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Cheers for the confirmation that the NB is just a lot more badass. I agree that the VD's model is far cooler though. I want to add more billowing cloak-type stuff to my Nightbringer, plus some lightning, to bring it up to that level. Will be a challenge.

The VD is also on a far larger base, which is a disadvantage. NB gets to sneak around on a 40mm one so it can fit in much smaller places.

It can be argued that a larger base is an advantage for range of powers to the sides and behind. A Nightbringer's ideal targets are big expensive monsters, heavy elite infantry and characters whereas the VD's ideal targets are vehicles but is also pretty decent against monsters and elite infantry as well. You can make a case that as a faction we are worse at dealing with vehicles than elite infantry. Light tanks and transports are becoming a bigger part of the meta now so it's not a waste to bring one.

I prefer the VD for the versitility and being slightly harder to kill. Had difficulty building the model though

The NB might be better against vehicles in combat anyway thanks to S14 and an extra attack, which is a shame.

The issue between the two is the VD is meant to kill vehicles and the NB is meant to kill single model deadly things.
But the way they made the VD kill vehicles, the NB is just as good outside of the self-heal potentially tipping him over the threshold to require another full phase to kill. Which ive had happen, it sometimes makes people flatout ignore the VD.
That doesnt normally happen though, he needs to either be sitting at 5w when your turn begins for example or facing someone with multiple tiny vehicles (i.e. Orks or Admech really) and kill multiples in one go. Not something to plan on happening.

I think what they should have done is A) the VD's power should be D3+3 against vehicles not D6 mortals and B) NB's power should have reduced effect against vehicles. Cause right now they step on each other too much, and 3D3 mortals on a 4+ each is better than a 2+ check for a single D6 imo
Even in Melee, the VD basically bumps up to "slightly better" than the NB's normal strike. But lacks the invul killing part so its still inferior. Yeah vehicles usually dont have a melee invul but the more elite dreads often do.

I'd certainly be in favour of the VD (and Deceiver, and T.Ctan) getting a buff rather than the NB being nerfed against vehicles, considering they are all overpriced by around 50 points anyways IMO. But it's not going to happen for at least a few years

I'm hoping we get a big points drop on the deceiver and a moderate one on the VD when the next points fix happens.

I'd love to try out the Deceiver. It looks like you have to build an army around him though. Combining him with eternal expansionists you'd have enormous flexibility on deployment. He's also a great way to get 10 Lychguard into reserve to use the night scythe strat.

For sure theres a lot of shenanigans Deceiver can pull off, but not at his price.
Hopefully he gets a price cut in the future.

What loadout would you take? I'm not sure any of them are ideal

Moosatronic Warrior wrote:
I'm hoping we get a big points drop on the deceiver and a moderate one on the VD when the next points fix happens.

Wonder when that will be. It seems like half our army could use a points reduction. Beyond Warriors, CCB, TSK and Chronomancers I don't see much that is truly cost effective

I'm a fan of the Death Ray, especially two for the cost of Doom Scythe; minus mobility, -1 to hit, and only 8 wounds. Seems like a fair enough trade.

Cynista wrote:
What loadout would you take? I'm not sure any of them are ideal

Focussed death ray and gauss exterminator look good to me.

A Doom Scythe fires 3 shots, 2 Sentry Pylons fire 2 shots. The Doom Scythe also has a twin tesla destructor and hasn't gotten any top 4s at a GT yet AFAIK, what makes Sentry Pylons worth it? The only viable artillery unit is Mek Gunz AFAIK, you get 2,5 smasha gun hits for every focussed death ray hit and 15 wounds distributed across 2,5 models instead of 8 on a single model, making the Sentry Pylon an easy kill for an Eradicator Squad.

The gauss exterminator has a role at least and doesn't cost more, while the heat cannon kicks a moderate amount of ass, it is also a lot more expensive relatively.

If you play on a board with a lot of terrain against a mobile enemy you'll be relegated to deep strike, otherwise you won't be able to see anything because of the immobility, while the Doomscythe can look for opportunities to snipe characters that aren't enveloped in dudes.

Comparing 1,4 death ray Pylons to a Doomstalker you don't get an invul, you get fewer wounds, 1 more Toughness, 25-30% less damage on average. I'd say the mobility is similar on the two units and the Doomstalker has the Guardian Construct ability and a twin gauss flayer in addition. All in all I'd say the death ray and heat cannon are terrible, the gauss exterminator is really bad but it has a little bit of play into Aircraft, they all need a 20-30 point reduction before they become competitive.

It won't be too long until I start testing FW, I might totally change my mind. At least the death ray isn't as big a joke as it was last edition.

The Sentry Pylons aren't right for 9th edition.

They can't help you score primary, they can't help with action secondary or board supremacy secondaries. Taking them is essentially locking yourself into taking a kill secondary, and vs many list that's just not an option. (Consider your typical space marine list. If you table them, you get, say 9 for assassinate, 5 for thin the ranks, maybe 1 or 2 for bring it down?)

9th edition's big deal is obscuring terrain. The lists doing well are all highly mobile, so shooters can get around the sides of the terrain and fighters can get up and go through. Immovable arty just doesn't work right for that.

The stats/points balance on them isn't, like, awful, but it's not what it would need to be at to ignore the fact that they don't move. An annihilation barge or one of those praetorian spider walkers is a much better shooting platform.

Are scarabs the solution to the Dark Eldar situation, or at least helpful? I was thinking it help work to essentially cram the mid board with 405 points worth of eternal expansionist scarabs in turn 0. Force the wyches and incubi to hack through them and then fire lots of gauss at whoever’s left alive. What do you reckon?

The DE infantry isn't a big problem for us, Warriors melt them and Flayed Ones trade fairly well, as would Scarabs in certain dynasties. The problem is the transports and I don't think we have a good answer to such a powerful, cheap and numerous unit

Regarding Sentry Pylons maybe they have use in move blocking, the base is quite big? Deep strike down and block off a lane between terrain

Cynista wrote:
The DE infantry isn't a big problem for us, Warriors melt them and Flayed Ones trade fairly well, as would Scarabs in certain dynasties. The problem is the transports and I don't think we have a good answer to such a powerful, cheap and numerous unit

Regarding Sentry Pylons maybe they have use in move blocking, the base is quite big? Deep strike down and block off a lane between terrain

What melee units would you rather engage with a Sentry Pylon than a Ghost Ark? Ghost Ark go brrr.

It seems to me that scarabs would do a far better job of move blocking than sentry pylons. I’m not sure what anyone hopes to achieve by deep striking pylons in agains DE. That’s far too late to block anything.

I agree the transports are the problem. Necrons do not have a solution to them. All our big guns are bad and/or static, so will never have LoS.

The point of the scarabs is to force the infantry out of their transports. Cover lots of the board in obsec bodies that are fast and fly, and which the enemy will struggle to shoot dead. Maybe bully the occasional backfield objective unit now and then, or self-destruct at enemy characters. Generally don’t let them play the game they want.

Cynista wrote:
The DE infantry isn't a big problem for us, Warriors melt them and Flayed Ones trade fairly well, as would Scarabs in certain dynasties. The problem is the transports and I don't think we have a good answer to such a powerful, cheap and numerous unit

Tesla Destructors eat raiders. When used in combination with our meh dedicated anti-tank options, it does horrible things to Drukari. My last two games I removed 5 raiders and 3 raiders + a ravager respectively in the first turn. Bonus is TDs also do terrible things to Drukari infantry as well.

 Maelstrom808 wrote:

Cynista wrote:
The DE infantry isn't a big problem for us, Warriors melt them and Flayed Ones trade fairly well, as would Scarabs in certain dynasties. The problem is the transports and I don't think we have a good answer to such a powerful, cheap and numerous unit

Tesla Destructors eat raiders. When used in combination with our meh dedicated anti-tank options, it does horrible things to Drukari. My last two games I removed 5 raiders and 3 raiders + a ravager respectively in the first turn. Bonus is TDs also do terrible things to Drukari infantry as well.

Tesla Destructor does an average of just under 3 Wounds to a raider, 4 with Mephrite half range. The Annihilation Barge with Gauss Cannon and Mephrite Half Range is a bit over 5.
It's an useful tool, but you got incredibly lucky.

I'm honestly baffled by the annihilation barge. A load of AP0 D1 shots don't seem to be at all what you want in 9th. I guess they'd be pretty useful against DE infantry, but obviously not against any kind of vehicle.

It looks to me like the best approach is to try and outscore the Primary, forcing the DE out of their paper planes. I don't know if that would work but I do know you can't reliably kill a load of raiders with tesla.

As I said, in conjunction with our other anti tank. So DDAs, Stalkers, Doom Scythes, etc. depending on the build. Firing in the correct order is important as you hit with your large damage dedicated AT guns first to try and get spikes then clean up with a barge, shoot the next one with a dedicated AT, clean up with a barge, rinse and repeat. This also mean deploying well to set up your shots correctly.. Often a Doom Scythe will take one out all on its own. Pop a few of them and you have decent chances of getting an explosion which they are often bunched up because of trying to get behind cover. That adds a few more wounds to the mix. A well timed mephrit strat helps out as well.

Mandragola wrote:
I'm honestly baffled by the annihilation barge. A load of AP0 D1 shots don't seem to be at all what you want in 9th. I guess they'd be pretty useful against DE infantry, but obviously not against any kind of vehicle.

It looks to me like the best approach is to try and outscore the Primary, forcing the DE out of their paper planes. I don't know if that would work but I do know you can't reliably kill a load of raiders with tesla.

Tesla bounces off especially against bikers.
DE infantry is vulnerable. But the transports are fast and often only need to survive for one turn to bring their load in close proximity to an appropriate target.

I understand there will be more raiders than doomscythes but that’s got to be our best option yeah? 2 doomscythes each pop a transport with their doom ray and they each shoot a third target with the Tesla, maybe you’ll get 3 transports round one, that should make a difference.

Cauthon wrote:
I understand there will be more raiders than doomscythes but that’s got to be our best option yeah? 2 doomscythes each pop a transport with their doom ray and they each shoot a third target with the Tesla, maybe you’ll get 3 transports round one, that should make a difference.

That's not how this works, that's not how any of this works.

You have to determine points efficiency and compare with alternative units and not just say "ah yeah that'll kill a unit" just because it fires 3 BIG DAMAGE shots.

A doomray does 5,56 damage to a Raider, a twin tesla destructor does 3,33 (4,44 if Mephrit is taking effect).

2 Doomscythes are unlikely to kill more than 1, let alone 3.

While I agree that firing the Teslas off at another target is a mistake, by your own math, a Mephrit Doom Scythe kills exactly one raider on average.

 Maelstrom808 wrote:
While I agree that firing the Teslas off at another target is a mistake, by your own math, a Mephrit Doom Scythe kills exactly one raider on average.

Still unlikely to kill 2 (probably 30% chance) and 3 is never happening. Getting 2 Raiders low enough your ABs can pick them off? Super likely. I'm just trying to be realistic, I still haven't used a flyer in 9th.

 vict0988 wrote:

 Maelstrom808 wrote:
While I agree that firing the Teslas off at another target is a mistake, by your own math, a Mephrit Doom Scythe kills exactly one raider on average.

Still unlikely to kill 2 (probably 30% chance) and 3 is never happening. Getting 2 Raiders low enough your ABs can pick them off? Super likely. I'm just trying to be realistic, I still haven't used a flyer in 9th.

What else are you going to use that can do it better?

Cauthon wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:

 Maelstrom808 wrote:
While I agree that firing the Teslas off at another target is a mistake, by your own math, a Mephrit Doom Scythe kills exactly one raider on average.

Still unlikely to kill 2 (probably 30% chance) and 3 is never happening. Getting 2 Raiders low enough your ABs can pick them off? Super likely. I'm just trying to be realistic, I still haven't used a flyer in 9th.

What else are you going to use that can do it better?

Heavy Lokhust Destroyers, they'll kill one each in shooting and another one in melee. /s

You'll have to wait a month if you want me to math it out.

Heavy destroyers, in melee...lol

3 heavy destroyers put out 3 strength 10 shots for 6 damage.

1 doom scythe puts out 3 shots at strength 12 for 5 damage.

Doom scythe also has the Tesla.

Doom scythe is cheaper.

I don’t think your math is going to favor the heavy destroyers squads but I’ve been wrong before.

I’ll take the wounding on 2’s vs t6 and the mobility. Heavy destroyers degrade worse than doomscythes when you take into account the stellar alignment strat.

The heavy destroyers will also have a harder time having los. At -1 to be shot at and +1 toughness the doomscythe is at least as survivable as heavy destroyers. The heavy destroyers can hide but then how much work are they getting done?

How come I cant say doomscythes can kill raiders but you get to claim heavy destroyers can do it better? Where’s your points efficiency comparison?

I wasn’t expecting to kill three a turn, was a maybe, best case scenario, pie in the sky. If your doom ray comes up short then put the Tesla into that raider as well, obviously.

Otherwise raiders make almost as good a target for Tesla as anything, especially considering we don’t have many options to take them out and it needs to happen at long range to be worthwhile.

One doomscythe and a unit of heavy destroyers would probably be better than two of either but I’m personally not investing in heavy destroyers.

Also those Dark Lances will eat your flyers with ease if you don't get first turn.