Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

So I am a Chaos Space Marine player. I am having difficulty taking out a squad of fortuned warlocks with a farseer. Here is why. They are transported in a wave serpent with star engines which flies across the entire map and lands directly amidst my army on the first turn so I cannot avoid them. Next turn they often multi-assault my vehicles which pretty much always includes a defiler. In close combat they have str 9 weapons so they eat pretty much anything with an armor value. I usually get about one turn to shoot at them with everything I can before they are back into combat again. The problem is, I can shoot at them with 20 rapid fire marines with special weapons and they take close to no wounds. The problem is they have a 4+ invulnerable save with a re-roll (fortune). This means they have a 3/4 or 75% chance to save every wound. Then to add the icing to the cake, Elderad has a 3+ invulnerable save with a re-roll which means he has an 8/9 or 89% chance to save ANY wound! To put this into perspective, terminator armor saves 83.3% of all normal wounds and only 33.3% of armor piercing wounds. The 3+ invulnerable save with a re-roll is the single best save I have ever encountered. Everything I have ever thrown at them in close combat has died. I tried Kharn with 8 berzerkers... well they lost so bad it was truly embarrassing. I never hear the end of how my Korne fanatics got curb stomped by Eldarad and his buddies.

Big guns and armor piercing weapons are useless against them because it is an invulnerable save. However Elderad can still suffer instant death, but not likely to any gun because he is always in a squad and never out in the open. In close combat, I can try to focus him down with a power fist but it's still unlikely to break his 89% save with only 2-3 attacks per turn. It seems the only way to take this squad out is mass small arms firepower which of course I don't have enough of in my army. Here's my army list so you can see what I'm working with.

HQ

Abaddon 275

Troops

x10 csm w x2 plasmaguns, w iocg, w rhino: 215
x5 csm w meltagun, w rhino: 120
x5 csm w meltagun, w rhino: 120
x8 lesser demons: 104

Elites

x3 terminators w x3 combi meltas: 105
x3 terminators w x3 combi meltas: 105
x4 terminarors w x3 combi meltas, w reaper autocannon, w chainfist: 175
land raider dedicated transport w extra armor: 235

Heavy Support

x2 defilers: 300
x8 havocs w x4 autocannons, w rhino: 235

Total: 1989

As you can see I'm not running Kharn or berzerkers anymore. I know Abaddon isn't much better but at least he can insta-kill Elderad if I'm lucky. I haven't tried putting Abaddon in combat with the farseer squad yet. I'm a little bit afraid to. It is.. a lot of points that I want to be killing the rest of his army. I want to be able to kill Elderad without chancing my own deathstar.

Anyways sorry for the rant and any advice would be appreciated.

What kind of Initiative do the Eldar dudes have? Woudl it be worth throwing a crud load of 'zerkers (like a full squad) at them? At I5 that woudl be, what 40 attacks at S5? preceding that with 10 S4 pistol shots.

Maybe mutil assault is the way to go. Have the 'zerkers go in first on the charge, then if have a soem more 'zerkers or a CSM CC squad lined ready to charge next turn as well and force more saves.

It strikes me as a similar problem to Assault termies. Dakka, dakka and more dakka.

One of the things i like about CSM is that they come with a "free" extra attck from the get-go due to their wargear includig 2 CCWS. This can make a naked CSM squad a fairly decent CC option, and cheap too.

You've got 8 havocs and 4 autocannons.....why the ablative wounds? Throw those 4 bodies into a CSM squad.



OR, go funny and field a lash Prince and just keep scooting Eldrad the wrong way is he sets up for a charge.

stealth992 wrote:
HQ

Typhus: 225

Troops

x5 plague w x2 meltagun, w rhino: 170
x5 csm w meltagun, w rhino/tl bolter: 125
x5 csm w meltagun, w rhino/tl bolter: 125
x6 plague w x2 meltagun, icon, w rhino: 198

Elites

x3 terminators w x3 combi meltas: 105
x3 terminators w x3 combi meltas: 105
x4 terminarors w x4 combi flamer, w x2 powerfist, iocg: 170
land raider dedicated transport w deamonic possession: 240

Heavy Support

x2 Oblits: 150
x2 Oblits: 150
x7 havocs w x4 autocannons, w rhino/havoc launcher: 235

Total: 1998

So I had a look at your list and changed it up a bit. I dont think abaddon is really worth his points, Typhus on the other hand is capable of doing so much damage to hordes and Geq. I have changed the meltas to flamers on the termie unit in the LR, these should be able to lay the wounds down on the seer council and force enough failed saves, added to Typhus wind of chaos = win .

You have still got enough melta in your troop choices to deal with mech and a couple of more survivable units with the plague marines, added firepower with a Havoc luncher rhino and csm rhinos with bolters also help put down wounds on the enemy units.

I have replaced the Defilers with oblits, imo they are just better and have more tactical options on the field + an easier cover save.

Do not write off Kharn and his boys because they died, you need to soften up the target before sending in the zerkers, pick your fights with them and always charge. I think the only worry this this has is mc and walkers, but then your oblits and havocs should be taking those down early on.

Focus everything you have on the council and then assault with your plague marines, they should tarpit the council long enough for you to destroy the rest of his army, or atleast get Eldrad on his own and instgib him with the termie pf.

Hope that helps and good luck.

Honestly, charge the vsquad with some zerker squads. Volume of wounds means you'll mulch the warlocks most likely, get pfs into base with eldrad and cross your fingers. He doesn't have eternal warrior so dies if he fails even 1 pf wound.

Seer councils die through weight of wounds. Councils don't have power weps either, so dedicated assault units normally mock them (unless yriel is there, but he dies quickly to the hidden fist)

Seer Councils also struggle against plague marines. The I3 doesn't matter because the council will usually be at I5/6 anyway with enhance, and the Plague Marine's FNP is a good counter to the witchblade's always would on a 2+ rule. Also, if the seer council charges you, the Blight Grenades take some of the wind out of their sails.

Eldar are also squishy with T3, so Berzerkers charging them will wound on 2+'s due to Furious Charge, however, their WS5 is countered by the council's Enhance, and they will be swinging simultaneously, so they will most likely self destruct each other.

The plague marines will grind them down throughout the whole game. Either way, it will be a tough fight, but Berzerkers and Plague Marines are much better things to fight the council then your Dreads/Defilers/DP's, Characters or whatever.

There is a way to avoid the whole fight, but it takes some skill and a lot of luck. The wave serpent only has a single access point in the rear, and dropping out 10 guys in a crowded area is not easy. If you can block the rear door and manage to immobilize/wreck the transport, they will all die. If he does not have spirit stones, even a stunned will do.

His energy field and re rollable cover save will likely shrug off most shots, but rear armor/assaults do not benefit from the energy field, and assault(even though you need a 6) ignores his cover.

Even if you manage to explode the transport, if he did not fortune the actual council, he will lose some locks in the explosion, making your workload easier.

For shooting the council, templates and pie plates are your friends. Also lots of high S fire, to force some easy wounds. Hopefully you can pop a couple before the assault.

Now, if it comes to having to fight them in H2H, focus every attack on Eldrad that you can. If he falls, the council is dead to rights. Try to stick a powerfist to him as well, as he can be instagibbed. Plague marines can tie them up for a turn or 2, but you are looking at passing a hell of a lot of saves.

A very very very bad idea is attempting to use psychic powers. Runes of warding means you fail half of the time, and often peril when you fail. Lash of submission or wind of chaos will just end up with your DP having an aneurysm and your opponent giving you the slow clap.

Either way, eldrad is a tough cookie for chaos to crack. At least he is not fielding the super super seer council of doom, and adding prince yriel into the mix...

Well, I battled a Seer Council led by Eldrad and backed up by an Avatar in the ToS with my CSM army, based on Nurgle Marines. In fact, my Marines fought a tough fight against this enhanced unit and won it thanks to FNP.

Death to the false Emperor!

stealth992 wrote:It seems the only way to take this squad out is mass small arms firepower which of course I don't have enough of in my army.

Well, here you are. You know what the solution to your problem is, as you just told us what the solution is. The best way to handle seer council is with volume of attacks. Your list doesn't have high enough volume of attacks.

I guarantee that if you spent more like 60% of your points on troops and less like 15%, you'd be much, much better off here.

Actually, if you gave your Terminators "Icon of Slaanesh", they would swing at the same time as the council, and their 2+ regular saves would negate alot of the Witchblade wounds. They have a decent chance of coming out on the good end of that combat.

Dr. Serling wrote:There is a way to avoid the whole fight, but it takes some skill and a lot of luck. The wave serpent only has a single access point in the rear, and dropping out 10 guys in a crowded area is not easy. If you can block the rear door and manage to immobilize/wreck the transport, they will all die. If he does not have spirit stones, even a stunned will do.

Unfortunately that's not quite right. They can emergeny disembark from any edge of the tank. And although emergency disembark says they can't do anything the rest of the turn, it doesn't specify player/game turn which means it defaults to player and they are free to do anything they want come the eldar turn.

They only way to kill the whole unit is to completely surround the entire tank so they can't even emergency disembark without being within 1" on an enemy.

Besides the fact that they wouldn't have to get out of an immobilized vehicle... or Stunned, unless they want to.

If you immobilze a tank that went flat out (which we're assuming it did) it bumps to a wreck, so they would have to get out. But they'll just get out off the fins.

I do have a typhus. I think I will try him. And perhaps some day.. plague marines. My army is mostly Khorne themed but I am getting tired of Khorne. Nurgle might be a nice change. I might try cutting Abaddon and lesser demons (because they are Khorne demons) and add Typhus and a squad of plague marines. That should also help me have a stronger troop base. But I haven't been having trouble keeping my troops alive anyways. But I do like the idea of plague marines just wearing the squad down for a few turns while I kill the rest of his army. That sounds like a good idea. Anyways thanks for the advice everyone.

Obliterators are good at range to take on Serpents and also close with their tl weapons. Use them to your advantage.

as was already said they generally will die to any form of mass wounds plus if they are already in your face, again as was already said, surround the tank they are in and try to get a few high str weapons like meltas in its rear arc and do your best to at least immobilize it. but depending on how many are in the unit if it blows up they might still be there, if thats the case assault eldrad/farseer and allocate all available attacks to them to remove the eldars ability to cast fortune. if you fail to immobilize/wreck it and the tank is still there then try to assault it to wreck it...thats assuming you use your termies to deal with it

It's pretty tough to wreck that ship when it used star engines giving it a 3+ cover save. :|

close...its a 4+ cover. but still its an option, plus still surrounding it allows you a second chance to destroy its contents when you charge if you have anything that can do decent dmg to it like the termies

I've got to chime back in to second termies here. Wychblades are great against vehicles, but they're pretty ho-hum against infantry, what with not being power weapons. Meanwhile your termies come with power weapons which means that you can get some amount of quantity of attacks that is going onto rerollable 4+'s, rather than rerollable 3+'s. Plus, they can take combi-plasmas that they can deepstrike right next to them (or throw them in the way, or couterattack), once again putting a lot of saves on rerollable 4's, with little risk in return to you. likewise, without being encumbered by the possibility of storm shields you can also take lightning claws.

If you really want to go all out, you can also add a mark of khorne, and if you REALLY want to go all out, you can make them champs. Yeah, it's WAY expensive, but your opponent's council will be RUDELY surprised when that squad of termies shows up and throws down 60 lightning claw attacks on the charge. A rerollable 4+ save is good, but it's still going to be an utter massacre.

Its actually incredibly simple to deal with this tactic with any kind of mech or semi mech/mobile list. A Serpent only has a rear hatch and a 12-18" threat range from that (remember Eldrad doesn't have fleet). This means that in order to be in assault range of you he is going to be right in your face, a 12" move with a Rhino or similar (+ disembark and run if needed) is going to get you behind the Serpent and prevent him from getting out and assaulting at all. With a highly mobile army you can basically just ignore the unit, just park something behind the hatch every turn and don't even bother shooting the vehicle the entire game (admittedly I play Eldar as well, but I've done this a couple of times to other Eldar and IG players). Even if you aren't going to be able to keep doing it for the entire game its often worth it at least the first time since after that he is less likely to be going flat out.
On the same note being so close makes the Serpent very vulnerable to being surrounded and the unit getting wiped when the transport goes down.

Once the unit is out if the transport its basically just a case of burying them with attacks/wounds. 4++ Rerollable is slightly better than a Marines 3+, but its balanced out by the T3 so Bolter shells hurt them pretty good. Tbh if you a struggling to kill 10 Marines then you are going to struggle with plenty of armies. With only an infantry sized threat range you should be able to stop them multi assaulting, push one unit at them to speed bump and pull the rest back. In assault Terminators and Plague Marines will cause them problems, since you can out grind him. In assault also remember to allocate as many ID attacks as possible into the Seer. If you can remove Fortune then the unit folds.

Just be glad that he isn't running the Council on Jetbikes, cause that is significantly harder to deal with.

Hmm, you said they only get a 4+ cover save? I wish I knew the rules well enough of skimmers to be able to call people on what they're doing. The person I was playing against apparently 'knows the rules' and claims to have a 3+ cover save on his wave serpent.

As Ailaros has already pointed out; you need less powerhouses and more units.

The Seer Council is easily equal and costly point-wise as "Abby" and hyper vulnerble
to massed fire! The Serpent is a pain to shoot down, but if he's spending that many
points on a single unit, kill the rest of his army while tarpitting them!

Baring the typical Banshee/Fire Dragon rush you should easily crump most of what
he has. Eldar rely heavily on Alpha strikes. Deny him a viable target and outlast him.
Sit in cover! The Seer Council has no grenade option without an Autarch or Special
Character and as nasty as Fortune is, witchblades are only par MEQ. Hells, multi-
charge him! Nothing else dilutes a unit's ablity to survive like having to fend off several
units at once! Never half- an assault with Eldar involved; they thrive on that stuff!

Also, Mr Parking lot (sarcasm), try spacing out your armor to avoid that Death charge!
Your lesser daemons (Blood letters, right?) with thier armor and invulnerble save should
easily counter a Council threat and be able to bubble wrap a flank of your 'Raider. If there's
one thing Eldar hate it's the odds of success. You could also try baiting him into targeting
The raider or rhinos and just H'n'A that unit with everything you got. Show him how much
you love them!

One more thing-you're over-estimating that unit, period. They die, lords they do!, like no-ones
business just like the rest of the Eldar army! Just don't feed the bear, kill it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
According to the BBB, it's a 4+ cover save for flat out, as there is nothing in the 'Dex that improves that,

The only exception that might exist is something from White Dwarf, but I doubt that. When in doubt,
demand proof! Or lacking that, make sure you can benefit from it as well! (I.E. your tanks moving
flat-out also benefit from a 3+, lol)

I have a similar problem, only with Codex marines. I played a thousand point game against a guy at my local GW, and he ran wha he said was a 550pt seer council with eldrad and fourtuned himself every turn. I did what most of the people said to do and had 30 marines, a dakka pred, and a typhoon speeder unload onto the jerks, and Nothing scoured a wound or a kill. he then Curb stomp cato and didn't take a single wound. How fo my fail marines fight against that?

Footslogging seer councils are as statistically durable vs str 4 attacks as a tactical squad, that is assuming fortune goes off Since you are playing CSM the chances of fortune not being cast is very low).

The key to dealing with seer councils (especially on foot) is to have them roll dice. 2 Full squads rapid firing a seer council will kill ~4.5 warlocks. That should make them much more managable in CC aswell.

Tiger9gamer wrote:I have a similar problem, only with Codex marines. I played a thousand point game against a guy at my local GW, and he ran wha he said was a 550pt seer council with eldrad and fourtuned himself every turn. I did what most of the people said to do and had 30 marines, a dakka pred, and a typhoon speeder unload onto the jerks, and Nothing scoured a wound or a kill. he then Curb stomp cato and didn't take a single wound. How fo my fail marines fight against that?

Codex marines have the best answer to Seer Councils. Librarian with Null Zone and terminators will take care of them pretty easily.

whitedragon wrote:

Tiger9gamer wrote:I have a similar problem, only with Codex marines. I played a thousand point game against a guy at my local GW, and he ran wha he said was a 550pt seer council with eldrad and fourtuned himself every turn. I did what most of the people said to do and had 30 marines, a dakka pred, and a typhoon speeder unload onto the jerks, and Nothing scoured a wound or a kill. he then Curb stomp cato and didn't take a single wound. How fo my fail marines fight against that?

Codex marines have the best answer to Seer Councils. Librarian with Null Zone and terminators will take care of them pretty easily.

Blast it I knew I should have taken the librarian!! But Eldrad makes my guys roll 3d6 for psychic tests

I believe you may be talking about Eldritch Storm which causes pinning checks, or maybe Mind War...but you have to roll 2D6 for any leadership check so I'm not sure what you're worried about, unless you are saying that you enjoy the Rites of Battle special rule from Sicarius giving you battlefield LD10.

If you want to stick with that, 2+ saves are tough for witchblades to get through, so a unit of terminators (any really) will be a tough nut for the seer council to crack. However, if the council also includes Yriel, you may want to take TH/SS terminators.

The Librarian is a big counter to the council because the Psychic Hood will prevent "Fortune" from going off, which greatly reduces the council's resiliency. You can also cast Nullzone which "cancels" out Fortune, however, Eldrad will make you take psychic tests at 3D6, so you may not want to bother casting it or risk a Perils of the Warp check.

whitedragon wrote:
The Librarian is a big counter to the council because the Psychic Hood will prevent "Fortune" from going off, which greatly reduces the council's resiliency. You can also cast Nullzone which "cancels" out Fortune, however, Eldrad will make you take psychic tests at 3D6, so you may not want to bother casting it or risk a Perils of the Warp check.

3d6, thats what i ment blarg. sorry about that.

Bear in mind that the average on 3D6 is only 10.5, so there's still a decent chance of getting powers off, but most people tend to hear '3D6' and not bother, which is how RoW has gained its status as such a powerful piece of wargear; not the fact that people fail a lot, but purely the fact that it sounds like they will.

Its mostly the fact that everything above 11 is a Perils (37% chance btw), and most of the Imperial Psykers have no invulnerable save and often only 2 wounds. Casting 1 power a turn for 6 turns on average you comfortably kill yourself if you are a Rune Priest or Librarian.

What's your psyker going to be doing if he isn't casting, save being an expensive point sink? You might as well try and make him worth the points you spent on him, since he's going to be doing feth all else if you're too afraid to cast.