Best of both worlds - Max out our best units in a 1.5k list.

So I was musing over list building today and it occurred to me that in 6th we have two units that are pretty amazing and not rivalled by anything else in their FOC slot. The first is the Ravager. I won't go into a long explanation of why but it is without a doubt our best long range AT and for 105pts I think people will agree. It's been a long time main stay of our force. Many people including me take 3 of these by default in every list.

Second are the Reavers in the fast attack slot. They are more points effective, survivable and mobile than scourges with a higher versatility. Hellions I consider troops as they should only ever be taken with the Baron and the Beasts are great although I haven't used them but they too are generally taken with a Baron and serve an altogether different and more restricted role than Reavers although they're vastly better in CC. For all the reasons Mushkilla gives in his tactica articles and bat reps Reavers are incredible and they're the reason he takes 3 units of nine with the mighty heatlance. They seem to be one of the best things about 6th edition for us.

So working from that perspective. Taking 3 units of Ravagers and Reavers takes us to 1017pts. Hmmm, with no HQ or troops yet I see why this isn't the standard. At 1.5k you really need at least 4 troop choices for scoring purposes and our Venom gunboats come to 500pts for the standard load out. I see why people drop the Ravagers when taking Reavers. However, other than scoring purposes why do we take our troop choices? We like unlocking the chance to get the incredibly effective Venom. Now some people use 3 Wracks to unlock a Venom. After adding a splintercannon that comes to 95pts. Wow. I could take for of these with the points left over! I obviously need a Haemon for the obligatory HQ and to unlock Wracks as troops and that takes me to 1447pts. I'm thinking 3 Champions to lead the Reaver squads, a LF for the Hameon and chuck an extra Wrack in his retinue and call it a day at 1497pts. I thought this hadn't been done before because you couldn't actually fit within 1.5k without having dangerously few troops. But it does! However, would it be any good?

Forgive me if I'm wrong but I've not seen this list talked about anywhere. My initial thoughts were probably the ones you're having now if you're not smiling in agreement. I've only put 390pts into troops. If the enemy focus fire on those then I lose the game on points and objectives. Now this theory needs play testing but I don't think this will be the case with the absurd threat the Reavers and Ravagers pose to their army. Between those units they can threaten most things so I think heavily targeting the Venoms would be a mistake as you need to destroy the Wracks to ultimately deny the objective claiming ability. Also, in half of the rule book missions this troop load out doesn't matter. One scenario makes the Ravagers scoring, another the Reavers and when playing Relic, there is only one objective. I then started crunching the stats between the two troop choices.

- The standard troops load out would be 4xVenom gunboats but then I started thinking about the numbers. With FNP and T4 Wracks survive far better after an explosion taking .83wounds in a 3 man unit whereas 5 Warriors tak 2.2 wounds. Both these statistically probable outcomes will cause the units to take a morale check and with LD8 this is statistically the same. Although there is a better chance of not losing any Wracks than there is of only losing 1 Warrior so the Wracks are less likely to face a morale check after the Venom blows.

- When in cover and going to ground the Wracks are far more survivable and you lose nothing other than their movement so it's an instant decision. No shooting attack and I4 in combat. Warriors however lose their one bonus over the Wracks which is their shooting and they need the extra cover save the most.

- So what are we losing out on. Well obviously, other than I6 in combat, the shooting potential. But losing this isn't necessarily a bad thing. Needing to move within 18" to make use of the Blaster puts the Venom in a vulnerable position. With the Wracks, they can sit back comfortably within twice that range and be fully effective. This also justifies no need for NS as they're most effective on Venoms that have to get dangerously close. As someone stated recently the Blaster is overpriced for the 'eluent equivalent in other armies'. I'm not a fan of one shot things on the whole because I tremble whenever I have to roll a crucial roll on only one D6. Besides, there is ample AT in the army with 18 lance weapons neatly distributed between 9 T1 long range Ravager shots and 9 T2, lethal Reaver lancing.

- The Wracks are ultimately better in combat if being charged. I'm assuming we'd very rarely charge anything save for a dilapidated IG squad with either 3 Wracks or 5 Warriors. The Wracks would get 6 attacks over the Warrior's 5 and have the potential to be striking first if the enemy lack grenades. T4 and FNP is better than the Warrior's 5+ save and T3. The FNP is almost like an invulnerable save these days as well. This is a small point as both units are dead if charged by anything with combat potential in the game.

So after musing myself over to the dark of a coven list and convincing myself I lose out little on the shooting of 5 Warriors considering I save 30pts, I compiled the list and am very eager to see how it'll perform. I'd love to hear Mushkilla's thoughts on it and whether he'd consider running it if he has the models. Alas I currently lack 7 Wracks, 2 Venoms and 9 Reavers to run the list as written so I couldn't for a long while but I intend to start running 3x Wracks in Venoms and bolstering other elements of my list to see how that works.

Other thoughts on the list include. No AA. It seems to me that if an opponent takes a token flyer it can either be avoided, fails to show up, fails to do heavy damage or we are able to mitigate it's firepower within terrain and such far more often than it completely ruins our day. If they take two or more, the 1 token flyer we've taken as a counter does next to nothing and was ultimately a waste. Besides, 18 lance shots has some snap shot potential and if the enemy hover we are confident we can pop them out of the sky. No Allies. No way could this list squeeze in allies for things like psychic denial which is incredibly useful. However, if you were desperate to keep including the Jetbike Farseer and Guardian Jetbikes standard you could drop a Reaver squad. I prefer the idea of adding an Eldar detachment and ADL for 1750 point games but that's just a preliminary idea.

Look at that, everything is T4....how bizarre for us!

I'd love to know what the Dark City thinks of this idea. Here is the list written out so it's easier to see:


Haemonculus w/LFG - 60pts

4 Wracks. Venom w/2xSC - 105pts <---Haemon
3 Wracks. Venom w/2xSC - 95pts
3 Wracks. Venom w/2xSC - 95pts
3 Wracks. Venom w/2xSC - 95pts

9 Reavers w/3xHL, Champion - 244pts
9 Reavers w/3xHL, Champion - 244pts
9 Reavers w/3xHL, Champion - 244pts

Ravager w/3xDL - 105pts
Ravager w/3xDL - 105pts
Ravager w/3xDL - 105pts

= 1,497pts

Thanks for reading.

<--Edit-->

On further musing Eldar allies can be taken with little loss to the current list! If we consider the standard ally load out of a Jetbike Farseer with Doom and RoW accompanied by 3 Jetbike Guardians it comes to 191pts. We can purchase this if we drop an entire unit of Wracks and their Venom, the superfluous extra Wrack we had from the spare 10pts, the Hameon's LFG, one Reaver Champion and an extra Venom but keeping its unit of Wracks. This unit can sit on an objective in our deployment zone and thus we don't waste their scoring potential. I'm fairly sure they'll be ignored considering the rest of the list. The others things we've lost are two Venoms and a troop choice of 3 Wracks. The Guardian Jetbikes make up for the lost Wracks and are more effective as objective grabbers. They can be hidden for use on the last turn. So we still have 4 scoring units, they're just unit in a different way to a similar effect.
Now interestingly when you have a doom Farseer in the list, 2 SCannons firing at a doomed unit become exactly as effective as 3 Scannons so our two remaining Venoms have exactly the same wound output as 3 Venoms in the old list when firing at the same target. I know this means less target saturation, can't split fire and we lose a greater portion of firepower with each downed Venom but I think they'll largely be kept out of the way.

The effect of doom on bladevaning attacks is incredible! We go from an average of 9 wounds vs MEQ per Reaver squad to 13.5. Army-wide this amounts to an increase in damage equivalent to an extra 1.5 Reaver squads. I think this more than makes up for the 2 lost Venoms as it bolsters the entire army. The Farseer will run with the now Champion-less Reaver squad to mitigate their loss in LD.

Obviously the final bonus is the awesome psychic denial that the Farseer offers us. Just some more food for thought. Well done to anyone who has read through all of this! Thank you and I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Ravagers are fantastic indeed.

I dont agree that Reavers are that fantastic, I know alot of people want them to be, and against certain oponents they are, but its a huge point sinc to put in to something that isnt going to work in a all comers list (imo).
Yes they have gotten better than in last edition, and other stuff have gotten worse so they are now a unit that should be considered, but again in a competitive setting for an all commers list i dont think they are there yet.

Oh and with champion I just see a bigger potential for people running in to CC and challanging to keep you looked. So dont really think thats a good choice at all tbh

And our second best choice that are blastborns isnt even in the list, so its a missleading title as reaver isnt our best units.. anyway its an intressting list ofc, but dont think you take that to a turnement and do that great. I hope soon there is going to be some more viable all commers list than the ususal Blastborn,warrior,skimmer,ravager list.

I see more and more people turning to wracks aswell, and I havnt really seen that they can be better than warriors yet, but getting even more Wracks to make my coven list, maby there is a hidden gem I will see in them for the future...

Darklight wrote:

but its a huge point sinc to put in to something that isnt going to work in a all comers list (imo).

They're pretty effective against a lot of things though. Blade-vaning is great anti-horde and can take out most light infantry. The power to hit most disembarked units on the board from turn 1 is great and they cause MEQ to take lots of armour saves. If set up correctly, they are an incredibly effective T2 tank hunter unit. More effective than blaster born and more survivable albeit more points. They have the added bonus of combat ability as well, especially if you roll a 4 for CDs or acquire 2 PTs. They have the super ability to redeploy quickly and are great at contesting objectives and gaining line-breaker. Blasterborn are great, but have less anti tank damage and range and are less effective at killing infantry although the unit can fire at 2 things. However once the raider is immobilised or destroyed the blaster born are either killed or left fairly immobile.

Blastborn are better because of cheaper and get the weapons with them. Event ho if the raider/venom is destroyed you will still be in shooting range in T2 if you dont do something seriously stupid. And a blastborn group of 4xblasters with venom cost 173 if I remember correct. 9x Reavers w3x HL cost 244 as you said (with champion, 10-15points less without right?)

Thats still over 50 points more for less shooting. And actually a easier target to set out of play. They have better survivability because of jinx, but against CC and flamers they are fcked. Blastborns are also good against everything, it is actually not a list where they are not good. But Reavers?
Well, against CSM and Deamons they are not that good, easy to take them out with flamers and helldrake. an allcommers DE list will aswell just take them out quite easy. Tyranids list? not that good there either.

Sure they can be used at Infatary killers, but we can get others that do the job better. And thats really the point isnt it? Blastborns do the job they do, but cheaper (against AT) and we even get AI in that price!

Sure they can do 2 jobs, and they do it fine, but not as good as other stuff, and thats as I said above why they fall short unfortunatly.

244x3=732 point sinc. where you can either bladevane/cataclombs or shoot AT. Not both.
173x3=519 point sinc. Where you can shoot at AT AND AI. Still got 212 points left... wow thats almost 5xwarriors w/blaster and venomx2SC... (missing 38points for that) but still.
Just showing what you can get for the same price :/

I see the fun and attraction in reavers! defently! I have 12 myself and play them from time to time.

Any chance my thread on Scoring and Denial Units spurred you on? Coz it kind of looked like you have taken what I covered roughly and applied it to an army list. The cheapest and most durable (model by model comparison) scoring unit and the best denial unit (Reavers Turbo Boosting).

I like the build you could even have 1 or 2 Venoms kept in reserve protection.

Darklight - I think you might be overestimating the effectiveness of Blasterborn in 6e. In general we're seeing a shift away from vehicles (your meta may vary) and towards infantry. Reavers are far superior against infantry and are also more maneouverable even than a Venom. You also need to take into account that the Blasterborn are very fragile. A single shot into their venom could effectively destroy the whole unit.

Count Adhemar wrote:

Darklight - I think you might be overestimating the effectiveness of Blasterborn in 6e. In general we're seeing a shift away from vehicles (your meta may vary) and towards infantry. Reavers are far superior against infantry and are also more maneouverable even than a Venom. You also need to take into account that the Blasterborn are very fragile. A single shot into their venom could effectively destroy the whole unit.

I have to agree with the Count here. Reavers are so mobile and so versitle that they really cause a lot of problems for your opponent. The thing about Ravagers is that they are the undisputed boss of low point games, and progressively scale down in effectiveness as the point totals increase. Thats not to say that you shouldnt take them in large games, just that their impact is somewhat muted. Check out my 1500 battlereport on an example of Reavers and Ravagers use. I use my Ravagers for two targets, Land Raiders and light transports. After that, they just roam around taking pot shots at anything that is unengaged and weak.

What you have to remember about Reavers is that you need to take advantage of all their special rules. Jink, skilled rider, turbo, eldar jetbike assault move, combat drugs, HL, Hammer of Wrath, Relentless, Precision HL shots, Pain Tokens. It's a lot to remember. If you effectively take all these options into account, you will find that you always have an option to make them really effective every round. If your Reavers are getting charged, it's because you know you have thinned the unit down enough to survive, or you screwed up royally.

What do you mean by Precision HL shots?

He means if you put the heat lance on the model that is also the arena champ, you get to allocate your wound on a to hit roll of 6.

But as far as i know this is grey area unless it was recently cleared up?

Mud

That would be very taboo in with folks i play with

Hey sorry I haven't replied in a while. Was out of town and I apparently can't get my iPhone to post on this site...Does anyone else have that?

Mudpuppet wrote:

He means if you put the heat lance on the model that is also the arena champ, you get to allocate your wound on a to hit roll of 6.
Mud

Yea I want to stay away from this as a set tactic. If people you play against are happy with it then fine but I don't play like that. Either way lets not discuss it here and assume it isn't a factor.

1++ wrote:

Any chance my thread on Scoring and Denial Units spurred you on? Coz it kind of looked like you have taken what I covered roughly and applied it to an army list. The cheapest and most durable (model by model comparison) scoring unit and the best denial unit (Reavers Turbo Boosting).

I like the build you could even have 1 or 2 Venoms kept in reserve protection.

Yea man sorry for not crediting you. I'd read that recently so I'm sure your thoughts and the points raised in that thread were whistling round my head when I was musing on this list. I more went for the wracks as the only way to get 4 troops choices in the list and keep it at 1500 points.

I'd definitely plan to reserve a couple of Venoms for objective based missions.

Count Adhemar wrote:

Darklight - I think you might be overestimating the effectiveness of Blasterborn in 6e. In general we're seeing a shift away from vehicles (your meta may vary) and towards infantry. Reavers are far superior against infantry and are also more maneouverable even than a Venom. You also need to take into account that the Blasterborn are very fragile. A single shot into their venom could effectively destroy the whole unit.

I'm inclined to agree. I think that blaster born can have their effectiveness drastically reduced by one shot. Reavers are far tougher and manoeuvrable. I'm aware they must be kept away from flamers and effective CC troops but they are one of the best units at dictating their distance from enemies.

Interesting, not sure you really need three squads of reavers. It's nice but you are sacrificing a lot. I'm really curious to see how the list plays out, though. Also this seems like a shooty list, so personally I would feel blasters probably synergies more than heat lances.

I used to run Reavers back in the 5th ED and I still do in the 6th. They are a highly versatile unit that if played right can be a huge thorn in your opponent's back side. But 3 squads of 9 is excessively costly and unnecessary IMO. You can spend the points more wisely.

I do not know who you play against but 4 troop choices in a 1500 point list is pushing your luck. More so when they are so laughably small and ease to kill. Furthermore IMO the whole point of taking Wracks is to have the Liquifier and that requires a minimum of 5, otherwise take warriors or wyches. Also contesting an objective that is being held by an opposing unit will be much easier with 5 Wracks then 3 since you run the risk of being eliminated in CC before the end of the turn and thus cannot contest the objective.

Lastly Ravagers are indeed awesome and pre 6th ED I used to run 3 of them. But with the introduction of flyers you will find that they are no longer the end all be all of Heavy Support options. You need a flyer to run top cover for your army engaging enemy flyers or your paper airplanes will be picked apart one by one. I found that out the hard way...

Cheers

"Paper Airplane" describes our fliers too though and everyone else gets as good or better (much better) flyers then we do. Will one flyer really do much/anything when your enemy is running vendettas or the storm talon? At the same time if they aren't running flyers then your flyer will either be the focus of what AA they have (the quad gun being common enough) or ignored in favor of mauling your ground forces while being less useful then a Ravager vs their ground forces (due to its forced movement and deployment issues).

I don't know, I think not taking flyers is an entirely valid option for any army, ours included.

About 3 weeks ago I played an Ork army that had a very simple list, he had his warboss on a bike, 6 trucks full of boys, 1 battle wagon with deffrola carrying burnaz and 3 dakka jets. I had no flyers on my side just my 3 ravagers. I got decimated by those jets they are fast, they have a long range, and I had no reliable means to hurt them. All I could do was try to keep moving my army behind them as not to get shot at next turn. Needless to say I got decimated.

I played him again last week except I swapped one of the Ravagers for a Voidbomber and had much better results. It might be a paper airplane but it is hard topped, AV11, you can give it a 5++ save and most important it can deep strike. And so I had it DS behind his jets and got to kill one of them before he could even turn around to face me. Next turn I zoomed out of there, dropping the mine between two of his trucks full of boyz and BOOM goes the Dynamite. Right there it earned its points back and then some. It managed to kill one more jet before it was brought down right on top of another of his trucks full of boyz. It also bought my ravagers countless turns of respite from those dakka guns. Needless to say it proved its worth and its place on my roster and I will not leave home without one.

So respectfully I disagree, because if your opponent has flyers and you do not your are royally screwed as I found out the hard way. I haven't had the luxury of playing a game yet where I have one and my opponent doesn't but even if he focuses everything he has to bring it down and succeeds than at the very least I will have bought that much more time to move my Venom/Raiders. Lest we forget that the t-shirt wearing troops they carry are now getting hit by Str 4 shots when those paper airplanes go boom.

I am playing a Necron next week that plays with 2 Doom Scythes, I will let you know how my Voidbomber fairs in that game.

Cheers

We do not need to take flyers to counter enemy flyers. In fact I would say it is possibly one of the biggest mistakes we can make, as it significantly reduces our 1st turn threat by having part of our list in reserve. I do not use any of our flyers and can usually effectively deal with the enemies.

Got to agree about taking 3 ravagers as a standard in any list, I'd even say that 3 lances should be the standard on them.
I'm not so sure about 3 units of reavers though. Even Mushkilla is running into problems recently with them. I can't agree with not taking a beast unit in a fast attack slot. I have found them to be invaluable in many games I've played, not only for their CC ability but also for the amount of firepower they can soak up. The opponent simply has to deal with them or face a T2 assault, on infantry or armour. HP's have raised the beasts to a new level against rear armour 10 units. The number of wounds a 4 Master, 10 Khymera and 4 flock beast pack can shrug off is insane especially with the Baron running with them. I think they are more durable than reavers.

Taking 13 models as troops at 1500 points seems pretty risky as although wracks are durable by DE standards, 3 of them will die pretty easily. I used to run a 3 wrack unit with a venom and found it worked pretty well, but I only ever took 1 of them. This meant they tended to be ignored, I don't believe the 4 units would be treated so lightly when killing only 13 models negates your scoring potential in 4 out of 6 missions. 10 man warrior units is what I'm finding working for me at present, but I guess it's all down to list building.

I'd like to see how this list turns out, it's an interesting idea, just not my cup of tea at the minute.

kenny3760 wrote:

We do not need to take flyers to counter enemy flyers. In fact I would say it is possibly one of the biggest mistakes we can make, as it significantly reduces our 1st turn threat by having part of our list in reserve. I do not use any of our flyers and can usually effectively deal with the enemies.

Then please teach me how deal with 18, S6, AP4, BS4, pinning, twin linked shots of a SINGLE dakka jet when my opponent has 3 of them and all my ravagers manage to do to them is go plinks plinks plinks as I have to roll 6s to hit.

Maybe you know something I do not, maybe I am doing something wrong, hell I am far from perfect I make mistakes all the time. But the only answer I have found to the above is a voidbomber. Please teach me how to do it with 3 Ravagers instead.

Cheers

kenny3760 wrote:

We do not need to take flyers to counter enemy flyers. In fact I would say it is possibly one of the biggest mistakes we can make, as it significantly reduces our 1st turn threat by having part of our list in reserve. I do not use any of our flyers and can usually effectively deal with the enemies.

I agree. They are unreliable, leave us with no long ranged AT on turn 1, are still essentially paper planes, and aren't that good at taking down enemy flyers. As I said before, if the enemy take 1 flyer we can avoid it or mitigate its strengths, if they take 2 or more we can't really do much against them and having 1 flyer won't help us at all.

immelman wrote:

But 3 squads of 9 is excessively costly and unnecessary IMO. You can spend the points more wisely.

What do you think of running two squads of 9 with Haemons giving them PTs on T1 and using the spare points to get the standard Farseer Ally with Jetbike, Doom and 3 Guardian bikes?

immelman wrote:

kenny3760 wrote:

We do not need to take flyers to counter enemy flyers. In fact I would say it is possibly one of the biggest mistakes we can make, as it significantly reduces our 1st turn threat by having part of our list in reserve. I do not use any of our flyers and can usually effectively deal with the enemies.

Then please teach me how deal with 18, S6, AP4, BS4, pinning, twin linked shots of a SINGLE dakka jet when my opponent has 3 of them and all my ravagers manage to do to them is go plinks plinks plinks as I have to roll 6s to hit.

Maybe you know something I do not, maybe I am doing something wrong, hell I am far from perfect I make mistakes all the time. But the only answer I have found to the above is a voidbomber. Please teach me how to do it with 3 Ravagers instead.

Cheers

If you are thinking purely of dealing with 3 flyers with 3 ravagers then you have already lost. You need to use the restrictive rules of flyers to your advantage. They do not arrive until T2, they have limited manouverability. Try to force them to go into hover mode to target you, they are then skimmers and a lot easier to hit. Better still force them to fly over you, when you can then target their rear armour.

Don't just think of taking them down with ravagers. My usual list has 3 ravagers, 2 units of 3 blasterborn, 4 units of haywire wyches and 2 raiders all of which, can in the right circumstances deal with flyers. This gives me up to 17 chances of hitting a flyer, usually enough to bring it down or force it into hover mode, when my wyches will assault it. And Haywire works on skimmers as well as on ground armour.

Mushkilla wrote:

Interesting, not sure you really need three squads of reavers. It's nice but you are sacrificing a lot. I'm really curious to see how the list plays out, though. Also this seems like a shooty list, so personally I would feel blasters probably synergies more than heat lances.

This is a very helpful point and I think you're right about this load out for this particular list. I've also thought about swapping out two Ravagers for 2 Taloi with TL-LFGs which adds up to the same point total. It would give the list added durability and something very nasty to draw fire away from everything else.

kenny3760 wrote:

If you are thinking purely of dealing with 3 flyers with 3 ravagers then you have already lost. You need to use the restrictive rules of flyers to your advantage. They do not arrive until T2, they have limited manouverability. Try to force them to go into hover mode to target you, they are then skimmers and a lot easier to hit. Better still force them to fly over you, when you can then target their rear armour.

Don't just think of taking them down with ravagers. My usual list has 3 ravagers, 2 units of 3 blasterborn, 4 units of haywire wyches and 2 raiders all of which, can in the right circumstances deal with flyers. This gives me up to 17 chances of hitting a flyer, usually enough to bring it down or force it into hover mode, when my wyches will assault it. And Haywire works on skimmers as well as on ground armour.

Pardon my ignorance but the only flyer that also has the hover attribute that I know of is the Vendetta. If there are others than I apologize in advance. But I think it is safe to assume it is not the majority.

Going forward with this in mind, assaulting is no longer an option and we are back to square one which is shooting and we have already established its noneffective with ground forces. We do not have any units with the skyfire rule other than our flyers.

I sincerely thank you for all your input but I do not see how I can make this work other than replacing one of my three ravagers by a voidbomber. If you guys can manage than my hat is off to you; you are obviously better tacticians...

Cheers

I play against my mates vendettas so often I seem to think they are in the majority, of course they are not. The Stromraven also has hover mode I believe.

The other option that works well for me is to force them into evade moves. A penetrating hit with a lance puts the flyer in an awkward position, it now has a 33% chance of being wrecked, a lot will elect to evade. They are then on snap shots and will most likely fly off the table. Which really demonstrates the whole weakness of flyers. They probably only get 1 or 2 turns of being useful in a game. Evade and ignore. Use the models on the table to force them into areas they are of no threat or force them off the table, remember they can't move less than 18".

The last tournament I was at I took down 2 Scythes, 2 Heldrakes a storm talon and even Fateweaver without a flyer or an ADL with quad gun. The only flyer I didn't get was a 2nd storm talon.
Rather than losing a ravager I would suggest you get an ADL with quad gun to deal with flyers, it really is worth the 100 points.

what about Shatterfield missiles on our fliers? is 2 str7 large blasts good enough against low AV? Especially against IG mech

You know the Voidraven I think is only slightly less effective than the ravager against AV 12 or higher and better once it gets lower so I don't see why a voidraven isn't a valid option for AA and secondary AT against ground targets, plus the void mine lets you get another hit on one of those ground tanks while it flies off the board making it useful even on that turn it flies off, and you don't need that first turn alpha strike every DE player seems to be obsessed with. Oh and dark lances are not the end all be all of AT for us either, after having more than a few particularly aggravating games where I whiff every shot I take using a dark lance I have opted to stop using dark lances as my source of AT. If you need an example the last time I tried using dark lances as my main source of AT I missed 16 out of 17 shots with them and then that last shot I only managed a glance so I don't particularly like dark lances. I find AT in lots of other places in my army, like heat lances, haywires, void lances/ void mine from the voidraven bomber and you know what, none of it can be used for first turn alpha striking tanks. I've learned it is much more effective at least for me to deny my opponent much first turn shooting using area terrain and taking advantage of the generally static deployment across their edge I often see. Or if I have to deploy first and they could see me pushing a flank I deploy centrally forcing them into that deployment or risk getting stuck in a corner while I take potshots at them and control the board; then thanks to our fast vehicles you can push to one side taking away a lot of firepower with most armies and having a lot of target saturation for what little of their army can get shots off at you, night shields help with this too

13 wracks for scoring models and no anti-air? How is this good in 6th?

Most other armies' ally combos have around 25 MEQ and 20 GEQ scoring at 1500, more or less depending on how many vehicles are involved.

Also why are you taking 27 Reavers? Mush is a great guy but you all need to stop worshiping him. Is that third heat lance in each squad really worth taking 3 more reavers for it? Think about whether or not you're really losing all that much running 3 squads of 6, because if you think about it, you'd be paying for one less squad. Those points could go into more shooting, or making sure your Troops live, or something.

Reavers are a harassment/distraction unit. They are good for being annoying. But they have diminishing returns on their damage, and your opponent will ignore the bladevane swooping and block their LoS to Troops (this is why Mech is good, cheap mobile terrain) and kill your Troops that much sooner. If there's no threat in the army to distract attention from - so once the Ravagers are dead - they don't have a job to do.

Oh and don't get too close to enemies that have any kind of ability in Assault.

Besides, Heat Lances? Really? Why not Blasters, which are better in every way due to changes to AP2? Also when were Scourges ruled out? You guys know why Haywire is so good this edition, right? Scourges get ghostplate armor, 12" move+24" range which is 36" of threat. Or just give them the Blasters. 110 points for 5 Scourges or 132 points for the Reavers? Granted, I'd rather have the Reavers for Blasters, but Haywire is great for removing Hull Points, and Shardcarbines aren't the worst substitute for Bladevanes.

The reason I mention all this is because this isn't optimized at all - you don't have enough shooting at enough targets, you're relying on ridiculously good luck to hit flyers, and you can't claim objectives unless your opponent is a fool. Using only Dark Eldar at 1500, there's no way around this because you need:

* 5-6 scoring units that aren't so fragile. 10-strong, minimum, which is unfortunate because that precludes a Venom (or worse, a Raider with 20 Warriors and 2 Dark lances)
* An Aegis Defense Line and a Razorwing/Voidraven. 2 Ravagers is fine if you aren't taking Baron and lack any other Anti-Air.
* More units. Right now you can shoot 10 targets a turn. That's not enough.

Note that I'm definitely NOT telling anyone what to play, or that running a less than perfect list won't let you beat worse players at your local store. I'm just asking everyone to consider what is necessary for optimization and the resources available. I realize what I'm asking is impossible. That's the point I'm trying to make: unless you use Dark Eldar as an "extra firepower" allied detachment, or have some way to make multiple units of Desparate Allies scoring, it's impossible to make a "maxed out," competitive, or optimized DE list.