Dealing with Deepstrikers

Hello, my current meta seems to be running a lot of deepstrikers these days. It seems like most space marine players are switching out there rhinos for drop pods, which kind of has been a problem for me, cause they come in with flamers and wipe out half my army. If I try to mech up, they come in with the other half of their drop pods which have melta, and blow up half my tanks, killing the guys inside. What is worse is that daemons have won a major gt in my area, meaning that more people are starting to switch armies to daemon flamer/screamer spam. This was never a problem that I formerly had to deal with, since competitive 5th ed armies had 0 deepstrikers, so I'm kind of at a loss. As a result of this, I was wondering what lists/tactics you guys have been using to deal with these type of armies.

Castle up in a corner.
Use empty raiders and ravagers if need be to shield the rest of your list. Place the skimmer shield far enough out from the rest of your army so that even if he manages to land right next to it he cant reach the inner circle of your castle. About 5" should do it, due to the restriction of not being within 1" of enemy models.
Also remember that if someone is using this tactic then a fair proportion, up to 50% in the case of Daemons will not be on the table until at least T2.

Heres how I deployed against a Daemon list in a recent tournament, worked a treat.

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As you can see he cannot land inside the raider and ravager wall and he cannot use flamers to reach the contents of the castle. Most times you will only have to deal with a few units if it's a list relying heavily on d/s, so pick them apart one at a time.

Just to emphasise kenny3760 awesome post and that castling is the right way forward.

Mushkilla wrote:

As a daemon player and a dark eldar player. I would suggest trying the following sort of deployment against a deepstricking army like daemons:

This was how I deployed against a salamanders drop pod list (dark eldar in blue in the corner):


I castled in a corner. I spaced out my units so there was about 2-3" between them (whatever footprint of the size of his flamer squads is a good idea), as it means even if he threads the needle he will mishap: for example the footprint of his flamers is 3", so add 1" as he can't be within 1" of anything, with this spacing he can't physically land in a gap that is 4" between two of your units . I also started my units out of their transports to force multiple targets. And used said transports as shields. If you get first turn (you tend to against deamons as they like going second), just move anything that has a jink save out and back again so they get cover saves (unless you are already running flicker fields), and then wait.

What does this do?

-It lets you control what he can threaten by letting you place your most valuable units in the corner.
-It forces him to deep-strike on the other side of your "raider wall".
-It increases his chances of mishaps, anything that is within 1" of any of your units mishaps.
-He will only have half his force against your entire army id he tries to threaten the castle.
-Your units are safe from flamers, unless he manages to deepstrike 1-2" away from the raiders (very risky on his part), as the raiders 2-3" wide, the gape between the raiders 4" wide creates a buffer zone that keeps your more vulnerably units safe.
-If he deesptrikes near you, your units are already in a position to assault him on your turn.

In conclusion, daemons want you to spread out so that they can pick you off piece by peace. If you deploy sensibly in a corner castle you get a massive advantage as it forces the daemon player to either engage you on his first turn and expose himself to your entire army or forgo his alpha strike in order to deploy safely. In which case you crush him piece by piece.

All the above applies to most deepstrike based armies whether they be daemons or drop pods.

Hope that helps.

Now here is the tricky bit. What if there's objectives and you have to go out there to get them... but he destroys the transports?

Elithyr wrote:

Now here is the tricky bit. What if there's objectives and you have to go out there to get them... but he destroys the transports?

In the picture by kenny3760 I would be impressed if any army could destroy all those transports in one turn, either way if an army can do that if you castle or don't you will still have the same problem. So you might as well be asking "what do I do if I lose all my transports on the first turn, irrespective of deployment?", if your opponent has that much fire power, then it would be sensible of you to reserve a single raider or two to contest/capture an objective later in the game.

In my picture, I had three squads of reavers easily capable of contesting my opponents objectives if need be (and that don't depend on transports to do so), and I had enough staying power with the talos to hold my own objective.

If it's a full drop pod list then he will only have 3 or 4 pods coming in a turn, so losing all your transports to it is not going to happen. You will then have your full army targeting a portion of his.
A daemon list will have about 5 to 6 units arriving first turn, again not enough to wipe out your transports. I think I lost a venom to that Tzeentch list in turn 1. Then moved an empty raider to prevent any thing getting close to that point in T2. That game was the one with 2 objectives, having mine inside the castle prevented him from reaching it and the beasts contested his easily enough.

Yeah the castle is spot on.

I do it myself with Skimmer spam list. I usualy loose one or two skimmers, but I have enought to take them down in my turn. Very good illustrations above

This is a great tactic! I'm really glad I read about this. Question though, if your List has no raiders. Should one place their ravagers or venoms at the edge of the castle? Also, is the answer to this different against marines and demons?

You can use any vehicle as they are the only things that can provide cover/stop flamers from hitting your rank and file. At the end of the day the idea behind the castle is to protect whatever is most important to your battle plan. Deepstriking armies don't tend to have many vehicles so using the ravagers for protection isn't a bad idea as they are not going to be crucial to your battle plan.

As for daemons and marines, it depends on what they run, you need to adapt your deployment accordingly. There is no "golden castle deployment", you need to learn what works for you, it's a concept that counters deepstrikers by grouping your forces and protecting your key units, how you go about this is ultimately up to you.

Mushkilla wrote:

Deepstriking armies don't tend to have many vehicles so using the ravagers for protection isn't a bad idea as they are not going to be crucial to your battle plan.

That may change shortly when Soulgrinders get Skyfire in the new Daemons codex. Suspect we might see a few of them babies!

Mushkilla wrote:

You can use any vehicle as they are the only things that can provide cover/stop flamers from hitting your rank and file. At the end of the day the idea behind the castle is to protect whatever is most important to your battle plan. Deepstriking armies don't tend to have many vehicles so using the ravagers for protection isn't a bad idea as they are not going to be crucial to your battle plan.

As for daemons and marines, it depends on what they run, you need to adapt your deployment accordingly. There is no "golden castle deployment", you need to learn what works for you, it's a concept that counters deepstrikers by grouping your forces and protecting your key units, how you go about this is ultimately up to you.

Okay! Thanks Mush. I need to get some games in against Daemons. I played a drop pod list on Sunday and annihilated him. All I lose was 4 Reavers and a Raider and he was all but tabled. He had a QC which only fired once in the game because I deployed out of range. LF were behind the ADL and did nothing all game. Only two pods dropped on T1 and all they did was kill a Raider. I won 10VP - 5VP.

Question though: Does the intercept rule work from where the unit came in (in terms of LoS to it) or does it work from where the unit ends up. E.g if you bring a unit on and hide them behind cover can the QC fire at them even if they could see the point at which they entered the board...if you get what I mean.

EDIT - Just answered my own question. It's where they end up as the shot is made at the end of the movement phase.

Interception goes at the end of the movement phase, so at this point, the unit entering from reserve has already moved (you use it's final location).

Thanks for this. I never really thought about castling up, since I have not played many drop pod or daemon armies.

Will castling work against necron monoliths.

It should since they still cannot land on you. If it lands outside your castle, I would think it would die by dark lance fairly fast the next turn.

Interesting ploy. By deploying in a corner it takes away the ability of the deepstrike unit to outflank or get behind It also forces the decision of what to shoot at... do I shoot the Raiders to remove the cover save (and transport) or do I shoot the warriors (assuming thtat the unit firing has LoS and has a target in range.)

And I guess if the Raiders get the focus of the firing the outcome of what happens to the Raider may not make it certain that the it's removed from the board but becomes a terrain piece, which would still provide cover AND slow any advance down. I'm relatively new to this so if this wrong please correct me.

what if the opponent has blast templates? It seems that is very popular spam these days.

That's a good point. Depends on what type; missile launchers, fixed on an AV or good ol' fashioned howitzers... The first two will be hampered if they've moved, the latter, well that could cause a problem. Don't forget DE do speed well so you could rush some Reavers out and silence them

shadowseercB wrote:

what if the opponent has blast templates? It seems that is very popular spam these days.

At that point it's a question of concentration and judgment.

If there's one or two deepstrikers and a billion blasts, don't castle up.

If there's a billion deepstrikers and less blasts, castle up.

If the other guy brought both he probably has close to zero troops. Go win on mission.