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So, the single most overpowered, unbalanced cheese unit in the whole game, something that will hopefully be nerfed back to decent balance in the future if GW follow any logical thought process.

Two big or relatively big seer councils on jetbikes, will all the associated cheese mixed into it, doom, fortune, destructor etc etc.

How is the typical SM army supposed to counter that without spending 2000 more points then the eldar do on that ridiculous unit?
How is the typical pod army, bike army, mechanized army, infantry army and mixed army supposed to deal with that instead of just packing up the figures as soon as the councils hit the table?
With a librarian?
Without a librarian?

What do you people (good ideas from tourney players needed) include in your lists when expecting to run against a flying circus army on say, a tournament?
Personally I have had success only if taking something fast that can bind those pesky units in melee for a turn AND use this time to make sure a big squad of hammer terminators charge the melee while the binding unit is still alive.
First it was assault squads that sometimes managed to tie the council up but now days I never use assault marine squads so now it has to be a full bike unit and even that is an uncertain thing since that cheating crap rerolls everything and wounds on 2+.
I rarely or more likely never use a librarian if having a special character as HQ due to to high HQ point sinks.

IS a libby really required in any tournament build if overcheesed eldar are to be expected simply for that 100p psychic hood?

Librarian; Null zone, Avenger, Epistulary, Terminator Armor, in land raider with 5 other Terminators with TH/SS.

PROBLEM SOLVED.

Edit: Without a librarian. I'd say just shoot a crapton of boltguns at it. It's bound to fail at least a few saves, even with 4++ re-rollable, if you make him throw enough dice some of his guys will die (unless he is very lucky)

A libby is a must in just about any tourney build. Null zone will kill that council like they didn't have fortune on. If you're still losing after that for some reason, allied GKs with Psycannons/Incinerators will ruin the council.

Unit that'll give Seer Council (amongst other things) fits:
10 Terms, 2 Cyclones, 2 Cfist
Libby, Null Zone, GoI, TDA

EDIT-And coming into a thread whining "ZOMG CHEEZE!!11!!1" is the best way to look like an utter noob, especially if you're asking for a tourney player's advice

holy crap... I just had a sweet idea for how to kill this cheese, without needing a librarian to do any work!

Land Raider... inside put the following -

5x lightning claw terminators
1x chaplain
1x inquisitor with null rod.

no psychic powers can ever affect the squad using a null rod, and i'd say that the enhanced survivability given by fortune definitely affects the squad

Wow. Seriously??

I can't tell if thats an impressed wow, or you think i'm an idiot.

Found the image I was looking for:

Biked Seer-Councils have a +3 regular save ontop of their rune armor. Psycannons and Incinerators are practically worthless.

My suggestion is Nullzone and followed by TH/SS terminators.

Thunderfire cannons also work nicely with the Difficult terrain cannon shot and Autocannon/HB predators to torrent down the squads.

well excuse me for trying to think outside the box :(

one possible way to deal with him would be to take a witchunters inquisitor lord as an HQ, and give him the Purgatus power in combination with hexgrammic wards.

purgatus works like a psychic hood, but if you win the roll off the enemy is at -3 LD for the rest of the game. then hexgrammic wards gives him an additional -1 leadership for psychic tests. Make sure the lord has a hood.

This way, he's testing at LD6 for all checks, and even if he passes, he gets -3 to his LD when doing the roll off for a hood.

starbomber109 wrote:Librarian; Null zone, Avenger, Epistulary, Terminator Armor, in land raider with 5 other Terminators with TH/SS.

PROBLEM SOLVED.

Edit: Without a librarian. I'd say just shoot a crapton of boltguns at it. It's bound to fail at least a few saves, even with 4++ re-rollable, if you make him throw enough dice some of his guys will die (unless he is very lucky)

That will mean you are in charge range for next turn.

LR full of termies can be ignored. You need two of them to cut down runaway angles.

Just run a normal libby in a squad in a rhino or LR. Despite how powerful they are, seer councils can be killed (like try rapid firing a few bolter squads in em for example)

Best way to beat Councils.

Shoot the troops and try to ignore Councils as best as possible.

Trying to beat with Nullzone and Psychics is asking for trouble. You need to roll LD on 3d6. Not very good odds.

If you want to try to destroy council. Massed fire and something to stop Fortune (Psychic Hood, Rune weapons)

If I 'have' to engage the council:
Weight of fire...I've downed most of the councils I've fought against with concentrated small arms (I play a biker armor).

They will start failing saves.

Otherwise: what Old Man Unltramarine said above me.

Edit: Without a librarian. I'd say just shoot a crapton of boltguns at it. It's bound to fail at least a few saves, even with 4++ re-rollable, if you make him throw enough dice some of his guys will die (unless he is very lucky)

They often utilize turbo boost when expecting incoming AP3 shooting. Otherwise they have 3+ saves.
No amount of bolter fire can dent something that gets a rerollable 3+ save and then wipes you in assault the turn after.

EDIT-And coming into a thread whining "ZOMG CHEEZE!!11!!1" is the best way to look like an utter noob, especially if you're asking for a tourney player's advice

True, am just so fed up with that crap somehow always being included in eldar armies I meet and I struggle to try and "fix" the problem without a libby.
Getting null zone is a *duh*. What remains is an effective non librarian way to beat that build.
Besides, it IS cheese and its even forbidden from some tournaments so if you want to preach to me about that unit not being cheesy you´ll have to do way better then call me a noob.

Librarian; Null zone, Avenger, Epistulary, Terminator Armor, in land raider with 5 other Terminators with TH/SS.

PROBLEM SOLVED.

As one council can be kitted out to auto-massacre infantry of all kinds and the otehr can be kitted out to also auto-massacre tanks a landraider becomes a waste of points.

Also, all eldar include double runes in their tournament builds so gating etc will be hard on 3 dice.
You basically pay 100+ points for a footslogging psychic hood with limited range.
There must be a better or different way.

I´m experimenting with locator terminators jumping in where they are needed without that 250p delivery system the eldar eat for breakfast.
The problem is tying up the council with something and time that with terminators charging.

Give me some ideas on what to use and how to tie up councils. There are bound to be a bunch of strategies I havent thought of yet.

5x lightning claw terminators
1x chaplain
1x inquisitor with null rod.

Hmm, might be the best idea I have ever heard of.
I say might, havent got the DH codex in front of me and I dont quite remember how their current attachment rules or the null rod, works but IF it does then its a good idea.
How much points is it to include a null rod into the army again, 40 and an elite slot?

The landraider remains the akilles heel though unless the null rod inside give the landriader the same protective qualities.
Anyone can cast some light on this? I have never heard of nor seen anything like that before, a null rod in a transport granting the transport its powers.

If this is not doable might there be some way to add the nullrod inquisitor to a unit designed to take out the councils be it in shooting or melee?
(termies by themselves with no raider cant chase councils so the null rod would be best in a unit that can or that can tie them up fast)

well excuse me for trying to think outside the box :(

one possible way to deal with him would be to take a witchunters inquisitor lord as an HQ, and give him the Purgatus power in combination with hexgrammic wards.

purgatus works like a psychic hood, but if you win the roll off the enemy is at -3 LD for the rest of the game. then hexgrammic wards gives him an additional -1 leadership for psychic tests. Make sure the lord has a hood.

This way, he's testing at LD6 for all checks, and even if he passes, he gets -3 to his LD when doing the roll off for a hood.

Well, he gave you a "face palm" for the null rod idea (and I am the noob here for yelling "cheese", lol) so maybe this to is not doable.

Just run a normal libby in a squad in a rhino or LR. Despite how powerful they are, seer councils can be killed (like try rapid firing a few bolter squads in em for example)

Well, maybe I just have to resign and add that 100p ilbby to an already expensive special character HQ...
Shooting bolters at them is absolutely worthless (with no libby), even if you pod 20 marines right next to and fire 40 shots you´ll kill of under 2 jetbikes and the turn after you´ll loose almost every marine. With a libby IF the hood suceedes (luck) those squads will down about 4 jetbikes and then its all about hood-luck. To many points being risked to be thrown away on a hood roll I think.

Best way to beat Councils.

Shoot the troops and try to ignore Councils as best as possible.

Trying to beat with Nullzone and Psychics is asking for trouble. You need to roll LD on 3d6. Not very good odds.

If you want to try to destroy council. Massed fire and something to stop Fortune (Psychic Hood, Rune weapons)

Yeah, thats what I thought.
To bad its a game of a maybe draw vs eldar.
Hasnt anyone tried to tie them up while hitting with a hard melee unit and suceeded?

Why would you want to hit them with a melee unit when they hit first and hit hard and have the saves to wade through return attacks/have the speed to avoid getting locked (jetbikes).

Shooting is safer as stuff doesn't get hit back, longer range so more things can contribute to shooting.

Maybe to clean up a weakened council from shooting, but I don't think a combat unit is the answer.

Pyriel- wrote:So, the single most overpowered, unbalanced cheese unit in the whole game

what about nob bikers???

Massed fire really is the best way to take down a seer council.

A decked out seer council such as you are talking about runs around 700-750 points, so two of them are going to be around 1500 points.....of COURSE three quarters of your opponents army is going to be a bit difficult to take out. The other 500 points arent going to amount to much, a double seer council army is a tiny army.


But a seer council punishes some builds. If a SM army is trying to be fancy then its likely to get spanked hard. If the SM army is built to be flexible and has plenty of mixed firepower then the councils will be in trouble.

At 2000 points a dual seer council army is set up to fail, its just not going to be able to have enough models on the table to handle a lot of other armies. At larger points battles then a dual council army can have enough support to be dangerous, but of course its opponents are going to be much more dangerous as well.


Now if the dual councils arent full councils the eldar player may be able to have some solid support....but then the councils are much more fragile and less of a problem.

Rerolled 3+ saves is tough, but only the farseer has more than one wound, and even the cheapest bikelock costs 45 points. Lots and lots of heavy bolters are your friends.


Myabe try changing your tactics a bit too; castle up, split your squads so you have lots of 5 man units to feed to the councils, and fire fire fire.



Sliggoth

Easy Peasy.

The eldar's big disadvantage, and an eldar player's biggest annoyance is thire tougness of 3. Its awful!! So easy to inflict ID.

You just need heavy weapons (when i say heavy i dont mean really huge just slightly bigger than normal, you can ID them with S6).

Even termies with storm bolters would do the trick!!

Best way to counter this is WH Inquisitor with wards and calidus assassin. Hehe or you can try cullexus too...

The Seer Council is the best anvil unit in the game.
If on jetbikes, its not a hammer unit like a Seer Council on foot with Eldrad and Yriel.
Massive small arm's fire can decimate it.
Similarly, charging them with larger units of Assault Marines.
A Librarian with nullzone eventually prevents the Council to reroll their saves (by loosing fortune).
Then the Council starts to cripple.

Instant death doesnt really matter to most of the council...warlocks only have one wound so any missed save is a dead warlock. Granted the farseers are a juicy target to ID with str 6 weapons, but its not easy to hit the council with enough str 6 wounds in one go to make the farseers take that kind of save. Str 4 yes, can slop enough fire onto them so that everyone has to save, but str6+ its a bit harder to deal 10 or more wounds from one firing source.

Sliggoth

Why would you want to hit them with a melee unit when they hit first and hit hard and have the saves to wade through return attacks/have the speed to avoid getting locked (jetbikes).

Because it suits my builds better, because they shoot harder then they melee, because hammering them with a heavy melee unit kills them the fastest and because I am curious weather it is a good alternative to the normal shooth-them-with-bolters.

what about nob bikers???

Sure FnP is nasty but they at least dont get multiple rerolled saves, hit first and wound on 2+, kill armour as good and the destructors are not one trick ponies.

A decked out seer council such as you are talking about runs around 700-750 points, so two of them are going to be around 1500 points.....of COURSE three quarters of your opponents army is going to be a bit difficult to take out. The other 500 points arent going to amount to much, a double seer council army is a tiny army.

I have seen pretty big seer armies, you can cram up pretty much supporting and objective grabbing guardian infantry for 500-700 points while the two super units pretty much kill of 2 SM units per turn.

At 2000 points a dual seer council army is set up to fail, its just not going to be able to have enough models on the table to handle a lot of other armies. At larger points battles then a dual council army can have enough support to be dangerous, but of course its opponents are going to be much more dangerous as well.

I almost exclusively play 1750p and I refuse to play eldar under 1200p as some armies are OP in smaller points while otehr become UP.

Myabe try changing your tactics a bit too; castle up, split your squads so you have lots of 5 man units to feed to the councils, and fire fire fire.

Most builds I use include bikes, 3-4 tac pods and 10-15 terminators. Thus I want to see if temporarily tying up things in melee can be a solution.
The super gunline build I use sometimes have no problems but then again its quite boring to play and I dont want to retort to boring lists only to be able to handle one common cheese army.

The eldar's big disadvantage, and an eldar player's biggest annoyance is thire tougness of 3. Its awful!! So easy to inflict ID.

You just need heavy weapons (when i say heavy i dont mean really huge just slightly bigger than normal, you can ID them with S6).

Even termies with storm bolters would do the trick!!

Jetbieks have T4. Its like shooting bolters at marines with 4+ inv saves that can always get some kind of rerollable 3+ save. Its worse then trying to bolter plague marines to death.


I guess I´ll just have to bite the bullet and start to include a librarian in everything I build and even then relying on a hood roll is far fetched.

rerollable 3+ save? i thought they only got to reroll invulnerable saves, i assume the 3+ you are mentioning is the turbo boost cover save? cover save =/= invuln save so how are you rerolling it?

They can re roll the 3+ armor save that the bike gives them. And fortune lets you re roll any cover/invuln/armor saves you have to make til the start of your next turn. I fortune my wave serpents and boost them quite often.

I run an eldrad/yriel/8warlock council in wave serpent. Its a very solid unit, but far from unbeatable. The unit runs in at about 700 points, and is entirely relying on that fortune. Against armies with no psychic defence it can rock hard. But if you have any kind of psyker with a hood/staff it gets really difficult, as the council dies really quick for their points. So include a librarian or inquisitor, you should have one anyways.

As for the null rod thing that wont work. As it only effects powers used on the inquisitor and his unit. So if I try casting doom on mind war on them it wont work, fortune I cast on my own unit though, so null zone wont stop it.

Finally I think nob bikers are better then the council in 2 ways. First they can play wound allocation games, and put double the wounds on the table. Second off they have FNP, coupled with their toughness makes them tougher against small arms fire. And thirdly they are much better at killing most stuff in hand to hand combat. Council is cool, but having fought nobs they can do much much more damage then jetlocks.

The weakness is that the nobs die quick to ordnance, and the council dies fast when they cant be fortuned

Eidolon summarized it nicely.
I also run a Council in a Serpent, led by a Farseer.
Yriel gets included sometimes, depending on point costs.
Its a tough unit to beat.

On the other hand, if the enemy fields a very expensive unit,
the rest of the army is generally easier to deal with.
With two Jetseer Councils, how many scoring units can she have?

I'm not sure if space marines have access to something that can 'tarpit' the council on jetbikes (or even the council on foot). Dreads won't work as the S9 witchblades will tear them up. Normal infantry squads will have a hard time, the warlocks get too many attacks. (and terminators, an even smaller squad, have about the same odds)

Only if you play bike marines can you out-run him. Wait for the hood to shut down fortune and rapid-fire him to death. Maybe have a librarian on a bike, inside a Fast Attack bike squad. powers on the librarian are not important, it's his hood that's important. The bikers he is with are relentless, give them an attack bike with a heavy bolter. They can also keep running away from the council, and ambush it when they shut down fortune.

Null zone. Strom shields. Land raider Redeemer
Deploy your entire army close. The biggest mistake you can make is dividing your forces and letting his manouvaribilty win local superiority everytime.
If you can squash the farseer(s) early, then most of your troubles will be over.

adielubbe wrote:Null zone. Strom shields. Land raider Redeemer
Deploy your entire army close. The biggest mistake you can make is dividing your forces and letting his manouvaribilty win local superiority everytime.
If you can squash the farseer(s) early, then most of your troubles will be over.

This. A thousand times this. I played a chaos player yesterday at a RTT and he spread his army out. I hid and ignored one half while tearing the other half up, then switched gears and tarpitted his second half. Got me a full massacre.
Two things to never do against eldar.
1-spread out, for reasons above.
2-stick in a corner. This will end badly as the player will simply never let you leave that corner while dancing around the map. Fighting an eldar army is like fighting a wolf pack as opposed to a rhinoceros