Venoms vs Dissie Raiders

This was originally brought up by Agahmin Here and is something I think should be discussed. Which is better AI in the new meta of 6th? The tried and true venom, or the old dog with new tricks raider w/ dissie???

[b]Venoms:[/b]

Pros:
flickerfield in the base cost.
Higher damage potential
Smaller model, so easier to hide
Poison shots

Cons:
Lower Hullpoints
Lower transport capacity
While cheaper base, everyone takes the extra cannon, so in actuality its more expensive than the raider
can not hurt tanks

Raider w/ Dissie

Pros:
AP2
Higher transport capacity
Cheaper due to the venom's need for the second cannon
able to pen lower AV targets
Higher Hullpoints

Cons
Rather large and unwieldy model
lower amount of damage potential, also cover hurts its damage output

Personally I see the higher damage potential of the venom still outway its cons. Sure 2 HPs hurt it, but Im used to my vehicles blowing up anyway if they get hit, so that is no different. I will admit though dissies are getting more apealing everytime I play and see more 2+ saves on the field. What do you guys think?

I like dissies a lot and against more and more armies I have found myself using them... however better AI then the Venom, not sure. The fairest way to compare the two strictly as which is the best AI is difficult if you include models on the transport and as always it depends on the situation.

As far as the vehicles go by themselves, the Venom wins hands down in my opinion. If you add troops, then maybe you have something different. If you put 4 trueborns with splinter cannons in a venom you have a pretty sick gunboat. You do the same in the raider with 10 trueborn and 4 cannons you have a pretty good gunboat that can take down tanks- theoretically. So What if you had 3 blasterborn in the venom? That works out at around 150 points. You put 10 men and a splinter cannon in a raider that works out as a little more than 150 points. So whats the difference, the venom can put out 12 poison shots a turn, and 3 Ap 2 Str 8 shots. Thats going to take down any infantry significantly and has a better anti tank potential. The Raider for the same price more or less can put out 15 poion shots (24 within 12") and 3 Str5 Ap 2 shots. So you have better AI potential but less AT. If you put 3 splintercannons in the venom the price drops considerably and you can put out 28 shots a turn. So a tough question...

So my answer would be...depends what you put inside, or just take both.

Area terrain cover saves have dropped to 5+ so it makes AP2 shots slightly more viable, but Venom fire power negates cover when shooting at MEQ.

1 Venom twin cannons roughly same price as 1 Dissie Raider.
2 Venoms twin cannons roughly same price as 3 Dissie Ravager.

Would love to see the numbers on shooting at MEQ units in cover, and shooting MEQ units not in cover.

Venom wins for me due to it being a dedicated transport. Disses are pretty nice now with footsloggers being much more commons, but I need to take flyers to deal with enemy flyers (I'd give the Razorwing dissies, but that would make it useless against Vendettas/Stormravens and quite ineffective against other flyers), and for the non-Flyer HS choise I'd still want some long range anti-tank that can do something on turn 1.

1++ wrote:

Area terrain cover saves have dropped to 5+ so it makes AP2 shots slightly more viable, but Venom fire power negates cover when shooting at MEQ.

1 Venom twin cannons roughly same price as 1 Dissie Raider.
2 Venoms twin cannons roughly same price as 3 Dissie Ravager.

Would love to see the numbers on shooting at MEQ units in cover, and shooting MEQ units not in cover.

2 Venoms vs MEQ in 5+ cover: 24 shots, 16 hits, 8 wounds, 2.66 unsaved
Dissie Ravager vs MEQ 5+ in cover: 9 shots, 6 hits, 4 wounds, 2.66 unsaved

2 Venoms vs MEQ in no cover: 24 shots, 16 hits, 8 wounds, 2.66 unsaved
Dissie Ravager vs MEQ 5+ in no cover: 9 shots, 6 hits, 4 wounds, 4 unsaved

@Adhemar - it's not much of a comparison anyway though - comparing dedicated transports to Heavy slots is meh to my mind.

The question is more between the Venom vs. the Raider.

Venom vs MEQ in 5+ cover: 12 shots, 8 hits, 4 wounds, 1.33 unsaved
Dissie Raider vs MEQ 5+ in cover: 3 shots, 2 hits, 1.33 wounds, 0.88 unsaved

Venom vs MEQ in 5+ cover: 12 shots, 8 hits, 4 wounds, 1.33 unsaved
Dissie Raider vs MEQ 5+ in no cover: 3 shots, 2 hits, 1.33 wounds, 1.33 unsaved

Venom vs TEQ: 12 shots, 8 hits, 4 wounds, 0.66 unsaved
Dissie Raider vs TEQ: 3 shots, 2 hits, 1.33 wounds, .88 unsaved

I kind of wish I could think of a 'standard' MC that we tend to see on tables, but really almost no codex currently has a MC that is remotely worth a damn because GW wants to annoy me. Really there is the occasional Wraithlord/Avatar...whatever the Nids are desperately trying to make competitive (because, y'know, Nidzilla soooo desperately needed a nerf hammer), the occasional daemon prince...presuming anyone is trying to run comp. Chaos at the moment. Meh.

Hopefully new Chaos Dex will see a resurgence.

However - raw facts are above.

Venoms are better at killing MEQ in cover.
Venoms are just as good at killing MEQ outside of cover.
Dissies are better versus TEQ (shock of shocks)

So, I would say adjust for your local play enviroment. If you're drowning in TEQ - then go Dissies. Otherwise the Venom will keep doing what she has always been good at, and that is torrenting things to death.

I consider the debate between 2 or 3 hull points on an AV 10 open topped vehicle to be probably a little silly, personally.

@thor665
your mathhammer is slightly of a raider with dissies shooting at MEQ in 5+ cover does 0.88 unsaved wounds not 0.44
also against TEQ the venom does 0.66 unsaved wounds and you forgot to factor in any sort of invulnerable save or cover that TEQs are almost never lacking

It's too black and white just comparing the damage potential. The reason I like the disintegrator is that it can often snipe models out of cover denying a save.

Glamhadril wrote:

@thor665
your mathhammer is slightly of a raider with dissies shooting at MEQ in 5+ cover does 0.88 unsaved wounds not 0.44
also against TEQ the venom does 0.66 unsaved wounds and you forgot to factor in any sort of invulnerable save or cover that TEQs are almost never lacking

1. Good point on the cover - I put the amount saved down, not the amount of unsaved wounds - fixed.

2. Also a good point...I don't know what I did to gak that one up, I'll blame Shadow.

3. TEQ have an inherent 5+ invulnerable - so their cover save is identical to that. I suppose I could do an alternate line for Storm Shield TEQ, but I don't really see the value except to show that the Venom is still really good compared to the Dissie - which I'm already claiming.

Septimus wrote:

It's too black and white just comparing the damage potential. The reason I like the disintegrator is that it can often snipe models out of cover denying a save.

The black and white comparison though shows that a Venom is functionaly just as good in this situation due to weight of fire as opposed to ignoring armor. Also, the Venom is again superior if you can't deny them cover.

A argument in favor of the Dissie is probably FNP, but that and TEQ without Shields are the only big wins I can think of, and they aren't that big of a set of wins.

Please use the edit button in future. Thanks. - Mush

I think It has always been clear that the venom is better for AI than the dissy raider. Something that the raider brings to the table though is a strength value, so unlike the venom it stands a chance of knocking out light armor and transports as well as being pretty good at killing infantry.
Will I be trading all of my venoms for dissy raiders? No, but all of my raiders will have dissies on them.

Intressting indeed.

I am playing with Venoms for the most part, but have to admit that I have played abit of Dissis when playing for fun. And have liked them indeed. Have been considering bringing them to a turnement in the near future... Just have to find all the Dissis so I can change them out with DL that are on my Raiders atm

Bibitybopitybacon wrote:

I think It has always been clear that the venom is better for AI than the dissy raider. Something that the raider brings to the table though is a strength value, so unlike the venom it stands a chance of knocking out light armor and transports as well as being pretty good at killing infantry.
Will I be trading all of my venoms for dissy raiders? No, but all of my raiders will have dissies on them.

So you're going to trade out what is one of our best anti-vehicle weapons for what is our 2nd to 3rd best anti-infantry weapon in order to have anti-infantry weapons that can hurt certain vehicles if you're lucky?

I don't get it - are we really suffering for anti-infantry all of a sudden and no one told me? I feel this is a solution in search of a problem, yeah?

I would side with the Venom for anti-infantry. the math is fairly clear to me that the Venom is equal to or superior to one Disintegrator against everything but regular TEQ, where everything includes my latest concern, Nurgle Obliterators.

Vs. Nurgle Obliterators

2 Cannon Venom: 12->8->4->0.66 Wounds
1 Disintegrator Raider: 3->2->1->0.66 Wounds
1 Dark Lance Raider 1->0.66->0.55->0.37 Wounds
3 Dark Lance Ravager 3->2->1.66->1.11 Wounds
3 Disintegrator Ravager 9->6->3->2 Wounds

Whereas Paladins and Apothecaried Deathwing can be laughed off by Dark Lances with Night Shields attached, T5 Obliterators flip the bird to ID and hit from across the board. So, Dissies are not even superior against the type of 2+/5++ guys I want to be killing. For all of my units with 5 or less guys, they are going in Venoms.

That being said, if I needed a Raider its capacity, the choice of what to equip it with is not obvious to me. The Dark Lance will always be the safe option for the extra Lance against armies with a few key vehicles to kill, but is the extra oomph that you get from the Dissie going to be key in those now-more-common games where the enemy has no vehicles? I can't say for now.

Thor665 wrote:

A argument in favor of the Dissie is probably FNP,

AP doesn't affect FNP any more, so there isn't even that argument. Still the weapon systems are close enough to consider whether it's worth it for the other advantages the raider brings (cheaper, more options, etc).

@Mush - derp, yeah, I usually need at least a year to stop mixing up old and new rules

The 'advantages' a Raider brings are roughly immaterial if your goal is a transport that kills infantry unless you need higher transport capacity. The cost is functionally the same, the hull point is nice but mostly meaningless (and, probably offset by the ability to hide behind blocking terrain), and the weapon system is inferior. Seems pretty balanced with an arguable gain in survivability at a loss of offensive output - and I still think to play DE the Glass Hammer approach needs to be embraced, not lived in fear of.

but both are gllass cannon transports the venom because of its lesser hull points and the raider because its so damn hard to keep it out of sight

personally i usually play with the vehicle will do one thing and the guys inside the other. so the raider weapon depends on the occupants the venom depends on me having the points to put an effective anti tank unit in there

Thor665 wrote:

So you're going to trade out what is one of our best anti-vehicle weapons for what is our 2nd to 3rd best anti-infantry weapon in order to have anti-infantry weapons that can hurt certain vehicles if you're lucky?

I don't get it - are we really suffering for anti-infantry all of a sudden and no one told me? I feel this is a solution in search of a problem, yeah?

Wait, we only have darklances, blasters, heatlances, haywireblasters, haywire grenades and voidlances as AT and the darklance and blaster IMO are the worst of the bunch at reliably killing vehicles. When you said "One of the best" you ment the most readly available right? We can get ap2 strength8 out the bum from different and better sources than on raiders.
The standard for what to take for DE has always been to take an anti-vehicle unit in an anti-infantry vehicle and anti-infantry units in anti-vehicle transports so your unit can threaten everything. With wyches being better at AT now than AI I will always be putting a dissy on my wyche's raider to pop bubble wrap and weaken any infantry units I do charge with them. I really don't think my army is going to miss one or two lances if it helps my wyches haywire his parking lot.

Wyches have always been good at AT though - all that happened was they got better at it and worse at tarpitting.

As to my breakdown of anti-tank shooting gear, yeah, I think the lance is one of the best, and, yes, availability matters - I can get lances on units that are otherwise good. I can get Blasters wholesale. If I could put heat lances or haywire blasters on Trueborn I would (well, maybe not the haywires anymore...) but I can't, and that matters;

Blaster has good strength and is easily available - but low range.
Blast pistol is the same, but even less range - very specialized.
Heatlance has excellent killing potential within a very limited range - also limited access (functionally limited to Fast slots).
Voidlance is slightly better than dark lance, but is drastically limited in availability.
Haywire blasters used to be awesome, now are fairly meh.
Dark Lances are readily available, can come in multiples and also in multiples on platforms that can move and shoot, have signifigantly better range and suffer no loss of effectiveness at range allowing them to be used Turn 1 as an alpha strike *or* as a reserve alpha strike, basically no matter where the opponent hides on the board.

The Void Lance is a joke because the Void Raven is pretty meh except maybe as an anti-flyer plot.
The Heat Lance is the best at killing, but is not easily available, and i shard to bring to bear effectively till Turn 2.
Same with the Blaster, though it is less dangerous, but easier to bring to bear and more available.

The range and power of the lance, however, is excellent. It's got the best range of any of the other weapons, is only less powerful than the Void and Heat lances, and can show up in basically any of my Force Org charts.

I'll also add, someone (you?...whoever I was responding to) was pointing out the Dissie's option as anti-mech. My point was that was silly, as the Lance (even if you want to argue it as a sub par anti-mech weapon) is *decidedly* superior to the Dissie when it comes to killing mech...and while we're at it, is comfortably competitive when it comes to sniping infantry.

Also, there is no need to do the AI/AT combo unless that's what your list needs you to do - I have run some quite successful AT/AT builds. It's all how the list goes together.

My point is - the Venom is provably superior at killing infantry in basically every scenario when compared to a Dissie Raider.
The Dissie Raider's 'win' is that it has an extra hull point. That is its only win.

So, if your point is to want the best value AI in your army - take a Venom.
If the point is - you're taking a Raider due to the size of the unit and you want more AI, then the Raider w. Dissie is an acceptable option I will not disagree, nor have I. All I was pointing out was that the Venom was better.

I think Thor is right, haywire wyches are fantastic but I would still take some lances just to make sure. Again I bring back the point that the Dark eldar have a wide variety of units that can go into these two transports so there is always going to be a huge variable in the effectivness depending what you put in them. As empty units, no one in them the Venom wins hands down. Doesn't matter that it has no AT potential compared to what little the dissie raider has, its not the venoms job to take down mech; its job is to soften up infantry before they are assaulted while the raiders primary function is to get troops close enough and quickly enough to assault.

The pair work well together and compliment each other. But you wouldn't put blasterborn in a raider and use it as a support platform would you, while a venom you would consider it. It is a hybrid of transport and heavy weapons while the raider is a transport. So obviously the Hybrid will be better adapted to take out men...I think the success of venomspam lists might emphasize this, how often do you see raider spam lists?

Hmmmm, 2000pts of Venom Spam vs Raider Spam.

The Raiders would hold the same troops as the Venoms (5 man mostly) for this to be a desent comparison...definitely fun to try

i a gree completely thor usually that is just how i build my lists, i like it and it works, though when i take say alot of scourge or trueborn with infantry weapons then the warriors and raiders will both be at

I think Venom has slight advantage with the built in FF too

hehe, you can put Venom vs Raider if you want. But you wont get any usefull information on it.

Its how they perform against all the other turnement lists, not just vs one. And thats where Venom excells. Also I would not have brought that list at all at 2000pts. And how many turnements really are 2000pts?

This is just missing the point totaly. the math shows how it performes, and then all thor said about the Venom vs Raiders when it comes to competitive play really.

I run Raiderspam mostly.

Quote :

They also gained a +1 modifier to the damage table (if you don't think that's huge I submit you didn't play much in 5th) making them far more likely to blow up a vehicle then to just stun or shake it.

And the damage table also changed, the only win is that it is more likely to Explode Vehicles, rather then Wreck it. So strictly speaking that is minor buff.

Only Hull Points made them somewhat better.

Well back to the topic, there is one point that has to be taken. I understand that Space Marines and all that are so common, but in a match of Dark Eldar versus Dark Eldar Dissie Raider is strictly superior to Venom for obvious reasons.

Question is - if one have 2 Dissie Ravagers in the list - with what better to support them - Venoms or More Dissies?