Dark Eldar in 6th: Ravager's Revenge

The Ravager is very much the workhorse of the Dark Eldar Heavy Support section.  A very tight, points-efficient bundle of lance-based death that was a go-to choice for most players wanting to take on tanks.  It is impossible to get so much lance is such a manoeuvrable package anywhere else in the Codex.  Trueborn get close, but need transport to gain the reach necessary and that bumps their cost up to the point where they’re only taken when the HS slots are full (most of the time).

With flyers on the up and up and vehicles in general becoming more scrappable, is there still a place for them in the new edition?  Well, yes, although it would be a lie to say that it hasn’t been weakened a bit.  The durability of the unit (what little there was) has taken a hit as have most vehicles, but the Jink save helps.  Now you don’t need Flickerfields to give a save.  Apart from the durability tweaks and such, the Ravager has been more or less kept the same in terms of effectiveness.  Pick a high-value target and kill it, then move on to the next one until you die.  Aethersails can give you a boost of movement to get side and rear arcs if necessary, which is a handy upgrade and Flickerfields can either be abandoned for 10 points to spend elsewhere or replaced by Night Shields which are definitely a vehicle upgrade that will become more popular now, I think.

The same tactics should be in effect for the Ravager, as mentioned above.  Keep moving for your jink, stay away from enemies as much as possible and concentrate on one target until it’s dead.  With more terminator-heavy lists coming out and a greater reliance on foot units, you may see more Disintegrators on these things.  The disintegrator setup also makes them halfway decent anti-air unit against the lighter aircraft.  Only halfway decent, mind you.

Anyway, that’s that for the Ravager.  Still a very solid choice overall and good value for points. A short one, I know, but to be honest, not much has changed to warrant a higher word count. Next time I’ll deal with the Monstrous Creatures, and then the Flyers.  And then this project will be complete!  Yeesh, this one spiralled out of control a little!

Dark Eldar in 6th: Spreading Your Wings... And Your Claws

Right, let’s finish this section!  Beastmasters are a unit that I always thought were really cool, but to my detriment, I was never able to get them to work properly on the battlefield.  They kept losing combat due to mediocre leadership values (and that was when the squad leaders were alive) or kept running away when the Beastmasters got killed.  They not bad though, I just couldn’t use them right.  I’ve seen people use them to decent effect, but they’ve always been an odd unit and very easy to take apart unless the unit composition was well done.  And that was the real trick with Beastmasters as a whole; getting the composition right.  You had three monster types to choose from and you were fairly able to mix and match in a large number of ways.  You had the big lumbering creatures with T5 and a propensity to get even more violent when wounded.  You had small, cheap creatures with invulnerable save and a decent number of medium strength attacks.  You also had bird swarms with a lot of wounds and a lot of low quality attacks but with rending.  All were nice and interesting and came with their own strengths and weaknesses which made for a cool unit that was very easy to use wrong, as I found out several times.  The main core of the Beastmasters tended to be the Razorwing flocks, the huge number of wounds and the rending attacks providing an effective and durable unit against bog-standard infantry and light vehicles.  However, any S6 weapons would tear through them like nobody’s business, so quite often other animals were deployed, either the Khymerae for the INV saves or the Clawed Fiends for wound absorption.  That was how the Razorwings survived long enough to get where they needed to go to do their damage.  Unfortunately that tactic does not work as easily any more due to the wound allocation changes.  This is a slight detriment to the unit as it really relies on very solid positional play with a unit that is already very hit and miss.  Manoeuvrability is slightly increased in the new edition and moving through cover is less of a concern, so the situation for Beastmasters is very much ‘swings and roundabouts’ really.  I think that the loss of their wound allocation tricks outweighs the movement increase though, so they’ve probably got it worse overall.  Take them if you like the idea, but they’ll be hard to get the most out of, and I’m certainly not the guy to help you do that!

And the last on the fast attack list are the Scourges.  Out of all the new (at the time anyway)release wave of Dark Eldar, these guys were definitely the prettiest and really captured a dark fairy-tale feel in their design, but I sadly never really used them (although make no mistake; I own a few).  I didn’t really use them, not for any tactical or list-building reason, but purely because they were a last release in the wave, and I had already settled into a very solid Hellion-groove by that point.  Hellions basically filled their role for anti-infantry, and my Ravagers and Trueborn did their job with anti-tank.  Doesn’t stop me liking the unit though.  It definitely had value then, but does that value remain the new edition?

I think it does.  In fact, I think it increases.  Like the Reaver Jetbikes, I believe they have benefited from the new edition rules.  The more reliable reserve rolls and the more forgiving mishap table are real plus points, allowing the player to field Scourges in tighter spots to deal with more specific targets and to make the most of their first round of shooting and believe me, Scourges can shoot.  Your standard Scourge comes equipped with an Assault 3 Poisoned gun with a respectable 18” range, which can pack a hefty amount of anti-infantry even on the basic squad.  This is just as well, because the basic model is expensive.  At 22 points a pop, they need to be used correctly, because unlike Reavers or Incubi (both at the same price tag) they are not very durable, certainly not in the range of the other two.  They have 4+ Armour and 6+ Invulnerable saves, but that does not equate particularly well to long-term survival.  I feel that Scourges are precision weapons and you build the squad at the list stage for a specific target.

Fortunately, you have a wide variety of weapon options to aid in the hunt.  Indeed, there are six choices (although I favour just two of them) and you can equip two out of every five scourges with a special weapon which is second only to Trueborn in sheer payload.  The Shredder is the cheapest option, and was definitely a poor-man’s choice in the old edition.  It’s improved a little but now though, as vehicles are more likely to be damaged by blast weapons, but they’re far from ideal in this role.  Nevertheless, against tightly packed enemies, a S6 blast is a very handy tool, just not one I would equip.  It also hurts that blast weapons can’t be fired in overwatch, so that’s another mark against them.  The other anti-personnel weapon you have is the splinter cannon, which has many virtues such as a long range, a nice Assault mode and the ability to rip enemy units to shreds when stationary.  I really like the Splinter Cannon and Shardcarbine setup for squad as fairly points effective for the sheer amount of Horde putdown you have in the unit.  A 5-strong squad on the move with cannons can fire 20 poisoned shots and only cost 140 points, making them very good harassment units, possibly better than the Venom for the points cost.  And the amount that the cannon can bring to overwatch is not to be underestimated.  A full scourge unit can be a very worrying unit to assault if you’re only 6 or 7” away from them.  A full squad of cannon-Scourges can throw out 42 shots stationary, and that’s going to make even Hormagaunts a little reluctant!

If you want to use them more for tank hunting, then they have tools for that, in four flavours, no less.  Blasters and Dark Lances are well known, although Dark Lances are not a good fit for the unit as they are heavy weapons and Scourges are meant to be mobile.  Bad mix.  Heat Lances are useful if you can get with 9” of a vehicle, especially if you can get a vulnerable facing.  The Haywire blaster is an oddity.  A 24” Assault 1 weapon with a strength and AP of 4, it’s major strength is that it packs haywire onto each hit, which is nice because you are almost guaranteed a glance or better regardless of armour value.  However, its use as a vehicle suppressing weapon has been undermined by the vehicle damage rules.  They can be handy to finish off or weaken a vehicle now, but they can’t stop one from shooting back unless they kill it.  With that in mind, in would probably be better to field one of the other anti-tank weapons nowadays.

I don’t see too much benefit in picked a squad leader.  I mean, there’s the leadership bonus and the standard raft of DE close combat weapons, but this is a very shooty unit and I feel the points would be better spent elsewhere.  Nevertheless, tooling a Scourge out as a leader can look bloody awesome, so don’t let me stand in the way of that!

Dark Eldar in 6th: Drive-By Slice & Dice

Well, I’ve had a couple of days off to visit a friend in Bristol and the weather was less than thoroughly inviting.  I think I had to wrestle a bear on the way there.  But regardless, I’m back again and there’s more of the Dark Eldar Codex to get through, so here’s a brief (there’s that word again) sum-up of the next unit in Fast Attack; Reaver Jetbikes.

Whilst my ruminations on Hellions was a fairly negative note, I though it would be best to follow up with a positive one.  Reavers are definitely on the up-and-up in 6th.  There are many rules changes that work in their favour and expand their use and versatility.  Using the bladevanes was tricky in 5th.  You basically turbo-boosted over an enemy unit and hit them, which seemed simple enough, but the problem was that the rules for bladevanes only work in a straight line.  Regardless of the route you took with the turbo-boost, you drew a straight line from the where the Reavers started and where they finished and hit a unit under that line.  This was a problem, as with a 36” turbo-boost you could rarely managed to hit a unit and still stay out of assault range.  You couldn’t turn around so were stuck going deep into enemy lines.  To an extent, the same happens in 6th, but with one major exception.  Now, the turbo-boost happens in the shooting phase, which means you get a full 12” regular jetbike move to line up you shot, increasing the chance that you’ll turbo-boost somewhere safe(ish).  This is a big improvement, especially as the turbo-boost is still 36”.  Eldar and Dark Eldar jetbikes are ridiculously fast in the new rules, and can get (width-wise) from one side of the board to the other in a single turn.  No enemy is beyond your reach.  Whilst on the subject of bladevanes; the wounds caused by the drive-bys are now randomly allocated, which may or may not be your preference.  But it’s certainly better than the opponent choosing which models get hit.

The upgrade to skilled rider is a bonus, as you do not have to worry about dangerous terrain tests at all any more.  Admittedly the odds were very good that it wouldn’t matter anyway (35 in 36 chance that you’d be fine), but if you can avoid a test then so much the better.  The jink save mechanic is a valuable tool to take advantage of, as you gain a 5+ cover save whenever you move.  This combined with the skilled rider means that the unit should always have a 4+ cover save when not in an assault (or during the first turn if you’re unlucky).  This means that as a tank-hunting unit they have improved, not having to anchor themselves to cover to grab a save.  The changes to Feel No Pain actually do work to the unit’s advantage this time round, as the Toughness increase to 4 from the bike does carry over to Instant Death values (another big tick in favour of the unit).

So how can they be used now?  Well, they’re equally good as tank hunters or as infantry harassment (particular backfield heavy weapon squads), so they can be kit out nicely to do either (or both if you like).  However they aren’t decent close combat participants for their point costs, so you need to be very careful about where you position them and who you target with them.  In terms of special weapons, Blaster versus Heat Lance is a matter of personal preference.  I prefer heat lances myself, but a good case can be made for either.  If you want to do the drive-bys then cluster caltrops are definitely your go-to upgrade for damage.  I don’t really see the point it the grav-claws myself.  Pinning just isn’t reliable enough for it to be worthwhile for my tastes.  Also, I wouldn’t go for an Arena Champion unless you really want the extra leadership.  As I said earlier, they aren’t good enough at assault to justify their 22 point price tag, so a Champion is just loading more points onto weak aspect of the unit and I prefer the Reaver squads to be more-or-less disposable.  Also, as a parting note, the turbo-boosting can be used to excellent effect for last turn contestation of objectives.  If you’re going second and you have a squad of these guys alive, then there’s no reason they shouldn’t be foiling the enemy’s plans in the most annoying way possible: Eldar-style!

So long everyone, I’ll be back later with talk on Beastmasters and Scourges.

Dark Eldar in 6th: Oh, Hell(ion) No!

And so comes the big one.  The one that I knew I would eventually have to put into words.  I’m sure most of you know what could possibly be in the Fast Attack section that would warrant an entire post on its own.  For those who don’t know (and I can’t imagine why anyone who hasn’t listened to the podcast would ever be reading this site), in the last edition, I was a big Dark Eldar player and, after a variety of lists all following a hodgepodge style of construction, I started putting together a tournament list and happened upon one unit that I favoured above nearly all others.  It became the core of most of the lists I would run for the rest of my DE playing time.  Hellions.  I ran a lot of Hellions.  I would come across lists that would run a big squad of them led by the Baron, but I was the only guy I knew who would run three.  My 2,000pts tournament list centred round running nearly fifty Hellions led by the Baron, and I had a great deal of success with them.  They were a very versatile unit, survivable when you knew the right tricks and one the most manoeuvrable units in the game.  They could shoot well, fight well, horde-style and get out of any fight they couldn’t win, provided their nerve held.  They grew to be my favourite unit in the codex, and probably my favourite unit in the game.  I was The Hellion Guy.  It was weird.

So, how have they held up in the new edition?  Well, it’s been a bit of a mixed bag for them, albeit a bag mainly full of drawing pins and glass shards.  Okay, I’m overstating, but the edition switchup has not been kind to my favourite unit.  But before the negativity, let’s go over some things that have improved for them.  The change to morale and regrouping is a major, major plus for them.  Running Hellions in the squad sizes I would favour (I would never go less than 15 in a squad) meant that if they broke at an inopportune moment, a massive chunk of points would go straight down the bog.  Not necessarily from them being run down (it’s kind of hard to do that at Initiative 6), but through simply shepherding them off the board or, even worse, reducing them to just under 50% and making them impossible to rally.  Really infuriating.  Now though, the shepherding mechanic has pretty much been done away with and the 50% restriction has been reduced to 25% (and even then there’s a chance they can get back into the fight).  This change has been a real boost.  Any other pluses?

Well, one or two, but nowhere in the league of the regrouping.  Hammer of Wrath is nice, but as the models are only S3 on their profiles, the resulting attacks are pretty underwhelming, so realistically, it will not make much of a difference.  You can take armour saves and Feel No Pain against dangerous terrain tests.  That’s very handy, especially if you cover hugged with them like I did.  Not that their saves are any good, but it’s something to hold out for when the 1s do eventually come.  Their charge move is not slowed down by difficult terrain if they jump pack towards the target, although you still need to test for dangerous.  So that’s a nice couple of tweaks.  Their ability to use Overwatch combined with the defensive grenades you should be giving them makes them a very intimidating target for the assault, especially due to their cover-hugging nature (when I use them at least).  Their shooting is utterly undiminished in the new rules and their shooting is awesome. Unfortunately, as far as I can see they’re the only rules changes that have really worked in favour of the unit.  And now; on to the unpleasantness…

Overwatch really hurts the Hellion.  You’re dealing with a Toughness 3 model with a 5+ save that costs as much as a Codex Marine.  Those one or two Overwatch wounds before joining combat really hurt, especially when the unit relies on seriously outnumbering the opposition.  The wound allocation system and more (ahem) realistic cover save system mean that the squad will have to be cramped and close packed in area terrain to protect them as much as possible, rather than the 50% rule.  It certainly makes more sense this way and I’m not arguing against it, but it nevertheless hurts the unit significantly.  There’s the standard gripe about the changes to FNP so I don’t need to go into that further other than to say it’s not advantageous to them.

We also have a couple of more ambiguous points where things have got different rather than strictly better or worse. On the movement side, it’s hard to say precisely whether they’re faster.  What with fleet doing what it does now and the charge ranges changing, the probabilities get a bit more complicated.  On average they can move about the same than in fifth, but the 24” high end was much easier to achieve back then and the minimum in 6th is quite a bit shorter.  That got complicated.  I’ll illustrate.  In 5th, it was 12” move, D6” run and 6” assault, so the range was 19-24” with an average of 21-22”.  In 6th, you can have a 12” move and 2D6” assault, with rerolls on one or more of the dice, resulting in a 14”-24” range with an average of 21-22”.  SO I would say, on balance that this is a minor net loss for unit

Similarly, the challenge rules can get a little strange.  Now, you can take what I mentioned about challenges in earlier posts at face value.  A naturally high Initiative and ability to target important models in the unit can be very handy when equipped with a power weapon.  But anyone who knows of my Hellion Habit knows that I never run the squad leader with a power weapon.  I run Stunclaws.  The ability to steal enemy independent characters out of a combat and mob them next round is very useful and a relatively easy way to isolate otherwise hard-to-target characters and get a Pain Token from them after the mass beatdown.  However, in the Dark Eldar FAQs it states that you cannot steal a character who is in a challenge.  This would apply even if the character was in a challenge against the Hellion squad leader.  This does not work to our advantage, especially as the squad leaders do not hit especially hard.  The stunclaw does not have an AP; they’re unlikely to be able to play the beatdown game on their own with that armament.  This could lead to more cunning players issuing challenges to isolate you squad leader and prevent IC theft.  It is therefore in your best interest to refuse a challenge whenever one is issued.  You don’t fight fair, you’re Dark Eldar!  This is especially important as it is your Helliarch who has the Phantasm Grenade Launcher, which means that if you lose him, then the entire squad loses their grenade capacity.  This is not a good thing.  The downside to refusing the challenge is that your Helliarch can’t contribute his attacks to the combat, and as the unit relies on a veritable rain of blows to get the job done, this does not work out to their advantage, but it’s better than the alternative.

So there you have it.  The unit has undeniably got a lot worse in the edition shift.  They’re by no means unplayable, and I do mean to get out my Hellion lists and give them a couple of games to see if I can get them to work.  I believe they can, but they are not the awesomeness they were in fifth, and that makes me a sad panda.

N.B.  Just realised; Hit and Run can carry over to the entire squad.  This allows you to have an archon in the squad and still play the hit and run game whilst having a hardcore character killer in the unit, even if he does slow the unit (although nowhere near as much as in the past).  Conversely, this also means that the Baron can convey this ability to any squad he joins, which opens up a host of nice combos, especially when combined with his Stealth.  So it’s not all bad, it’s just a matter of finding a new way of ruining other people’s day…

FAQ You and Your Updates!

The next ‘Dark Eldar in 6th’ post is being worked on, but to tide you over until then, I thought I’d just give a very brief (legitimately brief this time) rundown of the DE FAQ changes since the last update barely a day ago.  The reason for this uncharacteristic is that there isn’t much new in it, much to my relief.  I would be most put out if half of my posts thus far were to be rendered invalid so soon after I bloody wrote them.

Anyway, the only real additions that I can spot (don’t be fooled by the Magenta, some of those ones actually haven’t changed a bit!) are as follows. 

Pain Tokens:  The effects of Paint Tokens only apply at the end of the phase in which you gained them instead of immediately.  Bit of a bummer, but only in a minor league of irritation.

Reaver Drive-Bys: The wounds caused by these are allocated among the target unit randomly, which makes sense.  Mind you, it would also make sense to allocate them as shooting, but this one avoids any confusion that could be cause by the change in starting/ending position by the Reavers.  Fair enough, no biggie.

Veil of Tears in a Transport:  Harlequins barely ever get into transports, but it’s now been ruled that if the do, the transport doesn't receive Stealth & Shrouded.  Perfectly understandable as the Veil of Tears ability only affects the Shadowseer and everyone in his/her squad, which the vehicle clearly isn’t.  Good common sense ruling.

Aethersails:  I didn’t address these in my Raider/Venom post, so may as well now.  They are used in the movement phase to add 2D6” to the vehicle’s movement and you can turboboost afterwards.  Handy.

Implosion Missiles:  These have no effect on characters with Eternal Warrior.  I can’t remember if this was on the last FAQ update, but eh, whatever, either way.

Klaivex IC Hunting:  This doesn’t apply to the rest of the squad.  A bit of a niche ruling, as there’s no real way to direct attacks at an IC without being in a challenge, where the rest of the squad can’t attack it anyway.  If the entire squad is just against one IC it would have been cool though, but c’est la vie.

And I think that’s that.  If you’ve spotted any proper changes that I’ve missed, let me know.  If not, then I see you (metaphorically) next post!

Apologies and Procrastinations

Hi guys.  No new Dark Eldar post for today, unfortunately. It was club night yesterday and so I haven't has the time to do prep work for the Fast Attack posts.  You should be seeing a mournful op-ed piece on the poor, poor Hellions either tomorrow or Friday and then usual service should resume next week, finishing off the Fast Attacks and then moving on to Heavy Support.  In the meantime if you have any idea for future posts, let me know or if you have anything to add to my opinion pieces, feel free to challenge my didactic authority in the comments thread!

So long.

Dark Eldar in 6th: From Point A to Point B

A couple of days ago, I realised that I had missed something out in analysis.  I had covered HQs, Troops, most of the Elites and done an army overview.  And I planned to break Fast Attack and Heavy Support down into a couple of sections and put them out.  But I was missing something: Dedicated Transports.

Admittedly, as the Dark Eldar only have two to choose from and I’ve looked a little into them in the army overview and during the sections on individual units, but I think they’re worth their own section.  After all, many DE armies consist of more of these vehicles than Troop choices and the new edition has forced a number of changes onto them which may tip the balance of power in the Venom vs Raider stakes.  In 5^th, there was little contest between the two.  You tended to see far more Venoms.  The came with a free invulnerable save and a scary amount of anti-personnel shooting (potentially; Venom shooting nearly always looks more scary than it actually is unless you’re a Mostrous Creature) and the only drawback was a small transport capacity.  But seeing as you never needed big units to get your anti-tank in, this was rarely that big a deal.  Raiders had double the capacity and couple be packing either a Dark Lance or a Disintegrator, so you could run the other way round, with your vehicles doing the anti-tank stuff and their riders dealing with foot troops.  However, as the game was balance more in favour of the Multiple Small Unit (MSU) style of play, the infamous ‘Venom-spam’ became far more popular.  Which is why you never really hear of Raider-spam.  That said, there’s nothing that says you can’t use MSUs in Raiders instead of Venoms as they had broadly similar points costs, but 12 poisoned shots a turn at 36” tends to be too tempting to pass up.

Now, however, there has been a bit of a sea change.  The difference between the two vehicles now is more than just loadout and vehicle footprint.  There are two big changes to consider in this battle for spiky supremacy.  First is that the Raider is now officially more durable than the Venom as it has three Hull points to the Venom’s two.  Now admittedly at AV10 on all sides, both vehicles are going to get penned fairly easily, but in an army where manoeuvrability is key, the ability to shrug off two hits a get where you’re going is a major point in the Raider’s favour.  Make no mistake, they’re both going to die (twas ever thus), but the Raider has significantly more chance of doing its job before that happens.  The other change that distinguishes them is the Jink save.  Most of the time, this is going to provide exactly same amount of protection as the previously ubiquitous Flickerfields, provided you keep moving.  So you could realistically save yourself a few points by taking Flicker-less raiders and still have similar, if not better survival chances as the Venom.  And while we’re talking upgrades, I’ll go through a few noteworthy ones now.

Due to the change in vehicle movement (with movement phase and shooting phase manoeuvring) some upgrades have become marked less useful.  Chain snares, for example.  These could inflict hits if you moved over an enemy unit in the movement phase, which was good when you could go 24”.  Now you can only go 12” making them much harder to use.  Not that many people used them anyway, but I feel the point is illustrative and the movement change nonetheless.  With Flickerfields on the decline (a little) and the Jink save being everywhere, Night shields may well come into their own.  Weapon range reductions are a big deal, especially against small arms.  Every little helps, after all.  Grisly Trophies are still very much a highly useful addition to the vehicle (you can never have enough rerolls, although it’s not quite as vital as it used to be in 5th as it is easier to rally now).  Tank shock has changed to only being an option in the movement phase, meaning the shock prows (which allowed Raiders to ram and tank shock, along with +D3 to front armour) will see less use as you can’t really build up enough speed any more (the most you can get is S7 for the Raider or S8 for the Ravager).  With a bit more emphasis on shooting, Splinter Racks (they allow ‘to hit’ rerolls for splinter rifles and pistols) could make for a nice anti-personnel boat is you so chose.  I would also be remiss if I did not mention Torment Grenade Launchers.  Their role is the same (they reduce enemy leadership by 1 within 6”, nice), but with the added bonus of needing to take a Ld test before assaulting the vehicle , but possibly allowing for a bit of pre-emptive Overwatching before finding out they can’t charge t anyway!  As an additional point, Fearless guys still need to take it.  It’s not a Morale test, just a flat Ld test.  Most of the other upgrades have basically remained the same, so you probably won’t see them!

So that’s the rough rundown.  Venoms have been weakened a bit, but that has been counterbalanced by the game becoming a bit more infantry based.  I would say the two vehicles re now on an even keel, with the big debate being the anti-personnel firepower of the Venom versus the increased transport capacity of the Raider.  A bit inconclusive, but there you go.  Take your pick between the two, just bear in mind; they’ll both likely die before turn 3!