First, let's look at Vect's combat stats. He's WS8, BS8, I8 with 4W, 5 attacks base and comes stock with a Shadow Field. Not only that, but he has Preferred Enemy vs. everyone, re-rolls to wound vs. Eldar and Dark Eldar and have a power weapon that always wounds on a 3+. For shooting, he has a cube that shoots out a S10 AP3 Assault 1 Blast from 12" and each wound it does restores his wounds. The thing about this weapon is that for wounding purposes, the S10 is matched against the target's leadership. That means it's utterly worthless against vehicles.
What is the best thing about Vect? He gives Dark Eldar the ability to Seize the Initiative on a 4+. Just in case you roll low and your opponent thinks he's going first, Vect makes you take away your opponent's first round of shooting and passes it onto you. Not only that, but he he can take a AV13/13/13 Raider that's open-topped so he can load 9x Trueborns in there and have 4x Blasters. The Dais of Destruction also comes with 3x Dark Lances.. but it's a damn shame that it can't move 12" and fire everything like a Ravager. Oh well, it's still a pretty solid firing platform once you go flat out on turn 1 and plant it close to your opponents.
So the big question is: Is he worth it or not? He's 240 points and his ship is another 200. If you're taking him, you might as well take the ship because it's the most durable thing you have. Otherwise, you can just take him for his special rules and the fact that he's a combat monster. At 240 points, he's basically two HQs and you guys already know how hardcore I am with cost effectiveness. Personally, I like taking a combat Archon and the Duke for army wide bonuses. Realistically, you're just paying the extra points for the near-guarantee chance of going first every game. For Dark Eldar players, this in itself pays for itself.
What do you guys think? I know if I was to take him, I would take something like this:
1756
HQ:
Asdubal Vect = 240
TROOP:
9x Warriors (Raider NS/SR, Blaster) = 176
10x Warriors (Raider NS, Blaster, Splinter Cannon) = 185
10x Wyches (Raider AS, Hekatrix/Agnoizer, HG) = 205
10x Wyches (Raider AS, Hekatrix/Agnoizer, HG) = 205
ELITE:
10x Trueborn (Raider NS, 4x Blaster) = 250
HEAVY:
Voidraven Bomber (FF, NS) = 165
Voidraven Bomber (FF, NS) = 165
Voidraven Bomber (FF, NS) = 165
I can honestly give a damn about a 200 point Raider that can't move 12" and shoot all its guns. For me, I'd rather have something that can deliver scary results on turn 1. That's why I have a list that looks like this. If the entire army moves 12" and shoots, it's going to shoot 5x S8 AP2 Dark Lances, 6x S9 AP2 Void Lances and if anything is close or in face-eating range, then the Blasters on the crew will go to work.
Vect is all about his Turn 1 - that's the only reason you're taking him. I say you better make it count or don't bother taking him at all.
f you want first turn you should be spamming like MAD!
ReplyDeleteAsdubal Vect = 240
3 trueborn, 2 splinter cannons, venom with 2 splinter cannons-121
3 trueborn, 2 splinter cannons, venom with 2 splinter cannons-121
3 trueborn, 2 splinter cannons, venom with 2 splinter cannons-121
5 warriors, 1 blaster, venom with 2 splinter cannons-125.
5 warriors, 1 blaster, venom with 2 splinter cannons-125
5 warriors, 1 blaster, venom with 2 splinter cannons-125
5 warriors, 1 blaster, venom with 2 splinter cannons-125
5 scourges with 2 heat lance -134
5 scourges with 2 heat lance - 134
ravager with 3 lances, night shield-115
ravager with 3 lances, night shield-115
ravager with 3 lances, night shield-115
15 pts spare for goodies O.o!
So many tiny mans in those units! The 3x Ravagers is very viable with NS for 115, but otherwise I'd beef up the other units and keep them cheap. Besides, having so many 5-man squads running around with T3 and 5+ scares the crap out of me.
ReplyDeletei think the point of the vect army would be more to have second turn and have a 50/50 chance of taking first. Just for the fact that you can deploy accordingly to your opponent and have a 50/50 chance of taking first turn and wiping the board off his hard hitting and effective units.
ReplyDeleteI mean with all that S8 and S9 type weapons, razorspam would be useless for the opponent and might result in your opponent in effectively reserving as much of the army
mmm who cares. You get 1st turn and your pumping out 70 shots hitting on 3's and woinding anything on 4's. Bye bye daemons and nids, and those heat lances, blasters and lances make mince of any vehicle. Once you've poped tye transports, those cannons are gonna shred through msu squads. Long fangs? Like to see them all make aboit 30 saves lol.
ReplyDeleteSure, this is true Alex, but I don't like the really minimal way of playing. Same reason why I don't like taking RB spam Wolf lists. I see it as the.. boring way to play!
ReplyDeletewell they all have weaknesses. I personnaly dont spam Razors in my 1750 list ( i have 5 razors and 3 rhinos), but dark eldar who rely on vect may aswell spam out. If your looking for first turn, take as many small units to maximize shooting as possible. Its weakness IS losing first turn, so thats where larger units come in, but if its an alpha strike list, its nothing boring to take, as it still has vect as a combat monster, so has all its areas covered, but mainly relies on shooting for the 1st turns. Would be cool to see how it works out for you though :)
ReplyDeleteUsing the compilation of rules found around the net, I played a casual game last night with my friend (Space Wolves). I had to proxy my bombers, and use a few of my old sybarite and dracon models to proxy for Vect on foot, etc. Let me say he was totally worth it!
ReplyDeleteWe played a 2000 point game for kill points. Deploying second, and rolling a 4 to seize the initiative my friend didn't know what to do.
Turn one saw my 2 venoms I loaded up with 5 Trueborn with 4 blasters moving up 6 and letting lose on his vindicator tank and long fangs he had deployed on the line to try and shoot me first. Between that and 3 Voidraven's shooting out and wrecking his Land Raider his highly mechanized Space wolf army suddenly became a foot slogging army with no heavy support.
Once his drop pods started falling in, Vect who had joined a squad of wyches, moved their raider within 12", got out and shot. That obsidian orb taking out 3 grey hunter's before the assault. After charging in, Vect did what he did best and that unit earned their pain token before the marines could even strike back.
Having Vect to give me an extra 33% chance to go first after deploying where I wanted meant I really got to earn his points back before the Space wolves even got a chance to retaliate. Yes he could potentially be killed outright by a simple plasma pistol, but as any veteran dark eldar palyer will tell you, if you're playing the dark eldar and worried about survival, you should probably keep out of Commorragh.
On a side note, Venom transports with 2 Splinter Cannons, loaded up with 5 Trueborn (4 Blasters, and a Dracon with an Agonizer) or with 5 Incubi (Klavex with Demiklaives and Murderous assault) are just beastly. Just don't let the Trueborn get out unless you're forced to. On a very noobish move, I let 1 venom move 12", had the Trueborn disembark so they could shoot...yes the 4 blasters and 12 S6 splinter cannon shots made short work of the 5 terminators, but then I was fair game for the 10 Grey hunters that drop pod'ed in, and let loose with a flamer and 18 bolt gun shots.
~my 2 cents
How do you think your opponent would of acted if he knew a little more about the codex? I think in the next couple of days, people will be much more familiar with Vect, the Serpent and Voidravens. Just curious, what did you proxy Voidraven Bombers for? I'm thinking about going online and buying some plastic F-22 Raptors. What scale would that be in?
ReplyDeleteHe knew as much about the new rules as I did. I've been playing DE for quite sometime, and we face off at least once a week. As for the new rules, we talk back and forth about them most everyday whenever I see an update. There wasn't too much he could have done differently, besides giving me the chance to go first and letting himself deploy reactivity, instead of letting me see his deployment, react, and then still go first.
ReplyDeleteFor the Voidraven's last night, I just had some plastic boxes (disposable tupperware) that were the approximate size (width, length, height) of a CWE Waveserpent. Stuck those on flying bases and we played. We always joked about the Dark Eldar vehicles being "flying cardboard boxes".
For when I actually build these next month, I plan on using Waveserpent hulls, and Vyper cockpits to make some nasty looking jets. Also, my old raiders will be losing their "running boards" to turn them more into the "flying boat" that the riders hang off of, the running boards will then be attached to Vypers that have splinter cannons on the turrets and Dark Eldar warriors in the gunner seats, along with some of the extra "spikey" parts off old raider sprues to make my new venoms.
As a side note...with the Voidravens...the Void Mine is wonderful, especially if you can drop it on a transport that just unloaded (RE Drop Pod) with all the troops still within 2". You'll likely pop the vehicle and a few troops, but make sure you land the Voidraven >6" away from your target an unlucky scatter will only have your enemy laughing.
So the Void Mine, as I recall, is S9 AP2 Lance 5" blast that is dropped anywhere along the flight path of the Voidraven. Does that indicate a straight line a point and then D6 Scatter?
ReplyDeleteThe void mine is S9 AP2 Assault 1, Blast, One Shot, Lance. Since it doesn't specify using the 5" template, or label it as ordnance, I would have to say it's the 3" blast template.
ReplyDeleteYes it is targeted on any unit that the bomber has passed over, and it then scatters up to d6" (looking at the rules for it, it doesn't appear to be a normal scatter, so BS has no modification on it).
Would you say the Voidraven > Ravager at this point?
ReplyDeleteEDIT: I've created an account to stop posting as Anonymous...Here's the actual text from the Void Mine entry in the codex:
ReplyDelete"During the Voidraven Bomber's Movement phase, it may place a small blast marker centered upon any one model it has passed over that turn and roll a scatter dice. If an arrow is rolled, move the template D6" in that direction. Once the Final position of the template has been determined, resolve the effects above. Note that this counts as using a weapon"
So yes it's small blast, with a full D6" scatter on a non-hit. Also since it counts as a weapon, it can't be fired if the bomber moves flat-out.
"Also since it counts as a weapon, it can't be fired if the bomber moves flat-out."
ReplyDeleteSo no moving 36" and dropping bombs? That's kinda terrible. That means at most it can move 12" and drop the bomb. I mean I can understand that somewhat as it's sort of a "bombing run".. but that's... not as good as I would imagine ingame. I guess the primary use of it will be sitting back and shooting off missiles and Void Lances and act as last minute contenders.
It's a tough call. The Ravager is cheaper, and more accurate (3 lance shots as opposed to 2). However the Voidraven has the better weapons for taking down anything with AV 12+. Dark lances only have a 33% chance to penetrate, where the Void Lance has a 50%.
ReplyDeleteThe other main benefit of the VR over the Ravager, is that the VR is not open-topped. So on a pen, it has a 16.6% chance less of being wrecked.
I would take 3 VR over 3 Ravagers anytime I can afford the extra 120 points. (That's a Ravager at 105, with NS and FF and the Voidraven at 145 with NS, FF and 2 Scatterfield missiles). It's only a 60 point difference to leave the missiles at home, but why not take 2 extra chances of breaking medium armor/killing troops?
I see the mine as the ideal deterrent for anything to want to try and assault the VR. Keeping the VR back, and shooting down the highest armor threat you have LoS on, then when dreadnoughts and MC's, or those pesky troops with hidden powerfists start getting too close, it's time to do a fly-by with the bomb, and keep shoot the lances.
ReplyDeleteI agree, I think the Voidraven is a much better buy. I've been finding myself trying to keep it as cheap as possible though. I might just have to put some SF Missiles on the thing like I originally wanted. It's just a really sad fact that I have to mod my own plane because the FW ones are ridiculously expensive. I might also buy some cheap B-2 Spirit models and putting on some tube Void Lances and call it a day. I can't really reason with myself that buying 3x Falcons just for a model that hasn't been released yet (with no plans) is a good idea.
ReplyDeleteOh and I think that Ravagers do have their place, most certainly. You get a good amount of mileage from them, especially on the 1st turn with just Night Shields as defense. Shooting with 9x Dark Lances on turn 1 sounds just as scary as 6x Void Lances but for cheaper.
ReplyDeleteThere's a seller on Ebay who sells bitz, and has a full range of vehicle parts, including hulls for waveserpents, etc. Getting 3 top hulls, and 3 bottom hulls is about the cost of 1 waveserpent. For about the cost of 1 1/2 waveserpents, you'd have enough parts to build 3 Voidravens, not a bad trade off, and is still about half the cost of the (although VERY sexy) Fore World model.
ReplyDeletePS--Sorry we ninja'd this thread away from Vect and turned it into more of a Voidraven discussion.
But yes, anyways, Vect is worth it if you don't take him in his Raider imo. 240 points is a lot of points already and 200 more + 9 extra bodies brings the cost from cost effective to not. The AV13 Raider is good, but not moving 12" and shooting all 3 Dark Lances is a waste. I also don't like the fact that you can't take any upgrades for it.
ReplyDeleteI don't recall the specs for Vect's Ravager, but I do know the regular ravager has the "Aerial Assault" special rule, meaning it can move at cruising speed (12") and fire all weapons.
ReplyDeleteOverall it's not too bad, 200pts for a 3 Dark Lance 13/13/13 transport. Comparable to a Land Raider (compensating for AV, weapons and transport capacity). But I agree in that I wouldn't be buying the vehicle upgrade unless I was playing close to 2500 points.
Yeah it's basically not a Ravager, it's a Raider for all intended purposes.. and it does not have the special rule that allows it to move 12" and shoot all its weapons.
ReplyDeleteHero, the cost of the wych squads in your list is wrong! It should be 215, for 10 Wyches and the rest, not 205.
ReplyDeleteAnd I think Flickerfields are essential for all vehicles.
Also i asked my local GW manager vects raider can also benefit from upgrades as in the codex it says it is treated "Exactly" like a raider in all other respects (or words to those effect meaning you can buy a flicker field or nightsheild :D
ReplyDeletePlease direct your GW Manager to the official GW FAQ on Dark Eldar:
ReplyDeleteQ: Can the Dais of Destruction take any of the vehicle
upgrades available to Raiders? (p82)
A: No