space marines in trsnsport

Hello all
I am new to dark eldar but not 40k. I played a few games with the old codex and a few with the new. The biggest problems I have had with winning battles is elite troops hiding in landraiders ( terminators, centurions) and drop pods with Units with flamers (dreadnougths or just marines). Flamers just kills my units!
Do you guys have any hints or tactics to help take out terminators with shields and hammers and lessen drop pod damage?

The use of null deployment will help out with the drop pods. The basic is to deploy as little as possible and beta strike them on the second turn via deepstriking units. Scourges will pop the tanks easily with Haywire, for more of an explosive I'd personally would use Dark Lances. I love null deployment as It keeps my guys safe and makes them elastic to easily maneuver the opponent's strategy.

I am pretty sure Mushkilla has had a couple great posts on how to address drop pod marines with the old book. I'll have to see if I can find them and provide some links.

As to terminators and such - I've had a lot of luck recent using Ossefactors (wracks) against them as well as sticking to a 7-man Scourge unit that has 4 blasters. It's expensive but is a bit more versitile against threats like this than the haywire variant.

That said - the 1 game I've played against my friend who plays Deathwing did a number on me. I was able to win by focusing on the mission. He hated my wracks and scourge units but I had the objectives when the game ended. DE has the speed needed to do late game grabs if we need to thankfully.

Null deployment is a good option, though you need a solid board presence on Turn 1 to pull it off reliably. A smart opponent will bring an uneven number of pods and decide what to drop down on turn 1 based on what you've got on the board (so for example there'll be a unit with flamers, one with meltas and maybe one veteran unit or dread). If you're up against this, just accept that perhaps one pod will be able to get the flamers off. You have to remember though that it'll just be the one unit most likely - because half the pods (rounding up) arrive on turn 1 you can then counter deploy when your reserves arrive (if you need to - I'm inclined to use Talos/Cronos as T1 board presence so if my opponents wanna drop a melta or veteran squad into that combo i'm happy to charge 'em in my next turn!

Null deployment doesn't just affect this part of the game though, it also keeps a substantial portion of your army away from at least one turn of shooting (possibly 2 if you end up going second) and allows them to enter play already benefiting from at least FnP 6+. Not a bad trade off I'm sure you'll agree for taking a fairly static base option to build on.

Re: terminators, i've found when using them that if you pile enough wounds on, those 1 rock up more than you might think. I played against a DA list with 10 Termies and Belial in it. Belial was a pain, but a pair of Talos soon got rid of the termies (ok, it was a mixed unit some THSS some LC, but even so). It's almost an ideal match up for the Taloi actually, since a unit of Termies is one of the few things they're likely to face that is willing to take them on and that's a similar value in points!

i found the best way to deal with termies is to ignore them. pop there ride and watch them crawl towards your guys who will always outrun them. After you wipe everything else out then you can run circles around them laughing maniacally as you use them for target practice. as for popping there ride. most people prefer scourges but i prefer venom platform and reavers with heatlances. wwp them right next to him and watch it go bang. the reavers have hit and run so even if the terms assault them the next turn just walk away from it.

barenone wrote:

i found the best way to deal with termies is to ignore them. pop there ride and watch them crawl towards your guys who will always outrun them. After you wipe everything else out then you can run circles around them laughing maniacally as you use them for target practice. as for popping there ride. most people prefer scourges but i prefer venom platform and reavers with heatlances. wwp them right next to him and watch it go bang. the reavers have hit and run so even if the terms assault them the next turn just walk away from it.

If there are any left??? even a squad of 5 should kill about 6 reavers if they get the charge, more if they have lightning claws! And the bang sure as hell isn't guaranteed with reavers, max 3 in a unit, so average 2 hits, 1 pen with a 5+ to explode. I'd rather HWB them to death from a safe distance quite frankly.

nah i used my archons 2 invul to soak up the hits. he died but i only lost 2 of my bikes. i brought a full squad with hemon and archon. the whole purpose of the archon was to be a shield, weird way to use him but it works for me and catches people off guard.

i ran it with to heats and 2 blasters. its one for every 3 guys, i had 12.

I'd be surprised if that worked in my meta, the odds still aren't in your favour to take the LR down even with 4 weapons and they'd become target priority 1 next turn, if I were playing against you I'd happily shoot stuff from the other side of the unit to ignore the archon tanking wounds then charge the termies in to clean up - that's a warlord kill (I'm assuming one of those two was your warlord) and well over 200 points mopped up in one turn.

nope neither is warlord, 2k match and that squads purpose was to get attention. it worked beautifully. it allowed me to position everything without taking a lot of hits. the jink for the bikes let them take a lot of fire before they went down. Also there were nasty on the charge. The reaver distraction has been doing very well for me. they eigther put a lot of firepower into them adn not my other guys or they ignore them and the reavers destroy like you wouldnt believe. mind you i have only used this against wolf, ba, vannila marines. orks and nids.

I get running from assault terminators. Get they transport down and hope they never get in to combat with your units. Bit harder with centurians the shoot you... So do normal terminators...
the null deployment is a great idea!

For drop pods: try placing as many objectives near your opponents board edge as possible. Pods are objsec so a number of players want them to land as close to an objective as possible. If they aren't near your troops then you can kill those flamers from afar. It also helps to ensure you have troops on his side for line breaker.

Flamers... hate those. I have come to use the following tactic: I let them have the 1st Turn. I deploy only things that really dont care about flamers. Possibly really tight in the corner and hopefully in open terrain (to get a good incubi charge). Empty Raiders, Ravagers, etc. Sometimes I hide incubi in the corner and make sure he cannot flame their transport.

He drops and flames stuff that really does not care much... Occasionaly he glances some of my vehicles but cannot burn what isnt there.

My turn I redeploy and leave the incubi to have fun with those guys (in KP mission for example as they should score more than their share), using the incubi transports to prevent countercharges, etc. If I dont have incubi, I just redeploy and leave those flamer guys looking stupid. What they can do but look angry now? :-) So thats half of his army prolly... T2 his reserves start dropping in, but if he isnt extremely lucky it should be very manageable. Dont get anyone chance to charge as you will basically improve their movement.

When your reserves start arriving, use the salami-tactic and cut pieces of him systematically. :-)

clively wrote:

For drop pods: try placing as many objectives near your opponents board edge as possible.  

This doesn't work quite that easily now, as in 7th objectives have to be placed before table halves are determined...

Course you can still try by feeding them all into one half of the table and pick the other if you get to choose, or hope your opponent wants the half with the objectives in (I can see Tau biting your hand off on that one!)

The_Burning_Eye wrote:

Null deployment is a good option, though you need a solid board presence on Turn 1 to pull it off reliably. A smart opponent will bring an uneven number of pods and decide what to drop down on turn 1 based on what you've got on the board (so for example there'll be a unit with flamers, one with meltas and maybe one veteran unit or dread). If you're up against this, just accept that perhaps one pod will be able to get the flamers off. You have to remember though that it'll just be the one unit most likely - because half the pods (rounding up) arrive on turn 1 you can then counter deploy when your reserves arrive (if you need to - I'm inclined to use Talos/Cronos as T1 board presence so if my opponents wanna drop a melta or veteran squad into that combo i'm happy to charge 'em in my next turn!

Null deployment doesn't just affect this part of the game though, it also keeps a substantial portion of your army away from at least one turn of shooting (possibly 2 if you end up going second) and allows them to enter play already benefiting from at least FnP 6+. Not a bad trade off I'm sure you'll agree for taking a fairly static base option to build on.

Re: terminators, i've found when using them that if you pile enough wounds on, those 1 rock up more than you might think. I played against a DA list with 10 Termies and Belial in it. Belial was a pain, but a pair of Talos soon got rid of the termies (ok, it was a mixed unit some THSS some LC, but even so). It's almost an ideal match up for the Taloi actually, since a unit of Termies is one of the few things they're likely to face that is willing to take them on and that's a similar value in points!

If you are going for Null deployment, always try for second turn. This way, when the bulk of your army comes on, you'll have FnP 5+ (Since Power from Pain updates every Game turn rather than Player turn).

if you're fielding ravagers & are worried about flamers use the ravager hulls (AV11) to screen your AV10 transports. Remember that the flamer templates are approx 8-1/16" long, so butt up against LOS blocking terrain (templates can't target what they can't see) on one side & use ravager hulls / table edges on the others. You could also deploy out of your transports - using the hulls as shields - as you're still able to move 6" to embark then have the transport move up to cruising speed.

I would suggest that we have it ok for now.... wait until blood angels get updated & the amount of jump-pack marines & fancy dreadnougths with flamers will increase exponentially! Ironclads / Furiouso's can bring a nasty amount of templates & are tough cookies to crack w/ AV13 fronts, lending themselves well to drop & burn, throwaway tactics.