Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I'm new to dakka-dakka, but quite a seasoned 40k player. Never played DE before, but love da new codex & in da process of collecting one. Da place where i usually play 40k, we are all hard-core & almost always play 'ardboys style...It's hell fer beginners.. Oh well, here is what i plan to field fer meself..

HQ
1. Vect (240 pts) + Dais of Destruction (200 pts)

TROOPS
1. 5 Warriors + Blaster (60 pts) + Venom with 2 Splinter Cnns & Nightshield (75 pts)

2. 5 Warriors + Blaster (60 pts) + Venom with 2 Splinter Cnns & Nightshield (75 pts)

3. 5 Warriors + Shredder (50 pts)

ELITES
1. 3 Trueborns + 2 Splinter Cnns (56 pts) + Venom with 2 Splinter Cnns & Nightshield (75 pts)

2. 3 Trueborns + 2 Splinter Cnns (56 pts) + Venom with 2 Splinter Cnns & Nightshield (75 pts)

3. 9 Wracks + 1 Liquifier Gun (100 pts)

HEAVY TRANSPORT
1. Ravager + 3 Dark Lances + Nightshield + Flickerfield (125 pts)

2. Ravager + 3 Dark Lances + Nightshield + Flickerfield (125 pts)

3. Ravager + 3 Dark Lances + Nightshield + Flickerfield (125 pts)


My battle plan is simple, to always move & shoot, while maintaning distance & denying targets fer de enemy to shoot back. All da skimmers should (in an ideal 40k world) be safe from most 6"-36" shots. Can't do anything about Vect & Dais though cuz can't giv da Dais any upgrades.

Vect is too expensive for my liking.
I'd take an Archon with some Incubi in a Raider.
Give them FNP and they are hardly stoppable.

I was thinkin' da same thing initially, but the idea of fielding 4 Ravager-class skimmers on da table..u hav ta admit dat da wow factor is there bro.

But its true Vect's Dais is a 200pts target magnet. I wonder whether it can even last 2 turns?


Here is version 2.0 without Vect & his DoD:-

HQ
1. Archon with Blaster, Combat Drugs, Djin Blade, Shadowfield, Soul Trap (145 pts)

TROOPS
1. 5 Warriors + Blaster (60 pts) + Venom with 2 Splinter Cnns & Nightshield (75 pts)

2. 5 Warriors + Blaster (60 pts) + Venom with 2 Splinter Cnns & Nightshield (75 pts)

3. 5 Warriors + Blaster (60 pts) + Venom with 2 Splinter Cnns & Nightshield (75 pts)

4. 5 Warriors + Shredder (50 pts) + Venom with 2 Splinter Cnns & Nightshield (75 pts)

ELITES
1. 3 Trueborns + 2 Splinter Cnns (56 pts) + Venom with 2 Splinter Cnns & Nightshield (75 pts)

2. 3 Trueborns + 2 Splinter Cnns (56 pts) + Venom with 2 Splinter Cnns & Nightshield (75 pts)

3. 4 Trueborns + 4 Blasters (108 pts) + Raider with Dark Lance, Nightshield & Flickerfield (80 pts)

HEAVY TRANSPORT
1. Ravager + 3 Dark Lances + Nightshield + Flickerfield (125 pts)

2. Ravager + 3 Dark Lances + Nightshield + Flickerfield (125 pts)

3. Ravager + 3 Dark Lances + Nightshield + Flickerfield (125 pts)

Total = 1500 pts
KP awarded = 18

As you can see, its a pure-bred skimmer-shooty list..as befitting da image a space pirate fleet !!

18 KP is 1500 is asking to lose all KP missions unless you are tabling someone.

Also, the Dias is a good idea but not at this point level. Like the voidraven and razorwing, they are meant for higher point battles.

With all those venoms the splinter cannon trueborn seem superfluous. I'd drop all your nightshields on venoms and 1 trueborn for a bare bones 4 man Incubi in a venom for your archon to play with (give him the grenade launcher too). Then turn other trueborn into a blaster squad.

That would be much more deadly. Don't get me wrong, NS are great. But @ 1500 you gotta make sure you have the necessities before toys. NS on venoms are a luxury.

18 KP is 1500 is asking to lose all KP missions unless you are tabling someone.

True, 18 KPs in 1500 list is waaay above average..but remember only 1/3 of da missions is KP game, de others are objective(s)-catching missions. & i do believe dat in KP games, dis list is not dat ez to be TA-ed..

Even in our local tourney, da organizer make sure dat each of da 3 types of missions are being played..so i'm not dat worried..well i actually do..but not dat much..

With all those venoms the splinter cannon trueborn seem superfluous

Well, i'm a firm believer in da maxim of "there's no such thing as over-kill"...u havta remember dat despite da no. of dakka-dakka dat i hav fr da SCs , dey still need 4+ to wound da targets..dats 50%-too-many failures in my cup of tea.

NS on venoms are a luxury.

Maybe..maybe not..Da way i c it, a Venom dat goes zig-zaggin' here & there naked w/o NS is freely asking fer trouble. Fr my exp, da 6"-36" shooting range in de most dangerous, even more so fer AV10 flying cardboards. Personally, anything dat can help my fragile dakka-dakka skimmer fr being shot at is not a luxury item..its a necessity

Of course, dey can't run away fr Autocnnc, Lascnns, MLs, Battle cnns..etc..but anythin' is better than nuthin'..

I was going to write this extremely long book length critique of your list and how to fix it, but I keep wincing at you grasp on English and think it would mostly be wasted....so instead you get this:

Drop your nightshields and flickerfields where possible and spend those points to get more killy things.

wincing at you grasp on English

Oouchh...

So sorry guys. I'm so used to use such spelling & way of talking with my fellow forumers back home. If you winced at what I've written so far, wait until I revert to our version of ork-speech, especially when discussing Orks army lists (I'm an Ork player too). My friends call it "an interesting approach to data transferring & communicating"...Very well, I'll try to correct myself & to avoid any unnecessary spelling, vocabulary & grammar mistakes...But we are going off topic here...

Following Dracos' advice concerning the Trueborn units, here is version 3.0 with some slight adjustments (the NS is still there though..sorry)

HQ
1. Archon with Blaster, Combat Drugs, Djin Blade, Shadowfield, Soul Trap (145 pts)

TROOPS
1. 5 Warriors + Blaster (60 pts) + Venom with 2 Splinter Cnns & Nightshield (75 pts)

2. 5 Warriors + Blaster (60 pts) + Venom with 2 Splinter Cnns & Nightshield (75 pts)

3. 5 Warriors + Blaster (60 pts) + Venom with 2 Splinter Cnns & Nightshield (75 pts)

ELITES
1. 4 Trueborns + 4 Blasters (108 pts) + Venom with 2 Splinter Cnns & Nightshield (75 pts)

2. 4 Trueborns + 4 Blasters (108 pts) + Venom with 2 Splinter Cnns & Nightshield (75 pts)

3. 4 Trueborns + 4 Blasters (108 pts) + Venom with 2 Splinter Cnns & Nightshield (75 pts)

HEAVY TRANSPORT
1. Ravager + 3 Dark Lances + Nightshield + Flickerfield (125 pts)

2. Ravager + 3 Dark Lances + Nightshield + Flickerfield (125 pts)

3. Ravager + 3 Dark Lances + Nightshield + Flickerfield (125 pts)

Total = 1474 pts
KP awarded = 16

*I don't know what to do with the balance of 26 pts. Should I spend more on the Archon?

CikguDin wrote:
So sorry guys. I'm so used to use such spelling & way of talking with my fellow forumers back home. If you winced at what I've written so far, wait until I revert to our version of ork-speech, especially when discussing Orks army lists (I'm an Ork player too). My friends call it "an interesting approach to data transferring & communicating"...Very well, I'll try to correct myself & to avoid any unnecessary spelling, vocabulary & grammar mistakes...But we are going off topic here...

Thanks because that's in keeping with rule #5

Lorek wrote:Hey everyone, I just wanted to post a few reminders about posting etiquette here on Dakka Dakka. We've had a lot of new people lately, and these are some things I've run in to.

1. Rule #1 is Be Polite! It's easy!

2. No Thread Necromancy. If a thread is more than a month old, leave it alone. If you're really interested in the topic, start a new thread! There are exceptions, like updates to modelling blogs or threads in forums that don't get much traffic, but in general bringing back old threads is simply annoying to the bulk of the posters who have already moved on.

3. Before posting on a topic, check for existing threads! There's a Search feature that works really well for this, and usually all you really need to do is scan the first few pages of the appropriate forum to make sure you're not duplicating something. This especially applies in You Make Da Call, where your question very well may have already been argued to death (and beware the rusty spoons!).

4. Stay on the original topic of the thread. It's really easy to wander off, but if you find yourself diverging too much from the original topic, start a new thread.

5. Please be intelligible. We strongly encourage proper punctuation, spelling, grammar and composition, but if we can't understand you, we'll ignore you. Before you post, hit the Preview button and double-check what you've written before posting it, and remember that you can always go back and edit your posts to fix any problems. I usually don't catch my mistakes until after I've posted, so you'll see a lot of "This post was edited 2 times" in small letters at the bottom of my posts.

If you have any questions about anything here on Dakka, feel free to ask. Most of the members and any of the Mods are glad to help you out!

- Iorek

I think you should drop a whole guy from each of the trueborns get yourself a Hame with a liquifier and ghostplate on the archon if it'll fit after that.
(your AT is a bit lacking iomo too but you seem to be on a venom bent.

You're going to lose. . .often. . .in any game that involves capturing objectives. 15 Troops in Venoms is insta-lose. They would be the first thing that I would target ignoring everything else. Then, I would just camp on objectives until the end of the game. Get more troops. . .you need them.

Thanks mate..duly noted..

your AT is a bit lacking iomo

I thought I have enough AT weapons already: 9 Dark Lances + 15 Blasters (so far I have 10, 5 more Blasters to go).

Where I come from, we have a balanced number of players playing 1.5k-1.75k sized armies, ranging from mechanized armies (IG with 8 Leman Russes, Eldar with 8 Serpents-Prisms combo, Ors with 9 Killa Kans + 2 Deff Dredds, BA with 6 Predators + 2 Furiosos...etc) as well as infantry-based armies (Orks with Ghazskull + 15 Meganobz or 2 Nobz-bikers sqd, SM with 20 fleet-Assault Terminators, SW with 15 MLs or 10 Thunderwolves, BA with 25 Death Co. Marines, Nid-zilla Tyranids and horde Tyranids, Daemons with Fateweaver, Bloodthirster & 10 Bloodcrusher combo...etc..).

I believe the DE army list that I'm putting here should be able to handle both types of armies. Having played-assault based armies all these years with Orks & BA, I'd like to field a mobile pure-bred firepower army for a change. Not to mention that the new DE models (with the exception of the Wyches) are fantatic!!

You have 3 DL platforms, Av11open topped that just need shaking to neuter them.
Sure strafe 12" then unlaod is a nifty trick but it's one trick.

Another 12 in AV10-OT.......
But theres guys only have a potential range of 24"

and your last threee are attached to 5 wound 5+'s... You fall out of your paper boat and you'll take 5 str 3 hits...say 2 wounds of which you need to save or you're taking morale and pinning checks... so on so forth.

You list is summarised by your Archon, he's just itching to be in close but once he's there there will be no one to play on his side.

But it's just my opinion, and if you feel you have nothing to worry about from lootas longfangs, 48" ranges, str 6+ pie plates, DS plasma etc. On top of wanting to be with-in 18" to fire 2/3rds of your anit tank... with no invuln save - that's what you want to roll~!

Thanks for the input.

I understand what you are trying to say, but not everything is easy to be done. The army lists that I've put here is undoubtedly fragile, especially when we are talking about AV10 open-topped skimmers. But there are a lot of other factors to be considered in a game, as I'm sure you would know as well.

As I've mentioned before, it's not that I'm not worried about 48"++ range weapons at all...It's just that I do not like to think too much about things that I can't avoid.

In the place where I usually play, we seldom have Orks fielding more than 15 Lootas i.e more 1 squad. Even then, their number of shots are too random. Coupled with low BS, they usually underperformed in most of the games. I know about this personally, because I used to have 30 of them before. What is worse is that they are static units i.e it is easy for crafty enemy units to circumvent from their LoS using terrain features..etc..

Long Fangs are admittedly much more of a threat. Although LF is a static unit, with 7 misiles firing per squad, a SW army fielding 3 LF sqds can engage 6 different targets firing 21 MLs per shooting phase!! I had no problem facing them before with my Orks & BA. Unfortunately, with the set-up that I'm using for my DE, I need to test them in real battle to see how to solve this problem.

The way I see it, a 6-men LF sqd with 5 MLs plus a WG in Terminator armor & Cyclone ML = 203 pts. If the player takes 3 units, he has to take 15 WGs as well, thus taking a very large portion of his army composition especially in a 1.5k set-up, making his army size quite small. Not a very likely set-up I believe.

S6/S8 pie plates/blast are usually mounted on some sort of tanks like Leman Russes, Hammerheads, Fire Prisms...etc. I'll just have to face them like a DE.

Even if the opponent is fielding 8 Leman Russes, they can only target 3 of my vehicles at the most per shooting phase. If they are targeting the Trueborns, then my Ravagers will most like survive. If they target my Ravagers instead, then my Trueborns will be that much closer towards them. By the way, the Blasters' threat range is only 24" if they stay onboard & the Venoms move 6". Depending on the situation, I can always opt to disembark them, effectively making their threat range increased to 32".

As far as fielding only 15 Warriors as Troop Choices is concern..Well, for years now I've been playing my Eldar with only 2 x 5-men foot slogging Dire Avengers as my Troop Choices. So far, they have done very very well. In the rare cases where they were destroyed, I had no choice but to TA my opponents.

The same has to go for DE I guess. It's not like I have to always put the Warriors inside the Venoms. At least 1 unit has the option to disembark, hiding, camping and smoking cigars somewhere safe, preferably behind or inside a ruin/building/other terrain features & right next to the objective counter. From experience, 5 skinny Eldar models are much easier to be hidden than a full 10-men squad.

You should drop that Djin blade and take an agonizer. Anything that can hurt your own guy WILL do so at the most inappropriate time. Then you dont need the Soul trap, as youll be wounding things on 4+, but you can keep it if you want to attempt to get St10 for authentic anti-tank action.

And you do in fact need some more troops. I think you are focusing too much on the alpha strike aspect of the list (and kind of poorly executed) and less on the winning of games.

Dump the truborn, 1 ravager, and all the flicker fields and night shields that you can. Replace the venoms with Raiders. Add a nice plump unit of Incubi with a Raider to throw your Archon into and fill the rest of your points with warrior squads in raiders. Bumrush your incubi squad forward while destroying any and all transports with your dark light weapons. Then pick on outlying squads with your St8 Ap2 weapons and charge the Incubi into the middle and destroy everything you can.

Thats just a generic battle plan, but its a start.

I am not a fan of Camboose's advice. I stand by my advice at the top. You are not going to win an attrition war with the DE. At least, not a vehicle attrition war. All the upgrades on the vehicles are going to really hurt you when you've lost more than half of your vehicles by the end of turn 2 anyways.

If you are going to win, it will likely be decided early on. If you go first, you need to have enough alpha strike to cripple your opponent. If you go second, you need to reserve everything, and have as many unit capable of hitting as hard as possible out of reserves.

Guys, thanks for your input/advice. I'll be having my first few games today. I'll try my own versions, & also plan to run some games based on both your suggestions. I'll let you know about the results later tomorrow.

Its been 6 days since my last entry, & somehow I only managed to get to play 5 games with the new DE. I don't want to get into too much details about the games, cuz this is not a battle report thread. Suffice to say that I didn't lose in any of those games.

I'd also like to make a few changes to the lists that I've put here before. I've only used the army list as mentioned below twice so far, but I've already liked it a lot.

Latest version at 1.75k:-

HQ (440 pts)
1. Adsrubel Vect with Dais of Destruction

TROOPS (486 pts)
1. 10 Wyches with 2 Shardnets & Impalers, Hekatrix + Phantasm Grenade Launcher & Agonizer
Transport: Raider with Disintegrator Cnn, NS & FF + Enhanced Aethersails + Chainsnares

2. 9 Warriors with 1 Blaster

3. 5 Warriors + 1 Blaster
Transport: Raider with Disintegrator Cnn, NS & FF

ELITES (447 pts)
1. 4 Trueborns + 2 Splinter Cannons
Transport: Raider with Disintegrator Cnn, NS & FF & Splinter Rack

2. 4 Trueborns + 2 Splinter Cannons
Transport: Raider with Disintegrator Cnn, NS & FF & Splinter Rack

3. 3 Trueborns + 2 Splinter Cannons
Transport: Raider with Disintegrator Cnn, NS & FF & Splinter Rack

HEAVY SUPPORTS
1. Ravager with 3 Dark Lances, NS & FF

2. Ravager with 3 Dark Lances, NS & FF

3. Ravager with 3 Dark Lances, NS & FF

Total pts: 1748
KP awarded: 16

After just 3 games using Venoms, I find that they are quite over-rated. True, they have awesome number of shots per Venom, but I find that Raiders with Disintegrator cnn are much more effective. Plus, with the huge number of enemy units having FnP ability running amok in the 40k universe, having the Disintegrator cnn is a much better bargain.

And as you can see, I'm retaining the NS & FF on every vehicles. Having played 2 games with skimmers without NS & FF as suggested by our friends in the previous entries, they were shot at & downed like sitting ducks. In the other 3 games where I equipped the skimmers with NS or/& FF, their survival rate improved tremendously! Thus, despite the expensive pt cost, I'm sticking with these upgrades.

Vect & his D.o.D...what can I say..except that they are freaking awesome!! So much so, that I've already customized my Archon model to suits Vect's descriptions, as well as converting a Ravager into a D.o.D.

Disintegrators? There are cover saves almost everywhere.
Don't count too much on them.

I prefer naked skimmers. They are paper-thin and NS, FF eventually do not help that much.

Well, I have to admit that most of the opponents that I have fought so far are MEQs (World Eaters, Predators-heavy BA, Biker-Orks, Meganobz-heavy Orks, Assault-heavy BA). So, I actually didn't mind them rolling 4+ cover rather than 2+/3+ armor sv. Can't say anything against full Speed Freak Bikers though, cuz they are always count as in cover.

Furthermore, I really at rolling 4+ to-wound rolls when using Splinter Cnn. Its easier when using Disintegrators due to most armies having Toughness value of 4 or below. I still retain 6 Splinter Cnns though for additional number of shots against large-sized units. I have to admit, poison shots are also useful in anticipation to fight Nidzillas-equivalent. Those Dark Lances are also there as my insurance.

Against vehicles, the 12 Dark Lances & 2 Blasters are more than enough so far.