Allied Corsair CAD

I guess I am a bit late with Corsairs since the Ynnari are the new hottness in town.
However, I am currently working on expanding my collection to 2000 points and want to make up some core-weaknesses of my pure-DE army with an allied Corsair CAD.

I had the following Corsair CAD in mind:

HQ:
- Corsair Prince with Void Sabre ... 95pts
  (probably a Cloud Dancer one with Reavers or maybe on foot with Grotesques)

Troops:
- 3 x Cloud Dancer with Scatter Lasers ... 90pts
- 3 x Cloud Dancer with Scatter Lasers ... 90pts
- 3 x Cloud Dancer with Scatter Lasers ... 90pts

Fast Attack:
- 2 x Hornets with Pulse Lasers and Void Burners ... 190pts
- 2 x Hornets with Pulse Lasers and Void Burners ... 190pts
- 1 x Nightwing with Kinetic Shroud ... 140pts

Heavy Support:
- 1 x Warp Hunter? ... 185pts

In short, my current list (CAD) has:

• 3 Medusae in a Venom
  
• 4 Warriors in Venoms
  
• 6 Reavers in one unit
  
• 2 Haywire Scourge units
  
• 1 Disintegrator Ravager
  
• A Grotesquerie
  

I wanted to keep a Dark-Eldar playstyle and thought that Scatter Lasers and Pulse Pulse Lasers would make up nicely for our lack in heavy weapon dakka.
The Nightwing should help out as at some basic AA and the Prince brings high leadership and S5 Rending.

As a result I considering replacing my Scourges for Reavers and maybe some Balestrike Bands.
Perhaps, I should get rid of the Medusaes as well, even-thought they normally performed nicely.

I am not quite sure what/if to bring some Elite or Heavy Support units, but the Warp Hunter does look nice.

Anybody got some thoughts on that?

I have a few thoughts having just run Corsairs at LVO...

The Strange Dark One wrote:

HQ:
- Corsair Prince with Void Sabre ... 95pts
  (probably a Cloud Dancer one with Reavers or maybe on foot with Grotesques)

Troops:
- 3 x Cloud Dancer with Scatter Lasers ... 90pts
- 3 x Cloud Dancer with Scatter Lasers ... 90pts
- 3 x Cloud Dancer with Scatter Lasers ... 90pts

Fast Attack:
- 2 x Hornets with Pulse Lasers and Void Burners ... 190pts
- 2 x Hornets with Pulse Lasers and Void Burners ... 190pts
- 1 x Nightwing with Kinetic Shroud ... 140pts

Heavy Support:
- 1 x Warp Hunter? ... 185pts

The prince is a little garbage imo - you have to have him and the risk is over loading him and not having him do much. I run mine with a venom blade and a basic forceshield these days on a bike with lasblasters.

The could dancers are amazing with reckless abandon

The Hornets - ditch the void burners. You don't need them at all. Between scout and their flat out and shoot rule, you should never need to deep strike them, especially as their guns are 48" range

The Nightwing - you don't need the shroud - once people hear 2+ jink they wont even bother shooting for the most part. Plus its not a great model on the table to be honest. I love using mine because it looks cool - and thats enough of a reason... but if you want competitive, get 2 more hornets instead.

Warp hunters are THE SINGLE MOST BUSTED UNIT in the game so far imo. They should always have kinetic shrouds and always be in pairs. You never need 3 but 1 risks not landing enough hits.

Barrage on a fast skimmer is just nuts and people will target these as a priority. Its one of the few times I consider running fortifications - just to keep them safe. A Landing pad works very well (for the corsairs in general that is) but I have been considering a shrine of the aquilla going forward - its so easy to hide the warp hunter outside of line of sight that you can all but guarantee to shoot first

anyway - good luck with your army!

Thanks a lot for the fast reply! It's hard to find good input on Corsairs.

Do you also have any suggestions for some Heavy Support slots?

Do you have good experience with Balestrikes?
At first they, seem like better Scourges. However, I'm a bit reserved to invest in a 5+ model that regroups at L5 and costs 4pts more than a Haywire Scourge. On the other side, with Grotesques and Hornets they should not be the primary targets of an enemy.

Heavy Mesh armour is tempting and so are the Missile Launchers, but I think they are just too expensive.

It also feels that with Hornets and maybe some Blasters on the Warriors I got enough Darklight and should focus more on other areas.
A Lynx, perhaps? It's so tempting to get some D into my army.

Massaen and I will probably disagree on this, but I vastly prefer Splinter Cannons on my cloud dancers. Far and a way the best ranged poison platform in the game IMO. I also disagree about the Prince. I agree that I don't like your prince but I disagree about the broader claim. You can build some truly fearsome configurations, but no matter which one we're talking about the end goal is always to make the larger squad you stick them in better.

As built I assume they are going with the reavers. I'd be giving them the shard of anaris, mastery level 1, and a shadowfield instead in that case. Or a voidsaber, ML1, and a shimmershield and put them in with the grotesques. Either way you should be bringing a shimmershield Void dreamer and placing them in a unit of grotesques in order to supplement your core of utility before grabbing toys like ravagers or nightwings.

In short, I'd radically re-evaluate your list with the awareness that while you do have strategy level synergy in spades, you lack tactical level synergy, almost entirely actually, and that means that misplays will hurt more because you took a fragile base army and tacked offensive firepower onto it rather than survivability, and corsairs make DE more survivable the same way Harlequins do: with force multiplication effects (read psychic powers and shimmershields in the corsairs case).

I think sprinter cannons are amazing on cloud dancers in most cases - just not here. DE really lack mid strength high RoF weapons and scatter lasers really fill this need well. There are already multiple poison platforms in the list and they are simply not needed here.

The prince is an average model for the same reason the archon is. He is overpriced for what you get. You build is close on 200 points and definitely not worth it. I would never add mastery levels due to the perils chart alone! Keeping him cheap and cheerful is where it's at. There is a reason a lhamaen is so favoured for DE lists!

I also would never run a void dreamer - again thanks to the perils chart.

That said, I am talking about a competitive list for an event so if it's a cas game with mates, go for it. I have a void dreamer for just this reason.

Fair point, and the big difference between supplementing raider DE lists and Venom DE lists, though if you are actively sourcing sufficient AV elsewhere their is nothing wrong with gobs of poison spam.

I disagree on every point of this analysis. To begin with 25pts as a stand alone increment is large enough that it isn't 'nearly' anything. It is itself. Jetbike version is 175, grotesque version is 150. In either case being a psyker is worth it because you're fearless so the only perils result that matters is 1. As for lhamaens I don't buy it. Ynnari lists don't only take lhamaens and farseers, squad-priced Melee characters are niche fillers for larger units.

Again, Void dreamer is fearless.

I'm also talking about competitive lists in competitive environments. We just play differently.

I don't have the book, but doesn't a corsair prince have the "must be warlord" requirement? Wouldn't that mean they can't be an Allied detachment as your warlord can't be in an Allied detachment?

Ish. He has the warlord usr which GW ruled means your point about 2 months after this book was published, the book also explicitly tells us we can take them as an allied detachment but doesn't specify how since we must take a prince. However as this list was presented to us you'll see that it's just a matter of semantics here. This isn't an "allied detachment", it's an allied "combined arms detachment" and would be their primary detachment on paper, yes, but that only means that the warlord must come from their and since the prince benefits from the CC focused nature of most warlord traits more than any of our characters that's okay.

amorrowlyday wrote:

He has the warlord usr which GW ruled means your point about 2 months after this book was published

Can you point me to the official GW ruling on this? I hadn't realized they made one.

November 2016 BRB FAQ Page 11 column 2 question 4.

Or are you suggesting that even though he has the warlord usr he doesn't actually have a 'must be warlord' req? THAT I actually can't defend against as RAW it's never been stated.

I guess the wording of the topic title is quite unspecific, I changed it.

Also, I guess amorrowlyday is right that I should re-evaluate my list as a whole.
The idea was just use Corsairs like some glue to make up for the offensive weaknesses. I did not think about what else I could do with 2000pts to create a nice DE-esque list. And I don't think my lists scales that well either.

I don't play in tournaments, but I want a good list. I don't want to go full Corsair but I think some things are better solved at the Corsair side (like replacing some Venoms with Splinter Cloud-Dancers). My main motivation is to preserve the visual and gameplay feel of the DE for the majority of the army.


I agree that Psycic Powers would help scaling the army much better, but I am very reserved about the use of Void Dreamers as well.

Is it actually possible to have Ynnari in an Allied Detachment?
It would be alluring to get an Allied Detachment of Ynnari for a Farseer and one or two Shadowseers, and a unit of Windriders as tax.

Oh I get it, and just to be clear, spackling with corsairs is absolutely a viable way to use them, it just isn't the only way, and may not be the way that best works towards your stated aims.

If you have reservations about the void dreamer consider ignoring that they are a psyker and only give them the shimmershield

T5 5++ FNP is worlds apart from T5 6+ FNP since the later is essentially Just 5+ to be wounded against bolters and a 5+ to fnp the wound a way since almost any weapon of note has some AP, while the former being 5+/5+/5+ radically changes the nature of the unit. A stock traditional grotesque unit takes wounds and is more survivable then MEQ because each model has 3 wounds and in the covens book regens those wounds via IWND, you're still fully expected to be taking those wounds and are thus slightly more likely (22% vs 16.7%) to take a wound vs bolter level (S4) attacks that have any AP. While you are more survivable when the attack has no AP, and by association when the AP is lower than or equal to 3, at 18.5% marines are still tankier on a wound per wound basis. Once you include a shimmershield into the equation, the cheapest being one on a void dreamer with no other upgrades at 65 pts, The grotesques are now always more survivable than the marines, excepting instant death of course, with a mere 14.8% chance of 1 hit becoming a successful wound.

Remember: since grotesques are multiwound models who are prized for their resiliency it's inappropriate to cost analyze them as 35pt models, or as a 3 member unit costing 105pts. They should be considered in terms of wound count, where they cost the rediculously cheap 11.66pts per wound. Remember a naked marine costs 14 pts, a naked Reaver jetbike costs 16pts, and a naked incubus costs 20; once you factor in that void dreamer your macro unit of 3 base grotesques and the void dreamer cost 15.45pts per wound. For a unit that is majority T5/S5, has rampage, poison/instant death, has a daemon save and feel no pain, fearless/zealot and IWND 15.45ppw is a steal. Only thing your losing out on is the ability to start the game embarked which does matter for list design, but I absolutely think it's worth it.

It is not possible to run Ynnari as anything other than the Ynnari formations and the reborn warhost.

amorrowlyday wrote:

Fair point, and the big difference between supplementing raider DE lists and Venom DE lists, though if you are actively sourcing sufficient AV elsewhere there is nothing wrong with gobs of poison spam.

I agree there is nothing wrong with that – the problem is the scatter laser is far more flexible and far more efficient than the splinter cannon in the majority of cases. I would go so far as to say there is almost no reason to take a splinter cannon if the platform you are taking it on can access a scatter laser for a few points more.
Splinter cannons on outperform scatter lasers in a handful of cases and are outshone in every other.
So yeah – nothing wrong with going splinter cannons, but it’s not the most effective in the most situations.

amorrowlyday wrote:

I disagree on every point of this analysis. To begin with 25pts as a stand alone increment is large enough that it isn't 'nearly' anything. It is itself. Jetbike version is 175, grotesque version is 150. In either case being a psyker is worth it because you're fearless so the only perils result that matters is 1. As for lhamaens I don't buy it. Ynnari lists don't only take lhamaens and farseers, squad-priced Melee characters are niche fillers for larger units.

You seem to have misunderstood the perils chart for these assumptions.
The 1 result is a massive issue – there is no recourse, you just die AND give the enemy a unit to attack you with.
2-3 does not give a hoot that you are fearless. You are not being pinned. You are treated as though you had failed a pinning test and gone to ground. Fearless makes you immune to pinning true – but this is not a pinning test – you are treated as though you had failed. You suffer the effects as if you had failed but are not actually pinned
4-5 you do ignore but the other units nearby might not
6 essentially stops you casting thanks to the auto perils roll
This chart is one of the worst things about the corsairs.
I also don’t know what you means about lhamaens. I was just pointing out that she is the got to choice for plenty of DE players. I also never mentioned Ynnari. Personally, regardless of my army, I don’t like spending 200+ points in HQ – I would always take more bodies in 40k. There are only a handful of HQ actually worth their price tag and this is more pronounced in the eldar/DE/corsair range.

amorrowlyday wrote:

Again, Void dreamer is fearless.

I assume because its in the grotesquerie? He is not natively is all… and fearless means little thanks to the perils chart.

amorrowlyday wrote:

I'm also talking about competitive lists in competitive environments. We just play differently.

This we agree on. For example – I would not run Grots. I know plenty of people love them but they are not my thing.

amorrowlyday wrote:

Ish. He has the warlord usr which GW ruled means your point about 2 months after this book was published, the book also explicitly tells us we can take them as an allied detachment but doesn't specify how since we must take a prince. However as this list was presented to us you'll see that it's just a matter of semantics here. This isn't an "allied detachment", it's an allied "combined arms detachment" and would be their primary detachment on paper, yes, but that only means that the warlord must come from their and since the prince benefits from the CC focused nature of most warlord traits more than any of our characters that's okay.

You can run an allied detachment of corsairs – but only if the primary detachment is also corsairs. We are told how to resolve this in his rules. Essentially, a single corsair detachment either has to be a raiding fleet or a CAD.

amorrowlyday wrote:

Oh I get it, and just to be clear, spackling with corsairs is absolutely a viable way to use them, it just isn't the only way, and may not be the way that best works towards your stated aims.

Agreed

amorrowlyday wrote:

If you have reservations about the void dreamer consider ignoring that they are a psyker and only give them the shimmershield

Why? I thought the prince took the shimmer shield. Whats the point of 2 of them in the grots?

amorrowlyday wrote:

T5 5++ FNP is worlds apart from T5 6+ FNP since the later is essentially Just 5+ to be wounded against bolters and a 5+ to fnp the wound a way since almost any weapon of note has some AP, while the former being 5+/5+/5+ radically changes the nature of the unit. A stock traditional grotesque unit takes wounds and is more survivable then MEQ because each model has 3 wounds and in the covens book regens those wounds via IWND, you're still fully expected to be taking those wounds and are thus slightly more likely (22% vs 16.7%) to take a wound vs bolter level (S4) attacks that have any AP. While you are more survivable when the attack has no AP, and by association when the AP is lower than or equal to 3, at 18.5% marines are still tankier on a wound per wound basis. Once you include a shimmershield into the equation, the cheapest being one on a void dreamer with no other upgrades at 65 pts, The grotesques are now always more survivable than the marines, excepting instant death of course, with a mere 14.8% chance of 1 hit becoming a successful wound.

Yes, 5++ and FNP is much better than no 5++ - no argument there. You are spending more on more on this unit of grots which has to walk (if the prince is on a jet bike) and if he is not, it’s a unit of 3-4 embarked with the 2 characters. Walking deathstar units are not great, especially when they have nothing to contribute in the shooting phase.

amorrowlyday wrote:

Remember: since grotesques are multiwound models who are prized for their resiliency it's inappropriate to cost analyze them as 35pt models, or as a 3 member unit costing 105pts. They should be considered in terms of wound count, where they cost the rediculously cheap 11.66pts per wound. Remember a naked marine costs 14 pts, a naked Reaver jetbike costs 16pts, and a naked incubus costs 20; once you factor in that void dreamer your macro unit of 3 base grotesques and the void dreamer cost 15.45pts per wound. For a unit that is majority T5/S5, has rampage, poison/instant death, has a daemon save and feel no pain, fearless/zealot and IWND 15.45ppw is a steal. Only thing your losing out on is the ability to start the game embarked which does matter for list design, but I absolutely think it's worth it.

It does seem a steal sure – but half the rules you mention either require it be a coven detachment or last most of the game to access thanks to PfP. They look great for efficiency on paper, but that 15.45ppm is a walking unit that has zero impact on the game prior to turn 3 more than likely. I guarantee the reavers/space marines you mention above will have an impact far faster (likely T1) for a comparable ppm.

amorrowlyday wrote:

It is not possible to run Ynnari as anything other than the Ynnari formations and the reborn warhost.

True.

These posts really highlight just how many ways you can actually play the eldar races codex range. Clearly Amorrowlyday and I have very different experiences and preferences and neither is right or wrong. I would even say he and I could go back and forth for quite some time and never agree on every single thing to use in the eldar range. The fact is, playing games (with proxies if need be), is likely the best way for you to evaluate the units you prefer and want to use.
Not everyone plays the same way or has the same success with the same units. Try stuff on the table – over more than 1-2 games! – and see what you like is the best advice I think both Amorrowlyday and I might agree on!

Massaen wrote:

These posts really highlight just how many ways you can actually play the eldar races codex range. Clearly Amorrowlyday and I have very different experiences and preferences and neither is right or wrong. I would even say he and I could go back and forth for quite some time and never agree on every single thing to use in the eldar range. The fact is, playing games (with proxies if need be), is likely the best way for you to evaluate the units you prefer and want to use.
Not everyone plays the same way or has the same success with the same units. Try stuff on the table – over more than 1-2 games! – and see what you like is the best advice I think both Amorrowlyday and I might agree on!

Yes, this was my conclusion from this thread as well. Instead of a list that I actively want to work on I think I should remain flexible when climbing towards the 2000. After all, there is no hard-coded solution for success (or just fun!) which is a good thing.

Was really great to have some Corsair input from both of you! It really gave some interesting insights.

I had the same impression as Amorrowlyday regarding the corsairs perils chart and fearless, so I'll have to look it up to see if I agree with your interpretation, which I can't do now because I'm moving, and my book is packed away.

Also, as for running an allied detachment of corsairs, you can't. I'm speaking specifically of the properly named "Allied detachment" and not an "allied" CAD or something. Because it's required that a CAD or Raiding fleet has to be your primary detachment(since the prince must be your warlord), and the "Allied detachment" specifies that it may not be the same faction as your primary detachment.

That is where a paradox occurs within the corsairs rules. We're told we can take an allied detachment of corsairs, but then the prince has rules that make that impossible. So one of the rules is a lie.

I suspect that the individual writing it meant that no non-prince corsairs unit could be the warlord and just wrote that very poorly. If worded the way I just said, it would have allowed warlords to be from other factions, allowed the Allied Detachment the book says we can take, but required the prince to be your warlord in any pure corsairs army.

Alternatively, the person writing it may have just not known the rules for the allied detachment.

If there weren't 2 possible reasons for the paradox, it'd be easy to convince TOs of intent. Because there are at least 2, it's not, and so we generally are left having to deal with the poorest possible reading of the rules.

Fearless explicitly says you can not go to ground. If you are on the ground you get up. Other than that I agree with Massaen's candor and his meta analysis of the situation is accurate.

To answer your 2 of question: they have a grotesquerie, this 2 units. 1 in each or you only do 1 ahimmershield build and make the prince a biker for the reavers.

amorrowlyday wrote:

Fearless explicitly says you can not go to ground. If you are on the ground you get up. Other than that I agree with Massaen's candor and his meta analysis of the situation is accurate.

Oh, that's right. I was thinking about this on the move and didn't have time to really mull it over. I know that I had previously established that fearless psykers were really only effected by a roll of 1 on the chart, which makes their chart BETTER than the typical chart for fearless psykers in most cases.

So, again, I'm unable to reference my book. To be clear, this means perils results of 2-5 have no effect on a fearless psyker, and results of 6 just make future perils more likely, right?