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I'm playing in a tournament soon, and one of the players who always seems to be on the final table brings Abaddon ( and a Daemon Prince).

I've always found uber characters like that a hard nut to crack. So many attacks, so many kills, high wounds, decent armor and invuln....

In fantasy, I'd challenge a character with a champion ( unless running Brets), put wounds on the unit and break them that way ( if possible).

In 40K, you can't do that......so yeah, you can do things like heap shots at him and his squad, you can ignore him, you can try and bring your own ubercharacter...

What do you think is the best way to beat down someone like this? Imagine the character in the best optimal position...with a squad of badasses...

Kharn has worked for me one on one but 9 zerkers and kharn in a land raider is the scariest thing i have seen for chaos if not gazhgkull on his waaagh! but what army do you have sorry if not chaos or orks but they are all I can help thats not basic like shoot him a lot

They call them Demolisher cannons for a reason you know... S10 Ap 2 the uber character is an invl save away from being obliterated

My personal favourite has to be multiples of the humble Tyranid lashwhip. Such characters aren't very scary if they are getting one attack per round.

An alternative (that can work for many armies) is using an assault screen. Stick cheap stuff out in front for them to assault then blam the crap out of them and countercharge.

Best way to handle Abby is a Grey Knight GM with Sacred Incense and a MC Nemesis.

Strike at the same Initiative thanx to the Sacred incense and insta-SLAY him with the Nemesis. You might loose your GM, but its a good trade-off.

Grey Knight Grand Masters make pretty much the best character hunters since even Eternal warriors are not immune to their Nemesis Force weapons.

Abby-check
Lysander-check
Phoenix lords-check

...once I even killed Scarbrand...THAT was a game winner.

Does Gift of Chaos affect Eternal Warriors? I can't remember, but I've had my SM HQ voiped by the power several times. Just make sure you have a spawn model laying about.

I deal with difficult characters like I deal with MC's, volleys of fire. The nastier ones are generally Eternal Warriors, and in large units, so most one hit wonders won't get it done. Torrents of fire are necessary to get the job done. Make the character take the saves, and eventually they will fail them.

Really the NFW should not be able to instant an Eternal Warrior... it is clearly a rules lawyer loop hole.

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KaloranSLC wrote:Does Gift of Chaos affect Eternal Warriors? I can't remember, but I've had my SM HQ voiped by the power several times. Just make sure you have a spawn model laying about.

Gift of Chaos doesn't insta-kill or inflict wounds. In KP games it's better to not put a spawn into play.

Also, just remember that big characters take big points. No big characters = more little guys = more special weapons that kill big guys fairly easily. I personally believe the guy with more models and more melta guns always has the better chance at winning.

I would point the Demolition Cannon away from strong single characters. Sure it means that they're one invulnerable save away from death, but that's still only one chance they have to die. Point it at something else, like a big group of infantry (more stuff to smash) or a bunch of transports. Either use mass fire on the strong characters, or use something like a Sternguard squad with hellfire rounds. 250 points for 10-20 3 to hit, 2 to wound shots per turn sounds pretty good. They won't make it have to use it's invulnerable, but it would mean that it would have to make up to 20 saves per turn. No matter how good your save is 20+ should almost guarentee a dead model.

I, as , Eldar, find that I am generally faster than "Uber-Characters", so I can just get out of their way and ignore them. Or attack them with a wraithlord.

Not to mention that if they are Eternal Warrior (like Abbadon), the demolisher only causes a scratch on them. Minimize them and move on to other things you can hurt.

Use abusive things that 'remove models from play' instead of Instant Death attacks. The Shokk Attack Gun comes to mind.

Just shoot them to death.

I'm completely serious, the best way to kill off those UBAR characters is saturation of wounds, before they get into combat. Massed S6-7 just ends them because they still roll ones. Armies like Eldar, IG, and Tau should be able to shoot them off the board by turn 2. Even orks (with Lootas) can dump so many wounds into an uber character that they're at 50% or less before combat, and even something as terrifying as Abaddon suddenly isn't so scary when he's only got 1 wound left before he hits the massed 30 boy assault unit.

sourclams wrote:Just shoot them to death.

I'm completely serious, the best way to kill off those UBAR characters is saturation of wounds, before they get into combat. Massed S6-7 just ends them because they still roll ones. Armies like Eldar, IG, and Tau should be able to shoot them off the board by turn 2. Even orks (with Lootas) can dump so many wounds into an uber character that they're at 50% or less before combat, and even something as terrifying as Abaddon suddenly isn't so scary when he's only got 1 wound left before he hits the massed 30 boy assault unit.

QFT
Nothing is scary if you throw enough massed firepower at it. That is why things like Scatterlaser Warwalker squadrons and Lootas are so popular in 5th.

a Slaaneshi Daemon weapon works well.

Not against characters immune to instant death it doesn't.

Typically Abbadon runs in a landraider with a unit of Chaos terminators or Berzerkers. Sure in theory it sounds good to shoot him off the table but in practice that can be the rub.

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Cheese Elemental wrote:Not against characters immune to instant death it doesn't.

Still a power weapon with 3 + 1d6 attacks .

Green Blow Fly wrote:Typically Abbadon runs in a landraider with a unit of Chaos terminators or Berzerkers. Sure in theory it sounds good to shoot him off the table but in practice that can be the rub.

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That's actually the best overall scenario for the defending player. Abby+Friends+Transport soaks up almost 1/3 of a 2000 point list. Every shooty army can stop a Land Raider (Immo+) before it gets into assault range, and the non-shooty armies are generally hard enough to soak up the hits and attrition them away with 600-700 points to work with.

honestly the most effective non hands on approach ive seen is my friend running 2 farseers with mind war and just warring him/her to death. When combined, I have seen multi wound models like abbadon get mind war jumped, and killed in one turn.

Although a good idea, it really only works for models on the board (i.e. not in transports) and with reasonably poor saves (i.e. not in cover). If those are the two criteria that apply, then you may as well just shoot them to death with S6+.

Not only the points issue, but if all else fails, bait them. Let them smash through that lone tac squad up front so they can get shot to hell. Losing consolidation into another combat made a huge weakness for assaulty characters/units.

You really have the annoying tendency to over simply things... maybe it comes from playing against scrubs all the time. There are plenty of ways to shield a landraider for a couple of turns.

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sourclams wrote:

Green Blow Fly wrote:Typically Abbadon runs in a landraider with a unit of Chaos terminators or Berzerkers. Sure in theory it sounds good to shoot him off the table but in practice that can be the rub.

G

That's actually the best overall scenario for the defending player. Abby+Friends+Transport soaks up almost 1/3 of a 2000 point list. Every shooty army can stop a Land Raider (Immo+) before it gets into assault range, and the non-shooty armies are generally hard enough to soak up the hits and attrition them away with 600-700 points to work with.

Shooting him is not as effective as people will lead you to believe. You can shoot your whole army at him, and you will just make him angry. Not only that, but if you are wasting your armies shooting on him, what is the rest of your opponents army doing to you?

You really need to see his stats profile to know that shooting him for most armies is a waste of time. That toughness 5 with a 2+/4+ save is very hard to get though. Add eternal warrior and FNP and you are in for a long day if you are shooting him. Also, if he is in a unit he has bullet catchers there to eat a lascannon or melta gun shot.

Let’s take some of the most powerful shooting units in 5th edition and see what they do to him:

15 Lootas shooting at him will average 30 shots and 10 of those will hit. Of those 8.3 will wound, and 1.4 failed saves. Then with FNP that is down to .7 wounds. That is not that impressive.

War Walkers with scatter lasers are a little worse. Of 24 shots, 12 will hit, 8 will wound, and 1.3 failed saves, .65 chance for him to take a wound after FNP.

If you unload on him with 4 melta guns you have 2.6 hitting at BS4, 2.2 wounding and 1.1 failed saves. Better, but still only one wound.

And those are the best options for shooting him. If you shot him with bolters/lasguns/basic infantry it would take most of your army to put a wound on him.

The best ways I have found to counter him is to just ignore him. If you can get him out of his land raider (if he has one) he is only moving 6” or so a turn.

Or you can counter him with assault. You can throw your uber character at him and try for mutual annihilation. I have killed him with a Tzeentch demon prince, and other heavy hitters. You can also try to take him out with a unit that has a lot of power weapon attacks, or rending. Eldar and Tyranids do that the best because of their high Int. If you do not have that, Abaddon will take out your unit first before they get to swing. Assault Termies with Storm Shield and Thunderhammers might be able to stand up to him as well.

Old Zogwart will keep him away if you're playing Orks, it's hilarious when you hear someone shout in a tourny "OH CRAP!" usually it's Zogwart turning someone's hero into a squig ^_^

One of my friends in our gaming group usually runs him, in a land raider with some berserkers the first time i put him down with my avatar of khaine, the second time was with a squad of 12 genestealers, but yes he is particularly tough to take down.

SoB could be effective at killing abbadon. The flying canonness can stop his transport, seraphim can tie him up in a phyrric assault for a turn, then unload a couple of rapid-firing sister squads in his face. Using divine guidance reduces him to his inv. save only and, with that many shots, you would consider yourself very unfortunate not to kill/reduce-to-1-wound him.

If he has a retinue, unload an exorcist or two to get rid of a few ablative wounds.

As someone else pointed out, if someone is running Abby with all the trimmings, it'll take up one heck of alot of his points meaning you won't have to worry about using a significant portion of your army to deal with him.

Green Blow Fly wrote:Really the NFW should not be able to instant an Eternal Warrior... it is clearly a rules lawyer loop hole.

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So "codex rules" is a rules lawyer loophole now?

It's interpretation of the rules, not the codex. I don't think anyone can say with a straight face that the 3rd edition rule for the NFW was intended to instant death a 5th edition model with Eternal Warrior. In fact this was never ruled on by GW and came about by way of the INAT FAQ. At the time there was a lot of love going around for Grey Knights as an underdog appealing army.

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