Well hello everyone.
I'm starting this support to try to figure out and discuss a good way to use the vyper what are the vyper good poi t bad point what is it's purpose fluff wise how do we interpret it game wise what are the best load out for the point what loadout are the most efficient, what match up does she excel in and when does it do pourly. This unit have always been one i liked because it was really looking cool and it was not a common unit and I always liked not meta things because you could surprise some opponents with it. Well not experienced one but daily people could get drawn away or go the vyper pouring ressources in killing it, therefore not using it to kill more important things.
Ok so let's us begin, I started playing eldar because i loved there tank and qspect warrior. There philosophy was appealing to me sleek moving alien, chirurgical strike. Very specialised unit, very potent in there field of expertise. Choose your opponents and obliterate him was the idea i loved back then, but does the vyper enter this category?
Well kinda and kinda not. The vyper is a unit that for a very long time wasn't all that good or any good at all to begin with. It's designed to be a gun boat and a gun boat only. Yet it's not really fulfilling this role. Some other tank like the falcon can do this as well and for a long time they were better, for a similar cost they were offering much more survivability compared to there vyper counter part, it had acces to greater weapon and could potentially transport things. But today with the release of the new dex, the vyper got cheaper probably not cheap enough to my liking but well they are way better than last codex. Let us concider the advantages and disadvantage of the vyper.
First it can all the regular heavy weapon and have acces to the same upgrade as all the other tank. It's a fast skimmer, meaning it's fast, can jink and turboboost pretty far. It has the manouvrability nessecary to out class most of the opponents units. That's always been the dominant trait of eldar and the vyper make no eexception. Next is the vyper can have some of the most formidable shooting power in our dex for the point. Take nearly stock vyper with only shurican upgrade and you got 6
high strength shot for some really small amount of point. Same price with jetbike you have 6 twinlinked
low strength shot mounted on jetbike but for half the range, if you concider guardian for the same price you have 10
low strength shot not guaranty to move as much each turn... well i could go further but i think you get my point cheap hight strenght shot. I see coming the yes but scatter bike blablabla... for the price of 4 scatter bike you get 2 starcanon+shurican vyper. Yep there use have different but you get that i won't say bike are better, even thought i know that's the case but do you believe they each havd to fight over the same job? Of course not what would be the points, canybalisme never was a good things. We will see this later on. And one last things i feel is good, it can be taken as squadron.
The vyper bad points... Well there is plenty of those, and that's probably why the vyper isn't all that used. First is
its low armour value... do i need to get further into this, any str4 weapon can glance you to death. Bolter can harm you, oh wait there range is the same as your shurican! Get in range and it's death assured. And you have no save what so ever out of jink, wich will bring you to snapshot negating the very point of having the vyper as a gun boat. Next reason is bad is open toped... every thing with str 5 or more could potentially blow you up even without ap 2 or 1 weapon... Your range is rather short, like all eldar unit you will say but well, still annoying. The vehicule upgrade are as pricy as on bigger vehicule, making it counter productive to invest in something expensive when the cheap is where your interest lies. And that should be it for now. There is surely plenty other but those are the most important one i think.
So now let us concider a few scenario. We will try to figure out wich load out are the most suited for each scenario. For the purpose of going faster let me first rules out the missille launcher as a possible update the vyper isn't survivable enought to be given this weapon. The cost is way to hight to make it worth the gamble. Possibly you could use it for anti air while keeping it in reserve until flyer comes in, but srly i mean really, we have better things for that than a vyper.
First Scenario is a windrider host. Most of You won't be playing the warhost so i will start with this situtation. Most of you aswell see the vyper as a tax, I would like to make you concider another point of view. In the windrider host there is a few things to concider. First is you run with bike in the list... wait bikes? the same bikes that goes with shurican and scatter upgrade... huuum there you have a position of tax for the vyper as the jetbike will most likely be doing what vyper does but better. So let's concider, the load out of the Shurican and Scatter lazer kinda are out in this situtation don't you think. Well we could but we won't. The shurican load out will stay here, and mostly because of the rule for the host. You could potentially give shred to your weapon. So i will keep the shurican as a possible load out. But with this how many vyper should make the count? If you think about it as a tax then take only one. Give it the double shurican loadout, and use it to capture objective, unleashing it's fire power from time to times and jinking when ever possible. Yes you want to drow fire power, so you better have it survive, if cover save are not enought then jink. I say if, because the vyper is rather small so you should be able to get in cover most of the time. There, with this load out, you will have a sacrificial pawn to throw at your opponents, but you would rather keep it alive as much as possible. The other option could be to use this load out in a 3 or 4 vyper squad. The point is to have some fast moving shurican but that will be there as a bait. Yep you are looking at a 150 to 200 pts unit that will simply draw fire. Most of the time to pause even the slightest threat you will need to get into the enemy range wich mean you will be jinking to limit the damage, negating most of your potential dammage for the next turn. but you draw fire that's what you wanted. However i don't recommend this vs good armor army (space marine for example). Even with the bladestorm you will most likely not kill much of them, sheer wait of dice could help but don't count on it too much. Well with 4 vyper squad you are looking at 24 str 6 shot with blade storm... so that make for a hell lot of shot still. looking to finish a squad? then you can give it a shot but really stay away from retaliation as much as possible. The vyper is an unforgiving unit. use it accuratly and precisely and you will melt the opponent, misplace them one and they will disapear the following turn. Even more with this gun equiped since you are pretty short ranged.
Ok onto the next what you lack in the riderhost is either low ap weapon for heavy infantry, hight strenght shot for heavy vehicule. These can be compensated with other things in your army that's why you might want to stay with the tax style vyper. But, Eventually if you want to have it inside your riderhost, then, you have this two possible load out. If you look for absolute polyvalence between this two role the bright lance surely is the best, but the lower amount of shot make for lesser efficienty vs infantry, so i would not recommend it. Eldar are the master of specialised unit, going against this would be stupid i think. Even more since the brightlance is so good at killing tank anyway. So if you are trying to get somee hevay tank out of your way then bright lance is the way to go. Keep in mind that bright lance can still insta kill a terminator, so that can sometimes be usefull. I usually play vs Chaos with nurgle mark so that's something that not much use to me but can be to you. Yet keep in mind that there is more chance for you to have a shot stopped with a 5++ save than having 2 stopped. Therefore if you are looking for anti-heavy infantry or monstruous creature, you might want to go for Starcanon insted of Brightlance. I don't believe there is much things with a 6+ thoughness out there exept some thigns like our eldar wraithconstruct and few Monstruous creature right and left. That mean most of the time, you will be wounding from 4+ to 2+. You can wound termi on 2+ for example concidering this guy's as a straight comparason, if you have starcanon, you can stay out of range for the full game if not drop-poded on your face, and you can reliably kill 2-3 a turn with starcanon if you go for a 3 to 4 vyper squad, wich mean they fight each other pretty efficiently at similar point level. I mean the starcanon upgrade is jsut soooooo cheap it would be hard to not upgrade to it if you intend to field a vyper, and go hunt heavy infantry. Ok so now do you want to take the undershurican? Well i would take it everytime because even if you play it the safe way and try to never get in range to use it, then when you are in range nothing prevent you to throw a huge volley to you opponents, and if you go after regular cheap infantry, you will shread them. Yes it's counter to what i said earlier but you cannot choose your opponents everytime
. I personally take it everytime. I don't say it's a no brainer but you will more likely be happy to have it most of the time.
Ok so now that all my thought have been exposed let's make it short. In case you want to play the vyper tax 3 descent option are open to you : stock (i would not recomend it but well you never know can do something if left untouch), double shurican (descent option vs horde list but not the best if you are fighting marine or similar type of unit), starcanon on a lone vyper (can be usefull vs heavy infatry but will more likely be a gamble, take additional shurican to you liking). Be aware that a lone vyper will not really put out a lot of fire power out, so you should try the more you can to make use of it to secure objective. You got no bike close and you don't want to turbo boost them? Then do it with the vyper, 24 inch move is still nothing to laught at.
If you plan on using them for special hunting. For tank hunting then use them in 3/4 squad, i think the 3 squad of vyper is better, because you don't want to invest to many point in vyper. They are not survivable enought if you don't jink. So you go with Brightlance only for those, the Shurican won't be of any use vs heavy tank, so i think it's better not having the canon that would tempt you to get closer, possibly exposing your vyper. 3 lance shot have a fair chance at destroying the hp of most tank in 2 to 3 turn, admitting you manage to keep them alive. For Heavy infantry hunting i suggest going for the Starcanon upgrade, and get the shurican. I think the shurican is kind of a safety net. You want to use it only if you think you can destroy the unit in front of you, if it's doomed and you are guided for example, and there not much model left in it. I say this because the 24 range will expose you most of the time so you want to be sure to take out your opponents before they can shoot back.
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It took me quite some time to write this, way more than i expected so i will be adding a part 2 later this week.
And you how do you use your vyper? i have yet to go further into this, such as other formation, and tactics, so i think there is stil a long road ahead of me on this work.
That's also my first time writing something like this. So I would like to have as much feed back as you can provide. Please tell me where i'm doing wrong if you see things to rectifiate. In further devellopement situation, i will Update this first post and had a post below to say it's been updated. Like this if someone is reading this for the first time he will always have the updated version in first post.
Looking forward to your input
-Grizzlykin-
Ps : While i'm at it once everything is settled with the article i will do a huge revamp to see if there is any big problem with my english in the text i wrote. Not my native language and i don't alway see the mistakes. I will try my best to produce something readable without having your eyes destroyed.
Behold, for I have gifted you with additional paragraph breaks. Sing my praises and build me statues made of gold. - Rummy.Excessive stats removed to comply with GW copyright rules - Iris.