vs Pink Horror Spam (TSons & Tzeentch)

[Karhedron]

Which brings me to my next point – when playing this particular opponent I’m more than willing to bring out the filthy stuff myself. I’m not going to go out and buy 3 shield captains or Celestine, but I’m gonna soup it up for sure. Here’s my current plan:

 

Captain Smush

Mephiston

Lemartes

3x 5 Sniper Scouts

14 Death Co, 2 hammers

 

Guard CP Battery

 

Knight Castellan

 

Yes, the Castellan isn’t optimal again PH spam, but then again, maybe he’ll bring Magnus or Mechdar/his bastion. And then he should really shine. Plus, Oathbreaker Guidance Systems + the 15 Scouts should hopefully delete a character per turn.

 

I also have a WW Scorpius, a Sicaran and a Culexus lying around if that helps, and could proxy most things bar flyers, so Aggressors would be a possibility. 2 AC Razorbacks are in my collection, too. Not sure any of that would be better than what I’m currently planning though?

The AC Razorbacks are good against most targets in that they wound chaff units like Horrors on a 2+, have enough RoF and AP to threaten MEQs and can even knock a few wounds off big targets at a pinch. They are also good against units with an invulnerable save as they rely mostly on RoF for damage rather than AP. A Culexus also seems like a very good idea against either 1K Sons or Eldar but I am not quite sure what to drop to fit him in.

 

Against Horror spam, the Castellan can trudge forward and just stamp on the little blighters for minimal risk.

[Blackcadian]

Here‘s some math btw, just to illustrate how hard it would be to kill even 10 of those buggers:

 

My proposed 14 DC roll in with 56 attacks if I equip them all with chainswords.

 

With Lemartes thats about 40 hits.

 

And roughly 34 wounds.

 

With the Warp Wave stratagem the Pinks get a 3++, so about 12 wounds go through.

 

Add the FnP from the changeling and you end up with a mere 10 casualties. But wait, those aren’t even 10 dead pinks - because after the first one dies 2 blues appear, so the next model biting the dust will be a blue. Which then is replaced by a brimstone. Pretty crazy huh?

 

In fact it’s so crazy that I‘ll post this over at the rules forum just to make sure that this is how it works.

[Karhedron]

Here‘s some math btw, just to illustrate how hard it would be to kill even 10 of those buggers:

 

My proposed 14 DC roll in with 56 attacks if I equip them all with chainswords.

 

With Lemartes thats about 40 hits.

No quite, 56 attacks hitting on 3s with rerolls will give you 48 hits on average.

 

And roughly 34 wounds.

40 wounds when the above is taken into account.

 

I do agree it is a bit disappointing but the thing to remember here is that points spent on reinforcements are not on the table. Most players I have met prefer not to spend points on reinforcements and instead field more stuff initially. Blue and Brimstone horrors don't get a shooting attack IIRC so once you start chewing through the Pinks, the firepower of the unit goes down. Also, casualties to morale cannot be split so anything that runs away is gone for good.

 

Also, Horrors do not have any rules allowing them to Withdraw from combat and still shoot. If you get into combat with Horrors, they aren't shooting next turn and that is a bonus.

 

The main thing this highlights is that removing Horrors takes concentration of force. Even if DC on the charge cannot do the job in one turn, the rest of your army can help out. Throw in some shooting as even bolter fire is pretty effective against horrors. Daemons are one of the relatively few chaff units with no immunity to Morale. This means once you get past about 10 casualties, each additional casualty is worth 2 kills. Don't hesitate, if you want a big blob of daemons to go down, you need to commit decent resources to its destruction and hit it hard.

[antique_nova]

Ah I see. It's called Warp surge.

 

The dark reapers cannot overwatch a captain with angel's wings and there's no way that 10x dark reapers will be able to fully occupy all the space inside it, so you can fit one death company jump pack captain in there.

 

But be aware that the eldar have a stratagem called "feigned retreat" which allows them to fall back, shoot and charge normally (which is stupid, because every army should have this stratagem) as every army does this time and time again.

 

And you can't say that you're willing to bring out all the filfthy stuff and then not two words later, say that you won't. It just doesn't work that way.

 

But if you really want to go specific against this guy, then I'd suggest that you grab

 

Battalion Detachment:

2x Smash captains on jump packs

1x Mephiston

 

Lots of scouts with sniper rifles, heavy bolters and missile launchers and camo cloaks.

 

Vanguard Detachment:

2x Culexus Assassin

2x Eversor

2x Callidus Assassin

 

Supreme Command Detachment: (Raven Guard)

3x Smash captain bikers

 

In short, you hug the cover, smash his tanks in close combat and sweep in with your assassins who will make short work of those dark reapers, because those dark reapers will be almost impossible to shoot if he chooses alaitoc + stratagem making all shooting attacks at -2. Your scouts can then cap and hold objectives pretty well and simply chip away with hellfire rounds and sniper rifles.

 

That's just under 1500 pts.

 

I'd suggest you use this list against your friend's thousand sons too, because he can't smite anything if the culexus assassin is the closest target and if he gets too close with his horrors, you can easily send in your smash captains and bikers at the horrors and there's no way the captain will not be within charge range of those horrors if they can shoot and you can hide the captains behind buildings in the meantime.

 

And if he's going to use to brimstones to screen his horrors as speed bumpers against assault units, then simply shoot them down with your captains and scouts and charge into the pink horrors behind. Failing that, consolidate into them, but again, if his horrors are within range to shoot anything of yours, then you captains will be very close by.

 

I'm curious as to why 1500 pts though. Why not 1750 or 2000 pts, because that's the worldwide standard for grand tournaments,

[Blackcadian]

Ah I see. It's called Warp surge.

 

The dark reapers cannot overwatch a captain with angel's wings and there's no way that 10x dark reapers will be able to fully occupy all the space inside it, so you can fit one death company jump pack captain in there.

 

But be aware that the eldar have a stratagem called "feigned retreat" which allows them to fall back, shoot and charge normally (which is stupid, because every army should have this stratagem) as every army does this time and time again.

 

And you can't say that you're willing to bring out all the filfthy stuff and then not two words later, say that you won't. It just doesn't work that way.

 

But if you really want to go specific against this guy, then I'd suggest that you grab

 

Battalion Detachment:

2x Smash captains on jump packs

1x Mephiston

 

Lots of scouts with sniper rifles, heavy bolters and missile launchers and camo cloaks.

 

Vanguard Detachment:

2x Culexus Assassin

2x Eversor

2x Callidus Assassin

 

Supreme Command Detachment: (Raven Guard)

3x Smash captain bikers

 

In short, you hug the cover, smash his tanks in close combat and sweep in with your assassins who will make short work of those dark reapers, because those dark reapers will be almost impossible to shoot if he chooses alaitoc + stratagem making all shooting attacks at -2. Your scouts can then cap and hold objectives pretty well and simply chip away with hellfire rounds and sniper rifles.

 

That's just under 1500 pts.

 

I'd suggest you use this list against your friend's thousand sons too, because he can't smite anything if the culexus assassin is the closest target and if he gets too close with his horrors, you can easily send in your smash captains and bikers at the horrors and there's no way the captain will not be within charge range of those horrors if they can shoot and you can hide the captains behind buildings in the meantime.

 

And if he's going to use to brimstones to screen his horrors as speed bumpers against assault units, then simply shoot them down with your captains and scouts and charge into the pink horrors behind. Failing that, consolidate into them, but again, if his horrors are within range to shoot anything of yours, then you captains will be very close by.

 

I'm curious as to why 1500 pts though. Why not 1750 or 2000 pts, because that's the worldwide standard for grand tournaments,

The bastion is a fortification bought by the Eldar player, and those now function like transports, only immobile, unfortunately. So no hopping in there with the Reapers to mix it up.

 

I guess what I meant to say was that I’m willing, but limited by my collection.

 

I don’t have a single bike or all those assassins, so there’s that :/

 

We play 1500 or 1750 depending on much time we have at hand. Most guys in our club aren’t competitive at all, it’s mostly just the two of us.

 

Thanks for the additional suggestions!

[Blackcadian]

 

Here‘s some math btw, just to illustrate how hard it would be to kill even 10 of those buggers:

 

My proposed 14 DC roll in with 56 attacks if I equip them all with chainswords.

 

With Lemartes thats about 40 hits.

No quite, 56 attacks hitting on 3s with rerolls will give you 48 hits on average.

 

And roughly 34 wounds.

40 wounds when the above is taken into account.

 

I do agree it is a bit disappointing but the thing to remember here is that points spent on reinforcements are not on the table. Most players I have met prefer not to spend points on reinforcements and instead field more stuff initially. Blue and Brimstone horrors don't get a shooting attack IIRC so once you start chewing through the Pinks, the firepower of the unit goes down. Also, casualties to morale cannot be split so anything that runs away is gone for good.

 

Also, Horrors do not have any rules allowing them to Withdraw from combat and still shoot. If you get into combat with Horrors, they aren't shooting next turn and that is a bonus.

 

The main thing this highlights is that removing Horrors takes concentration of force. Even if DC on the charge cannot do the job in one turn, the rest of your army can help out. Throw in some shooting as even bolter fire is pretty effective against horrors. Daemons are one of the relatively few chaff units with no immunity to Morale. This means once you get past about 10 casualties, each additional casualty is worth 2 kills. Don't hesitate, if you want a big blob of daemons to go down, you need to commit decent resources to its destruction and hit it hard.

Yeah, I think you’re right. With the bolters and the hopefully also Lemartes, Mephiston and the Captain joining the fray there hopefully should be a sizeable dent made in the unit. The latter 2 could also jump over the unit and go supporting char hunting if a nice opportunity arises.

 

Thanks! Also for correcting my math, haha!

[antique_nova]

 

Ah I see. It's called Warp surge.

 

The dark reapers cannot overwatch a captain with angel's wings and there's no way that 10x dark reapers will be able to fully occupy all the space inside it, so you can fit one death company jump pack captain in there.

 

But be aware that the eldar have a stratagem called "feigned retreat" which allows them to fall back, shoot and charge normally (which is stupid, because every army should have this stratagem) as every army does this time and time again.

 

And you can't say that you're willing to bring out all the filfthy stuff and then not two words later, say that you won't. It just doesn't work that way.

 

But if you really want to go specific against this guy, then I'd suggest that you grab

 

Battalion Detachment:

2x Smash captains on jump packs

1x Mephiston

 

Lots of scouts with sniper rifles, heavy bolters and missile launchers and camo cloaks.

 

Vanguard Detachment:

2x Culexus Assassin

2x Eversor

2x Callidus Assassin

 

Supreme Command Detachment: (Raven Guard)

3x Smash captain bikers

 

In short, you hug the cover, smash his tanks in close combat and sweep in with your assassins who will make short work of those dark reapers, because those dark reapers will be almost impossible to shoot if he chooses alaitoc + stratagem making all shooting attacks at -2. Your scouts can then cap and hold objectives pretty well and simply chip away with hellfire rounds and sniper rifles.

 

That's just under 1500 pts.

 

I'd suggest you use this list against your friend's thousand sons too, because he can't smite anything if the culexus assassin is the closest target and if he gets too close with his horrors, you can easily send in your smash captains and bikers at the horrors and there's no way the captain will not be within charge range of those horrors if they can shoot and you can hide the captains behind buildings in the meantime.

 

And if he's going to use to brimstones to screen his horrors as speed bumpers against assault units, then simply shoot them down with your captains and scouts and charge into the pink horrors behind. Failing that, consolidate into them, but again, if his horrors are within range to shoot anything of yours, then you captains will be very close by.

 

I'm curious as to why 1500 pts though. Why not 1750 or 2000 pts, because that's the worldwide standard for grand tournaments,

The bastion is a fortification bought by the Eldar player, and those now function like transports, only immobile, unfortunately. So no hopping in there with the Reapers to mix it up.

 

I guess what I meant to say was that I’m willing, but limited by my collection.

 

I don’t have a single bike or all those assassins, so there’s that :/

 

We play 1500 or 1750 depending on much time we have at hand. Most guys in our club aren’t competitive at all, it’s mostly just the two of us.

 

Thanks for the additional suggestions!

 

Seriously? They're classed as transports? Where in the rules does it say that, because that's complete bollocks. I see it now, I mean seriously, how in the world did GWS pull this off and over ride all common sense on this?

 

The bastion is open topped and even if the dark reapers were hiding inside, there is no way that they'd be able to shoot more than 4 guns out of each of the 4 small slots.

 

Good thing they can't over watch while inside.

 

Now that I've calmed from my red rage, I would highly suggest that you grab 3 predators with lascannons and use the stratagem kill shot. Make sure you hide your predators, so that he can't see them, before you shoot and in your turn, simply move the predators so that they can see the bastion and shoot it. Out of 12 shots, 6 will hit and if you use the stratagem I mentioned, you predators will only need 2s to wound. So, you'll statistically get 5x D6 wounds. Out of 5D6 rolls, on average you'll roll 15 and if you add in the +1 damage from each shot that wounded. That's 5+ more. Leaving you with a average total of 20 wounds. If you want the kill to be even more secure, then strap hunter killer missiles on top of them all.

 

Or if you're strapped for points, then you can just grab 3x devastator squads with lascannons and armoured cherubs. Giving you 15 lascannon shots in one turn, while the chance for 6 of those shots with +1 to hit. You're practically guaranteed the kill.

 

Battalion Detachment:

2x Smash captains on jump packs

1x Mephiston

 

5x Scouts - snipers - camo cloaks - heavy bolter

5x Scouts - snipers - camo cloaks - heavy bolter

5x Scouts - snipers - camo cloaks - missile launcher

 

5x devastators - 4x lascannon - 1x armoured cherub

5x devastators - 4x lascannon - 1x armoured cherub

5x devastators - 4x lascannon - 1x armoured cherub

 

Vanguard Detachment:

2x Culexus Assassin

2x Eversor

 

That should do it.

 

This is just one variation.

 

You could easily ditch mephiston and the assassins and grab 3x punisher leman russes with the relic of lost cadia and then see how your mate likes his horrors being melted by 120 S5 shots that all reroll hits and wounds in a single turn at 28" (24" for range and 4" for movement)

 

I picked the shooty units, because now that I know better about the bastion, I understand that he can't do anything to affect your shooting the bastion since it's unaligned. So you can shoot it normally.

[Karhedron]

Good thing they can't over watch while inside.

No but if they have a Farseer babysitting them they can use the Forewarned stratagem to nuke anyone who comes into play from Reserves nearby.

[Blackcadian]

 

Good thing they can't over watch while inside.

No but if they have a Farseer babysitting them they can use the Forewarned stratagem to nuke anyone who comes into play from Reserves nearby.

Exactly :( Usually said Farseer hides right behind the bastion like the cowardly alien that he is. Plus he can guide the Reapers

[antique_nova]

He can't guide the reapers, because as you said. They`re inside a transport and cannot be affected by external influences.

 

Except naybe the deepstrike one, but I`ll check that later.

[Are Verlo]

The reaper can not fire at units arriving from reserves while the reapers are embarked on/in the bastion.

 

Reference the rulebook page 183

Because the respers are not considered to be within 6” of the farseer.

[antique_nova]

The reaper can not fire at units arriving from reserves while the reapers are embarked on/in the bastion.

 

Reference the rulebook page 183

Because the respers are not considered to be within 6” of the farseer.

And there you have it!

 

You know, I'd paint up a death company captain, call him Shepard and let him loose on the reapers. That should frighten them to death! ^^

[Karhedron]

Another unit that might be useful is the Leviathan Dreadnought. Its stormcannon is Heavy 10, S7 D2 which will be helpful as it means that the odd FNP save will not rob you of a casualty.

 

You can either run dual stormcannons or you can add a Grav flux bombard. At Heavy D3, it does not sound that impressive until you read its special rule that it gets an extra D3 shots for every 5 models in the target unit. That means you will be getting 6D3 shots against a full 30-strong unit of Horrors. With T8, a 2+/4++ save and 14 wounds, the Leviathan is pretty durable too.

 

The Redemptor Dread with both heavy and regular Onslaught Gattling Cannons (18 shots plus assorted smaller calibre guns) is also quite a good chaff clearer.