Superheavies and us

I thought of something along the barge a while back, I was thinking Tantalus sized thing with broadside dark lances with split fire, a main void cannon, was thinking either single shot st9 Ap1 or large blast st6 ap3. Then a web way portal at the front which would allow reserves to enter play from it as if they had jumped off the ship instead of having transport capacity as such. Was thinking something along the lines of grab chute insertion rule used on the valkryies (deepstrike 6" anywhere along the movement trajectory of the vehicle).

I also liked the idea of a coven super-heavy. I was thinking more along the lines of a huge talos with a armadillo like carapiece. Thinking toughness 8, gargantuan creature with 5 wounds, 2+ armour, 4+ fnp, eternal warrior, strength 9, D6 + 1 attacks, stomp etc. But with the opportunity to hunker down where it gains toughness 10, 4++, IWND 4+ at the cost of not being able to assault that turn or attack back in the other players turn. Oh to wish list.

I don't think a Gargantuan creature would need Eternal Warrior due to the Unstoppable rules.

Don't actually know the exact rules for gargans, only faced one once and all I remember is that it annoyed my splinter weapons but my talos 's ichor injector loved it!

I know a vehicle that will have to be huge for a raid. The prison transport. Hell I think it would be a great unit. 11 all around and it gains a hull point for every enemy unit killed. Would be a fun model to build and paint as well. I say have it look like a giant drop pod with rows upon rows of cages.

barenone wrote:

I know a vehicle that will have to be huge for a raid. The prison transport. Hell I think it would be a great unit. 11 all around and it gains a hull point for every enemy unit killed. Would be a fun model to build and paint as well. I say have it look like a giant drop pod with rows upon rows of cages.

That was pretty much what I had in mind too. Hanging prisoners on the Raiders sounds cruel, but far from efficient. There's only so much room on them after all.
And I'm sure the Dark Eldar wouldn't be above weaponizing a big transport vehicle either.

Since GW has taken a liking to dual purpose kits, I think getting two versions of a super heavy vehicle would be perfectly possible.

I don't really see it....

Need to relocate a pile of slaves? Open a portal to the webways and push them inside. Need to get to the phat loot behind the huge wall? Open your entry portal BEHIND the wall as opposed to in front of it. Need to get rid of crap of fortifications? Well, we already have lances for that...

How about instead of a lumbering behemoth-like Super-Heavy we get a dedicated Super-Heavy-Counter unit? Something fast and agile, probably ravager-sized, but with specialized weaponry designed specifically to undo Super-Heavies/Gargantuans? It could be super-potent poison, working normally on Gargantuan creatures, og some kind of Mega-Lance that allows the results on the Vehicle Damage Table to stand, even on Super-heavy Vehicles.

Sigmaril has it right! Gigantic things just aren't our way. One of the only formations we used to get was that "Titan-Killer" squadron of Ravagers, I'd like to see that kind of idea expanded upon too.

A large vehicle or creature doesn't have to be slow, mind you.

Ahh but if they throw them into a portal they cant have any fun torturing them in the battle as well :p

Sigmaril wrote:

I don't really see it....

Need to relocate a pile of slaves? Open a portal to the webways and push them inside. Need to get to the phat loot behind the huge wall? Open your entry portal BEHIND the wall as opposed to in front of it. Need to get rid of crap of fortifications? Well, we already have lances for that...

How about instead of a lumbering behemoth-like Super-Heavy we get a dedicated Super-Heavy-Counter unit? Something fast and agile, probably ravager-sized, but with specialized weaponry designed specifically to undo Super-Heavies/Gargantuans? It could be super-potent poison, working normally on Gargantuan creatures, og some kind of Mega-Lance that allows the results on the Vehicle Damage Table to stand, even on Super-heavy Vehicles.

Wouldn't pushing slaves into the webway without an escort be a very bad idea?

And I highly doubt GW would allow a superheavy to outright explode on a 6 or a gargantuan creature get killed after two volleys of poison shooting. That's more OP than actually giving us a superheavy.

I'm not sure why some are so adamant about raids being small and against small villages. Yes the dark eldar are pirates, but they also have an economy to run. It's unlikely that Dark Eldar often deal with intergalactic slavers, if that's even a thing in 40K so one would imagine they have to capture all of their slaves. In Commorragh slaves are used for pleasure, menial tasks, torture, experiments, and gladitorial combat. Due to their use in torture, experiments, and gladitorial combat, one would expect the attrition rate to be high. Also recall, older archons need the sacrifice of nearly 1000 slaves every night. I believe the highest slave to free man ratio in human history is 7:1, I believe, could be wrong. I'd assume Dark Eldar would need a higher number due to their uses for them, but even leaving it at 7:1 only a small Kabal 100-200 members could sustain themselves on small villages. Assuming you lose three slaves a week due to attrition (probably higher), A larger Kabal I don't know, say one thousand strong, with an elder Archon, would need, I don't know, like 1500 slaves a day. And we know they don't raid every day. So 10,000 slaves a week? You're not going to get that from a small village, and you're not going to push that into a portal. Not to mention the actual casualties of war, the poison weaponry used by kabalites is lethal, not tranquilizing. A population that size would have about 282 defenders (police and soldier) meaning...

I think I just proved your point. A large kabal would only need to raid a large town once a weak with only 30% of it's forces. Who knew Kabalite life was viable? Anywho, you're not transporting 10,000 slaves back on raiders. So there's still a mystery there.

Sigmaril wrote:

I don't really see it....

Need to relocate a pile of slaves? Open a portal to the webways and push them inside. Need to get to the phat loot behind the huge wall? Open your entry portal BEHIND the wall as opposed to in front of it. Need to get rid of crap of fortifications? Well, we already have lances for that...

How about instead of a lumbering behemoth-like Super-Heavy we get a dedicated Super-Heavy-Counter unit? Something fast and agile, probably ravager-sized, but with specialized weaponry designed specifically to undo Super-Heavies/Gargantuans? It could be super-potent poison, working normally on Gargantuan creatures, og some kind of Mega-Lance that allows the results on the Vehicle Damage Table to stand, even on Super-heavy Vehicles.

You've contradicted yourself there Sigmarii. For a military who's doctrine espouses speed, agility and rapid insertion/quick getaway corralling thousands of slaves into a mass group using infantry forces is highly inefficient. You'd have all these raiders darting around causing havoc whilst this one MASSIVE force remained utterly static trying to herd the population through a portal. This is just too slow for their needs. Yet Raiders, even the Tantalus are too small to carry away the numbers of slaves they require. Yes there will be support skiffs employed by the DE that are not represented on the battlefield (just like the Imp guard will have supply convoys and command vehicles not employed on the tabletop) but logic suggests they would have something larger (much larger) than their current models that could perform the dual roles of prison ship and combat barge.

Being super-heavy does not mean that a vehicle is actually super heavy in weight, therefore it doesn't mean such a vehicle would be lumbering or slow. The descriptor is merely a class of vehicle. It could easily be fast and agile (Eldar Lynx is one such fast, agile super-heavy). The Ravager can be classed as a Tank Destroyer though if you compare it to the Leman Russ Vanquisher it could weigh significantly less. They both perform the same role though.

Not only does the DE need a large prison platform but it also needs a large assault platform because lets face it, when raiding big your ten man Raiders won't cut it. The imperial factions have 20 capacity assault platforms now (land raider variants, storm eagles etc) yet they operate from a firepower based doctrine rather than an assault one (outside of a few specialised chapters). The DE are all about assaulting - its the only way to capture slaves instead of killing them, so where's their 20 man assault platform? It just makes sense for them to have such a vehicle. It wouldn't be geared to take down other sup-heavies, it'd be decked out to deal with infantry threats to support he troops it's carrying. That need is there. If there's a hole in your doctrinal needs then it needs to be filled.

In hunting super-heavies the DE are more likely to use packs of smaller vehicles to take down heavies but even titan hunter Ravagers are going to struggle at times (unless they can get a perfect ambush). But any DE D weapon platform would not be limited to hunting vehicles, that's not he DE way. The likely specs of such a vehicle would be something along the lines of the Reaper platform but on a larger scale. A D weapon that can punch through armour or blast clumps of infantry. It'd still be relatively flimsy (compared to other super-heavies) and fast. I love the idea of it being a hybrid skimmer/flier as I don't think the DE would really distinguish between the two (difference between the reaver jetbike and razorwing jetfighter is really speed ranges - razorwing is much faster and thus needs to be sued differently than the bike but they're essentially the same principle).

A massive coven creature also makes sense. It's in the fluff that they make all sorts of pain engines and larger creatures. One coven makes huge grotesques and a few of them are known for specializing in pain engines. If you take it that a lot of these variants are abstracted into the units we already have (larger grotesques aren't going to play any differently to regular grotesques for example) there is still a lot of room for more in the list. A siege breaker unit makes sense. The DE aren't going to drop portals behind walls to assault them, you don't know what's on the other side. 90% of their portals are probably dropped way outside the defensive reach of their targets. It's only a couple of cheeky ones that are used up close. It;s just not safe to drop your entire force inside a defensive perimeter without knowing what's there first. It makes sense to use a warmachine to break down the walls whilst the skimmers are jetting about taking out anything that can fire back. And it happens to be that a gigantic pain engine would be good at taking down larger warmachines too. They'd be rare but they'd be employed by covens when needed.

[quote="Demantiae"]

Sigmaril wrote:

I don't really see it....
The DE are all about assaulting - its the only way to capture slaves instead of killing them, so where's their 20 man assault platform?

In the fluff yes, in the actual tabletop performance, less so

Sure, DE can open WWPs, but the fluff gives the impression that the tech to do so is relatively rare, and limited to small portals - vehicles couldn't even get through until the latest Codex. It certainly seems that all the big WWPs are fixed - you can't just open one behind enemy lines which would be efficient for herding slaves down.