Dark Eldar vehicle resilience

With the likely change to Jink from the FAQ ruling on passengers, I imagine many Dark Eldar players are contemplating potentially drastic changes to their army composition and play style. To aid you in your decision making, here are some calculations that might help.

Raiders can get saves ranging from no save in the open or Ignores Cover weapons, a 6+ save from Night Shields and no cover, through to 3+ from Night Shields and either Jink or hard cover. Here are the average number of times Imperial weapons need to fire to wreck or explode a Raider:

Weapon	3+ Sv	4+ Sv	5+ Sv	6+ Sv	No Sv
Bolter	81.0	54.0	40.5	32.4	27.0
Heavy Bolter	12.4	8.3	6.2	5.0	4.1
Assault Cannon	6.0	4.0	3.0	2.4	2.0
Autocannon	8.9	5.9	4.5	3.6	3.0
Missile Launcher	14.1	9.4	7.1	5.7	4.7
Meltagun - 1/2 range	8.0	5.3	4.0	3.2	2.7
Meltagun - long range	10.6	7.1	5.3	4.2	3.5
Lascannon	10.1	6.7	5.0	4.0	3.4

Venoms can have a 5+ or 4+ save depending on available cover, but with less hull points. Here is the equivalent table for Venoms:

Weapon	4+ Sv	5+ Sv
Bolter	36.0	27.0
Heavy Bolter	5.8	4.3
Assault Cannon	2.8	2.1
Autocannon	4.2	3.2
Missile Launcher	6.7	5.0
Meltagun - 1/2 range	4.5	3.4
Meltagun - long range	5.8	4.3
Lascannon	5.2	3.9

There are some interesting outcomes - in particular, a Raider with Night Shields, even if in the open and not Jinking is harder to shoot down than a Venom using a Flickerfield against all weapons except a Meltagun in melta range.

Perhaps a combination of Venoms and Jinking Raiders, along with hugging cover, can provide shooty Raiders a suitable amount of protection to still be reasonably effective even with the FAQ changes.

It's all about cover, cover, cover.

@Kantalla Thanks for the information.

CptMetal wrote:

It's all about cover, cover, cover.

And praying they don't have cover ignoring rules.

You guys have terrain that can give cover to a skimmer? Gods, that must be nice.

cover is all good'n'stuff, its until your opponent has the "ignore cover" rule on there weapons...

That is when you start to prioritize units, and put your venoms with their 5++ up front. There is a finite amount of Ignores Cover in any army, they cant target everything at once.

But you can take more Venom than Raider so that's a plus...

Why does putting your 5++ Venoms up front help? They can still target units behind you, right? Or is it that they can't see through those units

Scatterfields are your friend. I won a game once with a Ravager and Raider by hopping back and forth between two scatterfields and shrugging off Centurion Devastator fire with a 2++ cover save.

What the heck is a scatter field?

I think he meant holo fields. Scatter fields i think are what wraithknights have (similar name)

And what are the rules for those two?

Holo-fields is a straight up 5++ inv. Not sure on Scatter fields.

This was done a while ago and has re-risen from the dustbin of history. It is mostly still current, except the FAQ ruling no longer stops gunboat Raiders from being able to fire at reasonable effect.

Raiders with Night Shields are really quite difficult to destroy until Ignores Cover enters play. If you bring Raiders, then prioritizing getting rid of anything with that rule should be a key part of your strategy.

Venoms are really easy to destroy. They somewhat make up for it with good firepower on a cheap platform, but in order to be effective there needs to be a lot of them in my view.

Scatterfields are a mysterious obj result.
If scatterfield is rolled for an obj units holding said obj receive +1 to cover save.

This is just from memory so don't quote me.

I think this just solidifies my current view. Raiders for melee and venoms for ranged units

I'd like to add my point to this.

While jinking can be useful at certain occasions, I'd never jink anything that will have its ability to do damage hindered by any significant means. Jinking a venom to save it renders it almost unusable next turn unless you plan tankshocking and your enemy can focus on another target. Its all about risks and rewards.

The numbers above are good at one thing showing us the amount of UNITS that have to empty their clips to kill the vehicle.

If I may break it down - if two squad's shooting is needed to shoot the vehicle down reliably, no jink - force overkill on the enemy while keeping your chance for maximum damage at your turn. As soon as he forces you to jink, he will target another Vehicle because jinking one is no threat. If someone spends 300+ points to shoot down a 60pts vehicle... rrright... be my guest. Assault cannons are the worst. But I dont see many of those luckily.

VENOM:
Weapon                 4+ Sv 5+ Sv
Bolter                       36.0 27.0       Two squads needed for both - no need to jink
Heavy Bolter             5.8 4.3         Noone uses those, but still - two volleys
Assault Cannon           2.8 2.1         One volley for both - no need to jink
Autocannon               4.2 3.2         Two volleys for both - no need to jink
Missile Launcher          6.7 5.0         Two squads of 2,3 or 4 launchers needed - no need
Meltagun - 1/2 range   4.5 3.4         Two squads of 2 or 3 meltas needed - jink maybe on 4
Meltagun - long range   5.8 4.3         Dtto only even for 4 meltas in squad
Lascannon                 5.2 3.9         Full LasDev squad needed - lol. Will take the chance.

RAIDER:
Weapon               3+ Sv 4+ Sv 5+ Sv 6+ Sv No Sv
Bolter                   81.0 54.0 40.5 32.4 27.0     5+ Two squads - good enough
Heavy Bolter       12.4 8.3 6.2 5.0 4.1       5+ Two volleys - good enough
Assault Cannon       6.0 4.0 3.0 2.4 2.0       One volley up to 4+ - 5+ good enough
Autocannon           8.9 5.9 4.5 3.6 3.0       3 volleys on 5+ - good enough
Missile Launcher       14.1 9.4 7.1 5.7 4.7       lol... 5+ good enough
Meltagun - 1/2 range 8.0 5.3 4.0 3.2 2.7       50% chance of 4 meltas @ 5+? - good
Meltagun - long range 10.6 7.1 5.3 4.2 3.5       lol
Lascannon                10.1 6.7 5.0 4.0 3.4       lol lol

In addition. Some time ago I posted here a statistic about effectivenes of night shields. Many people here disagreed with my interpretation but I stand behind the statement that Nightshields are effective only when you roll the precise number on the cover dice that is its bonus. E.g. if they increase your save from 5+ to 4+, they are only worth anything if you roll 4 for cover. AND even if you do, in majority of the cases it won't save the vehicle anyway... so not taking them. Ever.

All in all - in great majority of cases it is not worth to jink with any vehicle that can do damage and its purpose is to do damage, save for tankshocking damage.

Also note that while Venom does not need cover, Raider does.

Dont stone me. :-) Just expressing my opinion. :-D

aurynn, just a little clarification, in case it effects your decisions, the numbers in the table are numbers of times the weapon needs to fire, not number of shots, e.g. an Assault Cannon against a Jinking Night Shielded Raider needs to fire six times (24 shots) on average to destroy the Raider.

Hehe. I thought about recalculating to confirm that, but was actually lazy. So its even better. :-D Does not change anything on 1-shot weapons, but it makes multiple-shot weapons even worse. :-)
Thanks for pointing it out.

EDIT: Are those numbers correct then? I seem to get different ones. And I dont want to recount all that. :-)

aurynn wrote:

EDIT: Are those numbers correct then? I seem to get different ones. And I dont want to recount all that. :-)

I think they should be about right, but math errors are always possible.

As a check - Assault Cannon vs 3+ jink Raider
4 shots -> 8/3 hits -> 4/3 damage -> 4/9 damage after jink
Explode chance is 1/6, so odds of destroyed on first damage = 2/3 * 1/6 = 1/9
Odds of destroyed on two damaging hits = 8/9 * 1/9 = 8/81
Odds of destroyed on three damaging hits = 1 - 1/9 - 8/81 = 64/81
Average number of damage results required = 1 * 1/9 + 2 * 8/81 + 3 * 64/81 = 2.67
Average number of firings required = 2.67 / 4/9 = 6.02

That matches the table above.

This skips double immobilised results, but those are rare enough to ignore.

Painjunky wrote:

Scatterfields are a mysterious obj result.
If scatterfield is rolled for an obj units holding said obj receive +1 to cover save.

This is just from memory so don't quote me.

That's correct. Because it's a flat bonus, it stacks with Night Shields.