I play Tau and marines and have fooled around with most of the armies from one time or another, although I have not taken that many more to tournament. Tau, Grey Knights, Lysander Wing, Tau again, Codex Space Marines.
So I am not coming at this new Dark Eldar codex with any previous Dark Eldar experience, which is both good and bad. Good because I want to take a look at builds and things that other people who play it may overlook. Bad because I can't simply update an army, I am going to build it from the bottom up. I want to try and figure out what works, and what doesn't. I'm not going to put a list here as I honestly can't make an actuall assessment of numbers, I have to see that shit on the table.
So I want to talk about the Raider, and why the Raider is not the Rhino.
They aren't the same, you do understand that... right? Yes, it's obvious they have different points/costs/stats, but I believe they have two completely different uses.
No one, doesn't take a Rhino. It's 35 pts, it's ubiquitous, it's really worth it to block LOS, it's cheap and for it's point cost it's hard to remove from the table. I can't remember I saw the last tactical squad on foot that didn't have an attached transport. It was the hard candy shell that the marines needed to last on the table. It also cost 2.3 marines, and definitely was harder to kill then that.
The Raider is none of those things. The base raider is double that point value, and is easy to remove from the table. The rhino is a automatic purchase, you have to have it. The raider is different, I think that you need to make an activie decision of WTF you want to do with it. Filling it with Kabalite Warriors and driving around like some sort of future BDSM pimp simply isn't going to work. The Raider costs more then 6 warriors, and honestly, if you are in cover, I think 6 warriors in cover will last longer then a rhino.
A raider is not a hard coated shell, it is just more soft chocolate. This is at least true for warriors. The raider is made to carry large squads (10) to a certain place and then blow up. In a best case scenario they manage to make it to hand to hand combat. Then they blow up.
This is my problem with the Raider. In the old game they were required, as the basic warrior was complete trash (str 3 gun.... please). The warrior is not crap anymore, he's actually pretty awesome.
For that purpose wytches in a raider seem to make a lot of sense. It gives them an additional 14 inch charge range (ok 14.9) and may actually be a hard coated shell for them as they are more expensive and have a 6+ save vs a 5+ save. I'm actually having a hard time wrapping my mind around wytches at the moment, and need to play test them, so I don't want to talk about them.
I'm strongly considering playtesting a few warrior squads on foot right now. 20 warriors with 2 splinter cannons kicks out 30 posisoned shots a turn (18+12) 20 hits, 10 wounds. It will kill a trygon in two turns and will kill a wraithlord in 1. It will kill a C'Tan in one turn.... one turn. They sit in cover and blast away. If not the splinter cannons, throw in two dark lances and they can fire at vehicles at 36 the later in the game fire their weapon. They shoot like marines but better against toughness 4+ and cost 2/3 the cost.
Also, 20 guys in cover, except for flamers, are pretty hard to move out of it, or you could give them a feel no pain token and then let them be a little harder.
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I think the Raider (or another transport) is still largely your go-to option for DE, but you are very correct that it serves a different role than the Rhino.
ReplyDeleteRhinos are battle taxis. You take them where you want to go and sit in it and wait. They add survivability and mobility for a small price.
Raiders are duality engines; they add firepower (either anti-infantry or anti-tank, as you please) to your army and up your mobility a lot. Kabalites on foot... really aren't going to do much, because they're T3 and can't spam Dark Lances any more. (I do think there are "foot" lists, in the sense of ones without lots of transports, that you can build from the DE book, but they aren't going to focus on the same kinds of units.) 20 guys in cover are super-tough until you pile one Dreadnought or assault unit in there and tear them to pieces. (For reference, they kill one Marine when charged, and then those Tacticals do three wounds back and quite possibly sweep them- god forbid you're fighting ASM or something real.)
I would never assault marines with my warriors. I agree the math is bad. But if you double tapped with 18 warriors that's 24 hits, 12 wounds, 4 dead marines. If they assault, the DE go first and get 3 wounds from normal attacks and maybe 1 from an agonizer, so at best 2 dead. Marines kill 2 or so, and you lock in. I think the DE will win that actually. Math's different with grey hunters as well.
ReplyDeleteI think that DE didn't work on foot (and I'm not advocating a ton of them now) in the last edition of the game because the splinter rifle was shit. The problem I have with putting them in the raider is... why bother? What are they getting? Mobility? They are a ranged unit (with heavy weapons). If you want to run a small squad of 5 guys with a blaster and blaster pistol, in a vyper... now that seems like a better option. It's the 10 man squad + heavy in a the transport that can't move and shoot the infantry gun that confuses me a bit.
I guess you could put the splinter reloader thing on them, that wouldn't be bad.
It's not shit now.
Now... you are damn well right on the dreadnought, unless he gets knocked out by a brightlance, he is going to just destroy those DE... ouch.
There is no doubt that 30+ poison shots can and will do damage but what do you sacrifice to get a unit like that? In an army that supposely relys on speed will that hurt the army? Would that interfere with the vehicle ratio, av 10-11 vehicles that are open top die really quickly, but then again that may be a reason why you would bring a unit like this to add some diversity. Not really any help just asking more questions really, but I do know this Sean that if you want to look at the Codex our local Hobby shop infront of Oak Grove High School has a copy.
ReplyDeleteThat's what I heard. I think I will be heading up there today to take a look at it. Thanks man!
ReplyDelete