Why venom over raider

still trying to build my army how i want to play, i am wondering why would we want venom's over raiders?

12 poisoned shots

Splinter cannons are amazing AI and long range. On venoms can move and fire.
They come with FF(great for first turn vehicle shield)
My favourite reason. They are small. SO much easier to hide from enemy flyers.

ditto what mug said.

Well i guess it really all comes down to the look on paper.
12 AI shots compared to 1 AT Shos is pretty impressive and the other arguments are all right.
but you have one less HP, what makes a big difference, you have less transport capacy, you are at the mercy of the Armour Save.

and my biggest reason why i do not go crazy about the viper(i still use them as they are great):
they can loose you pain tokens, if you divert the AI to tanks and AT to Infantie.

but it all comes down to what you like, and usually a good mix of both.

Yea it comes down to what you run. Good comment on the PT and hull point. Basically I only take a Raider if I'm transporting more than 5 guys. So often assault squads utilise them. Problem with more people inside a transport is that more die when it explodes - and in many games it will! Anyone who's lost have their Wyches to a Raider going down will know exactly what I mean.

The one less hull point does not make that much difference when you have armour 10, and the size makes up for that massively.

Well, i Love Gunboats of 10 Kabalite Warriors with Splinter Racks.

But in general, 5 warriors with a blaster in a venom with the extra Splinter Cannon is easier to run around the table with if you ask me.

ok, thanks for the responses and thoughts on both raiders and venoms

Well I generally run 1-2 raiders in my lists, full of warriors....I run sliscus in one...

but generally, its 55pts for 1 lance...a ravager gets 3 for about twice the price.

One or two wont draw that much fire at the start of the game....but more than that, and people will be taking the easy-exploding transports out just to kill the troops inside.

With a venom..if it dies, you will generally have2-3 models left...and at least one of those will be a blaster..so the unit isnt useless...

I use both. Venoms are good for many reasons, but raiders have their points also. They are longer so assaulting out of them is easier. (longer reach) Veneoms are easier to hide yes, but alot of times you have stay in the open to shoot and then the one hull point makes the difference.

They both have their good and bad points. And if your enemy is not shooting transports with troops in them they ae doing something wrong. And gunboats problem is range. Venom with warriors is much better for that job.

I use raiders with warriors all the time, they are great for providing cover, blocking and give you more shooting options as you can fire from anywhere on the hull. Sometimes things don't go to plan, and you wipe out the target you are facing, not a problem with a raider as the warriors in it can shoot 360 degrees so you won't be wasting those poison shots.

My warriors tend to only be in their transport if they need to be, and will often be found lurking in cover near their raider. Empty raiders are not a priority target and this means they tend to be alive in the later stages of the game when my troops need mobility.

Another thing I like is the pain token efficiency, one pain token will affect ten warriors, my vehicles are anti tank and my infantry are anti infantry meaning my army is more likely to get the most out of the power from pain rules.

Finally the 36" ranged lance really give you a lot more early game AT presence. I always found the blaster warriors in the venom as more of an emergency AT unit, as you really don't want your venoms 18" away from your opponent, the raider on the other hand can contribute to AT from turn 1.

But both venoms and raiders have good synergy between each other. The venoms can give cover to the raiders on turn 1, and throughout the game raiders can be used to block line of sight to venoms keeping them safe.

It's really a question of preference both set ups have their uses.

Smaller so easier to hide.
Better AI so fits more with this editions META.
Stick 5 haywire wyches in it and it has a one shot, but likely, tank killing capability

Raiders are still good, convert them in to Ravagers, keep any more as transports for HQ/Incubi/Grotesques

Mushkilla wrote:

I use raiders with warriors all the time, they are great for providing cover, blocking and give you more shooting options as you can fire from anywhere on the hull. Sometimes things don't go to plan, and you wipe out the target you are facing, not a problem with a raider as the warriors in it can shoot 360 degrees so you won't be wasting those poison shots.

Unless I've misinterpreted you, are you implying Warriors in a Venom can't fire 360 degrees as well? Surly they can fire from any point of the hull. :/

I think he meant the 12 shots from the venom.

I was talking about the cannons on the venom, venoms tend to sit at 36" range the warriors won't be doing much most of the time. The venoms have a 180 degree arc of fire at best, arguably the under-slung gun is a hull mounted weapon and only has a 45 degree arc of fire.

Here's an example of what I mean:

In the bottom left corner my raiders turned around to fire at the Hive tyrant (the blood stain near the raiders). The stunned raider and it's warriors snap fired into the hive tyrant amazingly managing to inflict two wounds. With the tyrant dead the two other warriors squads were able to fire into the tervigon (warriors being able to shoot from any point of the hull). If those had been venoms I would not have been able to shoot the tervigon, and that would have been 24 poison shots wasted. Ten warriors in a raider give you 12 poison shots in a 360 degree arc (assuming blaster, splinter cannon, in a vehicle that moved), the venoms give you 12 poison shots in a 180" arc. Having a larger fire arc lets mean you can threaten more units during any given shooting phase, this can help you compensate for good or bad rolls. With venoms in a situation like that you need to pick and choose. What if the hive tyrant gets killed by a single venom? Then my other venoms won't be able to shoot anything as they will be facing the wrong way. What if it take s the combined firepower of all my venoms to kill the tyrant? If they are not all facing the tyrant then he will still be alive and cause me major problems next turn. With the raiders I have the option of allocating as little or as much firepower as I need to kill the tyrant, any excess can be used on other targets, making sure nothing goes to waste.

Hope that explains what I was getting at.

The way I have seen them used, mostly, is pop some trueborn in them, and rush them into CC.
plus, they make decent light artillery, one of the best troop killers in the DE army

CC Trueborn? How has that been working?

I'm a big fan of highly mobile Raiders with close combat troops coming in from reserve and Venoms & Ravagers starting on the board in order to attrition the enemy a bit before applying melee dudes.

Empty venoms have been really helpful for me lately. Less of a target that way and less of a loss when they explode.

Venoms are great but they're not the only transport worth taking by any means. I've regretted not taking them, like when you see that unit of five thunderwolf cavalry all with storm Shields, or whenever you see a quad gun behind an aegis and you brought fliers, or if you want to force a grounding check on a flying monster, or wraiths, or massed hive guard. Sometimes a cheap bucket of poison at long range really can be a hard counter, but I don't think they should make the back bone of your list. For example: anything with an armor value. Mushkilla really hit a lot of the points for raiders. Lol that's the first time I've seen a 40k tactics argument backed up by hard data and not presented in a vacuum, well done Mush.