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| And the award for worst Warlord Traits goes to... |
First, the Realspace Raiders Detachment and what it offers you:
- Basically the same army except you have 6 FA slots to play with.
- Restrictions: All units in this Detachment must have the Dark Eldar Faction (or have no Faction).
- Benefit - Realspace Raider: If this Detachment is your Primary Detachment, you can re-roll the result when rolling on the Warlord Traits table in the Codex: Dark Eldar.
- Benefit - Hunter from the Shadows: During the entire first game turn, and during any turn in which the Night Fighting rules are in effect, all Troops units from this Detachment have a 5+ cover save, and all other units from this Detachment have a 6+ cover save.
The first thing I have to ask myself is.. if I buy Raiders as dedicated transports for my troop choices, are they considered to be in 5+ cover? Not the guys inside, but the Raiders themselves. I would like to think yes because you're buying them in the troop slot.
It goes without saying that while Hunter from the Shadows can be good, I think we can all agree that it's not entirely game-changing. All other units having a 6+ cover means absolutely jack shit with all things considered, especially when most buildings/ruins is 4+ and that you'd be stupid not deploying with at least some kind of cover. No one really shoots in the wide-open field, so I don't think that the cover saves will be entirely useful. If the 5+ cover also affects Raiders, I can see it being slightly useful as you can decide to not Jink and just take the cover save so you don't need to Snapfire. Whether or not this is a good idea is also questionable.
As for the whole re-rolling on the DE Warlord Traits, this is a huge flop for anyone not taking a melee-centric Warlord. In the list that I'm going to post with this detachment in mind, 4 of the 6 traits available to me are absolutely useless. The only one I'm looking forward to is 2 - Labyrinthine Cunning, since it 's pretty much the best trait in the tree. The ability to re-roll Seize, Night Fighting and Reserves is just godlike. Towering Arrogance can be decent in later game when all your shit is getting shot to death, so a bubble of Fearless might not be too bad, but if you get to the later parts of the game to begin with, you will probably already have Fearless from Power from Pain. Overall, the Warlord Traits presented here is a huge flop, and the designers responsible need to be sent to the Wych pits (so the Wyches can tear them apart for all the unneeded nerfs).
So what does your list look like with 6 FA slots? A lot of people are thinking about tons of MSU Reavers, but I'm not sure if that's all that great. Others are thinking 120 point HWB Scourges to go with their Ravagers, but where are they getting the points for all that? So the question to ask yourself is this: Is this detachment and the 6 FA slots really worth not having Objsec and re-roll on the Strategic tree? I would love having almost ALL of the traits from there.
Anyways, here's what my pure DE list can look like under Realspace Raiders:
1850
20 KP
HQ:
Archon, WWP, Blaster = 110
TROOP:
5x Warriors, Blaster, Raider Lance/AS = 120
5x Warriors, Blaster, Raider Lance/AS = 120
5x Warriors, Blaster, Raider Lance/AS = 120
5x Warriors, Blaster, Raider Lance/AS = 120
5x Warriors, Blaster, Raider Lance/AS = 120
ELITE:
5x Trueborn, 4x Blaster, Raider Lance/AS/NS = 195
FAST:
Razorwing, Lances/NS = 155
Razorwing, Lances/NS = 155
Venom SC = 65
Venom SC = 65
Venom SC = 65
Venom SC = 65
HEAVY:
Ravager, Lances = 125
Ravager, Lances = 125
Ravager, Lances = 125
With this list, you have the MSU playstyle of Warriors in Raiders, giving you 14 lances on the opening salvo, followed by 48 Venom shots coming from your supporting fire. Is it more effective than my battle-forged pure Dark Eldar list I posted previously? I personally don't think because I don't think it has the staying power or the objective-capturing flexibility. The warlord traits alone is enough to deter me from building this style of list, but I'm throwing this out there so people can analyze for themselves.
Let me know what you think.
My thinking on using the realspace detachment wasthus:
ReplyDeleteIf youre using it, youre losing ob-sec. As such, is there much point taking anything beyond the minimum of troops? That frees up a lot of points to spend on the fast attack units.
I personally agree with you Archie. Get rid of troops and spend on other things. I truly think that if you are going this far with it. Is to try a formation from the Coven book to give CC option with all the shooting. I still think playing DE to try and outshoot other armies won't work.
ReplyDeleteYou might be able to fit another Blastborn unit in there with a WWP Archon, but that brings your opening strike down quite a bit.
ReplyDeleteI disagree with that, I think DE can shoot just fine. If anything, CC options are the things that will not work due to their limited threat range and weapon loadout. Not to mention the amount of things vulnerable to Dreadknights, Wraithknights and Riptides.
ReplyDeleteI think the FA unit im looking at most at the moment is the 6 man reaver squad with 2 heat lances and 1 caltrops. Only 131 points and can threaten a decent number of targets (especially compared to HWB scourges).
ReplyDeleteI was impressed with my one squad of them in my first game, going to try 2 squads out tomorrow and see how that goes.
Good luck, let me know how it goes!
ReplyDeleteMuch better! Game was over in my favour by turn 4. I've come round to your thinking on scourges, they absolutely need to kill their target as soon as they arrive because they'll be dead the following turn, as such reavers are just a better choice all round. I'll probably soldier on fielding 1 unit of scourges and 2 units reavers for the time being as i havent got enough bikes yet.
ReplyDeleteThe dark artisan formation was a nice addition, turned up right next to a long fang squad and flamed/splintered it to death, than just ambled about pretty much by itself completely cutting off one half of the board as my opponent didnt dare venture near them.
Good show my man.
ReplyDeleteForget Objsec! Go full Fluff!
ReplyDeleteArchon with basic stuff
2 x 5 Kabalite Warriors
6 x 12 Reavers with Cluster Caltrops and Blasters
Now cackle maniacly . . .