How do you deal with wraith knights?

[vandalex]

Hey Hive,

I suspect most the hive may be having trouble with these challenging monstrous creatures. 

In my lists, I seem to always have trouble killing wraith knights. In saying that, I always try to tie them up with gants.

How do you take care of these massive constructions?

Thanks, 

Vandalex

[gigasnail]

gargoyles. failing that, volumes of fire. gargs are better; just tarpit and forget.

[vandalex]

Also, to prevent opening another thread, is one malanthrope enough in an 1850 sky blight list? I seem to feel safer with two.

[Squire]

And to expand on the original question, how are people dealing with triple wraithknights? What are people taking in an 1850 list to counter that because it seems it's pretty common in the tournament scene

[Jabberwocky]

Triple WK is half their points. If they're using the stock guns, simple gargoyle/hormie tarpits will suffice. If you want them dead, then 10 stealers will do the trick if you can catch them (for instance after they finish another assault or are tied up).

The ones with shields are incredibly expensive and really aren't that scary. Again tarpits are your friends or even get some Boneswords in there.

The only real problem they should give you is the risk of IDing your MCs at long range. In combat they aren't that scary for the points as long as you have either poison, Rending or the bodies to soak up their attacks (which aren't a lot for 240+ points).

[l0rdf1end]

I faced two lists recently against triple Wraith Knight at my last tourney. I have a thread on the tactics forum, thetyranidhive.proboards.com/thread/47409/first-tourney-skyblight

To be honest I wasn't running many options to deal with them but mostly because I knew I couldn't effectively kill them.
My plan was to tie 1 or 2 up with 30 Termagants and Gargoyles but otherwise generally ignore them. As long as I could keep them away from my backfield objectives I wasn't concerned with them.
My advice would be to apply the same tactics, ignore them to the large extent and kill everything else in his list.
If you then have objective secured units on the table there is very little he can do to take the win.

Anything else in our arsenal is ill-equipped to deal with them.
I would suggest that Wraith Knights are going to be a main stay of Eldar lists for a long time. This has a lot to do with the Vector Strike Nerf and the Smash attack Nerf, before we could have a reasonable chance of killing 1 with Crones pretty easily. or even Smashes from a T6 6 wound MC.

Now you need to be looking at massed rending attacks to reliably kill one. But Wraith Knights are accompanied by Wave Serpents usually which will just chew through anything like Genestealers.

This then brings us back to my first point, ignore and tie up for the entire game is your best bet.

[Squire]

Aug 18, 2014 14:14:26 GMT Jabberwocky said:

Triple WK is half their points. If they're using the stock guns, simple gargoyle/hormie tarpits will suffice. If you want them dead, then 10 stealers will do the trick if you can catch them (for instance after they finish another assault or are tied up).

The ones with shields are incredibly expensive and really aren't that scary. Again tarpits are your friends or even get some Boneswords in there.

The only real problem they should give you is the risk of IDing your MCs at long range. In combat they aren't that scary for the points as long as you have either poison, Rending or the bodies to soak up their attacks (which aren't a lot for 240+ points).

Gaunt tarpits seem like a great solution to me, but the competitive lists I'm seeing just don't look like they have the numbers to manage it, and they're the nid lists that must be coming up against triple WK. 3O gargoyles plus two MSU rippers units seems standard now but even with one or two of those garg squads coming back I don't like the chances of closing down those wraithknights with enough numbers to pin them down for long. If people were taking 3x20 gargoyle units I can see it working

[Squire]

Aug 18, 2014 14:37:34 GMT l0rdf1end said:

I faced two lists recently against triple Wraith Knight at my last tourney. I have a thread on the tactics forum, thetyranidhive.proboards.com/thread/47409/first-tourney-skyblight

To be honest I wasn't running many options to deal with them but mostly because I knew I couldn't effectively kill them.
My plan was to tie 1 or 2 up with 30 Termagants and Gargoyles but otherwise generally ignore them. As long as I could keep them away from my backfield objectives I wasn't concerned with them.
My advice would be to apply the same tactics, ignore them to the large extent and kill everything else in his list.
If you then have objective secured units on the table there is very little he can do to take the win.

Anything else in our arsenal is ill-equipped to deal with them.
I would suggest that Wraith Knights are going to be a main stay of Eldar lists for a long time. This has a lot to do with the Vector Strike Nerf and the Smash attack Nerf, before we could have a reasonable chance of killing 1 with Crones pretty easily. or even Smashes from a T6 6 wound MC.

Now you need to be looking at massed rending attacks to reliably kill one. But Wraith Knights are accompanied by Wave Serpents usually which will just chew through anything like Genestealers.

This then brings us back to my first point, ignore and tie up for the entire game is your best bet.

Your thread was one of the reasons I asked

It's interesting you've got 30 more gaunts on top of the skyblight formation, and the synapse to cover them. The problem seems to me that skyblight is so expensive it doesn't leave many points left for a good amount of gaunts to tarpit things like wraithknights and imperial knights. Assuming skyblight plus two more dakkaflyrants.

Here's another question for you. You already explained to me some reasons for taking venom cannons on the harpies over stranglethorns (and made some good points). But, in the case of triple wraithknight spam, would you have been better taking stranglethorns instead of venom cannons, then dropping the biovores for another 30 termagants? That's 30 gargs and 60 terms. Synapse seems a touch lights at that stage, but would that list have done a better job vs the knights? Furthermore, would the loss of the venom cannons have really hurt you against other lists?

[l0rdf1end]

Let me dissect your reply/questions.

Killing Imperial Knights with 3 Dual Dev Flyrants that also have Haywire Flamers is no issue for Nids. I was a little disappointed not to have faced any.

WraithKnights are another problem altogether and this was my main reason for back fielding 30 Gants. 30 Gants could easily tie up two Wraith Knights for multiple turns, you just need to ensure the Synapse to support it hence the double Warriors Broods.

Folks might suggest increasing the Garg squads in the Skyblight formation but this negatively effects you also because these guys should be capturing objectives and not stuck in combat with a Wraith Knight. But, 30 Gargs do have a reasonable chance to do a few wounds and potentially even kill a Wraith Knight over multiple turns, it's just no where near guaranteed.

Dropping the Venom cannons I think would only free up 10 points, I think it's a 5 point upgrade so I feel you are better off with the Venom cannons so the Harpies can play a little bit more of a multirole unit rather than just troop hunting and for the other reasons I gave makes them worth the upgrade.

You could indeed drop the Biovore's for another 30 Termagants straight up, they had little impact over my games as a whole although I sure as hell don't want to paint another 30 but deffo a very viable option. That would make your backfield incredibly hard to get anywhere near and you could dominate most of the board with Termagant bodies.
I guess you'd have to be careful not to lock out too much space for your Flyers to move but that's probably a total non issue.

From my experiences I think one blob of Termagants is enough when dealing with Wraith Knights with a Skyblight list.
The issue is, his concentration is very much on your flyers as they cause such big problems for the rest of his army (Jetbikes, O.S Waveserpents and contents).
For this reason you are unlikely to expect to deal with more than 2 Wraith Knights backfield and if they do come wandering you can easily tie them up and still have OB units on your objectives (Warriors).
WraithKnights are the main reason I stopped running a Tervigon and use Warriors instead. Loosing a Tervigon to I.D is not very funny

[gigasnail]

A WK kills a little over two T3 models per player turn of CC. A gargoyle squad will have them at WS1 about 1/3 of the time. Once you get them in combat and provided they stay fearless, WK isn't scary.

Getting them there is the issue, which is why I suggest gargs.

As noted, 3 WK (or 2 WK/1 RT) is a large portion of a list. Focus your firepower on the other elements of his list (wave serpents and bikes) and tarpit the expensive MC's.

[sunnyrobert]

Barb heriodule

12 s10 ap3 will do nicely

Backed up by ap2 exocrine...and vector hive crones

Cheers

[vandalex]

All good advice.

Tarpitting with gargs seems to be the most viable option here, so skyblight will most likely be my answer to WK.

Thanks guys

[gigasnail]

Aug 18, 2014 20:38:03 GMT sunnyrobert said:

Barb heriodule

12 s10 ap3 will do nicely

Backed up by ap2 exocrine...and vector hive crones

Cheers

You know that's about 3 wounds, right? Maybe 4, if you can get that VS off? Costing about 830ish points?

[coredump]

Folks might suggest increasing the Garg squads in the Skyblight formation but this negatively effects you also because these guys should be capturing objectives and not stuck in combat with a Wraith Knight. But, 30 Gargs do have a reasonable chance to do a few wounds and potentially even kill a Wraith Knight over multiple turns, it's just no where near guaranteed.

OTOH.... using bigger or more expensive gargs means when they come back, you are getting a bigger 'bonus' unit on the board.


You don't need skyblight to use gargs.... 20 gargs is only 120 pts, you can put that in just about any list.

If you want to kill them, you could use a CC flyrant with LW/BS or reaper (plus whatever). That has about a 50% chance of killing a WK on the charge

[sunnyrobert]

Aug 18, 2014 22:18:25 GMT gigasnail said:

Aug 18, 2014 20:38:03 GMT sunnyrobert said:

Barb heriodule

12 s10 ap3 will do nicely

Backed up by ap2 exocrine...and vector hive crones

Cheers

You know that's about 3 wounds, right? Maybe 4, if you can get that VS off? Costing about 830ish points?

3 wounds? Please clarify? You mean possible damage output from the barb heriodule? Or from the crones and exocrines?