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Fighting Dark Eldar

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How do you compete against and beat the Dark Eldar. More importantly, how do you beat Dark Eldar with Marines.

1. I want to specifically learn how to combat or counter the webway portal and raider assault combination.

2. I would also like to know how to destroy wyches after they get off their initial assault (maybe preventing the assault in the first place if at all possible).

3. I want input on how to destoy the archon with his super retinue in the raider force trying to beat your entire army by themselves.

4. What are the tactics that have worked for you against the Dark Eldar despite the army you used as this could be translated in tactics adopted by my Marines.

I personally play either Blood Angels and Eldar Harlie oriented lists (One Falcon and two fire prism included). I will be Marines for the upcoming possible game against two different Dark Eldar Players in a Rogue Trader tourny. They both play the webway portal raider assault style. I have only played against Dark Eldar once using Eldar. I won, but the kid was inexperienced. I just sat back and shot the raiders. However, these two previously mentioned veterans have been mopping the floor with people (one of the guys is in his seventies). The sit and shoot style has not been seemingly working in the games I observed these two guys playing. Their forces came from the webway and immediately assaulted the enemy. Then the opponent usually reacted by trying to get out the way of the tide of wyches and incubi.
I plan on using the blood angels this time. I will use the necessary death company and three additional jump pack squads (2 vet and 2 troop choices). I also plan to use two predators (las/heavy bolter combos). Everything else is up in the air until your valued input.

Marines have a hell of a time beating dark eldar.

WWP dark eldar, well, that's another story.

You can front load, that means putting so many shots into the WWP units (if you can) that they're destroyed to a model in your first round of shooting. To guarantee killing 40 warriors, you have to make a crazy list. That makes your army weak to lots of other lists, so I don't think it's a viable option.

Then there's the other choice. Trying to fight them off.

Again, to do so means building a army list specifically to deal with WWP armies; which means a unbalanced army and you lose to everybody else.

So how do you really handle a WWP army?

With pillboxes.

How's that work?

Well, if you take some land speeders and rhinos, and park them about 12" in front of the WWP's with your army about a foot behind the 'wall'; you can stop most of the damage.

You can pretty much never avoid Wyches with the 12" charge or a Archon/Dracon combo that's running around on foot...but if there's only 1 or 2, you can usually handle them with your army.

Most people don't have any idea to do this, but that's how you beat a Wych army coming out of the WWP.

My DE WWP army works differently by shooting you instead of charging, so it's more difficult to do this trick as I can 'hide' behind your wall; blow it up, and then move back over the wall and 'get ya'.

Flamers work wonders if you can get them in range. I would recommend using them on your forward units where ever possible.

My only real experience against Dark Eldar is fighting the Wych cult with CHAOS Marines. I've never lost.

My tactic is to bring lots of marines and deploy in tight formation so that all the squads support each other. The rest is pretty much common sense as you try and bog down as many wyches as possible in close combat. Granted CSMs tend to have superior assault capabilities than normal SMs, so it makes it easier to weather the storm.

Loads of guys - bog 'em down - outlast them with your superior Toughness and armor.

That basic tactic tends to work really well. Just bring boatloads of guys.

Well it's a bit easier for Chaos. With Plagues you get S3 DE hitting T5 troops which is a 6+ to wound and combined with FNP this means only the Sybarite with Agoniser is doing something useful.

Stelek is dead on with good tactics. The other is to simply shoot them. Barring that, attrition kills more wyches than hardcore assault troops.

Is this a serious question for SM's?

IF you know you are going to play a DE army with your SM army and can build your list to specificaly fight DE then do these 2 things and you will win. 1. deploy in drop pods. 2. Bring librarians, at least 2 and maybe up to 4 of them, all with fear of the darkness.

Drop podding gives you the initiative and a 10 man marine squad with 2 flamers will kill any DE squad that they drop on and rapid fire. Drop podding dreads are great for this too. BTW, try to go second. Buying a DH Inquisitor with Emperors Tarot will increase your chances of winning the dice off and choosing to go second.

Fear of the Darkness is amazing against an army that has a base 8LD. With proper drop pod placing, most squads that do flee will never get a chance to rally and will be off the board in a turn or two.

Drop pods + Fear of the Darkness = win vs DE.

Darrian

Darrian13 wrote:Is this a serious question for SM's?

IF you know you are going to play a DE army with your SM army and can build your list to specificaly fight DE then do these 2 things and you will win. 1. deploy in drop pods. 2. Bring librarians, at least 2 and maybe up to 4 of them, all with fear of the darkness.

Drop podding gives you the initiative and a 10 man marine squad with 2 flamers will kill any DE squad that they drop on and rapid fire. Drop podding dreads are great for this too. BTW, try to go second. Buying a DH Inquisitor with Emperors Tarot will increase your chances of winning the dice off and choosing to go second.

Fear of the Darkness is amazing against an army that has a base 8LD. With proper drop pod placing, most squads that do flee will never get a chance to rally and will be off the board in a turn or two.

Drop pods + Fear of the Darkness = win vs DE.

Darrian

I have to assume from the initial post that as part of a tournament, the TS is concerned that he might run in to one of two DE armies that are easily killing other armies (as he says he has observed them playing previously). DE have a reputation for having a fairly easy time killing marines, so I think the thread's main point is pretty valid. Obviously, given the context of his scenario, your particular list probably won't work well, as it won't be competitive against many other lists.

Quite amusing really.

So let's see if I get this right.

I win first turn. I move up.

You go. Ok nothing much going there then...

I drop my webway portals and roll approx 50% of my reserves in.

Now you drop on me, and you fear 2 units. One passes, one runs away.

You shoot dead a third, let's say.

Now it's my turn. I roll 66% of my remaining reserves in.

I come out of the portal with everyone on a transport.

Besides zapping your drop pod troops to death with plasma cannons...let's say I humor myself by not killing your librarians command squad then killing him with a blaster.

Now your turn goes, and you drop and blow up say 3 raiders and 3 squads end up entangled outside their transports.

You cast fear of the darkness, and amazingly enough it really is a win for the DE since it affects absolutely nobody.

My turn, anything I have left comes out of the portal.

The remnants of your army die and I start killing drop pods.

Sorry, how's fear of the darkness a game winner?

Against a DE land army, maybe--but people don't run those.

The other 2 popular variant armies (meaning, competitive) are wych armies (all aboard raiders) and the nightshield raider army (again, everyone aboard raiders).

Right, so...it works on noobs, but then again that's what it always works on. Does it work on the 3 main competitive DE army types you see at tournaments?

Nopers. I suppose it would work on a Wych army that's gotten off it's transports and assaulted your army, but if you are drop podding and fail to shoot them off (which entangles them, and makes fear not work--again) won't they just be assaulting you to death in short order since you cannot block the wych assaults no matter how clever you are with your drop pod placement?

If you're dead, how's fear of the darkness work again?

I play SM, have never played against DE, but my main sparing partner plays CE, so I have an idea that may work ('specially seen as DE dont have Wraithlords to fuddle this plan) Try to get a 1-2 punch deal with heavy weps and assult termies with claws. In the shooting phase you blast the crap out of the transports with las, missles and if need be assult cannons. Hopefully you have a few transports explode and kill most of the DE inside, then you hit survivors or entangled DE with heavy bolter plas cannon and assult cannon fire. andy survivors after that you drop the heavy end of the hammer on with assult between your assult marines and the assult termies you should have a lot of attacks (which is always good against the mildly numerous eldar (that may be a gross numerical assumption on my part when it comes to DE)) and the claws wont adversely affect your termies already low Init. compared to eldar (although the invult save on storm sheilds would be nice if the DE have any sort of power weps).
Of course this relys alot on and troop placement, you need your army set up in such a way that he HAS to warp in to the "front" of your line, while remaining in both firing range for your heavies and assult range for all of your assult troops. Its risky, but it could pay off big time if it goes well.
I dunno, I could be making one assumption too far here, or not factoring DE strengths but a good hammer and anvil strike is always a safe bet in my books, and the Space Marines do have the tech. and skills to pull a good one off.

I played DE for a long time, and i'd have to say the thing that worked best against me was the enemy put his troops more than 6" apart, and sometimes more than that, depending on if he had a table quarter to deploy in or the entire table edge. that way if i destroyed one of his units in combat my squads couldn't consolidate into the next unit, and were out in the open to get shot, except when they won on his turn. but on the charge i usually won and ran the squad down, or made them flee the first round of combat, making this tactic work very well (unfortunately). other than that you only need to pump enough rounds in each squad to make the take lots of Ld checks, and sometimes bring them to or below half. that way any failure meant bye bye. this works pretty well too as DE leadership is decent but not great

Dessel: You do realize a WWP army comes into play unscathed, and f*cks you up before you can do anything, right? lol

I don't think lightning claw assault termies would be a good choice against wyches as most of their advantage gets negated (extra attack is negated, power weapons don't matter and WS reduced). Assault marines would be fairly gimped as well, as mentioned above, your best bet against wyches is regular marines and attrition.

The WS reduction is pretty meaningless unless the Wyches roll the +1 WS on their combat drug result.

Re-rolling wounds against Wyches does help a bit since they are T3 so you may get more wounds than a PF unit.

Stelek wrote:Dessel: You do realize a WWP army comes into play unscathed, and f*cks you up before you can do anything, right? lol

you do realise WWPs are abso turd, they're a waste of 50 pts. The reason is the model that carries it cannot move or shoot the turn it's deployed, so basically they can't deploy it til earliest the second turn if you want it to be anywhere near the enemy. And whatever comes out can only shoot and assault. Thatl give wotever your facing atleast 1 turn of shooting at you with his whole army, and since there aren't many targets on the table due to half your army being in reserve, chances are you'll either lose the portal and the half your army thats off the table. OR you'll lose the half your army on the table.

The best way to beat dark eldar with sm is easy really:

1 vindicator at the front of your deployment zone

1 devastator squad with 4 lascannons as far back as possible

atleast 4 5 man squads with heavy bolters

Maybes a predator.

Basically the tactic is to stand back and shoot them, keep everything more than 6" apart, then if they do get into combat you can stop them sweeping advancing into other squads and stopping you shooting them up.

Basically all you SM weapons stop dark eldar getting a save in the shooting phase, and the raiders have armour 10 all round, so even boltguns can glance them.

Forget terminators, far too costly for not enough shots and they often fail there 2+ saves from splinter cannons with are S4 AP5 bt ASSAULT 4!!

Stick your tank at the front and any troops as far back as possible, by standing still and rapid firing, you completely exploit the DE weak armour to shooting.

OH and avoid taking wyches on in combat, your basic SM is WS 2 against them, striking last with no extra attacks for 2 weapons, with a 4+ invulnerable save, but only in combat....

Easiest way to kill dark eldar besides shooting: toughness 4 horde armies.

Man, I can't believe I'm siding with Stelek on this one:

JCu-unless you've played against really bad players, I can't understand why you think the WWP is junk. Simply baffling. That is how 20-30 Wyches get into assault with scary efficiency. You advise to avoid Wyches, but you really can't with a WWP.

Putting vehicles in the front means you've ensured they are all in range to the massive Darklance fire you are sure to recieve. It's scary how many BS4 Darklances fit in a DE army.

Your tactical advice also throws out the concept of any mission. 3 Missions right off the bat you've given the DE a huge advantage just by your set up alone. Unless you just play 'who kills the most wins' style games, your deployment kills your chances at winning most games against DE. The DE player can set up his assaults to ensure he doesn't wipe out a unit on the turn he charges, thus ensuring he can't get his Wyches shot up during your shooting phase. The 6" apart is ok, but not a great defense against a skilled opponent.

Maybe it is a typo, but you wrote models coming out can only shoot and assault. Raiders can certainly move out of it, Wyches jump out, Fleet and Assault.

Even 2 WWPs are worth it if you build armies around utelizing them.

Turn 1, you've most likely lost both of your vehicles. You simply get to shoot las cannons at cheap infantry. Turn 2, same deal, except now the WWPs are probably in a position to be released in turn 3 (still rolling for Reserves the whole time). Turn 4 the real strength of the DE army comes out and it's game. Just a matter of rolling dice if you want to play it out.

Finding a way to kill the WWP bearer very, very early in the game is pretty key. In tourneys with open lists, you'll know exactly who has it. Ensure that unit goes away fast or ensure it won't survive getting into a good position to release the WWP. Your armylist build and tactical advise just doesn't do that.

Sorry, but I really think you need to get a good game in against someone adept at playing a DE WWP style army.

This is purely theoryhammer, but wouldn't maxed out HB's and AC's= win?
Deploy on the table edge, hammer the monkey mess out of his Raiders as they come up. Then you have all sorts of squishy targets whom you've got at least a second turn to hammer on with hitting on 3+, wounding on 2+ to hopefully deplete units below combat effectiveness.

JCu: WWP counts as a board edge for the Dark Eldar, so they can start "in" it, and then do a normal turn. If they are in raiders/are jump infantry, and then have fleet, thats 19-24" threat radius.

I haven't actually played Dark Eldar, so I'm not sure where the WWP usually goes (Warriors, Jetbikes, something else). If you have the WWP on something fast, then it can move far first turn, hopefully hiding, probably 24" or so up. After that, second turn, activate it, and 66% of the DE army comes in, with a 19-24" threat radius. Its hard to get your army out of that area, and some combat drugs give 12" assault range, allowing for a huge portion of the board to be assaulted.

My mate plays WWP DE..
He has played DE for I think like 12 or so years now.
and he is a really hard nut to crack...
he has 2 WWP's carried by heamonculi..
he sheilds each of them with warrior squads for the beggining of the game and then he opens the portals and you die.. :(
I have played him countless times and now know how too possibly beat such an army (especially with marines, you can really even used a regular balanced force for this..)
and how you do it.. is by 'cutting the head off the snake'.. (ps you have to this in practically the first, maybe second turns.. or your done for)
what I mean is: perhaps your lucky and heaps of firepower that you can mow down the warrior squads and perhaps then the heamonculi but usually cover tends to get in your way..
perhaps you have really quick units that canget to real grips and assualt the heamonculi.. (ie assault squads or landraider squads) which would kill them easily..
but if you dont manage to do this ypu could be in serious wyche trouble..
another tactic that is quite hard to pull off. and the DE player wont be expecting is the following...
use your fastest units and try 2 get within 1" of the heamonculi on all sides...
then when he opens the portal and tries to bring units out he cant.. because the y can tcome within 1" of you..
its a sneaky treick but trust me.. its works wonders because then his hole army cant come on...

I know the above is a really specific example but the ideas can be incorperated in many cases..