I have been beating my head against a wall (beat in mostly) continuously for the last month against their leaked codex and now the official one and I have come up with some tips and tricks for the commanders of the Dark City.
Many warriors died to bring us this information....
First off the one that has been giving me fits since I learned of the damned shiny unit.
Dreadknight counter play
4 trueborn 178 pts
4 blasters
venom
2 splinter cannons
retrofire jets
Dreadknight 130-260 pts
OK here is one way i have tested to take out a dreadknight.
Have the above unit of trueborn in venom off board and coming in from reserve. The reason you do this is that if the dreadknight has a personal teleporter they can get a 1st turn assault off on this unit and then you can kiss this goodbye along with a few more of your forces as they now try to deal with this thing in their faces. Try and set up away from it with the rest of your army because these things can and will get a 1st turn charge off on you if you are anywhere within 50 inches of it. I don't know how GW gave these things a 30" shunt and then allowed them to get the scout rule from a grand master...
Anyways on turn 2 drop down in range of the dreadknight. Preferably keeping it between you and the rest of the enemy army. Also remember your not carrying melta weapons so they have the same effectiveness at 17.9" that they do at 2" and most of his range is limited to 24". (Also don't DS into a warp quake, if you do i reserve the right to revoke your DE playing privileges) Hit the ground hop out and open up on him. That's 4 dark light weapons at S8 so the only issue is gonna be the 3+ to hit (my dice continuously fail me here) then its a 2+ to wound and your making the beast save on its 5++.
There is a possibility of it croaking right there. Albeit a small one if everything goes right for you. If it is still standing (probably) you then have the 12 splinter cannon poisoned shots to try and take off the last wound or 2.
If the damned thing is still up try and snake a shot across the board from a few dark lances. Remember the DE are all about finesse and overwhelming force where needed. In my new tourney list I have 2-3 of these trueborn units flying around. Hilarity definitely ensues.
don't rely on poisoned attacks because of the 2+ save. I have made this mistake and shot 40 splinter rifles with splinter racks rapid firing into one of these monstrosities. Only to have it save almost everything and lose a raider in short order.
Paladins/terminators
The thing that i have found that hurts their terminators and paladins are disintigrators. Specifically a ravager armed with disintigrators.
Since they cannot take storm shields they are weaker here than vanilla assault terminators.
1 ravager pumps out 9 shots at S5 AP2. I don't care if that unit is in cover, they are going to be hurting after that. Remember if we can send them back to their emperor in 2 and 3 man groups that's a win for us.
Assassins
Speed bump them!!!
OK seriously if you have a unengaged unit of reavers around I would try and run the bastard over. A bunch of S4 hits might just do the assassin in.
Another way to deal with them is to send a unit of warriors their way. If they are close a torrent from a squad of warriors should break through their saves and if they fail the invul for the blaster it will kill them outright. (That's an elite slot for them so if you see one its one less purifier/paladin/etc... on the board pray you see assassins)
Psyfile Dreads
Here is where the DE are going to run into some serious issues. The 4 S8 twin linked shots coming from this bad boy is more than enough to reliably take down ANY vehicle we own. Flickerfield and cover shenanigans not withstanding.
The trueborn from above will do the job here, with the venom sending shots into anything demeched in the surrounding area. Failing that the only other shooting option is for a long range sniping war with a ravager or a few raiders with dark lances.
It could be possible to get a unit of wyches up into its face with some haywire grenades but I think they should be busy working on the knights spilling out of the metal boxes and used as a closing rounds suicide charge into the dread if at all.
So what should the wyches be doing you ask?
getting into assault with anything infantry sized and shooty as soon as possible. The wyches dodge negates the dreaded NFW power weapon ability and will sufficiently tar pit the damn things until you get done dealing with the big stuff or there are bits of splintered blue steel all over the place. On a side note here AVOID UNITS WITH SANCTUARY AT ALL COSTS!!!1!1! I have had squads gutted before I even got into the combat. no one will call you a pansy for not assaulting these units. (I promise)
Purifiers/Purgaiton Squads
Here it can be a bit tricky too. In the case of the purifiers it would be suicide for the wycheswych squad. So best case scenario pop the box and have a warrior squad or ravagers ready to torrent them down. Cover be damned here, your probably going to see them in squads of 5-7 and just a few casualties will make them hurt.
The Purgation squad should be removed from the box and pounced upon by the wyches like kids on a wrapped gift. Get in there and hack some heads off, again using the dodge and nets to stay alive.
Also in both cases a liquifer gun on a forcibly disembarked squad seems to fit under the template nicely, just a thought.
Grand master/Captains/Librarians/Inquisitors/the 6 damn pages of HQ...
Dealing with their HQ units is a pain in the arse. Their access to rad and psyk out grenades makes assaulting them a risky situation. Why they made these offensive and defensive I will never know. So shoot them down is short order once their metal box is a slag heap. Easier said than done I know but it will seem worth it if your incubi or wyches start attacking each other.
Oh yeah Incubi.
Against GK I really don't think they should be included to fight these guys. With the grey knight having access to cheap I6 power weapons you can be rest assured to loose some incubi even if you charge in with a few pain tokens on. With their low number of attacks compared to the rest of the DE assaulty stuff the best you can hope for is a marginal victory with a under strength unit limping from the combat that is now effectively mission killed. I say leave them at home and if you need to fill the elites slot take some blood brides or more trueborn.
So who should lead the charge against the shiny marines?
Hmm HQ choices. My first suggestion is the duke, mainly because here is a army that he is going to be getting use out of all 3 of his special rules. You should be keeping the venoms and maybe a few raiders in reserve so he helps out by reducing the cost of the transports by 5pts a piece. The wyches and if you include them the reavers or scourges will benefit from the two poison rolls. (Remember once you get into combat the first pain token is generally useless against the power weapons) And having a warrior squad wound on 3+ isn't too shabby either. (plus it gives them another dark light weapon)
Then I would sprinkle a few haemonculi around. mainly in the wych squads. An agoniser here a scissor hand there. One piece of wargear that I might suggest is the crucible. Now the way the Gk codex reads the GK squads all work as one psyker,(and ruling it doesn't work on psykers inside of metal boxes I have no idea how they will rule it working against psychic metal boxes) so if you use the crucible on them it has the ability to kill the justicar out of the squad if they fail a psychic test. With a LD 9 its has some power to it, but being a 20pt one time use deal it falls into the category of if you have the points left.
Over all the strategy will be to play keep away with superior mobility until you knock out the dreadknights and crack some boxes. Then its going to be send in the assault units and go to town. The Dark Eldar are, if used correctly, the most brutal army in 40k. Absolutely merciless if things go right, absolutely abysmal if your dice go south.
I'm gearing up for a 2500pt tourney in a few months. The Grey Knights will be a legal army by then so i have planned accordingly. Here is the draft of the list as it stands now.
HQ The Duke
HQ haemonculus vemon blade liquifier gun
haemonculus vemon blade liquifier gun
Elite 4 Trueborn 4 blasters Venom splinter cannon
Elite 4 Trueborn 4 blasters Venom splinter cannon
Elite 4 Trueborn 4 blasters Venom splinter cannon
Troop 9 warriors 1 blaster Raider w/ flickerfield dark lance
Troop 10 warriors 1 blaster Raider w/ flickerfield dark lance
Troop 10 warriors 1 blaster Raider w/ flickerfield dark lance
Troop 10 warriors 1 blaster Raider w/ flickerfield dark lance
Troop 9 Wyches 1 shardnet and impaler Raider w/ flicker field, shock prow disintigrator
Troop 9 Wyches 1 shardnet and impaler Raider w/ flicker field, shock prow disintigrator
Fast 6 reavers 2 heat lances
Fast 6 reavers 2 heat lances
Heavy Ravager w/ flicker field 3 dark lances
Heavy Ravager w/ flicker field 3 disintigrators
Heavy Ravager w/ flicker field 3 disintigrators
2497pts
I'm planning on getting in about 6 practice games with this. I'll post here to keep it on the blog and also to keep track of my random thought pattern.
No comments:
Post a Comment