Why Raiders or Venoms

Hi all,
Just a random question really, looking at a lot of peoples lists people tend to either go down the route of venom spam or raider spam, I was just wondering why this was as oppose to taking a mixture of the two?
For example why would say 5 venoms or 5 raiders be better than 3 venoms and 2 raiders.
Thanks

I generally take a mixture (usually 4 Venoms and 3 Raiders, because that's what I own).

Personally, I like having a mix of small and large squads.


In terms of why people might prefer one or the other, it *might* be so that their army can fight from the same distance. So, if you have gunboats, they're all advancing together; or if you have venoms, they can all sit back and shoot. Essentially, you don't have elements of your army wanting to engage the enemy at different distances. Maybe.

Otherwise, it might be due to giving the enemy easy target priorities. In your example, if you have an army with 3 venoms and 2 raiders, well you've already given me a good idea about which ones need to die first. Obviously I'd ask about the contents, but in all likelihood I'd be aiming for the Raiders first. Whereas, if everything is in venoms or everything is in raiders, target priority becomes a little harder. Also, Venoms have a 5++ save, whilst Raiders rely entirely on cover for defence. So, if I have any Ignores Cover weapons, guess what they'll be shooting first?

Alternatively, it might come down to an individual's perceived value of our infantry and transports. e.g. it's a common belief (and certainly not unfounded) that we don't have any infantry worth spamming. In which case, why bother using Raiders if you never want to go above minimum squads anyway, and Venoms bring more defence and firepower?

Finally, it could be simply due to their weapons. Someone worried about tanks might take as many dark lances as he can (hence, using as many raiders as possible), whilst someone more concerned about anti-infantry will be more inclined to spam venoms.

Inb4 Thor's "it depends".

IMO: Raiders and venoms are very different. I am planning venoms for my eldar undivided force because I want the smaller foot print when deep striking my fire dragons in and because I'm getting anti-tank else where.

My newest list edition has 6 venoms and 2 raiders. I might add two venoms and a raiders.

I use raiders to transport stuff to cc while venoms stay at a distance.

It depends. Normally I field them based on squad size. Minimum squads get Venoms, full ones get Raiders.

Sometimes I field them based on what the list needs, anti tank or anti infantry.

I honestly don't think about spamming one or the other, to me it all comes down to need and or necessity.

I.E. I need another Dark Lance. I'll put this unit in a raider. I'm a little light on poison I'll add a venom to the list. This unit requires a transport with higher than five capacity I have to include a raider.

While venom spam is still pretty competitive the problem I always had with it, is if you come across a mechanized list a good portion of the points in your army become useless until you start cracking transports. I never tried Venom Spam in this situation, but I assume if you played against iron hands you'd be thoroughly boned.

craigyy wrote:

For example why would say 5 venoms or 5 raiders be better than 3 venoms and 2 raiders.
Thanks

Five venoms would be better if you're running MSU, and if your heavy and fast attack slots are chock full of anti-tank. Ravagers, Scourges, and Razorwings.

Five raiders would be better if you're running gunboats. I.E. 10 kabalite warriors in a boat with a splinter cannon and splinter racks. Giving you 13-26 twinlinked shots(as many or double as many shots as a venom[though at the cost of range]). At that point, Venoms would be redundant.

It really just depends on what you want to do.

Expletive Deleted wrote:

While venom spam is still pretty competitive the problem I always had with it, is if you come across a mechanized list a good portion of the points in your army become useless until you start cracking transports. I never tried Venom Spam in this situation, but I assume if you played against iron hands you'd be thoroughly boned.

I also dislike only having small units - especially for an army as fragile as ours.

For me, with VII ed AND the Real Space Detatchment, I...don't know how to put Venoms on my list.
I play with 6 FA, so my game is entirely here.
Troops have no OS, so no speedy Venoms wich stolen objective.
With my 6FA I need to push the enemy, so I play WWPDark Artisan, or a Grotesquerie with beastmasters and reavers.
1500 points.

I don't really miss some Venoms. I mean, no OS, snapshot because they need to jink...do I really need this fire again? Maybe in a standard detatchment, but with the Realspace...I don't know, I'm starting to think that I can play wihout Venoms.

A this is a radical change to me. I had always played my 4 Venoms but now...I found hard to stick them in.

(Ps: sorry for my english, I need to learn :c )

Cerve wrote:

snip

Your english is quite well as far as i can tell.
But why do you quote yourself twice?

I'm going to go with the wild theory of 'accident'.
I deleted them to clean up the thread.

@Erebus - I don't think I always say 'it depends' but that is a good way to answer most questions people tend to ask about tactics.

I've been on record since the first moment that Venoms were introduced to the DE codex that a mix of Raider/Venom was, in m opinion, the optimal build. I have never changed that opinion.

Thor665 wrote:

@Erebus - I don't think I always say 'it depends' but that is a good way to answer most questions people tend to ask about tactics.

No, but you use it a lot because, as you say, it's often apt. And it was in this case.

Thor665 wrote:

I've been on record since the first moment that Venoms were introduced to the DE codex that a mix of Raider/Venom was, in m opinion, the optimal build. I have never changed that opinion.

I'm inclined to agree and make sure I have a mix.

Something that strikes me about the difference regarding wargear & options (as well as size of squads that you can fit in them) is that - for me anyway - Raiders are for assault units and Venoms are for small shooty units such as KW. Or just for taking small units of wracks to suck & live behind a wall somewhere on an objective but take the Venom as a DT. Taking Raiders for extra dark lances, well.. can't say that has ever worked well for me.

The thing is, I often see many DE noobs in stores or at events go with small melee units in Venoms, and get thoroughly mullahed, for two main reasons:

1) Aside from Incubi, no small DE units that can fit in venoms are gonna do much against SM/Crons/Nids in combat
2) with going flat out with venoms to get the melee units to the fight quicker, they miss out on that glorious shooting that they are intended for. Even if they survive to drop off their passengers, they are then quite close to things that will mess them up - bolters and/or anything above S4!

Venom spam with haywire wyches could work in 6th to a certain extent against mech lists, though I was still never convinced, and it was about the biggest glass cannon army that was used semi regularly for DE. Obviously that build doesn't exist any more lulz! Haywire grenades - what are they again!?

I always used to take 2 or 3 squads of 8 wyches in aethersail raiders to get in there nice and fast, with the occasional use of a squad of 6 incubi with a succubus/archon in another raider (wouldn't normally take more than 3), then backed up with a few venoms for shooting support and a ravager or two. However, not played much 7th since I moved to quite a rural place so will be working on my DE skimmer list again in the new year.

You're forgetting raiders get splinter racks, making them just as or more shooty than Venoms, and they don't succumb to snapfiring after a jink.

Aside from Grotesques and Incubi, no DE unit that can board a transport is gonna do much against SM/Crons/Nids in combat. One works best in a venom, the other works only in a Raider. I will say enhanced aethersails is a great buff for close combat units though.

But hey, I don't fit any CC elements into my lists anymore so what do I know? Isn't that right 40+ wyches?

As a question, when you guys bring raiders as gunboats or to transport melee units, do you arm them with dark lances or disintegrators?

Expletive Deleted wrote:

Aside from Grotesques and Incubi, no DE unit that can board a transport is gonna do much against SM/Crons/Nids in combat. One works best in a venom, the other works only in a Raider. I will say enhanced aethersails is a great buff for close combat units though.

Wracks maybe? With an attached Haemonculus... and an attached Archon... and an attached Succubus.

Expletive Deleted wrote:

But hey, I don't fit any CC elements into my lists anymore so what do I know?

I can see the attraction of some of our melee units, but others... ugh. Imagine how happy I am when, in the age of Imperial Knights, Super Heavies, Thunderwolves, Dreadknights etc., our selection includes melee units with a single S4 attack each, or 2 S3 attacks.

Um, GW, do you have a crippling fear of selling us models? Are you hoping that if boxes of wyches and hellions sit on your shelves for long enough, they'll be compressed into diamonds by the irate stares of DE players?

The Shredder wrote:

As a question, when you guys bring raiders as gunboats or to transport melee units, do you arm them with dark lances or disintegrators? 

Let's find out!

Look at those guard over there! Venom's got them.
Oh noes marines? 12 shots of poison your way.
Terminators? Well disintegrators would help but the venom can probably handle them.
Monstrous creature? Get these crappy dissies out of here.
Land Raider. Which I had a dark lance right about now.

I used to use dissies, but honestly they're only really functional for terminators, and with a dark lance you get ID on termies so the dissy just has no place in a list unless you only fight marine armies. The loss of haywire grenades I think crippled our AT to a point where we need to take it at any opportunity we can. Really miss those wyches.

Expletive Deleted wrote:

The Shredder wrote:

As a question, when you guys bring raiders as gunboats or to transport melee units, do you arm them with dark lances or disintegrators? 

Let's find out!

Look at those guard over there! Venom's got them.
Oh noes marines? 12 shots of poison your way.
Terminators? Well disintegrators would help but the venom can probably handle them.
Monstrous creature? Get these crappy dissies out of here.
Land Raider. Which I had a dark lance right about now.

Expletive Deleted wrote:

I used to use dissies, but honestly they're only really functional for terminators, and with a dark lance you get ID on termies so the dissy just has no place in a list unless you only fight marine armies. The loss of haywire grenades I think crippled our AT to a point where we need to take it at any opportunity we can. Really miss those wyches.

Yeah, that's basically been my view as well.

I was really sad that our lances didn't receive any kind of buff to bring them into line with 7th's vehicle damage tables. AP1 would have been nice, or 2 shots apiece.

Raiders Carry grotesques, or if I'm inclined to bring them, 10 warriors in a raider with night shields. It's a tricky thing balancing the two. Venoms are great with Objective Secured and running MSU with TONS of targets. Allows you to jump on objectives and have threat saturation all in one go, while have 12 splinter cannon shots. They're pretty awesome. Raiders on the other hand, give you an extra lance each, are harder to crack thanks to night shields, and let you rapid fire twin linked splinter fire from warriors on board. All in all I've found this...

Raiders must get close and are therefore always take night shields making them VERY hard to crack for any army without ignores cover. Most armies I face, have ignores cover and I need range on, i.e. Tau / Eldar.

Without rambling I'll usually put my CC units in raiders (with the exception of incubi, I haven't figured out what's better, a big unit of incubi with a haemy in a raidaer with night shields, or 2 units of smaller incubi in a venom.... Actually it'd be awesome if one of you could let me know what you think! In my list I currently have 2 units of incubi, one unit of 4 with a haemy in a venom, and 1 unit of 5 in a venom. But I digress...

I personally run more venoms than raiders. At 36" a venom has 12 poison 4+ shots, and a raider has 3 dice from a dissy cannon, or 1 die from a dark lance. At 24" a venom has 17 poison shots and a raider has 10 poison shots (usually twin linked) plus the dissy or dark lance. At 12" the venom gets 22 shots, and the raider gets 20 twin linked shots.

The problem is snap shooting the crew if the vehicle moved more than 6". The venom fires more shots as it moves up the field than the raider. It's not too often that my ships survive long enough to get into rapid fire range while maintaining ballistics skill.

That being said, I usually run venom spam, but I use raiders to get my assault squads into range.

For me it depends on the use of the vehicle and the squad inside. Is the squad going to go anti tank hunting/ important to get into combat? If so I tend to go raider with night shield for the 3+ jink (since the guys inside can still shoot at full BS) and the ability to hold more guys. Do I want a transport for the useless objective secured warriors I'm bringing? I go venom. Eventually I will be hitting 10 venoms in a double force org 1850 list because I want the anti infantry but it all depends on preference.

Bleaksoul Brethren wrote:

For me it depends on the use of the vehicle and the squad inside. Is the squad going to go anti tank hunting/ important to get into combat? If so I tend to go raider with night shield for the 3+ jink (since the guys inside can still shoot at full BS) and the ability to hold more guys. Do I want a transport for the useless objective secured warriors I'm bringing? I go venom. Eventually I will be hitting 10 venoms in a double force org 1850 list because I want the anti infantry but it all depends on preference.

Nailed it. For tank hunting, the extra HP on the raider has kept my blasterborn alive more than I care to think about at this point. The 4+ (or 3+) jink helps keep the passengers alive, and I don't care if I'm losing 1 DL or Dissie to help keep my blasterborn alive and shooting.