Voidweaver v. Ravager

Dabbling with Harlequin suddenly. I have a ton of all Eldar but I've played Drukhari exclusively since 8th hit because DE were suddenly viable and that's something exciting.
Building a list for tonight's game I splashed a DE Spearhead in with 3 Ravagers for extra punch. Then I looked at the points. 3 Ravagers equipped with 3 Disintegrators clocked in at 558 points.
Looked at Voidweavers. Not exactly the same, but way more flexible offensively with Prismatic Cannons. FIVE of them clock in at 540 points. FIVE.

Someone help me with the math because I'm a literature teacher and math is harder to me than conjugating Latin verbs.

Ravager with Disingtigrators: Tough: 6, Wound 10, Save 5++ v ranged only, degrading profile with Move of 14" best. Offensively: 27 shots, str 5, AP -3, 2 wound

Voidweaver: Tough: 5, Wound 6, Save 4++ ALWAYS, -1 to shoot it, 16" or 22" move. Offensively: 30 Shuriken shots, then: focused Prism averages 10 shots, Str: 6, Ap -3, 2 wound (average) OR a DL equivalent shot.

Again, I'm lousy with the math, but is a pile of 5 Voidweavers not nominally superior to 3 Ravagers in almost all cases?

There's 30 wounds total from both configurations. VW are more resilient overall and never degrade. Ravagers have 12" further range on weapons but VW are far more mobile and their guns can spread out (5 boats v. 3). And, probably the most appealing revelation for me is that the VW is far, far more versatile, having all the answers it needs in one gun.

Alright, I'm game.
It'll take 10.28 Lascannons to kill a single Voidweaver, opposed to 9.64 for a single Ravager.

Similarly it'll take 18.00 shots of overcharged plasma to take a single Voidweaver down while it'll take 16.87 to take out a Ravager. It should be noted that the modifier to hit on the Voidweaver gives it a significant defense against Plasma.

So to wipe the entire force,
Lascannons: 51.40 for the Voidweavers and 28.92 for the Ravagers.
Overcharged Plasma: 90.00 for the Voidweavers and 84.35 for the Ravagers.

The fact that Voidweavers are more durable isn't a surprise to me, I think that the offensive potential is what is really going to matter.

Ravagers:
GEQ: 12 Dead
MEQ: 10 Dead
TEQ: 8 Dead
Rhino: 10 Damage
Russ: 10 Damage

Voidweavers: (Note that I'll be taking my best guess at the most effective weapon)
GEQ: 20 Dead
MEQ: 10 Dead
TEQ: 6.85 Dead
Rhino: 10.56 Damage
Russ: 9.72 Damage

Essentially, the Dissie Ravagers will perform vastly better at killing TEQ but inferior or equal to the Voidweaver in every other instance. This information doesn't look good for us..

It doesn't look great, but those numbers are close enough that adding "one of these units has 50% additional range" potentially makes a big difference.

@TheBaconPope, do your numbers on offensive output account for the -1 to hit, since the Prismatic Cannon is a Heavy weapon?

Also, what the numbers don't tell you is the difference in range - the Ravagers can safely stay away from melta ranges and such, while the Voidweavers have to get to 24" to be effective, opening them up to more volume of fire.

I think it's close enough that I'd be tempted to stick with Ravagers. It's not like when we were comparing Ravagers and Hornets in 7e, which wasn't even a contest!

@Chippen, I considered those things, too. Certainly all valid points when trying to figure out what models to field. However, I'm also thinking that I'll be running 3X5 troupes all with Fusion Pistols and 3 Troupe Masters with Fusion Pistols. All riding in Starweavers and getting up there. The Harly Troupes with Fusion Pistols now actually want to get super close to vehicles and grind them up. I'm wondering with a first turn move, setting up a dispersed line of 5 Voidweavers near the center of the table, they may never need to move, thus mitigating the -1 attack?
That's my hope. Dodge around here and there, I'm sure. But in general, the Starweavers, unloaded 3 teams of troupes, not to mention other nuissances (I'm running a Solitaire and 2X2 Skyweaver bikes), it seems that I just won't care what my opponent focuses on. One way or the other there's dangerous, resilient targets on my side of the table.
Thoughts?

@Count A: Certainly close! Very certainly. But even if we can say they're almost equal, 5 Voids versus 3 Ravagers still nets you 18 points back! And, very admittedly, they move differently and have different ranges on weaponry. They are not identical making it more difficult to discern which is superior (if either).
Ultimately, I think the degrading stats tip the discussion *against* Ravagers.

If you drop 5 Voidweavers at the front edge of your deployment zone and don't get first turn, say goodbye to at least 2 of them IF you're lucky.

@Chippen: if I don't go first I lose something first turn every game. They'll have to shoot down 3 Starweavers, 5 Voidweavers, 4 Skyweavers, or a Solitaire or Shadowseer.

And, interestingly, this exact same argument makes the Voids *more* appealing to me. If you take down 2 Voids vs. 1.5 Ravagers I think it's less impactful to my side of the board. No?

My point was you can safely tuck away Ravagers behind LoS blocking terrain and use their 50" full effectiveness threat range on your first turn.

It would be nice to post the calculation or the source when posting numbers so that things like this and the correctness of the calculation could be assessed. But reverse engineering it I am guessing The Bacon Pope's numbers do not include the malus to hit, since vs. GEQ
1 shuriken cannon: 3 (shots) * 2/3 (hit) * 5/6 (wound) * (1/5 (rending) + 4/5*2/3 (save)) = 11/9
1 prismatic cannon: 3.5 (shots) * 2/3 (hit) * 2/3 (wound) = 14/9
2 shuriken + 1 prismatic = 2*11/9 + 14/9 = 36/9 = 4
5 voidweavers = 4*5 = 20

as he reported.

So if you move with the voidweaver you multiply by 3/4 the number of damage the prismatic cannon does. Which would in this case result in 5*(3/4*14/9 + 22/9) = 18 and 1/18th of a guardsman killed.

How significant this is depends on how large part of the damage comes from the prismatic cannon.

Vs. MEQ it's
5* (2*(3*2/3*2/3*(1/4+3/4*1/3))+2*1/2*2/3*5/6) = 9.44... MEQ killed with focused mode and
5* (2*(3*2/3*2/3*(1/4+3/4*1/3))+3.5*1/2*1/2*2/3) = 9.5833... MEQ killed with dispersed mode.

It does not appear to make a huge difference vs infantry. Vs tanks you would probably want the Dark Lance Ravager anyway, since vs a Rhino that thing will do 3*2/3*2/3*3.5=4.66... damage and the 3 would do 14 damage (they are also 30 points cheaper a piece). Or the Reaper which costs still less, and does about 17% more damage than the Ravager.

OMG. You guys and your numbers. It's like watching magic. Walking on water.

As Johan thankfully engineered, no, I didn't factor in the movement, and I'll agree that DL Ravagers will absolutely outpace the Lance setting on the Voidweaver.

I say the Voidweaver is better for several reasons.
No degrading.
Innate defense against Plasma.
Versatility.

The last one is the key factor for me. While a Dissie Ravager will be really good against MEQ and Light vehicles, an infantry heavy horde list will present some problems. Similarly,.a DL Ravager will be amazing against anything large, but without any vehicles to shoot, it's just ablative wounds. The Voidweaver can provide Anti-Tank, and still have the cannons for infantry, or can use the cannon on the vehicle itself (More likely than not to net and extra wound.) It has some decent firepower against MEQ and TEQ, and can still be useful against even GEQ. The Ravager is by no means a bad choice, it's fairly good as far as vehicles go, but the Voidweaver will always have something to shoot at.

Is there a tool out there we can use to plug in weapon stats and targets to get a mathhammer? I'd love to compare a DL Ravager to a Voidweaver but don't want to just ask someone else to do the math.

So long as I don't have to conjugate Latin, @nerdelemental. But I think you discovered something here, because I am pretty impressed that the Voidweaver is 50% to 67% more effective vs Guardsmen, without losing effectiveness vs other targets, for the same price.

Still, killing 20 guardsmen by shooting 540 points worth of cannons at them is arguably still not great.

@Chippen see Lord Splata's Mathhammer calculator, stickied at the top. It does not have all weapons but it has custom weapon slots so you can type in the stats as "Custom Weapon 1" if you want to check a weapon it doesn't have.

Chippen wrote:

Is there a tool out there we can use to plug in weapon stats and targets to get a mathhammer? I'd love to compare a DL Ravager to a Voidweaver but don't want to just ask someone else to do the math.

Why not? That's what the cool kids do.

The cost of a DL Ravager is not as easily equated against any number of Voidweavers, unfortunately. And, if you're running a huge mess of Harly Troupes with Fusion pistols, you don't really need DL on anything. That's a theory of mine, anyway. We need @amishprn86 to pop in and give his anecdotal accounts.

If you're running mostly Dark Eldar and looking for a direct replacement Ravagers v. Voidweavers I think there's a more solid case for DL Ravagers.

Quote :

Is there a tool out there we can use to plug in weapon stats and targets to get a mathhammer? I'd love to compare a DL Ravager to a Voidweaver but don't want to just ask someone else to do the math.

If you'd prefer, I also have a spreadsheet I made I'd be happy to send it to you. It contains a general calculator, as well as a weapon tester (How effective a weapon with inputted stats preforms against standard unit metrics) as well as a unit tester (how well as given unit will defend against standard weapon metrics)

Why not post that in the forum? I would be very interested.

Quote :

Why not post that in the forum? I would be very interested.

I recall posting an early version, but I've changed a lot from that time. I'll see if I can dig it up and update it

As soon as I figure out this stickied spreadsheet I'm about to go balls deep on this comparison. If the output against vehicles is similar on a per-point basis, I may make this work for the additional anti-infantry of Shuriken Cannons, which we sorely lack as DE. I'm not afraid to cherry pick Aeldari, and I've been working on the best anti-infantry solutions for a while.

Chippen wrote:

As soon as I figure out this stickied spreadsheet I'm about to go balls deep on this comparison. If the output against vehicles is similar on a per-point basis, I may make this work for the additional anti-infantry of Shuriken Cannons, which we sorely lack as DE. I'm not afraid to cherry pick Aeldari, and I've been working on the best anti-infantry solutions for a while.

If you're looking specifically for anti-infantry then I'd assume that Windriders are going to be a better bet than Voidweavers.

Weirdly I'm seeing a lot of Craftworld players complaining about the current state of Windriders, when from a Dark Eldar perspective they seem really good. Definitely a unit to watch in the upcoming Codex.

Burnage wrote:

Weirdly I'm seeing a lot of Craftworld players complaining about the current state of Windriders, when from a Dark Eldar perspective they seem really good. Definitely a unit to watch in the upcoming Codex.

Solely in comparison to how good they were in 7e, they are pretty poor. By most other standards though, they're perfectly reasonable.

They are better than the Dire Avengers anyway ^^

Have most folks that use Windriders shifted to Shuriken Cannons or do they remain with the scatter lasers? I

I wouldn't say most... the stats of the Scatter laser stay very decent.The "Heavy" nerf hurts, but it still has extra range and extra shots so it's definitly a valid option.

It's not a no-brainer anymore, that's for sure.

Chippen wrote:

Is there a tool out there we can use to plug in weapon stats and targets to get a mathhammer? I'd love to compare a DL Ravager to a Voidweaver but don't want to just ask someone else to do the math.

I've been using this site for my math-hammering needs, not quite perfect, but it does cover most everything.

http://mathhammer.thefieldsofblood.com/