What counts as a dark lance?

This might seem like an obvious question with an obvious answer. A dark lance counts as a dark lance. But that's not what I want to get at. After all, the dark lance is not the only dedicated anti-tank weapon in the Dark Eldar codex.  

Blasters are the other obvious go-to, for reasons of both cost and availability. But does a blaster count as a dark lance? It is pretty similar, but only has half the range. And what about the heat lance, which has different capabilities as well as a different range?

Hot on the heels of my ramblings about how many dark lances one needs in one's army of murderous cutthroats, it is high time to look at how the lesser darklights in the book stack up.

A little while ago (here, in fact) I looked at comparing the effectiveness of weapons with different ranges, and hence different threat radii, in a meaningful fashion. Now, I want to apply those findings to the thorny issue of 'what counts as a dark lance'?

Before comparing these (I'll deal with haywire later), I should define a dark lance unambiguously; my personal gold standard is a dark lance mounted on a Raider/Ravager chassis. Thus, the 36" range S8 AP2 lance that can move 12" and still fire with full effect. This gives it a threat radius of 48", comparable to many other races more stationary heavy weapons. This is what I will compare everything else to.

The obvious first comparison is to an infantry dark lance. By not being able to move and fire effectively, the threat radius is reduced to 36". While there are other advantages, such as being more survivable behind an aegis or similar cover, it is therefore unfortunately less effective at its primary task of turning enemy armour into pretty explosions. By my calculations the reduction in threat radius degrades an infantry borne dark lance to 0.63 of a Raider-mounted dark lance.

The blaster is another relatively easy comparison, as it shares S8 AP2 Lance. The 18" range is ameliorated somewhat by being an assault weapon, so the threat radius on normal infantry is effectively 24" (and a shitload better than the 12" range its predecessor had!). This makes it equivalent to 0.33 of a dark lance; remember, you'll need to mount your guys on a faster platform if you want a chance to shoot these at your opponent on the first turn.


Speaking of a faster platform, both reavers and scourges can take blasters and move 12" while still shooting, for a 30" threat radius. This is certainly better than a normal dude, and rubs out to 0.46 of a dark lance.

These fast guys can also take a heat lance, which despite a shoddy S6 comes with AP1 and melta plus lance, making it quite effective within half range. Since its no good on the far side of half range, I'll stick to the short range for comparison purposes; 9" plus a 12" move makes for a 21" threat radius, worth 0.25 of the 48" threat of the vehicle-mounted dark lance.

However, within melta range the heat lance is significantly more likely to destroy its target than the dark lance. The probability of a kill ranges from 1.58x to 1.97x that of the dark lance, depending on the AV of the target, but averages 1.75x more killing power. Clearly this needs to be factored in. Multiplying the threat radius by the relative chance to destroy gives a final value of 0.44 equivalent dark lances for the heat lance (or 0.26 on the slower Talos).

Finally (for now), the blast pistol's pitiful 6" range or 12" threat leaves it equal to 0.13 dark lances.

To summarise:

Equiv dark lances:
Raider-mount	1.00
Inf mount	0.63
Bike-mount blaster	0.46
Inf mount blaster	0.33
Blast pistol	0.13
Bike heat lance	0.44
Talos mount heat lance	0.26

Next time I plan my army, I will try balancing the dark lance equivalents to the desired number of dark lances per points. And frag me some damn tanks!