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Someone, please convince me why I would want one of these. I am feeling a bit of a pull towards it, but DE have such good anti infantry as is that it is hard to give up the 3 dark lance platform.

because the hurt it can put on MeQ.

Once the tanks are gone ravagers with DL are much much less effective. they will kill less than 2 MeQ per turn on average.

A dist ravager will average 4 dead MeQ per shooting phase. Thats a devistator squad, half a full assault squad. Whatever a dist ravager shoots at will either be destroyed or reduced in effectiveness so much it might as well be removed as it is only now there to give free pain tokens to whoever can finish it.

If you find your opponets have tons of tanks, DL will do you better but if you know your MeQ opponent likes foot sloggers or jump infantry, ruin his day with a ravager.

If you are running a Darklight spam list (say 3 units of Trueborn with Blasters/Dark Lances, Warriors with Blaster and Blast Pistol/Dark Lance and Scourges with Dark Lances) then you could possible find a place for them, but even then the Dark Lances are probably going to be just as helpful. They can still punch there way through heavy infantry fairly well with 3 shots and can ID things which is always helpful.

In an anti infantry role the Venom is just so much better for half the cost and unless you have some aversion to taking them (not having a model yet would be a viable reason I suppose) even a Darklight spam list is easily going to be able to fit a few in.

Exergy wrote:because the hurt it can put on MeQ.

Once the tanks are gone ravagers with DL are much much less effective. they will kill less than 2 MeQ per turn on average.

A dist ravager will average 4 dead MeQ per shooting phase. Thats a devistator squad, half a full assault squad. Whatever a dist ravager shoots at will either be destroyed or reduced in effectiveness so much it might as well be removed as it is only now there to give free pain tokens to whoever can finish it.

If you find your opponets have tons of tanks, DL will do you better but if you know your MeQ opponent likes foot sloggers or jump infantry, ruin his day with a ravager.

That is 4 dead meqs outside of cover. How often does that happen when you face a player who knows what disintergrators are?

notabot187 wrote:
That is 4 dead meqs outside of cover. How often does that happen when you face a player who knows what disintergrators are?

it happens often enough although I agree it is more often it is that the MeQ player simply doesnt know what the disintegrators are and cant adjust until he has lost.

Cover effects the DL ravager as well. On average the disintegrator ravager will kill 140% or 2.4 time more MeQ than the DL ravager. Venoms start to be more competitive as the amount of cover goes up but lets stick with the MeQs in cover.

Ever think that meqs in cover might be a good thing? If they are in cover they are not very mobile and can be left alone while other parts of the army are being attacked. When your enemy runs for cover, he gets a 4++ save and strikes first if you dont have grenades but he does not get those things without cost. He glues his squads down and lets you dictate even more where the fights are going to happen. If there is something on the table that makes him run for the trees I will take it!

Against my usual oppoenents this is even better. After they have played me more than 3 times they start to get to change their tactics. The take lots more shooty stuff and less assault stuff. Not just in what they field but also how they play the game. They think cover=good for me, open field = good for them. I get in arguments about table set up, and no matter how many times I show them page 88 in the BRB they tell me that 3 pieces of terrain are enough for them. Then they try and place it around the edges so there is a huge firekill zone in the middle of the field. I either take a shooty army (much easier in the first codex), WWP or use the big raiders(the new ones a bigger than the old ones) to make wrecks with smoke to cover the raiders with important stuff. None of these games are particularly fun win or lose, and watching BA and CSM load up on heavy bolters, autocannons, and missile launchers without a tank to be seen is sackreligious. If they start to value cover the game becomes fun.

I use them in my army (just one of them) and it is worth it. I have 2 friends that play MEQ armies, and they hate that vehicle more than the regular ravager. Its great in 2 roles

1. Hitting small devastator/long fang squads, and diminishing them.

2. It can move all 12" and still fire, which I use to jump over intervening terrain and shoot form the other side and deny cover, or jump around and get rear armor shots.

I know cover save are an issue, but I normally kill about 3 guys or so every time it shoots. And that is plenty vs small units.

They are cheap and defiantly effective for their points cost.

I'd rather take the dark lances, every time. Kills vehicles, can still plug armoured infantry (including terminators and MCs that disintegrators will struggle with) While on the other side, disintegrators are worthless against all but the lightest vehicles. Long range lances are one of the best way to kill vehicles. With cover so common, long range AP3 shooting is actually not a good way to kill heavy infantry.

They are both AP2 so statistically a disintegrator would be better at terminators, even of the storm shield variety which is kind of a main stay for all MEQ tourney lists which is what had me looking back at them.

I think one on a Ravager wouldn't be too bad, but I wouldn't want to take more than that because my army needs them more for AT than against even tough infantry.

If you have a really shooty, DL spamming army, a 3-Dis Ravager is probably functional in lieu of having a hammer unit to take out those things Incubi/combat Archons/Halies would try to hit.

Disintigrator ravager is 9 anti TEQ shots.

While DE can get a lot of anti tank, and a lot of anti horde, honestly they have few anti meq/teq weapons.

There are models outside of MEQ /TEQ that have high saves and T5 or T6 like tervigons, mawlocs, trygon, etc.

Disintegrators are also really nice character killers. 3 shots with str 8 ap 2 is pretty nice but almost everything has Eternal warrior thats a character worth shooting at with a ravager. 9 str 5 ap2 shots is a lot more scary. On average rolling you will cause 6 hits 4 wounds against a t4 character. If there is no invulnerable save you just insta gibbed a character. If the save is 4++ you just caused 2 wounds on average, which is still enough to kill a lot of non lord characters.

On average 2 disintegrator ravagers will kill mephiston in 1 round of shooting, food for thought. They also cost less points.

Even if you dont kill the unit putting 9 str5 ap 2 shots down on some terminators might be enough to make the player go to ground, in which case you can ignore the unit for a turn if you wanted...

I am not saying disintegrators are better than DL, but they definately have a place.

Test them and do a Battle report (ok I just like reading your battle reports).

They also cost less points.

Last I checked the Ravager is the same points cost and the weapons can be interchanged for free.


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sexiest_hero wrote:Test them and do a Battle report (ok I just like reading your battle reports).

Agreed!

I meant 2 ravagers with disintegraters is less points than mephiston, or many other "super" characters.

i leave the ravager with lances. for anti inf, 5 trueborn with 3 carbine/2 splinter cannon, on a dual splintercannon venom makes a pure unholy MESS of anything not a tank. cover be damned. and its a dirt cheap unit to boot. everytime i use this unit its the games first star. last time i ran 3 of these, and they simply dominated. the blasterborn unit on venom also performs very well, acting as vehicle snipers or hev inf killers (re: termies) both units cost less then 200. your ravagers can then deal with other tanks or if required put the hurt on infantry, OR shooting at buildings hiding infantry. (stun the building = stun everyone INSIDE the building..... "covers not so fun now is it?!?")

They are great against Marines and Terminators, but my friend has bought them against me when I've played all meched up (we keep our lists secret until game time) and it was a total waste. I just ignored it for the first three turns.

Somnicide wrote:They are both AP2 so statistically a disintegrator would be better at terminators, even of the storm shield variety which is kind of a main stay for all MEQ tourney lists which is what had me looking back at them.

My bad, was confusing new with old disintegrator rules. I stand by the central point - Having a weapon that is useful against vehicles and against elite infantry, is better than having a weapon that excels against elite infantry and is pants against anything else. DE can take a lot of poison shots and high initiative cc attacks, I don't think they need the disintegrator shots.

I run a Hellion-based list that I think is fairly competitive. Packs 30 Hellions for CC, as well as a Warrior squad floating around adding posion shots. Decent anti-infantry, yes. Still bring a Disintegrator Ravager? Yes. Quite frankly, against any MEQ list, it can and will win you the game.

I play against a very good SWs player frequently, and it is one of his first priorities. Not my Dark Lances, or my troops, but the thing that statistically willl wipe a Long Fang unit off the board in one turn.

Oh look, BA list? Lol, good luck losing a squad every turn. Oh, your entire army is in vehicles? Manuveur (shocking idea, I know) and either shoot AV10 like speeders and rear armor, or wait for your DLs to pop vehicles, then eat what's inside of them. You choose the order you shoot in. Save the Disintegrators for last, mop up what the DL's gave you.

Even with losing those 3 Dark Lances, I still manage to pack in another 14 at 1500 points, so it isn't as if your army is going to become inneffective against mech. At worst, you can glance a Rhino to death (and that is pretty much worst-case scenario). Few things will give a MEQ player more fits when seeing a DE army than Disintegrator Cannons.

Our local DE player uses 2 of them with lances and one with the 3 disintegrators... Since the disintegrators are basically the 3rd edition Star Cannons, and a LOT of us play Marines locally...

Could the disintergrators be good against side armour? I thought with 9 shots at bs 4 it is the same trick the a necron destroyer wing use to destroy tanks (although! the destroyer wing can stand a lott more punishment)

I use one in my regular 1500pts and I have to agree with everyone else who likes them. They are pretty damn good I have a fair amount of anti-mech (mostly CC,another ravager and some blaster toting trueborn) the dissie ravager fills the middle ground between splinter weapons and Dark Lances. Mind you I play in a heavy Blood Angel enviroment so multiple shots that ignore FNP is a godsend.

Niiai wrote:Could the disintergrators be good against side armour? I thought with 9 shots at bs 4 it is the same trick the a necron destroyer wing use to destroy tanks (although! the destroyer wing can stand a lott more punishment)

If you see armor AV10 you have a pretty good shot. AV11 and you have a good shot to glance but you are basically wasting your time, like shooting a dark lance at a 10 man tactical squad.

i think it comes down to this: are you going to face alot of terminators?

if yes, then 1 dissy isn't bad

if no, then 1 dissy won't impress.

cover is the trump card to dissys. i'd love to field the dissy's for things like Long Fangs or Plague Marines (as they would potentially shred them to pieces) but cover means that i'm over-spending resources to net about 2 kills or less.

as for myself, i'm currently just peppering terms with high rate of fire, hoping for some bad saves, then assaulting with wyches for a bogfest. eventually, if i killed 1-2 pre-assault, then the wyches will grind them down unless joined by another unit. *should be noted i haven't played the new deathwing yet though*

Greetings.

Disintegrators are incredibly effective anti-MEQ weapons. No one will argue that.

However, I don't believe that they are EFFICIENT anti-MEQ weapons. The DE codex sports what I honestly consider to be the second most potent anti-infantry gun in the game: The splinter cannon. More dice = more wounds = more save rolls, and while quality > quantity in fine art, in 40k quantity > quality. 200 points of Ork boyz are going to massacre 200 points of terminators. Every time.

It is NOT a reasonable assumption to believe that intelligent marine players are going to deploy out of cover, especially not for devestators/long fangs. Disintegrators aren't going to prove more effective against terminators either - who these days most often are sporting a 3++, or are going to have a 4++ anyway from being in cover. Volume of fire is key - something splinter cannons can do so much more effectively...and which work EVEN BETTER than splinter cannons at wounding monstrous creatures, wraithlords, avatars, and provide more shots against swarms.

Actually, nine disintegrator shots are slightly better than 24 splinter cannon shots against terminators in cover. A Ravager with disintegrators is 105 points, two venoms with extra splinter cannons are 130 points. Of course, there is something to be said for volume of fire being a safer bet than small amounts of potentially better fire, though... Of course, I'd rather take a Razorwing with splinter cannon and disintegrators than a Ravager with disintegrators, since it may as well pack a staggering long-range anti-horde punch too...

Very nice idea with the razorwing. I might slot one of those in this summer when it comes out.

The d-ravager didn't blow me away, but the disitegrators were nice enough that 2 of my raiders are getting them full time.

To each their own. I don't pack 24 splinter cannon shots, I pack 108 of them, backed up by splinter rifles....so that everything else in my army (including ravagers) can focus on anti-tank.

Disintegrators also help out against FNP, which seems to be everywhere these days.

AdeptSister wrote:Disintegrators also help out against FNP, which seems to be everywhere these days.

But the DE have so many other tools to deal with FNP. Incubi, Wyches, Razowing flocks....

Against FNP units, I can drop 12-18 blasters into them from my infantry units, and if it comes down to it - dark lances as well.

I think what I should communicate is this: This is a mechanized world. The ravager is hands down the most efficient tank killer in the codex for its points. Why sacrifice the best unit...the MANDATORY unit, against which all other comers in the heavy support slots pale in comparison and downgrade it to something that everything else in your army is already exceptional at? Those dark lances *will* have tanks to shoot at. Enemy tanks are more dangerous to Dark Eldar than enemy terminators. So...a terminator is going to run up on a raider/venom and...need a 6 to hit. Onoes! And if they kill the vehicle, the unit inside is safe to rapid fire them the following turn - along with everything else nearby.

I would 100% rather be overprepared for vehicles and underprepared for having a specific build capable of dealing with terminators better than other DE build - terminators aren't that common and aside from DA and a few unique / aged marine builds aren't that common anymore.

Lets look at the common units you see across the field, and what I think the best way of dealing with them is.

Vehicles: Dark lances/blasters. Common sense.
Long Fangs / devastators: Massed Splinter Cannons. My 108 splinter cannon shots give me 11 dead long fangs in the first turn if my whole army is on the table and going first. Less if I don't go first; I reserve and alpha strike with whatever comes on.
Marines: Splinter Cannons, or choose your adventure of Dark Eldar close combat options.
Tyranid MCs: Splinter Cannons wound on a 4+, Disintegrators wound on a 5+. And while disintegrators have 9 shots that ignore armour to the splinter cannons with 12 shots that don't, venoms/raiders with splinter cannons serve a dual role of ALSO being full of shooty/assaulty stuff to make up for it.
Tyranid swarms: Splinter Cannons
Orks: Splinter Cannons
Daemons: Splinter Cannons (who cares about AP2?)
Eldar infantry: Splinter Cannons (they generally have 4+ and 5+ anyway, with the exception of a few things - and getting to wound some of those big things on a 4+ instead of a 6 is nice)
Tau: Splinter Cannons for their superior volume of fire.
Terminators: Disintegrators (and these are generally assault oriented that your fast vehicles can avoid and shoot at with...you guessed it! Splinter Cannons (and lances/blasters)

So....why would you want disintegrators?