Thursday 19 December 2013

Dark Eldar + Stronghold Assault.

In my opinion, Stronghold Assault has given Dark Eldar a real life line. There are two main additions that give Dark Eldar a better chance in the game: Void Shields and Promethium Pipes.

Void Shields

AV10 Dark Eldar Vehicles are way too easy to kill these days. Night Shields are all but useless against most high strength weapons, and the 5+ Invul save rarely gives you a fighting chance against 4-5 penetrating hits. Void shields, however, provide Dark Eldar with a serious defensive option. AV12 doesn't sound like much to most other races, but for many Venom Spam players - like myself, it is an amazing addition. For 100 points I can get a single generator that pumps out three shields. The 12" bubble means I can easily fit my venoms inside the safe zone. Of course, AV12 won't be difficult for most armies to take down, but it means the following for my Venoms:

Enemy shooting must bypass:
AV12
AV12
AV12
AV10
Cover/5+ invul.

A Manticore could easily waste it's time blowing out these shields instead of your Vehicles (although, most players will shoot the Manticore AFTER they have blown the shields). Even a Serpent who has just fired 7 shots with it's Shield will, on average, collapse 1-2 shields. Given the random number of shots, it is likely to be no more than 1 collapse per shooting attack. Maybe a few more with the Scatter/Shuriken Shots. You get my point though.

The best trait about the Void Shields is that it will come back on a roll of a 5+. You should, on average, get one shield back per turn - only adding more targets for your opponent to waste shots on. Of course, it has it's downfalls. That's 100 points that might disintegrate first turn and never come back. However, It's a risk I'm willing to take for the added benefits.

Promethium Pipes

No one can doubt that Liquifier guns rock. So why not give them Torrent? Slam down some promethium pipes and you COULD be torrenting Str4 AP1 shots around the board in no time. Mount them in a raider, and you can zip 6" up and down the pipes to give yourself an 18" (plus whatever pivot you get) bonus onto your flamer template. Nice! Or if you need to, move 6", disembark 6" and then torrent another 12". Boom! Awesome! Lol, missed the "convert to heavy" section. No problem though. You can still drive up, park and start Torrenting next phase - especially in a Raider that can Pivot as much as you like - so you can still gain 1-2" while still being able to fire. This is a great boost to Cronos Engines' Spirit Syphon. Those big boys can march up first turn and start using it right away. You can be dishing out Paint Tokens in no time at all. Maybe adding a double team of Medusa's might even be worth a look into with the pipes (cheap - 30 points).

DE don't have "Flamer's" by technical wording per the 40k rulebook.

Conclusion

Edit: Void Shields are boss.

- Out.


5 comments:

  1. prometheum pipes don't work like that, they make the weapon heavy, so you can't move and shoot it. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Not hugely bad news, just lose a turn of shooting!

      Delete
  2. Does the weapon have to be a "flame" weapon or anything with a flame template? I.E. Doom Siren?

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    Replies
    1. Good Question. I rechecked the entry and it seems to be limited to "flamers" as laid out by the rulebook. So I guess the DE flames are out. Left with the Void Shields.

      Delete
  3. It's funny you should point this out. As soon as I read the void shield rules I started thinking how glass hammers could really benefit, like you naturally thinking of venoms immediately after!

    I'm not sure I've got my head around how to allocate attacks to the void shields yet. I was wondering if you resolved each model in a unit's attacks at the same time, meaning a unit could at best collapse one shield per shooting phase? Barrages hitting multiple units gives me headaches though! It seems like you would resolve each model's shots in sequence, potentially rinsing through multiple shields with one unit's shots?

    ReplyDelete

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