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What are Wraiths exactly? Why do they make Necron players drool with excitement and make opponents quake in their boots? Have no fear, this brief tactica will help to provide you with all the tools necessary to take on the fiendish Overlords even when they are employing their most notorious shock troops!

"To defeat the enemy you must know the enemy". Don't know where the quote comes from but it seems appropriate so with that in mind lets take a look at some of their stats and skills:

Wraiths are highly mobile. Jump infantry that are never slowed by terrain or ever take any tests. Impressive. A nice 36" threat bubble right there. Follow that up with a high number of quality attacks (WS4, S6, A3, rending) and you can see why their damage output is impressive. Move onto their resilience and the picture doesn't become any prettier (3++, W2 and wound allocation).

So what is needed exactly to deal with them? I have heard it advocated that weight of fire brings them down. I personally am not sold. Statistically speaking it requires 9 bolter wounds at BS4 to deal a single wound to a Wraith. A unit of 6 therefore needs 108 bolter shots to be killed off. How many armies are capable of bringing that amount of guns to the table? Venom Spam DE are viable and so are IG to a degree. However IG does tend to gravitate away from massed lasguns in favour of the nice toys they can get. Generally speaking the tools are there but most armies don't take them.

When you look at the other end of the spectrum it appears that heavy weapons (S8+) are a better option. Causing Instant Death is nice but the real benefit in this scenario is the fact you are potentially taking away wound groups for allocation purposes. Once you get them down from 3/4 wound groups down to just 1 or 2 your lasguns/boltguns/splinter weaponry becomes a lot more effective, as well as needing a lot less shots in total to down the unit. Of course you still need to get past that 3+ invulnerable, but there really is no other way to do it. By utilizing just one or the other (heavy weapons or just boltgun equivalents) you are making your job harder. Most armies simply won't have enough small arms fire and it's inefficient to throw 5 Missile Launchers at a single Wraith. Combine them (heavy weapons first) to make those Wraiths drop fast.

Now we have looked at the appropriate weaponry to deal with them what else can we do to ensure those Wraiths do as little as possible? A lot of bad rolls for night fight? He made saves like a champ last turn? Well here we look at ways of ensuring you get a 2nd chance.

Blocking them off sounds like a tough proposition due to their high movement rate and the fact they are Jump Infantry. But it can be done, and done effectively. You just have to try and get into your opponents mindset and force them to make tough choices. What is it the Wraiths are making a beeline to? How can you force them to detour and thus have a longer route? Is there anything sacrificial you can use to stop them in their tracks? When trying to block you have 2 choices – vehicles or infantry. Generally speaking vehicles are better. They can move 12" allowing them to block effectively, have a bigger footprint so Wraiths can't just jump over them and most armies have access to cheap transports. The key is to put them approximately 9" in front of the Wraiths. A 12" move is therefore impossible to make since they can't come within 1" of the vehicle. If they assault it they are hitting on 6's and are then likely bunched up for massed templates or blast markers. Do not combine a vehicle and infantry as your screen (unless you are certain the infantry you field will decimate the Wraiths). In that case a good Necron player will simply shove 1 or 2 Wraiths into the infantry and the rest into the vehicle. Chances are your screen remains locked that turn and then all the Wraiths pile in to the infantry and eliminate them at the end of your turn. Using infantry on their own can work but they do have footprint issues and of course the Wraiths could just charge in and get locked in combat disallowing any shooting. A small sacrificial squad may be worth it but again the footprint issue comes into play. Wraiths can easily avoid a 5 man PCS, Grey Hunter or Wych squad.

Bubble wrapping is also a valid option. A lot of armies tend to employ this to a degree with Tau and IG coming to mind immediately. Essentially it means putting units around other, more important units to ensure they can't be assaulted, or in some cases, fired at by shorter ranged weaponry. If you are a SW player you really want your Long Fangs functional as long as possible so screening them from Wraith assaults is high on the "to do" list. Other armies have other high priority units that really need protecting (Blasterborn, BA dev Squads, Hive Guard and many others). Using the above blocking combined with either a vehicle or infantry screen you can ensure they get more turns doing what they do best.

Hopefully this tactica has shed a little light on how to deal with the spectral Wraiths. Not too much though. As a Necron player myself there are some secrets that just aren't shared with the lesser races!

Good Gaming all.

A manticore is ideal for IG.

Nilla marines have null zone.

Space wolves can attempt to bait wraiths with a vehicle, get them in a straight line, and jaws them.

I don't think krak missiles are effective for their cost. Yes they ID the wraiths, but it's an expensive way to kill them when the krak can hurt so many targets on the board.

If necrons are running a no vehicle list the wraiths will become the top priority for psyfleman. GK also have a lot of short range dakka, and whip coils are not that bad if PAGK end up assaulting a wraith unit. The psycannosn can base to base the whip coils.

Wraiths dont come back, so hitting them with mass fire IS the answer.
9 bolter shots to do 1 wound sure. But that is in cover out of cover where ever.
It takes 5.4 krak missile shots to do 2 wounds and usually krak missiles are more expensive than bolters.

Where bolters fail use mass melee attacks. They usually dont all have whip coils for wound allocation.

As a Necron player, I have seen firsthand how wraiths die/become inoperable.

Massed basic fire works well, because they are only T4. IG with first-rank-fire orders produce scary amounts of saves to roll.

Insta-death is iffy from shooting units, because the price per shot is too high. Hammernators are much better due to higher number of attacks per point cost.

One important way to take wraiths out is to use their fearless status against them. Worst mistake ever is to let BA, hammernators, or something similar to multi-assault wraiths and scarabs. Scarabs get destroyed, lose the combat by a ton of wounds, and then wraiths get to roll saves without a single wound made originally against them. That is why I am not a fan of scarab/wraith mixes.

The countermeasure against the above is just to go nuts and bring 18 wraiths and things that support them well, e.g. Imotekh, destroyer lord, and maybe WW Ctan. Then move them in one big cricket swarm of destruction splashing and passing over the enemy from one flank to the other. Multiassault infantry and tanks to keep them always in assault on the opponent's turn. It is very important to keep them all together for maximal concentration of killing and preventing any lost combats and fearless wounds. if you split them, they can get isolated and overwhelmed by numbers.

Never ever reserve them and DS them. Completely superfluous and dangerous as well. Do the WraithWave instead. It is fun and scares the crap out of most opponents.

How do you get a 36" threat range?

12" move + 6" assault or 12" ranged weapon range is at most a 24" threat radius. They aren't fleet so they aren't an immediate threat if they run.

36" bubble. And JI aren't affected by JotWW.

However the suggestion of multicharging scarabs and Wraiths is a good one. I have seen first hand what happens in that situation.


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Another point is that currently S8 is spammed. Bolter equivalents not so much (though the exception is DE with Venoms). Long fangs are being brought to the table regardless so use them to soften up the wraiths, maybe knockout a wound group and then let rip with rapid firing units.

Space wolves versus wraiths is starting to look grim.

18 krak missiles=12 hits=9 wounds=3 dead wraiths=105 points of dead models.

18 krak missiles=12 hits=2 pens and 2 glances versus AV13. The pens alone should wreck or explode 1 vehicle, and weapon destroy/immobilize a 2nd vehicle. The 2 glances will average 1 roll of 4 or great which would weapon destroy, immobilize, or wreck another necron vehicle. Once quantum shielding is down living lighting and/or a krak missile are really dangerous to AV11 open topped.

Seems like the long fangs would be better off splitting their fire between AV13 units in an attempt to knock out quantum shielding and popping open topped necron vehicles.

6 wraiths could probably be rapid fired and swarmed by grey hunters. Not sure what space wolves can do to handle 18 wraiths in a wraith wing...

Working on my wraith tactica now. Hopefully, I can have it out by tomorrow.

@schadenfreude:

Check out a couple of my wraithwing battle reports versus shooty space wolves to see how they stack up to S8-spam:

vs Space Wolves Missile-spam: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/424563.page

vs MSU Space Wolves: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/447002.page

Any tips on taking them on using Mechdar? Short of throwing Fragons at them in the hope of scoring some instagibs, whatever I try just bounces off; Scatter Lasers prove inneffectual against the 3++, despite the S6; Prisms aren't usually able to hit more than 1 with the small template, and the large blasts can only deal a single wound at a time if not saved; I can't bladestorm since I don't have the numbers nor upgrades required; my Hornets are busy trying to take out the Annihilation Barges; my Warp Hunter is unreliable against them...

It seems that, with their number of attacks and S6, if they catch a skimmer then it dies, and I can't produce to firepower needed to bring them down, nor can I keep evading them for the entire game. I can't tank shock them away either since they're fearless.

Is the answer just trying to focus-fire them down to the best of my ability? Because it's depressing when the only wounds I seem to be able to cause are from my skimmers exploding and catching them with the debris.

Lukus83 wrote:

"To defeat the enemy you must know the enemy". Don't know where the quote comes from but it seems appropriate so with that in mind lets take a look at some of their stats and skills:

Sun Tzu, from the art of war.

The entire quote, iirc goes something like this

"Know thy enemy and know thyself, and you shall win every battle. Know not thy enemy and know thyself (and vice versa) and you shall win one and lose one. Know not thy enemy nor thyself, and you shall lose every battle."

Lash of submission + battlecannon is a good wraith solution.

Kevlar wrote:Lash of submission + battlecannon is a good wraith solution.

with the 3++ you are only going to kill 1-2, your lash+cannon is better used on things that dont get saves.


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Necrontyr40k wrote:As a Necron player, I have seen firsthand how wraiths die/become inoperable.
One important way to take wraiths out is to use their fearless status against them. Worst mistake ever is to let BA, hammernators, or something similar to multi-assault wraiths and scarabs. Scarabs get destroyed, lose the combat by a ton of wounds, and then wraiths get to roll saves without a single wound made originally against them. That is why I am not a fan of scarab/wraith mixes.

O god I had some nice images of Str6 enemies multi charging scarbs and wraiths. O it was good.

I just faced them for the first time in mass this weekend. It was not pretty. I was running a bikes and speeders list that simply could not kill them fast enough. A few things I learned against them:

1. I did not have enough speeders. 1750 points, I ran 4. I would have preferred 6, but did not have the models. That has been rectified.

2. I did not have enough powerfists in my units. Only one squad of bikes had a powerfist, the remaining sergeants had powerswords.

3. I tried splitting my forces and evenly distributing the shooting between two units of 6 wraiths. HUGE MISTAKE. Focus fire until one is dead.

4. One slightly cheesy trick I quickly learned was to have the lead bike turn 90 degrees when charging in. (I got pinned into the back corner, so it was either charge or get charged). By turning them 90 degrees and proper placement of speeders, I cut the number of bikes that would get into b2b contact with those dreaded whip coils. I doubt it made too much of a difference, but every attack at initiative helps.

Avatar 720 wrote:Any tips on taking them on using Mechdar? Short of throwing Fragons at them in the hope of scoring some instagibs, whatever I try just bounces off; Scatter Lasers prove inneffectual against the 3++, despite the S6; Prisms aren't usually able to hit more than 1 with the small template, and the large blasts can only deal a single wound at a time if not saved; I can't bladestorm since I don't have the numbers nor upgrades required; my Hornets are busy trying to take out the Annihilation Barges; my Warp Hunter is unreliable against them...

It seems that, with their number of attacks and S6, if they catch a skimmer then it dies, and I can't produce to firepower needed to bring them down, nor can I keep evading them for the entire game. I can't tank shock them away either since they're fearless.

Is the answer just trying to focus-fire them down to the best of my ability? Because it's depressing when the only wounds I seem to be able to cause are from my skimmers exploding and catching them with the debris.

striking scorpians and storm guardians.....

you could just royally piss them off by chasing them around with some swooping hawks.

Yeah I got nothing.

Exergy wrote:
with the 3++ you are only going to kill 1-2, your lash+cannon is better used on things that dont get saves.

So shoot a squad of 10 warriors in cover while the wraiths rape you in assault? Killing 1-2 wraiths while pushing them back out of assault range isn't bad, if you want your obliterators to keep shooting. Knock them down to 2-3 wraiths and you won't have to worry about them assaulting anything. To kill six wraiths you need to do about 18 ID wounds. The battle cannon can put 6 ID wounds on them in one shot. Nothing else is that efficient. Shooting 9 obliterator lascannons at them is only going to do about 3 ID wounds. And that is directing 700 points worth of firepower at them instead of just 150.

Avatar 720 wrote:Any tips on taking them on using Mechdar?

That is one of the worst matchups out there.

I had two recent games at 1500 and 1850 pts with a buddy of mine at the FLGS, where he brought mechdar. The first time, he brought mostly fire dragons and a squad of war walkers. Between Imotekh and 12 wraiths, he was down to one weaponless tank and his HQ in another damaged tank at the end of the game. Granted I made more saves than average, but not by much. Multiassaulting vehicles and fire dragons did him in. My scarab minifarm did not even get to do that much until the last turn. He pulled a minor loss by tank-shocking my immortals off objectives.

In the second game, we specifically stipulated that he should build an anti-wraith list. He brought 2x striking scorpions, some fire dragons and dire avengers, a wraithlord with 2x flamers and swords, 3x walkers, and an HQ with 4+ invulnerable and lots of flamers. I brought 18 wraiths, 2x annibarges, and two big squads of immortals with Imotekh, Zahndrekh, and 2x veilteks. I made a critical mistake to reserve the wraiths instead of deploying them (never ever do that!), and of course 2 squads mishapped to be placed by him. He chucked one in a corner and put one in his midst, to pounce on it and kill it alone. I veiled behind his walkers and tanks, gave tankhunters to Imo's blaster immortals and wrecked 2 out of the 3 walkers. He spent a lot of time killing the one squad of surrounded wraiths with the wraithlord and scorpions, charged Imo with another squad of scorpions, kept tying against Imo (large squads of immortals with attached ICs are not complete pushovers for squads without PW). His dragons killed the barges, but he lost lots of tanks and one of the dire avengers to the wraiths. Then the unengaged immortals squad veiled away and gunned down another squad (AP4 is useful!). Finally, Imo's supersquad swept the few scorpions remaining (surprise!). So he lost on kill points and we tied on objectives. Another minor loss for him.

I did these minireports to show that even with decent lists, this matchup is a tough uphill battle for mechdar.

What did work was:
1) wraithlord with flamers and swords. He is strong enough for instakill and has decent number of attacks and high WS.
2) volume of attacks eventually is telling - scorpions did some decent killing on the surrounded wraith squad, albeit they got coiled and I threw all attacks on them to cut them down quick.
3) tank shocking works but has limited utility. Only pushes troops off objectives. Necrons are Ld10. Getting them to walk off will almost never happen, especially as Imotekh has a chronotek for reroll.

What did not work:
1) fire dragons. They give you instakill but you get basically one round of shooting before the wraiths jump on you and rip you apart. The lack of fireports on the closed vehicles really makes firedragons a suicide squad against wraiths, because enough will survive and kill you.
2) war walkers. Did not do anything in both games. Imotekh is their bane with the night-fighting rules and lightning.
3) I'd say dire avengers are a bust as well. They are a cheaper version of the firedragon mode, but get squished after one round of shooting. Also, they get shredded by immortals' blasters.

Note that banshees may be a interesting idea vs wraiths, because they will strike first regardless of coils.

Hope this helps.

I've played a lot against jy2's Wraith Wing and even a game using jy2's Wraith Wing. At the end of each game after jy2 kicks my butt (mostly due to my sheer bad luck and his insane good luck), we discuss what I could have done differently.

Here's a couple ideas I've brain stormed:

1) Volume of Str8 or higher attacks (shooting or assault).

3). Tarpit high volume of fearless/stubborn models.

4). 108 BS4 Bolter shots to kill 6 Wraiths.

5). AV12 Walkers.

6). Force Weapons.

7). T8 and greater.

8. Fortuned Scorpions.

Bane of Wraith is multiple Dreadnoughts (particularly Vulnerable and/or AV13) and Assault Terminators with Storm Shields and Thunder Hammers. Vehicle wall isn't effective. A single >= Str8 blast weapon is both unreliable and may not event target if night fighting is in effect. Multiple >= Str8 large blast weapons backed supported by searchlights might work.

I mean th/ss termis buffed by null zone should eat right through them. All wounds inflicted are ID and rerolling made invulnerable saves effectively means roughly half of all wounds will get through.

Necrontyr40k wrote:Granted I made more saves than average, but not by much.

This is actually the biggest concern I have with Wraiths. Given the relative rarity of S8 weapons, a small amount of variance in those 3++ saves can really swing a game. Look at the battle report against Reecius's Bjorn Wolves. You get one or two chances to shoot them, and if they get an extra 1 or 2 saves, you're boned. At that point it seems like the best bet is to feed the Wraiths something they can kill easily so you get another chance to shoot. That feels like a losing strategy to me.

Amerikon wrote:This is actually the biggest concern I have with Wraiths. Given the relative rarity of S8 weapons, a small amount of variance in those 3++ saves can really swing a game. Look at the battle report against Reecius's Bjorn Wolves. You get one or two chances to shoot them, and if they get an extra 1 or 2 saves, you're boned. At that point it seems like the best bet is to feed the Wraiths something they can kill easily so you get another chance to shoot. That feels like a losing strategy to me.

WH40k is a dice game. So, very unlikely results can come up, especially when invulnerable saves are concerned. That is not really about tactics though, just luck. What we can do is maximize our chances and then leave it to the dice. Obviously, a 3++ is rather vicious, but when people complain about it, I like to remind them that all hammernators have it, and some get FNP as well.

Regarding feeding small units to wraiths, it does not work as far as I can tell, because you need them to survive CC on your turn, so they an tie up the wraiths in my turn but then die, so you can shoot the wraiths on your next turn. This is a rather unlikely balancing act. Small units tend to get eaten by wraiths rather quickly due to S6, rending, and high number of attacks. Things that can survive a round are usually things that will tie the wraiths down for several rounds due to 2+/3++, which is the optimal protection against wraiths. So, don't count on this strategy.

SabrX wrote:I've played a lot against jy2's Wraith Wing and even a game using jy2's Wraith Wing. At the end of each game after jy2 kicks my butt (mostly due to my sheer bad luck and his insane good luck), we discuss what I could have done differently.

Here's a couple ideas I've brain stormed:

1) Volume of Str8 or higher attacks (shooting or assault).

3). Tarpit high volume of fearless/stubborn models.

4). 108 BS4 Bolter shots to kill 6 Wraiths.

5). AV12 Walkers.

6). Force Weapons.

7). T8 and greater.

8. Fortuned Scorpions.

Bane of Wraith is multiple Dreadnoughts (particularly Vulnerable and/or AV13) and Assault Terminators with Storm Shields and Thunder Hammers. Vehicle wall isn't effective. A single >= Str8 blast weapon is both unreliable and may not event target if night fighting is in effect. Multiple >= Str8 large blast weapons backed supported by searchlights might work.

I don't think walkers are good against wraiths. Even AV 13

Wraiths will more than likely get the assault since they are JI and ignore terrain. With STR 6 + rending and 4 attacks each on the charge , you will get some 6's, and every 6 is an 1/3 chance to glance and 2/3 chance to pen (6+6+d3)

Meanwhile IIRC the wraith whipcoils make the dred initiative 1 hitting last.

I've played a wraith list with a 7 squad terminator list all with th/ss and a missile pack per squad. The game was over turn 2. Even th/ss deathwing can't handle the wraiths. My melta vet ig list got raped. My nids have had the best luck throwing fat stealer squads at them. Id say best bet is str 6 spam.

You know, I wonder... I've browsed Stelek's site before, those guys are very "different" but they're also very smart. The consensus there seems to be that CC in general is more or less useless in 5th ed. Approach is simply to put everything in transports and keep it moving. Firepower == win. I'm not sure, but it's making me think.

Randall Turner wrote:You know, I wonder... I've browsed Stelek's site before, those guys are very "different" but they're also very smart. The consensus there seems to be that CC in general is more or less useless in 5th ed. Approach is simply to put everything in transports and keep it moving. Firepower == win. I'm not sure, but it's making me think.

If it were as simple as sticking your troops in transports and relying completely on shooting....Tau would be good.

No gak! But I'm oversimplifying, they aren't dumb.

Kevlar wrote:

Exergy wrote:
with the 3++ you are only going to kill 1-2, your lash+cannon is better used on things that dont get saves.

So shoot a squad of 10 warriors in cover while the wraiths rape you in assault? Killing 1-2 wraiths while pushing them back out of assault range isn't bad, if you want your obliterators to keep shooting. Knock them down to 2-3 wraiths and you won't have to worry about them assaulting anything. To kill six wraiths you need to do about 18 ID wounds. The battle cannon can put 6 ID wounds on them in one shot. Nothing else is that efficient. Shooting 9 obliterator lascannons at them is only going to do about 3 ID wounds. And that is directing 700 points worth of firepower at them instead of just 150.

if you have lash, then lash the squad out of cover and kill the whole squad of 10 warriors. Yes some will get back up but I think 8 dead warrors(and likely 2 more from the reaper autocannon) is better than 1-2 dead wraiths for your lash+battlecannon.

Exergy wrote:

Kevlar wrote:

Exergy wrote:
with the 3++ you are only going to kill 1-2, your lash+cannon is better used on things that dont get saves.

So shoot a squad of 10 warriors in cover while the wraiths rape you in assault? Killing 1-2 wraiths while pushing them back out of assault range isn't bad, if you want your obliterators to keep shooting. Knock them down to 2-3 wraiths and you won't have to worry about them assaulting anything. To kill six wraiths you need to do about 18 ID wounds. The battle cannon can put 6 ID wounds on them in one shot. Nothing else is that efficient. Shooting 9 obliterator lascannons at them is only going to do about 3 ID wounds. And that is directing 700 points worth of firepower at them instead of just 150.

if you have lash, then lash the squad out of cover and kill the whole squad of 10 warriors. Yes some will get back up but I think 8 dead warrors(and likely 2 more from the reaper autocannon) is better than 1-2 dead wraiths for your lash+battlecannon.

Warriors have reanimation protocols. Even out of cover you aren't going to kill them with a battle cannon. Warriors fall like dominos to berzerkers in assault. Plus they are no threat to my obliterators, unlike the wraiths. You need to put wounds on the wraiths, and the best first shot is the battle cannon. As they drop in numbers you then hit them with lascannons or missile launchers, and then finish them off with bolter fire or assault, by then there should only be a couple left.

SabrX wrote:8. Fortuned Scorpions.

yup, as I said, but who takes scorpians

I fail... ignore me.

Knocking out Wraiths with Mech Eldar seems like a tough proposition. As there is a significant lack in our local meta (though their Dark cousins are quite prolific) I'm going to go off my gut and suggest 3 units working in tandem to get the results you need:

1. Farseer (Eldrad maybe?). Doom and Guide are your friends.

2. Fire Dragons. Knock out 2 or 3 models to get the wound allocation groups down to a more managable number for small arms fire.

3. Bladestorming Dire Avengers.

Though War Walkers do put out a ton of S6 shots there is a good chance they are too far away to see their target with night fight in play. And if Imotekh is in play an unlucky hit can hurt the squadron badly.

Admittedly I don't know much about Eldar. There has to be something in the codex that works well against the Wraiths...