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  1. #1
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    Default Dark Eldar - The Good, The Bad, The Pointless

    Alright, so we've gotten a few weeks in with the Codex and some people have more playtesting than others.. but let's help some of the newbies out there to help finesse some lists and weed out the bad upgrades out there that can confound people. I'm going to throw out my opinions on a few things I've found, feel free to put in yours!

    Let's start with two of the most common upgrades we're going to see: Flickerfields and Night Shields. Both of these can be taken on all of the DE vehicles (the Venom comes stock with Flickerfields) and have interesting effects. Flickerfields gives a 5+ invuln save to the vehicle, and Night Shields reduces range of weapons firing on the vehicle by 6" (which also, by the way, turns Rapid Fire range from 12" to 6", and really damages Melta range).

    Night Shields: Awesome, especially on Ravagers, Razorwings, Voidravens, and Raiders that intend to sit back on objectives. This simple upgrade allows you to out-range Chimeras, and forces your enemy to get closer to you in order to get shots off, which means you'll have an easier time getting into close combat range. However, I would not recommend this upgrade for Raiders that you intend to charge forward into the fray, as the effect effectively becomes pointless, wasted points as you're already up in your opponent's face anyway.

    Flickerfields: Not as awesome as a 4+ cover save. Let's be honest, this isn't the Smoke Launchers we may wish it was, but, granted, ignoring 1/3rd of the shots may be the difference between life and death. When a squad of 3 Obliterators fires on your Raider, 2 of those shots will hit and both will probably pen. Being able to ignore one of those Pen results will help keep your Raider alive that much longer, but it's not going to save you for very long. Remember, that one other pen result can still trash your transport; we're talking about AV 10, open-topped here after all. I would not recommend putting this on Ravagers, Razorwings, or Raiders that intend to sit back, but on Voidravens that want to use that Void Mine, or Raiders that intend to charge into the fray where cover is going to be sparse, why not? It's better than nothing, but if you're pinched for points elsewhere in your army, drop this upgrade.

    That's the dirty of both those upgrades. Here's a few more.

    Enhanced Aethersails: Why? Why would you take this? You don't get to shoot if you use them, and while, yes, they can get you across the table, moving Flat Out with your vehicles should get you far enough as is. Wasted points, but situational at best.

    Retrofire Jets: Best on Ravagers or Raiders full of Warriors, but if you're going to spend the points, why not just get Duke Sliscus and upgrade a squad of anti-infantry Trueborn while you're at it, and be able to deepstrike everything?

    Shock Prow: I haven't seen too many tank shocks in my time, I really haven't. If you're that kind of player, why not? Go for it, you can get a lot of speed out of a Raider and a Shock Prow will do some damage with that in mind, but I'd rather put the points elsewhere.

    Torment Grenade Launchers: Don't use these against anything that's going to pass it's leadership anyway, ie Space Marines or Chaos Marines or Fearless things. Against Orks and Guard you could get some use out of this as you shoot them to death and force those morale checks, but your Raider has to be right in their face to make use of it, so plan accordingly. Not worth the points in an all-comers list.

    Splinter Racks: This upgrade is nice actually. Re-rolling to-hits on poisoned weapons is beautiful, especially with a squad of Warriors inside. You'll pump out a lot of nice damage with those splinter rifles, but don't go putting splinter racks on just anything and everything.

    Grisly Trophies: This upgrade might do well if you like Wyches and Wracks as troops. Being able to re-roll failed leadership tests after losing a combat may be the difference between getting the squad wiped by a sweeping advance and staying in the fight for one more round. Your Raider still has to be really close to the unit, which typically isn't the best idea depending on where you're fighting, so I wouldn't bother with this too much either.

    Envenomed Blades: If your opponent is assaulting your transports, you're either doing something very right or he's doing something very silly. Raiders are so squishy that they can be shot to death by Bolters and so there should rarely be a point where a Raider is assaulted. If you intend to use your Raiders to stave off assaults from other units, then this might help a little, but that's situational at best. Put the points elsewhere.

    Chain Snares: This is essentially a slightly better version of the Reaver Bladevanes for two reasons. 1. it's d3+1 hits (so you'll always get at least 2) and 2. You don't have to turbo-boost to use it. It's still a weak attack, as cover and armor saves can be taken against it, and you're only getting a max of 4 hits for this upgrade, and it doesn't effect vehicles at all. Unless you like Raider Suicide, I wouldn't bother with this upgrade.

    That covers the vehicle upgrades for the Dark Eldar Codex. Thoughts? I'll be extending this next with the Arcane wargear, the most confusing of the sections!

  2. #2

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    See i disagree with your night shields and flicker field thing other then that i agree with everything you posted. I think night shields are best used on raiders. You have to remember rapid fire is really 18 inches (move unit 6 in ches foword rapid fire 12. So if you fly your raider 11 and a half inches forward. They move up 6 shoot 12 now your being rapid fired by troops on your Transports and meltas are hitting you. So now they don't have to use their big guns on your transports they can use them on your ravagers and stuff in the back. Now with night shields they move 6 and shoot 6. So now you can move 11 and 1/2 and be out of range on turn one always making them choose whether to use their heavies on your transports or your heavies.

    Flickerfields i feel are best for your Long ranged guys like ravagers, Lets say 3 oblits shoot at your ravager 1 should miss one should get blocked by your flicker field and one should pen. Assuming their not all in the same group that means statisicly he had to waste 3 shots on one target and your other 2 ravagers are all good.

    Just my 2 cents.

    Sorry about grammar english is my second language

  3. #3
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bleakz87 View Post
    See i disagree with your night shields and flicker field thing other then that i agree with everything you posted. I think night shields are best used on raiders. You have to remember rapid fire is really 18 inches (move unit 6 in ches foword rapid fire 12. So if you fly your raider 11 and a half inches forward. They move up 6 shoot 12 now your being rapid fired by troops on your Transports and meltas are hitting you. So now they don't have to use their big guns on your transports they can use them on your ravagers and stuff in the back. Now with night shields they move 6 and shoot 6. So now you can move 11 and 1/2 and be out of range on turn one always making them choose whether to use their heavies on your transports or your heavies.

    Flickerfields i feel are best for your Long ranged guys like ravagers, Lets say 3 oblits shoot at your ravager 1 should miss one should get blocked by your flicker field and one should pen. Assuming their not all in the same group that means statisicly he had to waste 3 shots on one target and your other 2 ravagers are all good.

    Just my 2 cents.

    Sorry about grammar english is my second language
    You do make an excellent case for Night Shields, though I still disagree with the Flickerfield (who takes single Oblits? They're going to be in groups of 3 and there's going to be 2 more of those groups).

    So let's agree that Night Shields have their uses on just about everything.. but Flickerfields.. are up in the air. Anything that can sit back and get a 4+ cover save from terrain should endeavor to do so, so Flickerfields aren't as useful in that regard.

  4. #4

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    Well i feel like a tool because my 1,500 point Nurgle list had a defiler a group of 2 oblits and a single one. as my 3 heavy support options. I won alot of tournaments with it. I'm just saying that flicker field makes me have to use both my oblit squads to take down one ravager (statistically) But your absolutely right most army's run with more then 3 in separate squads but lets assume they take 9. The flicker fields still statistically shrug off one shot. And it just puts the odds in your favor of keeping your heavies alive. I would never put them on raiders though too much **** will be shooting at them turn 2 to warrant it.

  5. #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bleakz87 View Post
    Well i feel like a tool because my 1,500 point Nurgle list had a defiler a group of 2 oblits and a single one. as my 3 heavy support options. I won alot of tournaments with it. I'm just saying that flicker field makes me have to use both my oblit squads to take down one ravager (statistically) But your absolutely right most army's run with more then 3 in separate squads but lets assume they take 9. The flicker fields still statistically shrug off one shot. And it just puts the odds in your favor of keeping your heavies alive. I would never put them on raiders though too much **** will be shooting at them turn 2 to warrant it.
    Precisely.

    The main problem I have with Flickerfields is that.. in the 9 Oblit scenario (let's just say they're using Lascannons) they only have to roll a 2 or better to penetrate weak 10 armor, or a 3+ to pen Ravager armor. That's the worst they'll ever have to do against the common Raider or Ravager, and so when you get models with Lascannons at BS 4, two of every three is going to hit, and then 5 of every 6 that hit are going to pen. If you shrug off one of every three, that still leaves one of every three that's going to do serious damage, especially since the vehicles are open-topped and add +1 to the pen roll. Sadly, there's no getting around it that if your opponent focuses fire against your vehicles, he's going to destroy them.

    So, yeah, 5+ is certainly better than nothing, and it could save you, but 2 of every 3 times it's not going to do very much at all, so is it worth the points in a Codex that requires more bodies and more weapons on the table to do a successful alpha-strike? In my opinion, not as much. There's where the heart of the problem is. If you have 6 Raiders and 3 Ravagers, that's 90 points that could be going to more Dark Lances, Blasters, and other deadly upgrades on the table.

  6. #6

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    I mean thats assuming hes got that much oblits, Lets say he does thats a 225 point unit he used to kill a 115 point ravager. Since my transports have night shields no shots were done to my transports and i go on to School him. Now most likely people will have 2 groups of two in which case he might do nothing at all one misses one gets shruged off. So lets say one ravager dies one lives those minscule points just kept 3 dark lance shots around for one more turn. Now i shoot his oblits with my 3 ravagers and they die to insta death since im Str 8 armor pen 2. Either way he either wasted 225 points of shooting to kill a 115 point skimmer boat and my raiders get in unscathed and own face. Or he doesnt have 9 oblits and 2 ravagers live.

    Once again Statistically.

    Edit: and this is assuming he gets turn one. I may get the first round do shooting and and Wither his 9 oblits making them 6 once again saving a ravager statisticly.

  7. #7
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    Flickerfields have a number of uses, but I'm not 100% sure that they are 10 points worth of useful. Flicerfields are one of those items that will be absolute godsends when they do work and utterly worthless when they don't. With an open-topped transport, I frankly think that flickerfields simply aren't worth the investment. On the Ravager or either aircraft, they are a smart option but one that can still be bested by the other options. such as...

    Nightshields are the most ridiculous thing in the game so long as you aren't playing against Imperial Guard or another army that is heavily reliant on template and blast weapons. Nightshields have a number of purposes, not the least of which is making rapid-fire enemy weapons nearly useless. With RF weapons defaulting to RF when the unit moves, it makes the effective threat range of many armies including Tau and Space Marines very short for any mechanized unit. Scream out across the table at full speed and this gear that makes so many weapons downright incapable of hitting your unit all the less effective. For an army that is supposedly a glass cannon, this upgrade can increase the survivability of any mechanized unit exponentially.

    Shock Prow is a very interesting option, especially after considering the new codex. It is not worth taking without it's buddy, aethersails. Aethersails allow an average roll and smart positioning to turn your half-destroyed skimmer into a S10 missile of fury. HOWEVER, you must disembark units first or the collision will likely wipe them out completely. If you were to combine this with the -1Ld Tormentor Grenades, this could actually be a ridiculously vicious combo of game winning proportions, but it's too reliant on lucky dice rolling to work for most people.

    Disintegrator Cannons are a weapon that many people in my area are dismissing as not being a worthwhile swap, but that's because so many are looking to punch through massed armor on the first turn--a noble goal, to be sure. But I want you to imagine what any other unit with 9 S5 AP2 shots would be described as and come back to me. Razorwing Jetfighters can put out so many wounds on a turn with these it can only be described as embarrassing.

  8. #8

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    Shock prow with torment grenades is a very powerful tool to have for just 10 points. Basically steals a page out of eldar playbook and does it with -1 ld.

  9. #9

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    one thing i dont think that many people realize is that dont you also get to use the 5+ flickerfield in death or glory, melee attacks, and anything else that acauses damage results?

  10. #10
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    Quote Originally Posted by thecactusman17 View Post
    Disintegrator Cannons are a weapon that many people in my area are dismissing as not being a worthwhile swap, but that's because so many are looking to punch through massed armor on the first turn--a noble goal, to be sure. But I want you to imagine what any other unit with 9 S5 AP2 shots would be described as and come back to me. Razorwing Jetfighters can put out so many wounds on a turn with these it can only be described as embarrassing.
    The problem is taking them on Raiders, where you only get one of them. Remember, we're not Space Marines. Our transports will die from glancing shots and we don't have smoke launchers to help our Raiders stay alive. Many times, many Raiders will not get the opportunity to pump out anti-infantry shots, so it's better to give them the Dark Lances for that anti-tank shot so that the rest of your army can chew up the infantry when the transports are all gone.

    You're absolutely right with Razorwings though. Razorwings with 4 Shatterfield missiles, Disintegrator Cannons, and a Splinter Cannon can pump out an ungodly amount of damage from long-range. This is the model that I see people using to get enemies off of objectives late-game.

    Quote Originally Posted by Tacoo View Post
    one thing i dont think that many people realize is that dont you also get to use the 5+ flickerfield in death or glory, melee attacks, and anything else that acauses damage results?
    This is true, but even then it's still just as useful/useless. You're only shrugging off 1/3rd of attacks, and let's face it.. Compared to Rhinos, the enemy is going to have many more options that can kill Raiders and can bring small-arms fire into the mix instead of wasting their big plasma, las, and melta options, so when an enemy focuses their fire against a vehicle in our army, it's going to die, invuln save or not. Then, when the vehicle explodes you're going to be scratching your head wondering why your 5+ invuln save didn't help you. Talk to a Chaos Daemons player and they'll tell you how often 5+ invuln has helped them against anything. It's better than nothing, but there are better ways to get saves on your vehicle (hiding it, going flat out, which for us confers a cover save, etc..)

    Simply playing strategically will do more for your Raider than a point-sink upgrade. If you have the points, why not? But when you look at it, you could also have a Haemonculus Ancient with Animus Vitae and a Venom Blade for the same amount of points as 6 Raiders and 3 Ravagers with Flickerfields.

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