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Ok so I watched a friend of mine play against screamer (star?) it had a bunch of screamers, herald(s) and the big bad nasty daemon dude with like wierd spelling, to cut it short he got absolutly murdered.

How can you beat a unit with 2+ re rollable inv in a non-escalation game (other then the "make him roll a lot of saves")?


Thankyou for any comments.

Ok so I watched a friend of mine play against screamer (star?) it had a bunch of screamers, herald(s) and the big bad nasty daemon dude with like wierd spelling, to cut it short he got absolutly murdered.

How can you beat a unit with 2+ re rollable inv in a non-escalation game (other then the "make him roll a lot of saves")?


Thankyou for any comments.

Don't try to attack the Screamerstar at all. Play the mission, kill your opponent's troops, mitigate what the Screamers can do.

Of course, a Rune Priest can completely ruin that army's day...

Tarpits, MSU, or just flat out ignoring it and attacking his troops.

You ignore it and kill everything else. Realistically there is almost no way to kill it without Destroyer weapons, even Mindstrike missiles aren't that great because the ablative Screamers are not Psykers, unlike against a Seer Council. If you can kill Fateweaver, wait for the the Grimoire to fail and then unload everything on the board into it and try to kill the Grimoire Herald. You can also spam barrage weapons onto the Herald until he fails look out sir, but it'll take a lot of them so you better be playing IG if you want to go that route. He only has a 5++ so he isn't hugely difficult to kill, but any sensible player will bury him in the middle of the unit. Land Raider spam or other high AV spam strategies work ok because they only shoot at strength five but the Screamers can kill vehicles reasonably effectively in assault.

If you have a weapon that ignore invulnerables that will also help. Also a somewhat wacky option is using things that give you free combat resolution bonuses and an extremely durable CC unit (if you can get toughness 9 via Iron Arm that's ideal) and fighting a stalemate, winning combat thanks to the bonus and then hoping they roll badly on instability, which they can't take saves against. If they lose combat the chance the unit is removed from play is the same as the chance of one wound getting through the invulnerable save, so if you could do this consistently it would be a mediocre solution - but you probably can't. Still, forcing their leadership to tank somehow and then winning combat is a good option if you can, even an average instability test is five unsavable wounds if you make them leadership 2.

Volume of fire, as you noted, isn't worth trying when less than 3% of wounds get through.

Vindicare assassin with a shield breaker shot on the grimoire carrier?

Prescienced mindstrike missiles (GK stormravens), try to snipe the heralds.

As said above, unless you want to tailor an army to specifically beat said match up (which would be silly and be a waste of a great deal of your time and money) simply feed it small expendable units.

I for one always throw a unit of Cultists at them. Zombie cultists work even better because of fearless, and will tie them up for a good 3 turns. Fact is, it's strong, but easy to work around, not plow through. That's the trick, work around it. throw something forwards at it like Kroot, Cutlists Conscripts or what have you, and you just shart on a good 2 of his turns as he has to attempt to kill them all.

A few questions on what is above:

1) mindstrike missiles, do they work on daemons anymore? If so if I unload 4 missiles and hit each one on herald and LoC does it instant kill them both due to being 4 unsaveable wounds?

2) how strong is it in CC? Could I charge a wraithknight into combat without it getting killed in CC? If so would it last through their normal attacks?

3) I have 1 GK stormraven so if it can kill as above is it worth bringing?

Also thankyou all very much for responding!

A Wraithknights the perfect Tarpit for them because then they have to use their special lamprays bite attack otherwise they simply can't hurt you. This Lamprey's bite is strength 5 AP 2, but it will still wound you on 6's and he only gets one attack with it, so if you can get a charge in with the Wraithnkight you really should do it. Other then that spread out, make sure it can only target 1 unit a turn and then play the mission.

I'd suggest the above tactic. Try tarpitting it with something like a Wraithknight, that they'd struggle to take out even with Lamprey's Bite. I doubt you'd kill many in CC but since Screamers are only Ld7 there's a fair chance that Daemonic Instability can remove a few models for you.

Dang, i'll have to try getting a wraithknight in there then, thanks!

Only real question left to ask then is, can the LoC or a herald hurt a WK in CC? And do I need to worry about taking damage due to overwatch?

 Arbiter wrote:
Dang, i'll have to try getting a wraithknight in there then, thanks!

Only real question left to ask then is, can the LoC or a herald hurt a WK in CC? And do I need to worry about taking damage due to overwatch?

No, witchfires cannot be used as Overwatch. The only chance they have at hurting you is a lucky roll on the Rewards tables for one of the non-psychic shooting powers.

Lord of change can spend 10 points and get the staff of change which makes him Str8 AP2. I beat up wraithknights all day long with my greater daemons...

If your opponent uses grimoire on the screamerstar kill fateweaver. If your opponent ever fails grimoire then do everything you can to kill the screamerstar (unless he he turbo boosts which he will). Kill the troops and ignore the inevitable grinders. Screamerstars can also be tarpitted.
Good luck though, it's a very tough list to face and is my favourite list to run.

If you use the wraithkight to tank the screamer star you need to watch out for certain units joining the combat. LoC is one of those units that can kill a wraithknight very effectively.

The two questions that need to be answered first is;
1) Did the CD player take fateweaver?
2) What army are you using?

Each army has totally different tactics to handle this. A SW army can land a runepriest nearby and count on dismantling the screamer star. A GK army can hit the heralds with multiple mind strike missiles and use their psychic powers to shut down gifts. IG can use huge numbers of barrage weapons and tarpit the unit all game long. The "answer" to a screamerstar is just incredibly army and mission dependent.

Most armies rely on their mobility or a tarpit to help ignore the screamer star. In reality the screamer star in itself is not really a problem it is the support units that win the game and the board control the screamer star exerts to allow it. Therefore if you can eliminate the support units while limiting the screamer star's damage/impact then you can win the game without any direct counter to it.

I haven't faced it, but was under the impression that it had Hit and Run, no?

Kholzerino wrote:
I haven't faced it, but was under the impression that it had Hit and Run, no?

No, no hit and run. It's pretty much their only downside save for their obvious reliance on getting fortune and grimoire going off.

XXXX

Cooooool. Wraiths I guess. It must be an expensive unit to field. How much firepower does it put out exactly?

Kholzerino wrote:
Cooooool. Wraiths I guess. It must be an expensive unit to field. How much firepower does it put out exactly?

Wraiths would be destroyed easily by a screamerstar pus the fact they would never reach them. If I were facing this list the only thing I would try to do would be to kill the daemon troops. Try to tarpit the screamerstar. Wait till late game and go for positional dominance. There's really nothing else you can do. Unless of course you have a wealth of heavy firepower and enough time to wait for fortune/grimoire to fail (which it never will with Fateweaver).

XXXX

I usually run three units of 6 wraiths as my only non-scoring, non-vehicle units. I'm taking this list (wraiths and flyers, couple of barges). If my wraiths can occupy the screamers for three turns while my flyers / barges kill scoring units and FMCS that probably gives me the best shot, right? And I guess spreading the objectives as much as possible, right?

GoingtoHell wrote:

Kholzerino wrote:
I haven't faced it, but was under the impression that it had Hit and Run, no?

No, no hit and run. It's pretty much their only downside save for their obvious reliance on getting fortune and grimoire going off.

XXXX

They don't get nor require fortune. Fortune is an eldar power. Are you talking about Forewarning, which they don't strictly NEED but helps a lot?

GoingtoHell wrote:

Kholzerino wrote:
Cooooool. Wraiths I guess. It must be an expensive unit to field. How much firepower does it put out exactly?

Wraiths would be destroyed easily by a screamerstar pus the fact they would never reach them. If I were facing this list the only thing I would try to do would be to kill the daemon troops. Try to tarpit the screamerstar. Wait till late game and go for positional dominance. There's really nothing else you can do. Unless of course you have a wealth of heavy firepower and enough time to wait for fortune/grimoire to fail (which it never will with Fateweaver).

XXXX

Wraiths are actually not bad but they need the destroyer lord to tank the massive number of flickering fire shots. If you do it right the wraiths can mostly remove the screamer star from the game and get you positional dominance. The bad part is if the CD player can bail the star out with a more damaging melee unit (daemon prince, etc.) after taking down your MSS destroyer lord. The labyrinth can be great too and crons can largely ignore a screamer star if going second as they get the final say on objectives and their flyers are resistant to the shooting and immune to the melee capabilities.

Hope this isn't reviving a dead thread, but in the end I didn't go up vs the screamer star because he rolled bad and lost his first game, the only game i lost was my 3rd game vs a farsight bomb when my wriaithknight failed a 6 inch carge on it and after that i got tabled by turn 5.


Thankyou all for the tactical advise!