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OK, so I recently heard about this great tactic using raiders where, rather than the raider being a dark lance unit, or a transport etc it was an aggressive wall unit. The tactic is to in the first turn zoom your raiders up super close using FlatOut and turn the sideways so that you are literally 1 inch in front of your opponents models, and block them from moving. Then in their next movement phase, they can't move so will be forced to either shoot or assault your raiders (which can cause some mighty easy to do explosions in the process). Similarly, the following turn, you block em again (obviously doing what shooting you need to before performing your flat outs with your raiders). Finally unless the mission is big guns never tire, you can have your ravager do the same. The key focus should be on stopping their scoring units from moving, or blocking their most damaging distant anti-infantry weapons.

That's the principle around which this list has been built, but it still feels a little... i dunno. flat. Let me know what you think I can do to improve (bearing in mind the need for lots of raiders for board control).

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HQ
1 Duke Sliscus - 150 points (attached to Big squad for poison benefits)
1 Haemonculus - 50 points (attached to Big squad for pain benefits)

ELITES
5 Incubi + Venom (2 Splinter Cannons) - 175 points
4 Kabalite Trueborn + Venom (x4 Blasters, 2 Splinter Cannons) - 173 points

TROOPS
20 Kabalite Warriors //Footslogging// (Sybarite, x2 Splinter Cannons) - 210 points
5 Kabalite Warriors //Footslogging// - 45 points
5 Kabalite Warriors //Footslogging// - 45 points
5 Kabalite Warriors //Footslogging// - 45 points

DEDICATED TRANSPORTS
1 Raider (Dark Lance) - 60 points
1 Raider (Dark Lance) - 60 points
1 Raider (Dark Lance) - 60 points
1 Raider (Dark Lance) - 60 points

HEAVY SUPPORT
1 Ravager (Flickerfield, x3 Disintegrators) - 115 points
1 Ravager (x3 Disintegrators) - 105 points
1 Void Raven Bomber - 145 points

It kinda seems like a waste of your vehicles, its a fair few pts being invested into just suppressing the enemy for a turn or two.

What happens when they have destroyed all the vehicles and then can move freely to shred your lightly armoured troops?


Certainly cover will help, but a DE force that is not mobile I feel is a weak one.

DE are fragile to begin with, and using a strategy that sacrifices most of your vehicles JUST to delay your enemy a turn is a horrible idea.

In the current meta, DE do well by overwhelming their opposition with a high # of low cost targets that can each deal a lot of damage (particularly venoms, ravagers, and beastpacks). In addition this tends to flood the board with more scoring/contesting units then most people can handle when they are losing large chunks of their own force each turn.

If you want to slow your opponent down with a DE list, you do it with target prioritization. Kill the transports/calvary/beasts early on and then work your way down from there. But I find most of the time I am having to work at picking apart a stack foe that is dug in, and you do that by focus firing and limiting exposure and if your opponent DOES try and send a unit out to threaten you or grab an objective, you thank him for the gift and destroy that unit with extreme prejudice!

*edit: Also disintegrators are terrible, lances my boy always more LANCES!

It is certainly a nice idea to box in key units, but I would never default to this stragety. If your ravagers are in the backfield and moved, they have a 5+ cover save. So, the raider blocking the long fangs is irrelevant as they blast away at the ravager. Sure, line of sight may be hindered, but I find it very hard to totally block line of sight in this edition.

Some of the nastier things don't care about a raider in front of them, as they can fly. Jetseer councils, screamerstars, flying monsterous creatures, other skimmers(DE, eldar, tau), jump units(tau in particular) etc. Drop pods also don't give a damn about your stragety. In the case of an FMC, you are just handing over a vector strike target. Barrage weapons will shoot over said raider, murdering your soft squishy troops. Gaining cover is nice for your footsloggers, but with DE it is better to be mobile and avoid fire in the first place. Certainly has uses, but I would never build a list planning on always using said stragety. Also, considering using your ravagers for this purpose is just short of heresy, and should be reserved for desperation. Ravagers are too good to be casually thrown away(raiders are too).

As for your list, you are critically low on anti tank weaponry. Since your plan is to use your raiders as flying screens, those lances might as well not exist. The voidraven won't come in till turn 2 minimum, and is primairly for AA duty. This leaves a single unit of trueborn, which are going to get shot up regardless of how many raiders you put between it and the enemy. The general rule of thumb is 1 darklight weapon for every 100 points. Even if you did not suicide your raiders, you have 10. Any mech army will laugh as you fly up your raiders, get them shot, and then proceed to die when your kabbies can't punch through a rhino. Switching your ravagers to dark lances still comes up short, but should work unless your up against a mech heavy army.

The 20 man duke kabbie blob is very solid(probably drop the , and I can understand buying a raider here for screen purposes. It is cheap and disposable, while being useful as a mobile dark lance/screen as needed. The raider has no purpose as the giant duke blob can't use it, and is big/tough enough to take some fire. The 5 man kabbie squads are just easy picking. If you took 10 man squads with a cannon, you could use the kabbies on foot or in the raider, depending on the situation. If you want cheap access to a raider or two, but a halfway durable scoring unit consider wracks. 3-5 for camping, but 5-10 can be potent assault squads or liquifier bearers.

Incubi make a decent counter assault unit, but are expensive...consider just getting more troops and screening the nastiest assault units. More darklight would also be acceptable.

I find ravagers need night shields, while flickerfields are optional. The voidraven needs a flickerfield though, to avoid having to jink/immunity to ignore cover fire.