Controvercial opinion time

I don't think our transports have a place in high end lists.

I'm not saying they're bad, their effectiveness caps out pretty high, but I think it does cap out. I look at lists on here and I see people running 300-500 points of transports in a 2000 point list and I think "why not just bring more dudes?"

Breaking it down for a minute our transports do 3 things. They keep our dudes safe, they get our dudes across the board quickly, and they act as a harassment unit that sits on objectives, eats overwatch, or otherwise just bogs around. That last part is the part I take the most umbrage at. If a unit is just floating around being a nuisance, then it's probably points spent better elsewhere to do a job. Well, the other two things are jobs. Getting our dudes around is important, but we have webway portals for that, and that's only really important for a couple of turns. Protecting dudes is important too, but 70-90 points a boat buys a lot of dudes, perhaps enough to make up for any that might be shot up getting where they need to go. Also at T5/T6 our boats are not tough enough to provide adequate protection. Small arms fire will still plink wounds away and they make themselves a big target for anti-tank weapons.

Let's talk napkin math.

Question #1

What is the difference between:

A) Having 2 Raiders of 4 Blasterborn deep strike in and shoot enemy tanks.

B) Having 2 units of Blasterborn and 2 units of Blaster Scourges deep strike in and shoot enemy tanks.

Answer: About 240 points.

Which could in turn buy about 2 more units of Blaster Scourges, increasing the alpha-strike potential by 50%.

Question #2

A Raider of Wyches is travelling towards an infantry unit 30" away at a variable rate of 14-20" per turn. A unit of Dark Reapers/Obliterators/Knight Titan/Leman Russ shoots the Raider after it has gone only 18", killing it and 2 Wyches on board. The Wyches disembark 3", leaving them 9" away from the enemy infantry. How many points were wasted by not just deep striking them in to that exact same spot?

Answer: About 100.

That same unit of Wyches could also be 20 deep for that many points, allowing them a good chance of foot-slogging their way into that same enemy infantry, as long-range anti-tank would be wasted on them.

The more I look at transports the more I think maybe they could be scrapped for something else.

Protections, movement, board control (which is what makes you win normally) etc. There's a lot on Transports.

But I'm actually playing without them, so why not?

Except you can only WWP 2 units. With screeming jets, you are not limited.

I find that Venoms are enough of a threat by themselves to have a place in lists. I wouldn't take more than three or four, though.

The more I do the math the more I don't like transports.

10 Grotesques, 350+ points.

2x5 Grotesques in Raiders, 510+ points.

That's enough for 4 Grotesques, almost 5.

Once again, about 50% more usable units on the board once you drop the transports.

You are not thinking in terms of being able to redeploy, selectively engage, or achieve Maelstrom objectives or ITC secondaries. So if you’re playing actual games, they are very much worthwhile. If you’re just doing mathhammer on damage/toughness ratios, then yes, this is Codex: Grotesques.

That's the problem of mathammer: it's not the game

Evil Footdar has been a fringe thing for a while now. I remember it being discussed back in 3rd edition days. I say try it out and post some batreps. Footdar has some benefits over the vehicle build however it loses some benefits as well. Are the trade offs worth it? *shrugs* show us some evidence with decent bat reps and army lists.

The Webway Portals coming out in a few weeks may change this argument up a bit, although instead of buying Raiders, you'll be buying 120 point portal(s).

Most games are objective based, I've won a lot of games with the mobility granted by using a mostly mechanized army. I feel if you sacrifice all your transports you're sacrificing one of the biggest advantages Drukhari have.

I'm not above saying it wouldn't work though so if you get a chance to test it out please let us know as I'm interested in how it would turn out.

Just my two cents.

Objectives can be easy to game. I run attrition and win by objectives because I know how to arrange them during set up.

And I know how to set up objectives to complement a fast mechanized force and win games that way. I just don't think it plays to the strength of DE.

No transports could work, I'd be interested in seeing how it turns out if you get a chance to test it.

withershadow wrote:

You are not thinking in terms of being able to redeploy, selectively engage, or achieve Maelstrom objectives or ITC secondaries.  So if you’re playing actual games, they are very much worthwhile. If you’re just doing mathhammer on damage/toughness ratios, then yes, this is Codex: Grotesques.

This. Dark Eldar's special rule is being able to fight unfairly. Giving that up to be a middle-tier horde army that'll get massacred by your average cultist-spamming Chaos Soup doesn't strike me as the best option available to us.

interesting arguments. My instinct was to say of course you need transports. That said, I've only played 2 games so far with the new codex, and used a single raider in only one of those two.

I think transports are the way to go for melee infantry with the new Beta rules. With a red grief raider, I'm virtually certain to get myself into charge distance with the raider on turn 1, and then charge the wyches out within less than a 9" charge for turn 2. Deepstriking those same wyches only gives me a 50/50 shot at making the charge with the re-roll.

With something other than red grief, I'm no longer virtually certain to get the raider into charge distance in turn one, but certainly likely to get my wyches closer than the 9" from the deepstrike after they deploy and then move.

Out side of that use, I'm leaning towards little or no transports.

If I want to play Evil Space Imperial Guard, I'll do that, but fielding hundreds of infantry is not why I play this army, nor do I find such a massed horde playstyle fun or time efficient. Our local group barely gets past turn 3 in our tournament games that have three and a half hours allotted to each game, why would I bog that down further with fielding even more models, grinding the game to a complete halt with an army whose trademark is speed?

I just don't see a point in running no transports at all to footslog Kabalites and Wyches even if they are quite mobile now. Flying transports have a lot of advantages that are hard to quantify and put into a spreadsheet.

Now, if Kabalites had an access to Disintegrators on foot, that'd be a it of a different story, but as it stands, I get much more use out of Raiders with dissies in my meta than by trying to drown the opponents with dice and hope they fail their marine saves.

Siticus the Ancient wrote:

If I want to play Evil Space Imperial Guard, I'll do that.

I started back in third with IG and played them for many years. Eventually when I got back into the game I played DE because I felt it would be a very different, new experience. Your quote was literally the words I formed in my head when I read the line saying something like (and I'm paraphrasing): "I use my DE for attrition." lol

But I also have to be very clear, I have never tested an all footslogging army and I've never seen it done with DE either so I can't say how it would turn out. I can see some of the tactics virtues on paper but I still hold by the notion that you're hurting your chances if you don't play to your already established strengths. At the very least it's an interesting idea that I'm curious about but even if it somehow becomes the new tournament meta I probably wouldn't adopt it as a build I'd use.

What you do or do not get mileage out of in your local meta is irrelevant in the gestalt of high level play. My personal experience is that transports are quite useful, usually for the roles I mentioned, which is why I said their cap is very high. Most players in their local metas will probably never see skilled players running lists that would turn Dark Eldar transports into a tax. However, as I face harder and harder lists myself, the utility of our transports drops proportionally. This is the basis of my hypothesis, that the ultimate result is a high level competitive DE list with no transports at all. Also I am not talking about running MSU. In fact I have no idea why people are suggesting anything like that. The examples I gave were of specialized elite units or troops run at max unit size.

If you want an attrition horde army, you chose the wrong army. Doing that with guard is much fluffier and more efficient. DE just don't fit that role.

The problem with your main argument is that you forgot we are very limitated in term of deepstriking infantery. The only competitive way to go footlogs with dark eldat is to go coven IMO but with cabal and whychs i think it will be good cause our infanterie is cheap but not the best way to go, and i dont see how such an army could win aainst a real horde army (Ork , AM )

What list get results with no transports? I saw a Flayed Skull brigade full Venoms doing a placement in a team tournament (can't remember the name, a big one).

I'm curious about that because I'm playing without transports as well

Interessting idea. I toyed with that idea too, but I don´t have enough models for that. I´d use a brigade with lots and lots of warriors with blasters and lances, coupled with 3 scourges units with shredders, mandrakes and ravagers.
(Perhaps coupled with a small patroll with 5 Wracks, an Haemonculus and a big blob of Grotesques deep striking).
Hm...the more I think about this shooty Footdari list. The more I like it. I´ll see if I can come up with a plan...
In that list, I´d play Obsidian Rose. Definetely!
You´d get so much mileage out of your units!

I do see your point. There's certainly something weird about using a 65+pt transport to carry around a 30pt squad.

And I can certainly see why you'd prefer to just take more melee units over transports for such, since our transports provide no actual benefit for melee units (as in, there's no longer any equivalent to being able to charge after disembarking).

There's also the Venom still not being great in terms of firepower (the Raider is okay, but too expensive to be taken for its gun).

Also also, the Archon's aura does seem far better suited to an infantry-gunline than to a mechanised army (thanks, GW ).


The thing is, though, I already own an IG army. Not only that, but I actually play an army with basically nothing but infantry. I don't want to play my DE that way. It's not why I got into the army.

TeenageAngst wrote:

What you do or do not get mileage out of in your local meta is irrelevant in the gestalt of high level play. My personal experience is that transports are quite useful, usually for the roles I mentioned, which is why I said their cap is very high.

I am curious how the local meta is irrelevant when you yourself base your very argument from your experience in your local meta. It is a very bizzarre line of reasoning to summon a "gestalt of high level play" and yet employ it in a specific environment against a set amount of local players with their specific tactics they favor and excel at. It's not a jab against the concept you put forth specifically, as there is a merit in the DE infantry horde, but I really loathe the reasoning itself as it produces some terrible misconceptions about the game and how it should be played, and really screws with some people's heads to need to come up with solutions to problems that only exist in their mathematical nightmares.

Not running transports can work and more power to you for running such lists and trying new things. But you are tossing away a large strength of the army in favour of a temporary mathematical gain that very well might change with the next FAQ or Chapter Approved. How long did those Razorwing flock spam lists work, for example? Was investing in tens of Dark Reapers really worth it? I simply do not feel all too keen to employ such extreme all in tactics that require a significant monetary investment and are at the mercy of next round of changes. I simply do not find this lottery type of gaming the system worth my time and I have to voice my critique of this kind of reasoning out of princple.

Soulless Samurai wrote:

There's also the Venom still not being great in terms of firepower (the Raider is okay, but too expensive to be taken for its gun).

Well, depends. Kabal are just an upgrade for Flayed Skull Venoms

i think that is the inherent problem of be a pseudo horde army: we have cheap troops but the units doesn't has the necessary size.

the thing is that our vehicles isn't so expensive, a dark lance raider is cheaper than a tactical squad with lasser, with more T, more wounds, more movility and with invulnerable salvation. The real question is how many wyches you need in an army to be a melee army and if the tax of the transports compensates