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So dakka, I kinda have a compounded questions here.

My Dark Eldar really really struggle against any army that are super resilient, specifically death guard and Necrons.

Generally, it kinda just feels like I'm being stopped at a brick wall. I don't have enough shooting to really hurt them, it kinda just forces me to win the war of attrition with all of the board control he has.

I feel like I'm gonna have the same issue playing with Harlequins (need to get a few more minis purchased and built, then start painting!).

My brother showed me the list he is building to with his Death Guard, its a maxed out plague colony, Typhus, and then lost and the dammed full of plague zombies, I feel like I'm gonna have trouble dealing with that many rhinos and minimum units.

I am not looking specifically to list tailor, I more want to find out how to go about fighting a list like his, but really anything that is super tough, as harlequins and Dark Eldar.

Scatterlasers. You double out Zombies AND ignore their armor, wound even T5 dudes on 3s, and get 4 shots per 27 points.

Dark Eldar and Harlequins don't get scatterlasters, sadly.

Eldar vs resilience armies.

Just pointing out that THAT is your thread title.

No idea what to do with DE or Harlies, so good luck!

It seems that DE should be able to spam poison. Who cares how tough they are?

Warriors in raiders with splinter racks?

(full disclosure, I don’t play DE, and have only played against them once or twice in the last few years)

Your initial thought is right though. You want poison and haywire on fast vehicles, which DE have. Harles have a harder life though and I'm not sure what they should do except charge and hope for lots of 6's.

Dark Eldar have a LOT of Instant death stuff, use that to bypass all the feel no pain (or to reduce reanimation protocols)

Grotesques (especially from the Grotesquerie formation) will cause ID on a 6 to wound (they still get armour saves, but it's better than nothing) and will have 5+attacks each most of the time (3 base+1 ECW +D3 if outnumbered)
Just mount them in a Raider, Flat out it into his face and charge turn 2.
For Plague zombies (assuming he's using Typhus to turn them rather than the Poxwalker hive relic) Razorwing Jetfighter missiles will devastate them (and bypass the FNP of Typhus' zombies at least)

Might wanna add dark in front of the eldar in the title.

And for simplicity, spam venoms.
With the 2nd cannon your throwing out a stack of shots per one.

5 warriors with a venom with 2nd cannon - 105 points.

Now, run the realspace raiders chart for 1-6 FA options and your golden.


5 warriors in 2nd cannon venom - 105
5 warriors in 2nd cannon venom - 105
5 warriors in 2nd cannon venom - 105
5 warriors in 2nd cannon venom - 105

Venom with 2 cannons - 65
Venom with 2 cannons - 65
Venom with 2 cannons - 65
Venom with 2 cannons - 65

680 points as a base of an army.
96 poisoned shots from just the venoms alone.


All depends on the points of the game too, but it's more than reasonable at around 1500-1850 to be putting out around 200 poisoned shots along with anti armour weaponry too.

DE really are the King's against tough models due to rate of fire and poisoned.





With your harlies you shouldn't be too bad.
Their take on the venom is pretty damn solid anyway and allows for rending too.
Mix that in with the sheer brutality of them in combat and your fine.
Just remember to pick your fights and support your own units.

Don't rush headlong into a horde of zombies and expect to kill them without shooting them 1st.
Weaken units then pick them off in assault.

Also, try not to finish a fight too quickly.
If you can end your turn in combat with a few models then great.
Means your harlies aren't getting shot, will win combat and be free again for your turn.

"DE really are the King's against tough models due to rate of fire and poisoned. "

Not really. They are king against models that rely on toughness that aren't GMCs. That's a pretty small range, really. Riptide and Dreadknight don't care about your poison, and Wraithknight is immune basically. They tear up Nids i guess. Yay.

Did I mention GC's in that list atall?
Everyone has the same crap struggle one way or another with them.


And typically MC's and T5+ units are fine for DE to kill.
In fact, their basic troops do better against these than most other armies can. (Tau are level against T5)

So nids own the only MC's now?




And very constructive post Martel, I can see what amazing insight it has given the topic.

We might want to take into account the Razorwing fighter here? For the basic 130pts you get 4 Str 6 AP 5 large blasts and 6 dissie shots. That's not half bad. 4 Str 6 large blasts will put a big dent in the Zombie horde, ignoring their armour and FnP as long as you posistion so Typhus can't tank all the wounds.

Harlequins deal with though stuff in one of three ways;
1) If it is fearless, but has a leadership value, stack up Ld debuffs then Psy-Shirk it's ass. With Mask of Secrets, Armour of Misery, Freakish Spectical and Terrify even a Ld 10 Dreadknight is now Ld 4 and has to pass a test on 3d6. <-- Kills gargantuan creatures dead. I've dropped Wraithknights in a single casting before multiple times.
2) If it relies on high toughness or high saves, throw Caresses or Neuro-disruptors at it. They don't give a dam about armour or toughness.
3) If it isn't fearless, sweep it in combat. Using similar leadership debuffs and their innate combat potential Harlequins have little trouble winning combat and with theit ungodly initiative resilient armies usually are auto-destroyed if they break.

Then throw in how Dark Eldar deal with things;
1) Does it have an armour save? Drown it in poison wounds. , it will eventually fail it.
2) Is it hard to hit? Cluster Caltrops are you're friend.
3) Does it have an armour value? Haywire Scourges are one of the most cost effective long range anti-tank in the game. 3 hull points in one volly isn't unlikely. Supplements Harlequins well.

Dark Eldar and Harlequins can handle resilient armies, they just have to get a little creative about it.

Alex - to tag onto your razorwing comment which is spot on anyway, typhus zombie horde really has no effective AA shooting either.

So it can essentially fly around ignoring most things from a distance.

Dark eldar have a lot of toys that you can utilize, but i requires you to play a totally different game than what your opponent is playing. You have many different LD lowering relics and guns. why try to kill a unit when you can just cause them to up and flee the board? This is assuming that you are not fighting space marines. If you are, then throw that idea in the trash and move on. another idea is to use that detachment where you get (6-7)? fast attack choices and just go all out on tiny MSU beast packs. who cares if their LD is crappy, all you need to do is keep feeding whatever squad you need to keep tied up with another pack every turn. don't even buy the beast master, just every turn BAM! three more razorwing flocks that your opponent has to deal with.

All very good advice!

I might be underestimating the Death Guard's toughness, as with necrons I can just sweep them, its not too difficult.

Has poison spam worked for yall?

 gummyofallbears wrote:

I might be underestimating the Death Guard's toughness, as with necrons I can just sweep them, its not too difficult.

Has poison spam worked for yall?

Death Guard are most certainly not that easy to sweep. Mostly because, well, they are Fearless. So impossible to sweep would be a better way to put it.

That said, they are weaker to your poison than Necrons....kinda. T5 doesn't matter against DE and DG do not get 4+ FNP (like Necrons get 4+ RP)
So rate of fire should be fine for you. Grots are still a good option since regular Death Guard do not have poison knives (like Plague Marines do) and Grots can get those 6's to cause ID.

-

Traditionally, Dark Eldar need to use their mobility to mega-tag-team other units. So anything that can move fast, localize where they can only be shot at by one or two units, and pound the everliving crap out of one of those units. Do not spread out. Focus. Limit retaliation.

That's the classic answer, anyhow. I haven't played against DE since 5th edition.

 Galef wrote:

Death Guard are most certainly not that easy to sweep. Mostly because, well, they are Fearless. So impossible to sweep would be a better way to put it.


-

This made me laugh.

 Jackal wrote:
Did I mention GC's in that list atall?
Everyone has the same crap struggle one way or another with them.


And typically MC's and T5+ units are fine for DE to kill.
In fact, their basic troops do better against these than most other armies can. (Tau are level against T5)

So nids own the only MC's now?




And very constructive post Martel, I can see what amazing insight it has given the topic.

Just correcting your claim. I don't think that poison is that great in the era of WK/Riptide/DK/Stormsurge. Wounding MCs on 4s can be done by a lot of lists from a safer distance. That's why DE are considered a weak list atm.

I agree with Martel on this one. Nids may not have the only MCs, but they have the only MCs that seem vulnerable to massed poison shooting.

Of course it can be done easier and from further away, but not by basic troops and their transports.

The OP was talking about deathguard and crons, no I'm not sure how those gained access to wk/dk/surge.

While I agree there are better ways of dealing with them, sheer volume of shots covers more than just tough models alone.
DE can reliably bring down FMCs through sheer weight of poisoned shots.

New magnus is a great example of something DE can just pepper with shots.




Although I did miss the razorwing, that's a pretty safe bet for shredding zombies while remaining pretty safe against a zombie list.




And I'm not trying to cause an argument, I was just simply stating that poison and high rate of fire ends most tough armies.

It also works as more of a TAC army as that amount of shots can bring down anything except armour.
And that can be haywired or lanced to death.
So it's more of a general army than having to taylor to a specific need.


Ps: knights are an exception obviously.

 Nevelon wrote:
It seems that DE should be able to spam poison. Who cares how tough they are?

Warriors in raiders with splinter racks?

(full disclosure, I don’t play DE, and have only played against them once or twice in the last few years)

Against an army that has FnP or similar and good armor saves let me just say poisoned with ap 5 is never enough.

My suggestion is try out melee and at least try out the talos en masse (possibly with ichor gauntlets). No idea what to do besides that. I myself struggle vs necrons but i find 90-95% of the damage i did on my first game against them was with melee units (incubi and reavers with cluster caltrops but grotesques could do damage i'm sure). Against death guard you may just need to use the talos against that too.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:
It seems that DE should be able to spam poison. Who cares how tough they are?

Warriors in raiders with splinter racks?

(full disclosure, I don’t play DE, and have only played against them once or twice in the last few years)

Against an army that has FnP or similar and good armor saves let me just say poisoned with ap 5 is never enough.

My suggestion is try out melee and at least try out the talos en masse (possibly with ichor gauntlets). No idea what to do besides that. I myself struggle vs necrons but i find 90-95% of the damage i did on my first game against them was with melee units (incubi and reavers with cluster caltrops but grotesques could do damage i'm sure). Against death guard you may just need to use the talos against that too.

Don't say that, poison AP 5 and Str 8 Ap 2 are basically the only ranged stat-lines in our book!


I jest, I jest, however it's true weight of shots does work against 3+/5++ models, maybe you just haven't tried hard enough A 3+/5++ is a little worse than a 2+ Sv I can't tell you how many terminators my Venoms have pin-pricked to death. I'd agree with Necrons that the best bet is to sweep them, but against Deathguard unless you have overwhelming force assault should be a late game option. I'm also hesitant to suggest Pain Engines against Deathguard because everybody and their mother knows the one of the best Daemon Prince is a Nurgle Daemon Prince with Black Mace which eats through Pain Engines.

 ALEXisAWESOME wrote:

 flamingkillamajig wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:
It seems that DE should be able to spam poison. Who cares how tough they are?

Warriors in raiders with splinter racks?

(full disclosure, I don’t play DE, and have only played against them once or twice in the last few years)

Against an army that has FnP or similar and good armor saves let me just say poisoned with ap 5 is never enough.

My suggestion is try out melee and at least try out the talos en masse (possibly with ichor gauntlets). No idea what to do besides that. I myself struggle vs necrons but i find 90-95% of the damage i did on my first game against them was with melee units (incubi and reavers with cluster caltrops but grotesques could do damage i'm sure). Against death guard you may just need to use the talos against that too.

Don't say that, poison AP 5 and Str 8 Ap 2 are basically the only ranged stat-lines in our book!


I jest, I jest, however it's true weight of shots does work against 3+/5++ models, maybe you just haven't tried hard enough A 3+/5++ is a little worse than a 2+ Sv I can't tell you how many terminators my Venoms have pin-pricked to death. I'd agree with Necrons that the best bet is to sweep them, but against Deathguard unless you have overwhelming force assault should be a late game option. I'm also hesitant to suggest Pain Engines against Deathguard because everybody and their mother knows the one of the best Daemon Prince is a Nurgle Daemon Prince with Black Mace which eats through Pain Engines.

Good lists won't let you do that. You can't clear enough wounds through 3+/5++ if your opponent can hit you back meaningfully. That's why this works vs Nids and not say AdMech or Tau. You are able to chip away terminators because they can't hurt you at range and can't catch you. Try this with BA sternguard with a priest or jump pack DC.

Against death guard being hit back shouldn't be much of an issue.
It's specified that it's a zombie type horde list.

With the mobility of DE it should be possible to keep out of the way while firing (boring I know)
But if a unit of plague zombies is in reach of a DE vehicle then there's an issue somewhere.

Just target any ranged threat first then play a game of chase.
Due more you cut down the more breathing room you have.

And if it's specifically plague zombies, the razorwing as mentioned will mow them down fairly well.

Just need to remember to keep moving as they get closer and pick off key targets.



Really won't be the most fun game you have, but assaulting them wont get you anywhere except tarpitted indefinitely.






Martel - Tau screw DE over on most things.
Mainly due to being far better at a game of fire fight while being more resilient to incoming fire.
Decent supply of long ranged weapons, increased BS etc.

And nids just suffer from being nids currently.

Any jackass with an autocannon or a scatterlaser is just as good. And better vs tanks. I'm not a huge fan of the DE poison scheme. I guess it's okay on the troops, but they are super fragile.

True, but against a DG plague horde there won't be any scatters atall.
And maybe the odd reaper autocannon here and there.

The topic has specified he's worried about playing against a typhus plague horde.
If there is a scatter in there somewhere then the guy is taking the piss a bit.





Edit: and I know it's only good on the troops.
Firing them at a vehicle is useless.
The few units I posted even with a razorwing and HQ thrown in come to less than 1k.
Which in the average game allows you plenty of points for anti armour options.

Its actually not a zombie horde. I think its 7 units of plague marines and 5 minimum plague zombie squads.

What i hate most vs resilience armies is that ravagers don't do that much. Against necrons at least they do a bit but against something super tough like mechanicus you may as well be shooting the enemy with blanks.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
What i hate most vs resilience armies is that ravagers don't do that much. Against necrons at least they do a bit but against something super tough like mechanicus you may as well be shooting the enemy with blanks.

Ravengers don't do that much regardless of target

Against zombies and plague marines I might suggest a grotesquerie in radiers backed up by warriors in venoms and some form of anti-tank. i prefer scourges.
Your HQ has the choice of a succubus rolling with some grotesques to help them eat armor, or a lhamean in a venom for extra cheapness. i prefer the Succubus personally.
The Grotesquerie will shred zombies easily, eat up bolter shots like its nothing, and can still tear up plague marines, as well as their rhino transports. Just make sure to kill Typhus with venoms and such, as grotesques bounce off 2+, though the succubus can help with that