Benefit of venoms over Raiders?

Is there any actual benefit to taking a venom over a raider in a Dark Eldar army? They cost the same, have the same armour values, the Raider his arguably better armed because of its disintegrator cannon, the raider's lack of an invulnerable save is offset by having 3 hull points instead of two and the raider has twice the transport capacity. Also taking a raider means that you can give your HQ a five member bodyguard and still have them in a transport. I don't see why you would take a venom even if your squad only has five members as the raider just seems to be a better option. Am I missing something?

I had to think about this twice. It comes down to what you want to do with them. If you have lots of assault troops take raiders. They are a little baulky but they can get 30 troops or elites across the battlefield in one movement phase. If you give them Enhanced Aether sails and Night Shields, that's 36" flat out and +1 to your cover save, read Jink. That is a multiple threat in a confined space to give your opponent a headache. And while it is a big target a 3+ cover save is better in my book than a 5+ invuln'. Of course you don't get cover it they are assaulted but being open topped, everyone on board can overwatch.

However, if you are not into assault, then 3 venoms with two splinter canon put down a lot of fire on hoard armies and can still scream across the table with elite units and the same special equipment as the raider for survivability and their primary role is probably line breaker. They strike me as a little more survivable than bikes which don't get the vehicle upgrades or have the firepower their cousins have, (Think Dar jet bikes with a Warlock in the unit).

In both cases, the passengers hop off in the next turn to cause a little grief with whatever you have decked them out with.

As a non DE player, but having seen them in action plenty of times, I suppose I'll share my 2 cents.

I think venoms shouldn't be considered transports as much but rather mobile weapon platforms with small transport capacity. Every time I saw venoms on the table they were used for their double splinter cannon shots, if you run 4+ of them, it gets a bit spammy, but it can take out quite a lot of infantry units in a single turn of shooting. Often I didn't even see models being transported by a venom and they footslogged the other way around while venoms brought the pain with multiple barrages of splinter cannons.

The Venom is cheaper in real world cost.

In my list, the Venom is taken as a dedicated transport for a max sized Kabalite Warrior squad with maximum Blasters, and a Haemonculus with Webway Portal. Everything pops out of the portal, and the Venom screws off.

It was a MSU style of play. You NEEDED venoms in an Extreme MSU unit list. Each 5man only had 4 poison shots or 8 up close and 1 Blaster. With a few 2-3 blasterborn units (Trueborns with 3-4 blasters). It was a pretty large amount of S8 and Poison.

My average list looked like this (before the update to the Draft faqs)


Lhameans: Venom+SC
Warriors: Blaster, Venom+SC
Warriors: Blaster, Venom+SC
Warriors: Blaster, Venom+SC
Warriors: Blaster, Venom+SC
Warriors: Blaster, Venom+SC
Warriors: Blaster, Venom+SC
Reaver x3: HL + Caltrops
Reaver x3: HL + Caltrops
Reaver x3: HL + Caltrops
Reaver x3: HL + Caltrops
CTC: x5 HL's


12 ObjSec units, 4 units that can get anywhere at anytime, a extreme hard hitting/survivable unit with scout and you lose in a Kill point game :)

EDIT: Raiders are fine and you still can use MSU with it, but it is harder to get more poison shots, you will have ALOT more S5/AP2 and we might see DE meta move to this with Jink changes. you can also do Gunboat, they are High Risk High Reward and I mean HIGH RISK. 10 Warriors all Poison with Cannon and Splinter Racks, if someone DS's for moves fast close to one they will be takes 36 shots with rerolls of 1, on average 16 wound/saves not counting the vehicle it self.

But thats hard to keep alive, I know a few people that play them very well, I personal never like them. And I have tried them many times.