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I play c:sm and I have been having close games against dark eldar. I play in cover to avoid most of shooting but who has had luck against them? Any tips? I heard auto cannon dreadnoughts are amazing against them.

Usually play against a super shooting team with a few flyers. Some witches and reavers.

Autocannon dreads are amazing.

As are assault cannons, and even heavy bolters. Heck, even boltguns are good enough to handle venoms.

Once their fancy rides are gone, most DE units are worthless. Take weapons that are good against AV10 units, and you should be good to go. SM have plenty of options to handle this.

Cause I was thinking. I have 4 dreads. Use them. 2 with auto cannons on them. I also have 3 storm talons, but as for my other options would be 2 devastators squads and a thunderfire cannon. We play 2,000-3,000 point games with 2FOC. I would use a master of the forge

Dark Eldar hate anything that ignore Cover. They also, surprisingly, hate Mech Eldar, in my experience.

I've been asking myself this same question for a while, with an all-comers Imperial Fists Marines list. I don't take lots of units, lots of individual units - 1 Stormtalon, 1 Landraider, 1 Whirlwind, 1 Vindicator, 2 Dreadnoughts (1 with Lascannon, 1 with Assault Cannon)... and it's hard to knock most of the DE skimmers out as I tend to just roll glances, so it takes a long while.

For Marines, whirlwinds are pretty good here (for the cover issue). I second the autocannons, I think 4 S7 shots is ideal for downing a Raider/Ravager. 3 Stormtalons with Skyhammer Missiles, 3 Dreadnoughts with 2 TL AutoCannons is a great start. POMS Landraiders are good for 2 targeted accurate lascannon fire, but are a little too juicy of a target for their Dark Lances.

I would aim to take turn 1 and destroy some transports before they pick up the jink saves.
Most of the dark eldar strength comes from pure speed, negating that really hurts them.

It won't win you the game outright, but it will put them on the back foot and you shouldn't have too much trouble throwing bolter rounds at them.

i plan to use scouts with snipers infiltrate and with 10 shots should able to be get some rending ones in there.

I do run stormtalons and outfitted skyhammers would be more reliable to TL lascannons

for ignore cover i have my thunder cannon

DonerStoom wrote:
I would aim to take turn 1 and destroy some transports before they pick up the jink saves.
Most of the dark eldar strength comes from pure speed, negating that really hurts them.

It won't win you the game outright, but it will put them on the back foot and you shouldn't have too much trouble throwing bolter rounds at them.

Cato Sicarius may help, can't he reroll the Seize the Initiative! Roll? I mean, it's good for any army, but as Dark Eldar don't care on Nightfighting, you really don't want them getting the jump on you ...

CSM Noise Marines = Dead Dark Eldar!

cruzazul wrote:
I play c:sm and I have been having close games against dark eldar. I play in cover to avoid most of shooting but who has had luck against them? Any tips? I heard auto cannon dreadnoughts are amazing against them.

Usually play against a super shooting team with a few flyers. Some witches and reavers.

reavers hate being in combat and hate flamers even more.
take the before mentioned autocannon dreads and make sure they are getting a good cover save. Take a bunch of razorbacks, cheap heavy bolters are fine, otherwise assault cannons. Everything should be mecheq up if you can.
Thunderfire cannons can be nice, as reavers have a tough time wounding them.

Ally in some mech IG to really bring the pain.

im thinking of going with 2 sniper squads. 2 dreads with auto cannons. sternguard in a drop pod. 3 storm talons. 2 10 man assault squads to intercept his fast moving units. vanguard to drop and assault right of the back onto his HQ. then having 2 devastator squads in the back picking up and gathering attention. Point games are usually 2,000-3,000 point games. so 2 FOC are a must. for Hq im leaning on a chaplain and master of the forge. maybe captain cato if its a 2,500 point game to bring in a command squad in a razor back

cruzazul wrote:
im thinking of going with 2 sniper squads. 2 dreads with auto cannons. sternguard in a drop pod. 3 storm talons. 2 10 man assault squads to intercept his fast moving units. vanguard to drop and assault right of the back onto his HQ. then having 2 devastator squads in the back picking up and gathering attention. Point games are usually 2,000-3,000 point games. so 2 FOC are a must. for Hq im leaning on a chaplain and master of the forge. maybe captain cato if its a 2,500 point game to bring in a command squad in a razor back

a lot of those are not going to work or not going to work well. assaulting a DE HQ with C:SM is near suicide. If you bring it, a DE player will take an archon with some incubi and cut down your assault squads, vangaurds, and HQ command squads/honorguard before they even get to strike. That is what DE do. You could try TH/SS termites but those are going to run into problems with mobility and DE shooting. Incubi have higher WS, same # of attacks, strike first, wound on 4+ and cost less than VV. Each charging incubi will kill on average 1 marine. Once they buff up and get FNP, FC, and fearless your chances of winning any combat without TH/SS is next to nill. The archon sitting there with them handing out init 7 ID doesnt help matters. Shoot them, its easier.

As good as drop podded sternguard are against other marines, they are pretty poor against DE. They come down, kill one transport and then get wiped by massed shooting. If there are better targets for the DE shooting phase, a squad of wyches can keep them occupied for ages.

Devistators? With what? Missile launchers? DE dont fear long fangs which are more point efficient. If you cant take autocannons or split fire why bother? I suppose combat squading with 2 5 man 2 missile launcher squads might be ok, but I would rather have thunderfire cannons

Against DE your army list is too elite. You need more chump regular vanilla squads with razorbacks. DE can kill marines, but only so many, so the more marines you have the better.

I'm going to need 4 troop choices. cause of double FOC.
im gonna have a conversion beamer and thunderfire cannon to pepper his bikes. dangerous terrain tests and thundefire for his HQ. he never moves his HQ up. and most of the time keeps it in reserves.

I second exergy. The best way to defeat de is to take out the transports, and the best way to take out the transports is mass fire. So autocannon dreads getting cover behind tons of razorbacks with your vanilla guys inside is probably the best way to go.

I second countering reaver jetbikes with flamers. They die very quickly, as it IGNORES cover (+ap5 helps, too). This is another effective use of Whirlwinds.

so ignoring cover saves mean no jink right? i assume it means they dont jet it. but just double checking?

Jink is a cover save. So, yes, their Jink save comes at a risk they can't always count on.

Take a unit of havocs with four autocannons at 115 points.

This unit will kill one Dark Eldar vehicle a turn at 48", guaranteed, and do so from within cover. Jink save or 4+ cover, does not matter. The pure number of glance/pens will strip the hull points from the vehicles even if they don't Explode from being open topped, which happens quite often.

^Personal Experience


Having Obliterators is pretty amazing against Dark Eldar in the new codex, as well. Lascannons will absolutely screw a Raider since they are Str 9 (autoglances, 5 of 6 will pen) and is AP2. Combined with Open-Topped that means +2 on the dmg chart. Alternatively you can throw down with some Assault Cannons for volume of fire, which will often glance and sometimes pen, and if they Rend also become AP2. In addition once their troops / reavers are into your lines they can throw down with TL-flamers or Heavy flamers to help roast some space gothies.

Oh and did I mention that if you Nurgle them to be T5 then they don't get instagibbed by Darklances anymore? Hmm...

Counter their flyer like you counter any flyer. Bring an Aegis quad gun - or give a few flakk missiles to that havoc squad - or bring a Heldrake and Vector Strike the pee out of them. The Voidraven is only Av 11 so a solid VS should do serious damage, especially if you go Daemonforge.

GL and HF

C:SM not C:CSM lol. but yeah. im going to go for their transport first. use my scouts as bait if he falls for it. im going to have 2+ cover save so he is either going to ignore them and allow me to shoot him to death with 8 sniper rifles and 2 heavy bolters ap 4

*facepalm* Lol sorry Cruzazul it's late for me.

Have you thought about playing C:CSM recently?


For SMurfs maybe try some devastators with rockets, a speeder with Typhoons (also rockets).. a terminator with assault cannon or cyclone (more rockets..) See the drift?

Multimeltas would pwn them in short order but it's shotgun range only.

Yes, Assault Cannons ... these like Av10 targets very much, the only problem is the 24" Range. if they use the 6"range limiting nightshields, or whatever they are, you're hard pressed to hit with them due to their mobility. Lascannons are ok, though a surprising number of glances can still be rolled .... (GRR, last game with DE).

i was thinking maybe chaos next year. prob not though. i'm going to have to match him shot for shooot. if i assault with stand first turn and them clean up when i strike back.

what would be a good HQ choice against them? i need two. One of them is a master of the forge with conversion beamer.

Librarian, maybe? With machine curse. The assaulty HQ's are kinda pointless, so taking some ranged options might be more useful.