Let's talk mech.

I think the problem most DE players have is vs. good Mech and it's good general.

How many of you guys lose your Ravagers and Trueborn within Turns 1 and 2, even going first?

I haven't yet, but when I do, I dreaded that to happen for quite awhile now:

- Single blaster Warriors are laughable, not even anti-tank more like hope for a Shake/Stun and be done with it. I donno the precise math but it supremely sucks. Why are people still doing this? Because it's cost effective with a Venom? 125 points for 1 S8 shot and hoping to whatever supreme being you believe in (if that) that your 1 s8 shot will crack a tank in 5th so all your poison can pour in? Laffs sez I, LAFFS

So what did I do about that? I added Blast Pistols back in Warrior squads I do use. 2 Strength 8 shots is a hella lot better than 1, even if it means putting our Troops in the bill. Hey, a lot of armies outside Codex Space Marines:

- Space Wolves Grey Hunters, usually 5-7 with a Melta and a Wolf Guard with a Combi-Melta; amirite?
- Chaos Space Marines Plague Marines 5-7 with 2 Meltas; amirite?
- 10 man Blood Angels Assault Squads with 2 Meltas / 5 Man with a Melta and Melta Pistol; amirite?

Now Codex Space Marines can do this -

5 Bikes - 2 Melta and even a Multi Melta
but more likely these days they'll do -

10 Man, Combat Squadded --
Melta, Combi-Melta Sgt 5 man team
<Heavy weapon of choice> 5 man team

And they're on top there. 1 Because it's melta mainly (AP 1 is the bau5) AND also because they can have 12 Scoring choices by having 10 man Tac units Combat Squad up, have a suicide duty double str 8 shot teams and heavy weapons in the back.

In a werd: F** Dat Sh**

Anyways back on track here...

- Also realize you need a bit more than the Stun/Shake on the likes of say our worst matchups - Mech IG and Grey Knights.

Mech IG because it really doesn't care about Shake/Stuns because the Vets can still get out and ruin something before they ruin you, or their mech doesn't matter and they have a huge 30+ man blob in Cover that won't budge because the Commissar is around anyway. (Hence my proposition on Tank Shock to at least brave the Autocannon/Melta and just "Charlie-Foxtrot" (Clusterf***) their Objectives.

Grey Knights because not only of Fortitude but Psycannons everywhere, probably on foot units which, even with poison, you need to devote probably 2 Venoms per unit to try to take out said Psycannons, I think that's the math on it anyway.

So yeah TL;DR -- DE need some better anti-tank than Venom-spam single Blaster Warriors and having only the Ravagers and Blasterborn pull the weight.

Smurfy wrote:

- Single blaster Warriors are laughable, not even anti-tank more like hope for a Shake/Stun and be done with it. I donno the precise math but it supremely sucks. Why are people still doing this? Because it's cost effective with a Venom? 125 points for 1 S8 shot and hoping to whatever supreme being you believe in (if that) that your 1 s8 shot will crack a tank in 5th so all your poison can pour in? Laffs sez I, LAFFS

Like those more with Raiders anyway, it's only 5 pts more for a FF-Raider. Dedicated AT unit is dedicated.

Smurfy wrote:

So what did I do about that? I added Blast Pistols back in Warrior squads I do use. 2 Strength 8 shots is a hella lot better than 1, even if it means putting our Troops in the bill.

Ugh. I hate Blast Pistols.

Smurfy wrote:

So yeah TL;DR -- DE need some better anti-tank than Venom-spam single Blaster Warriors and having only the Ravagers and Blasterborn pull the weight.

130 pts for 2 darklight shots isn't a bad deal.

Can I get a whoop for Raiders!?

idea though iffy about it because where's your anti-infantry when you do that? Also use Venoms for this goal because they can speed ahead of other stuff and block the way, Raiders could do the same thing yet better sometimes with Rams, so will consider it, but feel inclined a list should always have a Venom or two.

I actually think that Warriors should get Raider. Venom is cool, but if you already have 5+ guys...

I like 10 warriors with Blaster and SC, in Raider. Granted it is more costly than Venom but it have decent and mobile AI and AT. Better, it have ~48" Lance (36"+12"move).

Smurfy wrote:

idea though iffy about it because where's your anti-infantry when you do that? Also use Venoms for this goal because they can speed ahead of other stuff and block the way, Raiders could do the same thing yet better sometimes with Rams, so will consider it, but feel inclined a list should always have a Venom or two.

Blasterborn have a decent enough chance of popping a transport to warrant their own Venom, so that's 2-3 of them right there for most lists.

Thats more like it.

Tho lets not have the raider vs venom argument... again. All raider, all venom or somewhere in between have all been proven to be competitive at tournaments.

The Blasterborn/Venom combo is proven. (Give them a Blaster Archon for great justice) IMO, 10 man Warrirors squads in Raiders gives you a couple anti-tank shots (including the mandatory Dark Lance), and enough AP fire to seriously hammer most standard infantry. Cost wise it's not bad at all either, and it can cap objectives.

My way of thinking is, a warrior squad in a Raider gives you the advantage of both solid AP fire AND another Dark Lance.

I don't get around to fielding 10-man Warrior squads very often, admittedly - every time I decide to up a squad's numbers Wyches are my first go-to unit.

Smurfy wrote:

So what did I do about that? I added Blast Pistols back in Warrior squads I do use. 2 Strength 8 shots is a hella lot better than 1, even if it means putting our Troops in the bill. Hey, a lot of armies outside Codex Space Marines:

And why would you spend 25 points for an extra 6" "glorified missle launcher" when you could spend 5 for a raider and have more range???

as for the raider/venom debate, I think its all in how many dark matter shots you feel is confortable with.

About deployment its all in minimalizing return fire. I know we have all (mostly) been saying the same thing, but its something you learn over experience with how to deal with it. Reserves is a way of doing this, but its fickle and can be controlled by certain lists (IG), so its not my prefered method. Other ways is the good old hide behing LOS blocking terrain. Where I play we set up normal tournament style, with two pieces of LOS blocking in opposite corners, two soft terrain piece in the other corners, and one huge LOS blocking piece in the middle. If you do not have any full LOS blocking terrain, I suggest in investing in some, it is about the most amazing thing you can do to have fair games.

Yes I get that it's pretty glorified 25 points, but run the math on 1 Str 8 shot vs an unmodified damage table vs. 2 Str 8 shots. (AV 11/12) I think it's a significant jump? But I might give these folks some Raiders anyway seeing as my Venom roles of Splinter fire torrenting is somewhat fufilled by Trueborn with Blasters & Splinter Cannons sitting on a Raider/Scourges/Hellions/CC awesomeness units

Hiding behind block LoS is something everyone's harping on but just doesn't exist all the time. It should be rare you're able to hide anything in a game. Sure, you can use your own Skimmers and units as Cover but you won't get any Concealment because once a skimmer dies the passengers are on the ground, lower than the skimmers...It's simple to judge this by just looking at your models.

About the only things I've ever truly hidden were Hellions and Jetbikes due to their mini-Skimmer stands.

Anyways, on track -- I'm saying I realize the tactics, but judging how DE actually suck in the anti-tank department against modernized lists, let's dive into this -

Tau -

Have 2 TL 7 Shots+Flamer per suit, or 2 Str 7+2 Str 6 (AP 2 no less) on Crisis Suits as a standard weapon layout, amirite?

Ion Cannons, Str 7 3 Shot (Don't see them much but I think we might because Rails can go on Broadsides)

Skyrays - Multi-Str 8 Shot capable

These gets the Tau player something we don't have already in a torrent of medium firepower unit -- It doesn't kill T4 outright (Save for Skyrays), but can torrent lighter AV very well, just the latter takes the risks to operate ~30" and make sure FNP doesn't bother it, lol -> What DE choice is good at torrenting lighter vehicles?

Next:

Space Marines of any kind

Dreadnought weapon Configs - 2 TL Autocannons (DA/BT can't do this, and GK's version everyone loves to hate), need I say more?

Predators - Autocannon + 2 Heavy Bolters (Hey look Ma, more torrent of medium firepower!) or Autocannon + 2 Lascannons (BA do this one quite a bit, heavy firepower torrent, but like DE it's restricted to 3 slots sooo...My eyes it can suck but if it's with more torrent of medium+ strength firepower it's gnarly.) Baal Predators (Case in point why the AutoLas Preds work with BA)

Land Speeder Typhoons - (Typhoon ML + HB/MM) With a Multi-Melta they are 6" move and fire all Ravagers with the option for anti-horde. The biggest kickers? Easier to hide and cheaper...

I can go on about this really but again I'm getting to TL;DR mode:

I can't think of any units in the DE army, outside some CC specialists, that do what I need in the army and that's generally getting a reliable "shut that Tank up" effect without either being in a small unit (Scourges) or relying on CC hits (Grots/Hellions roid'd) to do this.

Not that I don't love my DE, I'm just being nitpicky for the hella it.

Beastmasters kill Marines, Hordes, and AV10 Rear vehicles which moved 6'' or less. If they moved 12'', they're not bothering you anyway. They're also quick enough to catch 'em, and tough enough to soak up massive amounts of firepower if you keep 'em in cover and pounce when needed.

Trueborn can reasonably torrent lighter vehicles down, which is what I use them for -- Rhino-popping.

Ravagers torrent quite well, but Voidravens blow them out of the water (as I've been discovering.)

Tau are so pitiful they don't warrant an honourable mention -- if you, as a DE player, are scared of 8 T4 Suits with a 3+ armor save and no melee capacity, or 5-7 AV12 vehicles which cost almost as much as a Wave Serpent, and are MUCH less dangerous, then you need more than 12 darklight weapons in 2,000 points, or something. Tau are abysmal. Worse than Necrons. Necrons.

Predators -- Just as easy to kill as they were 11 years ago.

Typhoons -- Yeah, cheap firepower on an AV10 platform -- too bad we have S8 coming out of our ears.

Really, the only reasonable fear on the list up there is the Autocannon Dreadnought, and pretty much only in a GK army -- every other AC Dread shuts up when you punch it a few times with S8.

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The morale of the story is, Mech is a problem for everyone, because 5e made it that way. Dark Eldar are masters of suppression fire and ambush tactics -- our much-vaunted "alpha strike" is a newb trap: you dump 20 (I'm being generous) darklight shots into a mech'd foe on Turn 1, and he's in cover? Congratulations, you killed 1.5 Rhinos. Now your entire army is disembarked and ..

No.

You have to bait people, and string them along, and sting them here and there, and zap their tanks until they can't shoot back, and when the foe is trudging into the midfield, you zoom up and dump the full complement of firepower onto his weakened force, follow up with a triple-Voidraven/Razorwing missile nova, and drop a full squad of Beastmasters on the survivors.

In my experience, hiding and playing tag for the first 3 turns, rather than just leaping for the other guy's throat, is what ends up winning me games. Beastmasters tend to make people leary of coming near a firebase, so work wonderfully for defense, but also do equally well with cleaning up small squads of Marine survivors when you have better stuff for your Warriors to shoot at (like more Rhinos), and perform a duel role here: they keep people from approaching you with their midrange firepower, so your own can continue to burn them, and they can also aggressively pounce on weakened squads in order to secure easy paintokens.

Trying to win by Turn 3 is, in my opinion, rarely an advisable idea against a competent mech'd up player. Throwing your entire force 24'' up the board as soon as you have the chance is silly -- you'll sustain massive casualties from enemy firepower, and suffer the full complement of their melta and bolters, as well as their dedicated long-range AT. Instead, treat your cover-saves and flickerfields like Shadowfields: they work best when you never have to use them to begin with.

Patience is the deadliest killer of all.

Honestly, my greatest successes against mech'd up armies hasn't been DL spam. I think haywire blasters are by far one of our best AT weapons. The main mech armies in my area are IG and GK(chimera spam the psykers with ST10 AP1 large blasts). One of the other local players agrees with me as well, he plays Orks, IG, GK, and DE. I have run 3 units of scourges pretty consistently in most of my lists and they have always done more damage to vehicles than my DL weapons, with the exception of void lances. A lot of the stuff they run here is AV 12 on the front and most of the players here are smart enough to rotate vehicles to make it hard to get to side and rear armor. So from that consideration a dark lance would need a 4 to glance and a 5 or 6 to pen, while a haywire blaster only needs a 2 to glance and a 6 to pen. Sure I am not killing as many vehicles but if you do target priority right you can stop the vehicles in a way to block them all off, keep the crews from firing and if they get out just kill them. At that point it's a parking lot behind them for stuff to either snipe away at or swoop behind and attack from the rear. That tactic has won me quite a few games and a tournament at my LGS, and it's something most people don't expect because when most people think DE they think SL spam. Plus the scourges give me a fairly versatile unit since the guys without special weapons come with shard carbines so they can do some AI too. Normally I end up running 3 units of 5 scourges with 2 haywire blasters and 2 void raven bombers to snipe off high priority targets early in, either with the void lances or a quick run in with the void mine which I have found to be quite devastating if you measure it right and deploy the void ravens near the center of the table. My void raven bombers have always ended up doing more damage for me than ravagers. But that's just my 2 cents.

Edit: Oh and one last thing, it actually kind of works out better for me to go second with the list around that mostly because if I keep back near my board edge and in a corner my opponent almost never has range first turn and will move up making easy targets for me, both from me seeing how he is going to be moving as well as being able to determine where his vehicles can go without sacrificing any of mine. So whenever I get the choice, normally I'll go second.

Veldrith wrote:

Beastmasters kill Marines, Hordes, and AV10 Rear vehicles which moved 6'' or less. If they moved 12'', they're not bothering you anyway. They're also quick enough to catch 'em, and tough enough to soak up massive amounts of firepower if you keep 'em in cover and pounce when needed.

So let's see here and talk sense: The Beasts are Tank Shocked off the board by a few Rhinos. Even with Baron leading them, yes....And once they hit combat --

How many Razorwing Flocks we thinking? 4? -- 24 attacks 12 hit 2 rends: 1/3 of the time they'll glance rear AV 10, rest they'll pen but with pen 1/3 to kill. Yes that's all assuming you're focussing on 1 vehicle and I know you're not.

Khymerae? 5? 20/10 and 1. Glance. Yeah I'll stop there.

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Trueborn can reasonably torrent lighter vehicles down, which is what I use them for -- Rhino-popping.

So again we're thinking the opponent is an idiot and doesn't shoot your Trueborn first? Maybe I needa remind you of the dilemma I fear and am asking everyone about -- Ravagers and Trueborn die first turns (1 and 2) - How effective is your anti-tank elsewhere in the DE army?

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Ravagers torrent quite well, but Voidravens blow them out of the water (as I've been discovering.)

This opinion disturbs me when you consider the likliehood of the Flyers surviving more than a few turns yet again, even worse survivablity than Ravagers due to being on those tall Flyer bases, but nope, let's ignore this.

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Tau are so pitiful they don't warrant an honourable mention -- if you, as a DE player, are scared of 8 T4 Suits with a 3+ armor save and no melee capacity, or 5-7 AV12 vehicles which cost almost as much as a Wave Serpent, and are MUCH less dangerous, then you need more than 12 darklight weapons in 2,000 points, or something. Tau are abysmal. Worse than Necrons. Necrons.

Maybe you're getting the wrong message: I wasn't saying I was scared of Tau as DE, I'm showing what THEY can get and we CAN'T and why it's a GOOD THING for them and WOULD BE for us. That said, Tau Empire > Necrons atm IMO due to Necrons not being able to kill vehicles, Tau dont need CC because they have Plasma that ignores Cover Saves, anything that should cc just should fence your Suits and die from the opponent charging them resulting in the Tau army shooting you some more. Best of all, the Tau army can make Cover from nothing with Disruption Pods available...However, Ward might change that with these new 'Crons though.

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Predators -- Just as easy to kill as they were 11 years ago.

So 4/6 (BS 4) x 2/6 (Pen results from Str 8 vs AV 12) x 2/6(Dice results that are Wreck/Explode) x 1/2 (Cover) =3.7% is easy? times it by 3 or 4 if you are still using Ravagers/Blasterborn against them.

Thinking AV 11? Here ya go sir - 4/6 x 3/6 x 2/6 x 1/2 = 12/216. 100/216 x 12 = 5.5% chance of DESTROYING AV 11. Yeah have fun with those odds, I love them, so EASY. /sarcasm

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Typhoons -- Yeah, cheap firepower on an AV10 platform -- too bad we have S8 coming out of our ears.

4/6 x 4/6 x 2/6x 1/2 = 16/216. 100/216 x 16 = 7.4% chance of DESTROYING AV 10. Math laffs at you moar.

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Really, the only reasonable fear on the list up there is the Autocannon Dreadnought, and pretty much only in a GK army -- every other AC Dread shuts up when you punch it a few times with S8.

Go back to reading on how hard it really is to kill AV 12 with your Str 8.

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__________________________________

The morale of the story is, Mech is a problem for everyone, because 5e made it that way. Dark Eldar are masters of suppression fire and ambush tactics -- our much-vaunted "alpha strike" is a newb trap: you dump 20 (I'm being generous) darklight shots into a mech'd foe on Turn 1, and he's in cover? Congratulations, you killed 1.5 Rhinos. Now your entire army is disembarked and ..

No, you don't get it, the more Str 8 firepower you have, the more chances you have to pop through that AV. Why should I skimp on Str 8 when clearly the math shows I need as much as I can get while fitting the Anti-Infantry in?

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No.

You have to bait people, and string them along, and sting them here and there, and zap their tanks until they can't shoot back, and when the foe is trudging into the midfield, you zoom up and dump the full complement of firepower onto his weakened force, follow up with a triple-Voidraven/Razorwing missile nova, and drop a full squad of Beastmasters on the survivors.

What insanity is this assuming your flyers and Beastmasters are not easy as piss to counter, say it like it REALLY is

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In my experience, hiding and playing tag for the first 3 turns, rather than just leaping for the other guy's throat, is what ends up winning me games. Beastmasters tend to make people leary of coming near a firebase, so work wonderfully for defense, but also do equally well with cleaning up small squads of Marine survivors when you have better stuff for your Warriors to shoot at (like more Rhinos), and perform a duel role here: they keep people from approaching you with their midrange firepower, so your own can continue to burn them, and they can also aggressively pounce on weakened squads in order to secure easy paintokens.

Or again, what are smarter people afraid of here? Go up in mech shells 12" and Smoke train while the backfield lights up your Ravagers/Razorwings/Voidravens and hopefully de-meching/killing your Blasterborn

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Trying to win by Turn 3 is, in my opinion, rarely an advisable idea against a competent mech'd up player. Throwing your entire force 24'' up the board as soon as you have the chance is silly -- you'll sustain massive casualties from enemy firepower, and suffer the full complement of their melta and bolters, as well as their dedicated long-range AT. Instead, treat your cover-saves and flickerfields like Shadowfields: they work best when you never have to use them to begin with.

Assuming the enemy's incompetency and unable to engage you at all? I DON'T go 24" the board ya know, I sit in/ on my table edge for 3 turns a game regularly, and still fail at times.

Granted I am doing fine record-wise with the DE like I said, but I'm saying things like if I faced my own DE army, and if I faced my own DE army with say a Mech Marine list, the Mech Marine list would win because of: AP 1 access to more stuff, tank shock easily being available, and torrent of medium str firepower.

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Patience is the deadliest killer of all.

Man that was a piece of work, good on ya sir, good on ya.

You need to learn how to play, and stop using examples in a vacuum.

On a more serious note -- yeah, in a vacuum, everything you said is true. 1 S8 shot really does have horrible odds of popping AV11 and 12 in cover. Sure.

Beastmasters will occasionally fail Ld9 checks with the Baron around. So, if you're some kind of moron who throws them into the path of a bunch of empty Rhinos for no reason, and you end up taking 3-4 leadership tests, you're probably screwed. Of course, if you actually maneuver so you can line up no-cover shots, odds spike substantially, and most all statistical comparisons you make assume one turn of firing.

Believe it or not, if you play correctly, and you have reasonable terrain, you'll get more than one turn.

Dark Eldar are not designed to absolutely SMASH OPEN every single vehicle on the table in one turn -- they stun a bunch of stuff, and then smash one or two disembarked squads at a time. Voidravens and Razorwings both do that (and a Voidraven with AV11, Closed-Top, and Flickerfields is pretty tough ... I mean, you spend a lot of time complaining about how bad the odds of killing AV11 with cover is for S8, so AV11 with careful positioning, cover, and flickerfields when absolutely necessary is pretty on-par.) They also drop fairly quickly on the target priority radar once you dump their missiles, but have the advantage of a Voidmine, which actually does have use.

Saturate the board with darklight and MSU, take a huge horde of Beastmasters (5 Khymerae and 4 RWs? Try 10 and 6, with 5 BMs and the Baron, especially once they acquire 3 Pain Tokens and become Fearless), and punish people with multiple blasts and precision firepower.

I just finished playing a "Best of the Best" tournament in Miami. My first opponent was Brian Poole of the Wrecking Crew, and his Psifleman/Purifier/DCA spam army, in a Spearhead mission with Capture and Control, Killpoints, AND Seize Ground as mission objectives -- it was tough, but I won, and that's arguably our worst matchup. I walked out with 1st Place and around 400 dollars. I'm going to the 'Ard Boyz Finals this weekend (I finished 1st in Prelims, and 2nd in Semis by 1 point), and I'm aiming for BeakyCon at the end of this month. You can spout all the statistical averages you like (and I do believe in math), but statistics in a vacuum are about as useless to a 40K player as a bicycle is to a fish.

So, yes. Lances suck when you shoot a few at something in cover. So, you know, maneuver so you're in cover and they aren't, double your odds instantly, and blow them away. We're fast, remember?

Really? I'm saying how it is, you're the one making fantasy land fairy tales, lol.

-Let's count how many times your Ravagers/Flyers/Trueborn survive all game vs. an equally-skilled opponent
- Have your Beasts ever been Tank Shocked? More than once?
- What's the hardest army for you to kill? Mech IG, Mech BA (Especially including Priest FNP bubbles) and Mech Eldar amirite or amiwong?
- Do you ever lose your multi-lance/Anti-tank shot units in the first turn or 2? Maybe after they get their first volley if you're hiding in Reserves?
- Do you have Blocks Line of Sight terrain all over your boards? Even tall enough for Flyers?
- How many Lances on average does it take you to kill any vehicle that's not Open-Topped?

There added more, very enlightening to me because apparently I suck.

1. 80% of the time, I have 2-3 squads of Trueborn and 1-2 Flyers left at game's end. Florida is pretty top-tier when it comes to competent 40K players. Most of the Wrecking Crew is down here, and so is Thor, unless I miss my guess. I'm afraid Florida's baby seals would probably club California's pros.

2. Of course. Sometimes they break. Shadowfields fail too, even on a 2++ -- you try to avoid the situations which put you at a disadvantage, and tank shocks are pretty easy to avoid.

3. Mech IG is fairly easy with Beastmasters -- mine devour parking lots and shrug off BS3 multilasers with a 3+ coversave all day long. Mech BA is pitifully easy -- you just blow them up with S8 AP2, Rending, etc. Feel No Pain on Marines is stupidly simple to counter -- You gonna tell me that Plague Marines keep you up at night, too? Mech Eldar is probably the toughest of the 3 you listed, but Warwalkers die to S8 and S7 blasts, Wave Serpents will die to Rending and Lances, and once you kill off even one squad of Warwalkers (easily doable, even if you have to drop your whole army into blowing them away), Mechdar becomes increasingly wimpy. Serpent spam is also not very popular, as Serpent spam tends to have a hard time tabling, and aims for last-minute objective grabs instead of sheer brute force.

Grey Knights are what give me nightmares -- S6 Heavy Bolters and S8 autocannons on unstunnable platforms are our bane -- IG and BA and Eldar are irrelevant in today's meta. You see, Grey Knights are sort of causing them to become extinct.

4. Sometimes, against IG with Manticores -- not that often anymore.

5. Not really. Some terrain is pretty sparse, but we have a variety of hills, ruins, and a few bunkers which can block LOS to a Raider. Voidravens/other Flyers usually have to hide behind the very tallest Forgeworld buildings, and in our store, with 22 tables, we have.. maybe 4 of those? You have to rely on range and reserves, or else making your opponent see other stuff as more of a problem than the Voidravens -- playing 'Nids would teach you a thing or two about controlling an opponent's perception of target priority, and the immediacy of threats.

6. Around 9-12, and around double that if they're in cover. But, again, it's pretty easy to move 12'', deploy off the nose almost 3'' away, and catch people with their pants down. Retaliatory strikes never happen if you wipe out the targeted unit in one turn. Sometimes you get unlucky and your Trueborn get wasted, but when I pack 30 lances in my list, I can afford to let 10 Grey Hunters charge my 4 Trueborn (all 108 points of 'em), so my Beastmasters can countercharge them for an easy pain token. No-Win scenarios are what a smart general tries to set up.

I hope you're learning a thing or two.

First of all, thank you for taking the time to answer the questions.

Veldrith wrote:

1. 80% of the time, I have 2-3 squads of Trueborn and 1-2 Flyers left at game's end. Florida is pretty top-tier when it comes to competent 40K players. Most of the Wrecking Crew is down here, and so is Thor, unless I miss my guess. I'm afraid Florida's baby seals would probably club California's pros.

So you're assuming I only play in California? Lovely assumption. I played up in NOVA with people like Mike Brandt and Tony Kopach. Maybe you've heard of them if you are so high and mighty. Though, I donno how I compare to them anymore, and I'm not judging player skill buut didn't a member of the Wrecking Crew cheat to win 'Ard Boyz with his Daemons one year (a Gareth Hunt, iirc), I'm just judging straight up math.

So why do they live? Is it because they don't shoot them and people don't think Trueborn are high priority targets? Or is it somehow by good planning people don't decide to shoot multi-lance shot units back?

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2. Of course. Sometimes they break. Shadowfields fail too, even on a 2++ -- you try to avoid the situations which put you at a disadvantage, and tank shocks are pretty easy to avoid.

Yes, avoid situations that put you at a disadvantage, but you can't in the end thanks to a limited battlefield in terms of area... Really? Do you play objective games or sit-on-the-table edge all game games? And avoiding Tank Shock from a Mech Eldar army, that's really believable seeing as they cross 24" a turn just like you.

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3. Mech IG is fairly easy with Beastmasters -- mine devour parking lots and shrug off BS3 multilasers with a 3+ coversave all day long. Mech BA is pitifully easy -- you just blow them up with S8 AP2, Rending, etc. Feel No Pain on Marines is stupidly simple to counter -- You gonna tell me that Plague Marines keep you up at night, too? Mech Eldar is probably the toughest of the 3 you listed, but Warwalkers die to S8 and S7 blasts, Wave Serpents will die to Rending and Lances, and once you kill off even one squad of Warwalkers (easily doable, even if you have to drop your whole army into blowing them away), Mechdar becomes increasingly wimpy. Serpent spam is also not very popular, as Serpent spam tends to have a hard time tabling, and aims for last-minute objective grabs instead of sheer brute force.

Multi-lasers are good vs our Mech, Beastmasters hate Tank Shocks and Heavy Flamers, Mech BA with FNP tell me how you counter it, does it involve Power Weapons that remove from your Trueborn slots and Lances that should be used on Tanks? War Walkers die like cake from str 8 and 7 (but not blasts due to Scatter and 1/2 strength on partials) but you get neither for long and you're assuming the Eldar didn't Fortune his Walkers while he waited for your Flyers capable of what you're saying to fly on. Serpent spam not popular a reason? Go up north to NOVA, spell out how many Serpent Spammers you see there, I was one of them, lol. Mech Eldar doesn't have to do a last minute obj grab, I've won with it being aggressive with a mass of AV 12 Skimmers travelling like a Convoy and only dropping off Fragons to rid of the high priority stuff. It's not a good army for other reasons now, but still a strong list... need I spell it out from now on?

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Grey Knights are what give me nightmares -- S6 Heavy Bolters and S8 autocannons on unstunnable platforms are our bane -- IG and BA and Eldar are irrelevant in today's meta. You see, Grey Knights are sort of causing them to become extinct.

Simply because of unstunnable vehicles? Something DE have trouble doing in particular is HOPING for the stun/shake, let alone kill.

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4. Sometimes, against IG with Manticores -- not that often anymore.

I have trouble too sometimes when I bunch up, I try not to vs. them now.

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5. Not really. Some terrain is pretty sparse, but we have a variety of hills, ruins, and a few bunkers which can block LOS to a Raider. Voidravens/other Flyers usually have to hide behind the very tallest Forgeworld buildings, and in our store, with 22 tables, we have.. maybe 4 of those? You have to rely on range and reserves, or else making your opponent see other stuff as more of a problem than the Voidravens -- playing 'Nids would teach you a thing or two about controlling an opponent's perception of target priority, and the immediacy of threats.

Now this is interesting because you think Target Priority is a perception whereas I see it as a fact gained over time - Against chaos your target priority are the Oblits and Troops, against Orks your priorities are the KFFs then the rest of the Transports, etc. No matter what kinda game you are playing, the opposing lists determine the priority because most of the game is killing (to either gain KPs or keep the enemy from fighting effectively/holding objectives) and proper movement.

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6. Around 9-12, and around double that if they're in cover. But, again, it's pretty easy to move 12'', deploy off the nose almost 3'' away, and catch people with their pants down. Retaliatory strikes never happen if you wipe out the targeted unit in one turn. Sometimes you get unlucky and your Trueborn get wasted, but when I pack 30 lances in my list, I can afford to let 10 Grey Hunters charge my 4 Trueborn (all 108 points of 'em), so my Beastmasters can countercharge them for an easy pain token. No-Win scenarios are what a smart general tries to set up.

That's the problem against a competent player -
1. there are very little single isolated units in a good army setup/formation on the battlefield
2. Assuming you're competent and your enemy isn't again: Why the hell is the SW player using more resources than the little required to deal with 4 5+ (4+ Cover) Toughness 3 dudes? (Here's what I would suggest - Storm Bolters on Rhinos. He probably has a good number of them yes?) Why do your Beastmasters need a Pain Token? Only the Masters get the bonusses and if you make them Fearless <Insert possible lockdown mode here>
3. More lances were bad now they're good again. The problem I have is not that having that many sucks on the whole (Because it doesn't) its that you only get 1/2 at a time from sources outside Blasterborn and Ravagers, and that math isn't too friendly on getting a result you WANT. Amiwong?
I hope you're learning a thing or two.

I never said more lances was bad. I said that a common instinct for Dark Eldar players, perpetuated by the whole "We'll be on your doorstep on Turn 1" myth, is to throw everything you own into Blaster range, so you can dump 20 (probably not the full 30+, considering some stuff should still be out of range of some Blasters) lance shots into an enemy army on Turn 1, and that doing so typically means barely anything more than a dead Rhino or two, and an overextended army. On the contrary, more lances are *good*, and a huge asset for any DE player is to have 70%+ of your original lance weapons continuing to fire beyond Turn 4-6.

More vacuum comparisons -- Storm Bolters on Rhinos you assume will be alive and firing, when all you really need to stop a Rhino from bothering you is a hit, and then a 3+, where you roll anything besides Immobilized on either damage table afterwards. Dark Eldar can fire on a wide variety of targets, Trueborn models are fairly easy to hide as far as TLOS goes, etc. You can make all kinds of hyperbolic statements and "Oh, well, you'll be tank-shocked by the 8,000,000 Rhinos you couldn't stop in 3 turns on a 6 x 4 board, because lances never kill anything, omg omg omg, DE suck, etc", but it's just not true. Lances aren't devastating like a meltagun, but ... uhm, nothing else is, either.

Finally, Beastmasters are rock solid, and they love pain tokens -- a 3+/4+ FNP is the same as a 2+ save on the 6 Dark Eldar in the squad, and Fearless works perfectly fine: after all, the model with the highest leadership takes the leadership test, amirite?

Yes, of course I am.

Always.

And dude, seriously.. " Serpent Spam is a good army! I played it! It is a strong army, but it is bad now! Need I spell it out more?! " Stop overdosing on the combat drugs, you Holly-weirdo.

Smurfy wrote:

Simply because of unstunnable vehicles? Something DE have trouble doing in particular is HOPING for the stun/shake, let alone kill.

I think this is where you have the misconseption of our AT, or any AT in general. No matter if the shot is coming from a lascannon or a dark lance, they all roll on the same chart, and suffer from the mighty dice gods. The only way to reliable way to kill a tank is AP 1, which gives you a 50% chance on the damage chart, instead of a 33% chance. All armies have to take this into account. I have seen both tau railguns and ork warbosses cut right through a landraider T1 one game, and the next they couldnt kill a raider to save their lives. Its the way the chart is made, it basically forces every army to stunlock tanks until their meltaguns can get into range. We as Dark Eldar dont have the luxury of a meltagun in every squad, so how we make it up is Darkmatter spam. We stun tanks enough to get through the game.

I also dont see your arguement that we have a trouble stunning tanks... Considering every 3 lances = 1 damage result. On top of that we have haywires and haywire blasters, which almost = a stunlock tank a turn. Ive never had a problem stunlocking the 8~10 + tanks I fight against every time I play, and if you are, then Im sorry but the darkmatter curse has hit you hard

Oh, and if Mech BA is giving you some problems... Im truely sorry. You want to know how to get rid of priests??? Its called a Blaster. 1 blaster has a 27% chance of gibbing him automatically [1*.667*.833*.5(in cover ofc)] and if you really have a problem of shaving off those 5 man assault bodyguards... Im sorry then the dice are just against you.

If I can ask a quick question, what are the Harpyes that Crazy-Irish was referring to? I didn't see them in the Codex.

Not yeti, Still building my first 500 points, I hope for a game tomorrow night. I just didn't get the reference, so I asked, better to speak up and look like an idiot than stay quiet and remain one.

I would be much obliged if you could peek at the sliscus list I posted in the army lists section. I ended up going for the alternate list someone suggested in that thread.