How to beat dire avenger spam?

A little back story.  I am a long time hobbyist, but have never actually played WH40k or any other Wargame. You can take a look at my themed army over in THIS thread. I wanted to change this and a friend and I have been working tirelessly toward 750 points.  We are getting very close to being ready to play (my friend is a little behind me).  

However, I recently realized that my friend is going to take nearly all Dire Avengers, wave serpents, and some jet bikes.  

I had designed a similarly cheesy list consisting of:
Haemon w/ 3 wracks in a Venom with VC
Blasterborn in Venom with VC
5 Kabalite with blaster in Venom with VC
5 Kabalite with blaster in Venom with VC
5 Kabalite with blaster in Venom with VC
Ravager with 3 Dark Lance
Ravager with 3 Dark Lance

So my question is, having never played, and looking online at Dire Avengers, it seems that spamming them is a really good strategy.  What sort of early tactics should I be thinking about leading up to the game?  Should I consider some changes in my preliminary list (pretty much all purchased and almost done modeling)  

Thanks in advance
-Algae (aka noob player)

At 750 points you're not going to get much spam. I'd be surprised to see more than 3 Serpents for that sort of points level.

Three Wave Serpents is however a very, very tough match for Dark Eldar at that point level. Our splinter weapons are completely useless, the blasters and dark lances are decent but on average it takes 18 shots to wreck a serpent and you only have about 12 shots in your entire army! Plus he'll take out the Ravagers and Blasterborn asap which leaves you with almost nothing.

Have you considered swapping the Kabalites for Haywire Wyches?

Thank you very much for the reply. I think your suggestion is probably what I should be thinking about. From what I understand, Wyches offer the best ability for me to get in, and assault right? Basically I will lose a shooting match against dire avengers, so should I be considering taking all wyches? What is a good squad size? Should I be thinking of no longer using venoms, and moving up to a raider with more wyches?

Cheers

On the other hand, without the Wave Serpents, Dire Avengers aren't going to stand a chance against 5 Venoms. It seems to me that it's all going to be over very quickly, one way or another.

5 Wyches should wreck a Wave Serpent, 6 if you want to make sure, only don't count on them surviving after that; in fact, don't count on them surviving to make it that far.

When Wyches get to close combat with it you have a guarantee serpent kill;) (and almost guarantee suicide whet the thing blows up) I also had luck with melting those nasty transports with heat lance Reavers. Avengers are just a tougher guardians, remember that you have a weapon range adventage aginst them.

Thanks for the replies. I am somewhat at a loss of whether I should consider swapping all of the kabalites for wyches? I like the idea of being able to take the wave serpents, but will suiciding a full squad be worth it?

@BarkingAgatha: If I were to keep the list as is, would it be better to try to constantly re-position the Venoms and pump shots at anyone who disembarks? We are both total beginners, so I think it will be hilarious one way or the other.

@Korwey: Is it worth it then to basically sac out Wyces to get the wave serpent? Wont he have an equally difficult time trying to kill my 2 Ravagers?

The venoms have a range of 36". The dire avengers have a range of at best 30" (if they move 6" and run 6"). As long as you keep your venoms at a distance, you can shoot at them, but they can't shoot at you, so yeah.

But... there is absolutely no reason for them to disembark, because the Wave Serpents will probably have scatter lasers on them with a range of 36", and that is more than enough to kill your venoms, while your venoms can't harm them in any way.

But... you have the Ravagers, and they are capable of killing a Wave Serpent, even in one phase of shooting, if you're super lucky.

But... if you're not super lucky, they're not going to hang around waiting for you to try again; they're going to finish off your ravagers first, even shooting off their serpent shields if they need to.

But... you'd still have blasters on the trueborn and warriors. But... you'll have to get close to use them, and they are fast skimmers too. But... you can spread out and encircle them. But... they are going to be shooting you down while you do that. But... a single blaster shot could take one out, if you're super lucky.

The best thing to do is to be super lucky, and maybe take some sinus medicine with vodka before the battle, just in case you are not.

Quote :

The best thing to do is to be super lucky, and maybe take some sinus medicine with vodka before the battle, just in case you are not. Smile

Probably the best tactical advice I've ever seen

thesaltedwound wrote:

Quote :

The best thing to do is to be super lucky, and maybe take some sinus medicine with vodka before the battle, just in case you are not. Smile

Probably the best tactical advice I've ever seen

Dark Eldar run on excess, no?

Serpents are worth two haywyches sqads so I'd said yes, it's worth it;) Remember that avengers are not wriaths, so they should get some casulties too if their transport explodes.
I prefer going close with haywire and heat lances against Serpents due to higher reliability.
We don't have a weapon range adventage with lances 'couse of Wave Serpents ridiculus shield-gun anyway:(

O-ho-ho-ho, just be super lucky... Crunch one thing at a time and decimate that piece until its too small to be ripped further. You can do it!

Your deployment and movement will be what win you the game - line both Ravagers up on one Serpent at a time, because one by itself is practically guaranteed to not take it down. Six dark lance shots against armour 12 with a constant cover save and the ability to downgrade pens to glances still isn't a guarantee of exploding it, but you could wreck it with glances in a good turn of shooting. If he castles them up, try to take one out that will either hamper his movement or block his line of sight to you. You're going to have to concentrate everything on one Serpent at a time and take them down systematically, so move your Venoms up through cover. Make sure to use the alternating terrain method from the rulebook, he won't want much terrain and you will, so it's the fairest way to do it. Ensure that you use one or two bits of terrain that completely block line of sight too so you each get to place one - stick your bit smack in the middle of the board to give yourself a staging ground.

Of course, this is all assuming that your goal is to destroy your opponent - if you're playing an objective based game, you have to play it differently. I wouldn't say ignore the Serpents as such, but if you can stay out of their way and make them come to you, do it. They really don't want to get close to you. If they come to take objectives off you, you will have to charge the Avengers that come out of the Serpent - they can't charge on the turn they disembark, so are at their most vulnerable then. If you allow them to move in shooting at your squad and then charging, they will wipe them out - you need the extra attack from the charge. Attack really will be the best form of defence in this case, and if you can get a multi-charge off against Avengers and Serpent, do it, you might just get lucky. Of course, Dire Avengers have counter attack too, so remember that if you're charging them.

If you go with Warriors or Trueborn over Wyches, yes, as Korwey says, you will have a slight range advantage. However, Avengers can run then shoot or shoot then run, their weapons wound you on threes not fours and potentially ignore your armour save too, and they can assault after shooting. Your 6" range advantage means very little against all that    I wouldn't be in a rush to trade shots with them if I were you! If you have a couple of squads on them, you should overwhelm them, but one on one a Dire Avenger beats a Warrior hands down.

Don't get too depressed if things don't go your way - three Wave Serpents is an extremely tough opponent for Dark Eldar at any points level - once you start getting beyond 1000 points you see the more specialised tools that the Eldar have at their disposal to utterly destroy specific things, so you have those to worry about too. Take first turn if you get the chance, hope for night fight, and don't lose heart if you lose one or both Ravagers in quick succession - haywire can still get the job done.

Mr Believer wrote:

Of course, Dire Avengers have counter attack too, so remember that if you're charging them.

And Overwatch, let us not forget.

Mr Believer wrote:

However, Avengers can run then shoot or shoot then run, their weapons wound you on threes not fours and potentially ignore your armour save too...

Small correction: not 'potentially'. They always ignore your armour save, because they are AP 5.

Barking Agatha wrote:

Small correction: not 'potentially'. They always ignore your armour save, because they are AP 5.

Good point, I had for some reason started thinking in terms of Dire Avengers going up against other Dire Avengers   

Hey everyone,

Thank you so much for all the great responses, and wonderful advice! As it sits, it would appear that my options are 1) Keep things "as is" and get lucky, or 2) make some changes to include Wyches. As it sits, I think I am going to start preparing some Wyche squads.

@Barking Agatha: Most hilarious post ever! The "point counterpoint" really made it clear that sinus medication and vodka + good luck is what I will need if I am to be super lucky.

@Korewey: I think you bring up a great point, I should be looking to counter with Wyches from a pure points perspective. I know he is going to try to field 3 Wave Serpents with Dire Avengers, so I think I should be looking at pumping out the Wyches. Should I be thinking of using a Raider instead of my Venoms?

@DEfan: Thanks for encouragement! Super Lucky always wins!

@Mr Believer: Thank you for the great tacitca breakdown! The Ravagers sole mission will be to take out Wave Serpents, but as you point out it will likely not end in my favor even if this is the case. As Korewey mentioned, maybe a squad or two of Wyches in place of the Kabalites just to have a counter punch if I get positioned correctly to take down a Wave Serpent. You are correct about objectives, that might be my saving grace. From what I have discovered he claims he has been reading a blog on Eldar tactics. From what I have discovered about said blog he is likely going to use a triangular defense. Where he sets his three dire avenger squads in a triangular position so that two squads can always fire on the other squad. With this in mind (and knowing him as well as I do, I know he will likely not want to deviate from this advice). So maybe I do just "let him come to me". It would force him to lose his formation, and I might get a good counter punch in there. Should my Haemy and Wrack squad sit and wait for enemy leadership? Is there any other weapon that I could field? Perhaps an allied Wraithknight?

You don't need more than a five seats in your transport for sucidal Wyches but Riders could be 2d6 '' faster with sails upgrade and could bring down a Serpent with one shoot. The chances for that are very poor but I've seen that happen On the other hand Venoms have free 5++ save and are great infantry mowers when you have to deal with those Avengers. Personally I'll go with Venoms and leave Serpent hunting to Ravagers and haywire.

I wouldn't think you'd be able to comfortably get a Wraithknight in at that points level - don't forget, you'd have to take the mandatory one HQ, one troop from the Eldar codex - the cheapest you could possibly do that is 361 points - Spiritseer, three jetbikes and a Wraithknight with no extra guns. At that sort of cost, you're practically dividing the list in half between DE and Eldar.

You're probably best off just swapping the Trueborn and Warriors for Wyches and seeing how that works for you. Increasing the size of the Wych squads probably isn't a good idea, because firstly it won't increase your chances of wrecking vehicles that much. Secondly, it's a lot more points to lose if/when their vehicle gets downed. Thirdly, by increasing them to a squad of more than five and sticking them in a Raider, you instantly lose those twelve 36" range poisoned shots.

You're probably best off keeping the Haemonculus and Wracks back, like you suggest. Give the Haemonculus a Liquifier gun and they'll be a pretty solid defensive unit against a small squad of Dire Avengers. Equipped properly there's no reason whatsoever why they shouldn't be able to make a mess of a Farseer in close combat... but then, anyone can do that. You shouldn't get the chance to fight a Farseer or Spiritseer one on one, so don't play thinking that's going to happen. If you have the points, you might as well make it a squad of five wracks and give them a liquifier gun too - that way you can still give them a Venom (though they can't start in it) and they'll have 2D3, AP D6 shots for overwatch, plus they'll have Feel No Pain and Furious Charge. In terms of damage output for point expenditure, I have always found this unit does serious work.

@Mr. Believer. Followed your advice. I think you are right about 5 wyches, dropped the trueborn and went 3 squads of wyches with venoms. This also allows me to take 1 more wrack than I had originally planned. Here is what the list looks like. I think your advice for deployment still holds, targeting one Wave Serpent with the dual ravagers, and then maybe rushing the other two with two of my wych squads, maybe keeping one in reserve and Haem + wracks holding back. As everyone has pointed out, it will likely be a fast game one way or the other. Thank you so much for all the advice. The final list follows:

Haemonculus Close Combat Weapon, Liquifier Gun, Splinter Pistol
Wracks 4x Wracks Venom Flickerfield, Splinter Cannon

X3----------Wyches------------X3
---------Venom Flickerfield, Splinter Cannon
---------5x Wyches
---------5x Haywire grenades, 5x Plasma Grenades, 5x Splinter Pistol and Close Combat Weapon

Ravager Dark Lance, Dark Lance, Dark Lance
Ravager Dark Lance, Dark Lance, Dark Lance

This hits exactly 750 points

Question is whether I should drop another kabalite squad in favor of another Wych squa

I think part of your list might have been cut off there, it's not showing the Haemonculus, Wracks and warriors, but presumably they're as described. Warriors might be slightly more survivable objective holders than Wyches, so I suppose keeping one squad couldn't hurt. It looks good to me though!

Maybe a little late to this party but first I agree with the above. Multiple wyches are FAR more threatening to armour at this level than a few dark light and especially vs opposing skimmers like serpents. Lose the 4th wrack though, his body wont mean much as opposed to what those 10 pts could net you..

One option I havent seen mentioned yet that is really brutal at this level if you can find room is beasts. Even better if you can squeeze baron (more for ld 10), otherwise a trophy here and there works too. I havent used em at 750 but at 1k they are excellent. They draw tons of fire and if they dont they will wreck those grav tanks in short order. For such a low value I would consider squeezing a couple packs of 1 bm 2 rwf = 42 pts. Easy to hide damn resilient for their cost and great vs infantry and rear armour. Anyway just some friendly ideas.