heavy support options

Dark elder have very good heavy support options that can fill a variety of roles in your army. We have AT, tough monstrous creatures and decent flyers. Now I know everybody loves the Ravanger and with either 3 DL or dissies it's not hard to see why however I recently played a game against Space marines and had a ravanger, talos and voidraven bomber. Overall the game was decent, it was 1000pts capture the relic and a draw with each of us having 1vp and nobody on the relic however what I'd like to talk about is the proformance on my heavy support.

Talos
The talos killed a contemper dread and his captain, I've done better with him but he managed to survive the game.

Voidraven
he destroyed a rhino and killed 4 marines before being destroyed by his storm talon, very disappointing

Ravanger
Killed two marines. that was it. How?! he shot every turn at either the contemper or vidicator and did nothing. even my ten man squad of warriors with a Dl managed to kill the vindicator in the end.

Now this has happened a lot with my ravanger, he never preforms as well as my other heavy support especially compared to my Talos who almost always preforms well and I use him most battles. I don't know what I'm doing wrong with it and would like other people's thoughts on our heavy support.

Hmm I couldn't really tell you whether your doing anything wrong or not without seeing a battlereport. But to me it just sounds like you've had a bit of bad luck. Statistically the ravager should be doing 1 hull point a turn, hitting 2/3 and glance/pen 1/2. The ravager isn't rly supposed to be an outstanding performer on is own but something that should be combined with others to quickly take down enemy mech, so the problem could be a lack of other anti mech shooting to back it up.

I've had fairly poor performance when I've played with my talos mostly because of its slow movement compared to the rest of my army. The main problem is that it's a melee unit in the shooty edition so it tends to get mown down before it can get anywhere. These days if you want your melee unit to survive it has to get to combat quickly, either by moving 12 or getting in a transport, neither of which the talos can do. The best way I can see to play it is with running a webway portal which isn't my play style. But this is all personal issues and if it works for you then you should keep running it.

The big problem with the Talos is instant death weapons. I play grey knights a lot and force weapons really ruin your day quickly. (that said, a demon hammer really makes short work of a ravager too....).

If it had some sort of an invulnerable save.....  

Also, krak missiles make taloi cry
It is still a really good deterrent against drop pod armies: "If you shoot my raiders, Talos charges and destroys your sternguard unit" excellent bullet sponges.
There is ofcourse also the fear factor (Esp. if you field it with a liquifier), a unit with such a "random" amount of damage creates a what-if factor for your opponent (If you roll AP1/2 for the LG and then charge in with 7 attacks to wipe his 10 man terminator squad, then thats a nice trade)

Kraks missiles make Ravagers cry even it can get 5++.   

Biggest problem is that Talos is slow. When everything else in tha army moves 12" it gets left behind very quickly.

That and the fact that Ravagers are simply the best point-for-point method of getting anti-tank into your army - when you factor in the cost of 3 dark lances if taken by an infantry unit (which nothing can do except scourges, best otherwise is 2 in trueborn/warriors) you're paying 30 points for an AV 11/11/10 platform which can move 12" and still fire all three lances at full BS, as opposed to the foot-lances which can only snap-fire after moving 12" (if on scourges/in a transport) and you waste the rest of your squad's shots. That's a great deal.

I only run a single Ravager, but it's routinely terrible to the point where it's stopped being annoying and started being funny... even the rest of my gaming group will deservedly mock the thing. I tend to run with either a 2/1 split of Razorwing Jetfighter/Ravager or, more recently, a 1/1/1 of Razorwing/Ravager/Talos... between blasters, lances on raiders, and haywire wyches, I usually have enough anti-armour to get by.

The feeback I've consistently been given by other players, and borne out by experience, is that ravagers are one of those units that's better in multiples. One is unlikely to do much on its own; math-hammer gives it 2 hits, and between 1/3 and 2/3 to cause a roll on the damage table with each of said hits. That's not fantastic. Whereas two ravagers will reliably strike 2 hull points off of anything, and you've got reasonable chances of doing some damage.

Mathematically, one in every 9 hits will explode a tank with AV12 or greater, that's normally a good measuring point to start from.

While I still think that the ravage is the more reliable choice I wouldn't count out the talos as a viable pick. I've had some great success with my talos in 6th edition since it's feel no pain can no longer be ignored by AP 2/AP 1 weaponry which makes it's feel no pain to work sort of like a ++ save and I don't find it too slow either with ignoring terrain and fleet.

For AT I use the DL on my raiders, my Talos (who has a haywire blaster) and for low AV I use grots so ravangers aren't exactly necessary but I will try using two ravangers next time I ply against him because his vidicator is really annoying

Honestly the problem I have with the talos, is the same problem I have with the ravager. Let me explain.

Most armies are going to try to make sure they can reliably take out Wave Serpents. Well, if you can take out a wave serpent you can easily take out a ravager, and when people prepare for 4-5 wave serpents, your limit to three ravagers makes them abysmal because they don't have nearly the same firepower.

With the talos, much the same thing, people are scared bleepless of Wraithknights and Riptides, and again if you can take out a wraithknight or riptide, you can take out a talos, and once again a talos doesn't have nearly the tricks of the riptide, or the toughness and mobility of the wraithknight.

Both units fall incredibly short of their competitive counterparts in both firepower and durability, so generally, they'll both die before they achieve anything remotely successful. I've been using flyers to some degree of success, but still even then, if someone is prepared for a heldrake or a vendetta, you're likely screwed there too.

At this point the parasite engine might be the best heavy support option, an 18" large blast template that's ap3 means it MIGHT be able to get fnp before it dies, and might make the rest of the army more durable. I don't know. Just about all our options outside of troops, dedicated transports, and a handful of elites have been leaving a sour taste in my mouth lately.

EDIT: forgot beast packs, but I don't run them as I can't financially afford to.

It may be you suffer the "darklight" curse meaning your DLs tend to to little damage when averagely they should. I answered by taking two ravagers with DLs and having all my raiders with a DL. combining fire, they tend to take down a tough target eventually (more is better) ^^). I tend to take 2 ravagers and a talos and a haemonculus packing a webway in a raider (accompanying a wych squad). I find the best tactic is to give your opponent very bad choices. stop the talos or the rampaging incubi and archon hacking their way through my army?

Silverglade wrote:

The big problem with the Talos is instant death weapons.   I play grey knights a lot and force weapons really ruin your day quickly.   (that said, a demon hammer really makes short work of a ravager too....).

If it had some sort of an invulnerable save.....  

I feel your pain dude, my talos ran up to abaddon and was cut in half by his daemon sword xD (old edition). perhaps invest in a chronos to pain token your talos as quickly as possible? (feel no pain is awesome)

I typically run both a cronos and a talos. They support each other as they are moving across the board.

My goal with them isn't that they live, nor that they "earn" their points back. My goal is simply to put a couple units on the table that my opponent is going to expend an inordinate amount of energy killing while my army sets up the killing blow.

In other words they are simply live bait. They can take a LOT of bolter fire and keep going. Some opponents will ignore them the first couple of turns because, quite frankly, their range is fairly short and they move really slow. But by T4 they are putting pressure on something requiring my opponent to change his direction. Opponents that go after them from T1 on, well, those guys aren't killing venoms or other units.

My wish for the future: make them 1-3 per heavy slot.

At the risk of being off-topic, I wish for a less cluttered heavy slot. Talos/Ravager/Razorwing/Void Raven are all really good options that work well in multiples, Cronos is regarded as less generically good but has build-around potential. If the Razorwing got shifted to the Fast Attack slot I'd be happy. Frankly, I think that's the biggest problem with our heavy support - there's too many good options there, and they all work best in multiples.

I strongly agree with both of you It would be great to use 2 talos and a cronos as only one HS choice.

I only played 3 games with a Talos so far (and only 4 40k games total) but against the right opponent (necrons and orks) it's speed was not an issue:

- game 1 & 2: The ork was rushing for assault, and the talos did great in both games (MVP of the second match, it defeated the weakened nob bikers (!) and then a deff dread with a single smash attack).
- game 3: against necrons I used 36" weaponry (venoms, raider and ravager) with night shields. The only unit without ns was the Talos. Placed centrally on the board, he was able to fire his haywire blaster T1 and his liquifier T2. Deathmarks wounding on 2+ killed him quickly...

Not the most efficient, but my favorite unit so far And it adds diversity amongst the skimmers.

Darklight Curse is a serious medical concern, but don't bother seeing a doctor. It's lethal, and there is no way around it.
Another up vote for Talos. One of them almost always make it into my lists nowadays.
My issue tends to be getting them their pain token. Will try more Cronos, get back to you folks.

Mononcule wrote:

I strongly agree with both of you :)It would be great to use 2 talos and a cronos as only one HS choice.

Future Dataslate?   

I run three talos in a WWP army. I always enjoy the games. However, there are two issues... First, if the WWP deployment goes poorly, for whatever reason, then the Talos are slogging it from the table edge. I usually take a coms relay to try and help with this. I usually give the Talos a haywire launcher so they can take out vehicles at range if they end up coming on from the table edge.

The second issue is that they're just not tough enough in the current meta. If they started with a pain token that'd be super, but with all the tau and wave serpent shooting, they just get shot off the board too quickly.

I would never take less than three. They need to work as a team or they just get picked off. They would be excellent in squadrons. Let's hope that's included in a future dex.

A note on Ravagers. The thing that makes ravagers great is not necessarily the lances , but rather the lances combined with their speed and night shields. You can keep them out of range when they need to be and pop into range when you need to. That way you can keep them alive all game. One turn of ravager shooting is pretty weak, five or six turns is much better! RB

Am I ok to use this current topic, or should I start a new one, to ask about talos configuration?

I want to run a talos and cronos combo.

The cronos gets the spirit vortex, and that's it.

I was looking at liquifier and heatlance for the talos, but that means it is only one plain d6 attacks. I wish you could buy another CCW, and then add upgrades for liquifiers AND chainflail.

and rules wise, if you buy the liquifier but not the extra ccw, does that effect it's CC attacks?

Personally I'm a fan of an anti-infantry kitted Talos. I run 2 Talos in most my lists with splinter cannons and liquifiers. Liquifiers can limit charges but its super cheap to upgrade with and is useful when you manage to get nice and close before shooting and charging. SC helps you get pain tokens which is super useful. Killing vehicles doesn't do this and I think things like heat lances and haywire guns are wasted on a talos. We have wyches and lances for AT! And I too wish you could buy all those upgrades but oh well, and the liquifier doesn't grant you any CC bonus...though you can overwatch with it!

I tend to run my Talos unfashionably, with a chain flail, a ccw, and a splinter cannon. I agree it probably isn't the best load out, but it looks great on the model. Its actually my favorite heavy choice, and frequently wrecks things.

My Ravager on the other hand never seems to live long enough to kill, and when it does it isn't spectacular.

My razorwing somehow has been better anti-tank than the ravager even with 1 less dark lance. If it bothers to show up...

i almost always include one talos with a liquifier, thats 105pts that always soaks fire.
i think its the perfect setup for him, because the cannon is pretty essential for a quick pain token
lately i've been testing two and they seem to do fine, if i have lots of raiders for the extra lance count

Trystis wrote:

I tend to run my Talos unfashionably, with a chain flail, a ccw, and a splinter cannon. I agree it probably isn't the best load out, but it looks great on the model. Its actually my favorite heavy choice, and frequently wrecks things.

You're not alone bro   

I've only used razorwings. Last time I played, (1500pts) I only used a single HS slot; A RJF, and was my MVP, That game, she killed: 8 fire warriors, 1 tau transport, shadowsun, 2 scout suits, 1 barracuda ( FW Tau Aircraft) and took down the riptide to 1 wound.

Luckily for my razorwing, we got the short sides as deployment.

My trick was to only use a single missile a turn and not waste the sc when firing (she has Dissies).

Also, Flyers require good planning during the movement phase, but come on, we're Dark Eldar. Planing our moves ahead is our thing, the movement phase is our turf.

Trystis wrote:

My Ravager on the other hand never seems to live long enough to kill, and when it does it isn't spectacular.

Really? Since in our playgroup tanks are rather rare, I outfittet mine with three disruptors.
That thing is the perfect Termi-Killer. And the perfect Dark Reaper-Killer.
When I think about it, it kills everything perfect, I aim it at.

Elzadar wrote:

Trystis wrote:

I tend to run my Talos unfashionably, with a chain flail, a ccw, and a splinter cannon. I agree it probably isn't the best load out, but it looks great on the model. Its actually my favorite heavy choice, and frequently wrecks things.

You're not alone bro   

I agree. I almost always use this build on my Talos. And I use one in most of my games. I prefer Ravagers for my other slots, but I do have a touch of the Darklight Curse. I am building some Razorwing Jet Fighters, but haven't played them, yet.

I'm a total noob but i wonder what 3 Cronos would do?