"Dark Eldar: Mass Your Splinter Rifles" Topic

White Dwarf magazine advises…

Splinter rifles en masse are a terrifying prospect for any non-vehicle unit, especially when backed up by shredders and splinter cannon. The idea is to force your opponent to make dozens of armour saves, so don't obsess about AP – weight of fire does the same job, if not better.

Do you agree that massed splinter rifles is a good tactic for Dark Eldar armies?

How is that different from massed flashlight fire from Imperial Guards?

Worked well with them. Of course, that was 3rd edition when I last played 40k.

If anything, it sounds like it was written by the marketing department who was given the task of selling more Dark Eldar infantry boxed sets.

Dark Eldar do it better than IG, though because they have a better BS and they always wound on a 4+ now, if I'm remembering the new rules correctly.

I would say it's not the best overall tactic. Especially against things with good Armor Saves. I watched a Dark Eldar player use pretty much that tactic against a Space Wolves player with a bunch of the big wolf mounted Marines. He hardly did any damage before the Marines were on top of him and wiping out Dark Eldar models in droves. They need high Stregth and good AP weapons just like everyone else.

Massed fire in 40K is a myth – if you face Terminators for example (and the new Grey Knight Codex will see your opponent fielding them in droves!) you have little chance of actually damaging the unit before they are on top of you and killing your unit.

The entire ruleset is geared toward getting models into close combat and not long range gunnery duels – Dark Eldar would be much better suited to taking close combat units with power weapons and going toe-to-toe with the enemy. The massed fire power is essentially "bait" for the close combat units which are hiding close by for the kill.

Delthos, you are correct with the 4+ due to the Poisoned weapons and the better BS skill over IG.

Massed firepower only works when you have the time and space to trade the firepower over armor. Using the Tau, I always stagger my squads with some sacrificial lambs (fish?) up front to take that initial assault just so I can get at least one more good volley into them. I used that to successfully stop Abbadon and the Black Legion bodyguard from rampaging across the board but it doesn't always work. I had a Space Marine (vanilla) Termie squad literally walk from one end to the table from the other I could not stop them with firepower. That day was NOT for the greater good!

Agreed that 40K has gone away from a firepower game to some sort of anime based hop-around melee game. Firepower can still win you games, but you have to be fighting the right opponent and army for it to work.

Nobody likes to see their models removed but one would like the satisfaction of surviving the shot and getting up close for the kill rather than going always into melee. That I think is the difference. Melee has become the defacto close in kill shot.

Now I wouldn't mind that but I think I would rather prefer CHOOSING what I wanted to do in "melee" (which covers point blank firing or using your trusty K-bar). Trust my WS and Strength or rely on my BS skill and weapon strength. I would love to see that change.
Larry

So… in effect they are pushing Dark Eldar as a "shooty horde" army?

I call shenanigans. Players at the table already know how the DE butter their bread, and it sure ain't massed splinter rifles; it's highly mobile assault troops backed up by highly mobile armor-openers.

Massed fire in 40K is a myth – if you face Terminators for example (and the new Grey Knight Codex will see your opponent fielding them in droves!) you have little chance of actually damaging the unit before they are on top of you and killing your unit.

That depends purely on the rolling. I recently saw a single IG stormtrooper survive 23 shots, but then the same day in another game a Terminator was killed by a single lasgun shot. Besides, when you expect to face terminators, bring weapons to kill them. Tau Railguns for example will cause them to have to go straight to their invulnerable save if you hit since the Strength 10 will cause instant death and AP 1 negates their Armour Save. Lascannons do the same against them for a lower points investment in imperial armies.

The original statement though applies across all armies… Literally all of them. Weight of fire is always a deciding factor. They just stated a fact of warfare both in reality and on the tabletop. You just don't get anymore "Thank you Captain Freakin' Obvious" than that. /facepalm.

Maybe GW is selling too many Wyches and too little Kaballite Warriors.

Perhaps GW can make 'massed firepower' a more attractive option in 6th ed?

Would be better than the get into Melee as fast as possible that 5th Edition is.

5th Edition is all about Close Combat and getting into as fast as possible.

If they have some sort of special rule, it probably works -- like the glancing blow thing from Necron troops on vehicles in whichever edition it was.