Defeating Wraithknights

So, im not sure if people have talked about this, but i cant seem to find it anywhere...soooo lets start.

Its pretty obvious that poisoned weapons will bring it down sooner or later. but a smart enemy knows to take down those pesky venoms, and once their destroyed, well were screwed. And mostly with wave serpents taking the field now. so lets think of different ideas.

I was thinking, our puny archons has the ability to kill the big things! (its like david vs. goliath). If you give the archon a shadowfield, agoniser and drugs and venom blade if you feel like it, but uneccessary. If you think about it, you strike first against w.knights and youll be getting at least 6 attacks on the charge (7 if you get the drug roll), which hopefully youll hit more than half and wound half of that, which approximately comes to 2ish AP3 wounds (didnt calculate, just approximating so dont hate). Plus if you tag the archon along with wyches (which i know a lot of people frowns upon), you can have your hekatrix doing more agoniser damage.

Now, the problem is...catching the damn thing. you have got to be lucky if their raider does not blow up or the w.knight does not run away!

But anyways, how do you guys deal with the wraith knights?

T8 2+ save means weight of fire.
Just shoot it with everything, or ignore it. Its usualy easier to avoid the new giants than kill them.

t8, 3+ save means 2 venoms and crew should be able to do it.
Handily.

I would NEVER get in HTH with an archon if I could help it. Insta death awaits those who try.

In most instances, against Eldar, you can ignore the darn thing. Take out his more vital and deadly units. The Wraithknight is first and foremost a distraction/ decoy. Deal with it only when you have no choice.

well, what if your opponent runs 3 wraithknights...thats the problem.

Skulnbonz wrote:

In most instances, against Eldar, you can ignore the darn thing. Take out his more vital and deadly units. The Wraithknight is first and foremost a distraction/ decoy. Deal with it only when you have no choice.

It's no where near a distraction or decoy. It's very tough, fast and threatens at all ranges. Writing it off so flippantly is asking for it to maul you.

For the record, 54 bs4 shots statistically will bring it down... More than 2 venoms plus crew...

I use a wraithknight as an ally using the iyanden supplement. While it is a distractionary unit it can be used to great carnage. I generally use mine to rip through tanks and infantry in assault while blasting the crap out of anything I can. You might be able to ignore 1 especially if its not assaulting you and doesn't have the suncannon. If facing multiple I'd have to say assaulting it with ap2/3 auto wound on whatever weapons would work well. And if you manage to tie it up in combat then thats good too. But I would only do this if you had to. You could try using a FNP'd Talos or your own wraithknight as well.

Beware of iyanden spiritseers...I use mine to heal wounds on the knight...makes it a bigger issue hehe

Tying it down and Agonising it to death with a Shadowfield Archon and Wyches with Shardnets actually would probably work pretty well (the idea of Wyches hooking those nets onto a massive Wraithknight and somehow slowing it down is pretty ridiculous) if not for the fact that the Wraithknight is (for some bizarre reason) a Character, so will challenge you and thus be immune to the Shardnets and only attacked by one Agoniser at a time. The Archon will probably win eventually due to the re-rolls from the Wyches cheering him on keeping his Shadowfield going, but it will take a big chunk of the game so might not be worth the investment.

It is an awesome image though. Archon jumping around fighting a massive Wraithknight with his gladiator babes cheering him on. A Succubus would probably be more fitting, but sadly only dodges the big thing on a 4+.

The wraithknight is not a character, the wraithlord is a character.

Massaen wrote:

It's no where near a distraction or decoy. It's very tough, fast and threatens at all ranges. Writing it off so flippantly is asking for it to maul you.

in the last few tournaments I played, i faced 3 wraithknights in one game, and 1 knight each 2 other games. Ganked em all with little to no effort, and in one game i ignored it completely.

I am telling you they are at best a distraction / decoy unit. The second biggest mistake people make in my opinion is poor target priority. (the biggest is poor deployment of course). If you are targeting wraithknights, they must either be scoring, in your face and threatening something vital, or you are in "mop up" mode.

2 venoms w/ crew = 2 str 8 ap2 shots, 16 poison (double tap) 24 poison from venoms... pretty much a dead wraithknight, especially if guided/ prescienced.

If played correctly, they almost never make their points back against Dark eldar. Sure, marines, necrons and others may have much more fear of them, but not us. Trust me, the LAST thing a wraithknight player wants to see across the board from him is venoms!

Hate to sound like a broken record, but....

Evil Space Elves wrote:

You wound both of these things on a 4+:

You want more?!
If you can't win games with that, you're doing something wrong.

Nearly every infantry model that we can field sports some sort of a poisoned weapon.  

ligolski wrote:

The wraithknight is not a character, the wraithlord is a character.

In that case, shardnetting it down (somehow) and agonising it to death would probably work. Still probably not the best way of doing it, and the Wyches can't do anything to it, but effective if they only have one and you can catch it. Probably only worth doing if you don't have any better targets for them.

If you know you are facing one, ten blood brides with three shardnets, will neutralise it, but at near equal cost.
Add a succy and a hekatrix with agonisers, and you'll kill it, but thats 275pts, 345pts with a raider, to hunt a 200pt wraith knight.

My view remains, the best way to deal with hammers is to deny them better targets than grapes.

While I agree the DE get an easy time of it, the WK is easily capable of being a severe threat. Since you seem to have added guide/prescience via allies, I could easily give it fortune.

Also remember that while DE have ideal tools to handle all wraiths, the eldar have all the tools they need to end us, knight or not. A clever player may ensure your venoms never get an option to fire

last tourny i was in the game was all but over when a lone Urien Rakarth assaulted the WK did two wounds, he failed one bye bye WK. it was my highlight of the weekend.

Realy though anything with a T value shouldn't cause DE that many problems sheer weight of poisoned attacks can get the job done

Well if you have troubles with the wraithknight heres some options.
- send in the reavers to threaten his troops or distract him to attack the jetbikes as they are lethal when left alone when that happens focus all your Darklight* weapons at his wraithknight unless hes just using him as a distraction.
- Tarpit the crap outta the wraithknight, use Chaos Spawn with the mark of nurgle ( now this might seem strange but it works perfect as they are T6 and immune to double str ID. 3 wounds each and they are cheap beasts lolz
- Bring Jetbikes, shoot and jump back and put your troll face on hope that helps

gunnerboy1607 wrote:

Its pretty obvious that poisoned weapons will bring it down sooner or later. but a smart enemy knows to take down those pesky venoms, and once their destroyed, well were screwed.

It's not like Venoms are our only source of poisoned shooting though. I suspect the reason we're seeing more Splinterborn squads in lists is because of the profusion of big beasties. I wouldn't take them myself as it's a bit of a tax for one splinter cannon that's probably only contributing four shots most of the time, but to each their own. Warriors in a raider with splinter racks will put a couple of wounds on it at least. Even a small squad of basic Scourges can probably do something, though you'd only really get the use out of them for that one job.

I found to my delight in a recent battle that Wracks can be pretty funny in combat - one squad of five of them killing a Bloodcrusher champion and two regular Bloodcrushers before the survivor finished them off. Those poisoned attacks are a real sting in their tail! You'd need a larger squad of them to deal with the Wraithknight, as he'd be going first. For ultimate giggles, take an Acothyst with a flesh gauntlet  

Hellions have a wealth of poisoned shots, and can stay behind terrain until they need to pounce on him. Taking the Baron will make them slightly more survivable too.

If all else fails (and there are no more vehicles to wreck) fire your dark lances at him. You'll wound on fours and he'll only have his 5++. With poisoned weaponry, he's no harder to kill than six Space Marines, and he's easier to see. There are much scarier things that need prioritising in the Eldar army before him (Dark Reapers and Warp Spiders being the deadliest to my mind). He might pop a vehicle, maybe get a couple of squads if he can get line of sight on them and they're not in cover (at which point, being DE, they're dead from anything anyway), but Warp Spiders will eat your rearguard, take out your HQ and roll up a flank single-handedly if you don't stop them. They were good in the last codex, they're even better now. Dark Reapers will reliably bring down all your vehicles, even without a Farseer nearby, thanks to their jink ignoring wargear and strength 8 weaponry. The Exarch with Reaper Launcher can also fire a potential three blast shots over buildings onto you. But why would you give him that when he could have a skyfiring missile launcher to bring any of your aircraft down with?  

Most WK's in my area are run stock; so no invul save. One of the most effective units I have to tar pit and just out right kill them is my full beastpack.

Poisoned shots to soften the target, plenty of characters to challenge out if I want to hold it up forever (or just avoid being shot), and lots of rending attacks to bring one of them down at a moments notice.

I usually have an eldar farseer running around with my pack to give fearless and prescience. Making it into combat with all 8 razor wings should cause about 6 rending wounds on the charge; plenty to take down a WK.

I guess the thing to bear in mind is that the WK should be shooting at your Ravagers if they have a chance to, so they shouldn't be after your Venoms at all. It will be impossible to silence all of your splinter fire and the WK really wants to get into melee eventually. I say look at what the other threats are because the goal of the WK is to trick you into focussing it down first over other targets. He shouldn't be much harder to kill with splinter fire than 6 marines are, so don't worry too much about it.