Oversaturation?

So I'm thinking we may have a problem:

Infantry wise we have 4 heavy weapons and two special weapons. Their niches are as follows:

Shredder, Splinter Cannon: Anti horde (In theory. The fact that they do it poorly does not mean that it isn't the niche they're supposed to fill)

Heat Lance, Blaster, Darklance, Haywire Blaster: Anti Vehicle/Monster (again in theory, though it looks like there might be some buffs going out to them soon).


See what's missing? Anti heavy infantry. We have 4 weapons filling the same niche of big stuff hurting (while none of them is even particularly great against superheavies), but for an infantry focused DE army there's no hard counter to good save multi-wound infantry, during the era of primerus marines.

Luckily we have disintegrators, but it does seem like a strange gap in our arsenal given how crowded the AV role is.

I'd say we cover AHI pretty well. It's the anti geq that 's lacking for the moment...

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AHI? Disintegrator cannon on the raiders and you're golden

Yep DCs
I've beaten my mates primaris army using em all 4 games
By round 2

Try 1 full DC ravager, it just melts through heavy infantry!

I am aware of DCs. However, having one vehicle-only gun as our answer to the most common infantry in the game strikes me as kind of a problem.

My primary point is we have tons of overlap on a small niche while having single weapons covering huge swathes of the tactical landscape.

Well, we have yet to see the other weapons... and we have some good CC specialists that can kill heavy infantries pretty easily (incubi anyone?)

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I am aware of DCs. However, having one vehicle-only gun as our answer to the most common infantry in the game strikes me as kind of a problem.

Not to me, honestly. We do have only one gun to counter this sort of thing, but it's a gun that's avaliable on both our most basic transport and our most common anti-tank platform. I usually chuck a Dissie or two on my Ravagers when I'm expecting marines, and haven't had too many problems (don't get me wrong though, trying to dislodge an army of 2+ cover saves is a pain in the ass.)

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My primary point is we have tons of overlap on a small niche while having single weapons covering huge swathes of the tactical landscape.

A fair point. To add to that, Wyches, Bloodbrides, Flocks, and Khymera all fall into the same niche of tons of attacks at low strength and AP. Grotesques, Incubi, Clawed Fiends, Talos, and Cronos all fit the beefy beststick vs Heavy Infantry. And Reavers and Hellions fit the niche of struggling to operate a doorknob before self destructing.

This is something you've brought up before, but our shooting isn't the only area we're having trouble with overlap

We may be lacking in weapons that are specifically geared towards dealing with multi wound high save infantry, but the thing is I've never had a problem dealing with those sort of units. Either with massed splinter fire, dissie cannons or blasters once my main vehicle targets are finished I've just never struggled to kill +3 save 2w infantry. It's masses of t3 infantry that are the problem, I often just don't have enough shots to get rid of them quickly enough, but the kabal traits and splinter racks should help with that post-codex.

@FuelDrop wrote:

I am aware of DCs. However, having one vehicle-only gun as our answer to the most common infantry in the game strikes me as kind of a problem.

My primary point is we have tons of overlap on a small niche while having single weapons covering huge swathes of the tactical landscape.

I'd rather have 1 weapon that does the job than a ton of useless gimmicks that achieve nothing serious.

If we are lucky liquifier guns and ossefactors might get some love vs AHI

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If we are lucky liquifier guns and ossefactors might get some love vs AHI

Ossefactors are already great against Marines, their problem is they can't be fielded in any quantity high enough to matter.

Ossefactors is already great, but liquies HAVE to be buffed.

If they do, they're gonna be funny to play with the sniper stratagem on a Grots unit, since they can all take 1.

I wouldn't mind seeing ossefactors going down to say ten pts, they still feel a bit expensive for what they do, especially considering they are only 2pts less than a blaster. Liquifier guns could stay as they are but I'd say they'd have to go down to like 8/9pts tops, though a stat boost would certainly be welcome.

Medusae could be an interesting AHI weapon, with 4 shots each at str 4 and ap -2

Well we don't really know what all the weapons look like. Hell Splinter Cannons may be more like Heavy Bolters now. And Dissies almost certainly got a points decrease (right...? Right...?).

Also if units got improved, then we have AHI in the form of assault. Grots may be able to do it now, as well as Incubi.

Hellions have d2 weapons right. They can be used

I'm going to re-answer since we know a little more.

Hellions are D2. Mandrakes are AP-1 in both shooting and assault now. Reavers/Hellions can drop a mini void mine.

All your Ravagers and RWJFs should have dissies.

Blaster are still good against heavy infantry. The D6 damage didn't magically make them exclusively an anti-armor option.

Or, use your unit synergy. Tie up the armor with Reavers, then blast the heavy infantry with Blasters and Lances.

Also I think some Coven stuff got improvements so they'll be rocking mid-Str and moderate AP, which is the niche you're talking about here.

I disagree about all ravagers/jetfighters only have disintegrator cannons, dark lances are still solid as long range anti tank even with the improvements to blasters. Plus for the average dark eldar player unless you've magnetized everything no one wants to rip all their dark lances off their vehicles and replace every single one with a dissie cannon. That being said, yes disintegrator cannons are solid now, I'm very happy I made a dissie cannon ravager which will now be in every list, and I plan to grab another raider or two which will probably get dissie cannons as well.

Coven stuff with the extra ap trait would definetly fit that niche.

well mandrakes are playable that do mortal wounds and decent ap. Disintegrators are very spammable atm and blasters are just cheaper dark lances with shorter range, but the amount of deepstrike vectors for blasters means for the most part, they will replace lances I think. A list can now easily have 20-30 lance equivalents and have room for loads more shooting then before

Tantalus Cannon is like Dissie on steroids, absolutely shreds heavy infantry. A Tantalus+ a double dissie RWJF will solve problems.

Let's not forget a Coven Ravager can act as a sniper and SPLITFIRE its 2 guns to kill 2 (small) HQs per turn

Am I the only one in thinking that anti-heavy infantry isn't a problem? I thought our whole schtick was death by a thousand cuts. The sheer amount of poison shots, combined with our pretty spammable dark light doesn't really give me reason to fear heavy infantry outside of Sisters of Battle in cover.

@Bad-baden-baden wrote:

Am I the only one in thinking that anti-heavy infantry isn't a problem? I thought our whole schtick was death by a thousand cuts. The sheer amount of poison shots, combined with our pretty spammable dark light doesn't really give me reason to fear heavy infantry outside of Sisters of Battle in cover.

Your not alone. Anti-horde is our problem and I'm not sure the codex will fix that, though with everything getting cheaper, some of it considerably, we will at least have a much greater weight of fire than before.

20 witches against a horde will help