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Many De lists are about cramming as many darklight weapons into as many fast skimmers as possible. In the case of ravagers and the DE fighter, though, I was considering magnetizing the weapons to be able to swap with disintegrator cannons now and then.

They so seem nice once transports have been opened, or when facing hordes/GKs. 9 S5, AP2 shots at a decent range per ravager can mean a lot of dead elites. Has anyone out there tried it and if so, can he offer the pros and cons?

For the fighter, it would make for a fully anti-troop vehicle, granted, but a fearsome one. 4 missiles, a splinter cannon and 6 disintegrator shots while moving around can account for a truly massive number of wounds.

Cover maybe getting nerfed to a universal 5+ in 6th. If true, Disintegrators become much more viable IMHO.

I would think against GKs or terminator armies like DW they would be better. Only problem is if you arnt fighting them then they arnt as good.

Razorwings are the only platform I would ever consider having disintegrators on, since they're already an anti-infantry platform.

Otherwise Dark Eldar need the extra anti-tank firepower. Dark Lances are quite possibly the least reliable anti-tank weapon in the game. I'm only being a little hyperbolic with that statement.

Point is, to reliably eliminate enemy armor, Dark Eldar need as many darklight weapons as possible. Disintegrators compete with Dark Lances, we need Dark Lances, we do not need more anti-infantry firepower.

Disintigrators suck due to the fact we have venoms. If you want to kill marines, 30+ poison shots really hurt. Dark eldar has no issue with anti-infantry, they have issues popping armor (ask anyone who's played de a while, some games your lances cannot even scratch a damn rhino). DE lacks volume of at, so even tho statistically my 19 lances should easily kill 3 or 4 rhinos without cover, I've had games where I couldn't even kill 1 rhino. Being ap 2 and only maybe 1 pen its rough to wreck stuff effectively. Heat lances are good because you can usually wreckwhat you shoot.

That said, more lances, better chance to get rid of armor, better chance to get those poison weps, wyches, incubi, and whatever into your opponents. Disintigrators don't do anything I don't see venoms doing better.

Lokas wrote:Razorwings are the only platform I would ever consider having disintegrators on, since they're already an anti-infantry platform.

Otherwise Dark Eldar need the extra anti-tank firepower. Dark Lances are quite possibly the least reliable anti-tank weapon in the game. I'm only being a little hyperbolic with that statement.

Point is, to reliably eliminate enemy armor, Dark Eldar need as many darklight weapons as possible. Disintegrators compete with Dark Lances, we need Dark Lances, we do not need more anti-infantry firepower.

How is a S8 Lance the least reliable AT weapon in the game?

S8 with one d6 is a bad S for armor penetration. Not guaranteed in the least.

erikwfg wrote:S8 with one d6 is a bad S for armor penetration. Not guaranteed in the least.

No, but since it's Lance you get 1/3 pens, 1/6 glance, 1/2 nothing.
That's better than just "not guaranteed" - it's pretty good overall.
(says the nid player)

rigeld2 wrote:

erikwfg wrote:S8 with one d6 is a bad S for armor penetration. Not guaranteed in the least.

No, but since it's Lance you get 1/3 pens, 1/6 glance, 1/2 nothing.
That's better than just "not guaranteed" - it's pretty good overall.
(says the nid player)

By that logic, Ork rokkits are hands down the worst anti-tank in the game. They have shorter range, higher ap, no lance rule, and are fired by a BS 2 model.

BS4 S8 AP2 will kill stuff just as good as a SM missile launcher and its not like you never see any of those on the table. S8 is good enough to get the job done.

I don't use disintegrators because like others have said, we have more than enough anti-infinantry weapons with all the poison shots we can put out. But long range anti-tank is too valuable to pass up.

I got exactly 19 Dark Lances/Blasters in my army list at 1500 points.

Assuming all of them fire, I'll get 12-13 hits (12.67~) out of those hits, I will get 4 pens against AV 12, 6 against AV 11 and 10 against AV 10. Assuming none of my targets have cover or make none of their saves, I will wreck/explode one vehicle at AV 12, 2 at AV 11 and 3 at AV 10 on average.

At 1500 points, how many vehicles can a suitably mechanized list put out? I know my DE list has 10, a guard list might have 8 or so, same with a BA razorspam list?

So out of my entire army shooting in the absolute perfect conditions, no cover, no line of sight issues, everyone is in range, I will have wrecked 1 of the Guard's chimera-chassis vehicles and 2 of the BA's razorbacks. That's insanely ineffective for my entire army firing all of its weapons in absolutely spectacular conditions. The reality is usually much much worse, especially since this is assuming those penetrating hits are spread out across multiple targets. Usually what happens is I will get a couple pens on a couple targets and the rest of my shooting is wholeheartedly ineffective.

Dark Lances require weight of fire to do any sizable damage. Problem is that weight of fire is difficult to achieve, which makes them supremely unreliable.

I have a lot of different things to kill vehicles. Most of the times I face marines, so I play at least on ravager with disintegrators and I love it.

Lokas wrote:I got exactly 19 Dark Lances/Blasters in my army list at 1500 points.

Assuming all of them fire, I'll get 12-13 hits (12.67~) out of those hits, I will get 4 pens against AV 12, 6 against AV 11 and 10 against AV 10. Assuming none of my targets have cover or make none of their saves, I will wreck/explode one vehicle at AV 12, 2 at AV 11 and 3 at AV 10 on average.

At 1500 points, how many vehicles can a suitably mechanized list put out? I know my DE list has 10, a guard list might have 8 or so, same with a BA razorspam list?

So out of my entire army shooting in the absolute perfect conditions, no cover, no line of sight issues, everyone is in range, I will have wrecked 1 of the Guard's chimera-chassis vehicles and 2 of the BA's razorbacks. That's insanely ineffective for my entire army firing all of its weapons in absolutely spectacular conditions. The reality is usually much much worse, especially since this is assuming those penetrating hits are spread out across multiple targets. Usually what happens is I will get a couple pens on a couple targets and the rest of my shooting is wholeheartedly ineffective.

Dark Lances require weight of fire to do any sizable damage. Problem is that weight of fire is difficult to achieve, which makes them supremely unreliable.

Your missing some of the other intangibles. Weapon destroyed on a razorback is a perfectly good result. Immobilized on a dreadnaught is awesome. Immobilized on a vehicle squadron works pretty well too (kan walls hate it).

There are other results that you can get that work to your advantage other than just destroyed/wrecked. I'll admit that the lack of AP1 weaponry hurts, but we have more of it than orks do. Sometimes just any result is a good enough. Sometimes you just don't want the exorsist/russ/Falcon/ravager shooting next turn and if that happens, good enough.