To Disintegrate or not to Disintegrate

No, Razorwing actually loses numerous benefits from equipping with Dissies. the combined S6 missile platform and dark lances are excellent for cracking light tanks and removing bubble wrap simultaneously. The only decent Disintegrator platform is the Ravager, where 9 AP2 shots don't have lesser weaponry to allocate around so as to prevent any significant wound aggregation and further more, AV10-11 targets will almost certainly take multiple glancing or even penetrating hits. If I were running my Razorwings with Disintegrators, I would lose a major anti-tank unit that has the option of devoting to anti-infantry as necessary. If I keep Dark Lances, I have a weapons platform that can crack light tanks, and then put an entire turn of instant death firepower onto T3 armies as well.

I run my Razorwings with Dissies and Lances - both are good on it depending what you need.

The only problem with running a Razorwing is you lose a heavy support slot that should've had a Dark Lance Ravvy in it. What are you gonna do against Predators, Landraiders, Dreadnaughts etc? You're going to rely on S5 to glance AV 11? I have a Templar list that would love to fight such an army...

I also fail to see how a mixed role load-out is better than an optimized one.

But then again, if I want a MEQ unit to die, I either torrent it to death or hammer it with Incubi.

thecactusman17 wrote:

No, Razorwing actually loses numerous benefits from equipping with Dissies. the combined S6 missile platform and dark lances are excellent for cracking light tanks and removing bubble wrap simultaneously. The only decent Disintegrator platform is the Ravager, where 9 AP2 shots don't have lesser weaponry to allocate around so as to prevent any significant wound aggregation and further more, AV10-11 targets will almost certainly take multiple glancing or even penetrating hits. If I were running my Razorwings with Disintegrators, I would lose a major anti-tank unit that has the option of devoting to anti-infantry as necessary. If I keep Dark Lances, I have a weapons platform that can crack light tanks, and then put an entire turn of instant death firepower onto T3 armies as well.

I agree here. With regards to the other posts, splinter fire will bring down terminators and paladins... eventually. Dissies on a ravager are great for instantly bringing down large groups. This works very well as a shock tactic and is great against GK. For example your standard GK player will expect you to be scared of that huge 10 man terminator squad or paladin squad marching down the board. All marine players put a lot of faith into these units and will usually base their tactics around them surviving. Lets say there are 10 terminators that you draw out from cover, if you fire 40 rapid fire shots into them, you should wound 20 then he should save all but 3.333 leaving 7 termies to cause you trouble-(as would even the best role from 3 DLs). Lets spin that around and say fire 3 dissies at the same unit. you only get 9 shots compared to 40... should cause 6 wounds resulting in 6 dead terminators and only 4 left. So to me, in that sort of scenario, I would rather let one unit happily burn through them then several struggling. Especially when the other units have better roles to fulfil. There is no point spamming a single unit like that when you could more effectivly use your shots.- sorry, but the maths speaks for itself here.

As said before though, they are not always the best option to take and in others they are useful. The bad thing about the DE is that you do have to tailor your armies for specifics. Like when I play against orks, i dont take dissies, IG- No dissies, Chaos- no DL, Tau- No dissies etc etc it purely depends on the army you face. The dissie is not worthless as are none of the weapons available... except the shredder, that is a stain on the underpants of Commoragh.

Tailoring lists is not acceptable for tourney play. LOL

Well obviously, but I can guarantee you that you will always end up facing a SM army in a tourney, not suggesting everything has a dissie but the point still stands, they are useful.

http://hulksmash-homeplace.blogspot.com/2011/09/rantings-on-dark-eldar-continuing-xenos.html

If I'm facing an SM list in a tourney, it's mechanized.

Well its a personal choice, I run a mech army anyway so I have plenty of AT in raiders, blasters, reavers, scourges etc, which is always more then enough to down any vehicles, I just like the ability to mow down a terminator squad and watching my opponent break down as he has lost his primary weapon. If you don't have enough AT in your army to take down a mech SM (which is not alot of models to kill) you should probably look more closely at what you field. Also I don't think you understand the point I'm trying to make, I am not saying that dissies are better then DL (although they are in some circumstances) I am just saying that they are useful and should not be instantly overlooked.

The math really doesn't support that a Ravager with Disintegrators is better than Venoms with Splinter Cannons against infantry. The only exception being when the targets have FNP in addition to their armour/cover save.



The Ravager is consistently worse than two venoms with dual splinter cannons except when the target is in the open or has FNP. The value of the venoms are increased by the fact that they are two separate units that can do their own thing if required.

B.

For some reason you seem to have given the top one a 3++ when terminators have a 5++ so the amount killed should be more like 2.604- shouldn't change the maths to suit yourself btw

Also I never said "infantry" I said terminators, spamming is useful elsewhere.

The third line makes no difference as only an idiot wouldn't use splinter weapons against anything t5 or higher

And also from what you've shown, if anything it further shows that dissies are better because in 2/3 scenarios they perform better

Also spamming should be the last reserve (don't get me wrong the venom spam is insane) as that particular spam is better suited elsewhere such as taking down large groups of high armour save units (4+ etc) and high toughness units then ones with low armour saves (2+ etc).

Yes I have given terminators a 3++, with the exception of Black Templars, which competitive Space Marine army fields anything but Assault Terminators with plenty of 3+ invulnerable saves from Storm Shields?

Also people putting their squad outside of cover deserves what comes to them and would where I play be considered pretty dumb. So you need to take into account a 4+ cover save. Its not hard to give a squad cover with some clever positioning of squads and vehicles. We consider 25% terrain coverage a minimum, with plenty of area terrain. Here your mileage may wary and this may skew the relative value somewhat. The more terrain the less valuable AP2 becomes.

Of course the third example must be considered, you need to concentrate your AI on the biggest threat, and for example, Hive Guard must be killed asap. Most people would consider them "infantry".

The second example, Space Marines with a 3+ armour save or a 4+ cover save should speak for itself regardless. The Disintegrators are only better when the MEQ in question have FNP or are in the open, which they should not be if you have 3 disintegrators pointing their way.

So I stand by my conclusion, unless you are tailoring your list to beat a specific opponent .

B.

Fair enough about the invulnerables, I forgot about that and take back my first comment.
The third point, yes you could fire your heavy weapons at high toughness infantry but again, you would have to be pretty desperate by that point to throw everything at them, but splinter fire should be sufficient and if its not and you have to fire heavies at it then what does it matter anyway? Your already clutching at straws, by that stage you might as well try and tank shock them or something while your at it!

I guess at the end of the day it largely depends on who/what and where you are playing. Like any specialised weapon it's always going to be situational, but I find that dissies have always been useful when I've used them. I guess that why it's hard to compare a specialist weapon like the dissies to the all-rounder splinter weapons. I guess it will come to the same conclusion if it was DL we were talking about!

Each has its pro's and cons, DL are great AT and good for instant killing while poor at multiple threats, Splinter-fire is great at multiple threats but can't deal with any mech list, Dissies are a bit of a compromise between the two which can sometimes be an issue but at others- depending on circumstances, can be a blessing (from own personal and successful experiences)

Grub wrote:

I guess at the end of the day it largely depends on who/what and where you are playing. Like any specialised weapon it's always going to be situational

I still stand by my initial comment, and this one sums it up again nicely. Dissies are great, but they're situational enough that they are indeed viable to overlook when building competitive TAC lists.

Hi there,

Just wanted to chip in with some experience.

When I first moved from Angels to Eldar (Dark, that is ) I went full blown venom/raider/razowing spam.

And at a soft-ish tournament, I faced a long time DE player with a list similar to mine.

And here is what I learned...

Our army is poisoned. Extremely.

What good are 5 Venoms vs AV10?

Taking into account that you don't see much of the blasterborn+venom or similar in my area (those armies simply fall apart witht he huge firepower we see around nowadays)... most DL are either reavers or Razorwing-ish vehicles.

Next tournament (yep, 90% of my games are tournaments xD), I took a full dissie reaver and made the razorwing full dissie too.

I was 3 marines short of TABLING a full nurgle list (sure, not the most competitive...but still tough as hell at objectives).

All in all... being able to pump 9 S5 AP2 shots covering 60% of the table...and specially having al alternative to poisoned shooting...

I wouldn't leave home with at least 1 dissie plataform in a mech DE list.

Good Hunting!

I also Love my Dissi Ravanger, and with its 12" movement i usually get one target that is out of cover(something i learned from CBT, shoot at your cheapest target).

Don't get me wrong, i love some good splinter fire, but some just seem to take that love over the top ;-)

Alright, so far I've heard one account of nearly tabling one of the weakest current codex armies (I've been running Chaos since 3rd, so I feel the pain) and some silliness about shooting walking Terminators with them. (Just played a game the other night where a Dissie armed Razorwing fired everything it had a unit of Termies in cover, failing to kill a SINGLE model) Like the other guy said, the only people that really like to use walking Termies, are, uh, people like me that play Black Templars and wanna take advantage of double heavy weapons in 5 man teams.

As a someone that uses that tactic, I spread out my Termies to bubble wrap units, and try to string them into cover in the process. (Meanwhile, my Assault Termies are hiding in a Blessed Raider) I'm not too terrified of Dissies, since they still need a 3+ to wound, and I'll probably be taking some cover from it.

It's really hard to get clean shots on exposed heavy infantry in Cover/Tank/Hammer 40K.

Dark Eldar, fortunately, don't really care so much about bringing the high powered armor slagging guns to bear, since they have a better system for damaging infantry of all types: Massed torrents of poisoned AP fire at absurdly cheap prices.

I'd say that here its not a matter of X or Y... you don't really have to choose.

I mean, why do we have to focus on only ONE aspect of the weapon range?

An all DL army? Er... sure. But not so many shots, huh?

An all dissie army? Erm... sure. But how do you open up AV +10???

A balanced army? Wow, now that would be smart

BTW, Deathwing doesn't carry that many vehicles either and they don't quite love AP2

As I said, its not only to kill infantry... or MC!!!

It gives you tactical flexibility to actually be able to put some pain (even if not optimized) vs AV10...

And that, in a poisoned army is quite something...

Just my experience though

Good Hunting!

BTW, just doing some quick numbers...

With dissie, you need 18 shots to "statistically" kill 5 terminators (assuming 5++ save)

With poisoned weapons, you need 100 shots, 189 if they have FnP.

These are rough numbers... but the idea:

2 dissie reavers kill 5 terminators in 1 round.

You need 8 double SC venoms (2 rounds of shooting?) or 15 (3 rounds of shooting?) if they have FnP

Taking into account that you usually have 4-5 turns of shooting...that sounds quite demanding on the Venoms...

Food for thought

You're totally ignoring the fact that optimizing for shooting Terminators with Disses requires ditching the optimal unit for Dark Lances. That's the problem! Ravagers with DLs start at 105 points; that's a steal! Where are you gonna replace those cheap Dark Lances? Raiders? Warriors? Trueborn?

You NEED as many Dark Lances as you can get.


If it's standard Terminators, you assault them with Incubi. Bam, problem solved. Or tie them up with Wyches, Hell, you've got plenty of options, and standard Terminators aren't going to wreck your army anyway.

Against Assault Terminators, Dissies don't help much anyway....

The real problem is, how do you handle fully mechanized armies without plenty of Dark Lances, and at least a handful of Haywire Blasters/Heat Lances?

Hi Arrex.

Do I have all the answers? Nope I simply try and share what I've seen on the board.

5 incubi on the charge (for example) vs 5 shooty terminators... will kill something like 1,5 terminators...say 2.

When those 6 attacks hit back...its like 2.5 incubi!

You make a good point with the trade-off...dissie or DL. But I thought we were talking about army wide options, no only Heavy Support.

Don't have my codex in front right now, so please help me out: who else can take dissies? The flying thingies? (don't know the name in English, sorry)

As for needing as many DL as possible... I'd say its a matter of how you build your list.

For example, in my WWP list... I carry 0 I actually don't carry a single heavy weapon.

My answer to how to handle a full fledged mech list (2 AV14, 2 AV 13 and 4 AV 11)... with care? hehe

I agree that you need enough tools... and that you can never have enough sweet weapons

So, to wrap it up a bit (sorry for the disgressions..)

Sure, I'd love to carry 50 DL, that could each target 1 unit.

But in my Venom/raider spam list, the HS is always 1 dissie raider, 1 DL raider and 1 razorwing with dissies.

I kill tanks with the bike lances, disruption blasters from the fliers and grenades from the wytches.

Thanks for the ideas

I firmly agree with the above. Everyone so far seems to go one way or another, try a balanced list and it will work. DE are quite flexible and dissies just pack that additional punch that venoms can't deal, not to say venoms are bad because they are not, they are quality. Its a good weapon and with it in a balanced list it works well, in an unbalanced one, no wonder people percieve that its useless- youv'e done the wrong list if this is the case

Well...yeah, but anything that doesn't inherently suck works well in a balanced list.

The hangup with Dissies is simply that they're a little specialized and are very easy to dispense with in a list because we have other options to do what they do, and generally impact the list less by using those options.

Why is everyone so adamant about making it work? It's just a glorified heavy bolter.

I think it dies work, and is better than a heavy bolter - it's just not clearly optimal except in very specific builds/scenarios.

Raneth wrote:

Why is everyone so adamant about making it work? It's just a glorified heavy bolter.

Amen, brother.

I remember the days of yore, back when the Dissie could fire either as it does now, or as plasma cannon shot. Now those were the glory days; three S7 AP3 blasts can get pretty scary. Now it's just an AP2 heavy bolter, not something that tickles my fancy. (Hell, I never once used the alternate firing mode back in the day, why would I want it now?) Now if it were S6, it would be a whole different story...