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It seems like venom spam is all the rage in Dark Eldar list building right now, at least on the internet (not locally - people are sure as hell not going to stop using raiders they already paid for here). dashofpepper, for instance, has gone entirely over to venoms.

Myself, I think the humble Raider is a very useful vehicle. Shock Prows, Enhanced Aethersails, and Flickerfields give you a guaranteed S10 hit on any enemy vehicle 25-36" away from you. If you really want to keep your opponent's forces bottled up in their deployment zone (or from surrounding your webway portal), just flat out an empty Aethersails raider right in front of them and turn it sideways. I guarantee you it will seriously mess with a rhino/razor spam army, especially if you don't let your opponent get away with any shenanigans with respect to pivoting. The dark lance is, of course, nice when you're actually disembarking troops and therefore can't ram.

It is my humble opinion that nine venoms at 2000 points is too many. I think the movement blocking and ramming potential of prow/sails/FF Raiders more than justifies the extra points to include 3 or 4 of them in your army instead of venoms, and that 72 splinter cannon shots will probably do you as well as 108.

I also think I prefer 2-dark-lance trueborn set up on foot to the three or four blasterborn in the venom, for the simple reason that they tend to survive for longer.

Thoughts?

Well, Venoms can fire 12 shots at any T target and average 4 wounds, which results in 1-2 dead marines. Times that by 5 and you've wiped 1-2 long fang squads, or chipped away at other dangerous targets. It also has to do with the unreliability of Dark Lances, specifically against AV12. Blasters are the go-to special weapons choice, so most of the time your anti-infantry guns on your troops are shooting things they can't hurt. Venoms also play into the fact that Warriors only need to have 5 models to get a blaster, but never get more blasters with increased squad size. Also, Venoms are easier to hide behind terrain due to their smaller size.

They're also cheaper money-wise

MSU is another reason, more things that can shoot at more units.

As stated above, they're a heck of alot easier to hide

Aslo the dreaded dark eldar are not well served to put a lott of egs in one basket as that one transport would be shot to pieces unles you where good with the placement.

Venoms = many small targets

At 2000 Points I bring 7 Raiders and 3 Ravagers....its mainly because i just like the model more than that of the venom. But at the end of the day I really have no problem making enemy units (marine or otherwise) vaporize...with 40 warriors, 20 wyches, 5 incuib, and an Archon running around in that mix.

I have spent a great deal of time contemplating the efficiency of raiders versus venoms. And at first I was initially biased towards the raider given that I already own about 6 of them from the old range. However, the more I consider it, the more Venoms seem the better competitive choice. There are a couple reasons for this. Namely, troop efficiency with special weapons, cost effectiveness, avoiding ablative wounds, and being able to effectively split your fire.

The first issue for me as a Dark Eldar player is getting the maximum amount of output damage for the minimum amount of points. For a standard Troops choice I'm also looking for tactical flexibility, so being able to perform a dual role is key.

With that in mind, let's look at the typical Venom loadout, which is 5 Warriors with Blaster, and a Venom with 2 SC's and a flickerfield. Your performance is the following:

12 SC shots at 36" (effectively 48") range
1 Blaster shot at 18" (eff 30") range
8 SR shots at 12" (eff 24") range

points cost: 125 pts

Here is a Raider with Warriors kitted out to do roughly the same amount of damage and retain its survivability:

1 Raider w/ Flickerfield and DL w/ 10 Warriors w/ 1 Blaster. Performance is:

1 DL shot at 36" (eff 48")
1 Blaster shot at 18" (eff 30")
20 SR shots at 12" (eff 24")

points cost: 180

So, as you can see, the Raider loadout is less efficient as far as points spent for the same damage output. However, upon closer inspection, the Raider loadout is even less effective considering the way it delivers its payload.

Let's consider a common situation - wanting to destroy a transport carrying a load of Space Marines. The Venom squad rolls up to within 18" and disembarks its Warriors behind the Venom with the Blaster Warrior wrapped around the side to be within range. If he blows up the transport then the SC shots from the Venom can be shot at the troops inside. If he fails, the SC shots can still be put into any target within 36" and LoS. Either way, the squad is relatively safe from the threat of assault, and will get cover if shot at. Any squad will have to choose whether to hit the vehicle of the squad as well

Consider the same scenario with the Raider. The Raider will have to come within 12" if it wants to inflict maximum damage; and unless you want to give all the troops you shoot at cover, the Warriors will be deployed in front of the Raider or they will stay in it. If it fails to blow up the transport with its admittedly higher number of heavy weapons, the SR's are useless, unless there is another infantry target within 12". In this scenario, the Warriors are also very vulnerable to flamers, shooting, and assault. As DE, you don't want to get counterattacked.

Some may see that the Raider loadout brings with it an additional HW, and will also see the benefit of being able to shoot at potentially another transport within 36". The additional HW is really 55 pts for an additional DL, when it comes down to it. For the price of 2 Raiders, I can get 3 Venoms kitted out as above. So, I get 4 HW's with the Raiders as opposed to 3 with the Venoms, which also bring more Splinter fire to the table.

As far as the extra DL shot (really the potential to blow up 4 transports instead of 3) that's not really worth it to me when I consider that I'm getting an extra 24 Splinter shots potentially. I also want to be able to always perform my dual role, and the Venoms are ALWAYS capable of doing that from a safe range at a cheaper points cost, whereas the Raiders are not. For the best possible alpha strike, being able to perform that dual role consistently is vital.

I feel that the raider certainly has it's place. I don't think that you need to have 9 venoms to run venomspam. I usually run 7, but I'm currently in the process of revising my list to probably about 5 venoms and 2-3 raiders. The extra dark lances will come in handy.

Trying to run 6 Venoms 2 Raiders 3 Ravagers in my 1750 list, seems very doable might cut it down to 5/2/3 though for beastmasters

I dont play DE, but i just read this batrep, hope this helps http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/397757.page

There is nothing wrong with Raider/Wych builds.

I use Raider/Warrior and Raider/Wych builds all the time. They work just fine for me.

Venoms have their uses, but can a venom knock out an opposing vehicle to release the gooey center from range, while zooming across the battlefield? Nope

The people on board can, sure, but that's only if it's going reallly slow, and is really close (especially in the case of Blasterborn).

I prefer to knock out my enemy from range with raiders and ravagers (and sometimes Scourge Darklance 'sniper' teams ) before sending in venoms laden with poisoned goodness

IMHO, I usually want to have the most effective alpha strike possible. So, if I can both blow up the vehicle and shoot up the passengers in the same turn, I will. Venoms accomplish this task at a much safer range, whereas Raiders cannot. And considering that I can get three Venoms for every two Raiders I get (given equal damage output), it's really a no brainer to me.

And, suppose I don't blow up every vehicle I shoot at. The Venom is still able to shoot 12 shots at any other infantry in range that have lost their vehicles. If a Raider zooms in within 12" of a vehicle so the Warriors can shoot, and proceeds not to blow up the transport it shoots at, those Warriors shots are useless. With a Venom, I can at least always (if only partially) perform my dual role.

Raiders are, to me at least, very very suited to transporting Wyches or other large specialist CC units. Incubi, Wracks, and Trueborn are much better in Venoms however. I could only really see myself taking a Raider for Wyches, Bloodbrides, or the Court of the Archon (hah! as if)

Raiders are good if you want to run wyches/big units of wracks, terrible if you want to run warriors.

As has already been pointed out, blaster warriors and venoms are a match made in heaven.

Venoms are honestly one of the biggest **** off to mech armies that rely on being close to be effective *looking at you IG and BA* Basically if the opponent is mech you have 9 vehicles that are really no threat to the opponent since they should be empty if your doing "venom spam" (9 venoms 3 ravagers everything else on DLs in every way possible) and turbo boosting them at the opponents face blocking movements etc. Dare him to shoot them. Dare the mech army make the choice between moving or shooting their tanks at anti-infantry tanks with 4+ cover. One thing that doesn't work with venom spam (When i say spam i mean only venoms. No wyche units, no random assault element, pure poisoned fury) are blasterborn. They are great when they aren't target priority, the go to unit for DE in almost every situation.... except when your only other threat are ravagers, and let's face it people see the born as being scarier and easier to deal with so shoot them off first.

Basically the reason venom spam is good is because you have cheap, fast vehicles that give you auto wins aganst infantry based armies, can kill long fangs efficiently, and can block tank movement without suffering retalliation while you fire 15-21 DL in their face from scourges, trueborn, and ravagers. If the opponent is running mech and shooting at the venoms, he's doing it wrong.

Also: Sorry if this is unreadable. I'm about to pass out and if it's unclear I'll elaborate tommorow.

Can you move Venoms 12 inches and still fire with the troops on board? I don't recall the Fast rules saying the embarked models can still shoot if you move the full distance, but it may have been an oversight.

Nope, you can't.

Venoms must move at a crawl (6'') to have the passengers fire. They can, however, move 12 and then disembark those troops in your face to do their shooting ...

Ascalam wrote:Nope, you can't.

Venoms must move at a crawl (6'') to have the passengers fire. They can, however, move 12 and then disembark those troops in your face to do their shooting ...

That's always been a bit of a funny oversight in the rules to me. I think it's written this way so that units that can still fleet after disembarking from a fast open topped vehicle. I always thought troops in fast vehicles should still be able to shoot. Anyways, for me, disembarking is a good idea anyways, as it makes the opponent choose between the vehicles and the troops inside.

Just because the internet says something doesn't make it right. I mean, the internet thinks Orks are lousy and well...they couldn't be more wrong.

I'm personally running a WWP list that only has 3 Raiders and 2 Ravagers, and it's working very well at the moment.

Think outside the box a bit, and don't take everything the 'net says as gospel.

L. Wrex

Personally, I really like venoms, and when I get round to it I want to do a list with 5-6 venoms and 3 raiders, though I'll be loading them with wracks and grotesques

But ultimately - it's range and mobility and numbers, with 6 troop venoms that's got 5 warriors w/ a blaster each is 96-120 poison shots and 6 blaster shots.

Then you have 3 elites venoms, that's another 36 poison shots, and 9-12 more blasters, with a template from the liquifier gun of a haemy you put in one. (or 2-3 if you feel like putting in extras / have the spare points)

Then you have 3 Ravagers with 9 DLs.

I mean, for 2000 points you can get 3 Haemonculi, 12 Kabalite Trueborn, 30 Kabalite Warriors, 9 Venoms and 3 Ravagers for a total of 3 S4 AP-D6 templates, 108-156 Poison Shots and 27 lance shots (between blasters and DLs) per turn and that's in a mobile force.

And that's with the Venoms and Ravagers both equiped with Night Shields and Flickerfields.

I can certainly see the appeal.

I see the appeal but I can't condone it.

It's like I see the appeal in 3 x 5 ML Long Fang squads, 6 x GH in LC/PG Razorbacks, 3 x TLAC Dreads and 3 Rune Priest Space Wolves. Or 2 x CCS, 6 x Veterans all in Chimeras and 3 x Vendettas in IG. I see the appeal, but think if you brought that anywhere outside of an uber-competitive area you would really struggle to find a game.

But hey, I guess that's why I prefer podcasts like The Overlords and Deep Strike Radio over 11th Company and Imperial Voxcast. Each to their own.

L. Wrex