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So i'm curious. Are dark lances actually bad? Yes i am serious as it often allows dark eldar some turn 1 attack options. Against vehicles it can do a bit of damage (shake or stun them if nothing else) and vs tau it could at least put the pressure on some things like storm surge. I'm not saying they're good. I just think haywire isn't always good when there are no vehicles but dark lance always hurts an enemy and the 36" range is pretty much the best range dark eldar get. I mean if i have to face stormsurge, do a little damage to vehicles to force them to not shoot a turn (like wyverns) or if i need some instant death for t4 FnP multi-wound models then dark lance gives it to me.

Anyway what do you think?

They honestly just don't do enough. They aren't high enough strength to be really reliable for taking out vehicles, nor stuff like WK's, and they come in too low of numbers to take out other stuff.
For killing vehicles, haywire scourges are very reliable, but if you want a unit that can take out vehicles and be useful against other stuff, heat lance scourges also shred tanks.

Dark lances are only useful on ravagers, sitting back and letting other stuff soak up dakka

They're not that bad but not shining either, you need to fire at least 9 lances to see some good result, but three ravagers are quite expensive for what they do. I like ravagers and I field them very often, but your best anti tank are scourges and reavers' cluster caltrops.

Against marines three ravagers with disintegrator cannons are very good, 27 S5 ap2 shots, yeah.

Dark Lances are like every other single shot, high strength gun in the game that isn't D, not worth their points.

They use to be alright, but the changes to the vehicle damage chart and their steady increase in price since 3rd edition means they now are pretty suck.

The problem is GW prices dark lances higher than las cannons, because essentially they are similar to lascannons but effectively str10 against AV14. They ignore that they are -1 strength against Av10-12 and have 12" less range..

The current DE codex has haywire scourges, which are better against most vehicles. Heatlance scourges are probably better against the rest.

As i said it's more about the turn 1 attack options. How would i handle stormsurge or wyverns without them? It allows me to at least put some pressure on each turn 1 and that might shift the enemy's attention.

I chatting with a friend of mine yesterday about this.

Dark Eldar really lack a good way to deal with vehicles in the early game.

Dark Lances are better suited for taking down multiple wound Toughness 8 or lower units or MC's. We both decided that Dizzy Ravagers are far more useful.

A Fast Skimmer for Dark Eldar with some kind of Ranged Haywire gun would be excatly what Dark Eldar is missing to make them a nice competitive army.

I think Forgeworld has a Haywire Skimmer for Dark Eldar.

 Blackie wrote:
They're not that bad but not shining either, you need to fire at least 9 lances to see some good result, but three ravagers are quite expensive for what they do. I like ravagers and I field them very often, but your best anti tank are scourges and reavers' cluster caltrops.

Against marines three ravagers with disintegrator cannons are very good, 27 S5 ap2 shots, yeah.

My point being i need a way to counter stuff that can hurt me turn 1 like wyverns and stormsurge and the like. Even with MSU the wyverns or stormsurge might vaporize units of reavers with cluster caltrops.

In the case of wyverns unless i have dark lances i will most likely be hurt 1-2 shooting phases. Dark lances can at least neuter some of this even if it merely shakes/stuns a wyvern.

With the stormsurge it's tougher but i can get some turn 1 damage in as well.

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I suppose my point is i generally have no issue with vehicles (people tend not to take many) and most lower ranged armies (most armies except guard and tau). However against guard and tau this is where dark lances are pretty much all we have for turn 1 firepower. Air units and DS comes in turn 2 at best and turn 4 at worst. As fast and as long ranged as most of our units are even venoms do nothing vs wyverns and vs gargantuan (like stormsurge) with good armor and FnP poisoned shots only wound on a 6.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:

 Blackie wrote:
They're not that bad but not shining either, you need to fire at least 9 lances to see some good result, but three ravagers are quite expensive for what they do. I like ravagers and I field them very often, but your best anti tank are scourges and reavers' cluster caltrops.

Against marines three ravagers with disintegrator cannons are very good, 27 S5 ap2 shots, yeah.

My point being i need a way to counter stuff that can hurt me turn 1 like wyverns and stormsurge and the like. Even with MSU the wyverns or stormsurge might vaporize units of reavers with cluster caltrops.

In the case of wyverns unless i have dark lances i will most likely be hurt 1-2 shooting phases. Dark lances can at least neuter some of this even if it merely shakes/stuns a wyvern.

With the stormsurge it's tougher but i can get some turn 1 damage in as well.

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I suppose my point is i generally have no issue with vehicles (people tend not to take many) and most lower ranged armies (most armies except guard and tau). However against guard and tau this is where dark lances are pretty much all we have for turn 1 firepower. Air units and DS comes in turn 2 at best and turn 4 at worst. As fast and as long ranged as most of our units are even venoms do nothing vs wyverns and vs gargantuan (like stormsurge) with good armor and FnP poisoned shots only wound on a 6.

I know, but you have to consider that IG and tau are hard counters for dark eldar so you'll always struggle against armies that have a lot of fire power and with ignores cover.

The point about reavers is to take MSU, 5-6 units of three, because those armies can evaporate a unit of 6 as well as a unit of 3, but you also need a lot of targets on the board so take 5-6 min units of reavers. Against IG lances are not that good, you need really a lot of them to kill an AV12-14 vehicle and three ravagers could be not enough to kill just even a single tank in a turn, scourges with haywire blaster work wery well, but they start in reserve.

Stormsurge should be charged by the corpsethief claw, it's probably the only way for dark eldars to deal with it, so place your 5 talos as forward as you can, use your scout move and go towards that nasty big robot. You may assault it turn 2 or 3 but in the meanwhile the corpsethief claw acts as a huge bullet magnet soaking a lot of firepower and saving most of your army.

As DE, I wouldn't bother trying to get damage on the nasty Tau units via shooting. It's obviously not going to hurt to plink away some wounds when you can, but it takes about 14 dark lance shots to down a single Riptide without cover or stims (FNP) and in the neighborhood of 40 to take out a Stormsurge. The Riptide is doable, but the Stormsurge is going to eat you alive before you can generate that kind of firepower. Given range, it can down 4 of your transports per turn, un-anchored. Don't bother.

The best way to deal with Tau, is a bum rush, as noted above. Tau is a desperately hard match for any DE list, but if you're going to somehow eke out a victory, it'll be because you slammed a ton of units in his face all at once, not because you had enough dark lances to neutralize his threats. Look at dark lances as a bonus you might be able to use for random tasks rather than tools you purpose for a particular goal.

It takes way more than 14 dark lance shots to kill a stimtide with the shield up. In general, the Riptide is more durable than the Stormsurge.

It should be about 32 shots for the Stormsurge I think.

I was just talking about a normal old Riptide with no bells or whistles going. 2/3 hit, 5/6 wound, and 2/3 go through, so each lance is 10/27 of a wound. That means 13.5 shots will do the trick. Obviously, if you throw 3++ and/or stims into the mix, things get way worse for DE.

For the Stormsurge, it's 2/3*5/6*1/2*2/3 or 10/54 wound per shot. That makes it actually 43.2 shots to take it down.

Whatever. Anyway, the point remains that trying to shoot Tau down is a bad plan with DE.

I never see them without stims or the 3++ attempted, so I thought I'd mention it.

It is. Can DE survive to do melee, though?

MilkmanAl wrote:
I was just talking about a normal old Riptide with no bells or whistles going. 2/3 hit, 5/6 wound, and 2/3 go through, so each lance is 10/27 of a wound. That means 13.5 shots will do the trick. Obviously, if you throw 3++ and/or stims into the mix, things get way worse for DE.

For the Stormsurge, it's 2/3*5/6*1/2*2/3 or 10/54 wound per shot. That makes it actually 43.2 shots to take it down.

Whatever. Anyway, the point remains that trying to shoot Tau down is a bad plan with DE.

Why 1/2 for stormsurge? Does it have a 4+ invulnerable?

@Martel: That's my question honestly. Tau has range and is durable and forces fights with its superior range. That said they have some pretty nasty close range on the stormsurge and anything in close range of their stormsurge for group 'overwatch'. That's at least 1 shooting phase and possibly another with overwatch. If you unluckily get 2nd turn you take one normal shooting unentrenched, a 2nd entrenched and extra with overwatch. Dark eldar doesn't seem to have the durability to handle that.

With guard using wyverns they'd probably just arty all your reavers to death which burns up in flames our best counter to all the camo netted vehicles behind cover that otherwise get a 3+ cover save but nothing in melee.

Yes, it does. It can't get a 3++ like the Riptide.

Martel732 wrote:
Yes, it does. It can't get a 3++ like the Riptide.

Really?! Holy crap it's more broken than i thought. Super-heavies and gargantuan truly don't belong in normal 40k.

It's the layered saves, not the fact that they're super heavy. The Riptide is even tougher and costs half as much and is a regular MC.

Martel732 wrote:
It's the layered saves, not the fact that they're super heavy. The Riptide is even tougher and costs half as much and is a regular MC.

It's more the firepower it can bring to the table than its durability. Also believe it or not that matters a lot. Gargantuan only gets wounded by poison on a 6 whereas with MC's it's a 4. Also you can instant death a gargantuan but only do d3 wounds to it. Not only that but in melee even a stormsurge is scary. The durability of a stormsurge isn't as good but it's still good enough to survive a lot of ranged firepower. Anyway vs most other armies stormsurge aren't as hard to kill but a lot of the dark eldar weapons do a lot less to them.

I never see them without stims or the 3++ attempted, so I thought I'd mention it.

Indeed. The advent of the Riptide Wing has ensured that everyone has the privilege of facing Riptides with 3++ 8/9 of the time. Joy!

It is. Can DE survive to do melee, though?

Eh...not really, in my experience. Tau is just an awful match for the Dark City denizens. All the cover-ignoring weapons are bad news since the best way to get in people's faces is to rush your ultra-fast bikes and Raiders up the board to dump their payloads ASAP. Hugging cover and LOS blocking is somewhat helpful, but smart missile systems don't care about silly things like seeing you.

If you really go all-out on MSU everything (which you probably should be doing anyway), you can at least make sure a few Reaver units make it to combat and/or things shot out of their transports are near enough to assault something the following turn. It's not an auto-loss for DE, but the deck is badly stacked against you.

for stormsurge? Does it have a 4+ invulnerable?

Well, the shield generator is a 50pt upgrade, but given that it almost makes the 'Surge twice as hard to kill, just about everyone springs for it.

The similarities between my BA and DE are pretty strange. Tau are a very bad draw for me as well.

Martel732 wrote:
The similarities between my BA and DE are pretty strange. Tau are a very bad draw for me as well.

What are the similiarties? I think i've only fought blood angels once or twice and the people i've seen playing em weren't too great at it i think.

Dark Eldar seem like you have to invent new tricks to do well. Deploy near the middle then push to one side if you get turn 1 and if you get turn 2 deploy all on one side to fight parts of the enemy at a time (unless it's tau or guard ofc). Most things are incredibly fragile unless you go for covens units (ravagers have the only armor 11/11/10 with everything else being armor 10 all around). We're super fast. We need to focus 100% of our army at 25% of their's and fight them in piece by piece (fighting unfair is what we gotta do but we have to do it).

Normally i wouldn't mind wyverns as they don't have a good chance to hurt our vehicles but our reaver jetbikes and scourge (most of our anti-tank) get lit up by wyverns so it's rough.

Tau i just hate fighting with dark eldar. Even if you avoid line of sight they still have smart missile systems which would just destroy reavers. There's no real good way to handle them.

They are both fast, fragile armies that need to assault shooting lists, but get crushed against real melee lists. Before you say BA aren't fragile, realize that T4 3+ is nothing in 7th, and that's all BA really have.

Martel732 wrote:
They are both fast, fragile armies that need to assault shooting lists, but get crushed against real melee lists. Before you say BA aren't fragile, realize that T4 3+ is nothing in 7th, and that's all BA really have.

Dark eldar have toughness options but no armor options. Honestly i think you do durable better but dark eldar do fast better. I could swear you guys have some terminators or got something recently. Do you guys even have grav? Don't know why space wolves are the only favored non-vanilla marines. Personally they're my least favorite non-vanilla marines.

Honestly against melee i can do fine it's tau and guard i have trouble with but esp. tau. Seriously i can come up with strategies to handle most armies but it's all for nothing against tau pretty much. Too much avoids cover, mass overwatch, interceptor, skyfire and pretty much everything. Seriously the army was practically made for hunting dark eldar.

BA have grav, but none of the gimmicks that make grav good in a vanilla list.

BA got some tricks in the latest update, but BA terminators are frankly very overcosted and terminators are just kinda blech in general.

Martel732 wrote:
BA have grav, but none of the gimmicks that make grav good in a vanilla list.

BA got some tricks in the latest update, but BA terminators are frankly very overcosted and terminators are just kinda blech in general.

Well that's unfortunate but at least you have grav at all. Dark eldar doesn't have much in the way of str 8 ap 2 or better weaponry. Only Str 9 ap 2 weapons we have are void lance and void mine (large blast one shot) and you only get one void mine per void raven. I think void mine is the only large blast str 8 or above weapon we have. We have small blast str 8 ap 2 in the form of dark scythes but that also goes on void raven. Basically when you face wulfen, thunderwolf cavalry, bikes and fast necron wraith units you shoot them and then you flat out empty raiders to block their path and do it over and over again. You lose a raider or two (55 pts base but probably more per raider) but it saves a good chunk of your army and when you focus fire one to two units and deploy a certain way you can totally screw over some armies.

Funny thing is with dark eldar i can totally see a win vs decurion necrons esp. wraith unit spam with tomb spiders (i got really close last game 6-9 with 2 units of 6 wraiths, 2 tomb spiders, a unit of like 20 flayed ones and at least 10 or more immortals in one unit). Still lost though due to kill points which is silly as we did the numbers via points lost per unit and it was within about 100 pts of fully lost units. It's an uphill battle but one that you can win if you try a lot of tricks, have the right composition vs theirs, target the right enemy units and play well. The biggest thing dark eldar have is speed and focus fire a portion of the army and that's about it.

It's odd as most armies i can handle. I think even admech is do-able as long as you don't fight that new tech magos character and if you do avoid him hardcore. I can kill a good chunk of guard and DKoK as well.

But yeah i haven't faced eldar yet and i honestly think tau is my worst match-up. I can probably fight vanilla space marines better now but tau is just the worst. When super-heavies and gargantuan enter the battle i know i don't stand a chance. There's just nothing i can do. They don't belong in normal 40k.

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Back on topic i think i might avoid dark lance again though i will see about lots of blasterborn in raiders and possibly scooting them into area terrain, forests or putting them somewhere only to have raiders flat out in front of them so they can get their 3+ cover without jinking. Perhaps lots of blasters will do some work. Course there comes the issue of having like 4 blasterborn squads (unless you buy secondhand it's one blaster per 10 warriors in a box) and needing 2 realspace raiders detachments to get them. However there are better units i could get.

Dark lances are decent vs SHV, because lance works against them. But GMCs turn off poison essentially.

Martel732 wrote:
Dark lances are decent vs SHV, because lance works against them. But GMCs turn off poison essentially.

Not really. Haywire is good against super heavy because it mostly just peels off hullpoints on a 2-5 and on a 6 pens. That said currently the only time people take vehicles usually is in small numbers or when they take a super-heavy like a knight or baneblade which can be rough. Guard is the one exception to this rule about vehicles.

All lances are ok-ish vs vehicles. Heat lances destroy them when they need to absolutely die regardless of hull points except super heavies (though it's our only access to ap 1 and melta) though they'll still lose D3 hull points rather than blow up which is still decent when it goes off.

Eldar, both factions, are designed to be good against high-defense targets, but not so good against others. Drak Lances/Bright Lances are built in this way, so they are less effective than the Imperial equivalent against light armor but more effective against heavy armor.

Splinter weapons and wraith weapons are also designed in these fashion.

So the answer depends on whether you're fighting light or heavy vehicles.


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In addition, given mobility of Eldar/Dark Eldar, hitting side armor should not be hard.