Your thought about how to beat fatewaver lists

Evening folks!
I'm having a upcoming 2k game against a daemon player in a few days and was thinking
Whats your opinion on how to tackle a fate weaver/flying princes/screamer/flamer list at 2000 pts?
I got two main questions

1. How would a cult army stand against this type of list?
I was thinking about using my standard list which is quite splinter weapon heavy. But it would be fun to try to field some more wyches.
The daemon list is very shooty but quite weak in CC.

One of the things I added in the list is 2 razorwings to fend of those pesky flying MC:s, not sure how effective they would be though. Anyway, these is quite many points, could they be better spent in Wyches?

2. Witch approach do you think is the best to fight the list as a whole? Should I try to kill the fate weaver or should I try to ignore the MC:s and try to kill the rest of the list?

Venoms, venoms and more venoms. Then when you think you have enough... add 3 more venoms.

Fateweaver can be a huge buff for your opponent. So while it is difficult to take out Fateweaver it doesn't override prioritizing him. I think the key here is to try and ground him and take just a bunch of saves.

So this is the way I might do it: Use quad gun or razorwing to shoot at Fateweaver to get hits on him.
Hopefully he fails his grounded test.
Pump as much splinter fire into him as possible.

I prefer to shoot him because of the 4+ to wound and the best way to deal with him is to have him take as many saves as possible. In close combat the wyches might be able to hold him down but they won't be able to kill him.

Depending on where Fateweaver is, you could try to assault it with wyches such that you can focus on other targets but I only kind of like this approach.

Venoms, Splinter Cannnons, lots of shots.....

OP, what models/list are you thinking of bringing.

I have used a Fateweaver-led Daemons army for about half a year now, so consider any advice I give as being informed

I would recommend NOT SHOOTING FATEWEAVER. The Tzeentch Daemon army relies on Fateweaver to protect its Flamers and Screamers when they drop close in to enemy anti-infantry fire. The re-roll gives them saving throws that are slightly worse or slightly better than a Space Marine, as opposed to saves equivalent to or slightly better than Guardsmen. So the re-roll means they take fewer wounds. Here's the thing: if you are shooting Fateweaver, they take zero wounds! The difficulty in grounding Fateweaver, let alone wounding him is such that you are far better off focusing your fire into the closest squad of Daemons and eliminating threats from the table systematically. Skyfire is fine to hit Fatey, and probably should try for a lucky Ground rather than trying to off a random Tzeentch Prince (or Lord of Change, which he should really be bringing at 2000). If you Ground him, the decision becomes more difficult...but most of the time wiping out entire squads of Screamers is a better use of your splinter. Don't plan on them getting Grounded. When people shoot my Fateweaver instead of the guys he is protecting, I usually smile, since the bigger the squads of Screamers are, the better chance they have to totally sweep your stuff off the table. Wiping out one unit Turn also gets you...wait for it...FIRST BLOOD. Since the game might come down to everyone's Troops being dead, First Blood might decide who gets the Pyrrhic victory.

And Screamers are the biggest threat, since they can turbo-boost to catch you when you Flat Out your transports, a good anti-Flamer strategy. Wyches are one of the things that could stymie them in assault, but they need never assault you when they can just Slashing Attack all day. Mech up everything to prevent this and make them jump through additional hoops to Flame your Troops, then spread out to prevent being multi-assaulted by Screamers. It's a hard combo to break up, but you just have to stick to your guns and keep taking down units.

I don't know how effective a Wych Cult would be. If you get Turn 1, you can scatter your transports to the winds to give the Daemon player tough choices. If he gets Turn 1, he is best off dropping Fateweaver midfield and his Screamers literally anywhere to turbo-boost into the bubble, maybe slashing some AV 10 in the process. If you get the charge on Screamers, their effectiveness is cut, and you're battling invulnerable save vs. invulnerable save. If you whittle Flamers down hard enough, you can charge them and just tank the Overwatch with your Feel No Pain. I would rate the starting Paint Token highly enough to recommend Duke Sliscus to get an extra shot at it, and then you get to use my personal favorite unit in my DE army, Duke+20 Warriors+2 Cannons. Make a loose perimeter of transports around that to prevent it from getting Flamed, spread out, and you have a solid core to to force the Daemon player to make tough choices. This would be the only scenario where grouping up would be good, otherwise utilize your MSU and long-range Venom poison to have your army operate at a distance while being able to support each other.

Lastly, if you manage to survive through Turn 4, the steam should be running out of the Daemon army, and you can begin to look at achieving a game win. Now you kill their Troops, and for that Reavers are excellent. Use Cluster Caltrops if you want to, or if he has Plaguebearers. The Daemon player will likely hide his Troops out of sight, as they are terrible in all respects (okay, if he's cool enough to use Horrors, he probably threw them in your face for fun and you got a Pain Token off of them). Bladevane them mercilessly and laugh as he will never catch your bikes. The bikes will not survive a Hail-Mary Flamer drop, but hopefully you've forced his hand and he has to use his Elites to fight your main force. Spreading out the objectives should be a given- keep them behind walls and such.

Those are my thoughts, and you're following traditional DE philosophy: concentrate your fire, utilize your speed, make smart charges, hustle for Pain Tokens, and figure out what the biggest threats are. Fateweaver isn't a threat: he's a big chicken that has a hard time destroying one Venom a turn and won't leave his babysitting duties to go Vector Strike you. If you blitz past him he has a hell of a time maneuvering his attendant school of shark-mantas to follow him. Meanwhile you can be taking shots and bladevaning. Dark Eldar are a hard matchup for any Daemon player: you can definitely beat him if you stick to your guns. Let us know how it goes.

EDIT: Hmm, apparently I am quite verbose on this topic...this post just sort of kept going! Also, keep those Razorwings!: Daemon anti-flier is sorely lacking- imagine if you only had 2 Dark Lances in your army versus Razorback spam that's the feeling I typically have versus fliers. I'm still having from a game against Tyranid Flying Circus. Vector Strike is all you have to worry about, but you've got a Flickerfield. Put on Dissies, since even on the off-chance he brings a Soul Grinder the 2 Lances won't do enough now tha they have re-rollable saves. Pump missiles into freshly-dropped and not-Running Flamers or pesky Screamer clumps before you go hunting Flying Monstrous Creatures.

As a Daemon and Dark Eldar player I agree with CaptainBalroga fantastic advice.

The only thing I would add is keep your reavers in reserve this should minimise the hail mary flamer damage they can do to (depending on which wave the daemon player gets, and whether he goes second or first). Keeping them reserve also lets them hunt his troops mercilessly as the reavers can threaten the whole board in every deployment except hammer and anvil.

Daemons often want to go second as it means you lose a turn of shooting against them, but in the case of dark eldar it also means you can spread out and get your jink saves, so he might be in a bit of a bind about whether to go first or not. Personally I like to go second against daemons as it means his reserves are more likely to come on before mine, making sure his flamers can't get my reavers and that his troops are on the board. However if i get first turn I can use our fantastic mobility to spread out (but be careful as daemons like hunting your units down piece by piece especially fateweaver lists as they are more mobile than most).

Hope that helps.

Mushkilla, my man! I didn't know you played Daemons. We have to get a game in some time: I hear the Daemons mirror match is hilarious.

I played a game against an old Necron nemesis of mine on Wednesday. Great player, knows his stuff, and I would consider his army my worst matchup for my Dark Eldar. Imotekh and 3 Annihilation Barges, supported by very mobile Veil of Darkness-equipped Immortals, with 2 Scythes. It's a nightmare. But, I got to play with my Daemons+Guard. Fateweaver, Screamers, Flamers, Horrors, Infantry Platoons, Vendetta, Quad Gun. I've been taking good-natured flak from the game group for some time, "Oh look at these cheesy Daemons" "Get a load of this OP" "How do they justify making a unit like that?".

The OP Daemons meet their end in about 2.5 turns. Turn 1 I get my non-preferred wave, scatter away from the terrain I want to drop behind, and get my poor Flamers shot to hell out in the open. Turn 2 I drop my sharks and Fateweaver, and him and the Vendetta utterly fail to dent any AV 13 Barges. Fatey proceeded to be grounded by a Night Scythe, unwounded, only to be wiped out by a single Annihilation Barge's hail of Tesla. The other two cleaned up whatever sharks were leftover from the lightning strikes, and the broken Daemons met their end.

So, you see, Daemons are very beatable...and I still know which codes the real cheese is in!

As a daemon player myself I fully agree that daemons aren't OP. Not even screamer/flamer spam.

The only reason people freak out about them is because a lot of people still tailor their armies to fight marines - and when they encounter a horde army they get punished for it.

I have tried the same kind of list with my daemons just to see if it was so strong as the almighty internet claims (and because the new plastic screamers and flamers are cool models). It wasn't.

Get the wrong wave and you're struggling to kill something until mid/late game and bad reserve rolls often make it much worse.

Fateweaver is overpriced. A lot. Kill everything else first.

Kill the screamers first, they are the most dangerous unit because of their speed and 4+ cover save when turbo-boosting.

I missed my trusty fiends ... don't get me wrong, screamers and flamers are just as cool as fiends now - but how often have you heard people whining about fiends on the internet? Unlike fiends, screamers can be countered by blobs. A combo of screamers and fiends is rather nasty.

DE don't have much in the way of blobs but we do have beasts; get a big unit and the baron if you would like to lock the daemons in place.

CaptainBalroga wrote:

Mushkilla, my man! I didn't know you played Daemons. We have to get a game in some time: I hear the Daemons mirror match is hilarious.

Shame I live across the Pond. I run Slaanesh 2-3 blobs of hit and run daemonettes. Loads of fiends (hit and run again). Supported by lawn mowers. So it would be extra hilarious.

Like CaptainBalroga and Septimus said although the screamers/flamers are under costed it doesn't remove the other limitations of the codex. Also it means daemon builds are pretty predictable Fateweaver/screamers/flamers, a bit of experience against these lists and you should be able to deal with them fine.