How Does Raider Spam Work?

I've been doing well with Venom Spam or lists based around the idea of Venom Spam and do enjoy it, but I'm looking for something a little different. As such I'm working on a 2000 point Raider spam army list. One thing I'm wondering though is: how do Raider spam lists work?

With Venom spam the basics of my strategy have been to play the threat-bubbles. For example:
- Stay out of range or kill anything that has range on my army: Move 12" + Shoot 36" = 48" threat bubble for my Venoms
- Ravagers also doing the same, but against AV

My army is more dynamic than just that, but to keep things simple I can say that I do very well with the strategy I just outlined. However how about Raider spam? I'm worried about surviveability. With the Venoms I'm so far that I can perpetually play Can't Touch This by M.C. Hammer (unless my opponent brings something with flamers that can deep strike). However with Raiders, you're forced to move in closer, which in turn exposes the flimsy Raiders to more danger.

As I'm starting to put some ideas together, I would imagine Raider spam plays something like this?
- Jink = 4+ Cover Save
- Night shields = 3+ Cover Save
- Hug cover and provide cover with intervening models
- Fire all guns into the opponent ASAP

Also how many Raiders is too few in a 2000 point list? I'm currently going with five just so that I can have more things to play with and I do have about 240 points left over to work with. As a reference, here's the general idea of my list. The list is currently incomplete and I've removed all the details, but I've included its' basic structure help provide more context; the focus is on Raider spam, not my army list.

H.Q.
- Succubus
- Haemonculus with a Webway portal

Elites
- 10x Wracks

Troops
- 10x Kabalite warriors + Raider
- 10x Kabalite warriors + Raider
- 10x Kabalite warriors + Raider
- 10x Kabalite warriors + Raider
- 10x Kabalite warriors + Raider

Fast Attack
- 3x Reavers
- 3x Reavers
- 3x Reavers

Heavy Support
- Voidraven Bomber

i saw a raider list on here this summer i think. It was something like 300 raiders and nothing else.

jokes aside he was playing two or three cads/realspace raiders and he filled his fast attacks with raiders and took no ravagers. The idea of MSU taken in the extremes


with the new rules to jink, the raider/warrior spam is completely dead unless you want all your army hitting on 6's the entire game

Maybe use less Warriors (5 per Raider) to free points for more Raiders you wanna spam?
Or do you need them because no Venoms?
Edit: Also do Succubus and Grotesques get a ride?

doriii wrote:

with the new rules to jink, the raider/warrior spam is completely dead unless you want all your army hitting on 6's the entire game

Yeah I was actually wondering about that. With the new FAQ, the moment you jink, the passengers in transports have to snap fire. That being said I rarely (if ever) had to jink with Venom Spam. So what's left for competitive Dark Eldar? Venom Spam and . . . ?

Marrath wrote:

Maybe use less Warriors (5 per Raider) to free points for more Raiders you wanna spam?
Or do you need them because no Venoms?

The idea was to fill the Raiders with Kabalite Warriors to maximise the dice output during the shooting phase. I wouldn't want to have more Raiders just for the sake of having more Raiders

Well you could add splinter racks to give the passengers twin linked...

Yep, I totally believe in splinter racks and in all my lists with Raiders I do include them. But for Dark Eldar in general..
.. is Raider spam truly dead? And if so what other styles of play do we have that are competitive (or as close to competitive as possible)?

I think the raider spam is still alive, just a little worse. The theory (as I understand it) is that raiders are slightly better AT than ravagers, since the raiders can target multiple units and have more HP/lance.

This amounts to at least 8 raiders on the table, along with maybe a venom or two for infantry. Then you overwhelm with him MSU style. In my experience anything less than 7 transports will leave you on foot by the end of turn 2.

I think that people are wailing "Raider Spam is Dead!" and gnashing their teeth and rending their garments, but I don't think the actual build is so worse off that it's unviable.

I'd like to give it a shot on my own a couple of times and see how it shakes out.

5 Warriors in a Raider is fine: when out of cover, a Raider will score as many MEQ kills as a doublecannon Venom while costing 10 points less. Disintegrators are hugely underrated, though the loss of the Flickerfield is indeed worth considering.

If I were going with a huge amount of Raiders, I'd take a lot of leadership debuffs and take advantage of the Shock Prow upgrade. Those S7 autohits tend to be better than an S8 shot at BS4 for taking out vehicles, while leadership modifiers would let you tank shock to your heart's content.

I think dissies are underrated as well and 55pts is a bargain. Easy to spam.

In regards to the new FAQ we have to get our passengers out earlier than before. Ideally into cover near an obj. Its not great but it does add to our MSU, obj winning style.

I won best Dark Eldar at Adepticon with this list: http://www.thedarkcity.net/t13716-adepticon-overview

1850 Pts - Codex: Dark Eldar Roster

Total Roster Cost: 1850

: Combined Arms Detachment (43#,)
 0 Court of the Archon,
    1 Lhamaean,
    1 Venom,  + Splinter Cannon
 0 Court of the Archon,
    1 Lhamaean,
    1 Venom,  + Splinter Cannon
 5 Kabalite Warriors,
    1 Venom + Splinter Cannon
 5 Kabalite Warriors,
    1 Venom,  + Splinter Cannon
 5 Kabalite Warriors,
    1 Venom,  + Splinter Cannon
 5 Kabalite Warriors,
    1 Raider, + Dark Lance  x1
 5 Kabalite Warriors,
    1 Raider,  + Dark Lance x1
 5 Kabalite Warriors,
    1 Raider,  + Dark Lance x1
 1 Raider,  + Dark Lance x1
 1 Raider,  + Dark Lance x1
 1 Raider,  + Dark Lance x1

: Combined Arms Detachment (42#, )
 0 Court of the Archon, 0 pts
    1 Lhamaean,
    1 Venom,  + Splinter Cannon
 0 Court of the Archon, 0 pts
    1 Lhamaean,
    1 Venom,  + Splinter Cannon
 4 Kabalite Warriors,
    1 Sybarite,  (+ Haywire Grenades  + Phantasm Grenade Launcher )
    1 Raider,  + Dark Lance x1
 5 Kabalite Warriors,
    1 Venom,  + Splinter Cannon
 5 Kabalite Warriors,
    1 Venom, + Splinter Cannon
 5 Kabalite Warriors,
    1 Raider,  + Dark Lance x1
 5 Kabalite Warriors,
    1 Raider, + Dark Lance x1
 5 Kabalite Warriors,
    1 Raider, + Dark Lance x1
 1 Raider, + Dark Lance x1
 1 Raider,  + Dark Lance x1

Validation Report:
Roster satisfies all enforced validation rules

Every empty raider gets filled with a troop choice freeing up the venoms to move 12 and shoot at will. TONS of objective secured.

Tabled every opponent except one, and only lost the kill point mission, but even that was very close to my opponent being tabled.

Sadly, with the new rules to Jink, this list is no longer considered competitive.

With 21 vehicles, I don't think the new Jink rules are going to hurt as much as they might otherwise.

I find the razorwing jetfighters combo well with lots of raiders / ravagers
Basic idea is get them out of their transports with all the dark lances early so when the missiles come in there is plenty of targets for them.

Does it work?

It's only 12 lances. Granted dissies can destoy AV10-11, but still, I'm surprised you could table that many players. What kind of army did you face?

*edit* My bad, I saw your link.

Hi all just for a variation i took a lance raider with trueborn with 2 lances to a tournament recently. While expensive compared to ravagers it did enable 3 more lances 2 of which could shoot at different targets. Also opponents tended to forget about the lances inside. On its own prbbably not worth it but worked well with 2 ravagers.

Jimsolo wrote:

With 21 vehicles, I don't think the new Jink rules are going to hurt as much as they might otherwise.

That's what I was thinking. Your skimmer swarm will be drawing all the fire, your warriors could probably just walk around taking selfies.

Azdrubael wrote:

Does it work?

Yes, especially for maelstrom

Because the gun is so far forward and is pintle mounted, you can place a raider behind cover so the side is completely obscured and closer to the enemy than the front, while still being able to shoot them. With night shields, that's a 2+ cover save.

For that alone, I prefer raiders over venoms. A single dissie is also 50% better against TEQs than dual splinter cannons, and equally good against MEQs and things like Dreadknights.

Skulnbonz wrote:

I won best Dark Eldar at Adepticon with this list:  http://www.thedarkcity.net/t13716-adepticon-overview

Wow nasty list haha, I love it. I was thinking though. Since you were tabling your opponents, did you find the extra 8 units of Kabalite Warriors useful?

If you did it again would you bring a Real Space Raider Detach instead? Drop some warriors for more vehicles? I think RSRD has a real chance with Venom/Raider spam, no?

I mean, I like the Warriors though, great for throwing into dangerous enemy units for a turn or so at time also. Plus the scoring in case you don't table right? I just like lists that try to table people haha so yeah, more vehicles might be even nastier

You get to make the most of your Lance's, it's great, since each fires from its own platform. Wish I had the models just to torture my buddies.

You know... you are right. You DO need warriors for ObSec and the extra shots, but for sheer intimidation and vehicle saturation, that may be the way to go.

Ok, i had to see what this would be...
3 Lahmeans
6 units of warriors
11 raiders
14 venoms

25 Vehicles at 1850.
Bring a bucket to roll the dice because for the venoms alone you are looking at 168 poison shots with an effective range of 48"

As far as Ultimate Raider/Venom Spam, that definatly takes the cake. 25 vehicles at 1850... I just need 19 more myself

I bet it would woop on most armies. I like an army who's focus is to kill the enemy, its easy to score if you're standing on dead bodies. That's not to say its an invincible list, everyones got a counter (I hate fighting biker armies without an anti-cover unit for example(Ravenwing wing gives me nightmares))

I was thinking Chain Snares and Nightshields (not as much), might be an interesting thing to think about also. Just if you're playing Realspace Raider Detach with such large amounts of skimmer spam.

dont we need more than 11 dl shots at 1850?

You could drop a venom and add 4 blasters and a haywire. but the object was just vehicle saturation. Anything on the ground is dead, and 11 DL shots is nothing to sneeze at either