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Assuming you don't know what your opponent is playing before you make you army list, is there any reason to take any of the vehicle upgrades, other than the Flickerfield, for a DE Raider? What about for a Ravager?

I see the upgrades requing you to tank shock as being fairly useless as are retrofire jets (on Raiders at least). Splinter Racks have at least a little potential if the enemy is just too far away for a turn one assault but that's somewhat situational.

What's the current thinking here on Dakka? Also, if someone doesn't have the answers but knows a link where stuff like this is being discussed, feel free to post it.

Breotan wrote:Assuming you don't know what your opponent is playing before you make you army list, is there any reason to take any of the vehicle upgrades, other than the Flickerfield, for a DE Raider?

Sometimes I go with the Shock Prow + Tormentor Grenade Launchers. One game I had a Nob Squad in my lines, and I managed to force them to fall back 32" in one turn because I just kept Tank Shocking them with my Raiders. Fun times. This is a highly under used combo.

What about for a Ravager?

My Ravagers come with FF and Nightshields standard.

I see the upgrades requing you to tank shock as being fairly useless as are retrofire jets (on Raiders at least). Splinter Racks have at least a little potential if the enemy is just too far away for a turn one assault but that's somewhat situational.

Shock Prow + TGL is far from useless.

What's the current thinking here on Dakka?

Just mass Darklight weapons and haywire grenades. That's how DE players on Dakka Think. If you are playing with anything but Trueborne and Haywire Wyches, you aren't playing the army right

I'm not necessarily an uber-competitive player, but I like to run splinter racks for my 'gunboat' squad of Dark Eldar warriors. These are the ones I sit on objectives in their raider, and I find that the racks make a huge difference in firepower.

I tend to just use Flickerfields, noting else. Investing anything for offense on a AV 10, open topped vehicle seems like a waste. Nightshields don't make a huge difference, any army that has decent Antitank will still hit you. (Dark Lances shoot 36", Missile Launcher (For Example) Shoots 48", 48"-6" is still 42". . .Therefore hitting it still.

Also, about the tank shocking thing BuFFo, how did the Nobz not completely wreck those raiders?

revackey wrote:I tend to just use Flickerfields, noting else. Investing anything for offense on a AV 10, open topped vehicle seems like a waste. Nightshields don't make a huge difference, any army that has decent Antitank will still hit you. (Dark Lances shoot 36", Missile Launcher (For Example) Shoots 48", 48"-6" is still 42". . .Therefore hitting it still.

Also, about the tank shocking thing BuFFo, how did the Nobz not completely wreck those raiders?

I don't understand the question. I tank shocked the unit, and it failed it's LD, so it ran. You know, non MEQ armies can fail leadership rolls, right?

They didn't Death or Glory?

Breotan wrote:Assuming you don't know what your opponent is playing before you make you army list, is there any reason to take any of the vehicle upgrades, other than the Flickerfield, for a DE Raider? What about for a Ravager?

I see the upgrades requing you to tank shock as being fairly useless as are retrofire jets (on Raiders at least). Splinter Racks have at least a little potential if the enemy is just too far away for a turn one assault but that's somewhat situational.

What's the current thinking here on Dakka? Also, if someone doesn't have the answers but knows a link where stuff like this is being discussed, feel free to post it.

Night shields are great against short ranged anti tank, although they offer very little against long range AT.
They get you out of Bolters, Pistols, Meltaguns, Plasma guns etc. Particularly late game, when you have probably dealt with all of the long range AT, it makes what raiders you have left stick around stay around and in a close game that can be crucial.
I always take Nightshields but they are situational. They are absolutely great against Orks, DoA, Nids, and any army that does not have a large amount of long ranged anti tank.

I agree, they are situational, I wouldn't take them in an all comers list though. But against my Brothers DoA, hell yea.

revackey wrote:They didn't Death or Glory?

You have to pass your leadership check before you can Death or Glory.

Besides...all you have to do is touch a non-Power Klaw member of the squad, only models touched by the Vehicle can Death or Glory...not anyone in the unit. Not that hard to avoid...unless you're trying to tank-shock firedragons or oblits.

Power-fist carrying Marines and Meltaguns got you down when you tank shock? DONT RUN OVER THEM....only hit the regular tactical marines.

I know, I just would not think they would fail that many LD checks without hitting anything... regardless, I still don't believe it would be the most competitive choice.

Deadshane1 wrote:

revackey wrote:They didn't Death or Glory?

You have to pass your leadership check before you can Death or Glory.

Besides...all you have to do is touch a non-Power Klaw member of the squad, only models touched by the Vehicle can Death or Glory...not anyone in the unit. Not that hard to avoid...unless you're trying to tank-shock firedragons or oblits.

Power-fist carrying Marines and Meltaguns got you down when you tank shock? DONT RUN OVER THEM....only hit the regular tactical marines.

Death or Glory doesn't work like that. It's any model in the squad, not any model in base contact with the tank.

revackey wrote:I know, I just would not think they would fail that many LD checks without hitting anything... regardless, I still don't believe it would be the most competitive choice.

They only have to fail the first, once they're running they automatically fail all subsequent checks. I suppose one can continue tank shocking a routed unit to force it off the board in a single turn, I don't recall reading anything suggesting that a routed unit can only fall back once in a given turn...

You'd change your mind when two of your long fang units get shooed off the board.

Aethersails are a good addition to this by the way...helps a lot against those fangs.

I thought any model in the unit could make the DoG attack?
If it is not the case, i may have to start tank shocking units again.

Deadshane1 wrote:You'd change your mind when two of your long fang units get shooed off the board.

Taking into consideration an AV 10 Skimmer doesn't get destroyed on its way.

They certainly have their uses, I didn't say they were totally useless. If they can get to a squad like that and cause them to fail their LD its awesome, heck I think I'll even try it out. I just think that the points are better spent on flickerfields, and that the raiders should be kept cheap.

Jack: Yes, it is any model in the unit.

EDIT:

Also, couldn't the nobz simply regroup if they are above 50%?

revackey wrote:I agree, they are situational, I wouldn't take them in an all comers list though. But against my Brothers DoA, hell yea.

I have lost far too many raiders to bolt pistols.

Exergy wrote:

revackey wrote:I agree, they are situational, I wouldn't take them in an all comers list though. But against my Brothers DoA, hell yea.

I have lost far too many raiders to bolt pistols.

I apologize.. I have not. My Wyches seem to be doing a good job moping up units within 12" of my raiders.

۞ Jack ۞ wrote:I thought any model in the unit could make the DoG attack?
If it is not the case, i may have to start tank shocking units again.

Only models that the vehicle passes through during its tank shock may death or glory. Check the rulebook.

revackey wrote:
I apologize.. I have not. My Wyches seem to be doing a good job moping up units within 12" of my raiders.

maybe I just played too many games before 5th edition when a glancing hit still destroyed a raider on a roll of 3, 5, or 6.

So I include them stock now...

revackey wrote:
Also, couldn't the nobz simply regroup if they are above 50%?

Not if the raider is within 6 inches of them.

revackey wrote:Also, couldn't the nobz simply regroup if they are above 50%?

They can only do that on their turn. A unit that is falling back and is forced to take a morale test automatically fails. Units that fail morale checks make a fallback move. So, theoretically a unit that is forced to make morale tests while falling back will fall back each time the fail a test, meaning you could keep tank shocking them with different vehicles, forcing them to move a theoretically infinite distance. This doesn't sound right, but is apparently possible.

scubasteve04 wrote:

۞ Jack ۞ wrote:I thought any model in the unit could make the DoG attack?
If it is not the case, i may have to start tank shocking units again.

Only models that the vehicle passes through during its tank shock may death or glory. Check the rulebook.

Oh wow, this is actually right. It's only models in the vehicles path.

BRB wrote:If a unit that has been attacked by tank shock passes its Morale test, one of its models in the vehicle’s path can stand and attempt to destroy it rather than move out of the way

After the Flickerfield and Night Shield the Shock Prow is probably the best upgrade available for Raiders. The ability to ram can occasionally be useful (as you only have 1 weapon so being able to hurt vehicles once you lose the Lance can be helpful) but being able to tank shock is incredibly useful, if you run out of vehicle to shoot at its nice to be able to effect infantry. Given the number of Raiders Dark Eldar can field you can have a surprisingly big effect just with tank shocks. Sure most people are Ld8 or 9, but when they get hit by 4-5 Tank Shocks and it can often happen in more than 1 turn then your chances of getting them to fail becomes pretty good, and then you can usually find something to escort them off the board.

The Torment Grenade Launcher is also pretty good. It obviously complements this Tank Shocking strategy well as well as being helpful in several other ways. Its probably not something you need on every vehicle though.

I agree the rest of the upgrades aren't much use except in a few rare occasions, Aethersails can occasionally be useful as can Splinter Ranks but I wouldn't bother with the rest of them. Retrofire Jets are a total waste, you take the Duke if you want to do a Deep Strike based list (so you can disembark the turn you arrive).

I have been playing the the thought of aether sails and the blades under transport that deals 1d3+1 str 4 attack. It might not seem like mutch but if your list is spamming lances then the fact that you can travel 24+2d6 and deal out attack to all units you pass under could be sweet. If you pass 3 units then that is 9 attacks, and now you have +4 coversave. Or just drop the eather sails and move 12 before you shoot.

revackey wrote:They didn't Death or Glory?

He didn't bother. When I tank shock, I make sure none of this power fist models or Ghaz were in the way. I made sure to skim the unit to only hit models that were strength 4 on the attack.

I always bring Flickerfields, and sometimes bring the Chain-Snares, if I have the points and I wanna throw something at my opponent he might not be expecting. I never bring anything but Flickers in a competitive game, but I will always try weird things in friendly games, just to have fun. I once had a list with no Ravagers (Hard to believe, I know) and and 11 Raiders (3 for troops, 3 for elites, 2 for Archons and courts) and put FF and chainsnares on each one. Was facing a SM army that was running almost all infantry, so my DLs didnt have much to do after turn two, and amazingly enough most of my Raiders were still alive (alot of lucky 5+s that I shouldn't have made), so I just started spamming Flat outs with them over his troops and they really eneded up doing quite a bit of damage. But then again, when I have like 9 Raiders left alive passing over about 7 or 8 units each with Flat out moves, those hits add up!!

Always try things, you never know what weird combos will work in what situation!!! Some things are good all the time, some are good some of the time. I could probably find a use for every vehicle upgrade if I tried, but haven't sat down and thought about all of them, honestly.

I really wonder about the chain snares in a raider heavy list. After a while he will not have that mutch heavy weaponds left so the chain snares should be abel to damadge stuff. However, at that point you might just have won anyway.

I like using chain snares in Kill Teams... It is fun going over 15 models, killing half of them in one turn

Regarding the original question.

I run flicker and grisly trophies on my raiders and ravagers.

Grisly trophies have saved my ass time and time again. The 40 point (total in my army 5pts/per skimmer) have been well worth it. I cannot tell you how many times I have passed a failed leadership with the re-roll.

I run flickerfield on all my raiders and am starting to add the shock prow as well to a couple of them.

I have been playing the the thought of aether sails and the blades under transport that deals 1d3+1 str 4 attack. It might not seem like mutch but if your list is spamming lances then the fact that you can travel 24+2d6 and deal out attack to all units you pass under could be sweet. If you pass 3 units then that is 9 attacks, and now you have +4 coversave. Or just drop the eather sails and move 12 before you shoot.

While this may seem odd, it is somewhat amusing to do.
When the book 1st came out i was building some downright stupid lists that i knew wouldnt work, but would be amusing.

6 raiders plus 3 x 9 reavers with max cals was pretty fun.
Granted its nothing amazing, but it was highly amusing that it was actually doing a fair bit of damage.

However, footslogging is one thing.
Meched up armies are another matter for this amusing tactic.

Shock prow + TGL is a good combo but then you're starting to sink quite a few points into a raider... Of course you'll take the flickerfield.