We all know that its no longer enough to have anti-infantry and anti-tank firepower. We also need to have anti-air firepower. And to my mind, that puts the Dark Eldar in a slightly uncomfortable position. Below, I'll throw around some ideas on how to interdict some of the nasty new kids on the aircraft block.
Firstly, I want to mention that my beloved pointy-ears are quite capable of taking plenty of anti-tank. Some of my gaming buddies used to refer to the 'dark lance tax'; the number of vehicles that they would have to concede in each of my shooting phases :) Unfortunately though, the requirements for anti-air are a little different.
There's nothing wrong with shooting a dark lance at flyer if you have skyfire. Which, in our codex, basically means you are a Razorwing, or got extra lucky with your mysterious objective roll. If you don't have skyfire... well that fancy BS4 ain't gonna help. So our whole schtick of firing individual, precise and accurate beams to degrade the enemies armoured forces just isn't going to cut it in the sky.
Clearly then, Voidravens and Razorwings are our best defences against enemy air power. Coincidentally, they are also our offensive air force. Ironically, the one called a bomber is a better interceptor than the one called a jetfighter, but hey.
What are the other options though, if you want to fill your heavy support with Ravagers, Talos or (hells forbid!) a Cronos? To be honest I'm a bit stuck, but here goes.
DE AA by the numbers
Some of the obvious candidates are simply pointing existing anti-tank units at the sky and hoping for the best. Here are some numbers for the sake of comparison; I didn't want to get bogged down in the range of different hull points and AVs, so the below is the harmonic mean of the chance to destroy a 3HP vehicle of AV 10, AV 11 and AV 12, for the sake of easy comparison.
Unit Chance to destroy (wreck or explode)
Voidraven 26.35%
Razorwing 19.46%
Reavers (2 heat lances, under 9") 11.29%
Trueborn (4 blasters) 10.26%
Ravager (3 dark lances) 7.61%
Scourges (4 haywre blasters) 2.78%
No surprise that the Voidraven tops the list - and even with four missiles and a flickerfield, it is slightly more point-efficient than its stablemate the Razorwing (0.135 points per percentile, compared to 0.125 for a Razorwing with just a flickerfield). Curiously, the reavers with heat lances are a slightly better chance than the Trueborn with blasters; the extra dice of penetration and the AP 1 help tip them over the edge. Neither, of course, represents a particularly reliable plan.
Next, compare these with the 'common' options available through fortifications. I've included a couple of different BS options, since you do after all get to choose who mans the guns!
Unit Chance to destroy (wreck or explode)
Quad Gun (BS 5+) 33.83 %
Quad Gun (BS 4) 29.24%
Icarus Lascannon (BS 9, yay Lelith!) 20.09%
Icarus Lascannon (BS 7) 18.91%
Icarus Lascannon (BS 4) 14.18%
Huh. I guess that's why a Quad gun costs half as much again as the lascannon. Its also worthy of note that the chance to wreck by denuding hull points keeps the quad gun ahead of the lascannon, even against AV 12 (16.84% to 11.11% at BS4).
Note that the quad gun, even manned by a 9 point grunt, has a better chance to down the average plane than a Voidraven. Furthermore, by buying a tiny unit (say 3 Wracks for 30 points) to man it in an Aegis line it is more point-efficient too (0.2249 points per percentile).
So the common fortification anti-air option that everyone can take is better than anything natively available in our codex. Fair enough. Good to know, really. Maybe its time to think about how best to use them.
Fire and Forget
The absolute easiest is to take the Aegis defence line, add quad gun, add three wracks to fire it. They get a 4+ cover save, 5+ feel no pain, are T 4 and fire with BS 4, and the whole package is 130 points, and incidentally gives any more of your foot guys somewhere to hide. Not too shabby, really.
Wrackbunker
For more staying power, add more wracks, and add liquifiers. 10 wracks with two liquifiers will be a nasty prospect to assault off the gun, and not exactly easy to shoot off it. In fact its starting to get easier for your opponent to just shoot the gun! And if he does so, well, at least the wracks can move forward to burninate something ;)
Haemonquadus
If the BS 4 isn't enough, consider adding a Haemonculus Ancient to man the guns. Adding him to the Wrackbunker will ensure some survivability, and BS 5 is as high as you will ever need. For extra funny, give him a shattershard for overwatching any smartarse characters or monstrous creatures that get funny assault related ideas. Unfortunately this can get expensive quickly, so probably best to keep it simple.
If you really want a cheap gunner and nothing more, you could always take a naked Archon and stick him with some wracks for wound-soaking. He also gives the incidental benefit of Ld 10, but you may want to ensure he isn't your warlord. You don't want to give your opponent two objectives for the price of one.
Mandrake Air Traffic Control
You can get the quad gun on other platforms, notably the bastion. Three mandrakes is slightly more expensive than three wracks to act as gunners, but with Stealth they gain a 3+ cover save behind the battlements, and with infiltrate you are no longer restricted to your deployment zone when placing your fortification.
To elaborate, take one bastion with quad gun, and place it almost at the centreline of the table, where you will have a commanding field of fire. Enemy infiltrators are not allowed to deploy in your fortification, and you are allowed to infiltrate into it regardless of the proximity of the enemy, so you will always be allowed to stick three Mandrakes into your bastion. They will have to be on the battlements to fire the quad gun, but that's ok, the four heavy bolters in the bastion itself will automatically fire at the closest enemy units, albeit at BS 2. Which is why you deploy it forward; now, when the enemy advances, he will have to contend with irritating heavy bolter fire in his flank. Plus, the quaddie on top.
Or, if you have points and Elite slots to spare, put a second unit of three Mandrakes inside the bastion. This will let you fire (most of) the heavy bolters at BS 4, and also lock the odor so the enemy can't climb inside and turn your guns against you! Bonus points if your mandrakes somehow score a pain token from their heavy bolter duties :)
Of course, your dudes will probably get shot off the top, or grenaded out of the building. But in the mean time you've also placed a line of sight blocking model in a convenient place of the battlefield, and surely you have a Raider full of nasty pointy-eared space pirates ready to take a fulsome revenge now hiding behind it! Right?
Next post I might think about some allied options for effective air defence. Meanwhile, let me know what other ideas you have for AA solutions below. As you can see from the above, an entertaining one is just as good as an effective one...
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