Seeking advice playing against AM

I'm fairly new to the DE army, and I have a friend with a nasty Astra Militarum army, that I don't really know how to deal with, so here's me seeking a bit of advice, both in terms of units to bring/future purchases, and how to use them.

His list (AM with Inq allies):

Quote :

Pask in punisher (multimelta sponsons, lascannon), +1 Punisher (multimelta sponsons, lascannon)
Compagny Command Squad, astropath
Psyker, level 2
Priest

Infantry Platoon (platoon command squad, 2x infantry squads, 2x autocannon team)
Infantry Platoon (platoon command squad, 2x infantry squads, 2x autocannon team)
50 constripts

Vulture Gunship (twin-linked punisher gatling cannon)

Wyvern
Wyvern

Inquisitor Coteaz
Inquisitor, level 1 psyker, 3 servo skulls
3x Henchmen (2x dudes, 1x psyker)

Coteaz, the level 2 psyker and the priest hides in the conscripts, their main purpose to give Pask invisible, shrouded, prescience and 4+ invul. With the run order, they're covering half the table by turn 1.
My main problem have so far been the two Wyverns, with their 4 twinlinked, Ignore Cover blasts taking out bikes and skimmers like there's no tomorrow, and the two infantry platoons with Ignore Cover orders doing the exact same. The wyverns usually deploy well hidden in terrain/ruins, bubblewrapped by the men.

This is what I have currently available. If possible, I'd like advice on how best to utilize this, but since I realize it isn't much to work with, a shopping list will be okay as well

1 archon
1 haemunculus
10 kabalite warriors
5 venoms
1 raider
12 reavers
5 scourges
1 razorwing jetfighter

Okay, well, here's my first thought.

With taking basically no upgrades other than the ones you specifically mention (which means the platoon squads are all just bare bone schmucks) and the cheapest possible henchment and inquisitor (also, all with no gear) you're still looking at an enemy army list of around 1750 points.

Everything you've listed (again, just bare bones) is less than 1000 points (942 to be precise)

So, a 1750 list v. a 1000 point list - yeah, I am hardly surprised he is stomping your face in - you don't have a collection remotely capable of playing against him because you need to have at *least* 45% of your points in upgrades in order to even play against that army, and that presumes he isn't using other upgrades.

The first bit of advice I have for you - challenge him to a few 1000 point games. That is what your army is currently able to be built at comfortably. Maybe a 1250 if you feel antsy.

But you should not be playing at 1500+ with your current collection unless your opponent is taking strides to balance his force to make it fair.

------------------

Now, looking at your list I even see it's suffering more than that, albeit in odd ways. You have 6 transports, but, functionally, only 2 squads (and I suppose two lone HQs) to put into them. that's kind of a waste.

You also *MASSIVELY* lack the ability to hurt armor - so I don't even know why he's bothering to cast invisibility on his tanks, Pask could basically drive up the center of the board and be fairly invincible to your army regardless because you can field, at most, maybe 6 darklight weapons plus whatever the Reavers are packing. Whoop-de-dah. That will maybe scratch his paint before he wipes you out.

As to the actual dismantling of that list, you have a number of options once you work up a collection. It's a slightly gimmicky list, but you could blast such massive holes in it so shockingly easy it would make his head spin, because the DE codex is pretty well built to rip apart that army - it's just that your personal collection is certainly not up to the task.

Before I give you advice on what to buy, I do have a simple question; what sort of army do you like to run? Do you want to be shooty, assaulty, both? Would you like to kick heads in or try to be more elegant in your approach? Do you want to work with allies or stay single codex - and how do you feel about running from the supplement?

Give me some direction and we'll design a list to kick his teeth in.
Until then - I repeat the suggestion of playing him in smaller games. it's unreasonable for him to ask you to step up, he should step down.

We played 1502 points, and as you correctly deducted, I was very heavy on upgrades.

I do not want to dedicate myself to shooty or assault. Rather, I want to play to the codes strength, although I do want to keep it in the faction. Formations and forgeworld is fine, though.
I already have a complete chaos collection, so if anything I'd want to learn how to really play the speed and mobility game.

Note: we usually play double missions, one maelstrom and one eternal war.

I think you need to look into Talos'/es/i, maybe even go the full whack with a Dark Artisan Formation. They can survive extremely heavy blasts, and simply munch through his Infantry AND armour.

I play against IG with Pask on a Punisher and the Vulture all the time... it can be very difficult to deal with. You definitely need anti-tank and AA to deal with them because the all those punisher cannons can eat you alive. With pure DE I'd say invest in a second squad of Scourges with haywire (make sure the other squad is rocking haywire). An Archon with WWP+ Blaster Trueborn in a Raider would be very handy as well. In fact you could even go double Archon with WWP and blaster born and make sure you can deep strike in without mishap, as the Scourge can be a little unreliable in that regard. With that double-scourges with haywire, Archon WWP/Blaster and Blasterborn (or just the two archon blasterborn units) you should be able to punk a good chunk of his armor without too much reprise.

The Vulture is the true problem... a lone Razorwing has an ok chance of doing it but if you can't get rear armor it could be tough. Even two razorwings can be fickle because you gotta get em in at the same time and the lack of vector dancer makes it hard to get a good angle. Meanwhile the Vulture which has vector dancer is probably gonna chew up your flyer(s) real quick. You could just try and ignore the Vulture but its got so much fire power and the DE are so fragile it'll be tough. Honestly Eldar allies would make your life so much easier. Throw in a cheapy Autarch to get the reserves bonus, 3 Jetbikes and a Nightwing (Imperial Armor Aeronautica) which has 2 bright lances (same as a dark lance), 2 shuriken cannons, vector dancer and a 2+ jink save makes it the perhaps the most reliable of all the Eldar flyers (DE included). Its super easy to convert one up from a Razorwing (probly looks better than the real model too!)

Anyway thats what I would do but I'm a corsair guy so I don't have a problem mixing DE/CE. Other than that listen to Thor he's the consummate Archon!

IF I'll consider allies at some point, it most definitely won't be Eldar. A couple of assassins may come in handy at some point, though :-)

Sigmaril wrote:

We played 1502 points, and as you correctly deducted, I was very heavy on upgrades.

Wow, so he's literally running that all bare bones, eh? That's the only way to cram it in at 1502 (and what is he doing requesting a 2 point sway? What a dick   ). It does clarify that it's just attached autocannons as opposed to full HWTs though, which is sorta nice. Still, this is an unreasonable matchup as currently stands. Especially since he's trumping you on points *and* playing the dick invisibility play on top of it. I don't even understand why he wants to play that sort of match with you, there's no challenge in it and if he honestly gets fun from it he needs to reexamine his goals in playing the game - maybe go play a few ten year old kids or something, I dunno.

Request 1000 point games. That is what your army list is built for at the moment and it will give you (and him) a better understanding of the game to play at that point level for the time being.

Also, random troll question - where is he getting Invisibility from?
The Inquisition guys get Divination, Pyro, and Telekinesis, and Primaris get the same but also Biomancy.
he needs Telepathy to get Invisibility.
I am thinking he is rolling for Telepathy thinking that Telekinesis = Telepathy. It does not.
Now, maybe there's something I'm missing, and he's getting Invisibility legit - but I am not sure how. i answer everything below on the presumption he gets invisibility. But you may want to check on that, it's probably (opefully) an honest mistake.
Of course maybe I'm recalling something wrong too...
But I'm pretty sure I'm right.

The quick advice for dealing with non-invisible Pask - just unload with a bunch of Blasters/Lances at him when he is forced to drive forward to engage you.

Sigmaril wrote:

I do not want to dedicate myself to shooty or assault. Rather, I want to play to the codes strength

Our strength is shooting...

Sigmaril wrote:

so if anything I'd want to learn how to really play the speed and mobility game.

Note: we usually play double missions, one maelstrom and one eternal war.

We can work with this.

And that playstyle benefits DE.

I think Assassins are okay, but Eldar are stronger allies to us.

So as I see it you have a handful of issues. Basically it sums up as that you utterly lack real anti-tank support and also somewhat lack anti-infantry tech in the way you need it to deal with the blob (and the blob is a chump unit that deserves to be stomped to showcase hos wusstastic it is).

I see a number of possibilities for tools to use.
I will list off my first major thoughts here;

1. You lack long range firepower to hurt mech. Specifically you'd like to be able to jack Pask's world if you get first turn (which despite Coteaz is still quite doable) secondly you'd like to be able to mess up the Wyverns, and thirdly it can help against the Vulture as well. Those three units (or four if he's smart) really entail the totality of his threat to you - and all of them are vehicles. So you need more anti vehicle shooting.

2. You need something to grab the big blob shake it around, and leave it crying curled up in a corner. Your Venoms are okay for this, but they will take some time, and have some other uses for their efforts out there.

3. You need more boots on the ground to be able to handle objectives without having it be done by vehicles that his army is basically custom built to fight (Have I mentioned how hilarious it would be to fight this list with my battlewagon based Ork list?)

So, solutions!

1. The easy solution here is Ravagers (with a secondary touch of 'more blasters'). But, at the end of the day, fielding 3x Ravagers will give you a mobile group that can pump out a lot of lance fire for a quite reasonable amount of points. With 36" range they can also dodge around Pask's major 24" threat radius by staying 42"+ away from him until they are ready to pounce.

2. The obvious solution I see is 'a unit of Grots' as, on the charge, they would absorb the overwatch with a laugh, and then basically rip the entire blob to pieces in a wave of gory face-stomping, and would easily rip apart any of the attached ICs/HQs as a tasty afterthought. Doing this would kill his Psyker power in a snap, and also leave you with a massive amount of board control afterwards. As an added bonus they are a threat to assaulting Pask also. Now, they are a touch risky because Pask's squad is actually well built to blast them off the board, so we need to consider alternate options also.

1+2 - a potential solution to both issues is - more Razorwings. Now, they are only an 'okay' solution to #1, but are pretty solid to #2 as flying on from reserves they can fire 4x Str6 Large Blast missiles - I pretty much assure you that 2-3 Razorwings showing up on the same turn is going to eat that squad alive. Also, you can kind of game the way the wound allocation from them works to mess with the blob...I'll discuss that a bit later on. Still - core point, Razorwings can eat up the blob, then you can give them lances to help fight off the Vulture+tanks. Paired with 1-3x Ravagers it starts to give you an intimidating board presence.

3. You should buy another box or two of Warriors so that you can start putting 5 man squads w. Blaster inside your Venoms. Small Warriors squads are perfect TAC units as they can hurt both mech, infantry, and MCs and are also super affordable. They will also help with claiming objectives via ObjSec and also even if the enemy wrecks your Venom, there will still be a few dudes left clinging to the objective he'll have to waste firepower on.

=============

So, just spitballing the concept here, you could have a list of;

Succubus w. Glaive
95
4x Grots in Raider w. Lance. Abberation w. Scissorhand
205
4x Venom w. extra S.Cannon + 5 man Blaster
480
3x Ravager w. Lances
375
Venom w. extra s.Cannon
65
2x Razorwing w. lances + monoscythe
280

That gives you a 1500 point list right there. Not 1502 even - request him to drop 2 points


======================


You still have 5 Venoms that are going to be able to rip up any loose infantry squads (like the Autocannon blobs or working on the Conscripts.
The Razorwings are able to maul infantry that is remotely clumped up or try to beat up the Vulture with aid from the Ravagers.
The Ravagers can focus on dropping Pask early or doing focused fire into Wyverns to remove their firepower and then move to supporting against other tools.
The Grots can easily maul the Conscript squad
(quick math would be as follows; they would take 100 overwatch shots (presuming it's bunched up enough to all rapid fire - which it is going to be hard, but let's presume it is - 100 shots - anout 17 will hit about 3 will wound about 1-2 wounds after FNP. The Grots will then get about 29 attacks via Rampage, will hit about 20, will do about 19 wounds killing about 12-13 after assault. The Succubus will happily challenge Coteaz if he got off force, who has to either go 1 v 1 with her, a fight he'll probably lose, or he has to feed her some other character which she'll shred in the hopes he can manage to nail off a Force attack on the Grots (by-the-by, always save your counter dice for Force if he's smart enough to try to activate it ) Her other optimal murder victim is the Priest, to remove Zealot - which makes the squad breakable, and as soon as its breakable it's dead. The surviving squad is looking to toss about 3 wounds onto your Grots (presuming they can all get in - again, they won't, but let's give it to them. Depending which HQs/characters are alive they will have lost combat by easily 10+ points and if they're not fearless (which they are not) will need to try to use Coteaz's Stubborn (if he's even alive) to pass a very difficult check to not break. Odds are they break, and you run them down thanks to getting 8 init vs. 4 init in the dice off (meaning he needs to roll a 6 to even have a chance - and then needs you to roll a 1) If he fails that, you eat the squad. Thanks for playing derp psyker blob, better luck next time.

You also could adjust my above list to take out the Grots if you don't like Grots. The Razorwings and Venoms can also rip that squad up pretty well and you could use the free points to mix thinkgs up. Getting an Archon w. Blaster and putting him with 5 Warriors in a Raider would be fine, and you'd have some left over points to maybe float in Scourges or something. Play with the list - it's not an absolute, it's just an example of what I would field at 1500 - please don't feel attached to it. There are multiple good 1500 point lists and I think it is important to play with stuff that excites you. There are only a handful of 'bad' things in the dex, and as long as you avoid those you should do fine - the point is to understand what sort of tool each unit is and make sure you have a nice toolbox ready to go (unlike, say, an army like that AdMech one   ).


Oh, yeah, I also said I'd discuss the blasts and how his blob is set up. Now, i don't know how he deploys that blob, but since he needs to be able to drive Pask around it and also needs them to try to stay within range to cast invisibility I have two working presumptions.

1. He starts them off to the 'side' somewhat.
2. He keeps at least one of the Psykers (2 if he's smart) near the front to work the needed range and LoS to Pask.

Now, when you fire something like a Monoscythe, which is a blast weapon there is an interesting thing to keep in mind.

First - you can place the blast anywhere on a model you can see, so you always aim for the 'thickest' part of the unit to get the most hits possible.
Second - you draw casualties from the closest to the unit doing the shooting, no matter where the blast template is.

So what this means is - if you angle your Razorwings correctly when firing their missiles - you can fire into a big blobby part of the unit, but force the casualties to come from the angle closest to the psykers - so that hopefully you force them to take the wounds and get removed. So remember to angle smart.


Hope some of that helps.

You, good Sir, are awesome! Thank you very much for putting in the time and effort to help out random stranger #1214 on the internet It is very much appreciated.

I'm going downtown tomorrow and see if I can't get another 20 warriors and a couple of Ravagers. I think the store is out of stock for Razorwings, though

I really like the Grotesque approach, but one thing is keeping me from it. I really hate the fact that GW only made one monopose model, so I'll have to come up with some clever conversion ideas before I go this way.

Thor665 wrote:

Wow, so he's literally running that all bare bones, eh? That's the only way to cram it in at 1502 (and what is he doing requesting a 2 point sway? What a dick   ). It does clarify that it's just attached autocannons as opposed to full HWTs though, which is sorta nice. Still, this is an unreasonable matchup as currently stands. Especially since he's trumping you on points *and* playing the dick invisibility play on top of it. I don't even understand why he wants to play that sort of match with you, there's no challenge in it and if he honestly gets fun from it he needs to reexamine his goals in playing the game - maybe go play a few ten year old kids or something, I dunno.

I sincerly doubt 2 points one way or the other makes any kind of difference in games of that size, so I don't mind In his defence, he has only been playing the game for a year or so, and every game we've played up until this point, I've been handing his ass to him with my CSM, and on top of that, he never played against DE before, so had no clue what to expect He really is quite a nice guy

Thor665 wrote:

Also, random troll question - where is he getting Invisibility from?
The Inquisition guys get Divination, Pyro, and Telekinesis, and Primaris get the same but also Biomancy.
he needs Telepathy to get Invisibility.
I am thinking he is rolling for Telepathy thinking that Telekinesis = Telepathy. It does not.
Now, maybe there's something I'm missing, and he's getting Invisibility legit - but I am not sure how. i answer everything below on the presumption he gets invisibility. But you may want to check on that, it's probably (opefully) an honest mistake.
Of course maybe I'm recalling something wrong too...
But I'm pretty sure I'm right.

Hmm. The Astropath is definately Telepathy. Other than that, it does seem you're right... I'll definately follow up on that one

Astropaths generate powers from Telepathy and Daemonology.

Oh yeah, the 'path. Still - that's a bit of a limited gamble to actually get Invisibility on the table. I'm guessing he lucked into it that game and it wasn't really a core strategy of the list.

Going sans Grots is fine - though at that stage I do think the Razorwings are important for you. Venoms can rip up infantry, but for anything bigger than 20 models you start to be better off with something else.

Glaf my advice helps guide you a bit though.

And as I always say 'if 2 points one way or another doesn't matter - then they should probably be able to pull the 2 points out of the list and play to the point limit' 2 points can make the difference of fitting in, say, a Vulture as opposed to not being able to afford it at all - 2 points matters.

I just asked. The newest updates to the inquisition codex appearently added Telepathy to all the Inquisition psykers. I downloaded the newest version, and he is right about that part.

There is some real solid advice here. I regularly deal with a similar list but with out the inquisition and usually at 2000 points so there are usually some more chimeras and Valkyries there. Took me about 6 months to work out how to deal with that in previous editions and now we don't get haywires there is a new method in my opinion.

Flyers we are pretty weak at dealing with without comiting too many points. But Razorwings are what you want. They are fast attack so they take up one of 6 slots. The missiles are brilliant against huge guard blobs like that (grots work as well or even a talos) but its a good way of clearing up a bit if the board. It also gives you an almost counter to the flyers he has.

Ravagers you will want. That's a good way as said before to draw Pask out and utilise the speed. I would even be tempted to keep moving them 12" and suffering the loss of a dark lance just to keep then out of range. But the best way in my experience to deal with IG parking lots is to deepstrike with any army. If you can draw him forwards to give a bit of space begin his tanks then wwp or deepstrike in a couple of blasterborn behind them you can devastate. IGs strength is its front. So if you can get behind it, force a pincer you can really turn the tables.

Wyverns are nasty, no doubt about that. I would advocate deepstriking anti tank units near themor trying to get some haywire scourges to plink away at them. Cant say I've encountered more than two at a time so I cant say too much about this. I imagine they are horrible to reavers, I personally love Reavers and use them when ever I can, but against IG, I tend to shirk away to spend the points on something else. Because the sheer volume of firepower will bring them down to easily unless you can really scoot and keep out of line of sight and get the cluster caltrops into vehicles rear armour but even then, against this sort of stuff I would spend the points in razorwings/racagers/scourges/blasterborn instead!

Ravagers, blaster kabalites and razorwing is definately on the shopping list

Even though th OP said he don't like getting grots I would advice getting rid of Coteaz before dashing in to cc with the conscripts. Coteaz should be with them to tank wounds. Rerolls from orders help a lot too. One way to attack (if needed) is to charge from other side of the blob so that coteaz cannnot get btb with your models.

never played against less than two wyverns since they were released (4 was the most ive seen) - remember, they're horrible against infantry, but against vehicles they're basically hopeless. Keep your units in transports or in combat and they'll do nothing against you. That being said, they will rip reavers to shreds.

That is some great advice Thor.

Only remark I would add is on the grots strategy: I always run them and buy at least 2 back-up raiders. Otherwise it is too easy to shoot down the single raider and have the grots footslogging around.

In your recommended list I would thus replace 2 venoms by raiders with dark Lance. You lose splinter fire but gain lances which you cannot have enough anyways

Any particulate reason you cant hit the blob with a dark Artisans and lelith? Lelith can challenge until anyone worth a damn is dead with would make the blob run like mad. Her rerolls and amount of attacks should destroy Corteaz no problem ad the Artisans can soak up over watch and drop the conscripts with templates of assault. Without Invisible pask should be a lot easier. I may not be even close to a solution because I do not know much about Pask or Corteaz. I would like to know why this wouldnt work thought "If it wouldnt" to learn.

Sigmaril wrote:

I just asked. The newest updates to the inquisition codex appearently added Telepathy to all the Inquisition psykers. I downloaded the newest version, and he is right about that part.

I was unaware of that change, I knew it had happened for the GKs but not Inquisition, looks like a pretty subtle update they didn't advertise - now there are also different types of Coteaz...weird.

Vasara wrote:

Even though th OP said he don't like getting grots I would advice getting rid of Coteaz before dashing in to cc with the conscripts. Coteaz should be with them to tank wounds. Rerolls from orders help a lot too. One way to attack (if needed) is to charge from other side of the blob so that coteaz cannnot get btb with your models.

That is certainly an option - really it depends on the total layout of the character models. If you can isolate Coteaz into a duel with the Succubus it's all pretty good also. Plus, if he didn't activate 'Force' then he's not even an issue and it doesn't matter.

But, yes, if 'Force' is up and you can come from the opposite side such that he can't consolidate in, that's a working solution.

Aroban wrote:

Only remark I would add is on the grots strategy: I always run them and buy at least 2 back-up raiders. Otherwise it is too easy to shoot down the single raider and have the grots footslogging around.

In your recommended list I would thus replace 2 venoms by raiders with dark Lance. You lose splinter fire but gain lances which you cannot have enough anyways

That is a consideration and solution. I don't think it should come up too often versus that army, especially depending on terrain, but if the opponent goes first it could be an issue.

barenone wrote:

Any particulate reason you cant hit the blob with a dark Artisans and lelith? [snip] I do not know much about Pask or Corteaz. I would like to know why this wouldnt work thought "If it wouldnt" to learn.

The main issue with Coteaz is simply that he has an Ap2, Str 6 Force weapon. In some ways that actually makes him more dangerous to Taloi than to Grots as it's possible he could knock out the entire DA in one round, whereas there's no way he could do that to the Grots.

The core goal of challenging him out/avoiding eating Force weapon attacks is really the only thing.

Pask is basically a unique tank commander. His usual loadout is in the Punisher tank. Basically he makes it BS 4 and Rending with 20 shots at S 5 (plus whatever the other tank does, which he can order to fire at a different target)

The DA is better suited to beat up Pask via assault than Grots are, and are more survivable versus his shooting - the issue there is you'd still want to take out his invisibility first, which returns you to needing to drop the blob.

Also, Lelith can't join a DA.

i wasn't meaning them to join, I was thing sep units with both coming in via wwp. The other unit that would include lelith could be anything. Hell wychs actually would do to bad against a guard mob. Thanks for the info I am going to do some thinking.

Vindicare to snipe the psyker?

I now have two ravagers, a razorwing jetfighter and a Kabalite Skysplinter lying on my desk, ready to be assembled

Tomorrow I'll be going up against these AM/Inq guys again, and I wust really say I feel a lot better prepared this time around. I've had two more games since ou last encounter, against Tyranids and Tau, which were both very succesful. So this will be my 4th game with Dark Eldars, and this time, I'm bringing this list:

Quote :

Archon 195
- Blaster
- Haywire Grenades
-Shadow Field
-Webway Portal

5 Kabalite Warriors w. Blaster 120
- Venom w. Splinter Cannon

5 Kabalite Warriors w. Blaster 120
- Venom w. Splinter Cannon

5 Kabalite Warriors w. Blaster 120
- Venom w. Splinter Cannon

5 Kabalite Trueborn w. 4 Blasters 190
- Raider w. Dark Lance & Night Shields

12 Reavers w. 4 Cluster Caltrops 262
- Arena Champion

Razorwing Jetfighter w. Dark Lances 140

Razorwing Jetfighter w. Dark Lances 140


Ravager w. 3 Dark Lances 125

Ravager w. 3 Dark Lances 125

Total: 1497 points

Looks like a very solid list. Let us know how it goes

I think it looks decent, I might be tempted to split the reavers into two squads of 6 unless you don't want to use the realspace raiders detachment just as it gives you an extra unit that gives a little versatility.

Grub wrote:

I think it looks decent, I might be tempted to split the reavers into two squads of 6 unless you don't want to use the realspace raiders detachment just as it gives you an extra unit that gives a little versatility.

I would agree if I were running Realspace Raiders, but I want to keep it in a CAD. With 6 Troops, 3 of which being quite fast, it just seems to me that it would be such a waste to trade Objective Secured for a few cover saves during turn 1.

That's fair enough! I'm finding myself switching from ob-sec to trying to trying to just stop them from having the ability of capturing objectives, I personally don't find myself contesting much anyway 90% of the time but its a good tactical shout!