DE Deep Strike Tactica

Bumping for good info in this thread.

Drago Galizur wrote:

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One thing that confuses me a bit is why people in this thread seem to think that hellions are out. I've read that the Duke and the Baron have some good synergy and that hellions should only be used as troops. Since they are jumppack infantry, they can deepstrike just like scourges, right? As long as they aren't taking up fast attack slots, couldn't they be useful?

They can be very useful, however my issue with them is you usually run a large squad of them when you run the Baron(like 12-14 hellions+Baron) so thats a HUGE deepstrike footprint. Sure you have skilled rider but if you mishap off the table or onto another model you could lose that entire squad. Too much risk IMO.

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Another thing I can't sort out is the heavy weapons on my scourges. When should you take haywire blasters? What are heat lances good for?

Haywires are excellent for suppression, making it so tanks shoot. They are great against most armies except GK and necros, who can both try to ignore suppressed results.

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One tactic I've been aiming for with DS that hasnt been discussed here is multi purpose utility, which I learned about from Dash on Warseer (pretty much the only guy on Warseer that promotes DS). Though most of the time units should be aimed at AT or AI but never both, DS gives incentive to multitasking as it enhances unit redundancy that helps to counter the randomizing that DS causes. I.E. DL'S on Razorwings and Blasterborn in venoms. It makes sense and Dash reports great success with it, what experience or thoughts do you guys have with that?

Duality and multi purpose units are a play style preference. I agree with it, however in a deepstrike like you need redundancy.

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If I'm packing as many DL'S on Razorwings, Scourges, and Trueborn squads as is possible, do I really need to put 5 man squads in Raiders for the extra DL shot? I do infinitely favor the look of the raider, but venoms make a lot of sense to carry 5 Blasterborn.

5 blasterborn are overkill. I send 3 blasterborn down in a raider, thats 3+1 DL shots which is plenty. Anymore is a points sink.

jb7090 wrote:

They can be very useful, however my issue with them is you usually run a large squad of them when you run the Baron(like 12-14 hellions+Baron) so thats a HUGE deepstrike footprint. Sure you have skilled rider but if you mishap off the table or onto another model you could lose that entire squad. Too much risk IMO.

Ah. I had planned on deepstriking them further away from enemies than my gunboats so there is less risk. Really they'd be there primarily shielding my Scourges.

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Haywires are excellent for suppression, making it so tanks shoot. They are great against most armies except GK and necros, who can both try to ignore suppressed results.

But wouldn't it be better to just destroy a vehicle? When would it be preferable to merely stall them rather than destroy them?

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5 blasterborn are overkill. I send 3 blasterborn down in a raider, thats 3+1 DL shots which is plenty. Anymore is a points sink.

Why is that? Sorry if that seems like a silly question. I read every bit of tactic advice and I only grasp so much of it. Probably because I am absolute rubbish with math. I'm an artist and math is a foreign language that my brain just can't grasp. Might seem like I'm in the wrong hobby, I know, but once the math is calculated and explained, I understand.

Also, I'm still not clear on the purpose of such small units in Raiders rather than Venoms. Aren't some of the points cost of the Raider wasted if you only have three passengers?

OMG I love this idea and this tactica. I just got back from the 25th anniversary event at games workshop where apart from the events they ran I go in 2 games using this idea. One was a three was objectives game between orks, Blood angels(also deep striking), and my Dark eldar. The second was capture and control against necrons.

The first game was 1000 points each so I didn't get to bring a ton of units, but I still reserved everything and chose to go last. Both the blood angels and the orks ran for the 2 objectives that were close together and were all bunched up, so once my voidraven with implosion missles, and razorwing with monoscythe missles came down(on the same turn), the just rained down death upon them while my kabalite squads cleaned up the stragglers and took the objectives.

The game against the necrons while close show the full potential of the deep strike force. It was 1500 points each side and had the map even on both sides...except for one thing. When it came to the objectives I placed one extra on his side but made it so he was forced to split his forces to capture them all. So when it came time for my army to deepstrike he was too spread out to deal with it all so my blasterborn, razorwing and voidraven just dropped down and just took giant chunks out of his army allowing me to win 1 objective to none.

Thanks again for this tactica on Deep Striking with Dark Eldar it's really opened my eyes to how much fun it can be.

Well one of the reasons you can't run five blasterborn in a raider is due to the fact that a squad of Trueborn can only upgrade four rifles to blasters.

Klor wrote:

Well one of the reasons you can't run five blasterborn in a raider is due to the fact that a squad of Trueborn can only upgrade four rifles to blasters.

True, looks like I forgot to mention the fifth has a Darklance.

Well the DL can only be fired if you don't move and the blasters only have an 18" range. So you either sit still in a transport which guarantees you will lose some blasterborn so you can fire the DL or you move around so you can get in range to fire the blasters in which the DL becomes a point sink that you will rarely use.

Klor wrote:

Well the DL can only be fired if you don't move and the blasters only have an 18" range. So you either sit still in a transport which guarantees you will lose some blasterborn so you can fire the DL or you move around so you can get in range to fire the blasters in which the DL becomes a point sink that you will rarely use.

I see! I hadn't thought about that, thanks! This makes it make much more sense why people don't take 5 man squads.

But then, why do people not take 4? I'm still not clear on why 3 is a magic number.

I usually take them in 4-man units. 3-man units are obviously cheaper, so a lot of people sue them to save some points. 3 is a "magic number" because statistically 3 lance shots should always inflict some damage result on most vehicles (2 out of 3 will hit on bs4, and against av12 you do a damage result on 4+).

I have a DS heavy list for a 2 day event this weekend - will post results monday-ish and see how this tactica has helped!

Nomic wrote:

3 is a "magic number" because statistically 3 lance shots should always inflict some damage result on most vehicles (2 out of 3 will hit on bs4, and against av12 you do a damage result on 4+).

Got it. Yeah, the statistics and such are always beyond me. Thanks for explaining it!