What is the answer to Wolf-tide/Barkstar?

Hi everyone,

Played against a nasty net-list as our local players are gearing up for our biggest local tournament.

Azrael in a Librarian Conclave featuring Tigurius, 2 Sword Librarians on bikes, 1 Librarian with a Power Axe and a jumpack and 30 Fenrisian Wolves.

2 Min squads of Sniper Scouts.

3 Thunderwolf Cav and a Wolf Lord getting a formation bonus of run and charge.

Drop Pod with Rune Priest, and min sized flamer tac squad.

The special rules from formations and psychic shenanigans do bad, bad things. The power of this list was extraordinary:

Everything wolfy can re-roll melee to hit in the first round of combat with their furious charge. Counter attack is also a thing.

The Fenrisian Wolves get Monster Hunter; everyone re-rolls against MC/GMC.

Through Azrael, the blob of Wolves and Librarians can have a 4+ inv save.

Through the 10 mastery levels on hand, Invisibility, Sanctuary, Eye Of the Storm, Hammerhand were all acquired. So the Death Star basically ignored being hit by shooting, melee, had +2 to strength, could shoot 4d6 Str 7 shots and had a 3+ Inv save.

Adamantium Will/Stubborn is also a thing: No negative modifiers to LD apply.

Through either a command benefit or some other native warlord trait, the deathstar had FNP.
All psychic powers are summoned on 3+, re-rolling 1s because of Tigurius.

Being beasts, terrain means nothing to the wolves. Also, they have 40mm bases so when conga lined they take up about 5 foot of the table. So by T2, anything will be assaulted.

Summary: I conceded at T4. This was quite a tsunami of catastrophe. I ran an Invisible CTC, which did some work but there was just too much sustained pressure. I managed to deny  Invisibility once, but all the other stuff acquired still made the death star invincible.

I think an Imperial Knight list will probably swallow this up for a whole game, or something else absurdly psyker heavy to turn off a psychic phase would work? Maybe if everything was on Jetbikes, you could spend much of the game hitting on 6s or turbo boosting away? What are your thoughts?

infiltrate some mandrakes in front of it, try to screen with whatever units you can reavers work well.

Its going to kill a lot of units but your goal should be containment, and damage control. Feeding them one unit at a time would be ideal, 5 units could be just a few hundred points. trying to avoid multi-assaults is hard though.

Focus all your killing power on everything else, don't bother trying to put a single wound into that blob until you have no other targets.

If you want to actually do any damage to that unit you will need to use allies, either some combined unit of multiple factions (possibly D flamers with webway portal carrier or something else nasty) or lots of stomps. Personally I wouldn't bother going the route of hurting death stars though, the more effort you put into it the less you have available to actually win the mission.

Well it depends on what you're willing to do. If you can ally then bring a culexus assassin (harlequin solitaire makes a fluffy counts as) to tear away invisibility. Then deep strike wraithguard with flamers via wwp archon (helm of spite a viable option to pincers the star between 2 anti psyker bubbles). The D flamers should make pretty short work of such a horde and discourage charges.

If you don't want to ally for fluff or rules restriction then you're bit more limited. Load up on venom and bikes and such and play keep away. I've never faced a death star so severe but I have played one. Ignore the star (he wants you to shoot it to justify all those points) and take out his support network. Focus fire on his other units and watch him be unable to score anything without breaking the unit up. Then gun down each component as they are individually weak.

Turbo boost away when he gets close and never let the star earn its points back. Spread your units out so it can't kill more than 1-2 a turn and just play the objectives. The most important part is kill his support units. The frustration of needing to score an objective and having nothing but his overpriced paper weight on the table will cause mistakes. He may ignore objectives to vindicate himself (and you win) or he may try to play objectives and if you cleared his support he won't be able to keep up with you. So you win.

The general toolbox is a Culexus in a bunker with an escape hatch, this creates a nice zone of denial. The Helm of Spite would be good, but the problem is that he has invul saves and that FNP which would reduce the effectiveness. Honestly, you're bringing the worst army in the game against the best list in the game bar none. That bark bark star can break up into mini units to tear your flimsy dudes apart, so don't think it's all one big paperweight. Think of it more as a time bomb. The answer to a death star is another death star, like a Tripartite Lance backed by psykers or a seerstar.

My first and biggets piece of advice is know exactly where all the buffs come from.

DEfan wrote:

Azrael in a Librarian Conclave featuring Tigurius, 2 Sword Librarians on bikes, 1 Librarian with a Power Axe and a jumpack and 30 Fenrisian Wolves.

2 Min squads of Sniper Scouts.

3 Thunderwolf Cav and a Wolf Lord getting a formation bonus of run and charge.

Drop Pod with Rune Priest, and min sized flamer tac squad.

This is by far not the worst version of this list. Not even close. If I read this correct - its a Dark Angels Cad (HQ Choice missing?, scouts for troops, Azrael for the lord of war - warlord), an ultra marines librarious conclave (Tiggy and 3 librarians), a wolfkin pack (30 wolves), a Deathpack (thundercav and lord plus min squad) and an unbound rune priest?

Unbound???

You need to get the exact list!

DEfan wrote:

Everything wolfy can re-roll melee to hit in the first round of combat with their furious charge. Counter attack is also a thing.

The Fenrisian Wolves get Monster Hunter; everyone re-rolls against MC/GMC.

Through Azrael, the blob of Wolves and Librarians can have a 4+ inv save.

Through the 10 mastery levels on hand, Invisibility, Sanctuary, Eye Of the Storm, Hammerhand were all acquired. So the Death Star basically ignored being hit by shooting, melee, had +2 to strength, could shoot 4d6 Str 7 shots and had a 3+ Inv save.

Adamantium Will/Stubborn is also a thing: No negative modifiers to LD apply.

Through either a command benefit or some other native warlord trait, the deathstar had FNP.
All psychic powers are summoned on 3+, re-rolling 1s because of Tigurius.

Being beasts, terrain means nothing to the wolves. Also, they have 40mm bases so when conga lined they take up about 5 foot of the table. So by T2, anything will be assaulted.

Ok... some questions - where are the rerolls coming from? Ditto - where is monster hunter coming from as I don't recall this being part of the formation. The only way they can get FNP from the above info you have is from azraels warlord trait and then you have to be within 3" of the objective with the unit - not hard with the size of the star but still important to note.

DEfan wrote:

Summary: I conceded at T4. This was quite a tsunami of catastrophe. I ran an Invisible CTC, which did some work but there was just too much sustained pressure. I managed to deny  Invisibility once, but all the other stuff acquired still made the death star invincible.

I think an Imperial Knight list will probably swallow this up for a whole game, or something else absurdly psyker heavy to turn off a psychic phase would work? Maybe if everything was on Jetbikes, you could spend much of the game hitting on 6s or turbo boosting away? What are your thoughts?

Yes - this list is utterly horrific - but pending the actual list - it does not have hit and run which it should have or you can tie it up through careful charges to deny him attacks - forcing him to kill you in his turn and thus lose a turn of movement. The deathpack cant run and charge if attached to the wolves either.

The best version almost always features Sammael, Azrael, a big wolf pack (40+), the wyrdstorm brotherhood (on bikes and jump packs) or the conclave (again on bikes or jump packs) then a couple of thundercav characters. In fact at 1850, 2 units of 5 scouts is the only points not spent on the death star!

Everyone is advocating D Scythes and I'm not really sure why - they get minus one on the destroyer table, so all those 4+ invulnerable saves will still be there. And even if you could bypass their invulnerable saves (which will definitely be up by the time the wraithguard show up) by getting a 6 with a fully powered D weapon, you can still only kill as many wolves as you actually hit, as the multiple wounds don't carry over onto other models in the squad. It just seems like a very expensive unit to lose to kill some of the bubble wrap around his psykers. Kiting it seems like the better option. You might as well just try and shoot it down with poison as anything else. If Reavers could still do their fly by attacks, I'd recommend them. But they can't

I don't know if Dark Eldar have the tools to deal with this on their own. It's too fast and closes down our movement too much. But that's not the end of the world. I mean, their list doesn't all come from one source. Throw a Seer Council in there, with two Farseers and however many Warlocks you feel like you can justify. You can outnumber him with warp charges and deny the most important stuff with any luck, plus you get to cast on threes too. Maybe roll on Telepathy to try and get Invisibility for yourself too. Stick them all on jetbikes to make them a bit tougher. Then just hope you get the first turn.

D cancels out the Feel no pain and does multiple wounds per failed save. Since the majority of the survivability comes from the everything in the death star having multiple wounds its a big help.

It also helps that most tourney formats nerf invisibility allowing you to hit them with the flamers with no consequence.

@TeenageAngst - Culexus doesn't work from inside a building or transport, not sure if you were counting on that with your suggestion.

Mr Believer wrote:

Everyone is advocating D Scythes and I'm not really sure why - they get minus one on the destroyer table, so all those 4+ invulnerable saves will still be there.

The 4++ will be there against anything else too though and the D-Scythes at least bypass the hit rolls and any armour or cover saves. Plus, as Seshiru says, they negate FNP and do multiple wounds.

Quote :

@TeenageAngst - Culexus doesn't work from inside a building or transport, not sure if you were counting on that with your suggestion.

Escape hatch. You have him tucked on your board edge in the bunker, then if the enemy gets to close, you slingshot the Culexus out the hatch. Boom, instant zone of denial and all those buffs go away.

why not just infiltrate him?

edit: the reason I'm asking is that everything around here follows the ITC and limits the number of detachments allowed to 3 and a bunker would take one, as would the assassin, leaving only one left =/

The detachment limit really hurts dark eldar as we don't have an effective detachment of formations.

Bunkers fit in a CAD, any CAD.

You don't infiltrate the Culexus cause he'll get his Assassin ass blown off turn 1. He's an old Clint Eastwood with an M1 rifle standing on his porch and shouting for the kids to stay off his lawn, and his property line extends to 18" around wherever you place the escape hatch. The wolfstar is big, enormous, yuge. It'll have a hard time avoiding that 18" sphere of nope because of its size, especially if you place that hatch near objectives he needs to deny. Be warned though, if he sits an adequate number of doggos on it they can prevent you from using it as an access point. However, he'll need to cross that 18" no man's land to do that so you have a chance to stop that madness.

Thanks for the responses so far, people. According to my Facebook feed, a 75 point psychic abomination has just become 40K legal: Welcome Sisters of Silence!

Take the 2-3 squad formation if you're going that route and keep the bunker w/escape hatch for one of them. The Sisters will basically be multiple Culexus in one formation with a big fat footprint. You can deploy them as a screen and keep one in the bunker as a sling shot backup. This will make maneuvering the doggos a nightmare for the other guy.

Massaen wrote:

My first and biggets piece of advice is know exactly where all the buffs come from.


This is by far not the worst version of this list. Not even close. If I read this correct - its a Dark Angels Cad (HQ Choice missing?, scouts for troops, Azrael for the lord of war - warlord), an ultra marines librarious conclave (Tiggy and 3 librarians), a wolfkin pack (30 wolves), a Deathpack (thundercav and lord plus min squad) and an unbound rune priest?


Ok... some questions - where are the rerolls coming from? Ditto - where is monster hunter coming from as I don't recall this being part of the formation. The only way they can get FNP from the above info you have is from azraels warlord trait and then you have to be within 3" of the objective with the unit - not hard with the size of the star but still important to note.


Yes - this list is utterly horrific - but pending the actual list - it does not have hit and run which it should have or you can tie it up through careful charges to deny him attacks - forcing him to kill you in his turn and thus lose a turn of movement. The deathpack cant run and charge if attached to the wolves either.

The best version almost always features Sammael, Azrael, a big wolf pack (40+), the wyrdstorm brotherhood (on bikes and jump packs) or the conclave (again on bikes or jump packs) then a couple of thundercav characters. In fact at 1850, 2 units of 5 scouts is the only points not spent on the death star!

Shiver, Massan, shiver..... This list could be made even better?

Most of these absurd/awesome formation rules came from "Curse of The Wulfen." The Fenrisian Wolves get +1 attack for being more than 20 strong, outflank and monster hunter in their formation. It looks like the latter units, the conclave ones you mentioned, are what is being used in the list.

I am sorry, I can not comment on the legality of this list at all due to inexperience with what is the latest hotness for SM. There is just so much 40K that has been released for them!

I will not be attending the tournament and frankly, as nice as the guy was to play against, I think I would become very grumpy by the end of the day if I was facing more armies like this. Being powerless to affect a game in any meaningful way is not my idea of fun.

I play around the NOVA circuit and there's kind of a gentleman's agreement that no one who's won a significant number of tournaments plays a bark bark star. They say it's no fun to play, no fun to play against, and even when you win you're not having fun. Don't feel bad about losing to it, just about every list in the game currently would lose to it, save perhaps Necron pylons, Seerstars, and the Tripartite Lance.

Count Adhemar wrote:

The 4++ will be there against anything else too though and the D-Scythes at least bypass the hit rolls and any armour or cover saves. Plus, as Seshiru says, they negate FNP and do multiple wounds.

Whilst that's true, how effective they are could be severely hampered by whether or not tournaments use the new FAQs - if the Wraithguard can't start in the same transport as the WWP carrier, the most templates you can hit with when they come down is something like three. Those wolves are on big bases too, so if they're properly spread out (and they should be), you're likely only going to hit three models per template. If they hop in the same transport it stands them in better stead, but even then they only have to roll one 4++ per wolf to deny those multiple wounds. Let's say you get fifteen hits coming down in a Raider or Wave Serpent. You roll on the destroyer table and get ten 2-5 results. Then he saves five of those. And this is just if it goes statistically, it could be even worse than that

It's by no means perfect but I'm not sure there's anything more effective. Actually, that's not true. Warp Hunters with multiple D-Barrage weapons are rather nice

Warp Hunters might be the way to go, that's true. I've played against one before, and learned to give it a wide berth

Warp hunters are a solution in search of a problem. You can't target invisible units with templates so they're pretty useless in this particular instance.

TeenageAngst wrote:

Warp hunters are a solution in search of a problem. You can't target invisible units with templates so they're pretty useless in this particular instance.

Well, if you're taking Warp Hunters there's a good chance you're taking some Eldar or Corsair psykers too, in which case you have a better chance of denying Invisibility. There's also the fact that the Barkstar player has to actually roll that power and then successfully cast it - not a given by any means!

TeenageAngst wrote:

I play around the NOVA circuit and there's kind of a gentleman's agreement that no one who's won a significant number of tournaments plays a bark bark star. They say it's no fun to play, no fun to play against, and even when you win you're not having fun. Don't feel bad about losing to it, just about every list in the game currently would lose to it, save perhaps Necron pylons, Seerstars, and the Tripartite Lance.

Kind words indeed, TeenageAngst! Serve the servants is one of my favourite Nirvana songs, too.

TeenageAngst wrote:

Warp hunters are a solution in search of a problem. You can't target invisible units with templates so they're pretty useless in this particular instance.

Unless you play ITC format, of course.

The Red King wrote:

If you don't want to ally for fluff or rules restriction then you're  bit more limited.  Load up on venom and bikes and such and play keep away. I've never faced a death star so severe but I have played one. Ignore the star (he wants you to shoot it to justify all those points) and take out his support network.  Focus fire on his other units and watch him be unable to score anything without breaking the unit up.  Then gun down each component as they are individually weak.

Turbo boost away when he gets close and never let the star earn its points back.  Spread your units out so it can't kill more than 1-2 a turn and just play the objectives.  The most important part is kill his support units. The frustration of needing to score an objective and having nothing but his overpriced paper weight on the table will cause mistakes.  He may ignore objectives to vindicate himself (and you win) or he may try to play objectives and if you cleared his support he won't be able to keep up with you. So you win.

Agree with Red King.

Run pure DE so his victory is hollow.

Take extreme MSU, nothing but venoms and min bikes units, can you take 1 RSR and 2 CAD where you play? Not hard to get 11 venoms and 10 x 3 bikes at 1750. No unit is worth more than 73 pts.

Nothing for him to sink his teeth into. Frustrate him. Win the mission.

That multi-charge is a problem though and that Deathstar can cover half the board no matter how much MSU the DE have. I think you have to charge him first and then keep him in CC to make it work.

He still needs LOS, has to keep coherency and move towards initial target if in range and can make contact.

With all your fast msu spread out its not too hard to limit his multi-charge options.

A suicide charge from some reavers can force the deathstar to bunch up too.