Super heavy broadside barge

The tantalus is cool, but what the DE really need is a super heavy bristling with firepower, So to carry on the barge theme, what about a huge barge, think spanish galleon with 6 DLs,DS or Haywire on each side, all able to fire independantly, a few structure points, and a big old ram on the front, F:13 S:12 R 11 open topped with some transport ability, thinking of a Dukes barge similar to vects but obv bigger and better!

The only thing that would make that idea any better is a real webway portal on the front of the model that shoots actual money out of it!

Hmm... Doesn't sound bad at all. Also, your idea doesn't sound too bad either, Evil Space Elves - why not have a webway portal incorporated into the vehicle? I like that a lot.

Yeah, a webway cannon on the front would be epic, if were meant to be space pirates, lets have a flagship!

How about Webway Portal that allow You to deploy vehicles AND reroll reserves rolls?

I would use missiles as main weapons, with ability to pick some AT ones.

Like S9, AP1, Melta ID(for MCs), Range:unlimited (1/2 range = unlimited for melta abuse )


Just because we lack good one-shot AT.

another good one for AT would be haywire missile, maybe reroll to hit str 5 ap 4 1d3 haywire hits, AA weapon. Most apoc groups seem to make unlimited mean 72" range, but being a missile it should keep 2d6 at max range anyway.

The necron codex is suppose to have transports with portals on them, maybe the dark eldar should have something similar. From rumors, the transported models go into reserve if there transport is blown up.

I think the super heavy barge(assuming 3+ struct, 2 struct should have fewer guns) should have 6 void lance, pulse disintegrators, or twin liked 48" range haywire. Portal variant w/ 2 hull mounted void lance, pulse disintegrators and 4-6 missiles. eldar storm serpent swaps twin pulsar/distortion cannon for facon turrent and portal. 6 regular heavy weapons are a little light for a super heavy without transport, a baneblade can have 4 lascannon, 5 twin linked heavy bolters, demolisher cannon, and 10" blast battle cannon. (can't remember of top of head, but battle cannon maybe str 9 ap2, haven't read sheet recently) If keeping regular sized guns for broad sides, maybe 6 per side, and add splinter cannon and heat lance to list. It would be cool to ram the center tank of super heavy squadron and fire 6 heatlances to each side to hit others. Fast moving super heavy tying to get within 9" would be very unique, but dark lance would be more effective.

That sounds cool, I like the idea of a huge webway portal that allows vehicles to come out of, just to make it even more interesting, how about an upped bladevanes style thing... 2D6 S8 AP3 maybe, something to make it even more of a truly assault ship as oppose to standard heavies

I would cap the AV at 12 like the eldar... even the scorpion and revenant are 12! This should be as well.

As for the WWP - the CWE have this already as a variant of the scorpion...

or 13 all round like dais, f12 s12 r11 would be better though. Superheavy should have 4++ if moving like eldar.


If you wanted energy field different then eldar, maybe armour 11 all round but armour 13 if targeted from more then 12", then have options to upgrade to flicker field and night shield (upgrades should probably cost more for super heavy, maybe 20pts each?)

If the broadside turrets are anything like the current Ravager ones, I don't see it as being particularly heavily-armoured on the side, so I would lean towards 13:11:10.

I would still be going 12/11/10... Vects ride is a one of a kind and you have to go to the battle class titans of the eldar for AV over 12... even the scorpion super heavy battle tank is only AV12... why should this be heavier?

I think it would need a shield thing like vects, you could go down the route that it's less a skimmer like a Ravager, and more of an arcane vehicle, an ancient eldar weapon, you could then justify giving it some really cool arcane war gear style options, e.g a vehicle version of a clone field. You could reduce the armour of it but make it really hard to even get to the damage table, thinking nightshield/ flickerfield extensions!

Massaen wrote:

I would still be going 12/11/10... Vects ride is a one of a kind and you have to go to the battle class titans of the eldar for AV over 12... even the scorpion super heavy battle tank is only AV12... why should this be heavier?

I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you on any of this, but personally I have always envisioned this barge as being an alternative ride for Vect himself, so the 13 would be a match for the Dias.

Also, I see it as being a very long and fairly narrow vessel, at least twice as long as a Raider, so the front aspect would actually be quite small relative to the rest of the vehicle and thus the enemy would not have to worry about only being able to target the front of the vehicle very much. So it wouldn't actually be that much of a boon for us, but more of a bonus on the odd occasion when someone is forced to target it from directly in front.

Gobsmakked wrote:

Also, I see it as being a very long and fairly narrow vessel, at least twice as long as a Raider, so the front aspect would actually be quite small relative to the rest of the vehicle and thus the enemy would not have to to worry about only being able to target the front of the vehicle very much. So it wouldn't actually be that much of a boon for us, but more of a bonus on the odd occasion when someone is forced to target it from directly in front.

This is how I also saw it, not thinking of making it look like a land raider!

I really like your concept of a super heay skimmer.. Although I'm not familiar with the super heavy rules
from Apocalypse, I couldn't resist writing a little something just to show you how I saw it:

The armour value's pretty poor, but still better than most DE vehicles. That's largely compensated
by the fact it rolls a 4+ to ignore damage until that roll is failed. It kind of represents the fact that the
powerful shields of this thing absorb incoming fire rather than deflecting it. It also has night shields and
flickerfield anyway. Despite being armed with lots, and lots of lances, I saw it primarily as an assault vehicle, that's why it's got a transport value of 30 and max of three units (It's very big).
But despite being a DE unit, it's pretty slow compared to other stuff, something you should be expecting
for a gigantic antigravitic aircraft such as this.

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Dark Eldar Veliax Assault Barge: 300pts

BS AV.fr AV.si AV.re
4 13 11 10

Rules:
Skimmer, Open topped

Transport:
- The Veliax Barge has a transport capacity of 30 and
can carry up to 3 different units.

Equipement:
- 1 Array of three Dark Lances on each side. (These arrays may shoot at separate targets)
- Twin Linked Void Lance
- Flickerfield
- Night shields

Stabilisation Shields:
The Veliax Barge ignores all results on the vehicle damage
chart on a roll of 4+. If this roll is failed during the game, the
rule does no longer apply.

Heavy Vehicle:
The Veliax Barge may move up to 6" in the movement phase
and fire all of its weapons, or move 12" and fire only it's defensive
weapons. It may not shoot at all in the shooting phase and instead
move an extra 6".

Special Delivery:
Units embarked may choose to disembark after the Veliax Barge has moved, but only when it has
moved of 6", and not over. Each unit may Disembark on the same turn, but only from different acces
points: One on the front, and one on each side. Units disembarking from the Veliax Barge may shoot
in the shooting phase and can assault in the following assault phase.

Antigrav Burns:
All friendly and enemy units flied other by the Veliax Barge during the movement (and the shooting phase) suffer 1D6+4 strength 5 hits distributed as shooting. One enemy or friendly unit may not be concerned by this rule more than once per turn.

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Not sure about the point cost.. Might need a little help on that one.
And of course critics are more than welcome !!

I would say that the rules sound quite good, but it should still be able to move at high speeds otherwise it would be useless to the DE! Just say it has a bigger engine! Also it would be good if it could deepstrike as if it's coming from orbit that would be pretty cool.

Does anybody have the VDR rules to plug this thing into?? I tried to use the VDR in the Army Builder Program and it came up to 195 pts, before any weapons were added.


I was thinking about this and I was wondering if Forge World couldn't make this by making an up-grade kit for the Tantalus model.

I also like the idea of having an active webway portal built into it. Take a Tantalus-like split-hull design and increase the width a little. In the center, create an array that could hold a circular disk representing the portal. You would have to have a twin-mast design for the aether sails also.

I am going to have to sketch out my ideas for this one....

Would be great if you could sketch one and post it

Couple o things , Phantom goes up to AV13 so I rekkon having a front prow @ 13 would be fine

Its blatantly an apocalypse unit , no 'D' weapons for DE then ? I 'm pretty sure they would have a large version of the void lance for mounting on the larger grav barges.

I think a big ram prow would be awesome but it would likely need it's own rules for how to resolve its effects as a standard ram would be a bit lame for having a gigantic rocket propelled barge with a funky power ram crash into you, essentally the ram would be our equivalent of titan CC weps ?

Personally would do void lances or pulse desintegrators in the port and starboard (I think pulse desintegrators are lame as they are completely useless on vehicles and cover stops them being reliably effective even agains infantry)

you could give it a ram version of the tantalus pulse wave dissonance projectors ? though this would be bigger with more powerful generators

also If you are going to do a vehicle sized Shadowfield it needs to be at least a 3+ (but runs out ) bear in mind the phantom gets 3++ as long as it has moved, to be honest , depending on the apoc environment I'm not sure that a 2++ that runs out on a fail would be that broken tbh , think ofthe amount of penes and glances you can put on a unit in apoc ? imperail titans have to be shot X times before you will ever have a chance to roll on the vehicle table, personally I rarely make more than 3-5 shadow feild saves before it fails ...

i love all of these ideas! they're all so, so, so...Awesome!

if nobody else has already called making the experimental rules for this thing (at least until forge world makes them), can i do it?!

I'm thinking of some slight modifications. in addition to saves, I'm thinking of doing something a bit like quantum shielding.

Go mad mate!

YES. YES. MORE. SUPERHEAVY. MORE. YES.

YES.

Finally, a superheavy for DE.

Grub wrote:

Go mad mate!

will do! might take a bit, though.

I had a few ideas and they were concerning the aforementioned included WWP.

If we were going for something akin to the Tantalus' split prow design to then affix the WWP between them, it could suffice to be a weapon in and of itself.

Just as our lovely units could pile out through the portal to raid and kill, imagine this barge ramming into a large unit of men on the ground (or small vehicles type units such as bikes, jet bikes, landspeeders, etc.) and have the portal be what is running into the unit. The poor enemy units having their men sucked into the portal right into the clutches of those waiting their chance to fly out and attack.

It would add a cool offensive aspect to the inclusion of a WWP without trying to mess with a ramming prow.

My other idea is based off of either the WWP being included, or this barge itself having a transport capacity. I rather like the rules set out by Candice for the "Special Delivery."

I would like to see it tweaked a bit, though, to the rule as follows with the listed sub rules:

Special Delivery:
Units embarked (or held in reserve for the WWP) may choose to disembark (enter through the portal) after the Veliax Barge has moved, but only when it has moved up to 12", and not over. Each unit may Disembark on the same turn, but only from different access points: One on the front, and one on each side.

My Little Friends:
With the added stability of a still disembark, units disembarking from the Veliax Barge that has not moved 6" or less may shoot in the shooting phase and can assault in the following assault phase.

A Running Start:
Forgoing their ranged weaponry and utilizing the added momentum of the barge's movement blended with their own ferocious lunges forward, units disembarking from the Veliax Barge that has moved between 7-12", may assault in the assault phase. These units are treated as if they have already passed through their Movement and Shooting phases, and will only be able to perform an assault. However, such a maneuver is drastically dangerous as any number of miscalculations with the landing could occur. Each model disembarking (or entering through the portal) must take a difficult terrain test. No saves are allowed against any wounds suffered from these tests

So i have tried to compile everything and created a first "concept" sketch of the Veliax barge (or as I like to call it, my drawing of a tantalus with extra guns stuck on)
This is only a quick freehand of what I think might be cool:


Features:
2 Front mounted disintergrators
6 "Thermal lances" (Basically heat lances but St 7 and 24" range)
Unstable webway portal: May be used as a normal webway if it has not been used as a weapon the previous turn. You can use it to "ram" any unit, draw a 2" wide line along your movement. Any units under this danger line must pass a strength test or be removed from play (not killed so should still apply to eternal warrior).
May also be used in ram attacks against vehicles. When ramming a vehicle before normal ramming commences the rammed vehicle takes D6 Haywire hits. If it is not destroyed follow normal ramming rules.
Blade vanes: 2 D6 St6 rending attacks following normal bladevane rules (may be used in the same turn that the unstable webway is used)

Front: 13
Side: 12
Rear: 11
open topped
Fast skimmer

I have based it largely on the Tantalus for two reasons, 1) The tantalus is freaking awesome 2) It would mean that by combining a tantalus, ravager etc you could kitbash one out.
Please critisise (more about the theory and less about my pre-school drawing abilitys )