Firepower

Okay. so there's something I've been thinking about for a while which I think needs discussion.

Dark Eldar lack firepower.

so here's an example of what I mean:
a Battle Cannon does 1d6 strength 8 AP -2 D6 damage hits. That is up to 36 wounds per shot potentially.
Many things with Battle Cannons can fire twice per turn or have rapid fire battle cannons. so potential of 72 wounds... for one gun, not even counting secondary weapons!

Our heaviest weapon does 1d6 damage. We can get up to 3 on a vehicle. that is a maximum of 18 wounds in our best case scenario.

So to equal a single Leman Russ's battle cannon in potential wounds we need to get 4 DL Ravangers.

And with characters that buff vehicles to BS 2+, psychic powers, and army rules, they can max out their potential far better than we can.


So yeah, I am thinking we need an upgrade for Ravagers if we want to maintain our anti-vehicle crown.

I'd really like to see venom or splinter cannon shooting get a buff. Venoms do not seem to be putting in the work they used to.

If they toss us a stratagem or a shoot twice option on the ravager that would put it in a very solid place.

We have a battle cannon. It's the reaper gun, it has the same profile.

It just lacks the "fire twice a turn if not moving more than 50%".

Mppqlmd wrote:

We have a battle cannon. It's the reaper gun, it has the same profile.

It just lacks the "fire twice a turn if not moving more than 50%".

And that is the only gun on that tank, which is also a bit frailer than a Leman Russ.

FuelDrop wrote:

Okay. so there's something I've been thinking about for a while which I think needs discussion.

Dark Eldar lack firepower.

so here's an example of what I mean:
a Battle Cannon does 1d6 strength 8 AP -2 D6 damage hits. That is up to 36 wounds per shot potentially.
Many things with Battle Cannons can fire twice per turn or have rapid fire battle cannons. so potential of 72 wounds... for one gun, not even counting secondary weapons!

First a battle cannon only does d3 damage, so that already halves it.
Now take into account the bs 4+ for the leman russ, and we suddenly realise that we actually do precisely the same with a moving vehicle as they do with a stationary one. Well that is not true since we have better ap, so we are doing more. yes they may have a higher maximum, which only means the weapon is less reliable. The one thing that makes theirs better is that some regimental bonusses are really good and we have no bonus yet.

7 shots, 3.5 hits, 2.33 wounds, assuming no save 4.67 damage
3 shots, 2 hits, 1.33 wounds, assuming no save 4.67 damage
If they move they halve that. We are not as bad as people think.

|Meavar wrote:

FuelDrop wrote:

Okay. so there's something I've been thinking about for a while which I think needs discussion.

Dark Eldar lack firepower.

so here's an example of what I mean:
a Battle Cannon does 1d6 strength 8 AP -2 D6 damage hits. That is up to 36 wounds per shot potentially.
Many things with Battle Cannons can fire twice per turn or have rapid fire battle cannons. so potential of 72 wounds... for one gun, not even counting secondary weapons!

First a battle cannon only does d3 damage, so that already halves it.
Now take into account the bs 4+ for the leman russ, and we suddenly realise that we actually do precisely the same with a moving vehicle as they do with a stationary one. Well that is not true since we have better ap, so we are doing more. yes they may have a higher maximum, which only means the weapon is less reliable. The one thing that makes theirs better is that some regimental bonusses are really good and we have no bonus yet.

7 shots, 3.5 hits, 2.33 wounds, assuming no save 4.67 damage
3 shots, 2 hits, 1.33 wounds, assuming no save 4.67 damage
If they move they halve that. We are not as bad as people think.

Well their 72" range makes moving more or less optional.

Firstly, did not know they were d3. that is a serious game changer for these numbers.

However, will dispute stuff like the BS simply because we were running an optimum scenario, and that means Knight Commander Pask for BS 2+ reroll 1's. We don't have any option that compares to that 97% hit rate. Plus orders.

I've been ignoring doctorines because they're not really a fair part of the conversation but reminder: Catachans can reroll their number of shots, changing the average in their favor quite considerably.

So yes, while the D3 is a bit of a dampener, I feel my point remains valid.

Then we should also complain we do not have a primarch like model with 18 wounds and s16 dealing 3 wounds with each of its 7 attacks.

Pask is better I agree, he also cost more then a ravager. Damage/cost wise he is equavalent, he is slightly better than he should be (as are nearly all played special characters) because of the additonal special rules.

But I actually like that as long as we can keep the battle moving and there is enough terrain to hide behind we will actually outshoot the equal points of pask, while if we just sit still he will kill us. Also charge pask and he is useless, while our vehicles just move away and shoot again next turn.

We are not supposed to be the faction that can just sit there and outshoot others, even if initially with our ravagers against other index armies we practically could.

Yes we miss the insanely big guns of some other armies, that is because we just bring more, which is why we are in a strange spot between elite and horde.

|Meavar wrote:

Yes we miss the insanely big guns of some other armies, that is because we just bring more, which is why we are in a strange spot between elite and horde.

We don't bring more, though, that's the issue. The Imperial Guard can currently bring vehicles that are cheaper than ours, shootier than ours, and more survivable than ours.

I don't think we should get equivalents but I'd like to see us having considerably stronger firepower in exchange for being relatively frail.

They also own a codex. We don't. If the point is to outline that our Index army is inferior to a Codex army... then yes, of course it is.

If our Codex ravagers were inferior to Codex Leman Russes, that would be a scandal.
But our Index Ravagers were more than capable of matching an Index Leman Russ, and we don't have a codex yet.

And, if you think about it, we can't match the firepower of 80% of the released codices... because they are one edition ahead of us. That's how powercreep works, and it's been working like for 40k for a loooong time.

FuelDrop wrote:

Okay. so there's something I've been thinking about for a while which I think needs discussion.

Dark Eldar lack firepower.

so here's an example of what I mean:
a Battle Cannon does 1d6 strength 8 AP -2 D6 damage hits. That is up to 36 wounds per shot potentially.
Many things with Battle Cannons can fire twice per turn or have rapid fire battle cannons. so potential of 72 wounds... for one gun, not even counting secondary weapons!

Our heaviest weapon does 1d6 damage. We can get up to 3 on a vehicle. that is a maximum of 18 wounds in our best case scenario.

So to equal a single Leman Russ's battle cannon in potential wounds we need to get 4 DL Ravangers.

And with characters that buff vehicles to BS 2+, psychic powers, and army rules, they can max out their potential far better than we can.


So yeah, I am thinking we need an upgrade for Ravagers if we want to maintain our anti-vehicle crown.

Potentially 36 wounds?
Honestly, this is a naive way of thinking.

Imagine the following target: T7, Sv3
To deal 36 wounds on the target, you will need

To Hit: 66%
To Wound: 66%
Roll a 6 for total shots: 17%
For all 6 shots, an enemy must fail his save:  (66%) ^ 6 = 9%
For all 6 shots, you must roll another 6 for damage:  (17%) ^ 6 = 0.002%

This leaves you with the following chance: 0.000000133%
To put this into perspective, this is a 1 in 7,473,389 chance.

I'm not even bothering going to factor in other kinds of saves.

Sorry, but the numbers suggest that this is beyond absurd.
Lances are a great weapon that can be shot at full BS at full speed. Our problem is that we lack diverse weaponry and we only have a few good options that we need to spam to make the most out of it.

If Heat Lances and Haywire Blasters were worth anything we wouldn't have problems killing heavier stuff too. Personally, I'd rather talk about our lack in anti-infantry wargear but I feel this all has been discussed several times already anyway.

Edit: I think that we should be able to spend a CP to give a Ravagers Rapid Fire 1 for one round. Or maybe as an upgrade. Fixes the "shoot twice" problem and enforces a nice high-risk high-reward playstyle (which we should be).

I'd love to see Dark Lances become Rapidfire (instead of assault) when mounted on vehicles. It doesn't need to be a Stratagem : Leman Russes saw their offensive stats doubled if they don't move, let our offensive stats double if we move close enough

It would encourage an AWESOME Dark Eldar playstyle. No more table-edge hugging, you'd have to actually play like a space pirate.

Assault rule (3+) is much better than rapid fire (4+). In the first case you hit with 2 DL in a distance of 36", and in the second case you hit with 3 DL in a distance of 18".  

What could be cool is add to DL and Blasters a rule like multi-melta, "If the target is within half range of this weapon, roll two dice when inflicting damage with it and discard the lowest result."

If you want a rapid fire weapon, give reavers BS2 and make heat lance a rapid fire weapon, maybe then heat lances could be useful against vehicles and the reavers very useful.

I wish GW give Ravagers a stratagem similar to the space marine's predators: you choose a predator that is within 6" of 2 other friendly predators, and you can add +1 to wound rolls and damage for all predators when the shot target monsters or vehicles, just expending 1 CP. That's freaking amazing when you play 3 predators with laser and wound everything 2+ and repeats rolls of 1 with a lieutenant.

If GW give us something at least half as good than that, I will be happy.

Why rapid fire 4+ ? There is no penalty for moving with one...

I would rather see a rule for vehicles saying "If you shoot at an immobile target with dark lance, you gain +1 to hit"

It would create a nice game dynamic, as the imperial guard player could fire twice with his tank, but if he does, he'll become an easy target next turn.

Guards can move up to half their movement while firing twice, though

How about Ravagers get +1 to hit against targets that have a lower move than them, and +1 to wound against anyone foolish enough not to have moved last turn and made it easy for them to target weak points?

I'm pretty upset with GW's blatant bias with codex releases thus far, but I do think we will see some major improvements with our Codex. Barring GW straight up telling us we have to use CWE to gain the full range of weaponry & units necessary to make our army versatile (in this circumstance, I quit, btw...), I think we are going to see some major improvements to our army. For no other reason than the majority of codexes have done exactly that.

Our issue is we still have an index, that's all.

FuelDrop wrote:

How about Ravagers get +1 to hit against targets that have a lower move than them, and +1 to wound against anyone foolish enough not to have moved last turn and made it easy for them to target weak points?

It's nice, but it's nothing compared to fire prisms that get to reroll To hit and to wound if firing on the same target for a meager 1 CP.

Mppqlmd wrote:

It's nice, but it's nothing compared to fire prisms that get to reroll To hit and to wound if firing on the same target for a meager 1 CP.

There is a downside with that Stratagem, as you have to wait until the end of the phase to fire them and they have to be at the same target as the Prism Cannon from the first Fire Prism. That can mean either a lot of wasted firepower if say the first Fire Prism destroys the target, or leaving a key target with a couple of wounds left if you didn't put enough other firepower at it, or face some lucky saves.

Linked Fire is a useful but not amazing Stratagem as a result.

Yep, there is a downside. That is totally not on-par with the "reroll to hit AND to wound for any Fireprism you want" ability.

I played 3 fireprisms last time. Having the ability to remove one unit, of my choice, from the board every turn was... amusing. For me, at least. Not so much for my opponent when they heard "6d6 shots, range 60", BS3+, S6, AP-3, rerolling to hit and to wound".

That stratagem is batshit crazy.

i might get stoned for this but i really believe we are not in a bad spot regarding firepower even compared to some released codexes.
Some tweaks here and there and we should be able to compete with any shooting army...
What we are truly lacking is close combat we suck so hard its not even funny what really destroys us imo is toughness 3 on our common close combat units and hqs. Anything that dares come out of a transport is toast...

DevilDoll wrote:

i might get stoned for this but i really believe we are not in a bad spot regarding firepower even compared to some released codexes.
Some tweaks here and there and we should be able to compete with any shooting army...

What sort of firepower are you talking about though? AT I would semi-agree with you in that Dark Lances are pretty damn good in that role and we can spam them fairly effectively via Ravagers and Raiders. We're also in a fairly decent position against elite infantry, in that we have Dark Lances, Disintegrators and Blasters and the ability to spam them. We could really do with another platform for dissies though. My 7e homebrew codex allowed them as an upgrade on Venoms. Using 8e rules would put a twin dissie Venom at 125 points and I think that would be pretty sweet option!

Where we suffer in terms of firepower is firstly a lack of variety. We have 2 or 3 decent weapons and the rest are basically worthless so we just end up spamming the good stuff, which is boring and predictable. The second issue is our AI firepower, which is frankly laughable. For an army that relies heavily on poison, which you would imagine would be pretty effective against lightly armoured, low toughness targets, we are unbelievably poor at taking out such targets. The third problem is our shooting buffs, which are non-existent. No re-rolls to hit or wound, no ability to fire more often or more accurately. Nothing! Lastly, we have an almost total lack of twin-linked weaponry or high rate of fire weapons. When you have individual weapons putting out 10+ shots and single units putting out 40+ shots, our rate of fire starts to look totally pathetic. Which it is!

Count Adhemar wrote:

DevilDoll wrote:

i might get stoned for this but i really believe we are not in a bad spot regarding firepower even compared to some released codexes.
Some tweaks here and there and we should be able to compete with any shooting army...

What sort of firepower are you talking about though? AT I would semi-agree with you in that Dark Lances are pretty damn good in that role and we can spam them fairly effectively via Ravagers and Raiders. We're also in a fairly decent position against elite infantry, in that we have Dark Lances, Disintegrators and Blasters and the ability to spam them. We could really do with another platform for dissies though. My 7e homebrew codex allowed them as an upgrade on Venoms. Using 8e rules would put a twin dissie Venom at 125 points and I think that would be pretty sweet option!

Where we suffer in terms of firepower is firstly a lack of variety. We have 2 or 3 decent weapons and the rest are basically worthless so we just end up spamming the good stuff, which is boring and predictable. The second issue is our AI firepower, which is frankly laughable. For an army that relies heavily on poison, which you would imagine would be pretty effective against lightly armoured, low toughness targets, we are unbelievably poor at taking out such targets. The third problem is our shooting buffs, which are non-existent. No re-rolls to hit or wound, no ability to fire more often or more accurately. Nothing! Lastly, we have an almost total lack of twin-linked weaponry or high rate of fire weapons. When you have individual weapons putting out 10+ shots and single units putting out 40+ shots, our rate of fire starts to look totally pathetic. Which it is!

yes i agree with you in that we have no variety twin linked rerrolls, buffs etc. thats why i said that with a few tweaks which are sure to come more or less we will be in a good position.
The core rules are there in that dark lances are pretty powerful, poison is good too depending on what you are facing (might not be good against a horde of orks or guard but shoot high toughness tyranids, battlesuits, deathguard etc. and laugh).
Also dont forget we have arguably the best flyer in the game even without our codex which can deal with a variety of targets and with good positioning can snipe charcters.
Anyway what im trying to say is that with only a few extra rules we can easily be one of the top shooting factions in the game and we are not unplayable now. It all depends on GW of course and how much they hate us but hey one can dream...

I have never much had difficulty vs any codex on index in killing off vehicles. Dark lances and blasters are amazing, as are the CWE fusion guns. We have relatively easy access to all those weapons, and decent options in terms of delivering that firepower where we need it to go.

Where we struggle is in volume of fire for smaller targets. Hordes or things where you need to brute force saves through invul saves. Our splinter is fine, we just need to see the ability to increase its volume.

Splinter racks, making our basic weapons rapid fire 2, increasing splinter cannons to rapid fire 6, sharcarbines being avail on true born as assault 2. Give us good options in the shredder (d6 str 4 auto hits with no ap - vs a unit with more than 10 models it automatically gets 6 hits). These are where, imo, we could see to improve. Our AT is strong - so much so most of my regular opponents don't even bother to bring armor any more

DevilDoll wrote:

yes i agree with you in that we have no variety twin linked rerrolls, buffs etc. thats why i said that with a few tweaks which are sure to come more or less we will be in a good position.
The core rules are there in that dark lances are pretty powerful, poison is good too depending on what you are facing (might not be good against a horde of orks or guard but shoot high toughness tyranids, battlesuits, deathguard etc. and laugh).

Which means our anwser to infantry is actually better shooting at high toughness stuff. Poison in itself is not bad, but since we lack alternatives is must also fulfull our ranged anti infantry role which currently it does not do that well.
Against elite/ vehicle armies our shooting is quite good I agree.

I also agree our cc is a bigger issue then our shooting at the moment, but because shooting is still viable more people play shooting DE armies thus the shooting part that is missing also gets a lot of complaint even if our army can deal reasonably well with anything that has a t 5-8 and/or multiple wounds. But I agree this is mainly with shooting. For an army that has more units focussed on melee our melee is horribly inadequate.

I feel like the ranged problems are relatively small, sure shredders need to be flamers, and haywire needs an extra shot, and most of our special weapons are overpriced. This is just a few minor changed. Mostly it just means prices of those weapons need to go down. There are still lot's of options to increase the fun (like making an actual difference between splinter rifles carbines and heavy cannons). those are not neccesary to make the units playable.

The melee units need a lot more work, mainly because quite a few of them need more then just a price decrease.