Deep Striking Raiders

So I'm thinking of ways of getting Wracks and Grotesques closer to the action and I'm thinking that Raiders with Retrofire's maybe an option.

There is no doubt they can survive a firey wreck, which is inevitable, but by Deep Striking we're only allowing 1 turn of enemy fire and then we can get stuck in. Deep Striking also allows us to choose where we want to land, and not to forget, the all important 18" Turbo Boost in the shooting phase.

Could even run the Grots without an IC.....you want them to do as much damage as possible - Grotesque-Bomb anyone?

Thoughts...

I have considered this before, but each time I come to the same conclusion why risk scatter when you can just turbo boost in from the board edge, add an enhanced aether sail and you have 32-42" range, that can almost always get you where you need to be. The only time the retrojets might be helpful is if your opponent was on his board edge in Hammer and Anvil. Why make things less reliable? Scatter adds unpredictability and risk of misshaping into terrain or ending off course. At least that's how I see it.

I agree with Mush.
As cool as DS is it requires your stuff to be in reserve for a few turns and risk scattering when they show.
Unless your playing on a very large table Turboboosters and Aethersails for a turn or two should get you where you need to be. Yes you will be on the table to fire at but you get the Turbo Jink and if you can soak fire with Jink its less shots the rest of your army would have taken had you been in reserve.

I third the motion. I will still DS occasionally, but I much rather having all of my options available to me from the beginning now, and Jink, Turboboosting and Aethersails allow me to do what I need to just fine without any uncertainty.

I ran a null deployment Duke list for a long time and had a lot of fun with it, deepstriking raiders, venoms and ravagers was interesting to say the least. This edition I feel its kind of a moot point. If you pay the points for retrofire jets your guys cant get out the turn they drop in at, and you're going to probably be wrecked and eating 10 s4 hits from the explosion leaving you possibly pinned in a crater that you may not even get out of the next turn.

Hi,

I've been lurking around here for a while but couldn't resist sharing my most recent Retrofire experience.

I was thinking similarly to the OP - Deep Strike then turboboost 18" away, leaving the enemy only one chance to shoot me down, having a very good chance to be positioned somewhere useful, and deploying in Turn 2 or later when I could react to my opponent's initial moves. And, of course, I was too scungy to use the Duke.

So I took two wyche squads in Raiders, and gave them retrofire jets. I put a Succubus in one, as my Warlord, as I find it helps the girls to deal a respectable amount of damage.

They both arrived on Turn 2. The first came in just as planned, hit the right spot, and later scooted to the edge of the field, ready to wreck some fire prism with haywire the next turn. The second, with my Succubus, rolled a pretty mean scatter. It narrowly avoided a mishap, by virtue of landing near an already wrecked Raider, but did land in a water feature.

Damn, so difficult terrain I guess? I rolled a one, so immobilised myself. No turboboosting for me.

Oh, except we had rolled on the mysterious water feature table earlier and discovered it was a fireblood river. So vehicles that are immobilised in it are automatically wrecked. Definitely no turboboosting for me now, no more Raider either.

With a sinking feeling akin to what my Raider might have experienced as it dipped below the waves of lava, I remembered that the Retrofire Jets prohibit disembarking on the turn of Deep Strike. Thus, my wyches, and Succubus - my Warlord - were lost with a whimper, at least as efficiently as if I had mishapped badly. In fact, I had successfully inserted a wrecked Raider by Deep Strike, and given my opponent 4VPs in the Purge mission we were playing.

At least I'd already given up First Blood. From memory I went on to lose by 3VPs.

So for the love of Shaimesh, if you are going to Deep Strike, use Duke Sliscus! Use Duke Sliscus! His initials are even the same as Deep Strike! Don't be stingy like me!

Now that I've got that off my chest, the points of the posters above re: taking aethersails instead are extremely valid, and the way I'll be going from now

I tried to deep strike units once, then I got an arrow in the knee.
Creeping Darkness has nailed it spot on. If deep striking use duke. Better yet use sails.

Welcome to The Dark CIty Creeping Darkness!

Creeping Darkness wrote:

With a sinking feeling akin to what my Raider might have experienced as it dipped below the waves of lava, I remembered that the Retrofire Jets prohibit disembarking on the turn of Deep Strike. Thus, my wyches, and Succubus - my Warlord - were lost with a whimper, at least as efficiently as if I had mishapped badly. In fact, I had successfully inserted a wrecked Raider by Deep Strike, and given my opponent 4VPs in the Purge mission we were playing.

You could have still emergency disembarked (I think)!

Quote :

If a model cannot disembark, because of enemies or because they would end up in impassable terrain, the unit can perform an emergency disembarkation. - BRB page 79

Thanks Mushkilla!

I wasn't sure if they were eligible for emergency disembarking, since they are disallowed by an obscure piece of wargear rather than by enemies or impassable terrain. I seem to recall a FAQ somewhere pointing out that if you wreck while going flat out on your own turn your passengers all die, as they can't disembark on the same turn as moving flat out (or over 6" now, I guess), and thought that this situation was similar. I can't seem to find it now, so I guess it must have been a 5th ed FAQ.

Having said that, I don't expect I will ever meet this situation again

that was indeed a 5th ed faq it was to stop people using aethersails and flatout ramming turn one with wyches and incubi and then surviving the wreck and charging ...

Which sadly was a tactic I used quite a bit.... Until I realised that I should keep my raiders alive for objective duty....

Ah yes, good times.

So... does wrecking while moving flat out not automatically wipe the passengers anymore?

It seems to me that the quote on emergency disembarkation is targeted to vehicles with access points - we disembark anywhere within 6" of the vehicle whether in an emergency or not! So I'm not sure if that overrides the need to be traveling 6" or less on the disembark.

Creeping Darkness wrote:

So... does wrecking while moving flat out not automatically wipe the passengers anymore?

In 5e that only happened if the vehicle was wrecked in your own Movement phase. A lot of people misunderstood that rule and thought it applied if the vehicle was wrecked in the opponents shooting phase.

I have considered deep striking Raiders in the past, but Aethersails are, to me, far more logical and far less risky.
My dice throws are notorious for making things like my Scourges land on Belial's head or making them twist their magpie ankles in some hazardous gravel.

helvexis wrote:

that was indeed a 5th ed faq it was to stop people using aethersails and flatout ramming turn one with wyches and incubi and then surviving the wreck and charging ...

I tried to look for this on current rules, but didn't find it by quicksearch. So does this still apply on 6th rules or is it FAQ:ed on this also?

What about deep striking Ravagers? Drop down behind an enemy vehicle or a dissie ravager behind an enemy MEQ. Could ruin some long fangs.

From Plastikente's Dark Eldar Unit Guide.

Quote :

Retrofire Jets. If you are going to start your Ravagers in reserve, these can be really useful in getting you a shot on side/rear armour that your opponent didn’t see coming.

Mushkilla wrote:

From Plastikente's Dark Eldar Unit Guide.

Quote :

Retrofire Jets. If you are going to start your Ravagers in reserve, these can be really useful in getting you a shot on side/rear armour that your opponent didn’t see coming.

Ah yes! That thread has it all covered. Curious though, if you hold something in reserve to DS, does it always have the option of coming in normally from your table edge or does it have to DS?

mug7703 wrote:

Ah yes! That thread has it all covered. Curious though, if you hold something in reserve to DS, does it always have the option of coming in normally from your table edge or does it have to DS?

Nope, if you declare its deepstriking it has to deepstrike (only exception is if it comes through a WWP, but vehicles can't).

Ah okay. Thanks Mush!

for passenger preservation i see little difference between the two reserve options if you have the duke simply for tactical flexibility and because im playing a game and i like to play like a got a pair... of lucky dice...but both reserve options are better than waiting on the board for things to develop, hoping something that flies doesn't show up and pop your row boat

The main argument in favor of Retrofire Jets on transports is that you can get at the opponent's rear board edge and out of the opponent's line of sight a lot easier. Remember that you can turbo after deepstriking, so you've got about 18" worth of readjustment or moving to the right spot.

With Aethersails, you move 32" - 42" up the board. That's 16" to 6" away from a table edge in two deployments, and in one deployment that's barely half way up the table.

So yeah. Higher risk in landing, lower risk in getting to the right spot.