Paper Armour

People often mock our transports, because, and I quote "Bolters shred them"

The reality is, bolters "wound" them on a 6
Bolters also wound T6 and 7 on a 6

I've never thought Dread knights were a breeze to put down, and I can poison the gits!

Just a thought

The difference is that after wounding that Dreadknight it still gets a 2+ save. Our vehicles get 5+ generally. Plus it has 4 wounds against almost all attacks (other than ID). We have 2 HP but can also easily get blown up by penetrating hits.

True, but I dont think it discounts the arguement entirely.
I tabled a marine player last night, it BA, it was asault heavy and it was small, 26 or so models at 1200pt, and he just couldnt crack my venoms quick enough.

It reminded me of the first time I played a dreadknight

26 Models focusing on assault probably had issues with dealing with Venoms beyond Venoms being 'tough' though, yeah?

Also if we take your base argument to its logical extension - when a Rhino or Chimera is considered, by your argument they would be toughness 8-9. Comparing Toughness 6 to 8, yeah, 6 is pretty wimpy by comparison. 8 is when you start not worrying so much about Powerfists.

Landraiders/Monoliths would be toughness 11.

DominicJ wrote:

People often mock our transports, because, and I quote "Bolters shred them"

The reality is, bolters "wound" them on a 6
Bolters also wound T6 and 7 on a 6

I've never thought Dread knights were a breeze to put down, and I can poison the gits!

Just a thought

Dread Knights have 4 wounds, and get a 2+ armour save against any wounds they take.

So, in order to kill a dread knight, you'd need 144 bolter hits to bring it down (assuming BS4, that's 216 shots).

A venom gets only a 5+ save, and has just 2 hull points. So, that's 27 bolter hits, or 41 shots (rounding up).

See the difference?

Furthermore, we're looking at the *weakest* weapon that can be used against venoms. When you consider assault cannons, autocannons, rockets, lascannons etc. things start to look a lot worse.

In addition, open topped means many weapons have a good chance of destroying them with a penetrating hit - standard weapons will explode a venom/raider 1/3 times. An AP2 weapon will destroy one 1/2 the time.

DominicJ wrote:

True, but I dont think it discounts the arguement entirely.
I tabled a marine player last night, it BA, it was asault heavy and it was small, 26 or so models at 1200pt, and he just couldnt crack my venoms quick enough.

That's probably because:

1) Assault armies are crap. They were crap in 5th, and they're still crap in 6th.
2) Armies with very few models are dubious to begin with. When it's an assault army, you literally don't have the bodies to chase down enemy units.

Its obviously not as hard as a dreadknight, but 41 bolter shots is still a stupendous amount, thats two full squads of space marines!
They are still vulnerable to anti tank weapons, but so are actual tanks.

I'm not saying leave them out in the open, but sometimes I think people consider them far more fragile than they are.
I've had a lot of success using flat outed vehicles (4+ cover) as blocking terrain, and I dont think its a tactic many DEldar players have considered.
My entire army usualy flat outs turn one and sits in the open.
Yes, I lose some transports, but enough survive.

Just a thought

Sure, 41 bolter shots is a lot but it's infinitely lower than the number of bolter shots required to down, for example, a Ghost Ark, Rhino, Wave Serpent, Devilfish or Chimera. In fact, only Ork Trukks compete with our transports for fragility, and they at least have 3 Hull Points. That is why our vehicles are considered fragile. Because they are considerably easier to destroy than almost any other armies transports. Also, the ever increasing amount of Ignores Cover weaponry in the game means that most of our saves are becoming harder to keep up.

The only DE vehicle with 2 Hull points is the Venom, all the rest have 3, just like the Ork Trukk.

Thor665 wrote:

The only DE vehicle with 2 Hull points is the Venom, all the rest have 3, just like the Ork Trukk.

I was referring to transports, and the Venom is probably the most common of those. Either way, it's still a long list of stuff that is tougher than our transports and a very short list of stuff that isn't.

The Raider is a transport.

Thor665 wrote:

The Raider is a transport.

Erm...I know. Hence my comment "the Venom is probably the most common of those [DE transports]". "Most common" implying of course that there is more than one.

Count Adhemar wrote:

Sure, 41 bolter shots is a lot but it's infinitely lower than the number of bolter shots required to down, for example, a Ghost Ark, Rhino, Wave Serpent, Devilfish or Chimera. In fact, only Ork Trukks compete with our transports for fragility, and they at least have 3 Hull Points. That is why our vehicles are considered fragile. Because they are considerably easier to destroy than almost any other armies transports. Also, the ever increasing amount of Ignores Cover weaponry in the game means that most of our saves are becoming harder to keep up.

If you never meant 'Raider' during any part of this, then I have no issues.

That comment applies to both Venoms and Raiders with the notable exception that the Raider does indeed have 3 Hull Points, making it only the joint 2nd most fragile transport as opposed to the numero uno spot held by the Venom.

EDIT - Actually, it's probably the Trukk first and the Raider and Venom second. Forgot the Venom has a built-in Flickerfield.

The people who say they "Bolter shred" our transports haven't been properly introduced to night shields  

Seriously, I think Bush was in office last time one of my vehicles got killed by a bolter.....

@Count - I would say Orks are saddled with both the most fragile and also the worst transports in the game.
I'll agree ours are fragile - but it's not actually that easy to kill a Raider or even a Venom with bolters...it's not too difficult to finish one off with them, but that's a different kettle of fish.

@callofdoobie - are we counting heavy bolters or psybolts in that comment

Thor665 wrote:

@callofdoobie - are we counting heavy bolters or psybolts in that comment

Ok Ok if you wanna add Heavy Bolters that's a little different ( 30" range even w/ Night Shield is a mofo) and Heavy Bolters with Psybolt is just evil .  Also forgetting storm ravens who (being a flyer) can close the distance and use their hurricane bolters.


But anything 24" range that is not attached to any sort of super fast moving unit should barely ever get in range of you (this of course assumes you're a good little drugged up space elf and put night shields on everything like you should)

Don't ork truks only inflict S3 hits because of the ramshackled rule? That's a pretty nice feature.

Mushkilla wrote:

Don't ork truks only inflict S3 hits because of the ramshackled rule? That's a pretty nice feature.

Yup, almost certainly going to change in the new book though, if ANYONE is getting S3 hits inside the transport this edition it better be us =P

Mushkilla wrote:

Don't ork truks only inflict S3 hits because of the ramshackled rule? That's a pretty nice feature.

There also more likely to explode, which is a negative feature.

They're still more fragile though.

When I said worst transport I meant the Looted Wagon - the fragile weak transport that also randomly won't let you even do what you want with it, and that costs more than better armored and armed options in other codices.

Worst.
Transport.
Ever.

Played Eldar on Thursday
He couldnt pop my venoms at anywhere near a quick enough pace. I took a risk with my Ravagers landing in terrain to get shots at his vypers, and it paid off, which took out a lot of his dedicated AT.
He then just had guardians with weapons teams, Star Cannons killed them, but not at a rate I couldnt afford.

Two things in the Trukk's favour: 33% chance of the passengers being transported 3D6" away: this could either be towards the enemy (which is what a transport is for anyway), or away from the enemy that just shot your ride, hoping to assault the passengers. Random, butI've blown my friend's Trukks before only to see him gain from it!
The other thing: it's in a Codex full of T4 models, so less dead passengers. I am folllowing Mushkilla's advice of staying out of our transports unless necessary, but if I owned a car that I was scared to get into, I'd probably sell it and buy a different one...

Played a Deathwing army yesterday.
Two big termie blocs, belial and lib in one, two big bike mobs, and a heavy speeder.
He, went first scout moved his bikes and teleported his termies, so T1, he had everything in my DZ.
Blew up three or four vehicles, everything he shot went bang, but he just couldnt shoot everything.

Still a third of my army was without transport, another third was pretty much stuck due to terrain and blocking marines.
So, that which I could save, pulled out to maximum range, and everyone else fought and died for the greater glory of my archon, who failed his first shadow field save and died T3.

I killed his bikes and then concentrated on one termie squad at a time, as he walked back to his DZ and his objective.
I threw away a slight win (Objective and Line Breaker against Warlord, Belial Warlord and First Blood) trying to get a table.
I plan on taking 9 venoms and 3 ravagers, its just a huge number of targets for anyone relying on a "hammer" to be able to hit, let alone kill.

Perhaps they still have paper armour, but I love them, and use them to great effect.