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've been playing for a little over a year now, and I'm still quite inexperienced. In the areas I have grown in, I have grown considerably, however I still have troubles dealing with some armies/formations. One such faction that I have problems with is Skitarii. In almost every game I have played against them, I get curb stomped hard. I have never even been able to destroy one of their Dune crawler models. The shear amount of firepower and range they put out, combined with their special rules and so on, I usually pick up about half of my army after the first turn of shooting.

I've tried researching different tactics and so forth, but I've yet to be able to do anything against this onslaught. It seems as if the 1st turn BS 7 combined with the massive amount of plasma/haywire is just nearly unbeatable. Does anyone have any good advice for dealing with this very tough army?

Well, first off what army do you play? Knowing that will help determine what you have in the toolbox for taking on the metal men of mars.

I play CSM, Eldar, Dark Eldar and Necrons. The closest I've ever come to dealing with Skitarii is with my Necrons.

My dunecrawlers die like crazy and their neutron lasers WHIFFFFF every single shot or get negated by cover. Your opponent must have amazing luck! (on a special note, the Icarus array can do some real work on air targets and occasionally ground targets +jetbikes) Ive been meaning to try out the eradication beamer and rush them forward to see if that is a different approach, esp if they are being flanked by vanguard.

how does your opponent use them? what have you tried?
what models do you own?


with eldar+dark eldar; webway+ fire dragons/wraithguard should kill them reliably and quickly.

Necrons, destroyer cult or wraith I guess?

chaos had a massive shake up, can't offer meaninfull advice

EDIT: I assumed war convocation, but what does your opponent play/what's in his army?

My opponent typically brings 12 crabs with neutron lasers and 40-60 vanguard.

I do not play formations. And neither does my opponent.

When I play my chaos, I typically bring the standard stuff, marines in Rhinos, Termies deepstriking with sorcery support. I do run my Necron reclamation legion, and my DE I run boat/lance spam with scourge support. The main problem I run into is that dealing with 12 strength 10 ap1 shots per turn, and then dealing with 50+ shots. As one of my friends is fond of saying 2+ is neat, but lasguns still kill you.

Oh dear Emperor -- 12 crabs? So each has 4++ invuln and pure weight of numbers alone makes that hard to engage. Also all those Radium Carbines are deadly for infantry -- I see your problem.

Considering the points cost I'm guessing this is at 2k+?

Well, he has Blast Neutrons and Radium Carbines can't hurt vehicles SOOoOOooo Flyers are your answer - with the list you've said, he wouldn't be able to touch them. The best would be the Doomscythe in this case I believe.

 Otto Weston wrote:
Oh dear Emperor -- 12 crabs? So each has 4++ invuln and pure weight of numbers alone makes that hard to engage. Also all those Radium Carbines are deadly for infantry -- I see your problem.

Considering the points cost I'm guessing this is at 2k+?

Well, he has Blast Neutrons and Radium Carbines can't hurt vehicles SOOoOOooo Flyers are your answer - with the list you've said, he wouldn't be able to touch them. The best would be the Doomscythe in this case I believe.

Just to note, we're very good friends and I'm not looking to beat him into the ground. I'm just having trouble with this "wall" of death crabs.

He annihilates flyers. 12 crabs 10 with NL and 2 with the anti-air. This is his standard 1850 list. We have a lot of fun playing, but it's so ungodly brutal. The anti-air death crabs are very killy. It's true the carbines can't hurt vehicles, however he brings haywire too.

The thing is, I'm not asking for help in beating my friend, just trying to figure out how to deal with this without A) running op nonsense and B) making it so that I can at least stand a chance. From my perspective, and I could be wrong here, but from my perspective the issue is that so much of his army is just redundancy that you can't really prioritize targets. Drop pods/Flyers are defiantly something that give his opponent a slight edge, because you're able to deny him that turn of shooting you while you drive close enough to shoot him. I mean I have a feeling a 1st company drop force with some grave centurions and devastators in heavy cover would stand a much better chance against him. Once you start killing crabs, they get weaker, and also it's worth noting that if you can survive 2 turns of shooting, you can start to whittle him down.

It's also worth noting that my primary army is Chaos SM, and since we now have the delicious Emperors Children and Death Guard Legion rules, I wonder if I can stand more of a chance in dealing with him?

The answer to all of your 40k woes is to use more Tall, Line of Sight Blocking Terrain. Tall, Line of Sight Blocking Terrain equalizes armies by blocking long range attacks from killing your dudes begote you can close, by allowing you time to close, and but forcing your opponent to move. It also blocks your long range attacks, gives time for your opponent to close, and forces you to move. Everyone's Equal!

In addition, you will be able to bottleneck sections of you opponent's army mitigating their ability to support their units that you have under fire, letting you dismantle those Dunecrawlers without being dismantled yourself.

SJ

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
The answer to all of your 40k woes is to use more Tall, Line of Sight Blocking Terrain. Tall, Line of Sight Blocking Terrain equalizes armies by blocking long range attacks from killing your dudes begote you can close, by allowing you time to close, and but forcing your opponent to move. It also blocks your long range attacks, gives time for your opponent to close, and forces you to move. Everyone's Equal!

In addition, you will be able to bottleneck sections of you opponent's army mitigating their ability to support their units that you have under fire, letting you dismantle those Dunecrawlers without being dismantled yourself.

SJ

This is true, however there is still always a limit. The thing about the Skitarii codex is that when min/maxed it can bring so much to the field that is becomes very difficult to hide from one of those crabs. The fact they ignore all terrain in terms of movement, and do not snap fire their heavy weapons due to being dreadnoughts makes them so good at killing that you have to be completely out of their line of sight. The most luck I've had against them is either my Necrons, which are just tough to kill thanks to Reanimation Protocols, or my Space Marines thanks to drop pods getting me close enough without having to wade through all the fire. Typically my opponent doesn't move very far into the table, because he doesn't have to. So bottle necking is very hard to do.

Line of Slight Blocking = can't be seen

Not sure why people miss that.

SJ

I can see your problems now! Again with my elder hat on, I'd play something like Wave-serpents to deploy and a Cloud strike falcon squadron full of Aspect host Fire Dragons.

The serpents will be very resilient to almost all his firepower, and once your Firedragons burn a lot of his stuff you can serpent shield his infantry away pretty quickly.

You might need to use the shield sooner to clear a landing zone if your opponent is clever.

pick up an autarch for rerolls and if you have the points a hemlock, flying, D + mindshock pod + scream should help you out.

Your friend plays a mean list, what do you have available in terms of models?

 Fruzzle wrote:
I can see your problems now! Again with my elder hat on, I'd play something like Wave-serpents to deploy and a Cloud strike falcon squadron full of Aspect host Fire Dragons.

The serpents will be very resilient to almost all his firepower, and once your Firedragons burn a lot of his stuff you can serpent shield his infantry away pretty quickly.

You might need to use the shield sooner to clear a landing zone if your opponent is clever.

pick up an autarch for rerolls and if you have the points a hemlock, flying, D + mindshock pod + scream should help you out.

Your friend plays a mean list, what do you have available in terms of models?

I'm not sure if it's mean, just very, very efficient.

I rarely play my eldar anymore, but in terms of CSM/SM I run the standard lists, lots of melta, drop pods and rhinos. My Dark Eldar run Boat lance spam, but I haven't played him with those yet. In an 1850 list I can squeeze out about 30 Lance shots per turn, banking on 18 of them hitting and half that doing any real damage, that sill means he will save 5/9 times by my math. It's brutal.

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
Line of Slight Blocking = can't be seen

Not sure why people miss that.

SJ

I got it, it just never seems to work out for us. He can always move and then we're right back to square one.