Help Wanted: Killing Flying Demon Prince with Iron Arm

[Polythemus]

Killing the flying demon Prince, especially the nurgle variety is damn hard when they have iron arm.

While it'd be nice to have some grav guns for these guys, those things are for wimps right (looks longingly at shiny Ultra marine tech)? So with that option off the table how does one kill one of these things. I need help brainstorming.

 

Just so we understand what we are dealing with here.

Nurgle demon prince with wings:

 

 

Daemon Prince

 

WS BS S T W I A Ld Sv

9 5 6 5(6) 4 8 5 9 5++ Shrouded, Slow & purposeful (with mark of nurgle)

 

9 5 9 9 4 8 5 9 5++ 4+ FNP With Iron Arm, shrouded, slow,

 

Add in whatever demon weapon its got and its rolling a boatload more attacks. Simply put this thing is a nightmare from the bowels of hell brothers and it can rip you apart. Space marines may know no fear, but all of them should have healthy respect for this beast of the Abyss.

 

Counters needed: Shooting and Close combat

 

Shooting they are always going to get cover save/invul and FNP so:

D weapons are possible (hard to come by)

Lascannons manned by grunts.

Allied grav guns (always nice to have allies)

Libby - try to deny that iron arm.

 

Close combat: Need high WS, and high strength with resilience to give yourself a chance to hit back after the demon prince swings.

Terminators with powerfists not a great option as they hit on 5's, and wound on 5's.

Terminators with TH/SS more survivable but same problems as above, if you do get any hits through the prince is concussed next round. (init 1)

Deathwing Knights especially if led by an Int Chaplain. These guys might do the trick but after smiting, your back to wounding on 6's. That could be a problem especially if there is more than one Prince.

Belial with Sword of scilence - not likely that he'll survive but if he does and you charge its 4 attacks and wound on 2's.

any of these options needs to come from an assalt vehicle cause there is no way that termies can catch up with the prince.

 

Any other thoughts or anecdotes on playing against these things?

[[TA]Typher]

5 smiting knights with rerolls to hit due to prescience or a Chaplain

 

15 attacks, hitting on 4s with rerolls is about 11 hits (rounding)

 

Wounds on 3s, so thats about 6 wounds, and he gets a 5+ invul and a 5+FNP.. So you are looking about 3 wounds on average from them.

 

Knight master has 4 attacks on the charge.. 3 should hit. Maybe 1 wound.. Not reliable.

 

A force mace lib w/o term armor for the +1attack for having a bolt pistol. Again, he's in the same probablity as the knightmaster, but if you activated his force weapon... Also digital weapons would help.

 

EDIT: come to think of it. The Lib wound have a good chance with a force-mace as you don't get FNP against it. Also hammerhand would rock and give you a good chance to insta-kill him.

 

Even if they fail they are a good tarpit for him.

 

 

I'd like to say the knight are the way I'd go, but in reality I'd probably just multi-charge him with several units. 1 unit might not be effective, but two DWT and a smiting DWK unit would be.

[RayJ]

black knights will help you out a ton. Rad Grenade and Auspex get you down to wounding on 4s with only a 3+ cover save at range. Decent chance for rending in close combat. Stasis grenades can lower his WS enough that you are still hitting with 4s instead of 5s. Rending always wounding on 6s gives them a leg up even after the grenades fall.

 

Note that with Iron Arm he's T8, not T9. That is important for things like heavy bolters, and also means that you can hurt with normal bolters after a rad grenade.

 

Some psychic support for Perfect Timing, Invisibility, Sanctuary, Forewarning, etc can also come in handy.

 

A Large squad of DW Knights activating maces will be wounding on 2s and rerolling 1s vs CSM princes, so you just need enough to stay alive and get those wounds in.

 

In both cases, having enough models left to put the wounds on are what you are looking for. Storm Shields, PFG, and Lion's Helm can all do this to great effect.

[Interrogator Stobz]

Remember PFG also gives the enemy a 4++save in CC; but DWKs supported by RWBKs is a brutal combo if you can pull it off.

[Solrac]

The solution is obvious.

 

Get first turn and blast it to oblivion before it gets its Psychic phase :P

 

On a more serious note I agree with the others. Deathwing Knights are your best bet. Putting your HQ with the Knights might bait him to come to you.

[Polythemus]

Thanks for the replies. Nurgle demon princes that pass iron arm actually do have T 9, and that is what most of your more ruthless opponents will do against you. I made a mistake up top Because they have shrouded and fnp it makes shooting very difficult unless you have cover ignoring which is hard to get except with Amilitarum allies. This also makes psyker force weapons very poor since even with everything in your favor (black knights, psyker with staff, dwk) you'll need two bk grenade launchers both hitting with the different weapons to have a chance. All to deal with one unit. Like I said, stuff of nightmares. In reality you can expect multiple threats at once eg. there's probably helldrakes combing at you as well.

[Interrogator Stobz]

That's right, you will need to use 3/4 of your army to stop 1/6 of his (give or take depending on points limit).

Best of luck in an unbalanced game :D 

 

Allied Knights? but how do they get into CC with that thing?

[Pbenner]

I think we're looking at this wrong.  You only need to shut down Iron Arm once for it to have a massive impact, I believe that a Librarian is becoming a requirement in the current meta for this reason.  

 

You ignore it until you have to deal with it (if you can), wait until you can really jump on him next turn and shut down his cast of Iron Arm, pounce hard, destroy, and move on?

 

Paul

[SvenONE]

Honestly, your best possible approach is to hope for the best.  

 

Knights and a Librarian with an activated force weapon are your only decent shots...

 

...assuming you can ground it.

 

Everything else while good, I don't think will do enough damage to it before the Prince starts doing his thing..  Belial probably won't survive but his sword isn't the WORST (since it'll be re-rolling the failed wounds), but he's hardly going to be reliable.  This whole new psychic phase gave Daemons such a good buff, Biomancy is STUPID good now.

[Polythemus]

Well i think your right, that being said its more likely that the winged princes act as jump troops. The thing is that Chaos princes should be fearsome, and Chaos need all the buffs they can get. The odds are stacked against us, but then we're Dark Angels... we are built to suffer and take as many of them with while we live. It makes victory all the sweeter.

 

and Paul I'll be keeping the faith of seeing some dark angel icons when rolling Deny the witch! For the Lion!

[Prot]

I think the Knights (Black and Deathwing) are what I'd use, but I know it's not easy. That nurgle DP is crazy hard to kill. Thankfully they took Biomacy away from Nids!! Still their multi-Dakka-Flyrants are potentially worse!

 

The one thing I notice is no one mentioned ways of getting it on the ground, or grounded, from the air. I guess that shows the little faith the Nephilim users have in this case.

 

I think the suggestions here are good, but I did want to toss something out there that I haven't talked much about because I'm just starting to use it myself.... But it does scream Dark Angels:

 

http://www.games-workshop.com/resources/catalog/product/600x620/99120199030_FirestormRedoubt01.jpg

[RayJ]

Daemon Princes of Nurgle do not get +1T. They do not have "Mark of Nurgle". They get Shrouded. Where is this magic extra Toughness coming from? I could really be missing something. (Nurgle Sorc on a Bike, however can get to T9 with Iron Arm). Also, any Nurgle Daemon Prince in the sky is your friend., It means it cannot assault you with the nastiest of its weapons (Black Mace etc), as you cannot assault the turn you change flight modes, nor while swooping. Nurgle Princes are tough because they stay gliding, still jink, and get the 2+ cover.

 

Unfortunately, we do have to throw a lot of points at it, but a 7 or 8man DWK or TH/SS DWT squad should come out pretty well in the exchange, even more so if supported by some psychics/black knights.

[aura_enchanted]

Take librarian Ezekiel and get off mind wurm. He's then relying on a 5up invul and a 6 up fnp to block three attacks. If he fails one of them iron arm is basically now only giving him fnp. If he wiffs iron arm is now needed just to make him remotely useful anymore.

 

After three turns of mind wurm he's royally done for. And now his role in the match is gone.

 

Ws1, bs1, high s, ht, i1, 1W, a w/e, ld 2 5++, 6+++.

 

What good is stacking saves and wasting magic buffs on a weakling like that? There isn't one.

 

He is now disarmed.

 

And you did it at a discount too boot as he spent a lot of points buffing him up. Then if you get just one wound in he's dead.

 

Going first turn and podding him into range will be critical to bringing the bird down.

 

And the second your turn two comes around run him to cover and use mind wurm at targets of opportunity. If he comes in after you with the fdp drop it on him again and make him regret that decision.

 

Keep in mind that mind wurms effects are permanent. And any failed saved weaken him across the entire match.

[[TA]Typher]

Isn't mind worm a witchfire? Wouldn't he get a cover save? Also isn't MW only S4? It can't hurt T9.

[Larhendiel]

Hiw about Telepathy???

That deamon is only Ld9, you take one or two librarians lvl 2, hoping to score that perk that reduces his Ld by further one, down to Ld8

Then you get TWO 3d6 shots that deduct his Ld from it and cause him wounds on 18" range with no armour or cover saves allowed

 

I'd take lvl2 libby and ezekiel, try to counter his psychic call and then shriek it to bits

[aura_enchanted]

 

Isn't mind worm a witchfire? Wouldn't he get a cover save? Also isn't MW only S4? It can't hurt T9.

1) that's why you get in range turn 1 by any means necessary before he can get iron arm off. Then get out as quickly as possible then he's only t7

 

Next we have the stats of mw it's assault d3, focused witchfire, IGNORES COVER. So even if he gets airborne and you luck out and deny his 1st attempt then you can still hit him since his jink wouldn't matter (jink counts as a cover save).

[SnakeChisler]

Some libby buffs

 

To get iron arm he needs to pass a psychic test therefore you need to reduce their psychic pool, look at it this way pick on targets that can be taken out and will reduce their warp charge in one round of assault/shooting.

 

Poison or weapons that hit on a fixed number ex sniper rifles

 

By the way Demons only normally has an invulnerable save so grav will suck at dealing with them

 

Unfortunately the best unit I can think of for dealing with them is SM chapter Sternguard with poisoned ammo

 

A thought did come to mind though given the bucket fulls of dice demon armies have I'm unsure as to its practicality was Banner of Devastation with a Librarian using misfortune for rending on 6's

 

The stupid rule that if your sort of in cover you get 4+ coupled with shrouding means the smeging thing doesn't even need to take to the air to get a 2+ cover save

[SnakeChisler]

 

Isn't mind worm a witchfire? Wouldn't he get a cover save? Also isn't MW only S4? It can't hurt T9.

1) that's why you get in range turn 1 by any means necessary before he can get iron arm off. Then get out as quickly as possible then he's only t7

 

Next we have the stats of mw it's assault d3, focused witchfire, IGNORES COVER. So even if he gets airborne and you luck out and deny his 1st attempt then you can still hit him since his jink wouldn't matter (jink counts as a cover save).

 

 

You'll not cast anything against a Demon army even a run of the mill list will have 15 or so power dice before you roll to get extra's

 

ex 

Fateweaver  4 warp charge

Pink Horrors > 10 2 warp charge

Demon Prince 3 warp charge

Heralds 

etc etc

 

and it denies on a 5+

[Larhendiel]

Another option from telepathy is to make unit of knights invisible and then charge that daemon out, he will counts as WS1 against these warriors!

[aura_enchanted]

 

 

 

Isn't mind worm a witchfire? Wouldn't he get a cover save? Also isn't MW only S4? It can't hurt T9.

1) that's why you get in range turn 1 by any means necessary before he can get iron arm off. Then get out as quickly as possible then he's only t7

 

Next we have the stats of mw it's assault d3, focused witchfire, IGNORES COVER. So even if he gets airborne and you luck out and deny his 1st attempt then you can still hit him since his jink wouldn't matter (jink counts as a cover save).

You'll not cast anything against a Demon army even a run of the mill list will have 15 or so power dice before you roll to get extra's

 

ex

Fateweaver 4 warp charge

Pink Horrors > 10 2 warp charge

Demon Prince 3 warp charge

Heralds

etc etc

 

and it denies on a 5+

Oh thought this was vs csm. Csm magic suxxors if they aren't 1000 sons

[Prot]

I don't know about trying Mind worm. The MoN on a DP doesn't increase his toughness btw, it's just basically shroud. You're banking on so many things here. Chaos psykers aren't that bad.... you can easily field 2 WC three psykers, and they'll both take Familiars....  good luck canceling that. Honestly out of the box, I don't think a Dark Angel psyker is going to get very much off in this scenario.

 

If it makes you feel better, everyone aside from Nids, have the same issue with this guy.

 

I think at the end of the day the best thing you can do is tarpit him with something. Knights might be the best chance of keeping him busy.

[Tanhausen]

I think the suggestions here are good, but I did want to toss something out there that I haven't talked much about because I'm just starting to use it myself.... But it does scream Dark Angels:

http://www.games-workshop.com/resources/catalog/product/600x620/99120199030_FirestormRedoubt01.jpg

I've tested it and its offensive power is underwhelming at best.

4 BS2 TL LC shots...you usually hit with 2, which is quite meh to be honest (the fortification does cost 200 points).

Incoming Helldrake, bang bang bang...1 glancing hit

Maybe the "blinding" USR need a second reading, we might find something there...will have to check :)

[SvenONE]

I wouldn't count on Mind Worm either, you're pretty much going to be wounding on a 6, if at all.  It can't wound anything after T7.

[Seahawk]

First, as mentioned it is not T6; it's T5, so it only goes up to T8.

 

Nobody should ever count on dispelling anything, ever, especially blessings. If they get only two successes, you need to throw 12 dice for DtW to have a 62% chance of denying it. If they get three...fugeddaboudit. 

 

What to do then? Well, it's T5 before he manifests it. A Vindicator shot will take care of him pretty well, though Shrouding is still a bugger. The psyker and a unit of lascannon devastators can make mincemeat out of him; alternatively, cast Misfortune on him so that he saves less and causes everything you shoot at him to have Rending. I'm thinking the Standard of Devastation will make even a T8 monstrosity cry at so many Rending bolter shots.

 

The key though is to ignore it until it lands unless you have dedicated AA. You'll barely hurt it in the sky, and it has poor odds of crashing even you somehow manage to cause an unsaved wound (also super hard). It can't charge the turn it lands, so just bide your time. Annihilate everything else you can touch, then when it lands, Misfortune and blow him to bits.

 

Sanctic isn't a bad choice either. Go for Hammerhand, and your S7-8 force weapon just might do something.

[Prot]

I think the suggestions here are good, but I did want to toss something out there that I haven't talked much about because I'm just starting to use it myself.... But it does scream Dark Angels:

http://www.games-workshop.com/resources/catalog/product/600x620/99120199030_FirestormRedoubt01.jpg

I've tested it and its offensive power is underwhelming at best.

4 BS2 TL LC shots...you usually hit with 2, which is quite meh to be honest (the fortification does cost 200 points).

Incoming Helldrake, bang bang bang...1 glancing hit

Maybe the "blinding" USR need a second reading, we might find something there...will have to check

Well that kinda stinks. I was going to buy this thing, take the inside slot for devs, and let the twin linked Las do its thing.