Old Vs. New - Battle of the Vehicles

Greetings and welcome to Battle 3 of Old vs. New.
Let me again make clear - this is NOT about the model, we can leave that to that section of the Dark City. What we're talking about is raw battlefield power - which vehicles are the superior warmachine?

This one will be just a little different, because we're talking about both the Ravager and the Raider at once - why did I do this? Well, partly to save myself work but also because the individual matchups are a little boring and short, so I decided to combine them just to give us some stuff to debate. This is probably a little unfair because I could see a debate to want to score, for instance, the Old Ravager as better but prefer the New Raider. Ah well, let's give it a whirl anyway.


Slot and Cost

As usual, the first basic question is - did they change the cost of the model, and is the model still in the same slot of the codex?

In the Old Codex - Raiders were dedicated transports, the same with the New Codex. They could be purchased through HQ, Elite, and Troop slots - same as in the New Codex.

The Ravager remains a Heavy slot in both codices - no change there.

For cost, the Raider went from costing 55 points to costing 60.
The Ravager stayed at 105 points in both codices.

Advantage? - Old!

Stats

This should be an easy one to compare. Did they take away or add to the stat line?

This is pretty simplistic with vehicles.

The Raider remains an open topped fast skimmer with AV10 all around and a transport capacity of 10.

The Ravager remains an open topped fast skimmer with AV 11 front and sides and AV 10 rear.

Now, the new vehicles gained Night Fight (the Ravager, arguably for free - and the Raider for being 5 points more expensive, whilst the Ravager got to lay claim to Aerial Assault, which made it faster on the board while costing the same.

Codex creep actually holds true this time out, for basically the same points we get more bang for the buck on average here. The 5 point shift in the Raider is for negligible gain though probably no one would argue with Night Fight on a shooting platform not being worth about 5 points, but the Ravager makes out like a bandit as both of its rules are quite good and cost nothing.

Advantage? - New!

Wargear

What good are stats without awesome weapons to use them with?

New

Okay, let's get this one out in the open right away - the Flickerfield.

Do any of you new players really understand how orgasmic this piece of wargear is? You all complain about how easy it is to kill Raiders/Ravagers, yeah? The enemy looks at them crossways and they explode and leave burning hunks of shocked Wyches going 'my close combat saves and thong, they do nothing!' right?

Imagine not having that Flickerfield save now - it doesn't exist. Your Raiders/Ravagers are now all 33% more vulnerable.

...yeah. Playing old De was a matter of having balls the size of casaba melons and also whining a lot to demand 2+ story high terrain, because that was all we had, that and flat out saves.

So, for 10 points, the Flickerfield is kinda like getting a lapdance from Scarlett Johanson - it is that wonderful.

The other upgrades are a little more basic, Night Fields are nice, Aethersails have their uses, the Shock Prow is pretty amazing though risky, Retrofire Jets are basically pointless on anything but Ravagers as you should use the Duke instead, but the chain snares, envenomed blades, and all that jazz. Most of it isn't needed, but there are a lot of options and you can equip your vehicles to do a lot of different things.

We also have the guns. The Dark Lance and the Dissie - you can have either of them on Raiders/Ravagers and it's a free swap between them. One is a high quality missile launcher, and the other is an excellent way to mow down troops, especially MEQ.

So, two guns with easy swapability depending on the goal of your vehicle, plus two defensive tools, plus a horde of neat little bits to customize what you need to do.

Old

So...the Old upgrades...yeah, in the initial release of our book we didn't even have any, but thankfully by the second printing (a few years later) GW decided maybe we deserved *something* (this was back when GW honestly didn't like Xenos armies, none of the current whine about 'aw, it's been like two Imperial codices in a row now, baaaw!' No, back then it was a few years to get ruddy vehicle options.)

Okay, let's start with the weapons - because though the names are the same, this is another moment of GW keeping the name identical but *totally changing what the item is* (not to be confused with their other habit - of keeping the item the same, but changing its name for no apparent reason...I guess because Destructor sounds uncool and Liquifier sounds awesome or something...anyway)

The Dark Lance is the same work horse it has always been (for better or worse) but the Dissie...the Dissie is different.

It used to be kind of a plasma cannon/gattling gun - I'm serious. It could be fired in one of two modes.

The big shot was - 36", Str 7, AP 2, Heavy 1 Blast (more commonly known as a Plasma Cannon shot - but without Gets Hot! effect)
The small shot was - 24", Str 4, AP 3, Heavy 3

So, as you can see, the new Dissie is kind of an awkward blend of the two shots. What the old Dissie was used for was anti-infantry mostly (yes, Ravagers [and Elite slots] used to be anti-infantry and Troop selections used to be anti-mech) but at Str 7 the big shots could also be used quite well vs. lighter armor vehicles, like Razorbacks, Rhinos, and most anything Ork or Eldar. An overall amazing weapon that was doom to most infantry in a matter of moments.

We also, though, had to pay 5 points to get a Dissie (even on Raiders)

With other stuff, well, we had Nightshields - they worked the same, but cost 10 points more than the current version.

We had Screaming Jets (identical in all but name...for some reason, to Retrofire Jets)

We had Slave Snares (that are very similar to Chain Snares - except they were d6 hits, not d3+1 and didn't allow cover saves, but you couldn't move over 12" when using them. Also, their wounds didn't count till the Shooting phase, which was nice)

We had Scythes, not Envenomed Blades, that were identical except they were a Str 5 hit, not a Str 4 hit, making them slightly less useless.

We had Torture Amps (not Shock Prows) that allowed for tank shocks and ramming, but didn't give the armor boost.

We had Trophy Racks - which are the current Torment Grenade Launcher except without the assault morale check.

Two things we had but don't any more are Scaling Nets (these let you embark/disembark a vehicle during any point of its movement phase - so a Raider could fly over a squad and they could re-embark. Didn't work if you went over 12" though, but was pretty cool overall, though rarely needed.

Ou other missing piece of wargear is the Horrorfex - which RULED EVERYTHING. It was a defensive weapon (and oh dear gawd did the Marines and wuss Imperial players whine about that - this weapon literally went through three phases back and forth of whether it was defensive or not [it was].) Other than that it was an 18" range blast template that didn't wound...but what it did do was count up however many models were under the blast, and then subtract that number from leadership.

Ld 6 Marines? Yes please! I would love to have this to still unleash on Grey Knights right now. "Hey, I see you're all set up to Cleansing Flame and Hammerhand me...good luck doing that after these three Raiders pump Horrorfexes into you - Now I'll assault you with my Archon who you need to pass a Ld. check in order to even attack, or you end up being obligated to swing at your own men - have fun with that beakie!"

Good times.

And that's pretty much it.

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So we have some interesting debates here. The Old Dex gives us a *much* better Dissie, and also access to the awesome Horrorfex, and other than that pretty much has every other option the New Dex has (I think Sails and Splinter Racks are the only things they lack that I ever see anyone take - I mean, they lack the Trophies thing, but in the old Dex you could put that on Squad Leaders, which makes such dramatically better sense considering our vehicle survivability that I don't even see it as a missing item)

That said, the new dex gives us Flickerfields. And Flickerfields = win wrapped in bacon.
So the real debate is Horrorfex+Better Dissie vs. Flickerfields (and maybe cheaper Nightshields)

That's a tough one - I'm going to wimp out on it.

Advantage? - Tie!


Face to Face in Battle!

This one is super annoying, because vehicles pinging away at each other is pretty boring and annoying to write up anyway. So let's instead just talk about the classic builds and uses.

The classic Old Raider was 55 points. You left the lance on it, and that's how you ran it.
The classic New Raider is 70 points. You get FFs on it, and that's how you run it.

On the table top they are basically identical - they carry the same things, shoot the same lance, and the only difference is cost and that one is more survivable.

Now, I do feel a need to point out a simple bit of math. The New Raider is "basically" 33% harder to kill, because it will ignore 33% of hits on it. If you look at the old 55 point Raider and figure out 33% of its cost (18.33 points) we can see that the New Raider, if it didn't cost those points, would be a 51.66 point vehicle - so for 33% more survivability you are getting a bargin with the New Raider.

Without the FF save though, it's an inferior animal point value wise unless you really love night fighting (which is good, but doesn't come up often). Considering what they did with the Ravager I personally lean towards an idea that Raiders should cost 5 points less if not more (and, thus, probably so should Venoms ). So the new Raider is "overcosted" probably, but not unreasonably so, and if you take FFs to make it more survivable you are getting a decent deal.

Now, the Ravager, this baby went through some changes. Mostly, it went from being an anti-infantry tool to being an anti-mech one. What did this was two things; first, they made the new Dissie kinda suck compared to the old one. Second, Aerial Assault meant we could move 12" and still fire all our lances (back in the day Ravagers moved 6" and liked it!)

The classic Old Ravager build was; Ravager w. 3 Dissies (120 points)
The classic new build is; Ravager w. 3 Lances w. FF (115 points)

The New one is more survivable, but will suffer versus infantry. The old one, for 5 more points, is less survivable, but is qualified to attack a multitude of targets successfully (and can still move 12" and fire everything, since the Dissies low power option counted as defensive shooting)

The Old Ravager, compared to the new anti-infantry heavy slot - The Razorwing, is an amazing deal, and makes the Razoriwing look like a chumpsicile sandwich both in cost and damage output. In the new Tank hunting role of the Ravager the old one would cost 105 for tri-lances and would lack FFs, making the New Ravager a solid bargin still via Aerial Assault, Night Fight, and being 33% tougher to kill.


Advantage? - New!

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So that's my breakdown.

The big losses to vehicles from the old codex was the Horrorfex, which was a devastating meta weapon and could be used to easily dismantle power units and send them scurrying. It suffered for a while as the top tourney armies for a while were all fearless (Lash Oblits, Orks of multiple builds, Nidzilla, even Chaos Daemons had a little surge there) but with the current meta simply being high Ld. units it would find a potent place in the meta (also, it *did* help survivability of the Raider as it was a second weapon).

The other big loss was the Dissie - which was an amazing weapon that was multipurpose and was even a solid answer for DE to deal with Termies (which are always obnoxious to deal with, but AP 2 blasts certainly help. Back when splintter weaponry was simply lasrifles by a different name, the Dissie was how we punched holes through swathes of heavily armored infantry.

The new Codex added basically a few rules at no cost that helped our mobility a touch (which was nice, with the advent of run we weren't quite as fast as we had once been...though they did cramp our speed in other ways) and also gave us Flickerfields which actually made our flying paper plates able to withstand the occasionally penetrating hit, which was a feeling that when it first happened for me was amazing and wonderful, and I bet all the old DE players agree with that.

So, survivability and speed versus an awesome meta weapon and the deadly firepower of the old Dissie...well...I'd like to have the old Dissie back a *lot* and I'd like to have the Horrorfex back too...but I don't think I want to go back to not having FFs.

Winner in my mind - New Vehicles.

That's my call - what's yours?

I miss the old disintegrator cannons…..and the horrofex cannon, but mostly the disintegrators. Back in the day I used to run three ravanger with disis, now I have shelved them in favor of other stuff.

However,we now have the venom. This little harlequin transport repapered out of nowhere. In this battle of old vs new I´m not sure where the venom fits. If memory serves there was an old time when we could use the old harlequins as allies, dancers, wraithlords, venoms the whole circus. Wasn’t the flicker field a harlequin wargear?

Anyway, to keep this little rant short, with the addition of the venom, and cheaper night shields, our new transports win this fight, but the reavanger was better with the old cannons.

You really can't compare the Venoms at all - there is nothing to compare them too. This is just Raiders and Ravagers.

There used to be a Harlequin army that could take Venoms - but that was never a DE army, and the only way to make that work was the old allies rules that went the way of the dodo two editions back.

I'm just glad you included the 4th option.

I miss the plasma option on dissie, besides that I like new vehicles better. Maybe forge world will make a vehicle like reaper with 5" blast dissie, fingers crossed.(and probably will remain crossed for years)

Raneth wrote:

I'm just glad you included the 4th option.

abjectus wrote:

I miss the plasma option on dissie, besides that I like new vehicles better. Maybe forge world will make a vehicle like reaper with 5" blast dissie, fingers crossed.(and probably will remain crossed for years)

Yeah, a throwback set of rules - or even something like a 'Ravager Hunter-Killer' or something that happened to allow you to equip a few alternate weapon load-outs (much like all 1,001 Imperium variants out there) and included an old Dissie load-out would be pretty awesome.

I still like to think that in the next year or two DE will come up in the IA rotation. Orks have gotten a lot of love, Eldar have gotten attention, Chaos has been handled numerous times, even Tau have. Seems like Necrons or DE have to be pretty due, and with both getting new product lines it seems an optimal time to give them some love.

I do miss the hell out of old dissies and Horrorfexes(I actually made a conversion out of Reaver Shredders nad CSM vehicle accessories) , but Aerial Assault and Flicker fields really are the icing on the cake for me. NEW!

This one looks like it's going to be a blowout.

Voted new just for Aerial Assault.

I have hard time with this one. On the other hand, new Ravagers are better AT while being crap AI when compared to old ones. So new Ravager for me since we have less infantry-based AT right now.

On the other hand, Raiders IMHO got worse. Aerial Assault don't matter due to Fast rules. Single Plasma Cannon was cool add-on, as opposed to single AT shot (especially with more AT inside). Old upgrades were good AND useful, tho Flicker Field and Prow are nice.



I think I'll go with new, due to fact lack of Dissies on Raiders is more than overcompensated by Venoms (so lack of Dissies don't hurt as much, especially with cover on everything) and army-wide poison while Ravager have his AI alter-ego in Razorwings.

Yep, I pick new because they serve their army A LOT better.

[edit]
wow, votes are... surprisingly one-voiced. All in favor of new ones say "AARGH!".

For how much I love the old dissies (I normally ran tri-lance Ravagers anyway, but I had so much AI in the form of Reavers and Raider squads I needed the extra AT) and the horrorfex [God I miss these... why GW... why did you take away one of our most powerful items!!!! If they were still around, I would have a reason to take a Sybarite (for the terrorfex I mean... but they were basically the same thing)], flickerfields and cheaper nightshields win hands down. Aerial Assault is also so sweet, but the winner is flickerfields. God are these things a god send, and I will never EVER take them off. Raiders should just be 70 pts with them base, and Ravagers should just be 115 with them base as well (also venom should be 65 base with the extra cannon, but whatevs)

I voted old, as again three plasma cannon shots were fantastic. There is now a little more durability, but Dark Eldar are supposed to hit harder.

And the fact that I used to take three Ravagers (two with 3 , 1 with 3 Lances) and I wouldn't take any now.

the1stpip wrote:

And the fact that I used to take three Ravagers (two with 3 , 1 with 3 Lances) and I wouldn't take any now.

That's... little extreme. Ravagers are really good AT now. Like *really* good.

Also, I liked 2 Diss and Lance Ravager from old book. Good all-around pattern (not like "pure" variants are bad...).

The Vect wasn't a bad build, though I thought both of the pure builds were superior I still ran the Vect sometimes.

Also - looking at the votes, we may end this poll early

Even if every person who didn't vote for the New Vehicles tossed their votes in support of the Old ones, and I multiplied it by two, they would still have soundly lost. I think we can call this one - keep an eye out for the next battle though, the old Wych Lords are coming back to discuss the validity of the new Succubus...

Just to throw in my 2-cents. I don't think anyone would take dissie ravagers in the current game. With the increase in the games mech, and the amount of AI we already have, there's no point... While the horrofex sounds awesome, and i think I would pay 20 or 25 points for that without a second thought... in the current make of the game, the ravs serve the army in precisely the way that its needed, just like the old one did in that make of the game. Honestly, if you look at the game at the time it was designed for, it really comes down to a tie, imho... though, i must say, i am partial to the current make...

Blasters and lances becoming more expensive and/or less easy to work into your army also caused the shift. If Wyches could still take 2x Blasters and Warriors could still take Lances in 5 Man builds with Blasters as well then Plasma Cannon Dissies on Ravs would be seriously back in the mix.

Frankly, what I think they'd really replace if they showed up again with no other changes would be Razorwings - they fulfill the same purpose only with better AP, better strength, and for less points and also a reusable attack.

Dunno , just been thinking about this, where in theory our vehicles are tougher than they used to be , especially against traditional single shot weapons.

If you look at the way the game is going , multiple str7/8 is on the rise, coupled with all the new armies being immune to suppression, thats not good for our vehicles at all .

tesla filth 4-8 str 7 hits on average = deleted raider/venom, the whole necron Amry is completely lethal to our vehicles, I simply cant pass that many 5++'s and GK's are just as bad if not worse , psyflemen and psycannons make our vehicles vanish very very fast.

Played crons last night and lost half my vehicles in a single shooting phase , that was right after my lances bounced of almost everything and he living metalled away the other results. their shooting was simple piont and click = dead DE

Thor665, I've been searching high and low, and haven't been able to get a good answer.

How DID horrorfexes work in 5th edition? While the 4e FAQ said they were defensive, the 5e FAQ seems to indicate that they were not. The opening post of this thread seems to contradict that, and I can't find any further evidence to back up that claim.

Was the requirement that they be fired instead of another weapon dropped? I can't find a clear answer. If you could link me to an FAQ or errata, I'd appreciate it greatly.

The concensus was that because 'defensive weapons are weapons that have str4 or less' and seeing as horrorfexes do not have a str at all (so basically str 0 which is lower than str4 obviously) you could fire horrorfex as a defensive weapon.

Okay, so here's my understanding:
1) There was a 4e FAQ that said they were defensive.
2) There was another 4e FAQ in 2005 that changed their mind.
3) The 5e BRB came out, and any weapons that lack a str value are defensive, irrelevant of what any outdated FAQs might imply.

So if the horrorfex is defensive, can it now be fired in addition to a dark lance or disintegrator, irrelevant of what the text in the actual entry says? Awesome.

New. Aerial assault.

@corollax - with GW pulling the old FAQs from their site I'm not sure where to point you, it went through multiple cycles as you can see through your own research - the definitive commentary was my own opinion though.

I understand, though I admit I'm a little disappointed. I've gotten rather interested in the old 'dex lately, and built what I feel is a pretty effective list. I just wish I had a proper FAQ to work from. Did the old codex even get a FAQ in 5th edition? m1180149_Dark_Eldar_FAQ_2004-08_5th_Edition.pdf is the closest I've been able to find. It looks badly outdated, and I'm more inclined to believe you, anyway.

(The old wyches were amazing. I'd kill for that kind of anti-tank firepower in the new edition. I'm not a fan of the old haywires though, especially since it's not clear whether they work on walkers or not. Nevermind figuring out how that works with the Goblet of Spite...)

Did a Google search on the name you provided - don't quote me, but to the best of my recollection that does indeed look like the most recent DE update besides some stuff that was errated later again in the INAT FAQ that some tournaments also used.

Old Haywires worked on Dreads - but they needed to be immobilized first. No immobilize, no Haywire.
Goblet of Spite let you hit on a 3+ when in close combat with a model that had a WS - so, yes, it could work on Walkers with Haywires (note that an immobilized Walker is hit on regular WS comparison with grenades if you lack the Goblet).