Obsessions for a Tantalus

Cerve wrote:

DT is horrible on FW anyway imho, the last thing you want is lossing D3 MW per turn (2D3 sometimes, with Tantalus). Just spam Raiders, you get 2+ wounds on DLs which way less self damage.

I don't understand this point for a few reasons. For the equivalent cost of 2 Reapers you can "spam" 3.5 Raiders. 3.5 lance shots is the average amount of shots a single Reaper generates. So going with Raiders halves the average damage output of an equivalent cost of Reapers. And obviously the spike damage is much lower with Raiders too. You have 3.5 lances and that's the best you can do. 2 Reapers can roll hot and have 12 lance shots.

Going with Raiders also maximizes the amount of mortal wounds you can suffer in a turn. Every single 1 that Raiders roll inflicts D3 mortal wounds. With a Reaper it doesn't matter how many 1s you roll, you only suffer 1D3 mortal wounds. The worst turn possible for 3.5 Raiders is 10.5 mortal wounds suffered. The worst turn possible for 2 Reapers is 6 mortal wounds suffered. And let's not forget that if a raider rolls a 1 to hit it is both not doing any damage and it is suffering mortal wounds. If a Reaper rolls a 1 to hit, it still has other lance shots that are probably hitting and doing damage.

And finally, Reapers have the dispersed profile for their gun. 2D6 blast with S6, +1 to wound, AP-1 and D2 can be very handy against hordes. The Raiders would be mostly useless.


So because you can't really "spam" Raiders as a replacement for Reapers, because they do less damage, are less versatile, and also maximize the amount of mortal wounds you can suffer in a turn, no. They are a much worse platform for DT lances than Reapers.

sekac wrote:

Cerve wrote:

DT is horrible on FW anyway imho, the last thing you want is lossing D3 MW per turn (2D3 sometimes, with Tantalus). Just spam Raiders, you get 2+ wounds on DLs which way less self damage.

I don't understand this point for a few reasons. For the equivalent cost of 2 Reapers you can "spam" 3.5 Raiders. 3.5 lance shots is the average amount of shots a single Reaper generates. So going with Raiders halves the average damage output of an equivalent cost of Reapers. And obviously the spike damage is much lower with Raiders too. You have 3.5 lances and that's the best you can do. 2 Reapers can roll hot and have 12 lance shots.

Going with Raiders also maximizes the amount of mortal wounds you can suffer in a turn. Every single 1 that Raiders roll inflicts D3 mortal wounds. With a Reaper it doesn't matter how many 1s you roll, you only suffer 1D3 mortal wounds. The worst turn possible for 3.5 Raiders is 10.5 mortal wounds suffered. The worst turn possible for 2 Reapers is 6 mortal wounds suffered. And let's not forget that if a raider rolls a 1 to hit it is both not doing any damage and it is suffering mortal wounds. If a Reaper rolls a 1 to hit, it still has other lance shots that are probably hitting and doing damage.

And finally, Reapers have the dispersed profile for their gun. 2D6 blast with S6, +1 to wound, AP-1 and D2 can be very handy against hordes. The Raiders would be mostly useless.


So because you can't really "spam" Raiders as a replacement for Reapers, because they do less damage, are less versatile, and also maximize the amount of mortal wounds you can suffer in a turn, no. They are a much worse platform for DT lances than Reapers.

The answer it simple: They are transports.

Drukhari lives in Trasports, precisely in Raiders (for now). So you have to buy them anyway, more points to spend.
Because they're Transports, they're going to: 1) cover way more roles than a single fire platform; 2) going to be more resilient, because you will field 5-6 of them (pretty easy even in a single Patrol) so you're going to divide each Lance into 10 Wounds. Killing a single Reaper is all about being difficult, and with that single blow you're losing all your firepower. With this in mind, you get that that single D3 MW on a single Reaper is way more worse than that single D3 MW on that single Raider. Even if you are unluck and you will roll two 1s onto 3 Raiders (for example) they will be always better than that single 1 on the Reaper just because of the granularity of the multiple bodies that you have.

You run 3 Patrols right? Or even 2 if you want. You have that single DT one. So you decide to buy 2 Reapers. Then what? You have to buy Transports anyway, so you're going to buy Raiders. My advice here is to skip Reapers and just buy more Raiders from the DT one. DT drawback is horrible onto the single body for what I already said, where is pretty good on multiple bodies. If you run 6 Raiders, usually you will take 1D3 MW IF you enhance all of their dark lances on the turn. Sometimes you will be unlucky so you will get 2 D3 MW on 2 different Raiders. But when you have 6 bodies that works only as a fast shield for you infantry (which IS the heart of the list) you're ok to get some wounds because is what Raiders are.
But when you deploy a single (or double, or triple if you want) Reapers, you're not going to waste them. The enemy will already try to kill them and you don't really want to wound themselves, because they're not expendable like Transports, they are you base firepower. They become precious.

That's why DT is bad on them imho.

Cerve wrote:

sekac wrote:

Cerve wrote:

DT is horrible on FW anyway imho, the last thing you want is lossing D3 MW per turn (2D3 sometimes, with Tantalus). Just spam Raiders, you get 2+ wounds on DLs which way less self damage.

I don't understand this point for a few reasons. For the equivalent cost of 2 Reapers you can "spam" 3.5 Raiders. 3.5 lance shots is the average amount of shots a single Reaper generates. So going with Raiders halves the average damage output of an equivalent cost of Reapers. And obviously the spike damage is much lower with Raiders too. You have 3.5 lances and that's the best you can do. 2 Reapers can roll hot and have 12 lance shots.

Going with Raiders also maximizes the amount of mortal wounds you can suffer in a turn. Every single 1 that Raiders roll inflicts D3 mortal wounds. With a Reaper it doesn't matter how many 1s you roll, you only suffer 1D3 mortal wounds. The worst turn possible for 3.5 Raiders is 10.5 mortal wounds suffered. The worst turn possible for 2 Reapers is 6 mortal wounds suffered. And let's not forget that if a raider rolls a 1 to hit it is both not doing any damage and it is suffering mortal wounds. If a Reaper rolls a 1 to hit, it still has other lance shots that are probably hitting and doing damage.

And finally, Reapers have the dispersed profile for their gun. 2D6 blast with S6, +1 to wound, AP-1 and D2 can be very handy against hordes. The Raiders would be mostly useless.


So because you can't really "spam" Raiders as a replacement for Reapers, because they do less damage, are less versatile, and also maximize the amount of mortal wounds you can suffer in a turn, no. They are a much worse platform for DT lances than Reapers.

The answer it simple: They are transports.

Drukhari lives in Trasports, precisely in Raiders (for now). So you have to buy them anyway, more points to spend.
Because they're Transports, they're going to: 1) cover way more roles than a single fire platform; 2) going to be more resilient, because you will field 5-6 of them (pretty easy even in a single Patrol) so you're going to divide each Lance into 10 Wounds. Killing a single Reaper is all about being difficult, and with that single blow you're losing all your firepower. With this in mind, you get that that single D3 MW on a single Reaper is way more worse than that single D3 MW on that single Raider. Even if you are unluck and you will roll two 1s onto 3 Raiders (for example) they will be always better than that single 1 on the Reaper just because of the granularity of the multiple bodies that you have.

You run 3 Patrols right? Or even 2 if you want. You have that single DT one. So you decide to buy 2 Reapers. Then what? You have to buy Transports anyway, so you're going to buy Raiders. My advice here is to skip Reapers and just buy more Raiders from the DT one. DT drawback is horrible onto the single body for what I already said, where is pretty good on multiple bodies. If you run 6 Raiders, usually you will take 1D3 MW IF you enhance all of their dark lances on the turn. Sometimes you will be unlucky so you will get 2 D3 MW on 2 different Raiders. But when you have 6 bodies that works only as a fast shield for you infantry (which IS the heart of the list) you're ok to get some wounds because is what Raiders are.
But when you deploy a single (or double, or triple if you want) Reapers, you're not going to waste them. The enemy will already try to kill them and you don't really want to wound themselves, because they're not expendable like Transports, they are you base firepower. They become precious.

That's why DT is bad on them imho.  

You don't always need more Raiders though....

You can have a list with 20-30 Hellions, 12 Reavers, and just need 4 Raiders for Incubi/wyches. You take BH/DT Reapers to fill a long range role b..c you feel you have enough forward threat. You have your Kabals with the Incubi transports for wounds if it wrecks. Why waste points on another Raiders then?

Not every list needs to be 5-7 Raiders. Reapers, Ravagers, etc.. are still a role you can take and in DT you can now insure you get your wounds off and dealing more damage if that is what you want.

amishprn86 wrote:

Cerve wrote:

sekac wrote:

Cerve wrote:

DT is horrible on FW anyway imho, the last thing you want is lossing D3 MW per turn (2D3 sometimes, with Tantalus). Just spam Raiders, you get 2+ wounds on DLs which way less self damage.

I don't understand this point for a few reasons. For the equivalent cost of 2 Reapers you can "spam" 3.5 Raiders. 3.5 lance shots is the average amount of shots a single Reaper generates. So going with Raiders halves the average damage output of an equivalent cost of Reapers. And obviously the spike damage is much lower with Raiders too. You have 3.5 lances and that's the best you can do. 2 Reapers can roll hot and have 12 lance shots.

Going with Raiders also maximizes the amount of mortal wounds you can suffer in a turn. Every single 1 that Raiders roll inflicts D3 mortal wounds. With a Reaper it doesn't matter how many 1s you roll, you only suffer 1D3 mortal wounds. The worst turn possible for 3.5 Raiders is 10.5 mortal wounds suffered. The worst turn possible for 2 Reapers is 6 mortal wounds suffered. And let's not forget that if a raider rolls a 1 to hit it is both not doing any damage and it is suffering mortal wounds. If a Reaper rolls a 1 to hit, it still has other lance shots that are probably hitting and doing damage.

And finally, Reapers have the dispersed profile for their gun. 2D6 blast with S6, +1 to wound, AP-1 and D2 can be very handy against hordes. The Raiders would be mostly useless.


So because you can't really "spam" Raiders as a replacement for Reapers, because they do less damage, are less versatile, and also maximize the amount of mortal wounds you can suffer in a turn, no. They are a much worse platform for DT lances than Reapers.

The answer it simple: They are transports.

Drukhari lives in Trasports, precisely in Raiders (for now). So you have to buy them anyway, more points to spend.
Because they're Transports, they're going to: 1) cover way more roles than a single fire platform; 2) going to be more resilient, because you will field 5-6 of them (pretty easy even in a single Patrol) so you're going to divide each Lance into 10 Wounds. Killing a single Reaper is all about being difficult, and with that single blow you're losing all your firepower. With this in mind, you get that that single D3 MW on a single Reaper is way more worse than that single D3 MW on that single Raider. Even if you are unluck and you will roll two 1s onto 3 Raiders (for example) they will be always better than that single 1 on the Reaper just because of the granularity of the multiple bodies that you have.

You run 3 Patrols right? Or even 2 if you want. You have that single DT one. So you decide to buy 2 Reapers. Then what? You have to buy Transports anyway, so you're going to buy Raiders. My advice here is to skip Reapers and just buy more Raiders from the DT one. DT drawback is horrible onto the single body for what I already said, where is pretty good on multiple bodies. If you run 6 Raiders, usually you will take 1D3 MW IF you enhance all of their dark lances on the turn. Sometimes you will be unlucky so you will get 2 D3 MW on 2 different Raiders. But when you have 6 bodies that works only as a fast shield for you infantry (which IS the heart of the list) you're ok to get some wounds because is what Raiders are.
But when you deploy a single (or double, or triple if you want) Reapers, you're not going to waste them. The enemy will already try to kill them and you don't really want to wound themselves, because they're not expendable like Transports, they are you base firepower. They become precious.

That's why DT is bad on them imho.  

You don't always need more Raiders though....

You can have a list with 20-30 Hellions, 12 Reavers, and just need 4 Raiders for Incubi/wyches. You take BH/DT Reapers to fill a long range role b..c you feel you have enough forward threat. You have your Kabals with the Incubi transports for wounds if it wrecks. Why waste points on another Raiders then?

Not every list needs to be 5-7 Raiders. Reapers, Ravagers, etc.. are still a role you can take and in DT you can now insure you get your wounds off and dealing more damage if that is what you want.

But you don't need them on DT anyway. In fact, this playstyle makes your firesupport even more reliable. I would take them from Kabals, expecially if you consider how swingy are Reapers.
Well, in fact I would pick Ravagers ove Reapers all day long.


BUT because the topic was asking for Tantalus, I would not pick DT on it too.

PS: Balances are important for us. Playing 4 or less Raiders require a carefully thought about inner balance between number of veichle-ish threats and none. Basically less transports you play, less reliable they became. So...yeah just think it carefully. The posted list is good, but not good as it will be with 6 Raiders.

DT is an option, more nad more new units are higher toughness, take less wounds, has after saves, etc.. if you are in a meta with those then you might consider DT. I am not saying DT is best, I am saying you can not claim its bad. Ravager vs Reaper also is important if you are lacking anti-horde... say new T5 Ork meta, a Ravager is not going to help that much for you.

amishprn86 wrote:

DT is an option, more nad more new units are higher toughness, take less wounds, has after saves, etc.. if you are in a meta with those then you might consider DT. I am not saying DT is best, I am saying you can not claim its bad. Ravager vs Reaper also is important if you are lacking anti-horde... say new T5 Ork meta, a Ravager is not going to help that much for you.

No, wait, you have to consider the entire Codex itself. You will NEVER being lack of antinfantry, as you will never consider the Reaper for that role, c'mon.

I can say that DT is bad on every valuable unit by themselves, because you don't want the chances to kill yourself out. I you want D3, just play DT on expendable units loke Wracks (Hex+Osse) and Venoms. Expecially if you consider that the Reaper downscale on stats.

So, being IT, on FW I will never advice DT. Imho BT seems the most solid one.

Ähem, BT?

Cerve wrote:

amishprn86 wrote:

DT is an option, more nad more new units are higher toughness, take less wounds, has after saves, etc.. if you are in a meta with those then you might consider DT. I am not saying DT is best, I am saying you can not claim its bad. Ravager vs Reaper also is important if you are lacking anti-horde... say new T5 Ork meta, a Ravager is not going to help that much for you.

No, wait, you have to consider the entire Codex itself. You will NEVER being lack of antinfantry, as you will never consider the Reaper for that role, c'mon.

I can say that DT is bad on every valuable unit by themselves, because you don't want the chances to kill yourself out. I you want D3, just play DT on expendable units loke Wracks (Hex+Osse) and Venoms. Expecially if you consider that the Reaper downscale on stats.

So, being IT, on FW I will never advice DT. Imho BT seems the most solid one.

120 T5 Orks might be a new ork meta, or what about Silver tide armies, you can never have too much in some areas or opponents. Also its about points you need to do that is most effective for others lists, not always YOUR personal meta.

Suffering D3D is completely inconsequential unless it's the difference between living and dying. If the damage output increase is larger than the damage you suffer it's also worth it.


Perhaps it's worth it making a separate Dark Technomancer thread at this point?

Its a viable option and saying its not is personal choice. We don't need a thread to talk about that.

amishprn86 wrote:

Cerve wrote:

amishprn86 wrote:

DT is an option, more nad more new units are higher toughness, take less wounds, has after saves, etc.. if you are in a meta with those then you might consider DT. I am not saying DT is best, I am saying you can not claim its bad. Ravager vs Reaper also is important if you are lacking anti-horde... say new T5 Ork meta, a Ravager is not going to help that much for you.

No, wait, you have to consider the entire Codex itself. You will NEVER being lack of antinfantry, as you will never consider the Reaper for that role, c'mon.

I can say that DT is bad on every valuable unit by themselves, because you don't want the chances to kill yourself out. I you want D3, just play DT on expendable units loke Wracks (Hex+Osse) and Venoms. Expecially if you consider that the Reaper downscale on stats.

So, being IT, on FW I will never advice DT. Imho BT seems the most solid one.

120 T5 Orks might be a new ork meta, or what about Silver tide armies, you can never have too much in some areas or opponents. Also its about points you need to do that is most effective for others lists, not always YOUR personal meta.

I never talk about my meta.

T5 Orks are nothing for us, for 2 big points:
1) Poison shots/melee;
2) Our melee rely on Sr3 and Sr5+. Even with Witches, that means you don't even need to pick +1Sr drug, just go and roll double random.

No, you don't really need Reapers for Orks horde imho.


PS: saying it's a viable options is a personal view as is saying that's not....

Yziel wrote:

Suffering D3D is completely inconsequential unless it's the difference between living and dying. If the damage output increase is larger than the damage you suffer it's also worth it.


Perhaps it's worth it making a separate Dark Technomancer thread at this point?

No, the thread ask which Obsession is better with FW, and we are discussing about DT on FW. It is on topic.

Anyway, the difference IS between living and dying. With 6 Raiders you roll 6 dices, and if you lose a transport you don't care.
Reapers rolls 3D6 shots per turn (or 2D6 each sometimes, with blast), way more shots. And they are your fire support, you CARE if they die.
And most of it, they downscale. It is already a drawback, helping your oppo downscaling yourself doesn't sounds to me an "increasing your damage output" potential.

For me, the gain is not good enough

Well you can look at it this way too, its going to die b.c its a big target, go out with a BANG!

FWIW I played in a tournament yesterday with 2 DT Reapers and they were amazing.

Round 1 was vs double Dimachaeron/12 Hive Guard list. The Reapers killed 1 Dimacharaeon turn 1, the other turn 2, the Swarmlord turn 3, and Hive Guard turn 4. I tabled him turn 4. The highlight was a single Reaper forcing one Dima to take 28 FNP saves.

Round 2 went very poorly. The Scouring vs a triple Telemon Custodes list. The Reapers did what they could and I killed 1 telemon, but the other 2 just stomped through my list. Raiders would've died just the same. My opponent said he built the list to fight Drukhari and has about a 95% win rate against us, and I believe it! He won the tournament.

Round 3 was vs Morty, 120 Plaguebearers, and a rotten tree fortification that gives the whole army advance and charge and fall back and charge. I brought Morty to 8 wounds turn 1, killed him turn 2 with poison and other lances while the Reapers switched to blast mode and start wrecking plaguebearers. I ended up tabling him on turn 5 and I absolutely never would have accomplished that if I tried just using incidental poison shooting and melee. When combat starts he can pull wounds in such a way that it robs other combat units of a chance to activate. Having a guaranteed 24 shots that wound on 2s and force 2 FNP tests per failed invul was absolutely clutch. Both Reapers bracketed themselves with mortal wounds, but then turn 4 came and they went back up to shooting at full profile now that they have PfP.

The Reapers were included as a hold over until I have some other things painted for a new list but they performed so well that I'm not sure if I will be able to take them out.

I mean telmons are pretty bonkers, but then again I never considered FW stuff to be remotely balanced sooo..

toldavf wrote:

I mean telmons are pretty bonkers, but then again I never considered FW stuff to be remotely balanced sooo..

No more unbalanced than GW, some of the most broken stuff was b.c of normal GW and not FW. People only notice FW b.c its so rare to see on the table.

Cerve wrote:

No, the thread ask which Obsession is better with FW, and we are discussing about DT on FW. It is on topic.

Anyway, the difference IS between living and dying. With 6 Raiders you roll 6 dices, and if you lose a transport you don't care.
Reapers rolls 3D6 shots per turn (or 2D6 each sometimes, with blast), way more shots. And they are your fire support, you CARE if they die.
And most of it, they downscale. It is already a drawback, helping your oppo downscaling yourself doesn't sounds to me an "increasing your damage output" potential.

For me, the gain is not good enough

I'd say you are wrong on both accounts.

1. The topic is about the Tantalus not the Reaper or FW in  general.

2. DT Tantalus (or Reapers) being "good" or not is secondary to them being the best choice (or not)

3. How do you get Reapers to shoot 3d6 shots?

4. Your firesupport will die, it requires LoS and is super flimsy. Getting as much damage in as quickly as possible is more important than trying to keep them long term. Losing on average 2 Wounds per turn in exchange for, on the high end, more than double the efficency. If you only target is something where the efficency increase is a lot lower you can simply not activate DT.

5. Raider spam is an entirely different playstyle that is probably better in general but I have no clue why "just take Raiders" is even remotely relevant to a discussion about how to best run a Tantalus (or Reaper).

Relevant to the discussion at hand:

At the tournament I mentioned above, there was a Drukhari player who got 3rd with a Tantalus in his list. The list was a Black Heart/Cult of Strife/Dark Creed Realspace Raider battalion with a Cult of Strife (+Drazhar) patrol. The Tantalus was given the Black Heart obsession, obviously.

Sounds cool, was the Dark Creed just tax units or did it play a big role

Just tax. 5 wracks and a Haemonculus. He just went DC to get the warlord trait.

Yziel wrote:

Cerve wrote:

No, the thread ask which Obsession is better with FW, and we are discussing about DT on FW. It is on topic.

Anyway, the difference IS between living and dying. With 6 Raiders you roll 6 dices, and if you lose a transport you don't care.
Reapers rolls 3D6 shots per turn (or 2D6 each sometimes, with blast), way more shots. And they are your fire support, you CARE if they die.
And most of it, they downscale. It is already a drawback, helping your oppo downscaling yourself doesn't sounds to me an "increasing your damage output" potential.

For me, the gain is not good enough

I'd say you are wrong on both accounts.

1. The topic is about the Tantalus not the Reaper or FW in  general.

2. DT Tantalus (or Reapers) being "good" or not is secondary to them being the best choice (or not)

3. How do you get Reapers to shoot 3d6 shots?

4. Your firesupport will die, it requires LoS and is super flimsy. Getting as much damage in as quickly as possible is more important than trying to keep them long term. Losing on average 2 Wounds per turn in exchange for, on the high end, more than double the efficency. If you only target is something where the efficency increase is a lot lower you can simply not activate DT.

5. Raider spam is an entirely different playstyle that is probably better in general but I have no clue why "just take Raiders" is even remotely relevant to a discussion about how to best run a Tantalus (or Reaper).

4. I eneded a lot of games with my Ravagers alive. It's just a matter of giving presure on your opponent, losing your firepower support is not mandatory.

For the rest: just read better my words

amishprn86 wrote:

Well you can look at it this way too, its going to die b.c its a big target, go out with a BANG!

The above is basically my opinion of the Tantalus. No matter what you do it is at risk of being targeted and attacked. That being the case, why not make the most of it's output before it goes down in flames? You probably don't want to depend on it as a primary source of output anyways. If they target it, then take away as many choices from them as possible. if they don't then punish them for not doing so. In this regard I think DT absolutely synergizes with a tantalus.

Given that this is a dice game and using DT on a tantalus is definitely a high-risk decision I can see where some players may opt to not go this route. I think that comes down to play-style.