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building a dark eldar force kabal of the black heart, wondering what the pros and cons of raider vs Venoms spam are. I'm thinking around 1500 points 4 raiders and 3 venoms could people compare and contrast these transports for me?

That's an article to answer that. If you are going to go Raider and / or Venom spam with over 10 vechicles, consider building a Duke Sliscus model.

He let's you Deep Strike any of your vehicles, Retrofire Jets are 5 points each so you need over 9 before those jets are the cost of another vehicle, or the Duke.

Even if you are not playing that way, you should still get like 5 vehicles. Yea they are fragile but, dismouned Dark Eldar die if you so much as sneeze in their general direction.

Venoms can easily put out 12 poison shouts so the Raiders might want to do anti-vehicle work IF you aren't using Tri-Lance Ravagers. Also, open topped means that they are effectively assault vehicles.

A Raider can move 6, fire it's Lance at some random vehicle, Wracks can jump out 6, then Assault. They're not Fleet, Beast or have grenades but they are a cheap FNP way to tie up some shooty units.

Raiders with Warriors, a Splinter Cannon and, Splinter Racks is a good shooty unit that just fixed wounds on 4s.

I appreciate the response. but it didn't really answer my question... is raider spam as competitive as venom spam?

Neither are really that great. Shooty units in raiders suffer from decreased range compared to venoms and have a lower rate of fire than venoms until you get in rapid fire.

I run my de @ 1500 with 2 raiders, 4 venoms, 2 ravagers and a razorwing jetfighter. Not incredible in this edition, but still reasonable against most armies.

High skill ceiling imo... Remember your strength is in the movement phase and you'll get the hang of it.

Venoms are better than Raiders as a general rule of thumb. Why? Because Raiders are superseded in the Anti-Tank role in terms of points value by many other units, such as Ravagers, Void Ravens, Blasterborn, and Scourges.

Packing two splinter cannons at 65 points though, the only competition the Venom seriously has is Trueborn. Two venoms puts out consistently more anti-infantry firepower than either one Razorwing, or five scourges.

Therefore logically, it makes sense to rely on the Venom for the anti-infantry role. That frees up your Heavy Support/Elites/Fast Attack choices for Close Combat/Anti-Tank roles.

 Ketara wrote:
Venoms are better than Raiders as a general rule of thumb. Why? Because Raiders are superseded in the Anti-Tank role in terms of points value by many other units, such as Ravagers, Void Ravens, Blasterborn, and Scourges.

Packing two splinter cannons at 65 points though, the only competition the Venom seriously has is Trueborn. Two venoms puts out consistently more anti-infantry firepower than either one Razorwing, or five scourges.

Therefore logically, it makes sense to rely on the Venom for the anti-infantry role. That frees up your Heavy Support/Elites/Fast Attack choices for Close Combat/Anti-Tank roles.

That said, you can never have enough high strength AP2 with Riptide stupidity going around, and in order to be viable without allies you practically need a Razorwing or two, so AT/Anti-MC isn't too plentiful like you'd think.

 Mr.Omega wrote:

 Ketara wrote:
Venoms are better than Raiders as a general rule of thumb. Why? Because Raiders are superseded in the Anti-Tank role in terms of points value by many other units, such as Ravagers, Void Ravens, Blasterborn, and Scourges.

Packing two splinter cannons at 65 points though, the only competition the Venom seriously has is Trueborn. Two venoms puts out consistently more anti-infantry firepower than either one Razorwing, or five scourges.

Therefore logically, it makes sense to rely on the Venom for the anti-infantry role. That frees up your Heavy Support/Elites/Fast Attack choices for Close Combat/Anti-Tank roles.

That said, you can never have enough high strength AP2 with Riptide stupidity going around, and in order to be viable without allies you practically need a Razorwing or two, so AT/Anti-MC isn't too plentiful like you'd think.

Hit that Riptide with enough Poisoned shots, and it'll go down. Most of the time, a Riptide will be packing a 3++, so an AP2 shot isn't that much more likely to wound it. Weight of fire is the way to go, and DE can certainly bring that, and it wounds on a 4+ too.

The mathhammer vs riptide is not that great. One venom with a full 12 shots will usually do little over one unsaved wound on a marine (a 3+ save) Against a 2+ save it would be even worse. With the riptides range it might be better to shoot at something else depending on the situation at the table.

I would recomend reading some battle reports at the dark city to get a sence of how the dark eldar behave on the battlefield.

http://www.thedarkcity.net/f8-realspace-raids

The key to building a good DE list is balancing their AP2 S8 shots and their Poisoned shots.

Generally, I agree with this:

 Ketara wrote:

Therefore logically, it makes sense to rely on the Venom for the anti-infantry role. That frees up your Heavy Support/Elites/Fast Attack choices for Close Combat/Anti-Tank roles.

 The Shadow wrote:

 Mr.Omega wrote:

 Ketara wrote:
Venoms are better than Raiders as a general rule of thumb. Why? Because Raiders are superseded in the Anti-Tank role in terms of points value by many other units, such as Ravagers, Void Ravens, Blasterborn, and Scourges.

Packing two splinter cannons at 65 points though, the only competition the Venom seriously has is Trueborn. Two venoms puts out consistently more anti-infantry firepower than either one Razorwing, or five scourges.

Therefore logically, it makes sense to rely on the Venom for the anti-infantry role. That frees up your Heavy Support/Elites/Fast Attack choices for Close Combat/Anti-Tank roles.

That said, you can never have enough high strength AP2 with Riptide stupidity going around, and in order to be viable without allies you practically need a Razorwing or two, so AT/Anti-MC isn't too plentiful like you'd think.

Hit that Riptide with enough Poisoned shots, and it'll go down. Most of the time, a Riptide will be packing a 3++, so an AP2 shot isn't that much more likely to wound it. Weight of fire is the way to go, and DE can certainly bring that, and it wounds on a 4+ too.

Except it takes a very significant portion of a list's poison fire to stand an average chance of killing just one, in an army designed to alpha strike you off the board. I believe its somewhere between 4-5 Venoms fire to get the average.

And the 3++ isn't common at all, most of the time veteran Tau players don't risk it.

They've both got great utility. Depending on the list you're building, either/or could be your go-to. Dakka seems to, as a whole, prefer MSU lists to full squads, so I think the answers your going to get here might weigh towards the Venom side of the spectrum.

Honestly, I think the differences between the two lists are so small as to be almost negligible. I think it's important to keep the differences in mind less for deciding which to use, and more for deciding how to field your units with them.

Edit: All that being said, I'm a fairly new DE player, so weight my advice accordingly.

 Mr.Omega wrote:

 Ketara wrote:
Venoms are better than Raiders as a general rule of thumb. Why? Because Raiders are superseded in the Anti-Tank role in terms of points value by many other units, such as Ravagers, Void Ravens, Blasterborn, and Scourges.

Packing two splinter cannons at 65 points though, the only competition the Venom seriously has is Trueborn. Two venoms puts out consistently more anti-infantry firepower than either one Razorwing, or five scourges.

Therefore logically, it makes sense to rely on the Venom for the anti-infantry role. That frees up your Heavy Support/Elites/Fast Attack choices for Close Combat/Anti-Tank roles.

That said, you can never have enough high strength AP2 with Riptide stupidity going around, and in order to be viable without allies you practically need a Razorwing or two, so AT/Anti-MC isn't too plentiful like you'd think.

Certainly, a degree of optimisation against any specific list you know you're about to face is always good. But in a more generalised analysis looking at the points, it costs 70 points for single Raider with a single Dark Lance(assuming a flicker field is included). That's a terrible points to gun ratio when you consider that a Ravager can get three for 115 points, Trueborn two for just over 85 points, and a voidraven two void lances for virtually double the points. From just about every economic examination of the codex with regards to value for money, the Raider is outstripped on anti-tank value.

The Venom comparatively, is not. Instead, it ranks as one of the most economic choices for getting anti-infantry firepower on the field. Ergo, it makes sense to pack as many Venoms as you can to fill the transport/anti-tank role, and use the other slots to focus on anti-tank.

Which in turn means that you should only take the Raider if you have the specific need of the ten man transport capacity that it offers(which the Venom cannot).

Well I already purchased two raiders. was that a bad decision? can I run 2 in a viable build? the rest I'll pick up venoms with msu squads? My idea for a core was going to be 4 raiders with splinter racks and night fields holding 10 kabalites. then. 2 venoms each holding 5 kabalites. then 3 venoms holding trueborn with 2 splinter cannons each on venom and trueborn. finish it off with 3 ravagers. would this be relatively competitive?

 Ketara wrote:

 Mr.Omega wrote:

 Ketara wrote:
Venoms are better than Raiders as a general rule of thumb. Why? Because Raiders are superseded in the Anti-Tank role in terms of points value by many other units, such as Ravagers, Void Ravens, Blasterborn, and Scourges.

Packing two splinter cannons at 65 points though, the only competition the Venom seriously has is Trueborn. Two venoms puts out consistently more anti-infantry firepower than either one Razorwing, or five scourges.

Therefore logically, it makes sense to rely on the Venom for the anti-infantry role. That frees up your Heavy Support/Elites/Fast Attack choices for Close Combat/Anti-Tank roles.

That said, you can never have enough high strength AP2 with Riptide stupidity going around, and in order to be viable without allies you practically need a Razorwing or two, so AT/Anti-MC isn't too plentiful like you'd think.

Certainly, a degree of optimisation against any specific list you know you're about to face is always good. But in a more generalised analysis looking at the points, it costs 70 points for single Raider with a single Dark Lance(assuming a flicker field is included). That's a terrible points to gun ratio when you consider that a Ravager can get three for 115 points, Trueborn two for just over 85 points, and a voidraven two void lances for virtually double the points. From just about every economic examination of the codex with regards to value for money, the Raider is outstripped on anti-tank value.

The Venom comparatively, is not. Instead, it ranks as one of the most economic choices for getting anti-infantry firepower on the field. Ergo, it makes sense to pack as many Venoms as you can to fill the transport/anti-tank role, and use the other slots to focus on anti-tank.

Which in turn means that you should only take the Raider if you have the specific need of the ten man transport capacity that it offers(which the Venom cannot).

Its the FOC that forms the brunt of my point though- with the mandatory Razorwing, you're getting at most 2 Ravagers, and I'd strongly recommend more than a single RW at 1850+.

Trueborn are a bit iffy in context with Dark Lances, and the flyers will be dog-fighting, and not very efficient as AP2 supply with effort, they're easy to remove, and you'll have few.

In my opinion, a combination of the two is best.
The venom is better overall, but there are plenty of times where you need the Raider's larger transport capacity.

@ OP

Running two of them in a viable build is not an issue. My commentary was more geared towards the min/max competitive side of things.

If you need to utilise the two you've already bought, I would recommend dropping three Trueborn with two Dark lances into one of them (to count as a Pseudo-Ravager and compliment the three other Ravagers you've said you'll be using). As for the other, there's nothing wrong with a standard gunboat build of ten warriors with a splinter cannon/racks, or even a large unit of Wyches/Wracks/Grotesques for a fun (if not entirely competitive) assault unit.

Its the FOC that forms the brunt of my point though- with the mandatory Razorwing, you're getting at most 2 Ravagers, and I'd strongly recommend more than a single RW at 1850+.

Trueborn are a bit iffy in context with Dark Lances, and the flyers will be dog-fighting, and not very efficient as AP2 supply with effort, they're easy to remove, and you'll have few.

Armies always work as well honed implements in which one aspect must compliment another for success. Dark Eldar reflect this more than most.

You are correct in that three Heavy Support roles would not be enough for Anti-Tank firepower. But to focus on that as a flaw based around the FOC, is to blatantly ignore every aspect of the FOC for anti-tank which is not either a HS choice or a Raider. To extrapolate, in my army, I will have one or two units of wyches, riding Venoms and carrying Haywire Grenades. I can have Trueborn potentially wielding up to 4 Blasters a squad. I can have Warrior squads in Venoms wielding a single Blaster each. In Fast Attack meanwhile, you can utilise deep striking Scourges with Heat Lances, and potentially Jetbikes as well.

The joy of DE is the potential for synchronicity.

Are razorwings better than ravagers for heavy support?

Dalymiddleboro wrote:
Are razorwings better than ravagers for heavy support?

That depends primarily on whether or not you're going to be facing flyers or not. I personally would take a single VoidRaven if you don't know whether or not you're going to encounter flyers, and possibly two/convert them to Razorwings if going to a tournament. In a straight up shooting match with no flyers however, the triple Ravager reigns supreme.

quasi off topic but I want to fill my force org with 50 kabalites and 10 witches... could you guys suggest a decent list to shoot for around 1500 points that could be expanded to 1850 and 2000 respectively?

also, against tigurius/ centurian spam how should I field dark eldar? looking for advice against space marines

Raiders are marine killers, the extra ap2 is useful.

My 1850 list has 3 raiders, 3 venoms, 1 razorwing, 2 ravagers and 1 crimson hunter and 3 war walkers from allies to add some more ap2 and s6 spam.

It really depends though what you want to run. Venoms are straight up the best for whittling down mc.

What makes raiders better against marines than venoms? is the optimal list a mix of raiders and venoms?

Speaking as a Marine player, the best strategy against Centurions/Tigurius is to overwhelm them with small arms fire. Trueborn with Splinter Cannons, Deep Striking Raiders, tons and tons of 4+ poisoned shots, all add up to gradual attrition to the centurions. What's more, they've got essentially NO defense against he Dark Lance, which can not only put a wound on them that they can't save (barring an invuln from Tiggy) but which will ID the psyker.

So is the consensus mix raiders with venoms?

You have to try it yourself. It will never be agreed upon as to what is best as people get different things to work. I typically pack 2 raiders, 7 venoms and 3 ravagers along side a max size beast pack or the like and tend to do very well. I don't rate DE flyers at all - especially in a AA capacity and would rather use speed to deal with flyers.

Am I right? Who knows - this works for me though

Also some poeple like to undeploy from the raiders. Dark Eldars tend to die when they blow up (and o-boy the blow up a lot!.)

Bear in mind that I'm by no means a good DE player...but my buddy has been a long time DE player and we've been trying to find things that work for his army.

The beast pack is pretty much a necessity. If you're doing a Sliscus list, Warrior squads in Raiders w/ Splinter Racks tend to hit pretty hard when they come down. Venoms are great for shooting up mediocre save MCs as well.

The whole problem we've found with DE is that they really aren't all that great at busting armor. They don't do well against IG,

I've been playing Dark Eldar since 3rd Edition. I've watched them wax and wane, written several tacticas on them in the past, and like to think I vaguely know what I'm talking about.

In a nutshell Daly, the answer is not that they're bad necessarily. It's simply that they tend to have a very clearly defined role in min/maxed competitive play (aka, for when you need 6 men + transported for whatever reason). Other than that, they just simply don't quite make the cut when players sit down and apply extreme mathhammer.

Why? Because Venoms can be calculated as the most logical choice for several reasons, when it comes to maximising the amount of potential collective firepower a DE Army can wield. That's why when you see most high ranking vehicle based DE armies in tournaments, very few ever use Raiders.

So to summarise, play with whatever, and however you like. Raiders can totally be used in a viable, and even good list. There's no real 'cons' to them per se that don't apply to the entire DE army. If you were going for a hardcore competitive tournament, I would advise that you stripped them out. But for just fun normal games? They're perfectly serviceable.


EDIT:
With regards to some mathhammer against Marines specifically for you Daly, I'll run some quick numbers.

Against a Normal Marine:
The Venom will shoot 12 times, and get 8 hits. 4 of those will translate into wounds. Roughly two thirds of those will be saved by armour, leaving 1.33 dead marines at the end of the turn. The Raider will shoot once, hitting 0.66% of the time. He'll wound on a 2+, which mathematically will occur 0.55% of the time per shot. The Marine will get no armour saving, meaning that the Raider will deal out roughly 0.55 dead marines per turn.

So that's a win for the Venom.

Against a Terminator:
The Venom will shoot 12 times, and get 8 hits. Again, that gives us 4 wounds. The superior Terminator save leaves us with 0.66 wounds.
The Raider alternatively, will shoot once, and wound on a 2+ like before, leaving us at the same 0.55 percentage as we had originally. The difference is that a Terminator gets an invulnerable save which saves him a third of the time, leaving us with 0.36 dead terminators.

Yet another win for the Venom.

Against a Centurion:
Despite having a higher toughness than terminator, the Venom inflicts exactly the same amount of wounds, due to being poisoned. So 0.66 wounds. The Raider alternatively, does more than it would to the Terminator. It hits on the same percentage, and wounds on the same percentage, but the lack of an invulnerable save means that the Raider goes back up to dealing out that 0.55 wounds.

Unfortunately, that's still lower than a Venom. So the Venom wins out again.

This is however, pure mathhammer. It fails to take into account both the utility of each weapon against other troops than SM, and the dark lance tank busting potential.

Venoms are 12 shots, 8 hits and then 4 wounds... Against everything with a T value bar gargantuan creatures... Not sure where you get 9 hits from?

You're correct Massaen.

My error, 'tis late and I'm slightly ill. It doesn't change any of the conclusions, but I've corrected the maths above.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't this also ignore the number of troops being transported? And given both the fragility of DE troops as well as the Open-Topped vehicles, isn't it fairly safe to assume the vehicle is ALSO firing a packload of shots from its passengers?

As you say, you've got a great deal more experience than me, so forgive me if I'm out of line, it just seems like, especially with Trueborn/Warriors, that the Raider is a case of double your freshness, double your fun. Or am I wildly mistaken on that?