Raiderspam Viability

So I'm still not entirely sure which way to go with my Dark Eldar. I have one box of Wyches and one of Warriors, and at this point I have no idea what else to get.

Is a super shooty army decently viable? I was thinking about taking warriors in raiders with splinter racks, and maybe a unit or two of Blasterborn in venoms as primary forces, maybe backed up by a squad or so of Wyches and a Hammie in another raider. And maybe Reavers, cause their overrun attack is really neat. For heavy support, I'm considering a razorwing or two.

The general idea is to always keep moving, and pull drive-by shootings whenever possible.

Anybody got suggestions for this style of army?

With this style army I would recommend having Lady Malys as you HQ, just to mess up your foe's day.
The Warriors in Raiders and Splinter Racks is a great idea, although you should make sure to equip them with Flickerfields.

A points value would be quite useful, otherwise I could end up just going over the top, in a very eccentric manner e.g:
Vect, Dais,
Drazhar, Nine incubi, Raider.
Ten Incubi,
Ten Incubi,
Lots and lots of Warriors,
Ravegers,
40 hellions.
Anyway, you get the point.

Darn, I want an eccentric list now.

Ok, just a note on special characters- I absolutely despise the idea of taking one, and refuse to unless I absolutely have to. That's why I'm still playing 40k instead of moving to the games by PP. Then again, its been Herohammer 40k since 4th edition came out... *sigh*

I don't have a points value yet. Sorry, just don't know what the usual point level is for tourneys in the area. I'll have to get back with you on that. The last written list I had, however, was something like this:

HQ Character

Blasterborn in dual cannon Venom
Blasterborn in dual cannon Venom

Warriors w/ Shredder & Splinter Canon, in Raider
Warriors w/ Shredder & Splinter Canon, in Raider
Wyches w/ Agoniser, 2x Hydra Gauntlets (and Hammie?), in Raider
Wyches w/ Agoniser, 2x Hydra Gauntlets, in Raider

Reavers w/ Cluster Caltrops
Reavers w/ Cluster Caltrops

Razorwing or Void Raven
Razorwing or Void Raven

My Raider-borne warriors (the Raider with racks, flickerfield, and night shields, the warriors a ten-man with a cannon and a blaster) are the only squads in my army that never disappoint me. They've taken down ten-man terminator squads, the Swarmlord, countless tactical marines and guardsmen, and other targets. I recommend blasters over shredders for multiple reasons. The first is that they give the squad a secondary role as tank hunters. The second is that you can never have enough lances. The third reason is that a blaster is a reliable kill on all but the heaviest infantry.

The wych squads are good too, but I personally favor leaving the special weapons at home. Haywire grenades and a Hekatrix with an agoniser are the two most important upgrades they can get, in my experience, and everything else is optional.

When taking reavers, you need to consider the most decisive role they can get. Caltrops are overpriced, and a gunboat list with some Venoms and a Razorwing has enough AI that bladevanes are a nice plus on the unit, but nonessential. Trade the caltrops for a heat lance. Reavers are probably the best platform in the army for them due to their mobility and ability to jump away after shooting.

For heavy support, I favor two Ravagers and a Razorwing, to reinforce my anti-tank capabilities and alpha strike a threatening unit into a non-issue. Your list, as you have it now, needs more lances and blasters. Raiders won't cut it.

Archon Farath Mure wrote:

My Raider-borne warriors (the Raider with racks, flickerfield, and night shields, the warriors a ten-man with a cannon and a blaster) are the only squads in my army that never disappoint me.

May I ask why you give them night shields. To get the full use out of the racks you have to come really close. So why should I pay for the night shield? Perhaps I´m overlocking something...

As I´m new to DE and the 5th Edition (soon 6th Ed.) of 40 k, this question is serious. Didn´t want to embarrass you.

Michael

Demagoge wrote:

Archon Farath Mure wrote:

My Raider-borne warriors (the Raider with racks, flickerfield, and night shields, the warriors a ten-man with a cannon and a blaster) are the only squads in my army that never disappoint me.

May I ask why you give them night shields. To get the full use out of the racks you have to come really close. So why should I pay for the night shield? Perhaps I´m overlocking something...

As I´m new to DE and the 5th Edition (soon 6th Ed.) of 40 k, this question is serious. Didn´t want to embarrass you.

Michael

They're mostly useful on the way in. They keep my boats alive long enough to get up close when I fight GK, Necrons, and other tough midrange armies. After that, the boat has mostly done its job anyway. They're the most optional upgrade I mentioned, though.

Thanks for the answer. As I´m playing mostly against long range armies like the IG I think I´ll not use them.

Michael

Okay, you could use the rules from a special charecter and have your HQ as a 'counts as' model.

I would say, just because this is what I am used to, drop the Shredders from your Warrior squads, unless you have better luck using them than I do.

I am not a great fan of the Razorwing, and have not had any luck using Blasternorn to crack open vehicles, so I would recommend that you give your Wyches Haywire Grenades or kit out the Reavers with Haywire Blasters and Heat Lances.

By the way, do you have a particular army in mind that you are likely to face regularly?

Cavash wrote:

Okay, you could use the rules from a special charecter and have your HQ as a 'counts as' model.

Dunno, it'd still bother me. Special characters, "counts as" or otherwise kill narrative.

Quote :

By the way, do you have a particular army in mind that you are likely to face regularly?

From what I've seen, there really isn't. Every time I've been to the LGS on 40k night, there've been different armies there. A fair few Marine armies, but a surprising number of orks and tyranids as well. What I don't remember seeing are Tau and Guard.

Well...I'd say, make a list for each enemy. Consider a real battle: you dont send your smg/mg unites with no armorhacking - RPG - against a battalion of tanks. Also, you dont send your destroyer gunships against a commando or an assassin.
Make a list for each type of enemy - tide MEQ/GEQ, Mech MEQ/GEQ, and the hardest: tank GEQ.
Ex: against nids i recomend disintegrators, against ork, mostly disintegrators, few lances, against marines a balanced mix of lance weapons and the disint. Missiles depend on your foe. For example i dont like blowing off my implosion missiles on opponents with 2+ wounds. Further i wouldnt recomend shatterfield vs wraithlords.

I did use a shooty list, but it didnt work for me, because of the meta we have - Wraith'Dar, Tank Guard, Space Wolfs, BA, GK and Tau.

I run Raiders/Venoms in roughly a 2:1 split. Going by this, I would say the Raider is the more useful Transport

well, i only venom the 1-2 squads of warriors, if i have they points. Usually one in a venom or two on foot. But if i bring warriors, blasters area alwayse there

if you like the bladevanes on reavers, check out the rules for chain snares, D3+1 S4 hits on all units it passes over. Add in enhanced aethersails and a shock prow and you've created quite a damaging backup option for raiders once they've dropped off their unit.

teh603 wrote:

Ok, just a note on special characters- I absolutely despise the idea of taking one, and refuse to unless I absolutely have to. That's why I'm still playing 40k instead of moving to the games by PP. Then again, its been Herohammer 40k since 4th edition came out... *sigh*

Ever play 2nd Edition? Armies frequently maxed out their "up to 50% of total points" character allotment, and characters were usually capable of killing their points value in enemy troops every turn. Good Times.

Allandrel wrote:

Ever play 2nd Edition? Armies frequently maxed out their "up to 50% of total points" character allotment, and characters were usually capable of killing their points value in enemy troops every turn. Good Times.

Actually, no. I didn't start playing until 3rd Edition was well underway and special characters were in their rightful place- "can only be used with opponent's consent" hell. They were also prohibited at all tournaments.

Course that was before the Deathwing became Belial-wing, and we got Dante-wing and all those other stupid special character lists.

teh603 wrote:

Allandrel wrote:

Ever play 2nd Edition? Armies frequently maxed out their "up to 50% of total points" character allotment, and characters were usually capable of killing their points value in enemy troops every turn. Good Times.

Actually, no. I didn't start playing until 3rd Edition was well underway and special characters were in their rightful place- "can only be used with opponent's consent" hell. They were also prohibited at all tournaments.

Course that was before the Deathwing became Belial-wing, and we got Dante-wing and all those other stupid special character lists.

I think you're getting your wires crossed a bit on special characters. Allandrel (I think) is talking about all characters in 2nd edition, not only special ones (which were with opponent's consent only in 2nd edition, IIRC). It really was possible to make a 'regular' chapter master insanely powerful with various bits of wargear.

As for the original question, I don't really have much to contribute, because I'm working on a footdar army with a WWP (or two). But my general advice for someone building a new army would be 'can you try proxying it in a few friendly games first?' I don't know how that goes down in your store, but the best way to see what works for you is to give different units a try.

Ben_S wrote:

I think you're getting your wires crossed a bit on special characters. Allandrel (I think) is talking about all characters in 2nd edition, not only special ones (which were with opponent's consent only in 2nd edition, IIRC). It really was possible to make a 'regular' chapter master insanely powerful with various bits of wargear.

Yep, back then Eldar Exarchs were independent characters with access to wargear cards, which went all the way up to Vortex Grenades. Yes, just like the ones in Apocalypse.

Quote :

As for the original question, I don't really have much to contribute, because I'm working on a footdar army with a WWP (or two). But my general advice for someone building a new army would be 'can you try proxying it in a few friendly games first?' I don't know how that goes down in your store, but the best way to see what works for you is to give different units a try.

Indeed, proxies can be a great way of determining if you're ultimately going to start a particular army. Though for some reason one of my friends refuses to play with my beautifully constructed Lego proxies. His 9-year-old son and I agree that this is silly of him.

teh603 wrote:

Allandrel wrote:

Ever play 2nd Edition? Armies frequently maxed out their "up to 50% of total points" character allotment, and characters were usually capable of killing their points value in enemy troops every turn. Good Times.

Actually, no. I didn't start playing until 3rd Edition was well underway and special characters were in their rightful place- "can only be used with opponent's consent" hell. They were also prohibited at all tournaments.

Course that was before the Deathwing became Belial-wing, and we got Dante-wing and all those other stupid special character lists.

lol where have you been. in 2nd all this game was my super power HQ runs into your super powerful HQ... actually 4th and 5th lowered the amount of special characters on the field. Sure you BB marines running around with Vulkan or GKs w/ Dragio, but other than that you rarely see anything other than generic libby/haemie/farseer/Biker Boss nowadays

on footdar i alwase see an Avatar, on a "generic" Mechdar list i alwayse see either Eldrad or Prince or both, DE i se a lot of ppl taking Vect, Malys, Urien, Baron, Sliscus. Space wolfs? Never seen a game without a special character. IG? Pask, Yarik, Stroken, Dead Dog all in one army usually. Some times Marbo to.

Dont see psecial characters? Tau me pal runs farsight, i run O'Shaserra. Orks? Usually the shoota spec char, some times others, but the shoota spec is alwayse there. Sadly they took out Saim Han viper rider, or else i would see him in me friends jet'dar.
GK told, Salamanders told.
thats 20 Spec Chars I see, and we are only 6 players. That is almost 4/player - 3.3
And adding all those others mentioned and others: Mephiston, Belial, Dante, Vulkan, Draigo.
Thats 25. If the opponent has points for the scorps, you sometimes see the Scorp Exarch HQ or the Fire Dragon Exarch HQ, or the Banshee exarch HQ, or the Swooping Hawks Exarch HQ.
29

The only special character I EVER used before is Kurt Helborg in my Empire army, the only one I am going to use for 40K (with different fluff) is Captain Al'Rahem, not because he is that good, but because I want his IG infanty platoon outflanking as ash waste guerrilla's. And that's 4 armies in total - Empire, goblins (no orks), Imperial Guard and now Dark Eldar...

So back to the original topic, would replacing the Razorwings/Voidravens with Ravagers and taking three of them be a better option? The list (with no points, wargear, nothing) would look something like this:

(HQ choice)

Warriors in Raider
Warriors in Raider
Warriors in Raider
Wyches in Raider
Wyches in Raider (w/ Hammie?)

Blasterborn in Venom
Blasterborn in Venom
Blasterborn in Venom

Ravager
Ravager
Ravager

if you are going for raiderspam, put the blasterborn in raiders to imho