Advise against space wolves?

I've been involved in a planetary empires campaign, and my next opponet is either spacewolves or dark angels. I'm confident I can handle the dark angel player, but I'm not sure about the space wolf.

I know as a fact he likes to drop pod his army in, and since we are playing 1500, he's going to have the thunderwolf calvary, and since I'm relativily new to the current Dark Eldar since they got the current book, I'm not sure how to deal with that.

I was thinking 2 squads of warriors in a raider /w splinter racks.

A squad of wychs in a raider.

5 blasterborn in a venom.

Maybe incubi or grotesques or a second blaster born 5 man squad in a venom.

Maybe either ravagers or talos.

He doens't have a defense line or allies, so maybe a jetfighter, though part of me if it was less points would want to take a bomber just for the implosion missles to instagib his wolves.

I know he's going to drop pod, so night shields don't seem worth it.

So what do you guys say?

My friend only plays SW's and the best advise I can give you is this;

1). A properly kitted Archon will ruin his day.
2). Don't let him charge you unless you have a PGL in the unit, the # of attacks he'll make is crazy.
3). Just like most MEQ armies SW's are uber slow when foot slogging.

Also if you need more input I posted a subject in he disscussion forum regarding SW vs DE a few days ago so it might worth looking at.

What's a properly kited Archon consist of?

Poison brings down TWC nicely. DE doesn't have any good enough cc units to deal with them effectively enough.

Archon with huskblade and shadowfield in addition to few grotesques will kill normal power armor easily. Just take Aberration (with venom blade) to accept challengies.

Shoot Long Fangs first with Venoms to remove that threat as they can easily rip you apart in two turns.

Casttle against pods. Then move away. Foot marines can not catch you afterwards.

I will second a lot of Vasar's advice, especially about TWC and Long Fangs, which are the most credible threats to us.

Drop Pod Assault based armies are not very tough unless you're running a lot of slow or foot DE. (and if you're running foot DE you have other, larger, problems )

If I was the Space Wolf player in this...

I would be trying to remove your Raiders as quickly as humanly possible. In a close ranged fight on the ground, I would be confident of victory. If I am exchanging shots at 24" and running along after you, I'm not.

Everytime a Dark Eldar unit got close to me, I'd cheer. Blasterborn? For them to fire, you need an enemy squad definitely in bolter range. On a Venom, that sounds a no-no to me, that will die quickly enough. It's not like you'll need too much AT from the sounds of this. Incubi - a suicide unit. They'll probably kill the first target then get torn apart by weight of numbers. Useful if you suspect you're going to see something like Long Fangs which have to die quickly. If I were taking a close up unit, a Grotesque bomb would be my choice, as it'll take time to kill them. Taloi also have potential here.

What other units have you got that you could take?

Last time I played drop pod SW I used my Blood Angels, but the technique is the same. Weather the storm. Once all the pods are down, you can't be touched for mobility. As soon as they've arrived, you can fly off elsewhere. Make sure the objectives are spread as far as possible, as if he pods near them, he's splitting his forces and you can isolate them piecemeal.

Panic_Puppet wrote:

Make sure the objectives are spread as far as possible, as if he pods near them, he's splitting his forces and you can isolate them piecemeal.

This is very important. Even if you lose a quite a bit of your forces you still can win by making your opponent spread his forces.

Ok incubi and Blasterborn are out.

Would Splinterborn be a good idea?

Quote :

What other units have you got that you could take?

With the exception of like the archon's court, and scourges, and the beast pack, I can pretty much take anything.

Incubi might be ok - just accept you will lose them. But if they carve up a Rune Priest, or a squad of Long Fangs, or even persuade your opponent to spend valuable Raider-killing time on them instead of on Raiders, they've done a job. Up to you whether that sounds good.

Given you will probably lose some transports to the first strike, having a few units that can hang around and do something useful while the objective takers nick their Raiders might be a plan.

Splinterborn certainly wouldn't be a bad idea.

Taking all your advice, I reworked my draft, I didn't figure out points, and I'll post it up in the proper section when I do. But is this the right idea? If I can fit it all the raiders will probably get flickerfields. SHould I try to work in night shields? My opponet meltaing at 3 inches away seems unlikely if I have them, but it is alot of points.

Archon /w huskblade and shadowfield



x3 10 warrior squads /w splinter cannon, blaster
x3 raider /w flickerfield and spinter racks


5 trueborn /w 2 splinter cannons
/w venom with splintercannon.

4 grotesques /w aberation /w venom blade
/w raider


x2 ravagers /w 3 dl's
razorwing jetfighter /w flickerfield and splintercannon, 4 monoscythe missles

Also, would lady Maly's be a good idea incase he has a rune priest?

Famous last words possibly - but the Rune Priest is unlikely to be directly targeting units, so no. He will either be hunting transports or buffing his own guys, and Malys does nothing about that.

Oh man don't rule out Blaster born altogether, I always try to bring 2 units of them in venoms. My first priority is to chop off his legs (ie transports). After that I methotically go after his foot slogging to slow to catch me infantry. A better choice to pair with your Archon is either Urien (expensive but fun) or a Haemie with a Liquifier (for on the cheap). Reavers are always a problem for him, I leave the cluster caltrops at home now as they are pricey and his saves & wounds taken will be about the same whether it be bladevanes or the trops. The thing that I try to maximize is the AP2 weapons, I usually have some between 21 & 25 AP2 shots raining down on his 3+ armour.... Needless to say it's a rough time for him lol.

Get rid of the blasters in the warrior groups.  You don't want to be close enough that those would be effective.  Instead take night shields.  The reduction to his shooting range will hurt him badly and essentially make it so that you can dance outside of range while still hitting him.  Put NS on your ravagers too.  They will be able to sit back around the 36" range and not have to worry too much.

If you are running trueborn, they should have blasters.  Otherwise use regular warriors.

Drop the grotesques.  You don't want to be in close combat with him, unless you want to use those to try and speed bump the thunderwolves.  They really won't last long but thats certainly one way to use them.  Personally I think those points should be used to get more poison on the table.

The Razorwing is a crapshoot.  It doesn't come on until turn 2 at the earliest, while it may not show up until turn 4.  Which means you will average maybe 2 or 3 rounds of shooting with it.  There are more effective ways to spend the points... like a solid group Reavers with caltrops.  

Certainly castle up to keep the drop pods out of your lines.  Ignore the drop pods until the thunder wolves are dead.  Task your warrior raiders to killing them first. Then hit his scoring units. Once that is done, mop up the rest.

Well I have a power station and he doesn't, so reserves will be commming in on turn 2 on 2's.

Power station? Agies Defense line? DE should be without a defense line if you are taking one, it' hurts our mobility. I've had great success with increased DL/Blasters. I forgot who posted the theory but maximized AP2 weapons really puts the hurt on MEQ units. Also my friend has only beaten my Archon & his unit twice out of 8 games, and even in the 2 games it was kinda irrelevant because the game was already mine.

Power stations give +3 to the dice roll to going first/deployment/reserves.

I ended up winning, but he took eldar allies to get warwalkers. He also didn't use thunderwolf or drop pods at all, just alot of heavy bolters and psychers.

I forgot that (untill the end of the game) fast skimmers go flat out 18 inches, so the grotesques were wiped out before they saw h2h. I did instagib his warlord priest with a dark lance off a raider though.

I won because I had a 2 point objective, linebreaker, and the warlord kill, but I had my flyer on his objective so he just had the warlord and first blood. It was the scouring mission. Thank god flyers can contest. Had it gone one more turn I would have lost.