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I have been playing DE for the past few months, and I have been enjoying the army immensly. The fact that everything in it so fragile, yet with how hard they hit makes the enemy seem just as is a rush on the tabletop. However, I have came to a problem. I have finally picked up my third ravager, and I am debating on giving it Disntigrator Cannons, for some anti-everything-but-terminator goodness, or triple dark lances for some tank busting. My question is this, how many lances at both 1500 and 2k is enough? how many is too many?

Plently of lists I see have anywhere from 13 ro 27 DL weapons in them, and this confuses me on what works best. I am still new to the army in total, so I cannot accurately judge where is best. I appeal to the experienced dark eldar players on this forum (Dash, Notabot, etc) to tell me what is the optimal number for dark lances in a DE list. And to give context, I DO run a very assault-based army.

I got cookies made from the tears of one-armed orphans for those who give me the best answer

Brother-Thunder wrote:I have been playing DE for the past few months, and I have been enjoying the army immensly. The fact that everything in it so fragile, yet with how hard they hit makes the enemy seem just as is a rush on the tabletop. However, I have came to a problem. I have finally picked up my third ravager, and I am debating on giving it Disntigrator Cannons, for some anti-everything-but-terminator goodness, or triple dark lances for some tank busting. My question is this, how many lances at both 1500 and 2k is enough? how many is too many?

Plently of lists I see have anywhere from 13 ro 27 DL weapons in them, and this confuses me on what works best. I am still new to the army in total, so I cannot accurately judge where is best. I appeal to the experienced dark eldar players on this forum (Dash, Notabot, etc) to tell me what is the optimal number for dark lances in a DE list. And to give context, I DO run a very assault-based army.

I got cookies made from the tears of one-armed orphans for those who give me the best answer

You ask a question that can only be answered by a question in return. What is your meta like?

If you face mainly metal boxes of all types, the more Lances, and if you run wyches Haywire Grenades, the better. But if you come across less metal boxes and more foot sloggers like Orks and, um, Orks, then you may want to invest in splinter cannons wherever you can get them.

In my "Ace" DE 1500 point list I run 14 Dark Lances and 17 Blasters. My meta has Marines out the wazoo. It is like a volcano of MEQ armies in my area. Also Tau. Tons of Tau. I need the Darklight spam to deal with these army lists.

Funnily enough, none of these players run Vindicators, so when I run my WWP list with 10 Grotesques, they always panic, lol. They can never harm a Fearless Grot unit and just circle around them as much as they can.

Of course I never let my opponents know my list until deployment, and i never ask to see theirs, so sometimes my Ace Army gets matched up against my friend's Foot Orks, and I just try my best to get that tie whenever I can.

What kind of players do you face? Specifically, what kind of builds do you face?

honestly, my meta has a very nice spread of armies and philosophies. We got about 5 marine players spread across all codices, excluding myself, that usually run mech or gunline, a couple MC spam nid players, a greentide and kan wall ork player(my brother, actually), a couple mechdar players, a leafblower guard, and a couple necron players.

otherwise, My meta includes some of everything.

EDIT: mech, gunline, MC spam, and horde. everything.

The shortest answer is that there *is* no too many dark lances.

Agree with above

Same, to a degree. Lance and STR8 sounds good on paper, but now think about it this way. You'll, on average be hitting 2/3 times, and out of that, assuming you are hitting AV2, you will penetrate 1/3 of the time, and then you need to roll a 5 or 6 to take out the vehicle for good. So, the more lances you have the better the odds of actually destroying a vehicle. Of course, if your local meta is light on mech, then replacing some Lances with Disintergrators is a good idea.

Torpedo Vegas wrote:Same, to a degree. Lance and STR8 sounds good on paper, but now think about it this way. You'll, on average be hitting 2/3 times, and out of that, assuming you are hitting AV2, you will penetrate 1/3 of the time, and then you need to roll a 5 or 6 to take out the vehicle for good. So, the more lances you have the better the odds of actually destroying a vehicle. Of course, if your local meta is light on mech, then replacing some Lances with Disintergrators is a good idea.

I wouldn't ever replace a lance with a disintegrator. Splinter weapons are plenty of anti-infantry if you want shooting support for that instead of assault, but the lances in your heavy support slots are simply too valuable to give up. And before someone says, "Lol, what if you play against vehicle-less green tide...." If you do, and can't use your mobility, splinter weapons, templates, and assault elements to beat them *anyway* then disintegrators aren't going to help.

I'm still starting my DE army and reading up, but I asked the same questions to the local DE general in my local group. He says his usual formula is 3 lances for each vehicle you hope to "incapacitate" each shooting phase.

By "incapacitate" he means a stun/immobilize (in the early game only), wreck or destroy result.

So by his guidelines, you should do some mental math and imagine how many vehicles you usually face. You are never going to cripple them all in a turn, but try to figure out how many would have to be delayed/nuked to make you feel safe for that turn.

Hope it helps.

I really enjoy BuFFos insight to dark eldar. He is willing to try new things and doesnt tote himself as the best player ever. I play an assault oriented army and I have 20 dark lance weapons in my army.

I figure that Distintegrator Cannons are great for popping BA, Long Fangs, and anything with FNP really at range. Since I usually do not see any more than 3-4 razorbacks or 5 chimeras, and my lances are usually evenly divided up between different units and FoC slots in my army, having less is usually not too much of a problem.

However, S8 ap2 is good... perhaps it is question of experimenting, then? I currently have 13 lances in my list, and my dice do not hate me when firing them for some reason. So yeah...

EDIT: thanks for advice so far. Keep em coming! (*hands cookies to Dash and BuFFo*

Black Fiend wrote:I really enjoy BuFFos insight to dark eldar. He is willing to try new things and doesnt tote himself as the best player ever. I play an assault oriented army and I have 20 dark lance weapons in my army.

I am sorry for going off topic, but I am constantly amazed at how much more Darklight weapons you can field in the new book when compared to the older book.

I do mourn the loss of the double wych blasters, though, but they got cheap as sin haywire grenades, so I can't complain.

I don't know if you read my battle reports, but i was fielding a lot of Heamonculi Coven lists with 10x Grotesques. After my opponents were getting tired of having a unit they could not even touch, the began to field vindicators. It is nice to actually see Dark Eldar mold a meta like that. Of course, now a days I field less heamonculi Cults, and have swung back to fielding tons of Darklances, making those vindicators useless. They are starting to not take them anymore again, lol.

Everytime my friend plays me, he sighs and does not field his double lash sorcerers because he thinks I am meching up, only to run a WWP list and field Grotesques and Wracks. Fun times the new Dark Eldar book.

But yeah, I do try to field as many Darklight weapons as possible. I am no innocent here. Honestly, it is a rather piss poor weapon type, but hey, it's all we got, and I am getting tired of losing my wyches after they blow a 35 point rhino up in combat.

I do agree wholeheartedly about Dissies. Never take those things. Terrible. Ack! I tried to make them work, and meh. Splinter Cannons are the anti infantry for the DE army, the reign of the Dissie has been over for a few months already.

Rest in peace Dissie... I will miss my non-imperial plasma cannons... Fare thee well.. - plays Danny Boy-

so, dark lance ravager, then. hmm, I still need more anti-infantry punch at range. Time to consult my codex again.

Dashofpepper wrote:The shortest answer is that there *is* no too many dark lances.

This is something I think all DE players will agree with. Even if you are facing little to know mech, Dark Lances are great for elite infantry and high tuoghness things, and seeing as they deny all armor saves, they for people to try and protect the things that DL are really good against, like Termies and mega nobz.

I agree that dissies really have no use anymore, *unless* (and take this with a giant dose of salt) your entire meta is nothing but people who run T5 MC's with no invul save, which I highly doubt. So leave the Dissies on the shelf, and bring a venom instead, cause even against that meta, they are better.

For more anti infantry punch at range, what models do you have/use alot??? Perhaps we could help with that??? its always nice to know what a player has before you just tell them to bring 50 Venoms and they have nothing converted, or tell them to bring lots of Warriors and they have nothing but wyches.

Slightly OT... soz bout that. I am really liking the melta lance - it is great versus heavy mech.

Brother-Thunder wrote:so, dark lance ravager, then. hmm, I still need more anti-infantry punch at range. Time to consult my codex again.

Venoms with 2 splinter cannons is your best bet if you're strictly speaking of shooting.

I encourage the OP to bring 50 venoms and all warriors.

*nods to Galador*

Seriously Warrior - blaster - venom spam could be lots of fun. Annoying as Hades too.

One exception to the "don't use disintegrators" rule: razorwings with the splinter rifle exchanged for a splinter cannon, and both lances switched out for disintegrators. If you can make up lost lances elsewhere in the list, and don't need it to serve as a tank hunter once its missiles are off.

Or I suppose if you have a lot of non-mechanized MEQ, like Necrons, in your local meta. Raiders with disintegrators will do as much damage as splinter cannon venoms against MEQ in the open, while carrying larger units. If the MEQ has FnP, disintegrators are hands down the better ranged choice, though Incubi start looking really good right about then...

Disintigrators are great for your extra vehicles. If you want to really flesh out your army then I would add disintagrator ravagers and raiders.

Having a 4th ravager with disintigrators is nice for tailoring a list against a specific opponent. They do really well against DoA for instance. Against necrons your lances do jack all so the extra shots with no WWB is great. But for a TAC you need the DL.

I usually take 4 raiders and 2 venoms. My 5th raider has a disinitagrator. I also have a 4th ravager that is all disintagrators that I tote around in hopes of finding someone it will be useful against. I am working on adding more venoms as we speak but they need to be modeled personally and I take care how my army looks.

Dashofpepper wrote:I encourage the OP to bring 50 venoms and all warriors.

*nods to Galador*

Sounds like a good APOC setup.... 50 Venoms with two Cannons with 4 Trueborn in each one with 4 blasters..... hmmmm...... points total would be....

3250 for the venoms..... the Trueborn and blasters would be 5600, so a 9k points list that would be just so wrong its not even funny..... nm, it is funny

Whats really bad, is if I converted all my old Raiders into Venoms like I've done to the first 3, I could field 25 of the Venoms..... yes, I know, I own too much DE...

To be honest, is there such a thing as too many?
about the only thing i had a problem with was a monolith, and thats a simple case of wyches with haywires.

Granted they lose some weight against footslogging armies, but they still do thier job and kill pretty much anything they hit.

Even against footsloggers, they are great for IDing T4 or below, and really good for FnP units and anything with a 2+ save.