Allright Gentlemen; How do we kill Taudar? (batrep page 2)

[Ushtarador]

The list I played against in the finals of my most recent tournaments looked something like this:

 

Farseer on Jetbike

4x Serpent w/ Dire Avengers

Nightspinner

3x Artillery

Wraithknight

3xWarpspiders

 

I had something like 2 Fragiosos, a raven with Mephi inside, some attack bikes and Grey Knight allies with coteaz, some plasma cannons, two chimeras and a Dreadknight.

 

First turn, he hugged his side of the board and almost managed to take out a chimera with the artillery because of insane range. My fragiosos dropped and stripped one single hullpoint off a serpent, the dreadknight jumped forward. Second turn Eldar I lost everything except my two chimeras in the backfield. The stormraven entered and managed to kill a serpent before being shot down as well, and then the game was already over. The warpspiders were kept in reserves and entered via regular reserves, being able to move 6+2D6 inches still gets them anywhere they need to be.

Fragiosos won't cut it against such a list, they don't deal the damage they need to and then they die. Sternguard also are usually not enough to take out a serpent on their own, the T7 artillery bubblewrap and wraithknight prevent you from getting into meltarange.

 

The only thing I see at the moment is dropping Fragiosos to force him to expend his shield in the shooting phase, and then 3 ravens turning up turn 2 (thanks to comms relay), shooting enough serpents such that he can't kill the ravens anymore. He usually needs at least 3 serpents to kill one raven, so you should have a chance. Of course, if his cover saves are insane, it still might not be enough.

 

I don't see how getting in their face with rhinos can be enough. You drive 24'' in your first turn, then he retreats 12'' and pops the rhinos, after which you will never catch him with footslogging marines.

[knife&fork]

Sternguard are great against eldar! But they are a total waste going after serpents. Same thing with the fragioso, it can kill infantry well but don't really work on the serpents unless the eldar player mess up and leaves his rear armor exposed.

 

Demeching them is absolutely crucial so it's a part of the equation that needs an answer if you want to stand a chance. 

[RenderDead]

I ran into a similar situation with Eldar and their serpents.  It was a team tourney and they both were Eldar, how fun!  They had 3 wraith knights 2 serpents a big ole squad of wraith guard packed with seers and Eldrad… and minimal bikes in reserves.  The serpents sat in the corner, and when it was safe to move out they did and continued to wreak havoc all over.  We dealt with the wraith guard and a couple knights; but then the serpents are open and uncontested which sucks.  It was a 5 obj game whoever had the most won and the reserved jet bikes just stole it on their bottom of turn with boost.  I will need more practice against these lists.

[Jorre]

Having Fragioso in pods is not going to be ideal every game!!

 

They are great fun and very threatening, but you need some flexibility incase you come up agaisnt a mech list.

 

Thats why I always take 4-5 pods. 2 fragioso and at least 2 melta suicide squads. If you come up vs wave serpent spam or any mech list you drop the meltas first try pop a few before bringing in your fragioso later on. Its not ideal but its better than wasting your dreads on targets they are not suited to fight

[Sanguine Eternal]

Having Fragioso in pods is not going to be ideal every game!!

 

They are great fun and very threatening, but you need some flexibility incase you come up agaisnt a mech list.

 

Thats why I always take 4-5 pods. 2 fragioso and at least 2 melta suicide squads. If you come up vs wave serpent spam or any mech list you drop the meltas first try pop a few before bringing in your fragioso later on. Its not ideal but its better than wasting your dreads on targets they are not suited to fight

 

You're right.  They're pretty bad against a mech list.  Magna grapples rarely work out for me, but it's insurance incase I am forced to pod behind a tank.

They shine when there are lots of bodies in front of them, but I don't need to tell anyone here that.  But their are still other ways to include anti mech while still including 3 fragiosos.

 

You make a good point with the 4-5 pods.  Pick and choose who comes down depending on the game.  I will say Eldar mech lists are not that common I've noticed at my LGS.  

 

List tailoring is easy for pick up games if you've played your opponent a few times, you know what they will take for the most part.  Tournaments are different though.  Taudar lists can vary just as any other list.  I tend to make a list that might win me 2/3rds of my games if I'm lucky.  Sucks my game got cancelled with Eldar today, was looking forward to seeing how my list would do.

[thebymster]

 

my last game was vs tau, by turn 4 hed been tabled and i'd lost 4 models... seems to me that a huge thing was getting first turn, before he even got a go i'd killed his broadsides and 3 battlesuits, he still had a sky ray, hammerhead, bomber, dark strider, ethereal, 3 full size fire warrior units, 2 full size sniper kroot and 2 stealth suit teams, but the vast majority of it wasn't particularly dangerous to my list. The only thing I used in close combat was the death company dread with talons, which charged and wiped out a fire warrior squad that contained the ethereal:)

[thebymster]

 

my last game was vs tau, by turn 4 hed been tabled and i'd lost 4 models... seems to me that a huge thing was getting first turn, before he even got a go i'd killed his broadsides and 3 battlesuits, he still had a sky ray, hammerhead, bomber, dark strider, ethereal, 3 full size fire warrior units, 2 full size sniper kroot and 2 stealth suit teams, but the vast majority of it wasn't particularly dangerous to my list. The only thing I used in close combat was the death company dread with talons, which charged and wiped out a fire warrior squad that contained the ethereal:)

[thebymster]

my last game was vs tau, by turn 4 hed been tabled and i'd lost 4 models... seems to me that a huge thing was getting first turn, before he even got a go i'd killed his broadsides and 3 battlesuits, he still had a sky ray, hammerhead, bomber, dark strider, ethereal, 3 full size fire warrior units, 2 full size sniper kroot and 2 stealth suit teams, but the vast majority of it wasn't particularly dangerous to my list. The only thing I used in close combat was the death company dread with talons, which charged and wiped out a fire warrior squad that contained the ethereal:)

Soz to clog up page with errors. Threads are new to me!

Just wondered how u got DC dread into combat? Pod n dodge, or Raven?

[Blindhamster]

Raven, it zoomed in turn 2, zoomed and shot turn 3, then switched to skimmer and moved 6 turn 4, DC dread assaulted out of it.

[thebymster]

I long to get blood tallons tucked into some tau flesh! Once took out 11/20 pre-heresy death guard tac squad out with a psi on a Furioso. But without a Raven I rarely get the chance to get stuck in with blood tallons. Do you rate DCo over Furio for the extra attack and furious charge? I would go for extra armour or every time.

I got a local tourni in few weeks (1500) with plenty tau and poss an Eldar or two . That's why this thread caught my eye.

I'm thinking of taking xenos =][= with conversion beamer skulsand Div to hang at the back with long fangs and grey hunters,send rune priest (jaws ww for riptides) and grey hunters to mid board and mephiston just to wreak havoc, then deep strike 10 AssQ Melta TH dread with TO H flame and H flame in pod and Fragioso if I can afford the points...

[knife&fork]

I prefer talons on DC dreads as they ignore stun/shaken, have six attacks on the charge, always have furious charge, and get fleet to make charges easier to pull off. 

 

You get them into combat either by taking more than one, having goof threat saturation or using a raven for delivery.

[Memento Of Prospero]

It depends on which version of Taudar you are playing against.

 

In general, Drop pods are weak in small numbers, but are strong when over saturating. we can bring 4 melta shots in ASM squads with a gunslinger sergeant if they are serpent heavy.

 

You can deny Intercept in many ways. Riptide with AP2 Pie plate intercept? slam your drop pod into his models, and deploy your unit with 1 inch of his models. He will not be able to place the template without hiting is own models, which prevents him from firing. Your lead drop pod should have corbulo, and the back units will use their pods for cover and gain FnP. They cannot use smart missiles to intercept out of LoS, because intercept requires LoS to be used. 

 

Using Space marine allies can also help greatly against Taudar. Using Panzer Captains to soak up front and drive a wedge of bikes into the enemy can work really well.

[knife&fork]

Ran a test game today with the librarian spam list vs pure Eldar

 

I had;

Librarian with Axe and TDA (Psychic shriek, terrify)

Librarian with Axe (Terrify, puppet master)

 

Furioso lib in pod (fear, wings)

Furioso lib in pod (fear, wings)

Furioso lib in pod (fear, wings)

 

8 assault marines in pod, plasma pistol and plasma gun

8 assault marines in pod, plasma pistol and plasma gun

10 deathcompany with bolter and bp+ccw mix in pod, 1 fist 1 melta pistol

 

TLAC dread in pod

 

Farseer with jetbike and singing spear (terrify, puppet master and forewarning)

 

windrider squad with no upgrades

 

hemlock wraithfighter (terrify)

 

 

He had;

 

Farseer

Avatar

 

Fire dragons with fast shot exarch riding falcon grav tank

6 wraithguard with D-scythes in wave serpent

6 harlequins and a shadow seer

 

Dire avengers with exarch in wave serpent

10 guardians with heavy weapon

10 guardians with heavy weapon

6 rangers

 

3 warwalkers with scatter laser and bright lance

6 swooping hawks with exarch

 

As you can see his list had a few sub-optimal choices (compared to the standard tourney lists) like the wraithguard, avatar, hawks and harlequins. Not really good for me though since everything but the harlequins are troublesome for my list to deal with.

 

Batrep coming soon.... :)

[BloodTzar]

Sounds like hell of the list, would copy it with minor changes tho :) However, cant wait, for the bat rep.

[knife&fork]

Batrep Time!

Pregame stuff:

I roll quite well on the psychic powers and after the first three psykers I go for codex powers on the librarian dreads.

Don't remember what his farseer rolled as he never got to use it.

No warlord traits that matters on either side.

We roll 'purge the alien' as a mission which is both good and bad.

On one hand I have some easy KPs in my list and he won't have to worry about objectives. On the other I only have two scoring units that also double as meat shields for two of the libs.

Deployment is 'hammer and anvil'! Oh noes! It's super bad for me as he will gain 12 extra inches of protection from falling off the board.

He also gets first turn, more bad news as with the speed that eldar has as he'll be up to 3 feet from the table edge with most of his units if he wishes.

All this means that I'll have to concentrate on killing stuff by blocking fall back moves rather than running him off the table... tricky.

He also has the fearless wraithguard, the fearless avatar and his 12" fearless bubble. lot's of stuff that I have hit twice, 'first with terrify' and then probably 'fear' to break the ld10.

He deploys pretty much as I expect, as far up as he can. His Avatar up center with a guardian squad on each side. He sets up one 'weak' flank with the dire avengers plus farseer and their transport together with the rangers in a ruin and everything else on the other flank. Warwalkers outflank.

Having no good LoS blockers in my deployment zone I deploy the windriders alone as a sacrificial unit.

I fail to seize and forget my red thirst rolls.... again! :P

Turn 1 summary.

He beings by moving a bit, flying high with the hawks and killing the windriders for first blood. Done.

In his desire to get away from the table edge he has a pretty tight line of troops across the field. I bring down both assault squads with librarians, one furioso lib and the heavy support dread.

Using his tight line I surround the avatar front and back using the assault squads and furioso lib, the two guardian squads already cutting off his side movement... see where this is going?

Heavy support dreads plops down in a ruin for that nice 4+ cover.

In the shooting phase the rear assault squad opens up on the Avatar!

The 'terrify' goes off, hits, goes through and he fails his ld check too! With nowhere to run the mighty shard of a living god is cut down trying to flee that battle!

With the fearless bubble gone the furioso libs successfully casts 'fear' on the guardians who fail and are also cut down trying to flee!

Not wanting to be outdone the second librarian manages to cast 'puppet master' on the falcon and turns its guns on a wave serpent, unfortunately not a single glance is scored in the end. A sign of times to come...

The heavy support dread fire on the grav tank and manages to take off a hull point and stun it!

Turn 2 summary.

The retaliatory fire is hard... everything but one wave serpent and falcon with passengers opens up on the three units center.

The second assault squad is completely wiped out but with a lot o luck I only lose a hullpoint on the dread and 4 of the assault marines in my warlord unit. The harlequins also botch a 5" charge, that helps a lot.

Warwalkers fail to arrive.

On my turn I get everything but one librarian dread. I move to block kill (or failing that, assault) the wraithguard.

The farseer moves in on the weak flank and the death company drops down on the same flank at the center near the ruin where he now has his hawks, the remaining guardians as well as the rangers.

Wraithfighter moves in center to blast the disembarked dire avengers and his farseer.

I kill off the guardians, the dire avengers and the farseer eats a melta pistol to his face. I also manage to wreck the falcon with my TLAC dread. Even manage to kill 3 wraithguard with some very lucky shooting from the remnants of the assault squad! So far so good... Then disaster strikes.

My farseer fails all his powers... as do the hemlock and my librarian. That leaves a lot of dangerous units still alive!

Most importantly I still haven't taken care of the wraithguard or the waveserpents. I sacrifice one of the lib dreads by declaring a charge on the wraithguard and eat the murderous overwatch.

To my surprise he survives but then fails the charge anyway.

The assault squad and librarian manages a charge but completely whiffs their attacks, not inflicting a single wound.

At this point I know I'm in trouble. While I have a solid lead in KPs I've failed to deal with his fastest units. With the harlequins hot on the warlords back I soon won't have anything at all to deal with the remains of his force...

Turn 3 summary.

His warwalkers show up and unsurprisingly kills the farseer. The wave serpents spread out and start to hammer my dreads and pods scroing a few HPs and 'weapon destroyed' results.

Swooping hawks and rangers kill half the DC.

Harlequins join the assault with wraithguards and after a ridiculous amount of rends he has another two KPs as well slay the warlord. I also have 0 'puppet master' and only 1 'terrify' left.

I kill off the rangers, kill one warwalker with the damaged TLAC dread. I consolidate all my forces into the ruins where his rangers are hiding.

The Hemlock kills a few fire dragons and they run.

I miss my only 'terrify' and thus have almost no use at all for the three remaining lib dreads and their 'fear' power. The instead turn their storm bolters on the remaining swooping hawks and kill all but two.

Drop pods kill a few harlequins, but not enough to make them run.

Turn 4 and 5 summary.

Even with 'wings' I don't have the mobility to catch any of his units and he can safely hammer me from a distance with the serpents and warwalkers. On turn 4 he kills of the TLAC dread and while I can finish off the fire dragons I have no way of catching up. I throw in the towel on turn 5 after a desperate 10" charge that could have brought me in range but leaves the last healthy dread immobilized.

Lessons learned!

Despite the unfavorable deployment and mission I did OK until all those botched powers on turn 2. Even then I think I could have had a chance but I misjudged the usefulness of 'fear' vs his list. I should have rolled for more offensive powers on at least one lib dread.

I really , really hate the D scythe wraithguard. I don't care how sub optimal the internet thinks they are. When I play BA I'd rather see a wraithknight or two across the board than these guys.

I'm not completely sold on the eldar allies for a number of reasons. The farseer for one is a lvl 3 psyker that can't make use of all those warp charges, windriders are pointless when they aren't scoring and they present me with a deployment problem where I pretty much have to give up first blood unless I have really good LoS blockers in my deployment zone.

The hemlock fighter I felt under-performed despite being in a list practically built for it! The short range and limited usefulness of the D cannons is what brings it down.

TLAC dreads falls in the category of 'not quite good enough'. S7 doesn't average well enough for my taste against AV 12.

I definitely believe in the potential of the 5 blood angel librarian core, but it needs more work!

[Sanguine Eternal]

Sanguine, you are aware that the DWML can't fire the turn it arrives, right?

 

Yes, I am aware.  But it puts your opponent in a spot where he he HAS to deal with them his first turn, or have pie plates in his troops faces. 

I'd rather wait a turn to shoot a pie plate, than snap fire a couple shots and miss anyway.  Works for me.  

[Bartali]

It's interesting. The BA Psychic Bomb list has often been discussed on the interwebs, but never really played that much to my knowledge.

 

I've seen a variant with Space Wolf allies for two Rune Priests and a couple of Grey Hunters, everything in Pods.

[Morticon]

but but but.... :( you played Eldar allies :( :( 

[knife&fork]

but but but.... you played Eldar allies

Use the xeno to purge the xeno, it was even the same craftworld!

I'm looking at other options too. Like a true zero deploy list with all power armor. Maaaaybe spacewolves but I actually like Eldar more than Team Jacob :P

[Polythemus]

I just want to say its threads like this that make me love the BA forum. Open constant discussion of experimentation and list building plus tactics. Sadly in my home forum i see very little of this, and mods frequently shunt it to a subforum killing eyeballs and dicussion as a result. Let the dicussion rage on!

[Memento Of Prospero]

I just want to say its threads like this that make me love the BA forum. Open constant discussion of experimentation and list building plus tactics. Sadly in my home forum i see very little of this, and mods frequently shunt it to a subforum killing eyeballs and dicussion as a result. Let the dicussion rage on!

 

That's what happens when you choose the Chapter of the Fallen. They fear the truth will be known brother. Come to the Halls of the Blood Angels, where we only worry about our mirrors breaking, preventing us from contemplating our oh so pretty faces and EXTRA pretty armour. 

[CaptainHelion]

I played a game against Eldar today. I got my ass handed to me fairly solidly, but I did manage to bring down his Wraithknight and his flyer. 

My lesson learned RE Eldar?

• Sternguard are worth their weight in gold. GOOOOOOLD. My ten-man squad glanced the flyer to death with rapid-fire Dragonfire rounds, and removed four out of the six wounds on the Wraithknight.
• Drop-podding Frag-Cannon Furiosos are every bit as excellent as they are supposed to be. 
• Jet-bikes are really painful.

[thebymster]

<p>

 

[*]Sternguard are worth their weight in gold. GOOOOOOLD. My ten-man squad glanced the flyer to death with rapid-fire Dragonfire rounds, and removed four out of the six wounds on the Wraithknight.

 

How did you deploy them? Would you put Tyco with them?

[CaptainHelion]

I tend to run a ten man squad in a droppod. Usually I combat squad them, too. It gives me three threats in the drop zone right in the first turn. The Sternies draw a LOT of fire very quickly, but with a bit of luck (like I had), cover saves and Power Armour can really keep them alive. Putting Tycho in the pod with them would mean I couldn't combat squad them, which could be an issue. That said, a footslogging or rhino-chassis mounted squad with Tycho could work quite well as monster/tank hunter squad. 

[knife&fork]

Something like this will be the next version that I'll try out:

 

Blood Angels

Librarian

Librarian

 

Furioso lib in pod

Furioso lib in pod

Furioso lib in pod

 

8 man assault squad with melta gun in pod

8 man assault squad with melta gun in pod

 

Devastator squad with 4 missile launchers

 

Space Wolves

Rune priest with birdie and runic/terminator armor

Rune priest with birdie and runic/terminator armor

 

8 Grey hunters with plasma gun in pod

8 Grey hunters with plasma gun in pod

 

5 Long fangs with 4 missile launchers

 

1993/1995 pts

 

It's got more range, better at demeching, more scoring. Not the same kind of crazy telepathy spam though and two units that might be vulnerable starting on the table....

 

Thoughts or suggestions?