Dark Eldar: Rave Review Archive

“Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore”

Velcome to todays Rave review, yup the retro reviews have fallen somewhat by the wayside , partially as I feel it is somewhat pointless at this stage to discuss them , however I run on the assumption that at least some of the people that frequent this dingy part of the internet actually play with Eldar, hence they are here …. I promise the next one will be a retro… promise *looks shifty*

Couple o things before I wax lyrical, I made up my Scourges in the last few days, god damn those are nice models GoD.DaMn ! it is a dagger in my black heart that their rules are so full of fail especially now that all new armies will ignore stun/shake.

Secondly there is no artwork for the Void so I will mostly be showcasing LuckyNo5 from the Eye of Error ‘s Excellent Conversion as illustrations, lets hope GW’s turns out half as good when they finally get their finger out…

The Voidraven

 So, fluffwise I adore this thing, it got a proper fluff blowjob, not the Ward kind either, Ward-job ? ( that Driago fluffwank is damaging enough to turn anyone into a puppy rapist)

Sadly this is another unit that seems to be a washed out made-by-committee  representation of it’s description on the table, despite my crushing disappointment It’s still my fave heavy support choice in the book.

As much as I dig the blither and concept I have some deep nerd rage for the rules .

The chassis is pretty ok, for a DE vehicle, barring Vects Derp of Derpcraption (which you would never ever EVER take.) it’s the ‘toughest thing we get. 11 all over and close topped is actually fairly pitiful in the grand scheme of things and with the price tag it’s difficult to justify, consider you are running nearly 200 points for a usefully equipped one, its essentially a TL lascannon razorback…. Still 11 plus wither flat out or a 5++ is ok, hopefully you are playing in a manner where your planes get to first strike so the fragility can to some degree be sidelined, though if your enemy wishes it to be gone it WILL happen.

Weapon wise , at first glance you could be forgiven for thinking the guns are quite good, I can’t see any Imperials getting too thrilled about 2 short ranged lascannons on an expensive av11 platform though… my void is still yet to actually kill a vehicle , apparently the vehicle table and cover saves ask a bit too much of it ….

Really it just suffers from the same issue lances do in general , most of the time you are paying for a premium for a circumstantial rule that is only of value occasionally , having said thet the value of the Void Raven is that it offers an increased chance of penetrating the majority of targets compared to your usual glances, if the rumoured 6th edition fixy fixy for lances happens these will become great, currently I would rather have railguns and the rules fail to really give a sense of a black technology wunderweapon, again it slots neatly into my opinion that the DE book is subtly underwhelming offensively, especially vs armour, once more it is an expensive unit which is very fragile but does not have the offensive output to balance it’s weaknesses.

It also has access to the missiles available to the Razorwing, generally unless you are running two razors with it I would opt to take the missiles, mono’s are pointless because of the pricing you may as well pay for the str 7 re roll to wound Shatter fields which are my preferred choice.

The other interesting option is Implosion missiles, these boil my blood , it is again a great concept I would dearly like to run these even for fun, the rules are ok, not bad, it roughly translates into a one shot plasma cannon which would be great if they were not (are you sitting down ?) THIRTY POINTS ?!?!?!? each, Kelly what the hell were you smoking !? did ward sneak into the office just before you emailed the printers ? did you have a lucky test game with someone that made them knee jerk so bad that you had to double the reasonable cost of them ? it’s a weapon that does not synergise with the main armament so you will still have to choose targets, it’s utterly useless on armour and you get a weeny plate, 15 points would have been a good price, I would likely still use the shatters even then , as it is I doubt I will ever use them even in the most casual friendly game the pricing is so horrifically bad/out of wahck, they simply do not make sense , why even bother making it an option if you are going to make them that pointless ? AAAARGH !

Which neatly brings us to the void mine, this almost got a Ward-job in the fluff , the first time I read the DE book I was seriously stoked as I worked further down the page to read the rules for this device of righteous and terrifying apocalyptic destruction. I think I read and re-read the stats about three times in the desperate attempt to find something I had clearly missed, nope it was sh1te, depression ensued …  a doll in the image of Kelly San was stuck with pins then introduced to various kitchen appliances, blender… mmm soothing.

It’s a str 9 lance ap2 small template, one use …. Possibly the most staggeringly underwhelming thing in 40k by comparison with its described effects, except for maybe the Crucible of Failadiction. why carp on bout it’s awesomeness, design a model around that entire concept and then fail to deliver ? talk about all mouth and no trousers.

It scatters d6 , it’s not clear if you reduce your BS from this, my feeling is… not, so its on average no more accurate than it would be were it to just use the normal rules, it’s a superfluous rule. The bloody thing is crap, not worth using and not worth them bothering to write it up in such a fashion, sure you can go flat out and drop it, which is a gimmick at best, IT is a gimmick at best, would it  have really hurt to make is large blast and AP1 ? “removes from play” or ‘something’ of all the many things they could have done with such a cool concept we get this damp squi fuck you ? the main issue with it is , not only is it crap, but you have to move your expensive tin foil plane into very close range to use it, this is not a good plan, “hur Ima gonna move up nice and close to all da melta, I like melta it iz Warm herp aww da mine did nuffink again Derp” …

So De’s ultimate bomb of doom is worse than a simple Vindi shell ? If I was Vect  I would put ALL my weapon designers to immediate and horrible excruciating death, then hire some tech magus’ ….

I honestly see no value in the voidmine, none.

Ok so I have poured a fair bit of hate onto the Raven, but I would still field it competitively, I have to be clear that I do not think it is by any means an ‘optimal’ choice, I will drop it to squeeze in more important stuff elsewhere but If I have all those bases covered and the points are ‘spare’ then Ill ‘upgrade’ my Razorwing.

What I like about it other than the utter fluff/rules fail is that ultimately I get something slightly tougher than a ravager which statistically is essentially equal in terms of offensive output though generally you are more likely to see penetrates, which is important now everyone and their dog can seemingly ignore stunned and shaken results army wide. Not only that but you also get the pieplate spam which I appreciate from the razorwing, it’s pretty much a best of both worlds thing, admittedly you pay through the ass for that flexibility but in some builds I feel it’s worth having those options.

On the whole you see a slight boost to survivability and offense but what you are really paying out for is to have either the benefits of a Ravager or a Razorwing when you need them, technically it’s a slight improvement on the Razor again as I pay for shatters, no point paying for them on the Razor as it has Mono’s already.

Obligatory Topical humor Kitteh.

I think we are running out of Raves to do now, Just the Razor Left , though I feel I may actually do the Reaper and Tantalus too, the anal completist within must be appeased.

This will be my last post afore Crimble, so to all my readers and anyone else who happens to drop by, have a good one , HUMBUG! and good day ! *slam*

On with the Rave Reviews then,  just to kill some time at work really, my life crisis is still in limbo but I have managed to sort some of it out and can’t do much about the rest of it until after crimbo so there should be a posting schedule of sorts at least for the next few weeks, I may even paint something….

Hmm does one bother to write up Chronos/Talos?

I honestly do not rate them, having test run them a couple of times, T7 with three wounds does nothing to light me on fire, anything worth shooting at them switches off their armour anyway and more often than not any FnP it might have got too…. and it’s slooow

I have only Intended to use them in a ‘Freaks’ theme list, I think they ‘can’ be ok coming from a portal but tbh I find portals pretty naff too, in theory it’s the best DE close combat AT going and it can bring either a TL heat gun or Haywire launcher.

WS5 is nice enough and I suppose a lot of the time it will mean you do something even if you roll badly for the random attacks. The random attacks …yeah, they are random …so Inevitably when you need them to work they won’t, the only way I can think of really protecting against randomfail, is to run them in pairs and on the same target ? I think chainfails are pretty much mandatory, at ten points you would be crazy not to.

Ichor injector = shower of shite, a filler upgrade if I have ever seen one,

The TL, liquid gun could be fun, again you are hoping for a low roll on the AP, it’s pretty cheap so It can’t hurt to take it, sometimes it will be devastating, to the point where you might run the risk of having nothing to charge …

Additional close combat weapon is a waste of time IMO if you already have flails, it’s just a little bit expensive to be worth it , these are not very good so I would be inclined to run them as stripped down as possible, prob just flails and a TL Haywire gun, Melta is good to if portalling it, thinking about it , with increasing amounts of armies lolling off suppression now your prob better with a melta as you should be portalling these things anyway.

Power from pain is worth mentioning, FNP has some passing use protecting you from missile launchers (that’s about it rly) the best one here has to be Furious charge, seeing it to str 8 (yay instadeath) and I 5, going before dreadnoughts and often hitting on threes is nasty with str 8 and 2d6 to penetrate. Fearless is pointless as It comes with that already.

Stinger Pod = Filler, filler night *Zombies synchro dance in background*

Lets have a quick discussion of the the Chronos too: its sucky in combat compared to the Talos but is still one of the best DE AT options with it’s ability to actually penetrate things, 2d6+5 on what is often rear armour 10 will do pretty well , though not really what you would buy this for, (you would buy this ?)

In my freaks test list I was running 2 Talos with a Chronos in support as a kinda super unit, the pair of Talos giving cover to the Chronos which is intended to give FNP/FC to the Taloi as soon as possible, all this comes out of a portal otherwise it becomes an exotic tea strainer .

Str 4 ap3 flamer is always going to be fun especially when it generates a pain point when it does casualties, marine players don’t function very well when they get no armour save, (iZ funneh) just point out a standard flamer is actually more effective on your Kabalites than the Siphon on MeQ therefore flamers are clearly broken and under pointed, lets not talk about DE and heavy flamers (

Probe- (snigger) not particularly a must-buy thing but If you want your Chronos to be spewing out Pain tokens then it’s worth getting.

Spirit Vortex – it’s a an ap3 large blast that generates tokens, what’s not to like ? , though it I a little pricey, needing 5’s to get wounds can hurt it though, unless of course unlike me you can roll well consistently.

 In summary the Talos is a fair close combat option, it does present a nasty close range threat to Armour and units unable to deal with it, crippled by its slow speed short threat range and relative fragility in todays tabletop environment.

It also another way of getting some melta in the list which by now you know is rarer than rockinghorse shit and angel tears, I feel to have any hope of getting some value, it needs to be delivered by portal otherwise it will never get across the table.

The Chronos has little business being in any competitive list, in my experience pain points are not to be relied on and the effects are hardly game changing unless in very specific circumstances, also if there are units that NEED FNP or whatever for your army to function then you would be better served making sure they have it to begin with…. all of its weapons are weak and/or short ranged ultimately these fail because by their inclusion you are not taking Ravagers or Flyers which are the bread and butter for DE heavy support IMO.

Not the best review ever, but I needed to clear the guff to get to the fun stuff, I have little enthusiasm for these in game and currently have no Intention of buying any.

 Next up is a flyer and sooner than you might think to compensate for this reletive  fob-off.

Well well well, a new Rave review , how long HAS it I been ? firstly a wee hobby update. I have been taking a nice break form hobby for the most part, though I have not been completely Idle There is a 99% assembled Tantalus (twas a pig) and a fair number of Combined Infinity models to show for the time, I was a little frustrated last weekend as I am waiting for the micro art bases for my Infinity stuff before I start painting them and would have been a goodly chunk of the way through the Tantalus Paintwork by now but am waiting on a replacement part from FW, essentially wrote off the weekend, its funny as I have plenty of assembled and even base coated DE stuff to work on but that’s not the stuff I have the enthusiasm for right now , I’m even still waiting on my replacement BF tray, what is it with the mini industry sometimes ? looks like this weekend is going to be written off too as I have called both places that ‘should’ have got stuff to me by now and both have said the things wont be with me til next week …… Fail

I think I’ll assemble the Scourges and maybe force myself to pick up something I don’t want to paint ….. Reavers Certainly need doing, a couple of my friends have put in for various Court of the Archon for my impending year-closer-to-death day so I’m not allowed to buy any let alone paint any….. which is the only other unit I have any enthusiasm for atm…..

On the subject of THAT particular day, Rants Birthday has been arbitrarily set to Halloween, There is going to be a competition/giveaway amongst other things so stay tuned.

Anyway this is turning into a ramble so I’ll get on with the article at hand.

Amour 11 on a heavy support choice is hardly anything to write home about, however it’s the highest AV in the book and is only narrowly edged out for ‘on paper’ survivability by the closed-topped void raven , however on a points efficiency and ease of gaining cover basis I feel that the Ravager has the edge.

Subsequently this combination of good value and being the only source of multiple long ranged mobile lances means it is a staple of ‘competitive’ spam lists, for the record it’s a nightmarish dogsh1t to paint properly.

Early Ravager Prototype

 God, now I’m sat here trying to write about it it’s tough to find much to write other than It’s cheap, most cost effective AT heavy support we have , does not mean it’ s good , just grin and bear it m’kay ? and it often edges out the other choices because we need the AT , anti Infantry is pretty much covered just by taking a DE army , well for most lists anyway.

The Razorwing is 40 points more for a the loss of a lance and is harder to hide / gain cover for , of course it nukes the ever living Mum-Ra out of things but that may not be required if the rest of your list covers it (Venom spam) but you will always always ALWAYS need more lances, if they were a bit better than they are for their price and availability  this would be less the case.

I hate spam and I think a list can cope loosing a single lance as well as finding the points for a Razorwing, I don’t know about 1500, I would prob have to ditch it, not that I will play 1500 voluntarily anymore …. To be honest a pair of ravagers should be the staple default choice for any DE army IMO, I have written a flyer themed list that does away with them alltogether but the rest of the list has to pick up the slack so to speak.

Ravagers I will rarely reserve, I want them on the table nice and early laying down suppression (that’s all they can really be relied on for) if its spearhead and my opponent is going first I’ll reserve them, I often have an internal struggle when I have won first turn, my inclination is to gamble on their small chances of a seize to have good shooting position/range from the get go, I have been punished for this in the past, not so long ago I had been experimenting with more aggressive deployment and had the Initiative stolen from me three games in a row, ouch subsequently I just won’t risk it, always set it up in cover or at least so a minimum of your opponents ranged threats can draw uncovered los to it, with Tlos it’s always going to be kind of hard to actually hide but the opportunity does arise, I would humbly suggest you take that opportunity when you can as the ravager has the speed to come out of hiding , hopefully take up another good/covered position and get the drop on it’s targets, in a lot of games it is just flat impossible to hide and things like psyflemen will punish you horribly if they get to shoot, all you can do is put lances on them and hope that if/when you do penetrate you don’t stun/shake the damn thing , immobilized results are a stab I the back from your dice, send them to the microwave, essentially 50% of results do effectively jack. (that stupid rule alone is enough to make me want to disintegrate Ward, let alone the rest of Codex Rape knights)

Be sneaky with them , move from cover to cover, if there is none, use your other units to give them cover , your opponent probably won’t fear them as they are just not that effective but if he is sensible he will shut you AT down as fast as he can, Ravagers will be a priority so make it as hard as you can for them. On the subject of mobility Ravagers are quite good for working around for side and occasionally even rear shots, get lances on AV 10 and they are a different animal.

 I would go for a lengthy discussion of the options available however most of them can be discarded without a second thought, bare minimum I run Flickers they are good to have, we all know this. My reasoning for them to be the primary, nay compulsory choice is simple, any of the weapons your opponent bought for long range AT/suppression will be in range weather you have night fields or not, that’s not to say NF’s are useless but for me they are secondary and certainly not compulsory if points are tight, with the Meteoric rise of the GK I am starting to see a case for their general inclusion alongside FF’s but that does see me needing to find up to 90 points in my 1750 army and does jack to help with the inevitable psyfles, NF’s will help protect from medium ranged armies and deepstriking melta (to some extent) they are oddly of more use on Raiders and anything that’s going to be up close (I have always thought they should subtract 6 from your opponents Nightight range too )

Why can I connect this to Ward/GK ?

 The rest of the options are dross and pointless except for Maybe Retrofires , though if you were doing a derp strike list why would you not take the duke ? not that I can really recommend deepstiking Ravagers, ever

In summary it’s the bang-for-buck Heavy support choice that you will take because there is nothing better in the same price range, yes a Voidraven is better but offers very similar stats for a higher price , every time I read the rules for the Void mine after reading the glorious fluff I feel like a kicked puppy.

This kicked puppy

 That’s not to say I would not take a Void Raven, actually I would…. but that’s a discussion for the next Rave Review ;o)

Howdy Folks,It’s past time I resume the DE reviews with the next slice of tasty fast attack pie.

After suffering  lance fail for some months, desperate, I started using Reavers in the hopes that some actual AT guns might help with the problem, For the most part they do, and Reavers are almost a must include for me, I will usually build lists with the intention of having at least 2 units of six, however, as we shall see they do bring far more to the table than just hyper mobile melta goodness.

Well, we have a nice divergence from the typical stat line for a change, nice boost to toughness , ok T4 is  average game-wise but it can amount to a fairly hard to kill unit when coupled with some other things the reavers can do/have.

The I6 is very nice to have also and is worthy of mention.

Wargear: Everyone comes with a pistol and sword which means that depending on your drugs result (yes they have drugs) they can be quite handy in assaults vs weakened units, possibly even units they weakened themselves. On the subject of drugs any result but a one is pretty nice and they become kind of a jack of all trades unit, they fight quite well vs smaller units , they can do AT, they can do torrent . I think thats one of the reasons they go in any allcomers list I care to write, they jam up lonfangs/devvies etc, can go tank hunting, I must admit my primary reason to include them is as (IMO) the best melta carriers in the book. If you are lucky enough to get the pain point for these guys they become very hard to get rid of , 3+ cover and fnp has seen my units shrug off disproportionate amounts of firepower.

The bikes add quite alot, effectively assault 2 poison guns is a nice touch, a 36″ turbo boost is amazing and makes for the fastest unit in the game, it goes hand in hand with bladevanes which gives them the ability to reach out and touch something quite hard with some nice torrent at 36″” ish, zipping two units over the same target can be pretty devastating.

It is tricky not making it a one time thing, rarely will you wipe a unit out, they need support or clever positioning to not just simply die, it’s a similar thing with heat lance runs, It’s quite hard to not have reavers as simply a throwaway AT/AI Kamikaze unit, it would be good if they were cheaper but a unit of six costs nearly as much as a full unit of warriors with a blaster in a raider, It can be tough getting the most of them and some games I find myself wondering what to do with them without simply throwing them away, other games they more than pull their weight, my last game, one unit of reavers killed a unit of scouts, a unit of marine bikes a Landraider, a Vindicator and helped to kill a second, my other unit suffered from wtf/meh syndrome.

Lastly, on the subject of jetbikes, try and use the jetbike assault move slide as much as possible, gliding back into cover , out of assault range etc, it’s pretty essentail for getting the most from them.

lastly tucked away at the bottom but actually a very important aspect of the unit is ‘skilled riders’ you don’t need me to tell you how great this is for the unit, you have little to fear from DT checks, subsequently  they can go anywhere you want/need , mobility and positioning really are key for this unit, their true value is poorly represented by the numbers on the page, without skilled riders I’m not entirely sure I would use the unit at all.

Options-

One in three can take a special weapon simply put, the extra range is all well and good but consider the blaster costs more and is available in some form or other all through the book, don’t get distracted, melta is so limited in this book that your primary reason for buying them is very likely to be this, I started using Reavers as lance fail got too much for me, It does help having them around. and it can be fairly tricky for your opponent to prevent you getting at least one key target with melta per squad.

Grav talon – it utilizes the pinning rule at extra cost, due to various factors pinning is probably the most pointless rule in 40k shortly followed by anything approaching psychology mechanics. sack o fail.

Cluster Caltrops interest me and a six model unit with two caltrops in theory offers around ten meq wounds per pass on average! the problem with them is the cost , I wont stack too many points onto only a few models so it becomes either/or melta and as DE as a whole army provides plenty of anti infantry fire,  but jack all quality AT guns the caltrops stay at home.

Champion- I see alot of people cut him out to save points, but panic checks from shooting happen often to these guys and I don’t really trust ld8 , I think it’s worth the ten points alone, mine have often been caught in combat and when points permit I have found a reaver champ with a venom blade can help them out of a tight spot. One of my favorite tactics is to run over lootas/devvies/fangs with bladevanes, then assuming the reavers survive fairly intact you  shoot and charge in the following turn, not particularly with the aim of killing them off but the benefits are twofold, you shut down a chunk of his AT and you can hide from shooting for a round or two and hopefully come out the other side with FNP (NB, reavers hate fire) the vblade champ gives some security against str3 whiff, obviously  the unit will work ok without him but I find it to mostly be a worthwhile investment that I could live without if points are supertight. For the record anything more expensive than the Vblade is a waste of time.

They ultimately beat out the other FA choices, as they cost the same as scourges, are more survivable, better at combat and due to their mobility able to do more over the course of a game.

Due to the truly extraordinary price of beast models I doubt I will ever field more than one unit of beasts and  I think an army needs to be a bit more built around them than reavers, the reavers just fill a need you struggle to get elsewhere and IMO are subsequently hard not to include, though I admit to being somewhat biased as my dice rolls for darklances can be crowd pleasingly shite, my lances fail as reliably as my transports explode.

In conclusion- I find this unit to be good maybe even excellent if you are 110% on the ball all the time every game (thas not me I’m afraid) They are melta delivery with some swiss army ability , some games they have trouble finding their place but I tend to think the problem lies more with me than with them, as when I can get them working they do a great job, they have a tools that should allow them to bring something useful to the table no matter what army you face.

Sorry Folks, I know I said I would do Dragons this week, but frankly I have little enthusiasm for the craftworlders presently.

I am enjoying the DE immensely however , the internal balance of the book makes building varied lists a pleasure, I think DE are one of the few books where you can build a solid list without spamming very much.

From a painting perspective I loathe spam, is there anything more soul destroying than painting the same thing over and over and over, tends to look a bit naff on the table too. Long term I’m hoping to develop a DE army that not only plays very well as a balanced all comers list but also does not rely on spam to do it, hopefully it will be aesthetically  pleasing also.

I digress, my enthusiasm is firmly with the DE at the moment, hence I am even managing to do some painting without hating it too much.

To that end the Dragons are getting pushed back a week, they are such a fundamental unit to 5th mech spammdar I want to be in the right frame of mind when I write about them, my brain is cluttered up with DE at the moment, so lets talk about them.

Continuing with the army list front to back approach it’s Scourges up next from the fast attack section, prior to the recent release I found this unit was the best use for my old swooping hawk models. I have tried them in different set ups over more than a few games.

Stats- The stats are  unremarkable, they have a DE stat line, the only marked exception being the 4+save (they get a 6++ too) it’s better than usual DE saves but nothing to do a jig about, coupled with Fnp it’s respectable enough as long as your opponent cannot give them any serious attention.

composition can be as low as 3, why you would want to beats me as you need at least 5 menz to get to the good stuff in the options.

They are jump infantry so all the usual stuff applies, though I have tried with and without depstriking, it really depends on the game and the load out you go with which is best. It’s also worth noting that 12″ move plus carbines they get as standard give an effective shooting range of 30″

Wargear – sharcarbine , nice for basic kit indeed , good range when coupled with their mobility , even a small squad can put out a good number of shots, though even a full squad of ten will only manage 3.33 meq kills , not great for a fragile 220 point unit I’m sure you will agree, fortunately  no one is buying these guys for the carbines, nope wer’e getting them because they are a cheap way of accessing special weapons.

Ghost plate – don’t know what to say really, an improvement over the usual DE save  for sure, the 6++ will often be forgotten I should imagine, it’s inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. In all honesty one can’t help feeling they are a little over pointed.

I find it somewhat bizarre that they have plasma grenades, I can’t think of many other squads you want to keep from CC more … though I suppose flushing very depleted enemy units out of cover after a volley is possible in a pinch ? who knows why they are there really?

Special rules – usual DE stuff , nothing new to talk about, you WANT the first pain point , that is all .

Options- Ok here’s the real meat and gravy of these guys, the baseline is that these guys are the cheapest way of getting 2 heat lances in one unit, one will miss so at least two is the ticket for success, seems there is a theme of at least doubling up through 40k …

For every full five models you get two special weapons , I think 10 man units will be too expensive to make the grade to be honest , I would rather have more units, but a five man squad does not break the bank, in fact it’s prob the budget fast attack of choice  2 deepstriking heat lances for  134 points, as previously stated it’s the cheapest (but not best IMO) way of getting a pair on the table, the 9″ melta range helps with the prospect of striking in too , you will struggle to keep them alive beyond the alpha strike, every army has it’s suicide melta I suppose, I’m not keen on suicide units so I prefer other load outs.

I think the melta loadout would be more interesting from a wwp , 21′ effective melta range from the portal ? especially if you have  two, should be nigh impossible for your opponent to escape you melting his face off (you should have two) worth a thought.In fact I have been thinking about WWP’s more and more recently, but I digress.

Shredders, nah thanks I’ll pass

Splinter cannon- as much fun as splinter spam is , you are paying 10 points to replace a gun that already had 3 shots with a gun that will mostly get 4 most of the time, you also have much more efficient ways of getting splinter cannons in the army so not too sold to be honest, shame coz the splinter cannon model looks sick.

Haywire blasters- this is the best way to get these in the army in my opinion, the only other place being Taloi , but two is better and Taloi compete with Ravagers / Razorwings (yes Razorwings) The attraction for me is that it changes their threat profile whilst being extremely effective supression weapons. essentially the melta setup has to get close and is bad news for a tank, effort will be made to prevent them striking more than once.

The extra range on the haywires is golden, you can drop/fly somewhere safe and effect the game straight away, if dropping you are less reliant on the accuracy of the dice and being further away immediately helps with their vulnerability to shorter ranged small arms weaponry , meanwhile even though you will almost certainly be messing with his tanks (one of my early trials shut down an IG’s medusa for most of the game up to the point where I could get round to destroying it ) they will mess with his mobility and shooting and just be a PITA but he will almost certainly dedicate his energies to other targets as they are unlikely to do severe damage opposed to the more lethal threats facing him, as fun as they are they do come with the same fatal flaw as Incubi …Grey knight armies.

I have found these to be the best weapon for scourges for my purposes their rage inducing effects to mechanised opponents are not lost on me either .

Heat Lance- Already discussed its uses elsewhere,but I feel it’s also worth mentioning that their range vs normal targets meshes up nicely with the carbines and does help give tham a bit more ‘bite’ vs meq targets, just be clear tanks are their bread and butter, DE get so precious little AP1 its a cardinal sin to waste it making marheenz go poff.

Blaster- not a terribad choice,Kinda sits in the middle for me, would prefer haywires most of the time . The best use I found for these were deep strikes into rear or side armour zones for easy penetration, but you can get blasters galore elsewhere and they are a little pricey, a slight points break for replacing the carbine would have been nice, again they have the same range as the carbines so they can help out if you need to shoot some heavy infantry, I have used them and they were ok, but the haywires are so much better for controlling the game.

Dark Lance – hmm, okaaay, the most noticeable thing here is that they do indeed get a points break 15 points for a darklance is great, I say great when I really mean a ‘fair’ amount of points for a less tactically flexible missile launcher that is only situationally  better than an ML on a handful of targets. (same bloody syndrome with them agonisers) at first glance the points break seems to be in recognition that Scourges seem like a pretty dumb platform for a weapon that to fire gimps their mobility. However  one is intrigued by the idea of units of ten with 4 DL’s starting camped in cover with a donated FNP token from a heam,  4 unshakable lances per turn? they should even prove reasonably stubborn to shift, It’s one for a test/piss around really , being serious, just take the damn Haywires, I’ll settle for Heat lances failing that.

Solarite-It’s debatable weather he is worth taking at all, the bump to ld9 is definitely worth it on bigger squads, questionable on the smaller squads as often they just vanish, if you have a few points spare it’s worth consideration. His options just make me chortle, its a tarp folks a big fat tarp, throwing points at cc options you will never want to use is just dumb K ? (and no you can’t have the stupid fething blast pistol either.)

Overall I like the unit, they are not blindingly great or anything but usable, with Haywires I love the reliable supression they offer, even if all my dark lances fail (all the time) I have a fairly safe bet of messing with some key targets, I like them for that reliability and a certain Je ne sais quoi, I think maybe it’s the psychological effect they  seem to have, any Archon worth his salt should revel in the torment of his opponents, impotent frustration is particularly delicious.

Next week will see the Dagons retro, promise .

I was initially tempted to include these as part of the Trueborn Review, however they are very different units unlike Wyches/Bloodbrides which are essentially the same really, which is why they got lumped together.

Warriors are a staple troops choice for the DE  and contend with wyches for space , though a mixture works well too , wracks are a  good troop but I feel they serve better in an all freaks list.

Warriors bring the shooty and should be considered a ranged option for DE list , if you feel you have that covered already then perhaps Wyches are what you should look at instead ?

They have the standard DE stat line, with respectable WS ,BS and I scores with fleet and PFP, they suck in CC most of the time , however FNP and FC allow them to fill in in a pinch. they kick IG and tau ass , though I feel they are best used in other ways…

The squad has ld 8 as standard , which is ok , but it’s worth considering the syberite just for the jump to ld 9 , it’s not like he does bugger all else for the squad really , (blast pistols are fail)

Being able to buy 20 models opens some interesting options for an objective camping unit , considering that DE break from the traditional model thresholds for  heavy and special weapons , camping an objective with 2 dark lances or 2 splinter cannons and the ability to throw down 30 odd splinter shots at close range should encourage people to dedicate a significant portion of their army to the clearance of said objective , larger squads also seem to get more value from power through pain.

Basic kit – shitty armour and a splinter rifle , worse than a bolter on guard etc about the same vs meq and for some reason terrifyingly destructive vs MC’s ….. coz they arn’t already stuffed in 5th … it does come in handy on the various T5 squads that are floating around , twolves and attack bikes don’t like making lots of saves either .

Options- Shredder = Fail

Blaster- Why this squad often makes the cut over wyches is that with a raider they can bring some more lance spam to the party, another blaster is always nice and sometimes they get lucky , oddly enough not an auto include either .

The basic cheap and cheerful setup is 10 warriors in a raider with splinter racks, it’s quite cost effective for what equates to 8-9 wounds on anything with a T stat …. a couple of units like this focused on one target can cause quite a mess, the only difficulty is getting into range to deliver the splinter spam, I would usually turbo boost up and then hope the 6″ move the following turn is enough to get within rapid fire range, great for shifting static squads camping cover or objectives, I like to use a squad of warriors to ‘soften up’ a target for Wyches to charge as they fair much better against a damaged squad.

My Usual setup is 9 guys in a raider with racks a blaster, splinter cannon and Duke Sliscus, the amount of shooting damage this squad can inflict is amazing, the blaster is not really required but I like the str 8 and ap2 sometimes, and coupled with the dukes pistol they are stil a threat to tanks in a tight spot.

Sometimes Ill split Sliscus off from the raider in the movement phase, shoot the everloving crap out of a unit then charge it with him, even if the unit is not wiped it is effectively removed from the game, normal units Sliscus will finish off in a round or two and be safe from shooting.

Another setup that is popular is 5 guys with a Syberite a blaster and a blast pistol, I just don’t like it , maybe it’s my style of  play but I find blast pistols essentially useless most of the time , certainly not worth the outlay, and small squads of t3 men in a fragile transport just won’t last long , DE benefit form numbers , well at least full squads of  guys, pain points go alot further with more models, I also see no reason to make an army that is already killpoint heavy  even worse. I do like venoms though and will be getting some as Truborn cars.

I prefer them to Wyches and find them more useful in a veriety of missions against a range of opponents, all my lists include at least one unit but 2 units or more seem to go further.

So in summary a fairly safe utility /shooty unit who wants to hit first and with support as they are extremely fragile, the addition of FnP makes them a good firefight unit that should scare anything with it’s potential to wound/ damage anything, pick your fights carefully and use your speed advantage to hit first, I tend to find they serve better staying in the transport as long as possible, once they have FnP an exploding vehicle is a mild annoyance, use them wisely and they will serve you well, make a dab choice and they will vanish like smoke in a breeze.

The Funky Art is by BeckJann on Deviant, I’ll be splashing some more of his wonderfully atmospheric work throughout the DE posts from now on

Colour by MajesticChicken

Ahh yes, Trueborn warriors. They are in almost every list I’m seeing at the moment and I’m finding it hard not to take 2 units every single game…

Why are they so attractive ?

Well for me it allows me to up the quantity of lances in the army though I feel they may have other uses too, I hope to start experimenting with some ideas soon.

Lets have a look.

Stats wise they are just ‘elite’ warriors, so like with marines its an extra point of LD and an extra attack for 3 more points , as the extra attack seems pointless in what is i feel mostly going to be a shooty unit I feel the extra points are probably being paid for access to the bewildering array of weaponry available to them.

no point really examining their basic kit as its identical to warriors, I’m almost certain you are not going to be buying them as a splinter rifle platform as warriors do it just as well and score.

So what can they have and why would you want to take it.

Shard carbines- 5 points gets you a three shot 18″ range assault weapon, now , I’m fairly intrigued by these and find myself increasingly tempted to use a carbine equipped unit with a CC Dracon as an escort for sliscus, maybe even go for a couple of cannons too as they are also assault weapons, 27 3+ poison shots + a blast pistol followed by a charge, needs to be tried as running some rough numbers on an meq squad would suggest that only one or two models would survive to swing back , leaving you un shootable in the following turn where you will finish the squad in cc and gain FNP ,  they can also put a stupendous amount of wounds on MC’s , I had plain splinter warriors with , splinter racks and Serpents venom shoot Fateweaver off the table today, pure torrent ftw ! In theory an agressive use trueborn/bodyguard unit like this could work.

CC wep and pistol – nah , Ill give it a miss thanks, more str 3 = more fail.

Shredders – Not a big fan of most things relying on the scatter dice , I find them woefully erratic, shredders are cheap and ‘can’ put alot of wounds on big huddled squads , I feel the rest of the army has anti infantry  well covered with all the poison you can build in, truborn are better used to provide something you do not have so much ready access to.

Blasters – seems more or less everyone is buying these and in most armies you will too, some folks get them with two blasters, but I have found lance weps to be so unreliable I have only been really ‘happy’ with performance when they take the full four, most of my WIP builds involve 2 units of four always in a transport of some kind. If points were tight you could try three, simply running the numbers should convince you hat more is better , without cover as a factor you need 9 lances on average to destroy a vehicle.

Splinter cannon – I like these , not sure how much they will be of use but I keep finding myself trying to sneak a couple on to my usual Blaster squad, think I’m just getting greedy for Moar poison , but its something I want to test the usefulness of , my head is saying it wont be useful most of the time but my cold dead shriveled black heart does enjoy massed poison ….

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Dark lance – Not really found myself using these thus far as I am very aggressive with my DE , current thinking is to buy just two of these to increase the long ranged lance fire available to your army, they can’t score so sitting objective is comparatively less handy than with say a unit of warriors with a lance, buying a small squad to sit with the lances opens up the opportunity to buy a transport also , I think the venom will be most popular as it can bring a load of splinter to balance the lances, will also help get them into position in DoW games , of course if you need yet more AT in the army plump for a Raider.

Dracon – does very little for the squad really, no LD boost and gains an attack , as they will mostly be used in a dakka role he’s going to spend alot of time twiddling his thumbs.

He does have a ream of options that will help if you decide to experiment with dakkassault  Tborns, 5 points for the extra attack is ok , cheapest upgrade to sgt in the book.
he can have ghostplate , which I think is overpriced and unnecessary. Again the phantasm launcher is a cool upgrade but 20 points is pretty hefty , if going the dakkassault route plain assault grenades will do for half the price, if you are getting assaulted “your doing it wrong”. He can have a blast pistol, again 15 points for a gun that will get fired maybe twice a game seems pointless, AT can be handled by others.

Lastly we have the CC options , best overall is possibly the venom blade , it allows the unit to further threaten Mc’s and can kill a suprising amount of marines etc through reliable wounding . Second up is a power weapon – not bad and 10 points is ok , just think of it as rending on a 5+ that gets better once you have furious charge ……. lastly the agoniser, 20 points ….. 20 points , sorry I just cant get over it costing as much as a power fist while essentially being a str 4 power wep . I have yet to be able to bring  myself to pay for these on anything in the book , they simply cost too much, its not like MC’s are ever going to be a problem for DE. I would bring it at that cost IF it did something to vehicles.

Transport

They have access to both transports and I tend to base my choice on how big the squad is and weather I need more AT or more poison. I like both and they are of comparative points, mostly I have been taking 4 blasters in a venom, however the list I am currently trying has them in a Raider as I needed more AT and had plenty of poison and torrent elsewhere in the list, this applies to any DE list you may run and gives you an easy way to tweak the level of anti infantry or AT.

Overall a very solid Elites choice , a fairly certain staple of most lists which allow you to tailor the type of firepower in your army like no other unit. Mostly being bought for massed blaster access, true most of the time you simply need the blasters that much , However I am keen to discover if they have more than one string to their bow.

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First real post of 2011 !

Ok These guys have been contentious even from before the book came out.

People seem fairly divided by these consisting of the “My god what suck is this ? ” and the “They are ok and can be made to work” camps.

Im right there in camp number one, I really think they blow, they annoy me with their sheer crapness, the rules are so godawful that GW has insured irrespective of how tasty the models may or may not be I shall not be owning/painting any time soon.

Best use I can think of If you have bought some, wracks ? ….

Okay so I suppose the above is a pretty sweeping statement, so I suppose i will attempt to break down the squad and justify my feelings.

Stats, cant complain too much STR4, I5 with 2 attacks fresh outta da box, 15 points is a bit heavy for a T3 model no matter how you shape it ……

The squad can have a Nightfiend for an extra 10 points , annoyingly as with the incubi there is no model for this supplied with the box, poor show really given that the older aspect warrior boxes all contain a suitable exarch model, Hopefully GW will rectify with a later blister release…… hopeful much ?

He gets an extra attack and brings LD 9,  so as I imagine they are shaping up to only be remotely useful as objective campers it will be a worthwhile investment to prevent them fleeing from shooting casualties.

Thats it for him, exciting huh

They all come with a single cc wep as standard, making their cc ability borederline underwhelming, oh yeah NO GRENADES ?!

Uh, Phil…. you sure ?

Infiltrate , uh yeah , I just dont know how useful this is on a unit forced to stay in cover to mitigate its t3 and lack of grenades, will help with setting them up somewhere they will get cover I guess , as for outflanking, dunno I don’t see it working on anyone with a brain, no meltaguns no flamers and no grenades, T3 , sounds like suicide 101 to me, suicide is acceptable if a unit is going to do something in the process (melta) I just see them being shot up and beat up by meq badly and vs geq they may get the jump on a unit or something then die horribly to counter fire , hardly a good exchange , they have to be the worst setup unit to really get any benefit from outflank in existence.

Power from pain , this is a bit of a conundrum for manderps as to get it they need to kill something , to kill something they will have to leave cover and then likely die so thats not going to work, they could use their bale blast to finish something off , oh wait,  you need that first token to get their pointless shitty gun too …… So you are pretty much forced to put a haemo with them to make them actually difficult to shift from cover with shooting a flat 3+ cover save on t3 is not that great really when you consider a basic meq is harder to kill with standard weapons, the fnp tips the balance and makes them actually hard to kill with torrent, course they are pretty shit vs meq in cc so you could just assault them. they need to be the ones charging to really do anything approaching effectual on meq (sadly the game standard), again they need their silly gun attack to really be rolling enough dice to do much , just charging a unit of tacs is only going to net you 2ish kills before they beat your t3 5++ ass into the floor, if you allow for a round of shooting from the bale Failblast your total kills for the turn will crawl upto 4-5 which should just about tip the balance so you should eventually win the close combat…. Furious charge will help but I can see actually getting it being a struggle for them.

I think maybe the intention for them is to use move through cover to charge stuff that strays too close to the terrain they will be forced to hug, weakened units are going to be par for course.

I just cant work out what the hell they are supposed to offer an army, especially given that they are another elites choice, Just look at the other stuff in elites ? are you really ever going to sacrifce that to take this tripe ? they are worse than the troops choices…..

I honestly cannot see a way they are ever going to be useful and getting them to be worthwhile is too much of a faff for competitive play,  If they were troops I would consider them for camping duties,  currently they don’t even score, I suppose contesting ? god knows what Kelly intended for them Either he ran out of ideas or this was one of the units ‘fixed’ in the re-write.

Bale Failblast- It would actually be alright if you did not have to essentially jump through burning hoops to have it , if they all got flamers as I thought they would from the description I would understand the need for the pain point , but the gun is underwhelming, ap 4 as we know is pointless 99.99 percent of the time as is pinning, they are just poor mans pink horrors , I would rather have bloody pink horrors. To have any hope of starting with some use from it you have to fork out yet more points to get a haemo, which should really be factored into their cost, so 50 points minimum for a heamo = essentially 20 point mandrakes: supping from the fail pail S

Stealth- I forgot to mention this early, yes the shadow deamon-things are exactly as stealthy as a man draped in a bit of unwashed green cloth, a + 1 cover save is nice enough and they do get a 5++ too which is better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick I suppose, as I said poor mans horrors.

As we are on the subject I’ll discuss the Derp-Crapitator  here too, he sure puts the ‘special’ into special character, best thing about him is the background fluff and the artwork, for an HQ slot and 140 points you get a t3 character with no armour save and a 5++ ……. he cannot even join a squad, has a Marbo style derp-loyment, but is so ‘special’ that he cannot assault the turn he does and unlike Marbo does not have a decent ranged attack to drop the turn he arrives either…. he does have the failblast.

Not picked for the team again

Hunter of heads – An ability that lets him get pref enemy vs one enemy IC, how he is supposed to get there let alone actually kill them when he gets there is beyond me , he also has NO fething grenades either.

He would be fine just the way he is if you was an upgrade for a mandrake unit and maybe made the scoring, I would ‘consider’ using him then, as he is currently he is a hot contender for worst character in 40k

Other than the usual manderp stuff he has a powersword that does ID on a roll to wound of a 6+ woopity doo ….. I rolled a bunch of test dice, against chars without an invun (they even exist ?) he can have a tough time vs them, let alone someone with a decent save,  Furious charge makes him hit harder on the charge, but again , getting a second pain point and somehow getting into cc with his chosen target who hopefully has no invun seems incredibly hopeful….

Big steaming pile of Self-Edit.

As much as overall the books internal balance is about right I just don’t know what went wrong here, yet more things that make me question GW’s design process,or lack thereof … Do wonder if they got the now infamous late stage ‘edit’ Xeno nerfbat.

Mandrakes: The Ginger stepchild of the DE

Colour by MajesticChicken

Well Guessing this here will likely be my final post before Crimble, so wishing you all a good one ;o)

So, Wracks, seems they are everyones favorite atm. Considering it has more or less been playing a Kabal list for 13 years and the first wave of stuff is essentially more of the same I think people, myself included are looking at Coven lists as something a bit different. A Coven list is definitely going to feel and function differently from just about anything, which is going to appeal to lots of us and they really do look like a bucket of fun sick.

Wracks are the workhorse of a coven list and will be useful in most lists you care to build, they are in the Elites section but they are a troop for any list containing at least one haemo, given the popularity of haemo’s  I expect to see a fair few wracks cropping up around.

So for ten points what do we get?

Well the stat line is nice essentially being a DE with T4 yup, a DE troop with T4, the payoff being lower pathetic armour.

basic equipment iiis, 2 poisoned weps (4+) which is actually pretty good, given once they get FC they will be re-rolling to -wound against T4 with 3 attacks on the charge.

On the subject of FC, wracks come with FnP out of the gate thanks to having an “altered physique” which means when you give them a haemo babysitter  they have FC too, having T4 and a 4+ save makes them pretty damn tough for a space elf, stick to cover and they can be a bugger to shift, the higher base T means they get more ‘value’ from fnp too, `its all good.

Options:

The squad can take a liquifier gun for every full 5 models, so any characters will stop you having two in the squad, luckily a Haemo can bring his own, as I think you will always want at least two of these.

Templates for DE is freaking amazing, having a tough assault troop that can pack them is also amazing, what’s even more amazing(er) is that Liqui guns are a horrible threat to anything that relies on armor to stay alive, with a 50% chance to be AP3 or better MEQ players will be feeling the pain quite literally.

Two flamers with a 33% chance of ignoring Termy armour and/or FNP in a squad of troops ?!

OMFGYES !

One thing they do NOT have, is assault grenades, so bear that in mind, I suppose the theory being that the liquis can soften up your target enough for any attacks they get first to be less of a problem.

Acothyst – This is the sgt upgrade comes with extra attacks and LD 9 , the biggie here is the Ld 9 as its even higher than a haemo’s, lets just say he is proving a popular upgrade for the LD alone.

He also has access to an expanded equipment list , Im mostly going to only cover the ones I feel are worth taking.

Venom blade, cheap, good, reliable, increases threat to MC’s and helps the unit kill more of anything through weight of saves required.

Scissorhand- a little on the expensive side when you consider he has 2 cc weps and 4+ poison anyway , however he will go to 5 attacks on the charge with poison 3+ with these, so a definite improvement, with FC they will statistically wound more often than a vblade too.

Flesh gauntlet – one failed save and anything without EW is D E A D, gotta love it, still its pricey Unless it behaves spectacularly well in playtesting its likely going to be left behind for the cheap and efficient Vblade, though its going to prove scary vs any multi wound model without EW and a save no better than 3+, don’t forget with FC you will re-roll to-wound with this on T4 targets.

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Agoniser- I dont actually think this is a no brainer choice in a wrack unit, they have no problem with tough targets and 20 points is just too much for three power weapon attacks, though on second thoughts, FNP is out there…… I genuinely dislike Agonisers in this book, they are overpriced, horribly so, especially with the loss of glancing ability, ‘maybe’ its worth 20 points on a model with 6-7 attacks on the charge that hit on threes but not on a model that gets 4 attacks and hits on 4′s on the charge, but most of the time its a str 4 power wep …. unless you are rolling in points or consistently running into trouble with FNP… I would tend to take the Vblade or scissorhands every time. I hope to expand on this in the eventual retro of the unit in a year or two’s time.

They can also take a transport, I have seen a few suggested/popular configs floating about: I have yet to do more than basic playtesting so Ill be trying out various builds and will eventually edit this to show my findings.

5 wracks with Acothyst (ld9) in a venom- for sitting on and snatching objectives, you can even just drop the wracks off on the home objective and leave them there and GTG when / if they get shot at, frees up the venom and creates more targets for your opponent.

Max squads on foot as screens/bubble wrap.

Full raider squad with a haemo + Acothyst for assaults and objective capturing, or just flying around like an obscene parody of a banewolf slapping the 2 liqui templates down and making goo of things. ( you can even get higher concentrations of liqui guns by putting more haemo’s in the unit.

So in summary much like with the rest of the book another solid choice with several uses, that will fit in multiple lists, not to mention the great fluff and artwork. I expect to see quite a few in coming years . Given the effort so far minis wise, I for one am looking forward to playing with my my eventual Coven themed list.

Hope you all get loads of plastic crack for crimble.

Humbug ;o)

Colour by MajesticChicken

Hello again folks, bit late with the DE review this week as I have been on a bit of a cooldown as I did a bunch of articles in a short space of time this past seven days, including compiling the photo’s for my upcoming Spacewolves Showcase on Mindofthedeamon, and  I also did a feature article for Hop on Monday about paint scheme / palette selection and implementation.

Grave lotus YOU forgot my birthday!- Now they are angry @ str 4 they can also glance down vehicles as well as actually wound t4 FC wyches have str5 with this ;o) maybe not time to break out the special dice and elastic tape measure… some chocolate perhaps ?

Razorflails – costs ten points – get re rolls to hit and wound – not  really sold as it clashes with some of the drug results not really worth a whole wych Imo.

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Lelith, There’s a new kid in town… “Show’s over, Motherfethers”