Dark Light weaponry debate. Is it worth it?

That's sad. They are actually a cool unit. Good Armour and awesome weaponry.

I could just tell my group that the heat lances are Blaster since they don't know about dark Eldar weaponry but I think I'll ask them beforehand.

Otherwise, it would be more effective to just build another true born squad and put them into a night shield Raider.

CptMetal wrote:

That's sad. They are actually a cool unit. Good Armour and awesome weaponry.

I don't know, I think 'awsome' might be stretching it a bit.

Regardless, I've heard a lot of good things about them - hence why I keep giving them chances (as opposed to letting them keep my wyches company on their shelf ).

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With all this information in mind, are dark light weapons efficient?

Efficient at what? Blowing stuff up? No. But you yourslelf stated you need 6 shots to do 1 hull point. That Hull point usually come with some damaging result that stops from firing or making it worse.

Grots, HL Reavers, Haywire Scourges, Dark Artisan are more effective point-wise in wrecking vehicles.

Dark light is usefull to damage vehicles and to fire at any heavy infantry high value squads and monsters. So be it a limited AV utility it still is a powerfull weapon.

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Efficient at what? Blowing stuff up? No. But you yourslelf stated you need 6 shots to do 1 hull point. That Hull point usually come with some damaging result that stops from firing or making it worse.

The problem we face is rather Superheavies who ignore the damage chart, special rules/equipment that ignore shaken/stunned and the fact that a lot of vehicles we face are either transport vehicles which do not need to shoot to be efficient or vehicles that deploy their payload before you get to shoot them (Drop pods)

Also, as vehicles are rather cheap a 1 in 6 chance does get very very slim if confronted with 5+ vehicles (as the lances are more epensive than the thing you shoot at) so even disabling them for a turn does not hurt them too bad.

This might be Heresy (or just plain wrong), but I wonder... do we really need ranged anti-tank?

We've established that our ranged antitank is either mediocre or restrictively limited in some other way. What if we ignored it completely, and spent the points on anti-personnel weapons?

It's not too hard to build in some rudimentary close combat anti-tank capability, between haywire grenades and higher S troops - remember that from turn 4 our whole army can threaten a rear AV 10 transport in melee.

So, and admittedly influenced by this thread, perhaps a list built to dominate infantry and take objectives could play around vehicles?

Personally I find we have to invest too much in Dark Light for it to be effective. On the other hand if you only invest a little then its too unreliable to plan around. If you really needed to take that rhino out and your dark light wiffs it can be problematic. especially if you maneuvered your army to do so. If you don't have any dark light your battle plan will never be at the mercy of it's unreliability. So for me if you're not going to go all in on Dark Light (like Thor style builds with min warriors with blasters in raiders), don't waste points on Dark Light.

Creeping Darkness wrote:

This might be Heresy (or just plain wrong), but I wonder... do we really need ranged anti-tank?

We've established that our ranged antitank is either mediocre or restrictively limited in some other way. What if we ignored it completely, and spent the points on anti-personnel weapons?

It's not too hard to build in some rudimentary close combat anti-tank capability, between haywire grenades and higher S troops - remember that from turn 4 our whole army can threaten a rear AV 10 transport in melee.

So, and admittedly influenced by this thread, perhaps a list built to dominate infantry and take objectives could play around vehicles?

Anti-vehicle is very much needed at range, yes.

Relying entirely on melee - especially when all you can offer is an occasional haywire grenade or S4 attack - is not a winning strategy. Especially when it isn't even an improvement on our ranged anti-tank. Frankly, our army has enough handicaps without adding another.

If you want more detail:

- There may well be vehicles in the opposing army which are very dangerous to ours, and which have to be taken out immediately. There simply isn't time to get to them in melee.

- There are many vehicles where getting into melee is unlikely because of their speed.

- There are many vehicles where going into melee is inadvisable, because they can fight back. And, of course, these vehicles are almost always immune to S4 attacks (because you have to hit the front AV).

- There may well be no targets whatsoever for your anti-infantry firepower. e.g. if the enemy are all in transports, then you might as well have invested in pot plants.

- If you use melee, then you have no opportunity to add more firepower to kill a vehicle. If it survives, then you don't get another chance until your next turn.

- Relying on melee forces you to get into range of more of the enemy's weapons, as well as removing any range advantage your transport have.

- Many DE armies rely on using speed/manoeuvrability to get out of range/sight of part of the enemy army. This is a lot harder to do if you're having to come to them.

etc.

Do we need ranged anti-tank?

I think we do.

In my local meta i see lots of spess muhreens with the demi-company or whatever its called that gives them 400+pts worth of free transports so i need to open some cans for my anti-infantry to do its thing.

I also see a quite a few knights and trying to take them out in CC is problematic/suicide.

I rely on an ever changing combo of ravagers, haywire scourges and/or wwp fire dragons for my ranged AT and they get the job done... most of the time.

I'm the same... minus the Fire Dragons.

I do use Reavers with Caltrops and Heat-Lances or Blasters, and they're pretty useful in anti-tank roles.

Yep, I run reavers too and find them effective AT as well.

Reavers (and grots for that matter) compliment my ranged AT nicely!

I reckon dark (and bright) lances should just be lascannons with AP1. The Eldar are supposed to have better technology than the Imperium, not worse, and it would certainly help.

I wish Lance would reduce armor by 2 with any minimum. This way it would still be useful against the rhino/razorback/DropPod swarms we now see in tournament.

if the lance rule would be just -2 to armor to a minimum of 10 and nothing else changes would it be acceptable as is?

It would certainly be an improvement. It's a wash against AV10 and 14 but better against everything else.

I think they'd need to be AP1 as well.

Count Adhemar wrote:

It would certainly be an improvement. It's a wash against AV10 and 14 but better against everything else.

its av12 that is a nightmare to us and with the unholy amount of s8lance we can bring it would be a balance. i think ap1 would be overkill but then again we need something that is overkill. id certainly pay the points for that at least

Overkill is a pretty redundant term these days in 40k. What exactly is overkill when we have stuff like 500+ points of free transports or wargear, D-Weapons, Grav spam, superheavy/gargantuan units, army-wide twin-linked, ignores cover tank/monster hunting shooting attacks, Reanimation Protocols, 2+ rerollable saves etc?

As a dark Lance, Dark light weaponry is not very good. But I like it on a Blaster. Maybe 5 points too expensive though...

CptMetal wrote:

As a dark Lance, Dark light weaponry is not very good. But I like it on a Blaster. Maybe 5 points too expensive though...

I'm curious to see how they'll perform in Corsairs - who can take 2 per 5 on their troops, and for 10pts each instead of 15.

It's solid for corsairs because the price is cheaper and they can easily get more lance weapons.

For Dark Eldar, dark light weapons are absolutely necessary. It is basically their only option for AT so you have to take them. And you have to take a lot to make them count. If there were other options I would consider bthem. But there aren't any. Not a debate really.

2 Blaster in a 5 Warriors squad with Venom? That's damn awesome!! For 10 points each? Even more awesome!!!

CptMetal wrote:

2 Blaster in a 5 Warriors squad with Venom? That's damn awesome!! For 10 points each? Even more awesome!!!

More awsome than Fusion Guns, do you think?

What are the stats of a Fusion gun and for what price?

CptMetal wrote:

What are the stats of a Fusion gun and for what price?

It's a meltagun (range 12", S8 AP1, melta), for 10pts.

If a Blaster were 10 points too, it would be great.

Trade Melter for Lance
AP 1 for 6 inches

But for 15 points? Perhaps if there are two of those in a 5 dudes squad...