Raiders vs Venoms. pros and cons of each

Hey guys starting a dark eldar army, kabal of the black heart. I'm wondering for around 1500 - 2000 points, how many raiders and venoms I should get. I want to run a lot of kabalite warriors. what are the pros and cons of raiders vs Venoms?

Well two options really, I like full squads of ten in raider with splinter racks and nightshields. The lance or disintegration cannon comes in very handy. The other build is 5 warriors in venom, dual cannon and a blaster. More squishy but longer range poison fire. Both are good, depends on your list

thanks for the quick reply! so are raider builds as competitive as venom builds? I've been thinking of running 5-6 raiders holding warriors, and3 venoms holding true born. backed up by ravagers, and vect leading the pack. I wanna play kabal of the black heart.

I find that Raiders spend the whole game as transports, with a DL for additional but unreliable help, whereas Venoms are a unit in their own right, with occasional use as a transport.

As both are fragile, I prefer to stay out of them unless really getting somewhere quick; a squad in a transport get hurt badly if their ride gets hit, so I don't stay in for long, and thus consider racks a waste of points.

Raiders give better cover, and the lance is a decent AV shot.
Venoms are easier to park, and give good anti-personnel value.

Personally my Archon and her Grots go in a Raider for the 1st turn sprint, Sliscus and his 9 Warriors hide in the backfield near their empty Raider, and then I field 2-4 Venoms (extra cannon, no other toys), which dart around shooting scoring troops, then other threats.

alright, so if I go the raider route, I'm not wasting my money

Personally I still prefer venoms due to the footprint they posses as well as a dedicated function on the table

Both are very good. A Raider with splinter racks and a 10-man Warrior squad with a splinter cannon is pumping out 13 shots with 9 of them re-rolling misses; that jumps to 18 with re-rolls under 12". All of that wounds on 4+. At the very least you'll force a grounding check on any FMC. I play against Orks a lot, and a Raider with a DC does amazing things to a mob of Boyz. Two or three concentrating fire on the same mob is just amazing.

I've just recently started using Venoms, but thus far I've had good luck with them as delivery mechanisms for Archons and incubi.

The counter point to that would be that for a lot less points, a venom with a five man squad is pumping out 12 poison shots at 36", 17 at 24", and 22 at 12".

No argument there. The Raider gives most of those shots re-rolls, and a better chance of having people left when the transport gets detonated.

It's all about having options to fit your individual preference and playing style- one of the things that really makes playing this army so rewarding!

Both, to taste.
In my experience I've used both almost every time I've ever fielded DE, and been satisfied with every single vehicle.

django_unchained wrote:

alright, so if I go the raider route,  I'm not wasting my money

No you're not. Both fine vehicles.

Top tier tournament lists do not tend to use raiders, if they do, they are only for ether sails for rapid deployment of HTH troops.

There are reasons you hear a lot about what people call "Venom spam", now ask yourself, when was the last time you heard "Raider spam?"

Venom Vs. Raider-
Venom is cheaper by a base of 5 points. But wait, the venom comes STOCK with a flickerfield... so add another 10 to the raider to catch up.
For 10 points, the venom can add a s.cannon giving it 12 shots with a 36" range after a 12" move.. 48" threat total.
The best a raider can do is 3 at str 5.
The raider holds more people, and can have sails, but far and away, the venom is better in almost every aspect. Points wise, usefulness and survivability.

I have 11 venoms and well over 25 raiders in my collection. I have not touched the raiders in years.

Skulnbonz wrote:

There are reasons you hear a lot about what people call "Venom spam", now ask yourself, when was the last time you heard "Raider spam?"

You ever heard of Mush?   

Skulnbones, do you not ever worry, not so much about the transport quality but whats inside? I'm having difficulty making a 1000pt list without using a raider or 2. The issue I'm striving with is that 5 man units give up their points (or double if you're keeping them onboard) easily during Kill Point missions whilst obviously larger units have greater survivability.

Whats your thoughts on the better transport in this circumstance? Is a multiple-small units army a better approach than a few-medium units army?

The thread in regard can be found HERE if any of you guys fancied having a look (@mods: not meaning to hijack a thread but I've had no replies on the thread yet By all means edit this as necessary)

Yo beans!!

In smaller games like 1000 points I would go with Raiders..you're not going to have a lot of troops.
Zip around and use your heavies to pound your enemy..keep your troops safe then zoom in late in the game to claim objectives.

In bigger games a mix of both.

PROS:The venom I like for the added firepower of the 2 splinter cannons..with nightshields keeping out of range of your enemies is easier.,plus comes with a free flicker field.
CONS:Only carries 5,make it work or leave it home
PROS:The raider is good when equipped with splinter racks for good old twin linked shooting.
Carries 10 Blood thirsty pointy eared weirdos ready to shoot,stab and laugh at any and all.
Can be tooled up to:zip further and faster(aethersails),has a lance or a dissie,It's big for deploying and giving cover..it's a regular swiss army knife.
Cons: Dies to a light breeze,gets expensive when tooling up(see above)

Mobility is key to DE victory,hug cover go through cover(if you have the right warlord trait).
Just remember you ARE going to loose your transports,paper sailboats wont hold up to gobs of shooting..don't get attached to them..but don't throw them away either.

Quote :

You ever heard of Mush?

yes, but he is a big proponent of reaver jetbikes, another unit though very fun, not very tournament worthy. Don't get me wrong, he does well with them, but against a good tau, eldar or even chaos player, the bikes will be gone as soon as they hit the table. No cover save shots make that build unattractive for tournaments.

Quote :

The issue I'm striving with is that 5 man units give up their points (or double if you're keeping them onboard) easily during Kill Point missions whilst obviously larger units have greater survivability.

Ah yes... Kill points. The bane of Dark Eldar tournament lists.
Sadly, the truth of the matter is it is a problem you will face using both venoms AND raiders.
A lot of multiple small units is always better than a fewer medium sized units for many reasons...
1. target saturation
2. Angles and manuverability
3. overwhelming supperior firepower.

When faced with a kill point mission, the first thing you have to do is assess your opponents army and decide- Can I table it? If so, that is what you are playing for, tabling his entire army.
That is Much easier to do with 6 venoms w/ warriors in em than it is to do with 3 raiders with warriors. Why? Because you can target a potential 12 targets compared to 6.
Venoms also come stock with a flickerfield... that cannot be understated. If you go second, you still get a save and dont require depending on jink. tau, eldar, flamers, vector strikes... you come stock with protection.

Venoms are also smaller, easier to hide, and can carry just enough troops to be a real threat.

125 points gets you a venom w/ extra splinter cannon as well as 5 warriors with a blaster or 5 wyches with haywire.
There is not a thing in the game either unit could not remove from the table.

And with 6th edition rules, our vehicles are so much better and more survivable... I know that sounds funny, as other vehicles got worse, but ours... they got sooo much better. Glances no longer can kill us.

So in kill point missions, it all comes down to a few sacraficial lambs thrown out to slaughter while your true objective is being worked on.
Facing 3 wave serpents is scary, but 3 wave serpents facing 6 venoms full of wyches that turoboosted by them... that eldar player is sweating, and ignoring your hq, ravagers and the like.

Just my opinions, of course.

It really is like comparing apples and oranges, in my opinion. Both are tasty, but you might be in the mood for different things . Venoms are the better unit, of that there's no doubt. But since both are transports, you have to account for the unit inside them as well, and this is where the Raider excels with a transport capacity of 10 instead of 5. This means that a) you can't get a minimum sized squad PLUS character in a venom outside of our elites slots; b) grotesques can't get into venoms at all (unless there's just one or two left); c) 5 man squads are twice as easy to kill as 10 man squads.

Personally, I've had quite a bit of success in the past by hiding my dangerous units in raiders, and my 'meh' units in venoms. The venoms are the more pressing vehicle to get rid of given their potential damage output, but nobody wants the 5 incubi and the huskblade archon getting any closer than they already are in their raider.

Also, Skulnbonz - I do question one or two of your assertions. Admittedly I didn't play DE in 5th edition, but I don't see how our vehicles are more survivable now than they were then. 5th edition: 2 glancing hits get through the flickerfield from, for the sake of argument, boltguns roll on the damage chart with a -1 modifier (-2 for glancing hit, +1 for open-topped); that needs double 6 to kill the venom by inflicting 2 immobilised results on it; 1/36 chance to kill the venom. In 6th edition, that venom is now down because of hull points. In 5th edition, even a glancing hit from an AP 1 weapon had only a 1/6 shot of bringing down a venom (-2 for glance, +1 for AP1, +1 for open topped); 2 AP 1 glances would therefore have a 1/3 shot of bringing down the venom. If I'm misremembering, and AP 1 was +2, then each shot has a 50/50 shot of downing the venom, meaning combined, those two would have a 75% chance to kill the venom. All of which is demonstrably inferior to the downed after two glancing hits guaranteed that we have now.

Yes, a single glancing hit can no longer kill us but it was incredibly unlikely to before, and you would never go down in one shot to one that wasn't AP2 or better. Honestly, that's another huge argument in favour of raiders - that third hull point has been clutch for me on more than one occasion and I've literally won games purely because I had a raider over a venom, surviving on one hull point where the venom would have been a crater.

Panic_Puppet wrote:

5th edition: 2 glancing hits get through the flickerfield from, for the sake of argument, boltguns roll on the damage chart with a -1 modifier (-2 for glancing hit, +1 for open-topped); that needs double 6 to kill the venom by inflicting 2 immobilised results on it; 1/36 chance to kill the venom.

Yes, a single glancing hit can no longer kill us but it was incredibly unlikely to before,

I cannot tell you how many times a single glance dropped my raiders last edition...

Your math is a bit off because this edition the damage chart is different as well.

Before:
Say a bolt pistol marine shot me. he rolls a 6 for pen, causing a glancing hit. He then rolls a "4". That drops to a 3 (-2 glance +1 OT)
Last edition I believe it was:
1- shaken
2 stunned
3 weapon destr.
4. immobile (and if i traveled too far, destroyed at this point)
5. wrecked
6 explode

So my dark lance is gone, he can assault me and finish the job etc...
the worst was glanced and rolling a 6, destroying the vehicle, but almost as bad was a result of a "stunned", or "immobile" where I am hit automatically and destroyed.

The raiders last edition were flying coffins.

this edition: 10 marines can double tap my venom all they want, If I moved, I get jink, if I turboed, i dont die, the worst that happens now is i deploy with no casualties, and if wrecked, i am no longer automatically pinned like we were a while back. Imagine that, our armour 10 transports caused us to be auto pinned if they were destroyed! Ugh.

A single glance not causing us to die makes us MUCH MORE survivable.

I like raiders because i like Dark Lances. Young archons sometimes tend to forget that raider is one of our better ways to have 1st turn AV, and another Dark Lance platform.

There is only 2 units in the codex that gets 48" dark lance 1st turn - and thats Raider and Ravager. With the nature of our army thats pretty important.  

Venoms are a really solid unit too, reason is known. But all in all - both are needed. Il just advice not to get very focused with units like 10 man warrior squads with Splinter Racks. Too many eggs in one basket.
I dont take 10 man units in raiders at all, if its not something survivable. Like Wracks. Which i dont own. So i dont take even them =).

Skulnbonz wrote:

Quote :

You ever heard of Mush?

yes, but he is  a big proponent of reaver jetbikes, another unit though very fun, not very tournament worthy. Don't get me wrong, he does well with them, but against a good tau, eldar or even chaos player, the bikes will be gone as soon as they hit the table. No cover save shots make that build unattractive for tournaments.

I actually meant that he runs lists with raiders only. Don't think I have seen any list with a venom. Yeah he usually has 27 reavers too, but not what I was going for   

I second Az's post. Just because a Raider takes 10 does not mean you need to put ten in it. Plus Dark light weapons are the bees knees!


Super short answer... You need both!