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2 Ravagers are an integral part of my new army list but I intend to take DL Scourges in addition when the points limit permits. I like the models and the deployment shenanigans they allow. Especially if the enemy has got something nasty hidden behind a LoS blocker.

Btw, what's the general opinion on the Reaper? More durable and versatile than a Ravager for the same points cost, if less reliable with all those D6 to determine the number of shots. Seems a solid choice overall. And, fortunately, I've got one

The biggest problem with the Reaper is that it gets -1BS on the move, so you have to remain static in order to maintain better firepower than a Ravager. The alternate profile is nice though, and the ability to deny advancing against something like Genestealers. I also like that it's quite a bit tougher than the Ravager, especially since unlike the Ravager it can get +1T from a Haemonculus.

Eldar Vampire Hunter wrote:
The biggest problem with the Reaper is that it gets -1BS on the move, so you have to remain static in order to maintain better firepower than a Ravager. The alternate profile is nice though, and the ability to deny advancing against something like Genestealers. I also like that it's quite a bit tougher than the Ravager, especially since unlike the Ravager it can get +1T from a Haemonculus.

Good point, no wonder it seemed a bit too good compared to a Ravager. Still, with proper deployment accuracy shouldn't be that much of a problem. I suppose 2 Ravagers and 1 Reaper are a neat Heavy Support combo.

I have to disagree with the chap who expresses the view that a splinter rifle armed kabalite is useless.

I've had great results from an army based around 4x10 kabalites with splinter cannon, blaster and a raider 2 x10 Wyches in raiders to run interference and gum up elite melee units or murder GeQ....ravagers and jet fighters to taste.

What you do end up with is a bunch of reasonably resilient 200 point boats that move fast and put out a hell of a lot of firepower. 20 poison from each warrior boat don't care what your enemies toughness.... they're gonna have to roll saves. Also leaves you with a load of lances and blasters for dealing with armour/beasties.

Sure the kabalites get murdered if the enemy focuses fire...but that's true of pretty much anything in this game. What you end up with is a big fast region of threat.

Mass blasters simply aren't what they were.

Having a bunch of units that are all pretty much the same really messes up your enemies target priority...nothing is especially attractive...everything is deadly to anything.

All in all...loving my kabalites


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Also, I've enjoyed bringing a min unit of plain Jane scourges with carbines.

Sole purpose is to jump down in maelstrom of war missions at opportune times to bag VPs. They're also relatively resilient in cover assuming they're positioned such that they're not attracting too much fire. T3 and 3+ in cover is far from invincible but still takes more effort than many foes are willing to put in to them when they've got a load of more deadly boats lighting them up.

These guys have helped me assassinate key necron buff bots and for circa 90 points put out 15 poison shots. Not stellar by any means but also not at all bad.

As an aside; I'm giving some serious thought about how I can go about squeezing a farseer on a jet bike into the list. Re-rolling wounds is ridiculous with dark eldar poison.

3 DL Raiders with 10 Kabalites each are a staple of my army. Now with added Splinter Cannons to compensate for the removal of Splinter Racks. They're excellent in my PA-heavy meta. Zoom across the board, claim objectives and drown enemies in saves. Especially now that the Raiders don't die to a gust of wind so they can work for a few turns.

Are there Must have Units.who Are that good you have to put them into a DE Army?

Zweistein wrote:
Are there Must have Units.who Are that good you have to put them into a DE Army?

For the most part, incredibly....no. I've had a few standout performers (Razorwing flocks, my DL Ravager) and obviously all our basic infantry really really wants to be transported, but in terms of models everything is pretty on par, with only a handful of units that are very situational/don't have much use (Lhameans, Grotesques, Khymerae, Ur-Ghuls)

For the most part atm the biggest imbalances are in the weapons, where there are clear winners and losers. Dark Lances for the points seem to trounce Disintegrators (though in my meta there's not a lot of heavy infantry and a lot of mech, so take that with a grain of salt). Shredders are, as they always have been, utterly worthless. Agonizers beat Power Swords except in the case of +Strength drug wych HQs. Hydra Gauntlets>Razorflails>Shardnets for wych weaponry. Heat Lances are outdone by Blasters pretty much everywhere because of their high cost, the only place I would consider them is in a small Reaver squad dedicated to character sniping. Liquifiers are still worthless, again for the cost. Electrocorrosive Whips beat out every other Weapon of Torture. Blast Pistols are auto-includes on almost every model that can have them. Haywire is always always just terrible, I think across the board it needs to be an automatic mortal wound on hit, it's just so lame as a single shot weapon with a 33% chance to cause a single wound.

Really the only places where you have clear "this is good, that is also good" options for wargear are Dark Lance vs Splinter Cannon when you have that choice, and Hexrifle vs Ossefactor.

The biggest improvement is that we've gone from a situation where upgrades are pretty much universally horrible to one where you almost always want them, and that's good. we just need to do a bit of work to make sure they're on par with one another, and primarily that can be done with a bit of points rebalancing across the board. GW seems to have been quite a bit conservative with pricing special rules (i.e. they're pretty expensive) so most of the top performers right now are baseline, unfancy stuff that they probably just priced with an excel sheet. But when it came to "How much is the re-roll to wound from Melta rule worth, how much is the Haywire rule worth" etc, GW kind of went overboard. That leaves us in a good spot compared to armies like GSC, because we have relatively few rules on everything.

So far i really like ravengers and scourges.

Fliers are stupid awesome. I was already a huge flier fan pre-8th, now I'm just giddy that I can actually use what I own.

3 void ravens and 2 razorwing gets in an air wing detachment - smile ear to ear.

Flyers are stupid without being awesome. Lists with 5 flyers are the death of 40k.

I couldn't stand them in 7th edition, I hate them more than everything now, gamewise speaking

I think Disintegrators are kind of underrated. They're better than Dark Lances against not just the obvious stuff (heavy infantry/low-wound-count models in general) but also high-toughness models with invulnerable saves like Knights, Custodes Land Raiders, and Tantali. Depending on your meta, that can be very valuable - and they're not much worse against other vehicles than lances either, as well as being more consistent. It's worth paying the extra points for improved flexibility more often than you'd think. They also have the benefit of being much stronger against Necron quantum shielding spam, which is looking to be a very strong list and will crush armies relying on just Lances for anti-tank.

Speaking of the Tantalus, I think it's one of our absolute best unit options. Very strong shooting, insane durability (with a Haemonculus standing nearby, it's arguably tougher than a Land Raider) and excellent transport capacity on top of that is an exceptional combo. I expect 1-2 Tantalus to be the basis of most serious lists at the highest level.

How are people using Mandrakes? Deep-striking them and trying to charge from turn 2?

Has anyone tried running them in transports? They seem to shoot pretty well -- they're individually as good or better than Blasterborn, while being cheaper, against basically anything with 1 wound, and they still shoot Guardsmen more efficiently than do Marines. They're still half as individually effective as Blasterborn against multi-wound stuff (and they catch up quick if you can ally in a Farseer for Doom).

And then they're as fast as Wyches and put out 3 S4 attacks in combat.

Eldar Vampire Hunter wrote:

Speaking of the Tantalus, I think it's one of our absolute best unit options. Very strong shooting, insane durability (with a Haemonculus standing nearby, it's arguably tougher than a Land Raider) and excellent transport capacity on top of that is an exceptional combo. I expect 1-2 Tantalus to be the basis of most serious lists at the highest level.

I was planning to use it alongside my harlequins. Initially I was thinking of transporting an archon with 3 units of blaster born, but then I noticed the +1T from the haemonculus, so now I'm considering that instead, but if I do, I really don't know enough about dark eldar to know what coven units would really be good with it, or just leave it empty and spend those points elsewhere.

Tantalus is a very powerful model but because of its points cost and transport capacity, I'm afraid it's bound to dominate its army list. Personally, I'm not sold on the "all eggs in one basket" approach.

It is the most durable Drukhari unit. However, I was able to destroy a Land Raider with 2 DL Ravagers during the first shooting phase of a game. 5++ helps a lot but add a bit more AT firepower to that... I don't know.

I prefer having 2s or 3s of units in my army to avoid any obvious, high-priority targets. To each his own.

My Razorwing Jetfighters and Ravagers are my favorite units so far. Ravagers have surprisingly high durability and incredibly potent anti tank fire power and a fairly priced cost. The jetfighters come with incredible flexibility with their missiles. The ability to hurt non-vehicles on 2's or a str 7 ap -1 with reroll to wound is awesome.

Played a couple of games with my Dark Elder. Holy crap our vehicles and Dark Lances are awesome now.
I am in love with the Ravager. I used to always play Dissy Cannons and I'm not disappointed now. Just one shot deleted whole squads, including a terminator unit today.

Also, that Dark Lance in the Warrior squad is a new MVP as well. He's become this epic sniper now that he can move and shoot (and apparently hardly ever misses).

I'm just sad that Drukhari HQ's still feel useless to me. My favourite is the Succubus but I can't believe how hard she still sucks. I've played like 20 games with her (mostly 7th, and a couple of 8th) and she's failed at life in every single one lol. The Queen of the Arena has a reputation of just dying to anything without doing anything. Don't think 8th edition is changing anything in that regard.
She managed to do a whopping 0 wounds before dying today again (which is typical for her), getting killed by a bunch of one attack terminators who just go 3+, 3+, you fail saves you dead.. Guess all my HQs will be non-drukkhari from now on.
Fluffwise she's awesome but in game, I can't justify spending any points on that train wreck of an HQ.

Have anybody seen the Tantalus? From Forge World. How is it?

Zweistein wrote:
Are there Must have Units.who Are that good you have to put them into a DE Army?

Not a specific unit, but there are some must-haves.

You have to have Transports, and you have to have Dark Lances against any vehicles that aren't Necrons. If you will ever play necrons, you need Blasters and Dissies.
Otherwise, you can prettymuch make anything work. The old style of Warrior spam in transports is hard to pull off at low points though.