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I say tactical because I'm interested in options that aren't "add a drop podding Culexus assassin to your list".

With Librarius conclave and its various cheesy clones becoming ever more common I am very curious what options people have found to reduce the power of these formations.

The LC (frequently with Tigurius) usually just shows up, casts every spell in the telepathy and Biomancy doctrine, and then runs up with whatever now all powerful unkillable melee unit they've joined and demolishes whatever they want. Thanks to invisibility and/or endurance, firepower is near impossible to apply to them and melee doesn't stand a snowballs chance in hell thanks to those same two spells. Trying to stop them going off is unlikely at best unless the player gets incredibly cocky or you get very lucky thanks to manifesting on 2's, and generally even if you stop invisibility you're not banking on it so you're not positioned to capitalize on it.

The only time I've managed to take them out (and the only game I've won against them) has been with Karamazov's By Any Means Necessary letting me sneak a S10 AP1 in there.

What tends to be your favored tactic? Do you avoid them, figuring that invisible twin linked Thunderfires or something are the lesser of two evils? Keep yourself in position to hammer them should Invis fail?

What army do you play?

If you are playing Eldar or Daemon, the libby conclave may still be no match against you. you probably would have enough power dice to deny the most vital power, even though it is going to be way harder as they cast on 2+, but just reserve your dices for the most important one, like invisibility, endurance, and perfect timing. If the conclave throwing too many dices to make a Eldar / Tzeentch army dening them very very hard, they are risking perils.

The above principle is still valid even if you play a not psychic heavy army. Or if you have way to get AW, then concentrate to deny those offensive powers instead.

But still, a Culexus is truly your best bet and most effective way. Due to the slow movement of the Tiggy conclave (as I bet they are on foot), the droppod culexus will made them useless for the WHOLE GAME even without killing them.
Just a shame that although the Culexus is the army of the imperium, but they are effective to fight imperial army's powerful psyker force while not effective when fighting Xeno's and Chaos powerful psyker, like Eldar jet seer council and Flyrant and CSM / Daemon Flying Daemon Prince / LoC.......Very unfluffly

RAW Librarius conclave can only cast as many powers as the Target of Empyric channeling has mastery levels. So with tiggy it'd be 3 with anyone else it's 2. It's a solid formation, but honestly it's big purpose is to let you have a solid psychic phase even with only 6-10 warp charges, which other armies laugh at. Beyond that, just take a unit they can't kill either. Played against a LC list when i had SmashFether and command squad and just tied up both deathballs for the whole game.

Now, I'm not going to say Demolisher Cannons, because they aren't competitive and will probably get destroyed before it makes it.... But a Demolisher Cannon would definitely work.

My stupid obsession with blasts aside; what armies are you playing? Every force will have a different way to deal with them. Without specificity, those that already already posted have made some excellent suggestions.

Orks, Guard, Harlequins with allies, and AdMech. I have plenty of choices, but relatively few competitive ones.

What rule causes the conclave to only cast 3 powers? Every game I've played against them they basically run down the power list trying to cast on a 2+.


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Also, if large blasts were the solution my guard would have no problem with them! Sadly, you can't target an invisible unit with blasts.

the_scotsman wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, if large blasts were the solution my guard would have no problem with them! Sadly, you can't target an invisible unit with blasts.

*sigh* if you can't hit it with large blasts, you aren't using enough large blasts.

In all seriousness though, if he has an invisible conclave you are basically done for if you don't have a Culexus Assassin. And as much as I'd like to be able to suggest some cool, army specific deal, I can't. Ally in a Culexus it seems.

There are a few ways to deal with this kind of thing.

1) Play the objective. If you're able to run a gladius or something similar, you can drown him in MSU obsec bodies which his death star will struggle to clear off.

2) Melee tar pit, such as conscripts, screamer stars, or spawn. Multi-wound is less good unless you can ensure eternal warrior because of the amount of force that's going on. If your buddy is using Tiggy, he can't also get hit and run from the white scars chapter, meaning that if he gets stuck, he's stuck.

3) Blast templates can work, but is very situational and can change depending on your group's interpretation of blast templates' interaction with invisibility. First and less controversial: twin-linked barrage weapon centered on a non-invisible model right next to the invisible unit. Roll a hit, you get to place it and can "flip" it over to the invisible unit. Second, if you have an apocalyptic blast, you can center it on a non-invisible unit and hit the invisible unit without targeting it. Again, both of these are predicated on how you read the invisibility rules.

4) Stomps and hammer of wrath are auto-hits.

5) Take a superheavy and try to get it to be destroyed right on top of him. One D-plate later and roll on good times. Not all that practical but funny if it happens.

Put a sword and board wraithknight on top of it. The librarian conclave unit likely does not have much that can reliably hurt it.

Most of the time when I see the LC, it's attached to a unit with HnR. The Chapter Tactics doesn't really affect anything. Tiggy and 2 Libbies is all you need to ensure all your defensive powers on 2+.

It's also questionable whether 3 is the max you can channel through Tiggy for the 2+ casting. The BRB clarification is vague on the difference between spells known and spell casted in regards to Psyker Level. Regardless, let's just say 3 spells: Invis, Endurance, and Prescience is enough.

HnR doesn't "usually" come from LC themselves (although some army types allow them to). Also, when I see them the other 2 (if Tiggy was involved) are on bikes for increase mobility. It's not too hard to keep a foot model or two within coherency with a fast moving Deathstar.

To respond to the OP, I think it depends on the Deathstar (army source) and what supporting units the opponent has in the army. There is definitely no specific tactic you can use to counter the LC. Every game is different. Heck, if you rolled some good maelstroms and the enemy didn't, it doesn't really matter what the LC does all game.

Deathstars in general:
Seer Council can be ignored if you are playing a Turn-by-Turn game / Maelstrom and you have MSU Obsec. (And yes, I know LC isn't involved, but Culexus is an "answer" to LC and Seercouncil)
Wolfstar can generally be out scored late game depending on objective placement or Turn-by-Turn depending on how much he reserves and how quickly he is willing to split up the star.
Draigostar generally lacks mobility except for the Gates but even then can't move very quickly afterwards.

There are too many variables involved in Deathstars with LC attached. Culexus is the easiest to mention, but most stars can just move around her or have some way of dealing with her on the following turn. A podded culexus can only do so much and you have to have a decent firing base in order to kill the unbuffed star afterwards.

TD;DR - Culexus is nice to have, but isn't an answer by itself for LC. Play each game as its own. Look for weaknesses in the army list and play your list to its strength. Capitalize on enemy mistakes and their deployment strategies. If you find yourself struggling to win games because the enemy can cast spells on a 2+, you might want to revisit your own list. Maybe it needs more ObSec, maybe it needs more mobility, maybe it needs more teeth. Or, maybe, just maybe, you need a Culexus in a pod, but I don't see that as your only out.

Check out the ITC rules, they make invisibility pretty darn manageable (all shooting at the target is BS1 and not snapshots, (because if wanted to kill an invisible person I would totally use a pistol instead of a flamethrower) and 90% of the stuff on there is pretty solid!

Eh, ITC isn't an end all that some people make it out to be. NOVA and a lot of other large tournaments (as well as RTTs) don't nerf invis. Whether I agree with keeping it RAW or nerfing it is a different matter, but I don't think suggesting the OP to use ITC to combat LC is the correct approach.

I will add I do like the newer changes to ITC. The scoring at the start of player turn and picking 2 out of 3 rolls adds a lot of dimision and counter play. Props to ITC for those changes.

As for ITC as a whole, it's moving in the right direction. I'm not 100% with their logic on nerfing specific units/powers and buffing others. It's cool that there are polls that people get to vote on. However, I don't agree with Reecius' persuasive essays before each ruling vote. (Call it what you want but there is a fair bit of opinionated wording to explain the rules up for debate. Quoting the RAW/RAI rules would be sufficient.)

Until GW works more on rules it's the best alternative out there.

 labmouse42 wrote:
Put a sword and board wraithknight on top of it. The librarian conclave unit likely does not have much that can reliably hurt it.
Unless the deathstar unit is completely made of white scars, they can't just hit and run out.

"If a unit contains models drawn from two different Chapters, it counts as from neither Chapter, and thus benefits from neither Chapter Tactic."

Or if they had some kind of crazy S+1 AP2 force weapons.

Don't get me wrong a good tarpit is probably the way to go but I don't think an MC is the right thing for the job if force weapons are involved. Even if the WK doesn't die to instant death, each wound does 1+D3 and ignores FNP because of instant death.

Battlecannons, Snipers, Close Combat... The truth is they don't really have many wounds nor attacks, and a Termie-lib is a bit daunting. I think your best option is volume of fire, really... just out force the force wielder. Chances are they run them with other units, so you basically just have to deal with those other units as you normally would and single out the libby till he's easy pickins.

the_scotsman wrote:
Orks, Guard, Harlequins with allies, and AdMech. I have plenty of choices, but relatively few competitive ones.

What rule causes the conclave to only cast 3 powers? Every game I've played against them they basically run down the power list trying to cast on a 2+.


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Also, if large blasts were the solution my guard would have no problem with them! Sadly, you can't target an invisible unit with blasts.

Your friend is playing it wrong. A psyker can only cast a number of psychic powers equal to his mastery level. The highest mastery level psyker a LibCon can get is Tigurius with 3. Remember the target of EC doesn't get the other librarians mastery levels, he only gets their powers.

ERJAK wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
Orks, Guard, Harlequins with allies, and AdMech. I have plenty of choices, but relatively few competitive ones.

What rule causes the conclave to only cast 3 powers? Every game I've played against them they basically run down the power list trying to cast on a 2+.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, if large blasts were the solution my guard would have no problem with them! Sadly, you can't target an invisible unit with blasts.

Your friend is playing it wrong. A psyker can only cast a number of psychic powers equal to his mastery level. The highest mastery level psyker a LibCon can get is Tigurius with 3. Remember the target of EC doesn't get the other librarians mastery levels, he only gets their powers.

The BRB actually says the amount of powers a psyker can cast depends on his mastery level. Depending on is not the same as being equal to. Your salary depends on how many hours you work, but after a 12 hour shift I sure hope to earn more than $12. The amount of powers a psyker knows also depends on his mastery level, yet a lvl1 Librarian will usually know 3 powers (Force, a generated power and a primaris power).

the_scotsman wrote:
Or if they had some kind of crazy S+1 AP2 force weapons.

Don't get me wrong a good tarpit is probably the way to go but I don't think an MC is the right thing for the job if force weapons are involved. Even if the WK doesn't die to instant death, each wound does 1+D3 and ignores FNP because of instant death.

The WK is swinging D. This means 1/6 of the hits will just say "I don't care about you" and remove models off the table. It also stomps, and 1/6 of those times it also does not care and just removes models off the table.

Don't forget the STR 10 HoW hit, which will double out librarian.

Sure, the librarians might be invisible, but the WK might be too -- Eldar do have 100 point farseers, after all. The farseers can also cast prescience on the WK, to increase it's hit chance on invis units to ~30%.

Overall, the WK is insane for it's points cost. Just yesterday I had one charge a brass scorpion though cover (so striking last) and still managed to kill the scorpion then move off to kill another 3 walkers before dying.

GrafWattenburg wrote:

ERJAK wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
Orks, Guard, Harlequins with allies, and AdMech. I have plenty of choices, but relatively few competitive ones.

What rule causes the conclave to only cast 3 powers? Every game I've played against them they basically run down the power list trying to cast on a 2+.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, if large blasts were the solution my guard would have no problem with them! Sadly, you can't target an invisible unit with blasts.

Your friend is playing it wrong. A psyker can only cast a number of psychic powers equal to his mastery level. The highest mastery level psyker a LibCon can get is Tigurius with 3. Remember the target of EC doesn't get the other librarians mastery levels, he only gets their powers.

The BRB actually says the amount of powers a psyker can cast depends on his mastery level. Depending on is not the same as being equal to. Your salary depends on how many hours you work, but after a 12 hour shift I sure hope to earn more than $12. The amount of powers a psyker knows also depends on his mastery level, yet a lvl1 Librarian will usually know 3 powers (Force, a generated power and a primaris power).

This exact hair splitting is why faqs like itc exist.
You're right, depends does not mean equal, but someone arguing that without presenting a set definition of depends, equal to is the logical conclusion, is also right. You've now argued rules for an hour and neither of you want to play anymore. Congrats.

The only way to counter invis conclave deathstars with orks that i've found is to ally in stuff. I prefer daemons with masque. It helps to slow them down for a turn or two. Mono-orks? Hmmm. Kustom Stompa or something...

 TheManWithNoPlan wrote:
Now, I'm not going to say Demolisher Cannons, because they aren't competitive and will probably get destroyed before it makes it.... But a Demolisher Cannon would definitely work.

My stupid obsession with blasts aside; what armies are you playing? Every force will have a different way to deal with them. Without specificity, those that already already posted have made some excellent suggestions.

Plasma, plasma canons, and any other sort of blasts have worked for me in the past. The only time I faced a really nasty conclave was in apoc. It alpha podded in right in front of my macharius omega, missed with vortex, then got shot with a macharius omega and died. (3 shot plasma pie plate) I play Renegades and Heretics. My go-to for any death star or super units is to throw infantry at it, then more infantry, and more infantry. Tie it up until the game ends. I more than likely have more bodies than you have bullets and attacks. Plague zombies with FnP 4 are just amazing at this!