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I have been a staunch ork player all the way through this Dark Eldar craze and I believe that I have found the best unit in the ork dex to deal with threm:

The lowly Grot!

For example, your DE opponent flies over with some wyches and goes for oyur boyz, your grots are bubblewrapping them and take the assault. The wyches are using poison so are wounding on 4+... on your T2 models. They are using power weapons that ignore armour... on your models with no save. Their weapons are useless! Then you hit back and take advanage of their low toughness and bang, grots earn their points back!

Even the grot blasta can kill dark eldar with it's equal strength and their bad armour saves. I know that gots aren't the answer to everything in the DE dex but they have always been exceptionl in every game I play against them.

What I guess I want to know is: Have you found any units that perform really well against Deldar?

I am sure that poisoned weapons re-roll to wound if the toughness of the model they are facing is equal to, or less than, their own strength. Can I ask whether it was the grots that did the actual killing or the ork boyz counter charge?

Emperors Faithful wrote:I am sure that poisoned weapons re-roll to wound if the toughness of the model they are facing is equal to, or less than, their own strength. Can I ask whether it was the grots that did the actual killing or the ork boyz counter charge?

The grots die like grots. Whatever kills them is now in the open ready to be shot at and charged.

As a DE player, I can say that grots can be effective, but I don't think they are the best thing ever.

While all of the splinter weapons are actually hindered, Wyches, Hellions, Incubi, Warriors, and Trueborn all really don't care; in fact, you help them. None of their close combat weapons are poisoned, but if they get a charge off, they'll kill at least a dozen grots. Eventually, they'll either wipe the squad, or they'll sweeping advance them. Then, the squad gets a pain token, making them even more powerful.

I agree it can be good; I've had a unit or two tarpitted. It really depends on the intelligence and tactics of the DE player. If they use the De's strength of movement, things like Hellions Hit and Run, and don't waste the wrong firepower on the grots, it's relatively simple to use them as pain fodder. If they don't know what to do though, they can win you games.

I have to agree with vishra - I'd see the grots as an easy to kill unit that'll give whatever unit that's fighting it a pain token. Besides, what happens if the DE player gets two squads next to the bubbled orks? The first squad pulls grots away, while the second (say, 9 wracks with a CC Haemonculi) goes for the orks.

As for units to counter Dark Eldar? Here are some of my thoughts:

Guard: Lots of Chimeras with Scatter lasers
Codex Marines: Dakka Preds, Heavy Bolter Devastators, Sternguard
Orks: Boyz and Lootaz
Tyranids: Swarms of Termagants (avoid Monstrous Creatures - that 4+ poison will chew them apart)

Can't think of anything else at the moment. But if you're playing imperium, FLAMERS. Flamers, heavy flamers, flamers on flamers. Anything that'll autohit and cause enough wounds to get through the pain tokens that will eventually accumulate.

For guard: AUOTCANNONS! Whereever you can get them, especially in CCS or vet squads. Chimera are also good. The hellhound can ruin a whych cult player's day for sure.

What I want to know is who can actually stand up to a wyche assault and throw it back in their face.

I played my first game against the new DE a while ago. The biggest thing you need to do is take out the raiders and transports honestly.

If you remove their movement advantage the DE will fold in assault to ork Boys. for 6pts. you get more attacks and a higher toughness. All you need to win is to ensure that you have the charge.

Also, the DE have little to answer Walkers in close combat. They are left to rely on haywire grenades that only hit on 6's and are kinda expensive. You Kans can tie up the squads that have a few pain tokens accumulated, and then go to town on the rest of the army. Also, S6 grotzokas ignore FNP and can still hurt raiders, S8 rokkits really ruin raiders.

The DE rely on striking First, Fast, and Hard. Take out any one of those elements and you are set.

Deldar with their 4+ splinter weaponry really does take away the main advantage of MC's-High Toughness. I will always be a Nidzilla player at heart, or now "Monster Farm" as i call it since the builds rely heavily on growing termagants with tervigons. If i ever tailor a list to play against Dark Eldar it most certainly includes a couple of 12-15 model broods of hormagaunts, termagants, etc. Also Hive Guard, if for nothing else than to shoot down raiders and ravagers.

Wyches do not have poison attacks.

Also, the chances of a DE player stranding a squad of wyches in the open needs to get their head examined, especially around a squad of grots that should have been combo charged to begin with.

Just shoot the damn wyches with their blastas and be done with it. Otherwise, lootas, lootas and more lootas is the answer.

EmilCrane wrote:For guard: AUOTCANNONS! Whereever you can get them, especially in CCS or vet squads. Chimera are also good. The hellhound can ruin a whych cult player's day for sure.

What I want to know is who can actually stand up to a wyche assault and throw it back in their face.

You forgot the best IG answer of all....Hydras!

Dark eldar really aren't that tough... take Kanz, Lootas, lots of boyz, and some nobs. Deal with them like any other army! They have lots of (very) fragile transports, with equally fragile units. If 10 wyches charge a boyz unit, you'll probably win through attrition... just like most fights. They rely heavily on short ranged blasters/heat lances and dark lances for their anti-mech.

Honestly, any codex aside from older stuff like dark angels has a good chance against them.

I was actually thinking that the Tau could be really good against DE. S5 rifles means that you're wounding T3 on a 2+ and have a chance to pen AV 10 (albeit a slight one) and denying any 5+ Saves. S7 AP4 Assault 2 missile pods at 36" range are highly effective at wiping out light armor and ID T3, taking away FNP. Railguns have a S6 AP 4 Large Blast when hammerhead mounted. Tau loses in assault... but they always lose in assault. So long as the Tau player knows his target priority, I can see a game rapidly going in Tau's favor.

Real shooty armies (Tau, IG, SM, SW, maybe BA) can actually do quite well against DE. If you can present overwhelming firepower his AV10 transports will crumble.

Also, combat walkers, particularly AV12 ones do wonders, DE have a hell of a time killing them.

DE are a glass hammer and always will be. Prev advice reinforces this. A skilled DE player will avoid and run rings around most foes. Someone who just rushes his army forward, on the other hand will crumble quickly. The best tatic to use against DE is meet or negate thier speed: either by being faster, or keeping your force together as a gigantic blob. That way they can't isolate and eliminate sections if your force without exposing themselves to return fire.

If you really want to make DE cry as Orks, then Kanwall (11 Kans + 2 Dreads+ 2 KFFs), backed up by Lootas will do the job.

The DE have few answers to walkers with cover saves and massed S6 (Grotzookas) and S7 (lootas) firepower....especially when there are boys standing right behind the Kans.

The KFFs will negate much of the Lance firepower of the DE, and the AV11/12 of the walkers will be a tough nut to crack in CC. The S6 and S7 firepower can knock raiders/ravagers out of the sky with ease..especially with number of shots that Grotzzoka kans, and Lootas get each turn.

How about Wave Serpent with Scatter Laser spam?

I can get 6 with 5 DA in them or if in a tourney add two more with Fire dragons bringing the total up to 7.

Also, a squadron of war walkers with SL and lastly a couple of night spinners.

S6 = no FNP for T3.
Small 5 man DA squads mean if they blow up a WS and assault them, they are only killing 5 DA and are now open to S6 destruction. Night Spinners are... S6, can rend and slow them down plus can make them pay for moving at all with Dangerous Terrain checks, which, ignore FNP.

Most everything is at AV 12 so their Dark Lance's Lance is moot.

I ran this last night but didn't face any DE. Still did pretty with in the tourney vs all Marines.

Why have Lootas not been mentioned.

D3 Str7 hits multiplied by 10-15 will drop those skimmers quickly and the passengers arn't far behind.