Thunderfires and bikes, oh my!

So,

How do you typically deal with White Scars (or really any marines on bikes) with Thunderfire Cannon backup? All that cover ignoring gunfire is menacing and the White Scars have Hit and Run which makes things dicier for the Reavers.

I'm thinking just keeping Reavers off board in reserves and spreading out my pair of gunboat Raiders. Just leave the Scourges on board to maybe pot shot at flyers if they exist, but otherwise can just get in the way or soak up damage. I do run a Venom with a WWP Archon and 4 Medusae - wounding on 5s sucks, but all of those White Scars getting no saves seems strong. A Dark Artisan can wreck the Thunderfire faces, but that is going to be late game that it connects and I'm worried about the damage they cause before then.

If the gunboats live they can put a bunch of poison shots into the artillery, but realistically, they are likely dead turn one, especially with more than one Thunderfire. And the Reavers are likely to get wasted if they and the Thunderfires are on board at the same time (I suppose unless they get the +1T combat drug) which is a terrifying prospect.

Lances for the cannons. They'll either insta-kill the techmarine or quickly take the cannons down, then your gunboats can make mincemeat of his now over-priced bike squads (believe me, bike armies pay a premium for T5 and 3+ jink, both of which are irrelevant against splinter rifles).

Honestly, I'd say I'm happier facing white scars armies than I would be drop pod tac squads that would no doubt flame the hell out of the passengers on my raiders and trash the transports faster than you can say 'inertial guidance system'.

Thunderfire cannons are tough, no doubt about it. You just have to admit, they've got something that can do serious damage to you and neutralize it as quickly as you can.

Bikes on the other hand, ya, dark eldar are probably the worst army to face if you're white scars, grav guns are crap against dark eldar, their defenses don't mean anything against us, and we're fast enough to make them getting the charge difficult.

Yeah, I admit that the bikes are much less threatening than podding flamers would be (or at least require less specific preparation) but the thunderfires and, I suppose, aircraft, are still a real threat.

I don't generally run Dark Lances, but do you find that they really do work against the Thunderfires? I figure that they are probably sitting in bolstered terrain, out of line of sight from the front. Does them having (likely) a 3+ cover save hamper your work with Dark Lances? I was hoping that either gunboats, or just getting in with the Dark Artisan would end up more reliable and give better positioning.

Though I suppose if you reserve the Reavers, you are likely getting FNP by the time they come on and FNP plus an armor save (since the Ignores Cover round is AP6) isn't THAT terrible of a survival chance. I just don't think either gunboat will survive the first turn (especially if I go second).

Venoms vs Thunderfires, no problem. All you need to do is put 1 or two wounds on it, depending which model is nearest, and then it's gone. A single Venom should average that, maybe two. And Venoms have the speed and range to get LoS on the TFC no prob.

And then as mentioned above, bikes lose at yelling compared to drop pod marines when facing DE.

Well a single Venom averages one unsaved wound. But that's a note about smaller squads in Venoms. That is one definite strength they have over the gunboat Raiders I run. With two at 1850, they are at risk of falling to the artillery before getting to open fire.

It is certainly a situation in which all of my Haywire Scourges feel useless other than pointing badly skyward. Though I suppose they can likely charge artillery on turn 2 or maybe 3 depending on deployment. And dying tying up artillery seems like a reasonable use for them.

Why not just spam venoms? They have an invul v.s. the thunderfires and mass poison is great vs the bikes and against the T7 cannon...

With White Scars definitely use the Venoms to kill the Thunderfires if you can. Most people will put them out of LOS from you.

A piece of advice I cant stress enough against bikes and anyone really is, be sure to kill the unit of bikes or whatever 100% dead. One biker can kill almost anything in our army, especially the vehicles and with their speed, they can be in position to do lots of damage.

I literally played against white scars just this past Saturday. He had a thunderfire cannon as well (your not played a guy named keith are you?) Now he almost tabled me except for my Dark artisian which just foot sloged across the board (after killing his HQ) and ignoring his bikes and thunderfire cannon fire at it. He did not have enough firepower to hurt them.

Now while his bikes are fast, reavers are faster. I had one left and just jumped him to a spot on the map using turbo boost that would take him forever to get to, Also he was dumb and ignore him to try to kill the DA (which had my warlord) So I was able to jump out at the very end and score an objective.

Poison shots really ruin the bikes days BTW. I went first and killed 2 squads outright 1 gunboat each. So I do suggest heavy gunboats to give the cannon to many targets.

Or if you are that worried about the cannon just take a vindacare assassin and kill the techmarine.