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.

Anyone have any general advice to fighting against these guys?

As in a list with 4-5 FMCs lead by Fateweaver to reroll grounding checks? Maybe a Heldrake in there?

Can't ground em reliably, the Weaver is unkillable with book cast on him for rerollable 2++? Whats a guy to do?

Looking for general tactics, but for those of you with specific suggestions: I also play daemons (non fmc spam atm), marines (blue marines I use as whatever chapter), and GK.

I've found that when the question is 'Monstrous Creatures?' the answer is usually 'Thunder hammers.'

 Jimsolo wrote:
I've found that when the question is 'Monstrous Creatures?' the answer is usually 'Thunder hammers.'

I think you may have missed the F part of FMC. Thunderhammers aren't going to do much to a swooping MC.

Get Tau allies, add velocity tracker braodsides. Play GK as the main army. Get stormraven. Done.

lots of small arms fire. I forced a lot of grounding tests on a pair of Hive Tyrants and eventually killed them both.

Hit and run stuff that can feed a patsy challenge model (or in the case of the Baron a 2++ with rerolls) is useful to have too. If they assault you just leave and shoot the grounded MC.

Lots of small arms fire and remember fateweavers reroll is once per phase so force lots of checks (one check per unit shooting at them at the end of that units shooting) and as to fateweaver himself ignore him he's useless in cc and not much cop in shooting he does buff stuff but as a threat he's not.

If they are Psykers, a GK Storm Raven might be your best bet as once grounded (and just shooting random things hoping to force Grounding Checks will help) the Missiles will cause a Perils which is an auto-wound with no saves of any kind...Mind Strike Missiles are lame =(.

For other armies, really just high volume of decent strength shooting.

Bolters, Missile Pods, Devourers, Scatter Lasers, Venoms...All are decent answers.

Ignore the person that said broadsides, Skyrays are very evil against FMC's, ignore fatewaever basically unless he is grounded, if you ground him assault him with something fearless and tie him up for the whole game. Small arms will kill princes well enough, they are 4 wounds, at most 5 wounds and mostly t5. For grounding checks spilt your squads up and make them do lots of them, bubble wrap anything good in your army with cheap troops. Storm ravens with mindstrikes are pretty darn good at hurting MC's on the floor

Mark pretty much nailed it,

Assault Fateweaver if possible, otherwise try to ignore him. The weak link in the FMC circus is actually the Daemon holding the Grimoire. So, he's your priority (depending on what buffs he has). Also, remember rolling for gear/warlord traits happens BEFORE psychic powers, so you can't just choose to give the Grimoire to the guy who got iron arm. (although invisibility can be cast on anyone, depending on match up that's better than IA)

If you do assault Fateweaver, you're not actually going to kill him obviously (nor is he likely to kill anything), but you will restrict the maneuverability of the Grimoire Prince (who will eventually have to land to stay within 24 inches of FW), leaving him free to be killed.

Remember, it's an average of 9 grounding tests to bring down a FMC (in a FW circus), so prioritize your shooting. Shoot your crappiest guns first (Drop Pod Storm Bolters, the Lone Firewarrior left from a squad that flickering fired and went to ground, etc), so if you do bring him down your good guns won't be snap shooting.

Units that are good against FMC (not an exhaustive list)
Skyrays
Storm Ravens in general (I'd argue that in general the GK one is actually the worst, because while Mind Strike can wound invulnerable FW, the others are better at killing the circus while it flies)
Anything with Vector Strike
Vehicles carrying the incredibly broken Tesla Destructor
Wave Serpents (that's a hell of an alpha strike)

The GK stormraven can actually unload an unreal amount of firepower against ground targets. You can have it go Hover Mode and unload 6-12 Str 5 AP5 shots, 4 Str 7 AP4 Rending, and 3 Str 6 AP4 shots, all twinlinked, as well as up to 4 Str 4 AP5 blasts that cause an automatic extra wound to psykers if they hit. And they can ignore all Shaken and Stunned results suffered by rolling less than 10 on 2D6. And if you wanted you could load them with a paladin or Purifier squad and CC Dreadnought and assault if the enemy were close enough.

Plus, even zooming they put out a massive amouunt of Str 5-7 Twinlinked shots meaning you can easily ground 1-2 FMC.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Honestly, Tau with Skyfire+Interceptor Broadsides, coupled with a couple GK strike squads or Interceptors with lock down Deep Strike or reserving and a Stormraven will mean you can shoot down his FMC on turn 2, if you fork out for 1, or worse 2 GMs.

Broadsides can't have Skyfire and Interceptor, one or the other. And they're too easy for a FMC to dance around due to their relatively short range. Skyrays are much scarier.

GK Stormraven is unlikely to ground multiple FMCs (two grounding checks is rarely going to equal two grounds), although it can certainly kill one in one turn of shooting due to the rending. That said, the other Ravens, with their AP2 and AP3 missiles are better (Tzeentch FMCs, except for Fateweaver himself, are pretty resilient to small numbers of non AP3 shots due to the rerolling 1s on saves), even though they lose a point of strength on their bolters.

Keep forcing grounding checks. Fateweaver only lets them reroll one grounding test per turn. This means if you can force 6 grounding tests, its not unreasonable for you to ground one FMC.

Barring grounding them, most FMC will have to land sometime to assault. Thunderhammers do make them cry. They aren't invincible in combat.

My mistake on Broadsides.

The GK Raven really does a lot of damage, a lot more in fact for a mere 5 points, than a regular Raven, particularly if Fateweaver or a flying DP gets grounded. I firmly maintain that GK ravens are the way to take down FMC. Unbelievable amounts of small shots cause ground tests. And it can force 2 MCs to test with PotMS.

You can also go for the Lascannon/MM or Typhoon ML loadout.

And clarification, the BA have Str 8 AP1 missiles, regular ones have Str 8 AP 2 concussive.

 Deadshot wrote:
My mistake on Broadsides.

The GK Raven really does a lot of damage, a lot more in fact for a mere 5 points, than a regular Raven, particularly if Fateweaver or a flying DP gets grounded. I firmly maintain that GK ravens are the way to take down FMC. Unbelievable amounts of small shots cause ground tests. And it can force 2 MCs to test with PotMS.

You can also go for the Lascannon/MM or Typhoon ML loadout.

And clarification, the BA have Str 8 AP1 missiles, regular ones have Str 8 AP 2 concussive.

(On my phone, apologize for typos)

I never said a gk raven can't cause two grounding tests (obviously it can so long as its shooting at two targets), I said it is unlikely to ground two FMCs. (Fateweaver FMCS pass grounding 8/9 times until they fail one, then it's 2/3)

Again you're correct that lots of small shots are good at causing grounding tests, but that really applies when snap firing. Any raven is going to score a hit, thus it's more important that the shots you're putting out wound, you're already forcing the grounding test regardless. Ap3 or better weapons (and I understand they are different missles on different raven varieties. Heh) because they're only saved 1/3 of the time. Ap4 or worse wounds are saved just under 5/6 of the time).

The mind strike missles aren't as good because to utilize them than another unit has to ground the prince (as the ravens attacks are all happening simultaneously), thus it takes, at minimum, two units to get the kill. Where as a blood angels/vanilla/Templar raven has a good chance of pasting a fmc all on its own (assuming not currently buffed to invincibility)

Thunder hammers can work, but why would a fmc even bother assaulting them? Plenty of flying circuses will just shoot you to death and assault units that are weakened to uselessness. 9/10 ill just use fateweaver to shoot terminators off the board, and vector strike/shoot all the regular marines. There's a huge misconception that FMCS are looking for assault. That's often not true. I only have one fmc in my flying circus that is supposed to assault, and really he's just a distraction carnifex to dictate my opponents movement (people are outright terrified of the black mace).

Really the secret to fighting daemons is target priority. Kill the units that aren't buffed to near invulnerability. Start with the guy carrying the grimoire if possible. I will put an invulnerable fateweaver in your face and shoot a unit to death every turn. I WANT you to shoot him, so don't. Kill the things that are moving up your flank, taking objectives, on my comms relay, etc

It's FMC & Flyer heavy lists that make me reconsider everytime I take a blast or template weapon. Stupid amounts of firepower aiming in the air seems like the only option.

 minigun762 wrote:
It's FMC & Flyer heavy lists that make me reconsider everytime I take a blast or template weapon. Stupid amounts of firepower aiming in the air seems like the only option.

This is the only reason my swarms are seeing game play.

 ductvader wrote:

 minigun762 wrote:
It's FMC & Flyer heavy lists that make me reconsider everytime I take a blast or template weapon. Stupid amounts of firepower aiming in the air seems like the only option.

This is the only reason my swarms are seeing game play.

Smart move!
Take advantage of the difficulties that dealing with AA presents.

 minigun762 wrote:

 ductvader wrote:

 minigun762 wrote:
It's FMC & Flyer heavy lists that make me reconsider everytime I take a blast or template weapon. Stupid amounts of firepower aiming in the air seems like the only option.

This is the only reason my swarms are seeing game play.

Smart move!
Take advantage of the difficulties that dealing with AA presents.

I don't know if it's just me...but there aren't many flamers or blasts in my meta.

My horde has been roundhousing kicking everone who comes decked out with AA.

Bubblewrap, force grounding checks and tarpit big guys. If you have a fast unit/deepstrike unit, send it back as a distraction so they have to backtrack.

Circus lists have very few units, so if you can keep the big guys busy killing non-vital units, you can focus on killing their troops and winning the mission.

Kill point games are tough. You gotta take advantage if they fail grimoire. If you have a way to reduce toughness you can try for the ID on monsters.

Any form of psychic defense will help immensly.