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Well, had a game last week that had a deep striking blood angels squad that came down direct on my head, farseer and a wraithguard squad eaten alive. Now I find myself wondering, how does one counter a deep strike. The only solution I could have thought of was having a ring of guardians sitting around my farseer to keep him from being assaulted.

Sounds like you're running Footdar? How bout posting your list so we can see what you're working with?

I'm not much of a specific army lister, I like changing things up, but here's some of what I have to work with.

I've got an avatar, farseers, phoenix lords,

guardians, storm guardians, jetbikes, dire avengers

fire dragons, howling banshees, striking scorpions, wraith guard, harlequins

swooping hawks, warp spiders, vypers,

falcons, wave serpents, fire prisms, war walkers, wraithlords, warp hunter, night spinner

I think that's it, but might have a couple other things here and there.

Playing a mech army, try to get second turn and start with everything in reserve. Get an autarch to help with your reserve rolls. Your mobile firepower can roll onto the board outside of his charge range (after he's already dropped) and outrun him while shooting his army to death piecemeal.

If you get stuck with first turn, playing mech eldar, spread out, hug the table edges and move everything flat-out in your turn 2. If he spreads out to attack many targets, you can concentrate and take out part of his force. If he concentrates, you lose part of your force, but then can outrun him and shoot him to death as above.

I don't really play footdar, so I have no idea how you'd counter a BA dropping force with them. Mech Eldar is a tough enough matchup, so I'm skeptical about whether or not it can be done.

Well Footdar don't really work if you reserve, as they have a massive dependency on synergy (as in all the units being there at once) and no space to add an Autarch to get around it, which means you have to try and bubble wrap with something basically.

The problem is that there is no way you do so efficiently or effectively with a Foot based list, Guardians and Avengers are expensive, Harlies (who are usually great for screening) just die from such close range and nothing else is really expendable. The bigger problem is that you will find it basically impossible to actually screen anything because you won't get the kind of defence in depth you need, largely due to number of bodies. Even someone with Deep Striking melta/plasma/flamers/some other torrent of fire weapon will be able to put shots (with no cover) into Wraithlords or your other heavy hitters which cripples your ability to fight back. You can't really do anything against Vanguard, they will drop in and always get themselves safely into combat (and if you have an Avatar is easy to them to stay there).

In short Deep Strike defence is one of the many glaring weaknesses of Footdar and you just have to screen with Guardians and hope for the best really. Blood Angels are a tough matchup for Eldar in general as well which doesn't help, hordes of Marines with FNP is tough to deal with with a mech list let alone a Foot list which can't run away to keep themselves alive longer.

f you get stuck with first turn, playing mech eldar, spread out, hug the table edges and move everything flat-out in your turn 2. If he spreads out to attack many targets, you can concentrate and take out part of his force. If he concentrates, you lose part of your force, but then can outrun him and shoot him to death as above.

Indeed, but don't offer the Serpents' rear armor to your enemy.

Haven't played against BA since I started playing again, but are they allowed to assault in the turn they deep strike?

Murenius wrote:Haven't played against BA since I started playing again, but are they allowed to assault in the turn they deep strike?

Vanguard Vets can do this thanks to their special rule heroic intervention.
Combined with the DoA special rule, assaulting after arrival is highly probable.

Murenius wrote:Haven't played against BA since I started playing again, but are they allowed to assault in the turn they deep strike?

Even without vanguard vets, a typical way to run the DoA army is with units of jumppack assault marines. They bring meltaguns and inferno pistols down with them and are more accurate at getting within 6" on the drop. Not that it matters against wave serpents for meltaguns to be within 6", but the inferno pistol's range is 6", so a typical BA assault marine unit dropping in that range will get two or three str8, AP1 shots at BS4, which is enough to have a very high chance of at least shaking or damaging, and a reasonable chance of downing a wave serpent.

Then they assault the passengers in the following turn and can move 12" in pursuit of your tanks after that, assaulting with krak grenades and power fists. So you can get cornered if you're not spread out.

Furthermore, at least some of the units will have FNP, so that means the usual tactics like shooting them with masses of str6 shots are only half as effective. You really have to hit them with fusion guns if you want them to stay down.

Thanks for the explanations, in that case I'd agree that going flat out or coming from reserves is a viable tactic.

Just a quick thought, could placing striking scorpions (cause of counter-attack and mandiblasters, along with high ini) in a way that the opponent can't DS to your other units work? That would be kinda tailor-made for this situation, though, and not be a general tactic.

Unfortunately, striking scorpions don't have counter-attack. Because the BAs have Feel No Pain, even large numbers of str4 attacks will be mostly ineffective against them. Regardless of who got the charge, I would expect 10 BA assault marines with FNP could take out 10 scorpions in assault in a couple of rounds with few casualties.

FNP is also why things like bladestorm also will just basically get your DAs killed.

And scorpions compete with fire dragons for the same slot. A fusion gun is much better at killing a Blood Angel than any number of str4 attacks.

How about teaming a squad of warlocks with my farseer that was attacked. Can they stand up to blood angels in hand to hand? It took four turns of assault to actually kill off the farseer and his wraithguard, but it completely removed his psychic powers from the game.

I had this very issue playing Daemons last week with my Mechdar list. I died and died fast.

A seer council can hold up a unit of BAs for a few turns, but they have the same problem with FNP--you cause a lot of wounds, but no power weapons means they get their 3+ armor save followed by the 4+ FNP save, which means about 83% of your wounds do nothing.

A skilled BA player will be able to get his power fist in base with the farseer. Unless your luck is incredibly good, even with fortune the str8 attacks will insta-kill him in about 1-3 assault phases. Then the rest of your council will go down to massed attacks.

The Eldar codex was written before FNP was so widespread (basically only plague marines had it). So they don't have very many tools available to deal with it. Basically you're looking at fusion guns, starcannons, and pulse lasers.

Hmm, what about a Fire Prism?

Flat out, then they deep strike in and are cuddled up. Next round they get a S9 AP 2 no-FNP template. Or can they move in the assault phase even without an enemy to assault (e.g. like Warp Spiders)?

fire dragons, dire avengers, wraith guard. They want to drop in close unleash on them. Use the dire avenger ability to double your shots. Firedragons and wraith guard have low enough AP that no armor saves are allowed.

Crom wrote: Use the dire avenger ability to double your shots.

It doesn't double your shots, it gives you +1 shot.

So a unit of 10 DAs with bladestorm and dual shuricat exarch (let's go for max shots) can expect to get 32 shots, 21 hits, 10.5 wounds. Three or four BAs fail their armor saves, then half of them make their FNP. for a grand total of 1 or 2 dead BAs.

Then the remaining BA assault guys, who are now within assault range (because remember they have jump packs and your range is 18"), charge your 150+ point DA scoring unit and wipe it out in 1 or 2 assault phases.

I had wraith guard around my farseer, he was half under a building with them, but when the BA landed they didn't have any scatter because of a natural special ability and a character who bother removed 1d6 scatter. They then assaulted so my wraithguard and the dark reapers behind them had no chance to shoot them. I would have used my fire prism as well, but again, they were already in close combat with my farseer, never got to use more special abilities then the one fortune he cast on himself and the wraith guard. Didn't do anything for the wraith guard because he had all power weapons which ignored armor. It was very frustrating, but thanks everyone for all the ideas so far. I'm looking forward to trying some of them in my next game.

seapheonix wrote:I had wraith guard around my farseer, he was half under a building with them, but when the BA landed they didn't have any scatter because of a natural special ability and a character who bother removed 1d6 scatter. They then assaulted so my wraithguard and the dark reapers behind them had no chance to shoot them. I would have used my fire prism as well, but again, they were already in close combat with my farseer, never got to use more special abilities then the one fortune he cast on himself and the wraith guard. Didn't do anything for the wraith guard because he had all power weapons which ignored armor. It was very frustrating, but thanks everyone for all the ideas so far. I'm looking forward to trying some of them in my next game.

He can't do that, or at least not all at the same time. The special character is Dante and he really make you not scatter. However, he's an independent character and Vanguard's heroic intervention doesn't work if they're joined by an independent character.

oh, interesting. What about the furioso dreadnaught, does that really get another attack every time you roll a save?

Does a storm raven get a 4+ invul save whenever it moves?

seapheonix wrote:oh, interesting. What about the furioso dreadnaught, does that really get another attack every time you roll a save?

Does a storm raven get a 4+ invul save whenever it moves?

If it has two blood talons it gets another attack every time it inflicts an unsaved wound, not every time you roll a save. Can't imagine where that stormraven thing could be coming from unless you're referring to the cover save from moving flat out.