fighting Orks with soulfright

Hello fellow Archons. This week I'm going to get revenge on a friend of mine. He played Orks and he put his looters behind and aegis and went to ground. He could only snap shoot but that has been enough. Anyway, I'm trying to get him with a freakshow this time, using Phantasm launcher and the archangel. Does anybody know their leadership and if they can get immune to it? Aka fearless.

Anyway: here is my list:

+++ Tainted Reborn 1,5 Freakshow (1500pts) +++

++ Dark Eldar: Codex (2014) (Combined Arms Detachment) (985pts) ++

+ HQ (285pts) +

Archon
Agoniser, Kabalite Armour, Phantasm Grenade Launcher, Plasma Grenades, Shadow field, Splinter Pistol, The Armour of Misery, Webway portal

Haemonculus
The Archangel of Pain


+ Troops (420pts) +
3x
Kabalite Warriors in a Venom with Blaster and Sybarite with Phantasm launcher


+ Fast Attack (280pts) +
2x
Razorwing Jetfighter


++ Dark Eldar: Supplement - Haemonculus Covens (Unbound Army (Faction)) (515pts) ++

+ No Battle Role (HQ) (70pts) +

Haemonculus

+ No Battle Role (Elites) (445pts) +

Grotesques (205pts)
····Aberration
····Grotesque 3x
Raider with night shield

Grotesques (240pts)
····Aberration
····Grotesque 3x
Raider with night shield

First thing: I don't understand your points listed for your grots units. They don't make sense. They're both listed as being the same, yet have different point values listed. Anyhow:

Yes, orcs can get fearless in a couple ways. Ghazkull gets fearless from at least 1 formation if he's with a certain number of models. Mad doc grotsnik gives fearless to any unit he joins(as opposed to only being fearless himself), and 1 of the results on the warlord traits table gives all models with the "ere we go" special rule fearless when a WAAAGH! is called, till the start of their next turn.

Only the 2nd two ways are really a problem for you, since the wording of both soulfright and the archangel only stop you from allocating wounds to models that have the fearless rule, not units effected by it.

That said, if you're making an army specifically to take on orcs, their main power is in their numbers. Numbers of bodies, and numbers of attacks per body. Our leadership based weaponry is awesome for taking out units with good armour/cover saves, but against orcs it struggles to pay for itself in numbers, I think.

I just went through our entire codex and math hammered out every single viable melee unit, while looking for what ranged options we have to deal with cover save 2+ orcs. Here is the conclusion:

Liquifier guns would have been our go-to ranged option in last version but now don't work well because of S3.
Instead, our strongest ranged option is in medusae, at 25 points a pop. Each one comes with a S4 AP3 cover-ignoring template weapon. Ideal for roasting orcs at range.

In melee, we only have 1 option in the entire codex that out-melee's orc boys, point for point, and that is the grotesque. It's the only thing in our entire codex that can beat orc boys in CC. That gives me sadface. lol

So anyhow, If you swapped out anything from the fear side, I'd probably do so for more grots or to stick a medusae bomb in there.

I've always been a fan of leadership penalty lists, but against mass orc boyz, I personally think a complete list redesign would likely yield better results, focusing on your grots and adding in multiple wwp medusa bombs. I'd probably keep the armor of misery/archangel combo in there with it, just because it can yield really good burst results by itself in one shot, but other than that, I'd lower my reliance on the phantasm grenade launchers.

P.S. Sorry for correctly misspelling orc throughout this post. Too many years spelling it Tolkien-style before being introduced to 40k.

^^ pretty much.

I dont see the point in using medusae for roasting orcs, as you never really get to use that AP3. Wouldent venoms with dual cannons work fairly well? Just stay out of charge range and shoot stuff.

Additionally what about lahmeans for a counter CC unit? their 2+ poisen and 3A on the charge will make most things flinch.

Venoms didn't work out last game. He just hid behind cover and went to ground. 3+ cover save and 2+ behind an aegis.

So Medusae would be a good idea.

The points are out of place because I made some last minute corrections.

fisheyes wrote:

I dont see the point in using medusae for roasting orcs, as you never really get to use that AP3.

Well you do use it. It's just not against armour 3. It's against either orc heavy armor(4+) or their basic stuff. It's also useful if characters are in the unit. But the MAIN reason to take it in this case is because he said his opponent is getting a 2+ cover save by going to ground behind an aegis. It's to overcome that 2+ cover save, which IS a valid point for using a template weapon. Unfortunately, we don't have any other template weapon options, other than the crapifier gun.

fisheyes wrote:

Wouldent venoms with dual cannons work fairly well? Just stay out of charge range and shoot stuff.

Nope. A 65 point venom putting out 12 shots a round would do an average of 0.65 wounds per round against a unit that has gone to ground behind an aegis. That's 4 orc boyz(24 points) over the course of a 6 round game, assuming the venom is never shot at.

fisheyes wrote:

Additionally what about lahmeans for a counter CC unit? their 2+ poisen and 3A on the charge will make most things flinch.

While this is absolutely true, and I DID forget about their 2+ knives, they will perform worse than grots against ork boyz on average. Equal points of grots vs orcs results in 1 grot left at 3 wounds, whereas equal points of lahmaeans also results in 1 left, but at 1 wound. Further, they would have significantly more difficulty making it into CC than grots due to 2 less toughness and no FnP.

If poison didn't get the shaft in 7th ed with the proliferation of gargantuan creatures and the adjustment to how poison works against them, lahmaeans would be a better pickup than they are currently.

The fall of poison as an all-around option has increased the overall value of rending, however(if you need a 6 to wound anyway, it may as well be an AP2 6). Unfortunately, reavers, while they do a significant amount of damage to orcs on the charge, fold immediately in the face of an orc counterattack. Equal points of orcs vs. reavers results in the reavers ALL dying in the first round.

I'll think about adding the Medusae but I don't want to lose my grotesquerie

Other than that, I don't see much where I can get spare points. I need the Razorwing Jetfighter to fight the trucks and his flyer.

Do you guys have an alternative list?

If you drop 1 group of warriors, and the phantasm launcher from another group of warriors, that pays for 3 medusae in a dual cannon venom. You'll still have 1 warrior group with phantasm, and a phantasm on your BS8 Archon. Pop your archon and archangel Haemy in here, and you have yourself a scatterless leadership bomb with 3 S4 AP3 templates in addition.

It's going to be Maelstrom so I'm kind of reluctant losing a warrior squad. What about that:

Three Medusae in Raider with night shields

Archon with agoniser, Shadow field Phantasm Grenade Launcher Armour of Misery and WWP

Haemonculus with archangel

3x
5 Warriors in Venom with Blaster and Sybarite with Phantasm launcher

One Razorwing

Grotesquerie
Haemonculus with portal

4 grotesques in night shields Raider

3 grotesques with night shielded Raider


I'm going to put the formation Haemonculus together with the Medusae and fry some Orks and the other Haemonculus and the Archon together with the bigger grotesques squad.

I wouldn't deep strike the grots. If you do, the earliest they can charge is turn 3. I'd do it the other way around, putting the WWP/Archangel with the dusa's so that both units of grots are charging on turn 2, ideally the same turn you blow your archangel/dusa bomb.

That's actually a good advice. Thanks. Too bad I don't have points left for enhanced eathersails. Maybe I just forfeit one Aberration. That way I'm going to come into his face turn one.

But can I actually charge out of an stunned transport?

Can't use edit function on the phone.

Yes, they can still charge if their transport gets stunned. Direct quote from the rulebook:

Quote :

When a vehicle suffers a shaken, stunned, weapon destroyed, or immobilized result, passengers take a leadership test at the end of the phase. If failed, they may only make snap shots in their next shooting phase, but are otherwise not effected.

And you don't need Aethersails. You can already move 30 total inches in 1 turn when you flat out, then if your transport survives, another 12" plus charge distance in round 2. That's 42" plus charge. Plenty. The distance between deployment zones is only 24".

I'm thinking about adding an Archon instead of the Haemonculus to get an additional Blaster.

So as long as they can charge I'm fine!

Turning the Eathersails into chain snares I think.

Good call. Tank shock is more useful than the sails, imo. Although, I might just get a shock prow on one instead of snares on both. The AV14 ram can be a game changer in a limited number of scenarios. The lower the points value, the more likely the ram is to be a consideration, in my opinion, since it's easier to find yourself with fewer AT options in mid-late rounds in smaller points games.

I've never had success with ramming, so I'm reluctant changing the two chains against one ram. What's your experience? How do you use it?

I don't plan to use it. It's a contingency plan. I only buy them when I'm not giving much up to get it, like 1 chain snare. But when I HAVE used it, it's been after I've taken a hit that left passengers and crew shaken/snap firing, or when I'm empty and have a weapon destroyed. Alternatively, 1 guaranteed hit from a S7 is better against most vehicles than a dissie cannon, so they're good to take on dissie cannon raiders to give them an alternate option for more anti-tank.

Furthermore, it's still a tank shock too. So the most effective use of a ramming maneuver is to position yourself to tank shock 1 or more groups of infantry on your way to your ram target, where you deliver an autohitting S7 hit to the armour facing you strike.

I believe the prow allows you to ram and the snares allow you to shock. Not both.

The Red King wrote:

I believe the prow allows you to ram and the snares allow you to shock.  Not both.

This is a direct copy/paste from the DE book:

Quote :

Shock Prows
A vehicle with a shock prow can Tank Shock and Ram even if it is not a Tank.

And even if it DID only say it let's you ram, because the rules for ram say it also tank shocks any troops you cross, and you never actually have to have a valid target to ram, you'd still be able to use it to tank shock anyhow. Luckily, it's in no way ambiguous, and directly gives us permission to do both, so I don't have to make that argument.

It IS good information to know, though. You can tank shock 3 units and ram a vehicle in one move if you're positioned correctly.

The game had to be postponed his girlfriend got sick. But we have a 1% tolerance in points so I can take two shock prows.

There you go. Perfect.

Good luck with your game. Let us know how it goes!