What are the potentially most devastating weapons in the DE codex?

Greetings all, not sure what category this goes in but tactics sounded right.

I haven't been able to play test a lot of the weapons for Dark Eldar yet, as I don't have a huge range of models yet. I was just wondering with good rolls, what's the most devastating weapons in our armory? I'm not looking for consistency, otherwise the splinter cannon is probably the best weapon in the book. I want to know what can really cause a tremendous amount of damage if you're lucky.

Example:

A perfect example of what I'm talking about is say, the casket of flensing. I've never played it, but just based on the description, you could get 12 S6 ap1 attacks. Which is insane. On the other hand, you could get 2 S1 AP6 attacks. Which is terrible. You probably couldn't even wound grots with that.

Potentially though, one shot from that could wipe out a terminator squad, or a monstrous creature, hell even some vehicles. Not that it ever will, but it has the potential. I'm wondering what other weapons have such a high payout with a lucky enough roll. Or do we have anything else like that?

Haywire grenade!

Throw it to a necron flyer and destroy it. It may drop right on top of scarab swarms that is clumped together after destrying a venom. S6 large blast kills them all.

A bit pointless question I think.

Holy four

Dark Lance/Blaster
Splinter Cannon
Haywire Grenade
Liquifier Gun

Shattershard for some lols.

Haywire and plasma grenades.

Most people dont realize that a grenade thrown in before charging is a nice unit softener...
Small Blast
str 4
ap4

Imperial guard allies Deathstrike missile launcher... but thats cheating huh

Vasara wrote:

Haywire grenade!

Throw it to a necron flyer and destroy it. It may drop right on top of scarab swarms that is clumped together after destrying a venom. S6 large blast kills them all.

A bit pointless question I think.

I'm interested in the point actually. For the purpose of fun! Now, I'm not asking what scenario is going to cause the most potential damage, as you said exploding flyer on a swarm, lol. No, I would simply like to field more high risk, high reward weapons, not to be more competitive, but because I find that dynamic fun.

When it comes to what weapons are the best in the codex, those arguments are kind of solved. I mean situations and armies will decide what's best, but tanks? Dark Lances. Infantry? Splinter Cannon. They both keep distance and do a lot of damage to their targets consistently.

But, I'm looking for inconsistency. To give another example, (I hate I'm using arcane wargear as it's all one shot) but: A dark lance can make a land speeder explode so long as you roll two threes. A dark gate could blow up a whole squadron, or miss entirely.

And I love plasma grenades, on wyches. With the right roll, you can stay in charge range and kill some units, but unless your enemy bunches his units up you're probably going to hit three targets. And if you're close enough to throw a grenade you're close enough to get rapid fire from a splinter rifle. Or in range of a shardcarbine, and they ignore toughness!

Omnicide wrote:

Imperial guard allies Deathstrike missile launcher... but thats cheating huh

It sort of is. I'm not too familiar with other armies yet, I'll have to look it up. If it looks fun enough I don't see why I couldn't have some IG slaves with a looted one. We are pirates afterall. Space pirates.

Here's one from a post I put up a while back, it was entitled 'Hexrifles for the win':
"
The other new thing I was trying out was Hexrifles and, oh my! 1st turn got his nurgle lord with one, 3 followed by 6, rended him, failed invulnerable save, failed wounds test and...crrreeeaaakkk! the dude was glass, solid glass! hahahaaha! Loved it! I'd cleared the path to him with SC from the venom first and I even asked my opponent if he wanted to LOS after the event, he shoulda listened!"

Just to give a bit more info, the Lord had Mark of Nurgle and a Jump-pack; he was with a unit of 5 Raptors.

I think u already nailed the biggest one in our codex, the dark gate, that whole section though, the haemonculi's dirty 1 per army artifacts is where out biggest risk/reward stuff comes from...

The deathstrike missile launcher, in my opinion, is the most extreme example of this kind of weapon, its a heavy support choice, so ud only get 1 of them with guard allies, and its basically a nuclear missile

Every turn u have to roll to see if the missile can be fired yet, it can only be fired once per game, and it is insanely powerful: Str 10 AP 1 d3+3 blast radius

The first time I used casket was when runing urien, and I did manage to inflict 12 s4 ap 6 shots :)I was incredibly lucky though. I wouldn't consider powerfull anything that is unreliable. And most reliable are splinter cannons, dark lances, and haywire nades. For my personal taste, I find Huskblade also beeing one of such equipment.

Timatron wrote:

Here's one from a post I put up a while back, it was entitled 'Hexrifles for the win':
"
The other new thing I was trying out was Hexrifles and, oh my! 1st turn got his nurgle lord with one, 3 followed by 6, rended him, failed invulnerable save, failed wounds test and...crrreeeaaakkk! the dude was glass, solid glass! hahahaaha! Loved it! I'd cleared the path to him with SC from the venom first and I even asked my opponent if he wanted to LOS after the event, he shoulda listened!"

Just to give a bit more info, the Lord had Mark of Nurgle and a Jump-pack; he was with a unit of 5 Raptors.

That's pretty awesome. I wouldn't call the hex rifle high risk, but with the potential to do that, makes me want to field as many as possible. Lol.

ravenizer wrote:

I wouldn't consider powerfull anything that is unreliable. And most reliable are splinter cannons, dark lances, and haywire nades.

As with everything in this game, it all depends on the situation. A weapon like I'm talking about is more of an ace in the hole. The last grenade you chuck in a desperate attempt to pull out a win. As the demotivator says, "Consistency is only a virtue if you're not a failure." And barring bad strategy, if you are in a losing position, the reliability of your weapons becomes more of a liability than an asset.

You could include the Reaper's Storm Vortex Generator in here. Str5 AP4 large blast with haywire and pinning, or Str7 AP3 beam with D3 haywire against vehicles - which can pen or glance them out in one fell swoop.

It also ID's anything with a T-value on a 5+. I played a tournie a couple of months ago and my very first shot in one game vapourised a Riptide. The guy was speechless.

I tend to go with concentrated disintegrator and Splinter Cannon fire after a hail of darklight to crack through armour.
Lots of Haywire's good, too.

Gobsmakked wrote:

You could include the Reaper's Storm Vortex Generator in here.  Str5 AP4 large blast with haywire and pinning, or Str7 AP3 beam with D3 haywire against vehicles - which can pen or glance them out in one fell swoop.

It also ID's anything with a T-value on a 5+.  I played a tournie a couple of months ago and my very first shot in one game vapourised a Riptide.  The guy was speechless.

Sir you may have just sold me a forgeworld model. They look awesome but I never bought them due to them not necessarily being GW legit. Where do you find the actual stats and rules for it though I went to the FW website and aside from being able to order it I didn't see anything describing it's capabilities.

Unfortunately, the rules are only in IA Apocalypse at the moment.

It is a great weapon, but the Reaper only has the one gun, and is just as fragile as any of our other vehicles. So beware. They are relatively easy to convert if you want to save some $$$, check my plog or Darwin_green5's in the P&M section.

Cheers.

The most devastating weapons would be Haywire grenades, haywire blasters and Void Lances. Please who doesnt like str 9 ap 2 lance awesomeness. Lol

Eldritchwarmaster84 wrote:

The most devastating weapons would be Haywire grenades, haywire blasters and Void Lances. Please who doesnt like str 9 ap 2 lance awesomeness. Lol

I generally hear a lot of trash talk on the void lance because it's only equipable on the Voidraven. Penetrating on a 3+ almost regardless of armor seems pretty nice though.

Gobsmakked wrote:

Unfortunately, the rules are only in IA Apocalypse at the moment.

It is a great weapon, but the Reaper only has the one gun, and is just as fragile as any of our other vehicles. So beware. They are relatively easy to convert if you want to save some $$$, check my plog or Darwin_green5's in the P&M section.

Appreciate it, I'll have to check out that book, and the conversions.

The Voidraven Bomber probably has the highest potential for devastation in the codex. If you buy a pair of missiles, you could potentially move onto the board and drop the Void Mine (small blast) in the Movement phase, then 2 missiles (large blast, your flavour of choice), then 2 Void Lances - all in one turn. The main drawback is the high-risk, high-reward nature of the unit (and the missiles are expensive), but if that's the type of thing you're into then great. Another complication is that it doesn't have a model but you could use a Razorwing in friendly games.

The Razorwing is a more reliable runner-up for devastation. It gets 4 free monoscythe missiles and can fire 2 each turn, which will pretty much annihilate any infantry blob on their own before you follow up with the Splinter Rifles/Cannons/Dark Lances/Disintegrators. The Razorwing model is cheaper money-wise than a Ravager, but costs more points. Could be a good pickup if you like dropping pie plates.

Depends what you're facing. I facerolled an Ork army on Wednesday night thanks to my pair of razorwings and him not being able to unclutter his army fast enough to dodge my 8 S6 pie-plates. Against a guard parking lot dark lances will do you proud; against nidzilla splinter weaponry makes them cry; against deathwing dissie ravagers followed up by incubi will make for an extremely painful experience.

fuhrmaaj wrote:

you could potentially move onto the board and drop the Void Mine (small blast) in the Movement phase, then 2 missiles (large blast, your flavour of choice), then 2 Void Lances - all in one turn.

Not 100% sure, but dropping the mine counts as one shot among the 4 allowed in one turn.
Mine + 2 missiles + 2 lances = 5 shots  

There's also the INCREDIBLY cheeky wording of the void mine - place it on any model. RAW you can put it on your own dude. Get archon or something locked in combat with terminators, drop the mine on him, watch as the surrounding termies get face-owned whilst your archon laughs it off with the shadowfield. Carries a 1/6 shot of hilarious yet spectacular failure, mind.

I've found the rule for "bombing run". see p81 of BRB.
Dropping the bomb counts as a shot even if it was not during the shooting phase.

Dark Eldar FAQ says that the Void Raven's bomb doesn't count for weapons shot that turn.

psycheer wrote:

Dark Eldar FAQ says that the Void Raven's bomb doesn't count for weapons shot that turn.

I've looked through whole DE faq and I dont see such entry. the only FAQ that imply using Void mine, is about using it at any speed.