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So I'm new to dark eldar and was wondering what people's opinions of how to run their raiders?

Night shields or Flicker field?
I'm more tempting by the night shield as in most cases I'd get jink anyway. But then would anyone advise taking both or is that just ridiculous?

What about the other upgrades? Minus the splinter racks I'd do really see the need for any of the others? Thoughts?

Cheers

I take both. The transports of the DE army are our primary firepower. I use Venoms but same applies to Raiders. You don't want to lose our transports before they get to shoot. So yeah, FF and NS are mandatory on all of my vehicles. But then I don't add anything else either and I use my vehicles as gunships to swarm opponents.

Venoms are more efficient than Raiders but if you are fielding larger squads then you don't really have a choice in the matter.

I don't really like flicker fields. Against most armies you will have a 5+ jink save that does the same thing. Against the armies with ignores cover, like tau and eldar, they will be throwing so many shots at you that the 5++ doesn't really matter.

Night shields on the other hand can be extremely annoying. Many anti=light vehicle weapons are 36" range and you can dance right in that little area shooting them but not letting them shoot back. ALso you will almost never get rapid fired on which helps because rapid fire bolters can take down your paper planes.

Interesting night shields feel like a definite buy but I am unsure about the Flicker field. I was thinking of buying as a precaution incase I go second and don't have jink on a small field, missile launchers etc could rip me apart before I even more.

 Brother Claudio wrote:
Interesting night shields feel like a definite buy but I am unsure about the Flicker field. I was thinking of buying as a precaution incase I go second and don't have jink on a small field, missile launchers etc could rip me apart before I even more.

hide them behind impassable terrain or other units

Parroting the above, night shields are generally what you want on everything but the fliers. On the other hand, flickerfields are generally not needed, but can be useful depending on your meta. FMC's, drakes, tau and eldar will ignore your jink with ease.

On the other hand, fliers need flickerfields to avoid having to evade for a jink save.

As far as other upgrades, they all kind of have a place, some more than others. Grisly trophies are not really needed unless your allying eldar, so the psykers can use the re rolls for tests. Torment grenade launchers are OK with spare points on raiders carrying assault models, and that Ld test to assault has saved me now and then. Aethersails are also for assault raiders to help get into position. Envenomed blades are garbage. Splinter racks are decent for 10 man kabbie squads.

It also depends on the role of your transport. If you just want to deliver some haywire wyches, Incubi or other CC Units you should Keep it cheap. ---> no upgrades, cause nightshields wont make a difference if your sitting next to the enemy. On the other hand, a Raider filled with a squad of kabalites really annoys your Opponent if it has a nightshield and splinterracks.

Yea, to mirror, you really need to specify the role first. On a unit that assaults you don't want any upgrades really. It will boost up and then not be long for this world whatever it does.

Usually now a days I keep them stock though. Like others mentioned when tau or eldar shoot at a raider or venom it dies. The volume of fire kills any hope so save points. Against all others the jink is fine. I tent to not need the NS against mostly imperial armies either, its usually bolters and las canons in my meta so NS don't help me much as our weapons float in that awkward 36" range which means we already dance outside of small arms but even with NS can't escape the LC, AC or rocket.

On occasion I will run shock prows and tormentor GL's.... Wait! Hear me out lol. I'll drop my warriors in emperors will and set up behind terrain late game for tank shocking annoying things like camo scouts off objectives. This requires good terrain coverage and doesn't generally work to well but there are MANY fun strategies in the DE book and it gets old not exploring them no matter how wonky.

Apologies.
I will probably be starting out with the Duke and kabbies so my early thoughts were to go with splinter racks and then probably night shields. But I do plan to add some incubi in so good to know I should keep that raider/venom as cheap as

Night shields are a must IMO. They can screw over quite a few weapons to give you that extra bit of survivability. I'm not too keen on flickerfields in 6th- if I go 2nd, and they're not hidden behind terrain it's more than likely gone anyway. Haven't bothered with anything other than splinter racks in 6th either. they rarely last long enough to make use of any of the other upgrades.

For kabalites with the Duke, I'd definitely go Night Shields and Splinter Racks. (If you go Trueborn, remember that the Splinter Racks don't work Splinter Carbines.)

Exactly my thinking sinful hero.
Thanks for the reminder Jimsolo. I'd probably have given them splinter carbines lol

The amount of infuriating Raiders that have flown around just out of range due to Night Shields is beyond recall. Really a 'must have'.

Flickerfields are expensive, and not all that useful considering you're a Fast Skimmer - you already get Jink and you can grab cover relatively easily.

That depends. If the transports are your transports then no flicker is fine but if they are your main weapons, then jinking is not a good idea since all you get is snap shots, plus depending on your opponent(Tau is a regular of mine) you might not even get the cover save. Thus FF turn out to be something important. Not only that but if you don't get first turn or if you get immobilized it provides at least a little bit of survivability.

Jink does not mean snap shots to skimmers, just flyers

Oh no kidding? And now I know, and knowing is half the battle. Still useful vs Tau but that definitely changes things for me and my army. Not worth running them specifically against one specific army when in my army, that's 120ish points I can spend elsewhere.

I find with shock prows, the raider become a demo derby vehicle, and it probably to most fun I have with them, abd to look at your opponents face when you total something important is golden, believe me, I ran a spacewolf army off a table and blew up two rhinos in one game with two raiders and some extreme luck , flickerfields are my got to on gunships, while nightshields stop all the rapid fire goodness and such which is nice too .

I tend to run my raiders naked, and then run LOTS of them.

Nothing like having a full on armada on the battlefield to make your opponent twitch

I never run less than 6 raider hulls. Venoms , though supposedly better, consistently fail to do anything much for me.

If i'm running an in-yer-grille army i'll add flickerfields and enhanced sails...

I currently have 1 Raider with a 10-man Kabalite team and 1 Ravager. I intend to add one more Raider w/ Warriors team as allies to my CSM, and run them as MC hunters (within Rapid Fire range and with Splinter Racks it's 6.2 wounds to a T6 Sv 3+ MC on average). I'm aware that the Venoms are considered the more competitive choice, but they don't impress me. If I want to kill a high priority target, I'd rather go for the kill and kill it in one go rather than take potshots from afar.

Also, this music is mandatory.