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I'm new to Dark Eldar and I know the general consensus is that Flickerfields are amazing, but what about Nightshields? For such a non-resilient army as the Dark Eldar, Nightshields seem like a blessing and there's a lot of short range shooting going on nowadays between Grey Knights and Necrons. Is this a worthy upgrade? If so, would you put it on all vehicles or only a few? If you don't think they're worth it, please explain why.

They aren't as bad to me, but they cost just as much as a Flickerfield, however they pale in comparison. And if your taking both your AV 10/11 Open Topped vehicles are getting quite expensive, so you will therefore have less target saturation, and the ability to, in a compeditive sense. take less Lance weapons.

Thats generally why noone takes them in my opinion.

Veteran DE players take no upgrades on their raiders.

Between flickerfields and nightshields, night shields are better since they can force shots to miss, thereby removing the need for you to take a save in the first place. Most raiders should be benifiting from a cover save anyway, while moving or hiding. 4+ cover is better, cheaper, and more effective for the army.

juraigamer wrote:Veteran DE players take no upgrades on their raiders.

And IHIOGA that juraigamer has actually polled every "veteran DE player" on earth and that was the consensus.

JK, I just love blanket, impossible to verify, statements like that.

I think they should be taken all the time if you are playing a lance spam type of army. They have to close in to you to do any damage and that's where you have your counterassault units ready to engage. I think they are one of the most under-rated upgrades on vehicles.

They are incredibly helpful against medium-range anti-tank such as Psycannons or Impaler Cannons. However, they won't help a bit against the majority of anti-tank out there.

The list of weapons they meaningfully effect is short enough that they're generally not worth the expense.

It all depends on what you're using. If your raiders are dropping off h2h units, then you should pass because you're going to be jumping into their range anyways. If you're planning on chilling at max range (36'), are you really going to be needing that extra 6"? Things that can hit you out that far generally have a 48" range and will be able to hit you regardless of that 6". The things I see them being useful on are venoms carrying Blasterborn. These guys stay in medium range near the enemy. That 6" might actually mean something. Other than that, meh.

They are exceptionally good against medium range armies. They can also be exceptionally good against a vulkan melta spam type list.
Against a longer range opponent, you can always try to deny them a flank and go after half of their army if they spread out in their deployment zone.

They are good on Ravagers and Razorwings because they are at the back of the board shooting.

Other vehicles like raiders and venoms are getting close and generally nightshields are a waste on them.

I've never used Nightshields en mass. When considering them, I start thinking about how it would play out on the battlefield. I envision my normal playstyle, shooting with lance weaponry at long range until the opponent's mobility is removed, and then go in for the kill.

Normally i can estimate the max range of my lances to within 3" or so, meaning that i normally sit around 34" to get the shots off. The ravagers second weapons are an inch behind the front of the hull, so normally i'm within 33". So this means that all enemies with a threat range of less than this can't hit me. So the trade of the nightshield is to increase that to 39" or less. So what units get cut out by this? Fast vehicles/jump infantry with 24" range weapons are the only thing I can think of. Jump infantry likely won't be my target, and therefore we can ignore them. So basically the ravager is only going to be able to make fast vehicles with 24" weapons or less be unable to strike back with this.

For the ravager cutting out that one unit from retaliating seems to be not worth 10 points to me.

Now lets look at how I use the Raider. For me, Raiders are for large wych squads. Warriors go in venoms, wychs in raiders. So i'm gonna want to get close to the opponent. To set up an assault, I need to start my turn within about 20". I can't control my opponents moves, but anything I should want to assault he should want me to not assault, therefore he should be either moving away or moving up to get some shots off on the raider. This is where the nightshield seems to have a good effect. Suddenly those rapidfire weapons only have a range of 6". Sure, long range firepower can still target the raider, but there is no preventing that. However, short ranged firepower can be severley reduced this way.

I don't really think they are justified that way either for 10 points, as you are still vulnerable when going in for the assault to non-short ranged weaponry.

I do use the nightshield on my bloodbride's raider for this reason though, as they make a great target and often will get targeted first. That is the only place where I use a nightshield, and even then its only because i can't find a better way to spend those 10 points (and i've tried many things).

The thing most people seem to ignore with the NS is they don't just keep your current target from retaliating (potentially) but they affect everything else as well.

Fo Instance:

You have a ravager on the flanks 36" from the closest viable target. That means everything else is at least 40"+ away, assuming the target is a vehicle. People love to amass fire on targets before they die, but the NS can force them to split fire because it becomes a logistical nightmare to get everything within range of the prime target. This works well in conjunction with keeping your ravagers together, so if they are the target de jour, your opponent will have a hard time getting everything locked in on them.

That subject is ignored (at least by myself) largely because of how many variables there are. I think that experience is most likely a better tool than analysis on that subject simply because there are too many situations to take into account if you want to start analyzing the effect nightshields have on positioning with relation to retaliating the the ravagers.

I like NS on my Blasterborn Venoms. As they need to be within 18" to be functional, the NS does a good job keeping their Venoms out of rapid-fire retaliation range.

I respect bolters and pulse rifles!

Veteran DE players take no upgrades on their raiders.

Bahahaha!. Sorry I'm done XD

Flickerfields are a must (failed to get first turn, want to shoot, caught in CC). Nightshields not so much, most AT weapons are between 36-48". so NS make no real difference. At least FF are more TAC as they'll have use vs any opponent regardless of their range.