Advice against MEQ

I have just started DE and will mainly be going up against Space Wolves, Grey Knights and Vanilla Marines. What units should I buy to combat these?

SW player has footslogging marines, TW Cavalry, Long Fangs and Deep strike terminators usually with a few dreads. GK has a mix of infantry units and terminators with draigo/paladin deathstar and dreadknight. And Vanilla Marines are mech based with devastators.

Venoms are just always a good answer. Even against 2+ saves, eventually, they kill things.
12 P4+ shots on a 65pt vehicle is just awesome.

Depending on what tanks you face, Dizzie Ravagers are fantastic at mowing down space marines and terminators and you might get by without the dark lances if you dont face many tanks.

An Archon / Incubi blob has a fair chance at beating a Paladin blob, it depends how many halberds they have. Best to avoid any big super units. Feed them table scraps and concentrate on winning

Thanks for the advice, I will probably run a few Warrior squads in venoms. The Archon/Incubi unit with some reaver jetbikes and ravagers to start.

Wych squads can drive SM players crazy by tying their foot sloggers up in close combat - add haywire grenades and you can glance their vehicles to death too. If they ride in on venoms you can get the best of both worlds with the poison 4+ wounds (the wyches have poison splinter pistols too)

So would a mix of wyches and warriors be the best option for troops?

I agree that Wyches can be a good way to slow down marines. I haven't had much success in wyches beating marines (usually due to just dice rolls though).

One thing to take a look at is the weapon / wargear list in the codex. One thing that isn't as explicit as other codex is that we have a number of power weapons and (I'm pretty sure) count as a power sword profile which is AP3.

Other items that cause havoc for MEQ are Talos and Cronos for being T7 MC's with the ability to deal AP3 or better ranged shots.

Now, while this is a way to target MEQ's power armor, I've also found that the normal volley of fire works well too.

Hope this helps some.

Shadow Blade wrote:

So would a mix of wyches and warriors be the best option for troops?

For me yes, absolutely - others will disagree.

If you can get your wyches into close combat (not always easy as 5 man squads are vulnerable to overwatch) then they can really be a pain - for example last night I had 3 wyches tie up a squad of about 6 marines plus sergeant for 3 turns - they killed 3 SMs plus haywired a dreadnought that tried to join in. On the other hand their sister squad got reduced to one wych by overwatch and that was pretty much that!

Iv'e bought a box of wyches now but cant decide how to equip them, I think maybe either hydra gauntlets or shardnet and impaler? Also what would be the best wargear to put on an archon?

Wyches are usually best to be in 5 girl squads without anything special, other than haywire.
As for the archon, there are so many choices that I dont really know what to suggest
The classic build is apparently a huskblade, shadowfield and soultrap.
Whatever you arm him with, take the shadowfield though. Venom blades are also always good since they are cheap.

Seen as though I will only be starting with combat patrols and have 1 raider I think a squad of 10 would be best for know otherwise the other 5 will be footslogging and get shot to bits. Will test that Archon loadout and see how it does.

Shadow Blade wrote:

Iv'e bought a box of wyches now but cant decide how to equip them, I think maybe either hydra gauntlets or shardnet and impaler? Also what would be the best wargear to put on an archon?

Shardnet is sometimes good, specifically when you hunt non-character monstrous creatures. Very situational, particularly because it has to be in base contact. Hydra Gauntlets are not so hot by the numbers--I think that Razorflails have been shown to be superior in most cases. Regardless, running them without special weapons (except Haywire Grenades) is generally advisable.

It depends on what you want your Archon to do. The Huskblade/Soul Trap combo is fairly difficult to pull off because it requires a Monstrous Creature (tough to kill) or an Independent Character (easy to hide). AP 2 Instant Death @ Initiative is still pretty good though.

I've never tried Clone Field with Ghostplate Armor but I can see how that could be really hilarious inside close combat but the Shadowfield is a safer bet.

Good hunting.

If bare bones are best i'll take everyone's advice and run them plain. Would sticking them in Venoms be my best bet?

For the Archon i'm going to leave the soul trapa at home and go with shadowfield and an agoniser.

Cheers for the advice everyone.

Shadow Blade wrote:

If bare bones are best i'll take everyone's advice and run them plain. Would sticking them in Venoms be my best bet?

Depends what you're using them for. Some people run a five model unit of Wyches with Haywire Grenades in Venoms and basically use them as suicide tank hunters and distraction units. If you are planning on using Wyches as an escort unit (which you should in this case), you would probably want to cap the squad size at seven (including the Hekatrix) in a Raider. Personally, I always give the Hekatrix a Phantasmal Grenade Launcher to get that +1 to cover saves within 8" of an enemy.

Regarding the Archon, I would hedge your bets and also take a Venom Blade. Fighting 2+ armor without AP2 is no fun unless you can rack up a lot of wounds. With a Venom Blade, you'l do that.

My plan would be to try and shoot the termis to death without getting into combat with them ideally through massed venom splinter cannons and use archon/incubi for dealing with meqs. The Wyches are used as a bodyguard for now until I get some incubi which is when I will swap out to the smaller squads as you've suggested.

This is some good advice. I been taking on grey knights at around 1000 points and got my butt handed to me each time. First time was tabled the second was to points. The points felt better though as I did do more things then before. I am tempted on venom spam but don't want to be cheesy.

When i take wyches, I kit them:
Hekatrix/ venom blade
4 wyches/ hydra gauntlet
Haywire
venom
Extra splinter cannon

150 points.

They can tarpit a much bigger unit, and the hydra makes the smaller squad average out to an extra wych or two. The hekatrix can kill almost anything with the venom blade, and dont forget your drug roll!

I really need to try running smaller wych squads. Been running one big blob of 9 with my archon. Goes meh.

That's what I ran in my first game against SW yesterday and they cut down a squad of Grey Hunters then got flamed/missiled to bits

The trick is to finish off whatever unit you are fighting in CC in your opponent's turn so you aren't sat like a lemon in mid-field waiting to be shot/flamed to pieces.

Easier said than done though!

Take a ravages with dissies or two if they are foot slogging marines, they will make short work of them in no time!

If you want to be at close combat range against Space Marines, you need a vehicule, and your vehicule will explode 1 time out of 2 due to SM having Lascanon, Plasma or Melta weapons. Marines easily get penetrating damage, and they roll at least with +1 due to our open topped vehicules, or +2 depending on their weapons. Which means: average explosion on 4+.
Wyches on board an exploding vehicule will lose at least half of their members (3+ to wound, 6+ save).

I really love them, they are a good way to tarpit (and kill) some SM units such as devastator squads, or to deal with vehicules, but you need to keep them alive before assaulting, which the hard part.

About wyches, you should read this thread:
http://www.thedarkcity.net/t4188-succubus-wyches-raiders-and-explosions

Thanks for the link, was a good read.

Anything specificly good against the Chaos Meq's?

FullDE wrote:

Anything specificly good against the Chaos Meq's?

Depends on the God; Nurgle seems the most popular in my area at the moment, being so tough, and that is good for us, as T5 dies to poison just the same as T4, but they are more expensive, thus fewer!
Pouring poison shots into Plague Marines is the best bet, as their blight grenades deny us our charge bonus, and their poisoned attacks in combat get to re-roll.
When my Nurgle buddy brings his Heldrake(s), I lose; when he doesn't, I win.

What about slannesh and Tzeech?