Venom Spam vs MEQ?

Hi all!

So I've finally put my army together and painted it! I have 5 Venoms with Splinter Cannons, 20 Kabalite Warriors with one Blaster per squad, 4x Kabalite Trueborn with Blasters accompanied by an Archon, and 2x Ravagers with Dark Lances, all for 1000 points

My first game was against Ravenwing and I did fairly well -- however in my second game I got completely crushed by jump pack Blood Angels. I managed to funnel them into a corridor and hosed them with Splinter firepower -- but they seemed to make all their (3+) saves! I think that by 4 or 5 turns I had killed 20 Marines, after firing at between 24" and 12" (there was one turn where I hadn't yet lost any models and made 80 poisoned shots but only 5 to 7 Marines fell..). When I did the mathhamer afterwards, I found that of 80 shots, only 8 or 9 Marines should take a wound. So I'm a little confused/worried/concerned:

- Is Venom spam capable of dealing with MEQ? Or do they just take all the shots and make most of their saves?

- How does Dark Eldar normally deal with MEQ?

That's the problem with splinter weapons and armor. Probability says one thing, the dice say another. In all honesty, I think you were just unlucky. It happens. I've shot 80 poison shots and killed nothing. But even probability wise 80 shots will only kill about 9 marines. So 5-7 isn't too far off.

If you're really that worried you could throw dissies on a ravager. That'll really piss in their cup of tea.

* Disintegrator Cannons? Will do next time! Thanks! But even with 9 shots that's only killing 4 MEQ per turn, plus the 8 from the 80 splinter shots, that's only 12 Marines dead from an entire turn of shooting..

* I edited the post just before you answered.. yeah -- 8 or 9 dead with 80 shots is a pretty bad average... how is it that Venom Spam could ever hope to be good against Marines, with those kinds of odds? I mean, how could we even hear about people winning tournaments with them, if they can't kill Marines??

- Are we supposed to stay out of range of their weapons, firing only 12 shots from the Venom's Splinter Cannons, per turn?

Point for point the dissie ravager is better at killing marines than a venom with warriors, but the venom with warriors is still good.

Your current army can fire 80-100 splinter shots depending on rapid fire range.
It can fire 16 darklight shots.

If somehow you're just fighting against a full on force of basic troop choice space marines on foot and fire everything you have into them....

You'll kill on average 17-20 marines. Average marine I think costs anywhere from 15-20 points.

So that'd be 289 to 340 points. In other words with your current list you could wipe out a third of his army in one turn. And that what's supposed to be probable. You could do better or worse. It is a game of chance.

You did worse.

17.99 at 12" or less, to be exact... okay I feel encouraged -- thanks again, Expletive Deleted This might sound like a dumb question, but what do I do against a full list of infantry MEQ? Basically rush all the Venoms forward, or try to stay out of range and fire from afar?

Stay out of range and focus down the ones with missile launchers, lascannons, and (last and least) plasma cannons and heavy bolters.

Foot slogging MEQ isn't a terrible matchup for us, we can kite them all day long.

First I like your list, I've used very similar at 1k and it can be very potent. That said your opponent can field upwards of 40 meq bodies fairly easily. In these instances you want to keep your distance as stated and consider warriors as potential expendable speed bumps to prolong the shooting of the rest of your forces. Jumps don't camp well so they will act like dark eldar in objective games. Along this same line if you expect or have trouble with meq-horde you can tool your archon for counter charge duty. I haven't seen jump heavy lists in quite awhile but lower pts games like thus would likely be where they still excel.

You didn't mention if there was any long range support.

Anyways. First stay at range and then after a while close in for the kill. Against BA or other marines you lose at close range but if you have superiority pointvice by then you should be ok.

MATH?!

Using the binomial distribution we can see that 100 splintershots (ie. all splinter weaponry in your army firing from within rapid fire range in one turn) has to following distribution for marines killed,



The expected number of dead marines is ~11 and 88% of the time you'll kill more than 7 marines.

In the context of using your movement to your advantage chances are only your venoms will put out any real kind of damage, so here's the distribution for 5 venoms,



again on average ~6 dead marines and 80% of the time you'll wipe a 5man marine squad, for example that combat squaded d-bags with a lascannon camping the home objective!


If you want to do your own calculations here's the matlab program I used;


Hope that helped...

There's another important consideration to keep in mind as well. It's not whether your 80 shots kill around 8 Marines. You understand that, and your issue is that you feel it is weak. The problem is you're looking at it in microcosm. "I shoot EIGHTY shots, I kill a wimpy eight Marines. Woe unto me and the Dark Eldar!

But, let's just consider some things;

80 lasrifle shots from 80 Guardsmen - 4.4 dead Marines.
80 Shoota shots from 40 Orks - 4.4 dead Marines
80 Pulse Rifle shots from 80 Fire Warriors - 5.9 dead Marines
80 Bolter shots from 80 Marines - 8.88 dead Marines

So...actually Dark Eldar are one of the better generic infantry guns when it comes to killing Marines.
Especially when you toss in that we actually out range and/or cost less than most of the above.

Marines are hard to kill because...well, they're fething Marines. They're T4 with a 3+ save (and also generally some of the most favorable leadership and morale situations in the entire game) Marines are supposed to be hard to kill, it's their schtick.
They pay for it by also being one of the more expensive basic infantry units.

Focus your fire on the bits that can hurt you most.
Maneuver your much faster army to try to limit how much damage he can cause.
You will whittle them down in due course. We're pretty darn good at killing Marines.

8-9 marines a turn is a lot.
how many marines are you coming up against in 1000 pt games?

Quote :

80 Pulse Rifle shots from 80 Fire Warriors - 5.9 dead Marines
80 Bolter shots from 80 Marines - 8.88 dead Marines

Ehm, how is that?

Fire warriors should kill more, they have Pulse Rifles!

Using Thor's examples, slightly adjusted to include rapid fire range:

80 lasrifle shots from 80 40 Guardsmen - 4.4 dead MEQ - 12" range, 200 points, 0.022 dead MEQ/point
80 Shoota shots from 40 Orks - 4.4 dead MEQ - 18" range, 240 points, 0.018 dead MEQ/point
80 Pulse Rifle shots from 80 40 Fire Warriors - 5.9 8.89 dead MEQ - 15" range, 240 points, 0.037 dead MEQ/point
80 Bolter shots from 80 40 Marines - 8.88 dead MEQ - 12" range, 560 points, 0.015 dead MEQ/points
80 Splinter Shots from 40 Kabalite Warriors - 8.88 dead MEQ - 12" range, 360 points, 0.024 dead MEQ/point

Point for point, only the Tau provide more firepower than us.

80 Shuriken Shots from 40 Eldar Guardians - ? (12" range, 360 points). Best not think too much about that?

And then there's the flip side: 80 Bolter shots from 40 Space Meringues...

... 8.88 dead meringues (about 120 points)
... 17.77 dead tau (about 160 points)
... 26.6 dead orks (about 160 points)
... 35.5 dead guard guys (about 175 points)
... 35.5 dead kabalite warriors (about 320 points)

This is not to say 'woe unto the dark eldar', but the idea that 'point for point' we dish out more pain than other armies is simply not true. The humble eldar guardian beats us by almost double (I make it out 15 dead space meringues).

That being said, lots of venoms do work against space meringues and anything else. You just need to be really, really careful and always remember that it's a lot easier for them to kill you than it is for you to kill them.

This is why I think we need a points reduction.
We're barely more effective at shooting, yet lose almost twice as many points as the next "worst off" army. lol.

It's hard to balance that kind of stuff though. When you start talking about bigger threats like demon princes, wraithknights, or even bikers, we come out way ahead. Personally, I prefer having the better, cheaper option for dealing with those guys than for dealing with common infantry.

I love the consistency of knowing what to expect wound wise regardless of target. It just pushes me to get those shots into juicier targets like the Avatar or Riptide that are being jerks.

@Az - you're right, they should tie the Marines, I blame doing math in the morning.

Barking Agatha wrote:

80 Shuriken Shots from 40 Eldar Guardians - ? (12" range, 360 points). Best not think too much about that?

Best not to think about how we have a better range than them, y'mean?

Barking Agatha wrote:

And then there's the flip side: 80 Bolter shots from 40 Space Meringues...

... 35.5 dead kabalite warriors (about 320 points)

Also a good thing that we don't come in squads of that size then, which is one of the reasons I advocate small squads, I like to make my opponent overkill me because it's wasted firepower on his part.

Barking Agatha wrote:

but the idea that 'point for point' we dish out more pain than other armies is simply not true.

What is the target we're shooting at? Because that's what matters for that metric. I bet we own the Guardians vs. a Wraithknight by far more than half.

Our valuable metric is we hurt tough things basically just as well as we hurt not tough things. So the tougher and more elite the enemy is, the better off we are because (presumably) he has paid points for that toughness.

lessthanjeff wrote:

It's hard to balance that kind of stuff though.  When you start talking about bigger threats like demon princes, wraithknights, or even bikers, we come out way ahead.  Personally, I prefer having the better, cheaper option for dealing with those guys than for dealing with common infantry.  

I love the consistency of knowing what to expect wound wise regardless of target.  It just pushes me to get those shots into juicier targets like the Avatar or Riptide that are being jerks.

Have you heard of sternguy veterans?

Thor665 wrote:

What is the target we're shooting at? Because that's what matters for that metric. I bet we own the Guardians vs. a Wraithknight by far more than half.

Actually, no!

The guardians can only wound the Wraithknight on a 6, but it gets no save against those wounds, so the average number of Shuriken shots that you need to do 6 wounds to a Wraithknight and kill it is:

54

The kabalite warriors wound it on a 4+, but it does get to save against those wounds, so the average number of splinter shots that you need to kill it is:

54 !

Guardians not owned.

I disagree, you hardly know what to expect wound-wise. Consistency isn't a word I would use for Dark Eldar.

So long as you know your wound tables, you know your probability just as much as you do with splinter and dark light weapons.

I always tell my FLGS that playing Dark Eldar is a lot like flipping a coin. You have a 50% chance to wound everything, and a 50% chance to damage vehicles with an AV 12 and higher.

You don't get consistent results from that.

I'm not familiar with sternguy veterans, I can't say I've seen em at my local club.

I'm not referring to consistency of the rolls though, I cited consistency of what you need to wound whether it's a space marine or a wraithknight. It's much easier to calculate how best to direct your firepower when you know it'll be a 4+ to wound no matter who you shoot at. Trying to compare whether you should shoot at one unit that's less of a threat but will wound on a 3+ compared to a bigger threat you can wound on a 4+ is a much more difficult and uncertain analysis to make on the fly.

Yes, our splinter weapons will calculate far worse against low toughness targets, but we easily dominate the charts on high toughness targets and I personally prefer to have the advantage in terms of cost and effectiveness against those.

Sternguard Veterans are marines with specialized ammo. Their poison rounds wound on a 2 up. Rapid-fire ballistic skill 4 2+ poison. They can also ignore more armor or cover. They generally come down in a drop pod next to the biggest threat on the table. Then die.

The beauty of the way our weapons work is their simplicity, in all honestly list building for Dark Eldar isn't too hard, you decide whether you need more poison or lances and just add it. I'm not so sold on the fact sacrificing a variety of different weapons for one all purpose weapon is the better. I'm torn. It's nice to wound a Wratihknight and Monstrous Creatures on a 4+. But troops win games, and wounding most troops on a 4+ is a tad lame.

Also that's probably only true above T6. Tau wound:
T3 on a 2+
T4 on a 3+
T5 on a 4+

lessthanjeff wrote:

Yes, our splinter weapons will calculate far worse against low toughness targets, but we easily dominate the charts on high toughness targets

Not true, read above.

I did see your computation of wraithknight stats, but that also assumes no invulnerable save or cover.  The two eldar players I know ensure they have one or the other of those to discount the armor piercing of the guardians and not affect our splinter shots.  Them just having a relatively easy to access 5+ save inflates the guardian numbers to 81 shots for a kill.

Range isn't being considered in this case either.  I don't know about you guys, but I do most of my blasting from 36" out in the safety of a venom, I can offer only pity to those poor guardians sent out within 12" of a wraithknight.  I think they'd have problems even closing the gap with the jump-shoot-jump shenannigans.

I'll stick with prefering splinter weapons for demon princes and bikers too partly because of the needed range and partly because they'll get cover saves or invulnerable saves to negate bladestorm.

The comment I'm responding to said we're not a good shooty army and that our weapons should be cheaper, but that's only if you look at isolated situations like shooting space marines and don't take factors like range and cover into account.

Edit: You're absolutely right about being outshot by the Tau, Expletive. I don't think I can argue against them having better guns than us just about all-around. I think we're a very shooty army, just not as good them. Hopefully we make up for it with mobility. Don't tell anyone, but I'm rather fond of Tau as well because even their lowly firewarriors are such excellent shooters. Sure, the BS is worse, but they have markerlights to fix that and they outwound, outrange, and ignore more cover than us so that I have to give them some respect.

An isolated situation much like only looking at wounding monstrous creatures and bikes, and ignoring things like:

Not being able to damage even light vehicles with basic weapons.
Having nothing with a range longer than 36". (not counting missiles)
Having nothing to reliably take down flyers.
Unreliable long range AT.
Our weapons needing 4+ with a cover save to get Cultists off an objective.

I love our army, but we have our weaknesses, and we definitely have some with shooting. But yeah, if you play tyranids and daemons all the time, you're a straight up baller.

Are we talking about the entire army or just what our infantry can put out? I don't disagree with our codex having problems and weaknesses, I was replying to the person who looked at the table comparing the infantry of several armies against space marines and said ours should be cheaper than they are because they aren't putting out better numbers comparatively.

I think the fact that we were in second place on that list and one of the cheaper options says otherwise. I was also adding that as you go up in toughness our numbers get better and better and that it appears to me that we're one of the best and most versatile killers out there in a small deadly package.

Are you arguing instead that you'd rather have a static strength 4 shot so you can hit light vehicles or that we deserve to cost even less than the other troops choices that we're already outshooting? I don't expect any model to win in every given situation, that's why I think it's pretty awesome that we do so well against the likes of space marines and really bring home the advantage against more dangerous and costly targets.

I don't think these situations are particularly isolated either if that's what you're implying. Maybe my gaming group is different than those of the rest of you, but we have one dedicated nurgle player who frequently runs an entire army with T5 and T6 on chaos spawn, and plague marines. Even the regular chaos players enjoy nurgle bikes and oblits. The Eldar players frequently field several wraithguard, wraightlords, an Avatar and/or a wraightknight, while the tyranid player has plenty of mostrous creatures of his own. I'd say that the average player at my location has 2-3 units where the Dark Eldar warrior gets the advantage in shooting over the infantry of other armies and so those are the units I take aim at to get the most of my loyal troops.