Seeing Staleks post about DE being a bit fail got me to thinking, and The ‘all comers’ IG list he posted was going to smash any DE army you can think of into the floor , yes it was kinda tailored to kill DE but that’s the problem, you have to tailor DE to face mech anyway in 5th so you can’t really turn it up a great deal vs guard, you’ll loose the shoot out badly anyway, when a dark lance has a worse chance to do anything to a chimera who’s PAIR of guns = bad news for paper planes it’s all going to go downhill, you can’t outrange them(anyone really), you are unlikely to open enough tins and you really need to in order to 1. Save more of your tanks and 2.) to give all of your effective anti infantry something to do/assault, against most mech armies a lot of my DE stuff sits around twiddling it’s thumbs waiting to explode. The ever popular Venom may as well be armed with nerfguns if your opponent is fully meched.
My current theory is that the ONLY major thing that needs changing in the DE book is the effectiveness of lance fire, making them AP1 or some sort of similar level boost. I don’t think its anywhere near broken as DE in their entirety have to cope with people getting ap1 and +1 or 2 on the table every single time they are shot at, they have lower armour, fragile contents and a higher pricetag too. They should hit at LEAST the equivalent of as hard as they are being hit if not arguably harder.
Voidlances/mine not being AP1 Or just suitably evil is a fluff /rules crossover fail of loltacular proportions, ooh a 140-200 point av 11 vehicle with two lascannons…wow , can I have a Vendetta please until DE tech catches up….. seriously?
5th Ed has bought us the wonderous ‘joys’ of Hydra’s and Psyflemen …. Psycannons got a boost for mech edition (no love for the DL ?), a boost that makes DE even sadder (shredded exploding hover coffins all round)…. He’s right, Flyer rules are going to have to be a bit special in 6th.(and the rest)
My Ravagers are very consistent in their ability to do nothing of interest to my opponents then promptly explode, seriously, these things need to be more consistent, they hardly class as heavy support , multimelta landspeeders consistently outperform them. I have no confidence in their ability to even suppress stuff , though I have cover etc, a glass hammer actually needs some hammer to survive, that’s how it works right ?
I posit that DE are not great as a hammer at all in 5th, you bounce you die, and bounce they do, I would say it’s bad design ,but I still have faith in PK, I really hope sixth will help,
Our club is fairly ‘normal’ I guess currently the sheer amount of hulls going around at the moment is madness, its like Kursk on drugs, futuristic ones….
Diet humor break to detract from upcoming emo strop moment
If Matt ward were a chocolate bar….
Let me just say that if 6th even vaguely nerfs DE Im out, I’ll flog this army and merrily toddle off to Infinty and never come back, a balanced game with fair factions with distinct character that does not box you into spamming/min maxing/only playing imperials a given faction is not only possible, it exists, and I have played it.
I won my game on Monday vs mech-ish marines I felt like I essentially spent two hours failing my opponent to death, if we had not been laughing at each other on and off neither of us would have enjoyed the game at all, which begs the question, do I enjoy 40k as it is now ? do you ? do any of us Really enjoy more than the occasional game and is the game usually a good one because your opponent was a scream ?
I run at least 20 glance weapons in my lists, they hoover quite a chunk of points really, statistically in theory that’s enough to kill 2 vehicles a turn (throw in cover and it’s essentially useless) at best, often it takes 2-3 turns for me to get any actual kills, sure suppression can just about make the game bearable but against GK whom I am apparently to face in 50% of tourney match-ups it seems ? yeah, I can go fiddle and so can my Incubi ….
Conversely I always try and run Reavers but again their nerf meltas are less reliable as you are far more reliant on an average or better roll, the difference is noticeable…
Lets just look at the glance for a second, 36 inch range str 8 AP 2 and ‘lance’ so it’s close to a missile launcher while being priced as a lascannon, the AP2 is only really a circumstantial benefit as it really only applies to 2+ save stuff the str8 blasts FNP anyway and most 2+ guys have a 3++ now…. I feel the lance rule is rather pointless all things considered especially when the current habit is to spam as much av 10-12 as humanly possible, you are paying nigh on double the points for a shorter ranged non fragging ML 90% of the time.
I’d rather just be str9 all the time, it really should have been priced closer to an ML , longfags work in SW as wolves have ready melta access and the ability to smash tanks in CC, DE have neither (and to balance this out lances are good ?), I think if wolves were reduced to Just fags for all their AT they would be a far less popular unit.
If you are not going to give an army any high str weps or broad access to reliable melta you best make sure it’s only semi decent ranged AT gun can actually cut the mustard, I seriously hope this was just PK ‘future proofing’ the DE book as if lances do get a fix/boost with sixth like the one I saw rumored the army will gain some much needed additional AT teeth. I still think AP1 darklight is the best solution and justifies their cost/availability at present.
It’s a subtle? but fundamental flaw in a mostly brilliant set of rules, the other flaws are not fundamentally damaging, just really annoying and will be the subject of a future rant.
Phil, on the off chance you follow my tiny slice of the internet I would love the opportunity to discuss the codex with you, I like your work and am a stolid PK/Jes Goodwin cheerleader, I just want an objective chat and an insight into some of the design decisions, I understand as a player its hard to be objective so I would welcome any bone you are willing to throw me/us. It’s long past time GW had more of an open relationship with the community at large.
So coffee/Beer is on me at ToS if you are game?
Excellent rant and well said, ‘Shard.
I’ve been saying pretty much the same thing since the DE Codex dropped.
It’s just…underwhelming when compared to it’s 5th Edition Imperial counterparts, power-wise.
I kinda had a feeling it would be that way when it wasn’t welcomed by the sound of Imperial players wailing about stuffs being ‘broken.’
GW probably woulda nerfed the crap outta it if Imperial players complained, just like they did to the Doom of Malant’tai in the ‘Nid book.
The Tyranid Codex was a retroactive abortion, the DE Codex was ‘fun and well written.’
Good lookin’ out, GW.
Do I enjoy 40k the way it is now?
No.
That’s why I’m not really playing the game, I’m playing ‘watch and see.’
6th edition better be good, or I’m out.
But then maybe we can blog about actual GOOD games, eh buddy?
😀
I had some trouble with lances from the get-go, I remember being mad early on that often it was taking 17-22 lance shots to render something neutral (note I don’t necessarily mean wrecked/exploded) those are actual numbers from actual games.
I have to hear a single person at my club say DE are broken and you are right even the usual post-release knee-jerking was strangely absent, I did notice GW came along with a WD article by PK some time after release that was obviously there to help some people that were new to ‘finesse armies’ pick up the ball and have a chance of running with it.
I said a while ago the DE book looked like it was either for another edition or had possibly received some late-stage low key nerfs to keep a certain demographic happy .
They did not have to worry about that with GK, as they know marine players will just counts-as or buy a new army .
I’ll be blogging Infinity soon enough a combined theme blog , woot!
I just find it funny how much bashing there is on the DE Codex and it needing a fix.. I play dark eldar and other than the need to have a decent alpha strike, I haven’t had too much problems with the so called “Stelek Gayness” Lists.. Granted I think stelek himself is an idiot 9 out of 10 times.
If It’s so underwhelming, Why has it been winning if not placing in the top 5% of all the major tournaments since it’s release?
Dark Eldar have so many good options, and needless to say none of them are bad. Yes, Even mandrakes have some uses, Keeping that blood angels player from scouting his baal’s up in your grill for example.
Umm, my article suggests one single fix as the book is largely good ?
and a little bashing is due I’m afraid, I have waited an entire year of constant play before making this, it’s not just a hair trigger knee-jerk reaction it has been a noticeable constant every single game.
I’m a very experienced 40k player, I primarily play finesse armies in all the systems I have ever played and I feel comfortable pointing out a flaw in the book based on that experience.
I can, have and am able to beat IG guard lists similar to that, it’s hard hard work and it will be unless your opponents are clowns.
And DE have not been placing that well really, you could argue that only better players have really stuck with them, arguably those better players might be in the top 1-2% if using a different army.
Im not saying DE are bad, they are not , but it’s impossible to argue they are not weak VS AT
Easiest look at the problem.
Darklance vs Psycanon
Ravager vs PsyfulmanDread
Wyches vs Death Cult Assasins
Anything vs anything with grenades and/or glaives
Dark eldar are overcosted compared to IG, wolves, and Especially Grey knights (BA not so much)
its not that its a bad book, but it is overcosted compared to other 5th codcies (even if it was costed at the same level as 3 books i mentioned you can still kill them with a stiff wind) and i hope it was meant for 6th more so than 5th. We shall see.
As beautiful as the models are, at this point I would rather play my 3rd edition lance spam army
The real problem with DE is that it isn’t “EASY”. It’s a finesse army with a serious need for someone who thinks a lot further than 24″ in advance. There’s nothing that you can do about the codex to fix the problem that it is designed for someone other than a newbie or GW/IG cheesehead.
Loq- I am mr finesse army, thats all I play or have ever played pretty much, Im successful with them, I win all but a handful of games with my DE , despite spending every game struggling with armour of any kind, they are good enough casually, but right at the top against 5th mech spam -not convinced tbh, too reliant on luck/strings of 5’s and 6’s Kris talks about the skill/easy army thing below about as well as I could ever explain it
The problem is that lances are expensive and rather terrible unless you roll well.
You can complain about Stelek all you like but no DE list would have a good game against the latest IG list he posted.
If you think you can beat his list Turtle by all means join the discussion on YTTH and post up your list and tactics, at the moment no one has come up with anything.
Its extremely easy to claim you have no issues, but in many areas the kind of competitive lists that are the most dangerous thing a codex can throw out just aren’t seen for several reasons, they are boring, they are spamming, and they are damn expensive.
Ask most marine players what a lance is and they’ll tell you its an uber anti tank weapon of doom thats mere presence on the battlefield means they will lose the game.
Ask them about missile launchers, and they are just a terrible weapon that gets taken because nothing else is better (or because they are cheap).
Connect the dots about how spammable missiles and real melta are (cheap/accessible, no trade offs), and how dark lance are basically on par with missiles (except cost, availability and major tradeoffs) and most marine players start frothing at the mouth or saying how those all so common Lraiders get destroyed so badly by lances.
The only way the codex will be truly 6th edition ready will be if tanks practically disappear and suddenly SC’s are the best weapon in the game. I mean our vehicles can’t get any easier to kill, so we have nothing to lose on that front.
The problem with claiming a codex needs a skilled player to work is that it means a really skilled player can kill a noob with an ezimode army, while generally a really skilled versus really skilled player using a super easy and a super hard army end up with the same results as two noobs with those armies.
One army relies on everything perfectly done, the other has inbuilt redundancy and survivability, etc.
On the bright side DE look amazing, while marine models are generally remarkably uncreative and boring.
All I can do is applaud a great response, If we ever catch up first one is on me ;o)
Well, as usual, a very interesting read as i can understand the problems against IG.
As i have never heard of Stelek befor i looked him up and had a fun reading his article, especially the part where he explains why the New Dark Eldar Codex is a nerf compared to the old one XD
That was the point where i knew, he doen’t get the hit and run style of the DE. But that may just be me underestimating my enemy and thats the first step to failure. Still his list is a pretty tuff nut, i guess i’d go against it with bodycount(beast units, wyches, hellions and fighters) Take out the tanks in CC, as his weakest part is mass infantry. His list is great against, MSU and elite Infantry, but will have a problem against armys, that are heavy model count and each can kill his tanks in CC.
ANYWHO XD
concerning the spoken of (g)lance problem. I just think the net just focuses too much on the regular DL weapons. Yes they are not SUPER DUPER AWESOME TANK KILLER POPPERS 😉
They are a good AT weapon, mounted on a fast vehicle.
The only problem we have is the many 10-12amoured tanks. Buts thats everyones problem. But we have Jump infantry with S4, beast with S4 or rending, Meat Balls of Frenzy with S5/6, quick MEQ equivalents in fast open topped transports, clowns with rending and fusion pistols, strippers with dank popping super grenades.
And all these units have in common, they can be in a big model count, and cant be taken out in one “lucky” shot. thats the problem of most DE Lists, that they tend to be MSU and there effectiveness can be robbed by a lucky bolt pistol.
but thats just a result of all the other OMG Net lists.
So i really think, that if you do not concentrate your AT in too little units, that you’ll be better of, as your effectiveness can not be robbed so quickly.
Think different would be advised 😉
I always run a big unit of wyches, my armies try to include reavers also and a baseline of 20 DL weapons spread throughout the army. I think every single unit in my current list in theory can threaten vehicles in some way.
Other than wyches DE cc is NOT reliable vs tanks minimum 6’s sometimes 4-6’s followed by 6’s at best it classes as yet more supression.
Poblem with your high body count theory is DE are fragile and are often only really effective (especially in the contect of trying to glance to death vehicles in cc) when the numbers stay high , it takes marginal effort ot put a few casulties on them and gimp their effectiveness.
No, DL’s are not even a ‘good’ At weapon, run the numbers, they are a ‘good’ supression weapon but for delivering lasting damage they are quite poor.
Hay im sure your aware that i disagree with you already on how bad DE are i think there amazing all the evidence says they are a top level army that seem to do better than IG in most UK based events.
At the ETC the player with the most gaming points was a DE player and thats arguably the hardest event in the world based on the level of gamers there. At the recent Northern Warlords GT (a very competative event) the only DE player there came 2nd only to GK army played by Josh Roberts who is the UK’s best player by far, so no shame in that and have won a fair few large ranking events.
With the decreasing popularity of IG, DE now only need worry about MSU GK’s which are not the most common style of GK’s in tourneys and infact MSU on the whole is decreasing playing into DE hands.
For me your the victim of 4 problems, 1st) your own meta is geared and used to your own personnel style of play which makes it hard to stay one step ahead. 2nd) your faith in what the internet says, over actual experience when evidence shows the internet is wrong or based on a US based meta system not the UK one where your based 3rd) Lack of self belife, your a good gamer but need to learn to win with dice fail (which i have seen 1st hand), the best players dont win big events regulary by having perfect dice all the time, they will have horrid turns of dice but see though it and still win. and finaly 4th) This is no offence to your club but your practice circle is weak you will get better as you play better people and see the bigger picture, which will come with time.
I love 5th ed as i mentioned to you last night i played with my Achillies Land Raider with its im immune to lance armour got cocky and then due to glancing hits from dark lances got immobilised then charged by haywire wyches and killed on turn one, This for me was a massive learning experience that helps keep me in the game and proved to me no matter how bad a match up a game is one mistake can cost you.
Firstly I have to point out I did not say DE were bad, the rant is about DL after all and I think DL’s are not great in the context of the whole army, as I pointed out STR8 spam is considered good in other armies.
I believe at the ETC you can choose match ups ? just put the de player vs certain lists and he will beat face, its a great scissors army.
And if DE are so great why aint Josh Roberts running them, I’m guessing his leet status is at least in part to bandwagoning to dex de jour,
De are a great army against anything but mechspam, helping them vs mechspam wont make them any better vs the armies they are already good against.
My peice is mostly based on personal experience, I just said that staleks piece made me think a bit, lances have been bothering me for ages (as you know) problem is to win games of 5th you need to open tanks , with lances dicefail means no opening of tanks therefore playing through the dicefail only goes so far … Surely playing a broader range of ‘better’ opponents will only highlight the lance issue further ?
The thing with the Achilles ‘could’ happen (ok so it did) but shooting lances at an Achilles ? thats just desperation paying off , I’m guessing had you not made a boob it would have been fine, lances can’t immob one anyway , even a six = only a 3 on the chart vs an achilles, unless you are saying he managed four 6’s to penetrate followed by four more six’s to get enough wep destroyeds to immob it ? auto hitting wyches would need a fair old number of 5’s and sixes too ……
It will be interesting to see the uk meta out in force at ToS, I’ll also be talking to as many DE players as I can get to.
I prob go on a bit of a tangent and accept that.
As to your ability to pick your opponents at the ETC that is true to a point but everyone one else has the same chance of doing it and a DE player won out overall (note he was on the scottish team who had no real pre planned thought into army selection and also winner of the UK GT last year so is an amazing player) and over IG and GKs that every team there took and as much chance for better match ups they didnt perform as well as a DE player.
Yes lances are kinda sucky in some ways ive played with missile lauchers enough to know how Str 8 works but most DE players seem to make them work and well.
As to why Josh dosnt run them i dont know maybe because his brother does them and they dont share armies as far as im aware and he was also still riding the IG wave at the time when DE came out.
As for the Achilles your basing your facts on the trial rules that nearly a year out of date now, it’s a minus 1 to pens only so glancing the hell out of it is more than possible now.
I think time and experience will show you that DE are a good army but unfortunately for now that don’t count for nothing.
Figured I’d throw in as a person who didn’t really like the DE dex as a competitive dex when it released and still doesn’t. 🙂 So, that’s my bias on the topic leading in to this.
Few things I wanted to throw in on this as I’m glad it has been posted. As for killing armor 10/11 vehicles, the notion here is indeed, spot on. However, the comparison to Missiles I think, especially the likes of Long Fangs, actually weakens the argument. I don’t want to get side tracked on this thought though because I think the overall notion about the Dark Lance in 5th is correct so I’ll keep this part brief. Just food for thought.
– One main strategy to beat Long Fangs, like with BA for example, is to run all 13 armor vehicles or Land Raiders. It’s exactly because of DE that this kind of army doesn’t show up in tournaments right now.
– It’s exactly because of Dark Eldar that Deathwing armies aren’t more prevalent as well. A competitive DE army should have 20 + lances in it along with a truck load of poison shooting. Terminators do not care about 15-20 missile shots. They do care about 20+ AP 2 ranged shots.
– People would absolutely love to run more Land Raiders right now competitively to offset missile spam and Grey Knights lack of easy access melta, but they can’t because of Dark Eldar.
My point is, the Lance weapon is a game changer, especially on the tournament scene. So, to me, the comparison to Missiles and saying that Lance weapons should be brought more in line, points wise, is a bit much given that a Missile has almost no prayer of taking out a Land Raider or even a Predator.
So, that’s said. And I’d be more than happy to debate the merits of Lance vs. Missile, but that’s not the point of this article. The point is, Lances aren’t when forced to fire at a plethora of AV10-12 vehicles, which is fairly true. However, neither are the capabilities of most armies, including Guard.
However, taking a Razor Spam Wolf List, they aren’t exactly afraid of that Guard list, but DE are? It’s not because of the Lances in my opinion, it’s because of the lack of resiliency behind that long range shooting. A chimera firing BS 3 S 6 weaponry ins’t much of a threat unless you are AV 10 Open Topped. And if half the anti-tank in your list is relegated to those vehicles, it’s bad.
In my opinion, what they should have done is allowed the bog standard troop choice a much cheaper access to Lances. Like in the last dex with a 5 man + Lance. This would have helped keep the cost down and made the long range anti-tank more resilient.
Either way, Deldar have to compensate with a huge alpha strike and lance/blasters en masse, something like Dash of Pepper’s Venom List which basically dumps 25+ S8 weapons on you in a turn.
It’s not ideal because as you stated, even with 25 S8 weapons, your return on investment isn’t that high, especially when they shoot back. This point is definitely valid, but again, I started the conversation off with saying I’ve never liked DE for a competitive dex to begin with. 🙂
honestly most of the time a DL is used in a game of 5th edition 40k it functions like a short ranged ML (I too am happy to debate this), termies caould care less these days 3++ kinda sorts that out, 20 lances will only kill 2.9 termies per turn ? thats not going to make the same dent all those cyclones will in return ? fortunately DE can run away and make them take lots and lots of saves, which does seem to work.
Your lack of resiliency point in fact illustrates my arguement nicely, the lack of resiliency is a DE character thing , I LIKE my paper planes, what would make them actually good though is that lances actually working better would mean the fragility was less of an issue ? does that make sense ? so its back to needs more hammer ?
that huge alpha strike just does not work reliably. You can put 30+ lances in a 1750 list, lances just dont’ work well enough to justify the huge investment it requires, thats only 3 dead vehicles , 1.5 with cover saves a factor, which it is.
I think Ultimately were we to have this conversation in person you and I would find we mostly agree and can at least appreciate the others points ?
I think you are right. Quibbling about the merits of Lance vs. Missile shouldn’t detract from your overall point which is that Lances simply don’t “cut it” for a competitive DE list, reliably (which is key here). We definitely agree on that!
in the end, in a less verbose way, all I really wanted to do was add to it that the reason why 25+ Lances doesn’t work is because the Deldar can’t SUSTAIN that rate of fire because they die. 🙂 Take a Loganwing Missile Spam list for example, firing 25+ missiles a turn. It’s the same amount of anti-tank, but the Loganwing will sustain that rate of fire over several turns which is what you need for that level of fire to reliably (key word again) de-mech a truly mechanized opponent (12ish+ vehicles).
Hell, in most DE lists, in one turn all 3 ravagers can usually be taken out which in most lists reduces the amount of Lances in the army by anywhere between 33%-50% of your anti-tank fire.
So, in that regard, I guess the point I was going for is that it’s not that the Lance needs to be cheaper is that the basic DE unit needs to be cheaper. 😛 Either way, a Raider shouldn’t be 60 points, for example. (Not that it matters one way or another since you get one without the other)
See I knew we agreed ;o)
you say a Raider should be cheaper I say better gun then 60points would be fair, we both agree on the problem and only differ in our solution.
The other problem with the lance spam is your openiing first turn shooting is unlikely to be much more than 12 lances
, theres no guarantee you can get the shorter ranged blasters in range the first turn, 12 lances sounds better than it is, you will always get shot back no matter how good/lucky you are, things will die , this is fine except you have an uphill struggle to silence their AT while they need to expend markedly less effort to start making game changing holes in yours, as you say ditching three Ravagers is quite doable in one turn , cover or nowt
I think this is basically where Dash of Pepper shows how to use that build properly. He’ll move up 12 with all vehicles, disembark out the front, and dump blaster shots @ 18 inches along with everything else in one turn. His hope then at that point is to shake/stun/destroy as much of your parking lot as possible to reduce return fire enough to do it again and again. Meantime, what troops got forcibly bailed out eat the Venom shots.
So, a 12 inch move + 2 inch disembark + 18 in blaster = 32 inch range, which is generally “enough” if you plow right up the middle, which is exactly what he does.
This is part of his “doesn’t lose to Space Wolves” because against Wolves, the 25 lance shots will generally shake/stun/destroy Razor Spam + 9 venoms wrecking all the Long Fangs means you have a very nasty first turn alpha strike.
Against a 12 front armor list and/or GK’s with Shrouding + Fortitude… not so much. 😛
Yup, fortitude pretty much knocks that plan of attack on the head.
Also keep in mind that the lance versus missile argument takes something else into account – marines of all varieties have melta guns available in practically every slot, and whether its a combi melta or several, or real melta guns if you can get close to a vehicle you’ll be able to take it out even if your missiles haven’t. (excluding extreme bad luck). Then alot of marine players also include fists, as a backup… that is some major flexibility built in right there.
Couple melta shooting with not shooting your bolters, and you can then charge – with a statline that is pretty good for the points paid.
Also as far as I know the Achilles is FW rules, so not really relevant to the argument imo. The real reason no one runs LR’s of any variant is that melta is the primary weapon upgrade for most squads where possible, and both marines and guard can pack it in. This means your probably toast if someone gets within 6″….
250 points for a transport that can still be one shot, versus 5 vehicles that definately can’t. Its the entire concept behind mech and spam. (Playing GK pre new codex it wasn’t railguns and lances that scared me it was certainly melta).
You get more targets for your opponent to focus on, and you can split your shooting more effectively.
Its the same concept that makes Dev squads so good… you can’t knock them out with a lucky missile, unlike the Ravager.
DE and CWE aren’t nearly popular enough to stop people taking LR’s, and railguns are MORE effective against them anyway.
You can argue that lances aren’t overpriced but DE in general are, but what’s the point… the codex puts dark light weapons on a pedestal they don’t belong on, and as a result you have a situation where you can’t even get 2 blasters in a 10 man warrior squad, or two lances, or any kind of intelligent match up of weapons.
I mean making lances assault weapons would have been a major improvement so you effectively had much stronger firepower at mid range by coupling a blaster and darklance. Plus playing into the whole DE mobility thing, and making moving transports useful.
Add the premium price on lances, and realistically spamming them is hardly viable since you make huge tradeoffs elsewhere….
To me scourges weapon upgrade prices are right on the mark and should have been applied army wide.
Plus as noted GK the new marine bandwagon army has fortitude, and I can say from playing my GK before being overwhelmed by boredom that your opponents will be ****ing bricks when they realise they can’t just disable your vehicles and ignore them. Quite hilarious when you play GK actually, not so much versus them.
The comment on Dash of Peppers list has also been that if it works it works well, if it fails then you have probably lost the game… sometimes that is how you have to roll due to limitations but its not exactly a super competitive build when those 25 S8 shots might kill a vehicle or two.
As has been stated heavy mech spam is just a nightmare for DE because lances don’t have rate of fire, nor reliability.
TLAutC’s, PsyC, Assault Cannons, even Shuriken Cannons and Scatter lasers are popular for a reason.
If we saw a huge resurgence of heavier tanks (since they are more commonly fairly priced), or an army that really makes light mech spam easier to handle and changed the meta then this issue will probably become less of a concern.
In the words of Fritz (I think) make your opponent roll lots of dice and bad things happen. (for them)
Had Splinter Cannons been S6 we would not be having this conversation because they would have covered light anti tank duties and freed up darklight for tougher targets.
But I keep saying they are a good army, does not mean they cannot be flawed ? Dl’s are as I said the ONLY thing that imo, ‘needs’ the fix, the rest are ultimately niggles.
Ihad honestly not realised they had toned down the achiles slightly…
I think you are overemphasizing the fact that DL are bad, which is true because they are the only anti tank option we really got at Range, Heat Lances are just obnoxious badly designed. But I disagree entirely about your overall emphasis in the DE are dead in the water with Mech armies, I consistently play DE with only 8 Blasters and 9 Dark Lances and beat Mech Guard just about as often as any other list would. I know my inability to pop vehicles at range is a factor if I am attempting to blow them up in mass but I rather blow up 1 vehicle in a turn and blow off the entirety of the unit inside the vehicle in the same turn than blowing up vehicles in mass. I do agree taht against Psyfleman its a bit more obnoxious but thats why there is all these things in the book you can do to minimize that pain which I feel might make you feel like the choices might not the most awesome Dark Eldar gameplay but they work. I have only ever lost to 1 GK player thus far but I am still waiting for my match up versus a Coteaz Mech List Spam to come to see if the internet doomsayers are right. More often than not Mech Guard have a hard time playing against DE more than DE have against mech Guard in my experience. But then again I also think that Dark Eldar is the best 5th Edition Codex.
Mikhail, thanks for piping up, I think you are mis-reading me, I have not said DE are dead in the water VS mech, just weak , too weak , its simple maths.
Yes they ‘can’ work but often they don’t I have zero faith in them doing the job required, my current list has 10Dl’s 10 blasters 2 Hheat lances(could go to 4) and 10 haywire bitches, and still its a struggle , It took me three turns vs mech orks to kill a single vehicle, and technically dark lances are getting value vs battlewagons , reduced to av 12 and I get +1 for open topped and his other vehicles are av10 open topped, I’m not sure it gets any better than that for DE ?
proper mech guard wil laugh off a single vehicle/unit a turn , you will hardly make a dent, you have to focus fire to kill a single tank yet a single chimera has a good chance of messing up one of your tanks, if you feel you can beat something like the list Stalek put up with a handful of darklight, good for you.
In terms of the whole package I agree DE is the best book so far. like I said before in many ways it makes the errors harder to bear, lances are not good, merely barely adequate and I beat mech guard too , does not mean lances are any better for it
What all the Dark Lances are so great against is AV13 spam. Land Raiders are too costly to run just to offset ML or Psyfleman spam. AV13 is cheap as soap for Marines. Dark Lances also kill Draigowing stone dead. So yeah, it is a game changer. Too bad Dark Eldar don’t like it but I’m pretty sure that if we had less Dark Eldar armies around we would have a lot more AV13 spamming Blood Angels around. Fast AV13 makes Grey Knights very sad boys.
I think Paul from Team Scotland was the most successful player at the ETC this year.
scroll down for his list.
http://warhammer.org.uk/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=89298
And his results:
Oponent Team Oponent Army Battle Points (out of 20)
Euro Merc Eldar 19
Spain Space Marines 17
Latvia Chaos Space Marines 20
Finland Chaos Space Marines 19
Denmark Tyranids 20
Russia Grey Knights 15
110
And being great against certain armies and match-ups helps little when in “normal” tournaments, you’ll normally face a bunch of IG and GK-dreads with shrouding.
Impressive results from Paul, but still I agree with the original poster here.
Dark Eldars have some really big issues with heavy mech.
Paul’s army had 12 hulls, 18 dark lances and 3 heat lances.
Comparably Tims Space Wolves had 8 hulls, 5 lascannons, 12 missile launchers, 3 typhoon missiles and 5 meltaguns. James’ Grey Knights had only 7 hulls, 4 psycannons, 1 typhoon missile launcher and 6 TL-AC. The Dark Eldar don’t seem to lose that much here.
I think the main problem isn’t the anti-tank, but what comes out of those marine thingies once you’ve opened them up.
Hmm,Nids & Chaos marines die horribly to DE, I have playeda few games vs Various CSM lists including mech nurgle and its on ezeemode even for the relitively non-spam/competitive DE list I was running at the time.
Is that old or new GK, noticably the worst result there either way
Mech eldar might be tough I don’t know without playing them tbh, I guess I could play myself…..it was my Ulthwe that put me off spam forever in the first place. if it was hybrid or footdar I’m hardly surprised he RoFlstomped them, 50% ideal match ups and no razorspam or IG in sight, hope my next tourney is as kind with the match ups….
GK shrouded vehicles are pretty much pointless for DE to shoot at , I can say that from experience..
Making DE weak vs mech if anything just further validated mech spam as viable.
Lol, oh dear, the DE in that comparison get less and worse quality shots and their vehicles are made of paper and explosives, on the plus side a wall of Venoms will make anything that does eventually drop out wish it had not .
well dark eldar should not have any problem with marines stuff that pop out of their cans. 😉 A DE List should have enough to deal with that stuff, inccubi, wyches, dissis and loads and loads of poison beauty.
Reguarding the Dark Lance is a suppression weapon.
Is a las canon a suppression weapon? it only has +1S, so also only a suppression weapon? I do really not think that the Dark Lance is a glance.
Cause you will never need an exact amount of shots to kill a tank, because all of your other shots will not have an effect on your shot at hand.
So each shot is another roll of luck.
But i know the theory of mathhammer is the best way to compare weapons against each other, so i guess its the best way to argue with.
+3hit–>5+Pen–>5+Destroy =7,4% of killing a A12 vehicle with a lance
+3hit–>4+Pen–>5+Destroy =11,1% of killing a A12 Vehicle with a Las canone
are the 4% really the difference between good and weak?
I really think that the DL fit into the package of the DE Dex. With an AP1 they would just have been too good, and I would have though the dex to be overpowered. this way, we do not have it easy against one type of army…
Oh NO XD
the las cannon penetrates av10 and 11 even better , has longer range and quite often comes twin linked…
As I said making th elance better vs heavy mech would make not one bit of difference vs the armies they already deal with well, hell it might have helped to tune down mech spam a bit, though I doubt it, even with AP1 I doubt the odds go up that much, just enough so it’s no longer bouncefail then struggle to scrape a win purely because your lances repeto fail ….
And that one type of army happens to be the most common type of army ? so it is a bit “oh no” I’m afraid, Gk mechaspam turns the problem up to 11
Well the lance in most situation comes build on a fast vehicle, i guess thats equal to the quite often of the las canon. so would a Void lance be equal to a las canon? or even better?
but if your lances just do not pen the tanks, thats just bad dice. sure is no where near a clear hit, but hitting on 3s is pretty good, and to do damage half of the time is also ok. it’s pretty average – not compared to excellent anti tank weapons, but for that we have the heat lance. it has an average of 13, so a Pen, thats pretty cool.
And in regards to the most common army, if we would also excel against big car parks, then we would be the most common army, as we would be good/great against any kind of army. so it really is a kind of balance issue, and a business issue as a tank heavy army costs more.
would you really enjoy playing an army thats good against anyone? I recently changed my army composition from shooty to funny/CC to have a bigger challenge. Not that i table any opponent easy, but its really not that much fun shooting the crap out of everything, so i welcome the challenge against my friends heavy infantry guard and as he is a real good player, that list is a tuff nut to crack. 243 bodies in 2k.
I guess i agree with you on the point, that mech spam is our weakness, but i find a fix not necessary, as an army needs weaknesses.
sláinte
I don’t really get how being on a fast vehicle helps all that much, yes side shots are slightly more acheivable, lots of things have the same armour (or at least 12) on the side, it can sometimes help with chims for sure.
Void lance is a short ranged lascannon against the vast majority of things you will find yourself shooting at, thats why they do not light me on fire, sure its fairly good on landraiders, but lanraiders were NOT the problem by any stretch of the imagination.
I don’t want DE to excel to the point of stupidity. I want a fair playing feild with this editions most common armies, I want to have a little faith that when I plan to kill something and stack the odds in my favour by making the right amount of lances + some contingency available that I have a good chance of sucess in that goal, currently I simply can’t have confidence that I will neatralise key targets in a given turn.
and maybe it is bad dice, sometimes but i must have had hundreds of games with my DE and it’s always the same, so I’m guessing overall it’s average diceand that means there IS some kinda problem.
De have several other weaknesses, lack of psy support /defence, low strength , fragile for their cost , inability to win in a straight up head to head slugfest, thats just a few, having weak AT in a mech centric edition cannot be anything other than a design flaw, simples ;o)
Irish your entire argument is summed up here:
“+3hit–>5+Pen–>5+Destroy =7,4% of killing a A12 vehicle with a lance
+3hit–>4+Pen–>5+Destroy =11,1% of killing a A12 Vehicle with a Las canone
are the 4% really the difference between good and weak?”
4% is over a 50%, yes FIFTY percent increase in chance to kill a vehicle over a DL.
You could call this 50% more effective, efficient, powerful, etc.
This also doesn’t take into account many Las being TL.
You get the picture? If your going to compare SERIOUSLY look at the figures. Its not about working out the % on a calculator, anyone can do that, its understanding what those figures mean.
Lets look at your figures, you need about 9 lascannons to destroy AV 12, you need 13.5 lances. With cover (4+) thats doubled.
Lances on fast vehicles are expensive, they aren’t twin linked, and they die much easier than other vehicles.
A Lascannon upgrade for a SM squad is what? 10 points? A missile is free (DL equiv). A DL is 25 points for a warrior squad. That is a whopping 27% tax for a single long range weapon.
In fact two weapons for a warrior squad almost adds 50% to the squad cost…. there is a reason that havocs aren’t popular, people laugh at these kinds of upgrade costs when new marine books pay 10 points a weapon.
Plus DE can’t combat squad so you can’t take advantage of different weapon types, a blast pistol is basically the same cost as a DL once you do the necessary upgrades, and has a 6″ range, not even 12…..
Plus you mention fighting a friends body heavy guard army and switching to CC – yes that is kind of the obvious choice if your into tailoring, DE will always have a huge advantage in that kind of fight.
Having to tailor an army however is lame, not competitive, and really only for casual play. Lists evolve to fight new challenges, they don’t change to defeat a single opponent.
Tank armies don’t cost more because there are under costed 35 point rhinos out there, and guard vehicles are practically a joke price wise.
I am not going to go into the massive codex analysis needed to show why not handling mech is an issue.
We all know it is what seperates the good codexes from the bad, the competitive from the semi competitive from the barely playable.
Lances are disappointing because they are all DE have (to an extent) and the design process in allowing them to be purchased on units is honestly pretty awful.
The reason melta is popular is because it adds reliability, just like massed fire that many armies rely upon. You are always going to rely on chance but the codex needs to support working around that. 4 Blasters on a trueborn squad is working around chance as much as you can. Hitting a glass ceiling for how many lances you can fit in your list that probably limits you to killing 1-2 AV 11/12 vehicles a turn in a game where competitive marine and guard armies have 10+ chasis…. in a 6 round game…….
DE anti infantry is pretty decent, its just not worth anything unless you can demech your opponent.
😛
Kris, damn that was an excellent response, though I covered all points (albeit without maths) In th OP , lol
You and I could not agree more, would you consider being a guest writer? I think you have some good things to say and you are always on the button imo.
Looking at the way you outlined the cost comparison Dl’s are extremely overpriced ….
Is a full unit of warriors with a dl and a blaster in a raider any cheaper than tac marines with melta + ML in rhino ? (don’t have dex to hand at work :oP)
I have found four blasterborn to be inadequite most of the time, by the ime you have rolled to hit, rolled to pene rolled on thetable and possibly taken a cover save …. It’s pure luck thats killing stuff, thats terribad :o( now factor the cost of them/their transport and how quickly they can go away , especially 18″ from the enemy …. they are one of our ‘best’ AT options.
I might try harlequins in place of truborn ….
I have to agree, we are thinking along the same lines!
You summed it up really well in the original post, I just thought I’d clarify a few things from what people arguing the other side have said!
The Tac squad in a 35 point rhino work out 10 points more expensive I beleive :p (vanilla codex) (/w MG/ML)
It is with a Sybarite, since the squad leader cost is included in marine squads initial cost. Its also without taking a FF/NS.
Its a rather daunting comparison really, when you consider the vast difference of what you receive for those points! (Its not all bad, but the points really add up from a DE perspective)
When you consider the cost of the trueborn the harlies are quite a reasonable choice if you can get them within 3″. Although even the death jester can play a role without gimping the squad too much.
I’d be happy to guest write, whether what I have to say is worth anything however 😛 is another story.
lol, thats terrible when you think about it, lower toughness & strength technically a worse gun in a direct firefight comparison,lets not talk about saves (or lack therof ;o) no retarded leadership breaking rules, a less flexible ml and a worse AT special wep , thinner armoured instaboom transport for the all for the low low price of ten points less *facetable*
on the plus side we get uhh, power from pain, the ‘benefits’ of open topped (largely wasted on non cc units) and an increased mobility, hmmm
yeah them fusion guns and the str 4 rending spam is starting to look quite appetising, also the idea that harlies can max out on fusion gunz and all start the game in a Tantalus is worth investigation ….
I would like some articles by others on here as I feel I should focus on hobby a little more than I have in the past, the retro/rave reviews will continue to completion but I wanted to recruit a couple of solid Guest writers I like, to contribute actual content from time-to time.
I have another chap lined up for a guest article and hopefully a cool interview in the pipe ;o)
Well my opinion is going to be instantly ignored by most people because i am a marine player and apparently all i want is all my stuff to be str 10 ap1 and all your stuff to be str 1 ap –
the lance as it stands is a decent weapon, the unfortunate problem you have is that the game has become more focused on taking out low AV targets than high AV targets.. the ability to take out AV11 en masse and be able to focus “some” of your army on taking out higher AV stuff is what drives the current “meta”.
as such the lance seems sub par because its value is for nerfing higher armour is lost against most opponents where as the missile launchers abilities lie at the lower end of the anti tank spectrum due to its versatility in being an anti horde weapon too, but as its main focus will be av12 and below it becomes “as good” as the lance.
what i think you need to consider is that it isnt a problem with the lance as such as it is with the current trends in the game.
you wanna talk suck? lets look at the las pred..
its 165 points for this tank.. which has av 13 on the front (rest of its armour is 11 or 10) and cant move if it wants to shoot anything more than 1 gun and can be disabled with 1 glance.. now personally id like to be able to hide something like this, pop out when i have a target and shoot the living piss into it.. hope to at least stop it shooting back and then get another turn of shooting at it.
instead what i have to do is hope i get 1st turn and that you are an idiot with deployment so that i can get at least 1 shot off.. ill trade you my lascannons for your paperplanes k?
the options a ravager has massively outweigh the laspred just based on movement.. and its why you take 2 whilst i take 0..
is it worrying that in terms of effectiveness the marines best “tank” is a land speeder?
thats right the best thing we can take is a fake ravager with 1 less shot and not open topped.
some days i look at the trends of the current codecies and it makes me think that theres no hope for saving the system without a drastic change to the rules that means everything gets thrown out again ala 2nd – 3rd ed (except not shit) otherwise its 3k points down the club for me until i get fed up and hang myself.
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