How do i fight Space wolves?

At some point in October i plan to play a 2000 point battle against one of my friends Space wolf army, he has already hinted that he will bring two fliers in his army probably in response to me saying that i might bring a Wraith Knight and a Hemlock Wraith fighter.

I don´t know what else he has in his army.
My army will mainly consist of coven forces with Eldar allies.

So any advice on how to fight Space Wolves, do i go into close combat with them as soon as possible with a Grotesqueri or is that the last thing i should ever do?

If you bring a Wraithknight and/or a lot of Scatteriders, yeah, you cannot complain whatever he takes.

That aside, I play MSU against wolves when I play pure DE. Grotesquerie is always my favorite & go-to formation, but their Cavalry is a close-combat monster so...

Regarding CWE, the two things mentioned above will be brutal. I personally avoid using them in a casual game and try others, like minor Aspect Warriors (e.g., scorpions yeah) for mutual fun of me and my opponent.

If you REALLY wanna win, try the combination of WWP and scytheguards...a lot. This is a game breaker as well as a friendship breaker I've never used it since my first try on the week CWE codex released.

Yes i have heard about it load up 4 Wraithguards on a Raider and bring them in from a WWP and then fire at close range with the Strength D weapons.
Look in amusement as all of his troops die.

My regular opponent plays Space Wolves. The most dangerous unit in the Space Wolves codex is Thunderwolf Cav. They hit like a ton of bricks, are fast, and have a ridiculous amount of attacks. I've found the best thing to do against them (my buddy runs 2-3 squads) is to bring lots of poison weapons. The Cav has a regular 3+ save (although they can each take Storm Shields), so they die like regular Marines do. A full Corpsethief Claw can hurt them pretty bad and a Grotesquerie can finish off a squad that's been softened up a little by shooting (but don't try and fight a full squad with Grotesques as they have so many attacks that eventually, your FNP's will fail and your Grots will die). But as mentioned, your best bet is just to back up and pump a ton of poison into them. I've never faced the Space Wolf fliers so I don't know how good they are.

The elements of the space wolf army that you need to be prepared for are Thunderwolf Cavalry, Terminators with special characters, flamers/meltas that arrive from deep strike (drop pods).

Thunderwolf cavalry should be avoided at all costs and shot before they can do anything. Normally with Dark eldar, that would mean pointing ALL venoms in their direction and dumping handfuls of dice at them. You said you are using "coven and eldar" so I would say avoid them with your coven and shoot them with your eldar. Try to visualize how far they can move during deployment and predict where they could possibly go in relation to the objectives or mission.

Terminators with special characters will most likely kill any wracks or grotesques you might have. Each special character has a certain gimmick they will look to use so do your research and plan accordingly. Monstrous creatures like talos and chronos will do better against them since they will not get instakilled by strength 10 (like powerfists) and they will get a feel no pain against those attacks. Monstrous creatures all have ap 2 as well. Some terminator characters also have psychic powers which can really throw things in their favor. An eldar farseer might help out to deny but overall its an uphill battle if that happens.

Deep striking flamers. Space wolf players will often use drop pods for their elite marines and dreadnoughts with flamers and meltas. You need to really think about your deployment to counter this. Position your raiders and venoms so that no flamer templates can overlap and hit 2 of your vehicles in one shot. Try to use terrain, the table edges and other units in order to protect vehicles from being in melta range. Make your opponent gamble with his deep strike positions. You may get lucky if he mishaps and loses the whole unit.

The fliers he is talking about are usually gunships. They are packed with the usual space marine heavy weapons and also have a heavy cannon that forces targets to take strength tests or they are removed from the game. This won't really be a problem for most coven units but it will be a problem for eldar infantry. If you have a crimson hunter, I would take it since I'm assuming a significant portion of your army is coven that can't do anything against fliers.

In my opinion, webway portaling wraith guard are not something that should be brought to "friendly games". The exception would be if your opponent were to bring some kind of equally crazy formation or combo like for example, 5 imperial knights, some kind of draigo death star with invisibility, 35 jetbikes with scatter lasers and wraithknights. If you believe the presence of two space marine fliers warrants bringing this, then that is your decision.

Overall I'd say Dark Eldar vs Space Wolves always makes for good games. Both armies have strong and interesting close combat units that can make for some memorable epic clashes. Just try to make sure that your close combat units always have an advantage of some kind or they will most likely get outclassed by those strong space wolf gentlemen.

Quote :

In my opinion, webway portaling wraith guard are not something that should be brought to "friendly games".  The exception would be if your opponent were to bring some kind of equally crazy formation or combo like for example, 5 imperial knights, some kind of draigo death star with invisibility, 35 jetbikes with scatter lasers and wraithknights.  If you believe the presence of two space marine fliers warrants bringing this, then that is your decision.

+1. That was my intention.

Space wolves aren't that tough a nut to crack. They're specialized space marines that lack access to a ton of what makes Codex: Space Marines great and in lieu the puppies get access to.... puppies.

Thunderwolf calv w/ thunderhammers, and Techmarines (whatever the space wolvey name for them is...) are S10 with their wolf mounts, meaning they'll ID any grotesque units so keep those away from each other for anything else than a speed bump. Beyond that, grey hunter squads (the basic troop) can take two special weapons plus a close combat weapon plus their squad leader with his gear. This means they are able to be geared to do anything very well, but of course pay for it.

With CWE diluting your pool I'm really not sure what I'd recommend for tactics as its something I've just never looked at, but a straight dark eldar army made up of kabilites in raiders / venoms, with some close combat (Dark artisan) thrown in is quite effective against space puppies as they are basically just expensive marines. The only real thing to watch out for are those wolves because they are just so fast, but utlimately, against DE they're simply fast moving space marines with two wounds a piece.