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I want to know what people think of my plan to hurt an avatar (As space wolves).

Essentially I want to put a Rune Priest in charge of a 10 strong close combat equipped GH squad - using his runic weapon to hurt on a 2+ plus his ability to nullify psychic powers on a 4+ within 24inches (my opponent uses his Farseer to boost his Avatar usually, with psychic abilities though what he uses exactly escapes me presently). This unit will get 30 attacks on the initial charge, plus it has a power sword and power fist.

What do people think? I also have a six strong WG group with a battleleader armed for CC, and ragnar leading five wolfguard terminators. Would they be better units to use, or is the Rune Priest the best bet against this beast of a unit?

Any help appreciated, cheers.

could work... as long as you keep your rune priest out of close combat. he's an independent character so if the eldar player is on his game he'll just have his avatar smoke this guy and next turn it's right back to doom and fortune. The other big challenge will be getting your attacks up to str 5 at least. That means either furious charge or special wargear. not super familiar with the space wolves codex so its hard to be more specific. I just know that you have to roll a crazy number of dice to down an avatar in one assault if you're only strength 4.
AF

Thats a whole lot of points to kill one 155pt avatar. My suggestion is to nail it with a few plasma guns over a couple turns. Ive had my Avatar dropped in turn 1 by 4 twin linked plasma guns, I dont see why SW couldnt do the same over a couple turns.

Yea, a regular MEQ statline needs 5's to hit and 6's to wound...after which there is a 3+/4++ and if Fortune gets off 50% of the time, that stuff is rerolled.

Best is to keep out of range and kill everything else...if the Eldar player realizes this, he'll fortune something else, then kill the Avvy, if he fortunes the Avvy, kill the something else.

Else, mass Missile Launcher I have seen bring it down, but the options are limited and not 'great' at that role.

The best way to make use of an Avatar, is to scare your opponent into shooting everything at it. Since it is unlikely for the entirety of your opponents firepower to be within shooting range, just getting as many things as you can to shoot at you, is the best you can hope for.

The Avatar stays fortuned all game, until he gets into combat with something that it can lock down. If I run an Avvy in my lists, there really isn't much anything else that is going to benefit as much from fortune. If you can scare your Eldar opponent into dropping fortune on something else, that is great, but it is very likely that they simply won't have anything great to actually put that fortune on. So you are basically trying to force your opponent into making a very bad decision. A 4+ roll means it only works half of the time, so half the time it doesn't do ANYTHING.

Don't assault the Avatar, just don't do it. If you have to, and you really don't HAVE to, use something cheap and plentiful, not something expensive and hard to come by.

Ignore it, unless you really have no options left. It is very important to remember how cheap the Avatar is, don't waste points trying to fight something that specializes in soaking up huge amounts of attacks from just about everything in the game. Eldar psykers kick butt, and the weakest point you can hit them, is the fact that Null zone is a fantastic way to beat Warlock spam. Warlocks are not the Avatar, so I am really left thinking that no psyker power helps much against the Avvy. If your opponent brings along mind war, it could be an even larger waste of points on your part, to spend points on psykers just to counter the Avvy.

You could figure out a specific situation that you expect to happen, but a unit as cheap as the avatar will be happy that you spent the points on psyker powers, just for him. His job is to scare you into spending way more points than it is worth, just to take a really un-scary unit off of the field.

AbaddonFidelis wrote:could work... as long as you keep your rune priest out of close combat. he's an independent character so if the eldar player is on his game he'll just have his avatar smoke this guy and next turn it's right back to doom and fortune. The other big challenge will be getting your attacks up to str 5 at least. That means either furious charge or special wargear. not super familiar with the space wolves codex so its hard to be more specific. I just know that you have to roll a crazy number of dice to down an avatar in one assault if you're only strength 4.
AF

Doom & Fortune, those are the powers he uses cheers for reminding me. I am starting to think Ragnar is the man for the job. I don't have Arjac Rockfist/Canis Wolfborn (strength 5 models) or any thunderwolf cavalry - so he'll have to do.

I am going to attempt it with the Rune Priest and his GH squad first though.

EDIT: Ok, so general consensus is ignore it as long as possible beyond hitting it with ranged weapons and muller everything else?

Not used to the pup dex, but are sniper scouts a possibility?
A unit of 10 should manage to down it in a turn or 2 depending on his saving throws.


Failing that, i would go claw termies on the charge.
May be hard to hit and wound, but re-rolls should help you get there.

Could allways go with hammer and shield termies.
Hitting him will be a bit harder, but wounding will be easy enough.

Didn't realise the Avatar was so cheap. Now I know that I may just not bother, no point in throwing 200+ units at it that will probably bog it down at best.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

۞ Jack ۞ wrote:Not used to the pup dex, but are sniper scouts a possibility?
A unit of 10 should manage to down it in a turn or 2 depending on his saving throws.


Failing that, i would go claw termies on the charge.
May be hard to hit and wound, but re-rolls should help you get there.

Could allways go with hammer and shield termies.
Hitting him will be a bit harder, but wounding will be easy enough.

Yeah Wolf Scouts with sniper rifles are in the codex - I just don't have any of the models currently!

Tel

whether you can ignore it or not depends on how your opponent is using it. If it's threatening an objective you pretty much have to deal with it. In annihilation it depends on where he is. The best way of killing any unit is to find a way to keep it out of the battle. For instance if you want to kill a squad of marines in a rhino just shoot the rhino and if they have to walk the whole board's distance they're out of the fight. for all intents and purposes, dead. So if the avatar is just lurking in a corner somewhere or if it's on the left flank and you can attack the right, then yeah, ignoring it is the best. It's not always possible though.

Getting the rune priest within 24 of the farseer is a good idea. it's definitely safer to kill it with ranged weapons then in assault, so maybe some wolf guard with combi plasmaguns will do the job. (the only reason to not give a wolf guard a combi weapon, btw, is because he has lightning claws. other than that, always always.)

If you do assault it just be sure you're str 5 at least. less than that and even without fortune the avatar should still win against most opponents.
AF

AbaddonFidelis wrote:Tel

whether you can ignore it or not depends on how your opponent is using it. If it's threatening an objective you pretty much have to deal with it. In annihilation it depends on where he is. The best way of killing any unit is to find a way to keep it out of the battle. For instance if you want to kill a squad of marines in a rhino just shoot the rhino and if they have to walk the whole board's distance they're out of the fight. for all intents and purposes, dead. So if the avatar is just lurking in a corner somewhere or if it's on the left flank and you can attack the right, then yeah, ignoring it is the best. It's not always possible though.

Getting the rune priest within 24 of the farseer is a good idea. it's definitely safer to kill it with ranged weapons then in assault, so maybe some wolf guard with combi plasmaguns will do the job. (the only reason to not give a wolf guard a combi weapon, btw, is because he has lightning claws. other than that, always always.)

If you do assault it just be sure you're str 5 at least. less than that and even without fortune the avatar should still win against most opponents.
AF

Now that you mention it, our last two battles have been objective driven. I managed to bog him down in the last one with ragnar but it wasn't ideal given how much rag costs.

Sadly my WG are just put together from parts of GH sprues, so I don't have any with combis. They have plasma pistols and wolfclaws/power fists/power weapons. I will see about putting some together - I am guessing most people model their own combi weapons?

Would not long fangs with missle launchers be easier?
You could also go with a TL AC dread.

Teh

combi weapons come in the chaos terminator box and in the space marine captain box. they're not exactly common though, no. I cant think of anywhere else you get them. I have a friend who glues assault weapons to bolters to make his combi weapons. painted up nice it looks surprisingly good....

yeah space wolves dont really have a good tar pit option against the avatar... not that I know of anyway. Best shoot it. long fangs are fine, like lab mouse suggested. thunder wolves should be able to handle him too since they're strength 5 and a thunderwolf lord can get pretty vicious too.
AF