Advice for Dark Eldar

[alamomelt]

Tomorrow I'm playing a 1500pt game against Dark Eldar and I don't know anything about them, other than that there is lots of 4+ poison so the MCs are tricky. I read the vs. Dark Eldar thread, but could use some more help. What would make a decent, friendly, force to take? Here's the models I've got to choose from:

1 Flyrant/Walkrant
1 Trygon
1 Tervigon (obviously will take this)
32 Gants (need some held back for spawning)
16 Devilgants
16 Hormagaunts
15 Genestealers/Yrmgarls
1 Broodlord (if Genestealers)
5 Warriors
1 Prime
2 Zoanthropes (or 1 and a Doom)
3 Hive Guard (obviously will take these)

Thanks for any tips.

[gigasnail]

if you're facing venomspam DE, you're not going to win with a friendly list.

[Jabberwocky]

Can you proxy some spores? Devilgants in a spore would work. Definitely take the Flyrant. I probably wouldn't use the Trygon.

2 units of Ymgarls and some Hive Guard could work. Maybe proxy Zoans as biovores.

[alamomelt]

I have some yoghurt containers that I painted yellow (one of my army colors) to proxy for spores. They're about the size of the SM drop pod. I was thinking sporing in the devilgaunts and maybe the warriors to try that out.

I have no idea what venomspam is, so I don't know if I'll face it. The DE player is new to DE and I haven't got a clue what he's got beyond two AV 10 vehicles, possibly transports.

[lordbob]

A venomspam is when he has upwards of 7 venoms (5 man transports) that all have 12 long range poison shots each and 3 of them will have 4 dark lances, while the rest of them will have 1, and then would have more vehicles with more dark lances. For tyranids, it is death.

But since you say he's only got 2 vehicles then that does make it a lot easier for you, though most of their vehicles are AV10 so he could have anything. The problem with facing dark eldar is that they can bring a lot of different lists, all of them good.

The flyrant with devourers will do well against DE since they are weak vehicles and S6 will deny most of the fnp on his units (I am presuming he won't be using a haemonculi coven, not as many people play them, but require very different tactics). Hive Guard always good.

Devilgaunts are good, and coming out of a pod is useful too against DE. Warriors not so much, the problem is that DE can pack a lot of dark lances which are double toughness so will carve through warriors.

I'd choose ymgarls because they can charge out of their "reserves" and take out those units that he's trying to keep out of range or any units he might try and hide in cover.

Trygons are good normally, but will probably die no matter what lists he takes

[sockhands]

Biovores, biovores, biovores, if you can. They are invaluable against DE. Trygon doesn't do much, Flyrants and Tervs are always good. Hormogaunts if you can get the charge off into some regular warriors, watch out for Wyches. Hopefully your opponent will take Dark Lances instead of that other gun for his Raiders/Ravagers/Voidravens; a few strong shots every turn is easy to shrug off as opposed to a huge amount of 4+ wounding. Last game I played against DE, my 12 Devilgaunts and their Deathspitter Spore took out a couple of Venoms and his HQ squad on their own, Biovores cleaned up his troops holding objectives.

Tyranid shooting is utterly amazing against T3 without power armor. Dakka dakka.

[alamomelt]

Thanks for the advice everyone. Here's my tentative list:

Dakka Flyrant (seems expensive and fragile)
Tervigon w/cluster spines & 2 extra powers
3 Hive Guard
7 Ymgarls
7 Ymgarls
16 Termagants
15 Devilgants & a spore w/ TL deathspitters
2 Biovores
4 Shrikes w/ SC & LW & BS

[t⊗theark]

Yeah, Biovores and Hiveguard are what you want - have a heap if you can. Some brain leech worms flying won't be bad as well whence they starting getting their feel no pain on.

[rpricew]

Just have fun with the game... you have a solid list, and as long as you're opponent is bringing a fun list too, you should be ok. Some match ups are just going to be tougher than other, but I won a non Venom Spam DE game the other day with a fun list of my own.

With Tyranids, I've never beaten a Venom Spam poison list though... regardless of the list I brought. However, my Grey Knight Psycannon spam list tabled Venom Spam in 4 turns.

[alamomelt]

Well, that list worked really well. We played Purge the Alien on a Hammer and Anvil map. We only played 3 turns because I had nearly tabled him at that point. So this is mostly what happened:

The DE seized the initiative and I lost 3 shrikes right off the bat as they were in a bad place for going 2nd. But not much else happened as the DE just surged forward and were mostly out of range. Some heavy weapons missed horribly, so that was good for me. On my turn the flyrant started Swooping and made short work of a transport with 10 guys and an...archon? But the archon soaked 6 of the 8 wounds the squad took with his 2+ save so all 11 models survived the explosion. They failed the leadership test and were pinned in the crater of their boat. The Biovores rolled a hit on the barrage, taking out some line troops and 2 out of 5 "Green Goblins," so that was cool. The Termagants shot some...close combat guys...not wearing armor...5++ save, can't remember what they are called. Decimated the unit down to 1 guy. The Hive Guard didn't have a great target because the skimmer transports were out of range because of a...night shield? So they shot some troops, which ended up failing their morale test and ran right to where some Ymgarls would hopefully appear. The lone remaining Shrike assaulted 3 "jetbikes," survived the overwatch and took one down. The bikes ran and safely escaped the combat.

On Turn 2 the troops that ran from the Hive Guard rallied and took their snap shots an the Flyrant, but didn't do anything. Then the pinned squad rolled a sickening number of 6s, caused two wounds and grounded him. The remaining 3 "green goblins" took his last wound with authority. Not a very glorious showing on the Flyrant's part, but he did keep that squad+Archon stuck away from the action most of the game. An independent character with a 2+ armor save had managed to clear the dead-zone and assaulted the Termagants, sucking the Overwatch so some Wytches that had jumped out of the remaining transport could assault the same squad. The Wytches pimp-slapped the Termagants with a vengeance, which left them hanging around to get shot at. On my turn both squads of Yrmgarls arrived, as did the drop pod. The Hive Guard and newly spawned Termagants tore up the Wytches, which were then assaulted by and eaten by one squad of Yrmgarls. The Tervigon cast Endurance on itself and assaulted the Independent Character. The Biovores deviated with their barrage but in a way that still hit some stuff. The 2nd squad of Yrmgarls assaulted the troops that had run from the Hive Guards and killed them all. The 15 Devilgants did below average shooting some troops, but it was all right. The solo Shrike assaulted the "jetbikes" again and took them both out.

Turn 3 the previously pinned squad ran out and shot up a squad of Yrmgarls pretty bad, leaving 2. The remaining 2 Green Goblins assaulted the devilgaunts, successfully using the Spore to shield themselves from a significant portion of the available overwatch fire. They destroyed the whole squad of 15 with a Sweeping Advance which sucked. The Tervigon beat down the Independent Character on his turn. On my turn the Biovores deviated a whopping 2 inches and laid the smack down on the unit that had been pinned. The Hive Guard finished it off. The Termagants took care of the remaining troops, and the Spore killed off the last Green Goblin.

All in all it was pretty fun. I got to give out some of the "your armor is meaningless," rather than just take it. Saw some crazy stuff from the Dark Eldar, which seems like it's got some serious options for extreme power gaming. It was really good I wasn't monstrous creature heavy as all sorts of chumps with guns that wound on 4+ would have torn them apart.

Thanks for the pointers and advice!

I took a photo of my deployment. The Zoanthropes are the Biovores, and the Warriors in the back are the Shirkes.

[gigasnail]

always glad to see nids beating up evil space fairies!

[rpricew]

great little batrep and Thanks for the picture of your army (it looks very nice)... we all love to see pictures of armies!!! Please try and include one in all of your batreps.

[liquid405]

Mycetic spores (with deathspitters) with Devilgaunts, and an Aegis defense line with comm towers. Stick 2x tervis behind the ageis, give them the DEFAULT fnp power (guaranteed fnp wins every-single-bloody-time).

The tervis weather the storm of firepower, with 3+ fnp (means he needs ~83 poison shots to drop one tervi), or the 4+ cover with fnp (32 lance shots to drop one tervi). 2nd turn, with rerolls and needing a 3+ (2+ if you brought a tyrant) chances are all of your devilgaunts will drop. The devilgaunts can easily maul a venom to death, and the mycetic spore has about a 60% chance of dropping one too. Boom, with 2x devilgaunts, you just killed 3 venoms, and now he should be in full panic mode.

[swarmy]

Oct 29, 2012 17:11:26 GMT liquid405 said:

Mycetic spores (with deathspitters) with Devilgaunts, and an Aegis defense line with comm towers. Stick 2x tervis behind the ageis, give them the DEFAULT fnp power (guaranteed fnp wins every-single-bloody-time).

The tervis weather the storm of firepower, with 3+ fnp (means he needs ~83 poison shots to drop one tervi), or the 4+ cover with fnp (32 lance shots to drop one tervi). 2nd turn, with rerolls and needing a 3+ (2+ if you brought a tyrant) chances are all of your devilgaunts will drop. The devilgaunts can easily maul a venom to death, and the mycetic spore has about a 60% chance of dropping one too. Boom, with 2x devilgaunts, you just killed 3 venoms, and now he should be in full panic mode.

It's a solid approach.

I tried this without the defense line (hate mixing in non-xenos models) and it was still an uphill battle. There was a few differences with my list but it's still an uphill battle especially considering the -6" rule those stupid little elf-wagons can be sporting (night shields? flicker fields? I forget...). It's still in the hands of luck and they are not lacking in saves against the damage. In the event of kill points you will have one heck of a time keeping up with their anti-infantry. I finished my game trailing by 4 points: 10-14 ...

I don't know where people keep getting these stats (or loaded dice). I can't save an army worth of poison shots/dark lance shots into any FnP MC... then again, people I play against can vouch for my stupendous, statistic defying, bad dice rolls.

[liquid405]

Its really easy math. 6 / (.66 * .5 * .33 * .66) Thats 6 wounds, divided by chance to hit, wound, armor save and fnp in that order.