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Eldar Cobras
Ilushia	Post subject: Eldar Cobras Posted: Sun Jun 25, 2006 2:46 am
Brood Brother Joined: Mon May 08, 2006 10:50 am Posts: 1189	So, me and Corey got together and played again. My AMTL against his Eldar. He made up a really bizarre and rather top-heavy list full of EoVs. Three cobras, three scorpions, one Phantom and one troupe of Fire Dragons in Wave Serpents(I think they were Wave Serpents anyway). Corey did remarkably well considering, made WAY more saves then I'd expect on 5+, even with RA. I failed to kill a single SHT. Killed the Phantom though on turn 3 and ended up winning... But in any case: Cobras... Cobras are freaking NUTS. Especially in troupes of 3. 750 points, painful sure. But they have a significant chance of one-shotting most titans. And even if they don't, they're HIGHLY likely to eviscerate one which has been weakened. My Supreme Commander lost his shields due to a bit of bad planning on my part. Lost 4 DC to his Phantom... Rallied, lost shields to phantom (All but 2). Had the troupe of 3 Cobras walk up to me and smack me for 8 DC worth of damage. 8 DC! Now, I could respect this from the standpoint of 'they're strong'. But it seems rediculous to me that they have BETTER chances of killing bigger titans then smaller ones. Yes they have short range. But still. With a single move they're up to 55cm effective range. Throw a double and they're at 80cm. In a troupe of 3 of them they have 6 BP. And with the 'MW hit Tanks as Infantry' you can double them and still be hitting on 5+ instead of 6+. Or single move them for 4+... How do you people feel about these guys?
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Gotchaye	Post subject: Eldar Cobras Posted: Sun Jun 25, 2006 4:14 am
Brood Brother Joined: Fri Mar 03, 2006 1:25 am Posts: 59	Honestly, I've never gotten much use out of them.  You're right that they're very good against Titans, and it's true that they're even better against bigger Titans, but they're also worse than most TK weapons against non-Titans.  They're an incredibly specialized platform - I'd much rather have a Volcano Cannon when it comes to taking out Leman Russes.  Heck, the Storm Serpent's Pulse Laser may well be better against normal tanks than the Cobra D-Cannon.  My group doesn't really use any Titans bigger than Warhounds, Revenants, and Morays, so I've never had much reason to take a Cobra over a Scorpion (or better, a Void Spinner). Fluffwise, their scalability makes a good bit of sense.  The D-Cannon rift is equally damaging all over.  Thus, a Titan that's twice as big takes twice as much damage. Unless there are significant changes to the way they work (and I suppose you'd be wanting something like 2x or 3x MW4+ TK), any nerf to their gun is generally just going to push people over into Scorpions for everything, since Scorps are already much better against everything that's not a Titan.
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Ilushia	Post subject: Eldar Cobras Posted: Sun Jun 25, 2006 4:31 am
Brood Brother Joined: Mon May 08, 2006 10:50 am Posts: 1189	Personally, I'd be fine with them moving to TK(1) or TK(2). But TK(D3+1) makes them FANTASTIC for killing a LOT of things. Also on the 'Volcano Cannons are better against Russ!' consider that a 750 point unit of Cobras will get you 6BP, that's an extra blast template and an extra blast marker AND hitting on 4+ for tanks (thanks to being MW!). Now, while potentially 9x MW hits are nice. And very potent. I'd usually rather have say 6 attacks at 4+ which will instant-death anything they hit then 3 attacks at 2+, with extras for each hit, which allow 4+ saves against each hit. My real problem with the Cobra is simple: They can one-shot ANY titan in the game except Necrons, and even against Necrons they can do fantastic damage. While it is true that Scorpions can take out formations of infantry better then Cobras can, the Cobras can absolutely eviscerate anything with RA or DC in the game essentially... They are just really insanely wicked machines. And the bigger a titan is, the easier it is to kill. It just doesn't seem right. Personally I'd probably either move them to TK(1), TK(2) or MW 3+, TK(D3+1).
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Gotchaye	Post subject: Eldar Cobras Posted: Sun Jun 25, 2006 6:46 am
Brood Brother Joined: Fri Mar 03, 2006 1:25 am Posts: 59	I'm not following your reasoning on the D-Cannon being great against non-Titans.  Three Scorpions average just over 3 kills against Russes, while 6 D-Cannon hits do the same.  However, the difference in range between a move & shoot D-Cannon and a Scorpion Pulsar is enormous - 55 vs 85.  With Scorps, I'm much more likely to be able to hit the enemy with a single move and shoot and I'm much less vulnerable to retun fire. If I were going to take Cobras, I'd take pairs, since I don't think that the extra blast marker is worth 250 points.  A pair of Cobras are slightly better than a pair of Scorpions against 4+RA, assuming 6 hits (which you'll really only see against Guard, and I've been completely unable to figure out how to get my regular Guard opponent to sit his Russes within a move of my Cobras), but I think you'll find that most people far prefer the range and versatility of the Scorpions.  Not only can they hit from much farther away, but they're also far superior against anything without RA (infantry in cover, Tau vehicles, other Eldar, Predators). At TK(1), I've got absolutely no reason to take them over Scorpions.  Even against a Warlord, my pair of Cobras are only going to get 4 attacks, of which 2 ought to hit.  My Scorpions average 4.2 hits and 2.1 failed saves.  At TK(2), they're at least better than the Scorpions at taking out Titans in ideal circumstances, and that's close enough to their current state that I can't tell you whether it's too much of a nerf or not.  I have a feeling that you wouldn't see them, though.  MW3+ TK(D3+1) is just a much weaker Volcano Cannon if I understand what you mean correctly.  It's less accurate, much shorter ranged, is mounted on a much more expensive platform, and makes up for it by doing very slightly more damage to War Engines when it hits. As well, it's not like they're the only things that can do that to Titans.  Deathstrikes are certainly quite capable of accomplishing much the same thing, and trios of Shadowswords certainly aren't lacking.  A pair of Cobras gets 4 attacks, 2 hits, and an average of TK(3) against a Warlord - that's 6 DC in damage.  A Deathstrike volley is almost identical (5.83).  3 Shadowswords average 5 damage for the same price, and they do it from much farther away.  The Shadowswords also average 5 damage against War Engines of any size, whereas those Cobras only average 4.5 against DC6 and 3 against DC3. Though not quite the direction you were going in, one change that I'd consider for the Cobra is to remove its blast template, making it much less effective against most things, while pumping up its TK value even more to compensate.  Something like MW2+ TK(4) might work.  You get twice as much output against War Engines as a Volcano Cannon, while being just as good against most things.  I have no idea whether it'd be worth more or less than 250 points with this, though.
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Hojyn	Post subject: Eldar Cobras Posted: Sun Jun 25, 2006 6:52 am
Brood Brother Joined: Tue Sep 27, 2005 9:52 am Posts: 876 Location: Brest - France	Quote (Ilushia @ 25 June 2006 (02:46)) So, me and Corey got together and played again. My AMTL against his Eldar. He made up a really bizarre and rather top-heavy list full of EoVs. Three cobras, three scorpions, one Phantom and one troupe of Fire Dragons in Wave Serpents(I think they were Wave Serpents anyway). But in any case: Cobras... Cobras are freaking NUTS. How do you people feel about these guys? Well, considering they cost 750 points, they'd better be good at something. ? Apparently, Corey knew you were going to play AMTL and built his army accordingly (I mean Cobras, Scorpions, Phantom and Fire Dragons are the best anti-WE weapons in the Eldar arsenal), so it's only natural he blew up your Titans. What was the composition of your army? Perhaps your Titans were not equipped to deal with so many RA units? Also, unless all of your Titans were equipped with AP weapons, you were probably unlucky not to destroy a single SHT, as they are quite fragile. A few MW shots should easily deal with most Eldar WE (Titans excepted). And unlike Scorpions, Cobras have a very short range, so they must get closer to the enemy. Sure, they can use Hit and Run but then they only hit on 5+, and putting a Titan on Overwatch should be a good deterrent against them as well. They are powerful, yes, but I wouldn't say they too powerful simply because they are very specialised. Against most units, I'd rather take Scorpions or a pair of Revenants. They're dedicated Titan-hunters, so I'm not surprised they dealt so easily with yours.
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Ilushia	Post subject: Eldar Cobras Posted: Sun Jun 25, 2006 7:03 am
Brood Brother Joined: Mon May 08, 2006 10:50 am Posts: 1189	The Cobra VASTLY outstrips a Volcano Cannon, even a set of volcano cannons. Yes, true, average rolls say most of the time they're roughly comperable. But consider that 3 Shadowswords can do at most 9 DC of damage (Painful, but that's still only 3 DC over shields on a Warlord, and is only a 1/27 chance or so, even with all 3 hitting). If you hit 2 times, the average, with a pair of Cobras, your minimum damage is 4. And your max damage is 8. In 2 hits. In 3 hits the damage goes up fairly quickly. 3 hits nets you 3d3+3 or roughly 9 average damage,  instead of 9 max damage. Yes they need 4+ instead of 2+. So it's slightly less reliable. On the other hand they get 9 average damage instead of 9 max damage (6 average damage). Their max damage is 12 with 3 hits. And with 4 hits they can instant-kill a Warlord. And they can instant kill almost any other super-heavy you care to point them at. The bigger the better they become. Emperor titan? They get 9 attacks against one. Reavers they get 3 against, Warhounds 2 against, Shadowswords/baneblades 2 against. They're insane for killing titans with, not because they're really good for TK damage (The TK damage is sweet, but that wouldn't be particularly hard to handle) but because the larger a titan is, the easier it is to fell. The Revenant takes fire from 3 Shadowswords, takes the average 6 damage. Sucks, looses all 4 shields and 2 DC. Takes fire from 2 Cobras, they get 3 shots against it. Average 1.5 hits. If they get 2 hits, then they're looking at 4-8 damage. If they get 1 hit then it's 2-4. But if they get 3 hits, then they're looking at 6-12. And quite likely to virtually destroy that Reaver in a single go. Deathstrikes are one-use weapons. Yes they're cheap. yes they do tons of damage. But they do their thing once, then they're gone. And there's a very reasonable possibility that they'll bomb their rolls and do 1-2 DC. They average NO damage against a fully shielded Warlord even if both of them hit. And will rarely do more then 1-2 DC to one, and have just as good chances to leave 1-2 shields on one. Against smaller titans they have a mild advantage compared to a Cobra. But a Cobra can still wipe out mid-sized titans in a single shot, with reasonable consistency. Maybe I'm the only one who feels this way, but as it stands Cobras can one-shot ANY war engine in the game except for the Necron war-engines, with a little luck. And many won't get any saves at all against them or any chance to do... Well anything at all! Now, you have to roll quite well to instant-kill a fully shielded Warlord. But even two deathstrikes can't accomplish that feat (The best they can put out is 12 damage, and it takes 14 to instant-death a fully shielded Warlord). And if the warlord is lacking shields? Then you've got FANTASTIC chances to kill it.
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Hojyn

Post subject: Eldar Cobras Posted: Sun Jun 25, 2006 7:37 am

Brood Brother Joined: Tue Sep 27, 2005 9:52 am Posts: 876 Location: Brest - France

Quote (Ilushia @ 25 June 2006 (07:03)) The Cobra VASTLY outstrips a Volcano Cannon, even a set of volcano cannons. Yes they need 4+ instead of 2+. So it's slightly less reliable. On the other hand they get 9 average damage instead of 9 max damage (6 average damage). That's not "slightly less" reliable. It goes from 5 chances in 6 to 1 chance in 2. It's more like "much less reliable" in my opinion, and worth the difference in potential damage. Maybe I'm the only one who feels this way, but as it stands Cobras can one-shot ANY war engine in the game except for the Necron war-engines, with a little luck. Well, if you mean that a 750 points formation can destroy other formations in the same points range, I don't see where the problem is. Granted, 3 Cobras have a small chance of destroying a fully shielded Warlord. But the Warlord has an equal chance of destroying or at the very least breaking those 3 Cobras if it shoots first. I'm fine with that.

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Gotchaye	Post subject: Eldar Cobras Posted: Sun Jun 25, 2006 8:14 am
Brood Brother Joined: Fri Mar 03, 2006 1:25 am Posts: 59	I think you're overstating what Cobras can do.  Yes, their maximum roll is nasty, but it's not like 5 Falcons can't put out 15 AT hits on a good day.  First, this is probably just semantics, but it's not true that 'the larger a titan is, the easier it is to fell'.  In fact, Cobras have just as easy of a time taking out every size of Titan, just like how a MW takes out Marines as easily as Guard, or how a TK weapon takes out a Leman Russ as easily as a Chimera.  Let's go into detail with the numbers: I went ahead and wrote up some quick code that runs ten thousand iterations of Cobras moving and shooting a Warlord, since it's easier than mathematically determining your chance to score 10-16 damage, and here's what I've got on how much damage they do - Assuming I wrote the code correctly, the chance of achieving 14+ damage is about 1.24% - surely that's negligible.  The chance of achieving 12+ is 4.85%.  That's just not that amazing.  Their chance of 7+ is 43.5%, which is fairly respectable (3 Shadowswords have a 21% chance of 7+).  On the other hand, they have a much greater chance of doing almost nothing, with a 6% chance of doing 0 or 1 compared to the Shadowswords' 3%, or a 35% chance of doing 4 or less compared to the Swords' 22%.  So while Cobras can pay off big and drop a Warlord in one hit, there's a 68% chance that they'll inflict 7 or less damage on a Warlord, leaving it alive, meaning that they get annihilated without having accomplished their objective (and, quite often, Cobras are just as one-shot as Deathstrikes, especially when they miss).  Taken as a whole, I don't think there's any problem with Cobras - in fact, they're a bit too random for my taste. Against DC6 and less, it's pretty even, with the Swords having an edge.  The chance of 10+ is 5%.  The chance of 7+ is 25%, while Swords have a 21% chance of same.  From 6+ on down, the Swords win out.  54% of the time, the Cobras don't get through the Reavers shields, while the Swords only fail 39% of the time. Against anything less, the 3 Swords win out by quite a bit.
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Hojyn	Post subject: Eldar Cobras Posted: Sun Jun 25, 2006 8:33 am
Brood Brother Joined: Tue Sep 27, 2005 9:52 am Posts: 876 Location: Brest - France	Quote (Gotchaye @ 25 June 2006 (08:14)) Against anything less, the 3 Swords win out by quite a bit. And cost only 2/3 of the price... Anyway, that was a very interesting analysis. You said pretty much what I just said above, but soooo much more convincingly it's not even funny.
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Ilushia	Post subject: Eldar Cobras Posted: Sun Jun 25, 2006 9:07 am
Brood Brother Joined: Mon May 08, 2006 10:50 am Posts: 1189	You're probably right. I probably am over-stating their effectiveness. Yes, it's a very very small chance for them to one-shot a Warlord. If the Warlord's at full strength and suchlike. It's probably just my imagination... And, you're probably right, all on their own they aren't a particularly great formation to throw at a titan. It's probably just my perception of the units which is troubling me here. But watching a unit of Cobras walk up and smack a Warlord for 7 DC in a single go will do that I suppose. These guys just really strike me as fantastically powerful. And you're right, killing a fully shielded titan is fantastically unlikely. 43% to nearly kill or instant death an unshielded titan is fairly wicked in my book... What about against things like Tau Mantas or Ork Gargants? I'd love to see statistics about those. The points-cost of the Cobras do not go up, despite the fact that their effectiveness DOES go up, against larger units. A Great Gargant is 12 DC, 6 attacks against it, average of roughly 3 hits and 9 damage. Not a big deal if it's still got shields. If it doesn't... Well you've just cleaved 3/4 of it's DC off in a single attack. I'd love to see some statistical annalysis of it against some of the other war engines (Try it against, say, the Tyranid war engines, which have no shields and rely on high DC to  survive sometime. Or a unit of Shadowswords or Baneblades). Yes it's short range, it's also Skimmer and can thus move from positions you could not possibly use a Shadowsword from to strike on the enemy. It's also remarkably fast all things considered. But, I won't force the issue. Since people seem to think this thing's OK.
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Gotchaye	Post subject: Eldar Cobras Posted: Sun Jun 25, 2006 9:29 am
Brood Brother Joined: Fri Mar 03, 2006 1:25 am Posts: 59	Well, the stats I churned out were just for generic DC8 and DC6 things - the same basic numbers will work for most Tyranid things, and are the before-save numbers for Tau and Eldar things.  Units of DC3 war engines are going to be close to the numbers for DC6 and DC8 engines, depending on whether you get 3 or 4 attacks.  More accurately, they're just two independent runs of the DC3 table I'll post. I'm about to go to bed, so I'm just going to post the program output for DC12 and DC3.  The columns correspond to the number of hits, with the first column being 0, the second being 1, and so forth.  A '317' in column number 3 means that 3.17% of the time, 2 hits were scored. DC12: Columns 1 through 8         140           0         317         316         547         535         895         865  Columns 9 through 16         944         845        1043         847         771         561         474         352  Columns 17 through 24         238         132          91          50          23           6           6           2  Column 25           0 DC3 (much shorter) 2466           0        1651        1621        2035         562         808         592         265 And I wouldn't say that things are necessarily okay because two people think they are.  I'm certainly not one of the more experienced players on the board.
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Hojyn	Post subject: Eldar Cobras Posted: Sun Jun 25, 2006 9:46 am
Brood Brother Joined: Tue Sep 27, 2005 9:52 am Posts: 876 Location: Brest - France	Quote (Gotchaye @ 25 June 2006 (09:29)) And I wouldn't say that things are necessarily okay because two people think they are. ?I'm certainly not one of the more experienced players on the board. Neither am I, but again, common sense dictates that a 750 points formation should be on an equal footing with other units in the same points range. Exceptions such as the Deathstrikes missiles (which only cost 200 points) have heavy restrictions on them : they are 0-1 AND One-shot. Again, if a Warlord can wipe out a formation of 3 Cobras (or at least destroy 2 and break the remainig one), why wouldn't those 3 Cobras be able to do the same? And ANY Titan with no shields is vulnerable to TK weapons. Cobra are perhaps more efficient than other units, but they are otherwise limited by a short range and a fairly high points cost.
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dptdexys

Post subject: Eldar Cobras Posted: Sun Jun 25, 2006 10:33 am

Brood Brother Joined: Tue Jul 05, 2005 11:39 pm Posts: 1974 Location: South Yorkshire

So, me and Corey got together and played again. My AMTL against his Eldar. He made up a really bizarre and rather top-heavy list full of EoVs. Three cobras, three scorpions, one Phantom and one troupe of Fire Dragons in Wave Serpents(I think they were Wave Serpents anyway). Corey did remarkably well considering, made WAY more saves then I'd expect on 5+, even with RA. I failed to kill a single SHT. Killed the Phantom though on turn 3 and ended up winning... Your opponent has an army tailored to destroy yours ,made more saves than he should have and still lost the game .They don't look that bad to me ? Seriously though it looks as if this was the first time you had faced cobras and had not seen what they are capable of. You will find that in future games you will be more prepared to deal with them. In our gaming group we usually see this sort of shock from new gamers or even veterans when they face a new threat,but it rarely is the case when the same gamers face the same threat for a second or third time. The chaos Decimator comes to mind and the even the first time a large partion of your army is broken through an intermingled assault,again though once you have been caught out by the new threat you are more prepared in future games. I would say play another 1 or 2 games with the same lists and see if they seem too good now you know what they are capable of and that you have to either avoid or destroy them.

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Moscovian	Post subject: Eldar Cobras Posted: Sun Jun 25, 2006 1:20 pm
Brood Brother Joined: Thu Oct 20, 2005 6:32 pm Posts: 6414 Location: Allentown, Pennsylvania USA	Ilushia, Corey did you a favor fielding that army.  They are right in that this was tailored to take you out, yet is still didn't.  When you are fighting with a regular army (let's face it, AMTL is not your average army) you will find the Cobras easier to counter. For one, they are rarely fielded in threes - for the same price you can get 3 Void Spinners which are IMO the best non-IG artillery out there. Secondly, when you field in them in 'twos' it is easy to suppress them.  In 'ones' they break like glass. Against a non-Titan formation, they are overkill and against an infantry unit they are wasted. Combine all that with their short range and they become just 'good' units.   I have found them more suitable to line breaking than anything else. Look forward to your comments and playing your AMTL list in two weeks (my first time vs. that list). _________________ author of Syncing Forward and other stories... It's a dog-eat-dog world, and I've got my Milkbone underwear on.
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nealhunt	Post subject: Eldar Cobras Posted: Sun Jun 25, 2006 1:52 pm
Purestrain Joined: Thu Feb 13, 2003 10:52 pm Posts: 9617 Location: Nashville, TN, USA	Quote (Ilushia @ 25 June 2006 (07:03)) The Cobra VASTLY outstrips a Volcano Cannon, even a set of volcano cannons. I actually agree with this. However, they are more expensive, shorter range, and have much lighter armor. I also agree that they are good at killing all kinds of stuff besides WEs.  In fact, I fear them more for what they do to hordes of high value infantry and vehicles than against WEs. If you allow yourself to get distracted and don't keep track of Cobras they will completely eat your lunch.  However, if you keep them in mind they are short range and light armor and you can pretty much expect to defeat them before they do significant damage. _________________ Neal
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