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I'm having some trouble dealing with dark reapers lately.
I have several usual opponents who play eldar and all of them run the same group tacked on to whatever they bring. Both in comp or casual, I'll always see 10 dark reapers bubble wrapping the psycher of the month.

Normally I'd drop some wolf guard with claws and combi weapons near them but since the eldar codex they can intercept to anywhere on the board.
In trying to create the best way to deal with them quickly, it seems like my best option is a stern guard group with storm bolters dropping onto them from a pod (since RAW they have to target the pod, not the guard. This will reliably cause 6-7 wounds + charge and costs around 250.

Is there a cheaper or better way to kill them as quickly as possible?
I run Wolves (dreads and guard) and Codex marines.

Plasma and Grav will do a number on them.

Well, yes. But a plasma squad from a pod (5 man instead of 10 man due to the 13 point increase) will only do 4.7 wounds at a similar price point. If you get rid of the pod and do jump packs to save cost, they can be targeted by interceptor. Plas is really better against 2+ armor and multiple wounds. It's kinda wasted on T3/3+ as you can get 4-8 bolter shots for a similar price.



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I'd like to stay as cheep as possible as this has to be tacked on to my existing TAC list.

Not always an option I know but if you deep strike out of line of sight he can't pop you with forewarning which can help. I play Eldar and I know another unit that can be a bit frustrating is scout bikers shooting up and trying to charge them quickly.

Alternatively Wait 2-3 months for them to get a point increase.

 MattKing wrote:
(since RAW they have to target the pod, not the guard....

Best I could come up with was ravenguarding in some hellblasters/heavy bolter dev squad/aggressors. It gets really tough if they are altoric(sp? the -1 to hit ones) and in cover.

I think you need something that hits on 4s at the worst, wounds on 3s, has a -1 to save modifier and does 50 ish shots to kill all 10 of them. Guard can do it, other eldar can do it, Nids can do it, Cawl can do it, as a vanilla SM player the best I've come up with is:
3 units of heavy bolter inceptors,
20 hellblasters,
20 special issue sternguard [special issue .5x.66x.66 x 40 kills 8-9 vs storm bolters .5 x .66 x .33 x 80 kills the same amount] they will be in cover so .5x.66x.5 x 40 kills 7 vs .5 x .66 x .17 x 80 = 4.5 special issue wins
a storm raven
2 units of stationary (ravenguard and pray you get turn 1) aggressors
Celestine w/ geminie to tie them up if opponent is careless with their bubblewrap.

Hellblaster, sternguard and aggressros rely on ravenguard strat to get close enough. Heavy bolter inceptors need to deploy out of LOS and w/in 28" and survive the exarchs shooting which shouldn't be too hard.

None of this works well for me and I usually end up seeing one 10 man ynarii blob and 2-3 6 man -1 to hitters with 2 set-up in the web-way and ends with me being mostly tabled by bottom of turn 2.

Not to derail the thread but I'm curious if this interpretation has any official support. I swear there was a YMDC thread all about this that failed to resolve this: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/90/744062.page

I'd be careful about definitive statements on a rules issue that doesn't seem clear on either side, especially when designing a strategy around it because it will end in bickering. Maybe establish this with your opponent first and double check with a TO if going to a tourney because this doesn't seem as clear to me as it seems to you.

Best of luck, reapers are one of the most powerful units around right now and facing them buffed to the gills (-2 to hit, in cover, guided) makes them very resilient and super deadly.

edit to add cover bonus and figure sternguard special bolters work better than storm bolters

I have yet to see any bickering about it as it seems clear. The pod arrives from reserve, then the unit disembarks from it. I'm sure everyone in YMDC would we willing to die to bicker one way or another about it but I have yet to see a TO argue with the disembarkation clause. Especially as they disembark AFTER reserves and the CP would have to be spent during reserves. At worst they would be passengers making an emergency jump from the wrecked pod and may suffer a wound.

for space marines I have seen thunderfire cannons and storm talons chip away at them. I play elder, btu usually only field one squad of 3 reapers (I generally field a unit of every aspect I can fit) but when somebody wants a tournament power list and I load up on reapers mass fire is usually how they go down, think of them as shooting terminators in cover.

put another way 5 bolter shots may only average .37 (.28 if alorac because those dicks and their -1 to hit) wounds, but pack several squads into them plus assault cannon razerbacks and a storm talon or 2 and you whittle them down 1 at a time

At the end of the day they're still Toughness 3 models with power armour. As with most things this game you're best off slinging lots of dice over "strong" shots.

If you can get a Whirlwind or something indirect to drop on them you should be fine. While the Farseer can have them shoot at something deepstriking, it can only use this stratagem once - so use two or three units - the first being possibly a bit sacrificial.

How do you kill Marines? Killing Dark Reapers is slightly easier than that.

Also, you seem to be fixated on the idea of dropping next to them. The Imperium has the best long range shooting in the game, use some of that (whirlwind, devastators, and although not long ranged, marines with bolters work pretty good).

Reapers en-masse are a tough nut to crack. Imperium has a good answer because Imperium includes Guard, but straight wolves or space marines will struggle dealing with that.

Reapers will be in cover. So they'll have a 2+. My personal recommendation would be to use your normal tools like assault cannons, just using LOS to get there.

If you don't have decent line of sight blocking terrain you won't win. If you do have some, it's a tough battle, but you can potentially handle it ok. Reaper spam is competitive for a reason. It's not like you can just flip a switch and beat it with a take all comers list.

Ineirekt fire like mortars?

Get close and personal. Trying to have a gunline match with a reaper spam list is a losing proposition. Anything that is quick and CC oriented is your best bet. Infiltrating jump pack vanguard vets, for example are a great counter.

I would go with 2 whirlwinds and wolf guard with storm bolters and storm shields on bikes to deal with them. Whirlwinds should be able to hit anywhere on the field no Los required, and I have not seen a game in recent memory where 5 wolf guard haven't been able to wipe out anything they want dead with their 40 bolter shots at 12". They should be able to survive long enough to get there as well with 3++ saves. Or go with landspeedera with dual heavy flamers. 3 speeders get 6d6 auto hits and are fast enough to just pop up and say hi!

But yeah, whirlwinds are my answer for a lot of annoying units now days lol.

 Elbows wrote:
At the end of the day they're still Toughness 3 models with power armour. As with most things this game you're best off slinging lots of dice over "strong" shots.

If you can get a Whirlwind or something indirect to drop on them you should be fine. While the Farseer can have them shoot at something deepstriking, it can only use this stratagem once - so use two or three units - the first being possibly a bit sacrificial.

Exactly this. I use reapers a lot this edition and get the expected amount of ribbing for doing so, but I feel terrified every time I have them pop their heads up to shoot because each model lost is a decent chunk of points. If you want to be clever about it, whirlwind them, deepstrike out of line of sight, and consider waiting until turn 2 or 3 to start bringing in reserves (at which point any screens will likely be pretty diminished). Eldar don't really do screening units. Our cheapest troop unit costs about as much as a marine squad but with less durability. Our cheapest troops on a model-by-model basis cost about 3 times what a conscript used to. Neither of these units have particularly good range. Personally, I tend to rely on small, cheap screening units that don't hold up well if anyone bothers shooting at them. So take a turn to clear them out with bad targets for reapers and then do the standard deepstriking stuff on turn 2.

Alternatively, if you just want to power through them, redundant deepstriking units might be able to bust through screens depending on positioning. Or just shoot them with everything. It might feel weird to point a lascannon at an infantry unit, but each wound you do is roughly 30 points out of your opponent's army. So it's not like you'll be trading all that badly by going after them.


It's also worth mentioning that, because our troops are okay but not that scary in their own right, we tend not to have a ton of command points to fling around. Take note of how many command points he has to work with at the start of the game. How hard would it be to get him down to 1 meaning he can't intercept you?

Keep in mind, reapers are very expensive. Point-per-wound, they’re only average, but have benefits of resilience with movement and ability to camp with range. Once you shoot somerhing decent at them, they go down fairly quickly