Raiders gunboat spam

I am comtemplating the warior gunboat build that was mentioned on the forums.

Basically
10 Warriors + Blaster + Splinter Cannon
Raider + Night Shields + Splinter Rack

Plan is to kite at 24 inches of just 1 model in the unit I want to shoot at and use all the warrior shots on it and hopefully kill at least 1 model. So even if they move 6 to try and get into 24" inches they will still be out by at least 6 inches due to night shield.

When the are sufficiently reduces, will move into 12" to rapid fire them to death. Of course in the grand scheme of things we will have to knock out all the stuff that can shoot more than 24" in the first few turns for this to work.

Raiders I feel are much more survival because 20 storm bolters shots will only 1.46 glances on a raider with a jink save.

In the upcoming tournament, the most dangerous opponents are, GK with Draigo wing. Necrons, Demons with fateweaver, most of which has the disadvantage of very limited firepower with range more than 24 inches.

So the idea is massed gunships with lance supported by ravagers, about 12 in the first turn to supress/kill all the long range stuff. Using our mobility to avoid all other 24 inch stuff. We can move as close as 25 inches and still be safe from their firepower due to night shield.

Do you think it is going to work? Is this tactic sound to base around?

If you really want to run this unit drop the blaster, it does not add to the inf killing power and if you are 24 inch from your targets the blaster would be unable to fire, those it is 15pts waste.

However if this unit operates outside rapid fire range venoms will serve you better. There is simply nothing in the army what can out that amount of splinter to for a low pts cost. It has longer range, are easy to hide and hullpoints does not really matter, both have an armour valu of 10 and open toped. When they get hit they are explode anyway.

Its a good concept but in reality it wont work like that to plan for a few reasons.

1. Staying at 24"
How will you know that you are exactly 24" away without pre measuring because if your not you will either be unable to fire or get shot. Also just to not 24 -6" move = 18" so he would be in range to shoot anyway possibly especially with him just needing to hit one of the many jutting out parts which will be closer to him than your troops shooting stations.

2. Moving and Shooting
if the raider moves (which it will need to do to keep at distance) it counts as your troops moving so can only shoot 12"

3. He can run
If you moved to far to shoot you will have to keep it still for the next turn in order to shoot therefore giving him extra time to move and run, with the extra D6" putting him at least 1" inside your 18" range from the NS

Considering these points it might be better to do something along the lines of filling a couple of venoms with trueborn taking splinter cannons and the venom its self upgrading to 2 cannons. Meaning you have the longer range but with Assault 4, Heavy 6 still getting around the same number of shots.
The NS would still be useful against his longer shooting units and give you some more time if he is getting closer, however you do of course miss out on the splinter racks with this option.

The idea is there it just needs shaping and testing, id love to here how you get on with this or if you think what i said was BS .

Good look in your tournament.

RazorBryce wrote:

Its a good concept but in reality it wont work like that to plan for a few reasons.

1. Staying at 24"
How will you know that you are exactly 24" away without pre measuring because if your not you will either be unable to fire or get shot. Also just to not 24 -6" move = 18" so he would be in range to shoot anyway possibly especially with him just needing to hit one of the many jutting out parts which will be closer to him than your troops shooting stations.

2. Moving and Shooting
if the raider moves (which it will need to do to keep at distance) it counts as your troops moving so can only shoot 12"

3. He can run
If you moved to far to shoot you will have to keep it still for the next turn in order to shoot therefore giving him extra time to move and run, with the extra D6" putting him at least 1" inside your 18" range from the NS

Considering these points it might be better to do something along the lines of filling a couple of venoms with trueborn taking splinter cannons and the venom its self upgrading to 2 cannons. Meaning you have the longer range but with Assault 4, Heavy 6 still getting around the same number of shots.
The NS would still be useful against his longer shooting units and give you some more time if he is getting closer, however you do of course miss out on the splinter racks with this option.

The idea is there it just needs shaping and testing, id love to here how you get on with this or if you think what i said was BS .

Good look in your tournament.

Dont take this as rude but you may want to read the new 6th editions rules. especially the rapid fire rules. and the premeasuring rules that are allowed in 6th. And read the new moving in a transport and shooting rules.

Bleakz87 wrote:

RazorBryce wrote:

Its a good concept but in reality it wont work like that to plan for a few reasons.

1. Staying at 24"
How will you know that you are exactly 24" away without pre measuring because if your not you will either be unable to fire or get shot. Also just to not 24 -6" move = 18" so he would be in range to shoot anyway possibly especially with him just needing to hit one of the many jutting out parts which will be closer to him than your troops shooting stations.

2. Moving and Shooting
if the raider moves (which it will need to do to keep at distance) it counts as your troops moving so can only shoot 12"

3. He can run
If you moved to far to shoot you will have to keep it still for the next turn in order to shoot therefore giving him extra time to move and run, with the extra D6" putting him at least 1" inside your 18" range from the NS

Considering these points it might be better to do something along the lines of filling a couple of venoms with trueborn taking splinter cannons and the venom its self upgrading to 2 cannons. Meaning you have the longer range but with Assault 4, Heavy 6 still getting around the same number of shots.
The NS would still be useful against his longer shooting units and give you some more time if he is getting closer, however you do of course miss out on the splinter racks with this option.

The idea is there it just needs shaping and testing, id love to here how you get on with this or if you think what i said was BS .

Good look in your tournament.

Dont take this as rude but you may want to read the new 6th editions rules. especially the rapid fire rules. and the premeasuring rules that are allowed in 6th. And read the new moving in a transport and shooting rules.

*chuckle* I'm sorry man, but he is right though (Bleakz87 = right that is, not RazorBryce).

On topic. I agree with dropping the blaster. Rather spend that on Trueborn Darklance snipersquads (3 Trueborn w/ 2 DLs in cover). Fits more with this playstyle. Actuallly... Thinking about it, I think you'd need your elite slots for some CC units (like Incubi), 'cause your troops are shooty now. So keep that in mind when taking Trueborn.

Talos wrote:

If you really want to run this unit drop the blaster, it does not add to the inf killing power and if you are 24 inch from your targets the blaster would be unable to fire, those it is 15pts waste.

I agree!

Back in 5th my usual recipe was 10 warriors, one Raider with lance, flickerfield, one splinter cannon, and one blaster.

The main reason I like Raiders over Venoms is the 36 " range on the Dark Lance. When I start a game, I want to begin shooting immediately, not get hammered for a turn until I can get into range. I always felt Venoms worked backwards, with the longer ranged shooting being AP fire, and the close range shooting being anti-tank. Seemed more reasonable to me to open up the transports with dark lances, and then kill the passengers with splinter fire. (But what do I know, a mix is probably the best way to go)

I was thinking of having those blasters as a backup plan.

Just in case I run up with a bad match up in the tournament.

In the last tournament, I brought a WWP list with no darklight weapons and tons of haywire blasters and grenades. Guess who I got paired up with in the first round? Grey wolf terminator spam. Kicked his ass just by being lucky with wyches 4+ in combat rolls. Round 2 got paired with fate crusher list. Obviously got the pain tokens kicked out of me. It was so one sided that it was sad. Just couldn't deal with it.

So now I think I want to be flexible. So at least when there are no more infantry targets I could use the squad to be a mini threat that has to be dealt with instead of "poison can't hurt" so we ignore it unit.

Flexibility is very important. It was important in 5th, too, but there were so few ways for most armies to succeed that we could anticipate our foes quite easily. Now many new list types are fair game, so we need to be increasing the variety in our lists if they were more singularly focused before.

That said, I also do not like the blaster in this unit. It forces you to bring them within the "kill zone" where they can very easily get shot to pieces. My suggestion for a backup is the dark lance on the KWs. Yes, it is heavy and must snap shot if you move, but that's still better than getting too close when you want to be relying on that night shield. This also gives you the option of staying stationary back at 36" and shooting both the Raider and the KW DL at full BS (and at different targets if needed). The added safety and tactical options is worth the extra ten points.

I was contemplating Night Shields, but I don't see how they will work. If we're in 24" shooting range, it means the target squad can just move 6" toward us to be within 18", thus negating the Night Shields.

Anggul wrote:

I was contemplating Night Shields, but I don't see how they will work. If we're in 24" shooting range, it means the target squad can just move 6" toward us to be within 18", thus negating the Night Shields.

Don't forget that casualties will usually come from the closest models, which may well leave only a few models capable of getting within 18" next turn.

Ah yes, I forgot about that. There's a very high chance that you'll kill the front models and the rest won't be in range then. Generally you'll only actually be in range of a couple of models, and against MEQ that's what you're expecting to kill.

Also (in addition to removing closest models, as above) the enemy may have to move through cover, which hinders their attempts to close the distance on you.

snubsnub2 wrote:

Basically
10 Warriors + Blaster + Splinter Cannon
Raider + Night Shields + Splinter Rack

I've been using a couple squads exactly like this and I posted 2k tournament results in the realspace raids section if you want to see how it worked. I used two of these and four squads of 5 warriors + blaster in a venom. I've been going with no CC troops whatsoever. I like the blaster. I agree with the other comments that it will not be in range a good portion of the time as you definetly don't want to zoom up close simply to use the blaster. My six blasters in the troop squads are backups, like for when you need that one hull point off a vehicle to get the troops out for your splinter cannons. They also add some extra punch vs heavy infantry when they close to rapid fire range. Its a trade off that I can see both ways, but I like having the extra lance weapon if I need it and usually stuff one on everything that can carry it. Having a few 10 man squads for objective sitting is nice too, because the 5 man warrior squads can get easily wiped in one turn of shooting.

My gun boat spam died horribly in the first game in the tournament against Necron Doom Scythe spam.

First turn he had 10 warriors, 5 immortals and 2 squads of 4 Wraiths with attached destroyer lord. It was night fight and kill points. I had first turn. tried to kill as much of his army in the first and second turn before his 2 night scythes and 3 doom scythe come up.

Killed only 3 wraiths and 4 warriors. His 2 night scythes and 2 doom scythes came in and blew up most of my army in the next 2 turns.

So sad.

Necrons are slightly OP at the moment because they were the only book written with the 6th edition rules right in front of the author, so for all intent and purpose its a 6th edition 'dex(thought the list u played was bad try going up against Imotek and 9 fliers....6 NS/3 DS......it's awful.) As more codices are released and armies get more anti air capability flyer spam will die down.