Let's talk mech.

So it looks like mass mech is here to stay (at least until 6th, fingers crossed they tone it down). This was always the case really (leafblower) but thanks largely to bloody stelek and ytth lists my locals are seeing 12+ vehicles at 1750pts more often than not. The DE are excellent mech spammers but now, more than ever we are being challenged and dare i say it, beaten at our own game.

The obvious solution is wyches, alpha strike, multi charge. Lets assume you don't get first turn, just to keep it interesting.

I have had great success reserving and flanking. Forcing his parking lot to move sideways can lead to gridlock and blocked LOS. A move blocking venom or raider or 2 is essential and is worth it just to see the frustration it causes your opponents.

I would love to hear your tactics, tips, tricks and experience vs 12+ vehicles at 1750 or 15 at 2000. Thanx.

Also, 12" movement. Always. And sideshots, always. If You can't catch side, then move further/deploy stuff.

Yes, basics. But I saw static DE player getting powned recently, so...


AV 12 is our biggest enemy since Lances are "heavy duty" tools that some with price tag of "AV 14 killer" and Chimeras can be spammed.


btw. I consider IG codex to be absolutely, positively best codex. Not because of massive ammount of Gorgonzola (there is not so much of it), but they can make ANY list. Foot Horde? Check. Elite Foot (note they don't have 3+/2+ guys, but you can take huge ammount of 4+ guys.)? Check. Good Mech? Check. Mech-Spam? Check.
Also, freedom of including nearly any weapon, on nearly any vechicle and unit. And "2+ in 1" in most slots, also worth mention. You just can make list that works for You.

what about running things with haywire /blaster/grenades with all our stuff. There relatively cheap. I made a quick 1500pt list to see how much Anti_Vehicle i can nab.

Looking at 5 blasters, 35 haywire grenades, 30 plasma grenades, 6 haywire blasters, and 9 dark lances.

I think spamming haywire wouldn't be that bad of an option.

What do you think?

Well, looking at your list lululu, I'd bet you take alot of wyches...personally i dislike them and am more of a kaballite fan so I spam aton of blasters, dark lances and haywires.

But on the subject, if we take first turn we can cover most of the board and our vehicles are faster and we can have alot of AT, its all just a matter of stunning some vehicles and picking 'em off while trying to minimize casualties

Yea it was something I threw together just to see how much I could get.
Wyches are able to get haywires the cheapest and most plentiful but I am assuming you rather venom spam?

I am more of a Wrack player with WWP So I find it alot harder to bring Anti Vehicles. I am also hell bent on bringing reavers, but if i got rid of them it wouldn't be too hard though *sigh*

Well I am more of a venom, ravager, and raider spam...but I really want to try a WWp list sometime and see how it feels.

The only thing I'm against using in our list is wyches

Local_Ork - Yes basics but often forgotten so worth mentioning.

2+ in 1 slot is my biggest problem with IG. Don't forget air-cav, check. These guys can do it all. Luckily IG are only for low or middling exp players at my locals. Vets who show up with them face ridicule and find it difficult to get a game... what, you need to win to compensate for your poor appearance, life, sexlife?


lululu_42 - Thanks but i was hoping for something more in depth than, take lots of AT stuff. I mentioned in the OP that wyches ie. haywires is the obvious answer.


Jack_the_Ripper - Again thanks but i was hoping for more than, take 1st turn, take lots of AT stuff and move fast and shoot. In my OP i asked you to assume you DON'T get first turn.


Do people read the question or just the title and write whatever?!

Painjunky wrote:

Lets assume you don't get first turn, just to keep it interesting.

I have had great success reserving and flanking. Forcing his parking lot to move sideways can lead to gridlock and blocked LOS. A move blocking venom or raider or 2 is essential and is worth it just to see the frustration it causes your opponents.

Well i haven't had the luck to play against such card board box armies, but i have faced equal at lower points, so i'm regularly thinking about our biggest weakness(and discussing it on Sorrowshards Blog ;-) )

A second turn really is a tuff one, but i guess placing your vehicles on one side is a good way to go, that way you negate all his mid range weapons that really bring us the hurt(multilaser, heavy bolters maybe even misplaced auto canons or missile launchers)

i guess if you would not take the wych CC approach, a MSU approach could work. problem is, just not enough space for MSU XD you would at least need 1.5times his vehicle count of AT squads, so you could at least try to hit his vehicles, and do some damage.

i really think that its not just quantity that we need, it's also more units to shoot with, as to hit more different targets.

so here just a simple list.
Archon with blaster
3*3 Truborn with 2 DL
5*5 Warriors with a Blaster on Raider with FF (Raider goes 12" and places the Warriors in good shooting positions.
3*5 Harpyies with 2 DL
3*Ravanger with FF

thats 26 DL in 14 Units and 6 Blaster in 5 Units so you can hit 19 targets.
I know DL on harpyies aren't very popular, but their advantage is range. sure if the enemy moves out of range you have to move and cant shoot, but your not in immediate danger and that way you can try to "push" the enemy into a certain direction.
you can play also use a mix between refused flank and reserve, to get the vehicles at the side, but then again, if your opponent plays the reserve guy your pretty ****** :-(

what i would like to know, how you managed to be successful with reserves and flanking. did he play the reserve card?

sláinte

For sure You can use biggest advantage of massive mech - high concentration of tanks means most of them can't move or even rotate freely.


I think that Talos is good AT - it needs to get close but when it does... Also, TL HBlaster is nice for silencing IG tanks - both them and crew can't shoot (if they disembark, they can't use Heavy weapons).

Similar with Razorflocks, 6 Rending attacks per base are nothing to whine about. I would always send 2 of them for one tank.
Granted, they can't deal with AV 13+ but this is job for lances...


And full speed Ramming. I've posted Kamikaze list in Army section. Note if You go second, then You CAN ram on turn 1.

Crazy_Irish wrote:

Painjunky wrote:

Lets assume you don't get first turn, just to keep it interesting.

I have had great success reserving and flanking. Forcing his parking lot to move sideways can lead to gridlock and blocked LOS. A move blocking venom or raider or 2 is essential and is worth it just to see the frustration it causes your opponents.

Well i haven't had the luck to play against such card board box armies, but i have faced equal at lower points, so i'm regularly thinking about our biggest weakness(and discussing it on Sorrowshards Blog ;-) )

A second turn really is a tuff one, but i guess placing your vehicles on one side is a good way to go, that way you negate all his mid range weapons that really bring us the hurt(multilaser, heavy bolters maybe even misplaced auto canons or missile launchers)

i guess if you would not take the wych CC approach, a MSU approach could work. problem is, just not enough space for MSU XD you would at least need 1.5times his vehicle count of AT squads, so you could at least try to hit his vehicles, and do some damage.

i really think that its not just quantity that we need, it's also more units to shoot with, as to hit more different targets.

so here just a simple list.
Archon with blaster
3*3 Truborn with 2 DL
5*5 Warriors with a Blaster on Raider with FF (Raider goes 12" and places the Warriors in good shooting positions.
3*5 Harpyies with 2 DL
3*Ravanger with FF

thats 26 DL in 14 Units and 6 Blaster in 5 Units so you can hit 19 targets.
I know DL on harpyies aren't very popular, but their advantage is range. sure if the enemy moves out of range you have to move and cant shoot, but your not in immediate danger and that way you can try to "push" the enemy into a certain direction.
you can play also use a mix between refused flank and reserve, to get the vehicles at the side, but then again, if your opponent plays the reserve guy your pretty ****** :-(

what i would like to know, how you managed to be successful with reserves and flanking. did he play the reserve card?

sláinte

I always run at least 1 unit of haywire wyches, i love these girls, i just mean that if you have second turn or your opponent is wise to your game you won't get the alpha/multicharge that everyone talks about.

Nice list, looks like one of stelek's. Fight fire with fire eh.

He did not play reserves, he won 1st turn and deployed on the table as usual. I then elected to hold my army in reserve. I move on bottom of turn 2 on a flank. Not sure what you mean reserve card, does that answer you question?

Painjunky wrote:

Nice list, looks like one of stelek's. Fight fire with fire eh.

I really don't like playing so many trippls an so on, so i guess i will never play that list, but it i guess ill try out one or two units, e.g. die Harpyies or the trueborn.

Painjunky wrote:

He did not play reserves, he won 1st turn and deployed on the table as usual. I then elected to hold my army in reserve. I move on bottom of turn 2 on a flank. Not sure what you mean reserve card, does that answer you question?

With the reserve card i ment the guy who makes his reserves come faster and yours come slower. I really hate that guy! But what did come in turn 2. That was my biggest problem, coming peace after peace and getting shot to bits.

Local_Ork wrote:

I think that Talos is good AT - it needs to get close but when it does...

I just bought a Talos in an effort to close down the heavily meched up Eldar of a friend - at 1000 points he's already got three tanks, all of which I think are FW variants. One is a Warp Hunter, with some stupid rule that lets you measure six inches from the barrel then place a flamer template. Never mind that it's main super nasty gun doesn't even need LOS...

Anyway, I've given my Talos a twin linked Haywire Blaster, Chain Flails and an additional close combat weapon, the idea being that it can hopefully keep a tank immobile whilst it chitters towards it. If you can get a Talos in the right place, either through a WWP or just careful maneuvering, it seems like one of our best AT options - Strength plus 2d6 penetration, Twin linked AT weaponry and high toughness to keep it floating along. Plus it looks fantastic!

Years ago when I played Orks I charged my Dread into an Imperial tank column. It tore through them all because of their formation - if you're lucky, you can charge in, wreck the vehicle instead of explode it then use it as cover. The other vehicles couldn't get away fast enough, and couldn't use their Ordnance for fear of hitting their own vehicles. I guess the distracting sight of my allies Wraithlord, Avatar and Seer Council with Singing Spears helped too. That's the key I guess - attacking in force with a number of AT options simultaneously - if your opponent panics and moves, they most likely can't fire everything, in which case you've done half the work already by disallowing shooting.

I apologize for just giving you the obvious answer that you said you didn't want to hear. Let's assess your question of "what if we go second?"

Possible solutions:
-Take Vect (I know, you'd take him to help get first turn anyways but he's a great character and can help save you if you absolutely need it)

-Reserve your forces so that they dont get utterly destroyed before they can act. The only thing that I can remember that alters reserve rolls is that IG guy and hopefully you fight more than just IG. This way, you come onto the board second and are still fresh to fight.

-Deepstrike with Sliscus (same as reserving everything)

-Maybe a Webway Portal list could be of some help, since you could drop the portal and have your army (mostly non-tank) run out of it unscathed and dish out some pain.

-If all else fails, take advantage of cover and try to block as much line of sight as possible to minimize shooting <----Not a recomended strategy

"-If all else fails, take advantage of cover and try to block as much line of sight as possible to minimize shooting <----Not a recomended strategy"
That *is* my recommended strategy.

Well for me, I'd rather keep them in cover as a sidenote rather than basing it all on hiding there and hoping to not get shot down...But then again, I'm also one of those people who hopes for the alphastrike. I dont know, now I'm just rambling...

I have been using the Mech route for a while now, and I noticed that my playstyle is essentially locked in place without me feeling at home with it. This is a weird evolution for me for I tend to slowly turn the list to something I am at home with and is able to fight evenly with every type of list.

As of this moment, my Dark Eldar feels awkward in my hands but it has been performing very well. Even know some people are calling my Dark Eldar overly competitive, despite my feeling that it is not at its optimum strength yet (competitive-wise).

I will need to figure out something to make it feel more natural like all my other armies.

So Crisis, are you saying that you enjoy using the mech DE list or do you not like having to rely on it?

Crazy Irish - Ah now im with you. No ive never had the misfortune of meeting mr reserves nerf. I play against IG but not as often as SW or BA mega mech. I guess i would forget reserves and deploy on a table corner and flank/block as usual to cause gridlock, any tips?

Also i agree reserves sound scary. I thought it was a dumb idea for DE till i tried it. In a recent game only 3 out of 11 units came on turn 2. This is what actually won me the game. They hid, My enemy came forward to try and get at my hidden units and wrecked 1. Turn 3 my entire army, except 1 unit came on his flank and wrecked half his army. He quits turn 5. Try it!

Local Ork - I run a pair of taloi with chains and haywires against weaker armies or players and they're great. Vs stronger opponents they tend to get a belting. Devs or long fangs with ML have made a mess of them. Also they can't redeploy like the rest of my army. Maybe I should dust off my wwp and run triple talos and triple beasts. Thoughts?

Thor - That sounds like what im after. Would you mind elaborating in regards to mega mech?

Talos is one of our most resilent units, considering we talk about shooting phase. But indeed WWP is way to go. Not sure if giving him Heat Lance isn't better. I *would* pick HBlaster but never tried guy actually so that one may work better.

Heat lance on a talos is only good if he is coming out of a portal. That haywire blaster allows him to reach out and touch something even on foot, which is crucial so he can catch up to things.

As for the OPs original question. It's not about fighting fire with fire, but using our strengths against their weakness. What can we do great at:

1: movement
2: AI shooting
3: Spam S8 weapons

So let's see... Mech list??? Oh look... I'm packing 20+ darkmatter shots as well as some haywires and heat lances. Check

Oh look, a horde list (who still does these anyway... Oh wait I just played against 60 boyz ) well I got 7+ venoms and splinter fire by the bucket loads. Check

And who can move 12 and shoot all their weapons??? Oh look... Check

Pretty much we are one of the top armies out there. Sure we have probably the biggest weakness out there next to crons and phase out, but when it comes down to it we have the tools to do well in a mech eviroment.

And to go along from what Thor said, make your own cover. Turn one of those raiders sideways to cover two others, or use a venom or two and you have instant cover. Afterwards venom block all day, and watch then cry when they can't move till they blow up your tank with a 1/3 chance of ignoring shots.

Jack_The_Ripper wrote:

So Crisis, are you saying that you enjoy using the mech DE list or do you not like having to rely on it?

I have been playing Mech lists since 4th with my Tau, SoBs (not with the new codex), Orks, and Death Guard. Each has their own quirk into the equation which allows me to feel at home with its version of Mech.

As of this moment, there is not specific quirk that makes me feel at home with my Dark Eldar despite the fact that I loved the way the army works (Mech is my forte more or less). With each one of my Mech armies I find a rather unique quirk with them; my Tau is essentially a mid-range area effect supression army, my SoB is a "in-your-face" army, my Death guard is a relentless march army, and my orks works best in a concerted massive charge.

With the Dark Eldar, I fail to find a particular quirk that makes it memorable. Speedwise, I feel that my Orks and my Dark Eldar tied together for fastest army to get into action. Firepower-wise, my Dark Eldar, Tau and SoBs are tied. Assault-wise, my Orks wins hands down in killing everything they see. And no other army of mine beats my Death Guard when it comes to resilience (save the SoBs with their spirit of Martyr).

Right now I need to get a specific feel with DE mech like I do the other armies, and that is a rather long process on my part.

I wonder about this a lot too, especially since I play Black Templars as my main army. On a good table with ample terrain, it can be disgustingly hard to kill enemy tanks sheltering in cover. We also know that for all intents and purposes, the Dark Lance is a glorified missile launcher, but it's also the only real anti-tank the DE field. (Other options are simply limited compared to the ubiquitous Dark Lance)

Dark Eldar do have the advantage of spamming obscene numbers of fragile vehicles with 5+ invulnerable saves and nasty AT/AP fire. (When I run my BTs versus a good DE list, the sheer number of vehicles can be intimidating) DE also offer some stupidly mobile options that make assault squads look downright pedestrian compared to Wyches and Incubi hopping out of a skimmer that just flew 12 inches.

IMO, with mech armies, you wanna spam Dark Lances everywhere to kill run of the mill vehicles, and then use haywire grenades/hayblasters on the insanely tuff stuff. (Blessed Land Raiders/Monoliths) Someone on another forum said he liked to use DE vehicles on enemy infantry, and DE infantry on vehicles, and there is some truth to that.

Shadows Revenge wrote:

Heat lance on a talos is only good if he is coming out of a portal. That haywire blaster allows him to reach out and touch something even on foot, which is crucial so he can catch up to things.

As for the OPs original question. It's not about fighting fire with fire, but using our strengths against their weakness. What can we do great at:

1: movement
2: AI shooting
3: Spam S8 weapons

So let's see... Mech list??? Oh look... I'm packing 20+ darkmatter shots as well as some haywires and heat lances. Check

Oh look, a horde list (who still does these anyway... Oh wait I just played against 60 boyz ) well I got 7+ venoms and splinter fire by the bucket loads. Check

And who can move 12 and shoot all their weapons??? Oh look... Check

Pretty much we are one of the top armies out there. Sure we have probably the biggest weakness out there next to crons and phase out, but when it comes down to it we have the tools to do well in a mech eviroment.

And to go along from what Thor said, make your own cover. Turn one of those raiders sideways to cover two others, or use a venom or two and you have instant cover. Afterwards venom block all day, and watch then cry when they can't move till they blow up your tank with a 1/3 chance of ignoring shots.

Gentlemen, i swear i am not as stupid as i sound. I, like all of you, know to take lots of darkmatter or AT stuff, move fast and shoot vs mech. I know 1 or 2 vehicles can hide behind another.

If you have ever lost first turn roll and been out numbered by vehicles that usually out gun you, (as i seem to be more and more lately) how did you deploy, or not, and proceed?

In my case its usually 1750 - 2000pts, 12 - 15 IG, SW or BA vehicles + supporting squads. If you've dealt with our "biggest weakness" as Crazy Irish put it or something very similar, let me know. Interesting tricks or experiences would be cool too.

Thanx.

Ok well if I get second (which happens to me more often than not) then I just reserve everything. If I'm playiing against Mech IG (which has been 2 of my last 3 games) and he has an Officer of the Fleet then the first squads that come out go after him. I got lucky I had 2 Razorwing Jetfighters and one came out, I popped his Chimera and unloaded everything the Razorwing had on a building and killed 32 of his Platoon & Command squads and the Officer.
If you don't roll well for reserves then go flat out at an angle so that you can hide behind whatever cover is closest to your board edge. Keep your Raiders sideways and your Venoms backwards if you like to play movement shenenagians.
I've been running half my troops as Wyches with nothing but Haywire Grenades (and maybe a Shardnet but I'd rather have another Wych than a Shardnet) and half as 5 man Blaster squads in Venoms. I keep them in Venoms because they are easier to hide and the Warrior squads is all I'll probably have alive to hold any objectives. The Wyches I throw into an assault ASAP with a Haemie's pain token and multi charge whatever they can in the hopes that something will hold and they won't get shot at. IG's Heavy Flamers and Flamers will ruin a Wyches day if she ain't in combat. To me though a Wyches Haywire Grenade is more reliable to do some damage than a Dark Lance, so I use them to tear holes in my opponent's lines and stun/immobilize tanks.
But I do take more Raiders than Venoms, I take about 4 Venoms and 5 Raiders usually. If I'm being competitive I take 3 Ravagers, if I'm looking for a challenge I take my two Razorwing Jetfighters with Disintegrators. Their alpha strike in reserve games is amazing but sometimes its overkill and Dark Eldar are all about efficiency.
I am also bringing some Fast Attack squads, I think they are at least good distractions. I've had a lot of success with 6 Reavers with Heat Lances and 5 Scourges with Haywire Blasters. Reavers are fast enough to deploy anywhere when coming from reserves and Scourges have enough movement to actually shoot at something and can at least reliably stun vehicles. I would deep strike Scourges w/Heat Lances and reserve Scourges with Haywire Blasters.
When you reserve everything, whatever comes out is basically on a suicide mission to take out more than itself. If I get one Wych squad to damage 2 tanks and destroy 2 units then that's pretty good. But we can't win a war of attrition. Keep the mission in mind and play towards clearing out whatever is around that objective, then holding down the rest of his army so they can't get there or whatever the situation calls for. Kill point games are the hardest by far, you really have to be on your A game.

Most posts here are really like "Duh.." Still I found this thread pretty useful, as I never thought about: "what if he goes first".

But if we are second and we reserve the entire army, would it be worth while to take some retro-engines in a standard army?(non-tailored list) Deepstriking kind of seems handy, as just comming in from the table edge is more or less the same or worse as deploying:
1. you start a 0" not 12"
2. you get shot at after shooting (So that is a little better)
3. everything can focus on just the few units that managed to get in from reserves.

I think I miss the point here somewhere.