Tips for 500 pt games against Ad Mec, Chaos Daemons, and Tau - Friendly, no cover, no obj

Hi all,

About to play my first games today in about 12 years. Its friendly, none of us have ever done comps, etc.

I have a fairly standard build (well, 2 build options, potentially 3).

Battleforged Patrol - Probably Black Heart, or Poison Tongue
Footslogging Archon
3x5 Kabalites, each squad with a blaster
A raider (2x kabalites) with splinter racks and Dissy
A venom (twinlink)
5 Scourges with Haywire

Alternate form is swap scourge for Razorwing Jet, drop the racks and give archon venomblade instead of husk.

EDIT:

The tau player had 3 broadsides, 2 markerlights, 2 squads of 8 breachers, 10 kroot, an etherial and a broadside commander type thing? I couldnt field my razorwing because the base fell apart. So I fielded the scourges.

I think I know what went wrong, but I would like confirmation.

I got to go first. Rushed in with my raider and venom, keeping the archon with writ within 6 inches. Opened fire and slaughtered all the kroot, and all but 3 of the breachers. Was feeling pretty good, but I THINK I should have flown over him and hit the broadsides full force. Because I skipped the melee phase (kabal isnt good in melee) and then got roasted by flamers, plasma cannons and missile pods. I managed to get the archon into melee with the broadside commander with shadowfield in tact, and did 3 wounds, and then he fell back and charged in with the etherial which I then killed, but I lost the shadowfield the next round. Mid way though round 3, I died. In the end, while my opening volley killed nearly 100% of all his troops, I failed to do any damage to the broadsides and the battlesuit HQ unit was still there with 2 wounds left. Everything else was dead, but once my vehicles went down in round 2, it was all over but for the crying.

Next time, swap scourges for razorwing (the scourges did nothing) and try to get behind him first turn and unload on the battlesuits. I lose the "reroll wound 1s" from the archon but oh well.

All 3 armies I will face are running cheap battalions though. 3 troops and 2 HQ. I can do that (the only other model I have is a second archon) if I ditch either the scourges or the razorwing.

I know I wont face many vehicles. There will be no terrain, no cover, no objectives. What am I supposed to do?! I literally have no idea what I am doing (other than I know the rules). So, help?

at 500 points, never take haywires. There are too few vehicle to make them worthy. Squeeze as many disintegrator as you can, since as people won't be able to field much vehicles, they will compensate with elite infantry.

dumpeal wrote:

Squeeze as many disintegrator as you can

This is pretty good advice even at larger points values, to be fair.

Burnage wrote:

dumpeal wrote:

Squeeze as many disintegrator as you can

This is pretty good advice even at larger points values, to be fair.

That's true, but it's still even more the case here. Take min kabalites units. Don't take blasters. Don't take venoms. Just raiders. Or a ravager if you can.

I'm not sure this is a list building issue, why arent you playing with terrain? Against a gun line army like tau you're at an immediate and massive disadvantage because they can just do what they do best without hindrance. Our shooting doesnt rival any of the true gunline armies at all, we thrive off tagging such units to lock them down, hiding behind cover to get close enough and then shooting things we can see until the enemy cant see us.

That said if you want to just hose them down I suggest shredder scourges deepstriking so they cant be blasted off the board turn 1, shredders on the kabalites too and maybe some mandrakes in a venom;

Patrol
Archon; Djinn Blade, Blaster, PGL

2×5 Kabalite; Shredder, PGL in a Raider; Dissie, PGL

1×5 Mandrake in a Venom; Twin Splinter Cannon

1×5 Scourges; 4 Shredder

Spend all 3CP trying to get mortal wounds off with the Archon's/Raider PGL using Torment Grenades, focus shredders on anything T5 and lower (naturally rerolls wounds vs Infantry) and poison/disintegrators for the T6 none vehicles. The mandrakes are cool as they're amazing once they hit the enemy lines, you can either ride them in the Venom or deepstrike turn 2 with your Scourges and offer another decent output of Mortal wounds. I think you would probably be best off as Poison Tongue to maximise damage output (since you dont have many Vehicles or CP to make the most of Black Heart), you're likely outranged by tau for Obsidian Rose to work and other than the 3" movement from Flayed Skull they dont offer much either (since your archon will be foot slogging anyway so cant provide his reroll 1s). His Blaster should be saved for the biggest bad guy to try and get a lucky wound off. Best of luck!

Ok, thanks for the tips. But I only have the models I mentioned. So I can on paper change guns, but cant field alternate models. Like I have 15 kabalites. I have a single raider. I have a single venom. I have 2 archons, I have 5 scourges, I have a razorwing jetfighter. Thats all I have to work with.

We arnt playing with terrain or objectives pretty much because the others dont want to. Our play space is also tiny. When we started, we were exactly 24 inches apart. So I was in rapidfire range turn 1 easily. The Archon was able to provide the +1 by simple virtue of having enough move that I could get the venom and the raider into rapidfire range and still move the archon to within 6" of both.

They dont mind me saying one gun is another, but wont let me use stand in models.

Why dont they want to use terrain? If space is that tight I probably wouldn't suggest the flyer since it has a minimum move of 20" and a 90° pivot so you'll just fly it off the board and kill it. I'd ask if you could proxy 5 of the Kabalites as Mandrakes/convert them personally, but otherwise I still wouldn't suggest the flyer, go with shredders and hope for the best. You could go for something like this;

Archon ×2 Blaster PGL Huskblades
3×5 Kabalites with a shredder
1×5 Scourge with shredders
1 raider with dissies

Gives you 8cp not that youd have anything to spend it on but lands at 490pts so you could even take a Splinter rack on the raider.

Ok, so ditch the venom then? Wont that leave one squad of 5 kabalites ridiculously exposed? How do I deal with the battle suits? I can melt the infantry. Its the suits that then soloed me. We could have had it with my 500 point army and him just having 3 battlesuits and it still would have worked out the same way.

If you're okay with proxying wargear you can get things down so you've got all your Kabalite units protected;

2 x Archons (Splinter Pistol, Venom Blade)
3 x 5 Kabalites w/ Blaster
1 x 5 Scourges w/ Shardcarbines
1 x Venom w/ 2 x Splinter Cannons
1 x Raider w/ Disintegrator Cannon

Command points are always, always useful so don't feel like running a Battalion is a drawback here. Even giving you the option to cast Lightning-Fast Reactions on your Raider, or re-rolls when needed, can be a huge advantage.

albions-angel wrote:

Ok, so ditch the venom then? Wont that leave one squad of 5 kabalites ridiculously exposed? How do I deal with the battle suits?

If only you had some boulders or ruins to hide behind tbh the shredders blasters dissies should be able to deal with suits once you've cleared out drones

I would agree to play the tau player with no cover if he agreed not to ever rapid fire. Cover is a part of the game, removing it changes the game and heavily benefits some armies over others.

Also, while Kabalites are not amazing in CC, they are better than Tau are. Definitely charge. You are reducing their ability to shoot you then. If you want CC, Ynnari Kabalites would not be too bad, and the Archon would love the hungering blade....

Saying you are 24" apart after deployment, I am going to assume 48" is the length of your play space. I would suggest cutting the range/movement of everything, perhaps in half. Do that, and you are getting closer to a real game - and dear god, you need to use cover. Sorry if your friends don't like it... it is part of the game. I don't like Tau getting over watch (or as I call it, 2nd shooting phase)...

As to your list, work with what you have, and target hit big guns 1st. I would run a bat - 2 archons, 3 wariors with blaster/shredders. 1 squad in venom, other 2 in a raider, archons foot it. After that, it is experience with your army, theirs, and starts.

Oh and terrain, don't forget the terrain

WTF?!?! No terrain? That stupid, so back int he day one of the more popular game types was called Combat Patrol it was 500pts tournaments, AMAZING FUN, but Terrain made or broke it, your group has no idea, sorry.


IDK about you, but my DE 500pts list is

Archon
Archon
Kabal
Kabal
Kabal
Raider
Raider
Raider


Given there is 0 Terrain..... Throw DE away, just get CWE, take a Patrol, dont care about CP, take 2 Wave Serpents, 1 Ranger squad and 2 Warlocks/Spiritseers as Alaitoc.

Use your CP (your 3 lol) to shoot your Shield turn 3 and 4, turn 2 and 3 shoot your normal shields (So turn 2 shoot 1 shield, turn 3 shoot 2 shields spending 1cp to shoot 1 shield, turn 4 shoot 1 more shield with 1CP) you have 1Cp to screw around with.

Wave serpents are only 9 shots, but -1 to be hit, -1 to damage, 6+++, T7 13 wounds, and 1 of them (the one that shoots it shield 1st) will have Vector Engines for -2 to be hit.

You'll have on turn 2-4 with 2 HQ's smiting, a total of (If your WS's live turn 4)
Turn 1 stay alive, use your 18 S6 shots to kill any marker lights/chaff in front.
Turn 2: 3D3 MW's, 18 Str6 shots
Turn 3: 4D3 MW's, 18 Str6 shots
Turn 4: 3D3 MW's, 18 Str6 shots
Total of 20 MW's and 72 Str6
Also your 1 range unit focus on any Drones/Characters every turn.

Ok, thanks for the tips on comp all.

Assuming I use Burnage's comp idea (because its pretty much the only one I can use with the models I have), and I get some cover up, what does a game look like?

Am I supposed to camp behind cover? I thought DE was all about mobility (mind you, I also thought DE was crushing Tau right now, and I literally have no idea how thats possible).

Can someone give me a turn order breakdown. Facing 10 Kroot, 2x7 Breachers, 3 Crisis Battlesuits (with 2x markerlights), 1 etherial, 1 XV8(?) Crisis Commander. Im honestly not sure how cover helps in that situation. It was the flamers on the battlesuits that really hurt me.

EDIT: Just reread the cover rules, and vehicles dont seem to get cover from very much... Given half my force are in vehicles, I am struggling to see how this helps.

albions-angel wrote:

Ok, thanks for the tips on comp all.

Assuming I use Burnage's comp idea (because its pretty much the only one I can use with the models I have), and I get some cover up, what does a game look like?

Am I supposed to camp behind cover? I thought DE was all about mobility (mind you, I also thought DE was crushing Tau right now, and I literally have no idea how thats possible).

Can someone give me a turn order breakdown. Facing 10 Kroot, 2x7 Breachers, 3 Crisis Battlesuits (with 2x markerlights), 1 etherial, 1 XV8(?) Crisis Commander. Im honestly not sure how cover helps in that situation. It was the flamers on the battlesuits that really hurt me.

EDIT: Just reread the cover rules, and vehicles dont seem to get cover from very much... Given half my force are in vehicles, I am struggling to see how this helps.

It's not about having cover bonus but not giving line of sight to your ennemy. If he don't see you, he can't shoot you. (except those ignore cover, ignore line of sight weapons)

Ideally you should have 1-2 pieces of line of sight (LoS) blocking terrain. Vehicles can't get cover a lot, but if they can't see you, they can't shoot you.

DE are fast, but not the fastest army. But, we can make our entire army quite mobile. I would look to use LoS Blocking cover to help divide an conquer. Hug it to protect from shooting from his broadsides, while targeting the rest of the army. Kroot are not that big a threat - mainly just a screen.

We want to not fight fair. A stand up fight, we will lose. Maneuver to gang up, and tag in cc to stop his shooting.

I would advise checking out Skardcast on youtube. Also good to listen (and I do often at work) is the Splintermind Podcast. Can be a Paetron of theirs too for 1$ a month....

Oh, thats not good then. Of the terrain they do have, they dont have any tall enough to block line of sight to a raider...

Use Bowls, stack dvd boxes, etc....

or...

Go to your local pet store and get some of the aquarium pieces... You can get some pretty decent sized and looking pieces for a moderate price

Ok, so assuming I get some LoS blocking terrain, given how narrow the table is, what do I want to happen?

Am I supposed to zoom up right behind the terrain and wait for them to come round the sides? If that happens, its going to be their turn and they will get into melee, forcing me to fall back and not shoot. Or the battle suits just move over the top and nail me from behind.

Also, so far this has all been about the tau player I have already lost to. I still have Ad Mec, Khorn, and potentially thousand sons to deal with. I dont have time right now to listen to some podcasts, though I will for future. What should I be prioritizing, and what should I be shooting it with.

From the look of bigger armies (1000-2000 points), it seems that 2x5 kabalites in dissi raiders is the meta, with 3 ravagers and a writ, we are topping tournaments. But I am facing 500 pt off-meta armies in deathmatch games. I need some basic tips on literal order of operations here.

What you want is moving from cover to cover (LoSB), finding spots where you can shoot a part of his army while protected from the big threat. The Fire and Fade stratagem will also help you a lot. You move in plain sight, shoot heavy weapons, then spend 1CP to move back in cover. The Tau player will also try to protect his units and it will be a position war. But you have a greater mobility and it will be easier to you to find a good position.

WIth no terrain, its just mathhammer and Tau wins. You need terrain and  you need to play with it. Literally its part of the game. ESPECIALLY in a deathmatch.... 40k literally isnt balance to play without terrain and objectives,the game is meant to be play with these 2 things. Its like trying to play cheese without any Pawns... whoever goes first wins.


To win vs Tau, it is
1) Kill Drones and/or Kill Markerlights
2) Kill everything that kills you best
3) Kill everything else


About Terrain, Battlesuits WONT fly over the top to get to you, suits don't move away from the Drones, they will move 10" max to still shoot you, mobile Tau is a dead Tau unless you make your list just for that, and his list is not that way. Players also wont zoom around the sides, we are one of the fastest armies in the game (Next to Quins/CWE and Tyranids), Tau will never catch you. if he gets close to you then you are making movement mistakes.


Here is what i would do with limited terrain

Turn 1: Start out of each of most of his guns, Taus average range is 30", stay your max movement + gun range (46-50" away), if he goes first he will have to move to hit you with only 20% his fire power, if you go 1st you can move to 1 flank really hard and take small long range shots (36" range shots) only get within 24" if you know you kill 2 units for sure. If you go to 1 flank very hard he has to move 1/2 his army for 2 turns to hit you.

Turn 2: Focus that flank very hard, get all your guns in rapid fire and make sure to kill all Drones and Marker lights, infantry, etc.., use all of your poison weapons first, save Dis cannons for last. If you are able to kill enough drones then use all your dissie to kill units now.

Turn 3: Clean up, if you are not going to be able to clean up and show who the winning is, rest and start over.



Note about the hobby: You seem to be playing to many armies, i know its fun, but not focusing on 1 army, getting a solid 2500pts and learning what that army can and cant handle. That way you get better. Think of it like music, you start piano play a couple songs, then pick up guitar play a couple songs, then go to drums, etc.. you wont be able to actually play or understand that instrument. Learn 1 army really well then move onto the next.

Don't wait for your opponent to come to you, normally. The desire to do this will be overwhelming at first because Dark Eldar are fragile as hell and you'll be worried about your units dying, but this is an error.

The key to playing Dark Eldar is remembering this; you are the hunter. You need to be on the move, dictating when and where fights happen. When you identify your chosen prey, focus fire on it, making sure that it dies. Don't be afraid to sacrifice some of your units - no self-respecting Archon of the Dark City would be in the fluff.

For a 500 point game your options will be slightly limited, but in broad terms what you'll want to be doing is moving your transports up so that they're just in (rapid fire) range of an exposed target before trying to kill it. Pick units off while trying to stay away from the bulk of the enemy's force, drop Scourges in on turn 2 to flank units.

Tactics will obviously vary depending on what you're facing. With shooty armies like Tau and Ad Mech you typically want to get in their face to disrupt them as much as possible, with fighty armies like Khorne you want to keep them at a distance with your mobility. Thousand Sons can be rough because we don't have good answers to their psychic powers without Soup, but they're still vulnerable to being shot at a distance.

Ad Mec battle was... interesting.

Used the revised list above, but as admec brought some anti flyer walkers, I did bring my haywire scourges rather than shard carbine ones. Not that they did anything anyway.

We declared some bits of terrain as LOS blocking. And we played longways on the table. Objective play, it was the "narrow the search" objective.

AdMec went first, closed on the objective, and before I could be in cover, did 6 wounds on my raider. Ouch. I retaliated with popping over cover with both the raider and the venom, unloading, and then spending 2 cp to fire and fade back. Great for the venom, but the best I could do with the raider was hide from just one of the walkers. Drop in scourges in very limited cover, roll 12 shots with the haywires, hit all of them, then fail to get any 4s so no wounds on the walker. I was burning through fire and fade CP now, so I left them exposed. It was that or burn CP for later turns. Embarked units dont count for objectives, and admec had the same ability as DE for point control, so he took the first VP.

Round 2 he instakills the raider with his first shot from the walker, wasting all his other shots, and somehow not killing any kabalites inside. He tries to shoot the kabalites with some troops and misses. Second walker instagibs the scourges. I continue walking my 2 archons up, skirting the 12 inch "lose your save" condition on the point, but its a long slog and they are very exposed. Venom and the 2 kabalite units on foot use fire and fade, to kill some troops. I get the VP.

Round 3. Some lucky shots and some unlucky rerolls kills my warlord before she gets a shot off. Other than that, nothing to report. I continue to use fire and fade on one of my kabalite units and my venom, taking me down to 2 cp going into round 4. He takes the VP after moving some troops up.

Round 4, he scores a few hits but nothing major. I rush the point with the venom and disembark. I kill all of his troops, but those tanks take minor damage. I get the VP.

Round 5. Basically, I end this round with 5 kabalites left. Technically I take the VP and potentially win. However, we roll and the game continues and I concede before turn 6 starts. i literally have 5 models left, exposed, vs 2 HQ and 2 walker tank things. If we play that round, even if I dont die, he rushes the objective, gets the point, and I cant ever take it back.

Close game, but still not sure how I was supposed to deal with the vehicles. My scourges are... not scourging very well. We dont have terrain we can be inside though, so maybe thats it? I have to drop them in either totally behind cover, and not fire. In front of cover and burn a fire and fade. Or in front of cover and leave them exposed. Ive also been rolling badly with them.

As I had 1 cp left over at the end, I SHOULD have used screaming jets and dropped in right behind cover. But I didnt. Because I am an idiot. Went poison tongue which did help a little, but I think in this instance, black hand and labyrinthine cunning wound have been better for CP recovery.

Still, happy. Killing little squishies is very satisfying as DE. My 1250 pt army (which is bought but not made) has the fighty archon in a venom and a writ archon with some ravagers so looking forward to my archon actually hitting something.

albions-angel wrote:

Round 5. Basically, I end this round with 5 kabalites left. Technically I take the VP and potentially win. However, we roll and the game continues and I concede before turn 6 starts. i literally have 5 models left, exposed, vs 2 HQ and 2 walker tank things. If we play that round, even if I dont die, he rushes the objective, gets the point, and I cant ever take it back.

If your Kabalites were on the objective then this isn't quite right. Because of our version of Objective Secured (Vanguard of the Dark City), any of our Troops have priority over other non-Troop models. If you have one Kabalite left standing and he had 2 HQs and 2 tanks on the point then you'd have still counted as controlling the objective.

Just something to bear in mind for future games!

To be fair my experience against Ad Mech is extremely limited (not played against them since before we had a codex) but I remember my army which had 20+ dark Lance's completely bouncing off my opponents 3 Onagers and any damage I did do just being healed up. I think particularly at low pts games there will just be some things you cant deal with conventionally, the onagers for instance. Remember that if you charge them with anything, he cant fall back and shoot you so you could nuke down all his infantry and then charge with your vehicles and scourges after trying to plink off some wounds.

Glad to hear about the terrain and it being a closer game! Something i noticed from your report;
Are you using stratagems more than once per phase? In matched play you cant do this. Fire and Fade also cant be used on scourges after they deepstrike.

Yeah, I was using fire and fade more than once. I thought it was "per unit" not per round. My mistake. Hmm, in that case, what should I have done? 2 flyers with people in them, cant leave one exposed, cant shoot from behind full cover. Cant get a LOS on just the troops and not the onagers (assuming thats what those 4 legged tanks were).

Presumably next time screaming jets will be super useful turn 1, right?

EDIT: Just got confirmation from friends. We use basic matched play rules but stratagems that target single friendly units can be used multiple times and the tactical reserves rule can be ignored if it "makes sense".