouched a third of the time (it'll survive more than that, depending on how far you moved and what you rolled for the shock prow), leaving it able to ram or fire its dark lance on its next turn.

Sounds like a strategy to me in order to make damage, as much as possible, in first turn. Vect and Malys can be key here.

Against the Mechanized armies (especially IG), you're on the right track using a unit of Beastmasters. Personally, I'd work in 2 or 3 units of them. A big difference is how I'd build them.

I think the Clawed Fiend is worth taking for all the Lascannon/Autcannon shots you will be subject to. That model has a natural toughness 5 so won't be instakilled by each hit and he has 4 wounds. You've already figured out Razorwings are very good at anti tank duty and they can survived the resulting 'Vehicle Explodes' which can wreck other units (IE: Wyches).

Work out units that aren't overly expensive to stay in line with your MSU style build.

In the upcoming months (March, IIRC), the dreaded allies rules will be gone from the Demonhunters codex and, unless folks actually own a Witchhunters codex, can't get allies from there either (but, I'll stay on topic and not go on an off tangent rant).

A big part of playing against IG is dependent on the IG build; if they are running lots of pieplate weapons (is it the Manticore that shoots barrage pieplates?), set up may have to change. Don't allow those deviations to still hit targets. Be confident in the 5+ save and spread out; the speed of the DE allows you to refocus your army quickly.

While Ravagers are very good, they can still be brought down by a single shot. Try running 2 Ravagers and a single Talos. You can arm the Talos with either a t/l Heatlance or a t/l Haywire gun (I'm leaning towards the Haywire gun b/c of range and ease of stopping an enemy tank from shooting). IIRC correctly, if you 'Shake' or 'Stun' a Chimera, the occupants can't fire from inside; they have to disembark if they want to fire which won't be likely. He's relatively cheap and is another unit your opponent will have to address quickly as IG can't afford to allow a MC in assault range.

MSU (which you're running) is still a better option which is what you're playing.

However, keep in mind whenever you set up aggressively and someone steals the initiative, anyone is going to take it on the chin. That's exactly why the rule is there. It sucks, but it really shows just how much plain old luck plays a role in 40K (which is why I don't take tournament play very serious).