How do you beat a 2k Draigo list?

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**NoArmorSave**

-666- wrote:@ NoArmorSave...

No one has mentioned the GK psychic power Dark Excommunication yet which completely nerfs both the greater daemon and Bloodcrushers. You say you have done well versus Draigowing - I believe you but that does not equate to FateCrusher spam > Draigowing. It could for simply be that your wins have come against less experienced players fielding suboptimal lists. I have played both armies extensively winning tournies with both and am of the opinion that a well designed Draigowing army has all of the advantages.

Yes, I did mention Dark Excommunication. You need to reread my post. I know all about it, exactly what it can do, and how to deal with it.

My friend plays Draigo Wing, and it was so one sided I let him take Dark Excommunication on his Librarian just to make the game more balanced. It is not enough to tip the balance, but it does help. The gimped crusher squad can still soak up wounds, and the other 2 crusher squads and Bloodthirster are more than enough. The only way it would allow Draigo Wing to dominate Fatecrusher, would be if you had 3 or more instances of it in the army. 2 Dreadknights + Librarian, or some other such non sense. That would be list tailoring, and that is not what I am talking about.

Most tournament players running Draigo Wing don't even have Dark Excommunication in their lists. They believe they do not face enough Daemon players to warrant it, or perhaps that don't fully understand it.

And no, I don't play suboptimal players with suboptimal lists; please don't use that excuse or suggest it. It is insulting, and anyone with any deductive reasoning, can easily see the level of mastery I have with both armies based on my writing (and the 40K rules). I have beaten a player that took 2nd place at Ard Boyz with his Draigowing, and I recently placed 3rd for Feast of Blades qualifier with my Fatecrusher Daemons. I will be bringing them to Feast of Blades with the objective to take 1st place.

I would disagree that a well designed Draigowing army has all of the advantages. Each army certainly has pro's and con's, but I believe Fatecrusher is stronger overall (much more so). Some of the reasons:
1 - It is not weak against Melta and S8 AP2 like Draigo Wing is. One of the biggest weaknesses in Draigo Wing are S8+ AP2 weaponry. Melta spam, Vindicators, Demolishers, Medusas, Power Fists, Thunder Hammers, Monstrous Creatures all kill Paladins very quickly.
Fatecrusher is much, much more resilient.
2 - It has better control over the board if you are skilled at using the army.
3 - Many players don't expect to play Chaos Daemons. It is quite a shocker for many folks, and just has a high coolness factor. Everyone and their grandmother is playing Grey Knights.
4 - Fatecrusher is more dominating once it hits the table. It litterally just destroys everything in it's path, and is much more powerful in the assault phase. There are very few builds that can realistically compete with a skilled player running it (Venom Spam and Mechdar are some of the very few).

**NoArmorSave**

Roboute wrote:Ok, here we go.

Assumptions:
- 10x Paladins, including stave, banner, 2x swords and 6x halberds. Fully equipped for wound allocation. Draigo gives countercharge.
- Draigo
- Librarian with stave, no Dark Ex

- 2x8 Crushers, with Fury, Icon, Musician and 5x regular BCs
-Thirster with BotBG

Pregame:

- Before combat, libby casts Sanctuary. All Daemon units make their roll to enter CC (if they're all right at 6", not likely).
- Bloodcrushers suffer 1.19 unsaved wounds from dangerous terrain. Thirster has a 4% chance to suffer a wound, we'll ignore that.
- Hammerhand goes off 3 times, everyone is S7.
- Daemon players gets the BC into combat with the squad. Some Crushers are engaged with Draigo and the libby, but they'll be taken out first so we'll assume most of the surviving Crushers will get to smack on the paladins.

Paladins Attack Crushers:
36 NFW attacks, 27 hits, 22.5 wounds, 10 unsaved wounds after Inv re-roll
4 Banner attacks: 3 hits, 2.5 wounds, 0.28 unsaved wounds after armor re-roll
Draigo 4 attacks, 3.3 hits, 2.7 wounds, 1.2 unsaved wounds after Inv re-roll
Libby 2 attacks, 1.5 hits, 1.25 wounds, 0.56 wounds after Inv re-roll

12.04 wounds on the Crushers, 13.23 wounds with the dangerous terrain factored in

Total combat res against Daemons: 12

To be very generous, these are split evenly (6 and 7) between the squads and allocated perfectly. Three crushers are dead (one and two), and seven Crushers are wounded. The Crushers take 7 Daemonbane tests at Ld10, and they have a 58% chance of failing at least one. Since we were so generous before, we'll assume that one more Crusher dies, leaving 12 to attack back, along with the Bloodthirster. We'll be generous again and assume that the dead Crushers were mainly taken from those attacking Draigo and the Libby, leaving only one Crusher each engaged with these two. This leaves 10 Crushers to smack on the Paladins.

Daemons counterattack. Since these are all at Initiative 1, they'll be allocated in one huge batch.

Thirster 6 attacks, 4 hits, 3.33 ID wounds
10 Crushers on Paladins 40 attacks, 20 hits, 16.67 wounds

Allocation time! 20 wounds, including 3 ID wounds, all one batch here.

Stave takes 2 ID wounds, 0.33 unsaved wounds
A Sword takes 1 ID wound and 1 wound, 1.5 unsaved wounds (including the chance for the ID wound to double)
The other sword takes 2 wounds, 1 unsaved wound
Banner takes 2 wounds, 1.33 unsaved wounds
6 paladins remaining take 2 wounds each, 8 unsaved wounds and about 2 dead paladins (each paladin has a 2/3 chance to make at least one save)

1 Crusher on Draigo 4 attacks, 2 hits, 1.33 wounds, 0.44 unsaved wounds
1 Crusher on Libby 4 attacks, 2 hits, 1.67 wounds, 0.28 unsaved wounds

Total combat res against Paladins: 8.72

The Results:

- Paladins win combat by 3, probably. Each Daemon unit takes 3 armor saves, with a 1/3 chance of failing one, with the re-roll. So between all three squads, there will probably be one more wound caused thanks to No Retreat! We'll assume it's on the Thirster since that won't have any effect on the next combat.

- Paladins lost 3-4 models, probably, although this will vary greatly and requires complicated statistics and distributions to chart properly. They'll be attacking back next round with 21-ish attacks, plus Draigo and the Libby. There's a 1/3 chance that the banner died, reducing them to a paltry 14 attacks. there's a 1/3 chance that the stave died, leaving them unable to reliably soak wounds from the Thirster. Regardless, most of their wound allocation is probably used up, meaning further wounds will have a greater effect on them.

- Daemons lost 4 models, conservatively, but all of their wound allocation is used up. Further wounds will have a greater effect on them. They'll be attacking back next round with 36 attacks, plus the Thirster. These are only S5 now, so they won't wound as easily.

- Next turn is the GK player's turn, and he'll be using Quicksilver to once again hit first with everyone. His units will again be S7. I don't feel like doing a whole second round of math, but I'm guessing that the GKs' ability to strike first will result in more Crushers dying and then more Paladins dying. Even lower numbers of Crushers are nasty.

Conclusion:
Yeah, Bloodcrushers are nasty. Fateweaver re-rolls make them way nastier. If you give them optimal conditions (and these are really, truly optimal conditions), then it will be a bloodbath on both sides. The combat will be drawn out, allowing for counter charges on both sides, and creating more room for luck to play into things. What does this mean? No side has a clear statistical advantage in this particular match-up, and it will come down to generalship.

Against Blackmoor, I wouldn't count on these optimal conditions. Without this particular 3-unit combi-charge, the Paladins can really put a hurting on the Daemon player again and again with few casualties. I'd place my money on the Draigowing army in this situation. However, IMO that's because a 24-Crusher army isn't the optimal Fatecrusher list, and is more of a noobhammer that hard counters a bunch of lists than a true TAC list.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

NoArmorSave wrote:Roboute,

Not to be rude, but I just love it when Grey Knight fan boyz are shocked to find out I can usually table their army with my Chaos Daemons. And I sincerely mean that, I have never lost to Grey Knights with my Chaos Daemons, not even close. And I play them all the time.
You would have to specifically tailor your Draigo Wing list to beat my Fatecrusher Daemons. I know, I have been in the trenches with both armies, and I know how it plays out. My sense is you (and Blackmoor) have never faced a skilled Chaos Daemon player running Fatecrusher. You can theory hammer things all you want, but when it ultimately comes down to it, Paladins can not handle large units of Bloodcrushers in close combat, especially when supported by a Blood Thirster with Blessing.

Stating things like I will just back up and shoot big bird, or throw my Psyriflemen at your Bloodcrushers, are mickey mouse tactics that reek of desperation. I know easy counters to all of these things, and when it ultimately comes down to it, the assault results between the Paladins and the Crusher deathstar is going to be the most signficant factor. The Paladins just aren't going to win that battle.

NoArmorSave,

Not to be rude, but it's easy to be a big fish in a small pond. There are a lot of Grey Knight fan boyz out there who bring their shiny Paladins and don't know how to play them. I wouldn't be surprised at all to watch you table 9/10ths of Draigowing players out there. But that's because there are a lot of them, and they aren't very good. Grey Knights are a popular army and have a lot of forgiving choices in their list. I'd place myself into that category, because I don't have enough firsthand experience with my Draigowing army to be truly competitive.

Blackmoor is different. He hasn't just played all his local GK scrubs and won a few local tourneys. He plays across the country in the most competitive environments possible. His list also plays to the strength of the entire GK codex, using supporting units like Interceptors to complement his deathstar. Your list might fare differently against an opponent of equal or better caliber generalship.

"Stating things like I will just back up and shoot big bird, or throw my Psyriflemen at your Bloodcrushers, are mickey mouse tactics that reek of desperation. I know easy counters to all of these things, and when it ultimately comes down to it, the assault results between the Paladins and the Crusher deathstar is going to be the most signficant factor. The Paladins just aren't going to win that battle."

And stating things like I will get a turn 2 assault on your Paladins with multiple Crusher units and my Thirster isn't a naive assumption to make against an opponent of Blackmoor's caliber? What are these easy counters you speak of? You're doing a lot of "no, you're wrong" without a lot of "this is why it won't work." Because you really, really need that multiple assault to even survive to strike back against a full paladin deathstar. And this isn't even taking the rest of both armies into account. Your 2 HQs and the 2 Crusher units we've been working with cost about as much as a Draigostar. How do the rest of both armies handle themselves?

I'm not saying that your list will fail against Draigowing. It's a strong list that has massive durability from spamming tough units. I'm just saying it's foolish to dismiss an army like Blackmoor's Draigowing out of hand.

Roboute,

I don't completely agree with your assault example above. It will be a bloodbath on both sides, but the Crushers will come out on top most of the time if the Chaos Daemon player knows what he is doing.

" However, IMO that's because a 24-Crusher army isn't the optimal Fatecrusher list, and is more of a noobhammer that hard counters a bunch of lists than a true TAC list."
You are mistaken here; it generally makes the opponent feel like a Noob though. The build I use is the best build possible in the current Codex, IMO. Getting into this discussion would take up pages and pages, and I am not going to do it right now. I know what works in the Chaos Daemon Codex, and I know what works\what to take in the current Meta. I believe the list I use is like a finely tuned Mercedes. It purs and is the cream of the crop.

Secondly, I at no time, dismissed Draigo Wing as an army, or said that Blackmoor is a bad player. I think Draigo Wing is a very good army, and I like playing against it. This is a thread about how to beat Draigo Wing, and what it's weaknesses are.
Fatecrusher is a big achilles heal for Draigo Wing; you can choose to accept\believe that or not.

On the subject of Blackmoor; I am sure he is a skilled, competitive, tournament player. I would absolutely love to play against him with my Fatecrusher Daemons. I guarantee you there would be some of the ugliest assaults in the history of the 40K game occurring on the table. I am sure we would both give each other pure hell.

**Roboute**

NoArmorSave wrote:Roboute,

I don't completely agree with your assault example above. It will be a bloodbath on both sides, but the Crushers will come out on top most of the time if the Chaos Daemon player knows what he is doing.

Secondly, I at no time, dismissed Draigo Wing as an army, or said that Blackmoor is a bad player. I think Draigo Wing is a very good army, and I like playing against it. This is a thread about how to beat Draigo Wing, and what it's weaknesses are.
Fatecrusher is a big achilles heal for Draigo Wing; you can choose to accept\believe that or not.

On the subject of Blackmoor; I am sure he is a skilled, competitive, tournament player. I would absolutely love to play against him with my Fatecrusher Daemons. I guarantee you there would be some of the ugliest assaults in the history of the 40K game occurring on the table. I am sure we would both give each other pure hell.

I might do some more math tomorrow morning and find out who would win in successive rounds of the assault I math hammered. If you have any specific criticisms on my math hammer (beyond who would win if the combat continued), I'd be happy to hear them. In many ways, there is just too much variability given wound allocation and other factors for my non-math-major skills to handle.

I agree that Fatecrusher is an uphill matchup for Draigowing, but I would hesitate to call it an achilles heel, at least when you compare players and lists of similar strength. You've made a lot of assertions to the tune of "Crushers would definitely win," and I have no doubt this is based on extensive personal experience. It's nice, however, to hear you admit you don't know what would happen against a skilled tournament-honed Draigowing player. It seemed at first that you were being arrogant, and I have a tendency to play devil's advocate when I feel that someone isn't giving the other side of the argument a fair shake. Make no mistake, I would be scared to face your 24-Crusher army no matter what I brought to the table.

**NoArmorSave**

rigeld2 wrote:
NoArmorSave wrote:It is definetely not a sure thing. If the Fire Dragons are allowed to unload 30 Melta Shots onto the Paladin squad, there will not be much left of that Paladin squad, even with a 3++ save. There is a good chance it will be completely wiped out along with Draigo and
the Librarian, or just horribly gimped.

You might want to re-think that.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/418342.page

This is what determined the entire game:

Eldar turn 2
"Miraculously, my librarian manages to cast Shrouding for the 3+ cover. Even more miraculously, after 20 twin-linked and 10 normal melta shots, I only lose 3 paladins and Draigo takes 1W. "

If the Paladins wouldn't have been in cover, the entire squad would have been wiped out. He also saved really well at the 3++ level.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Roboute wrote:
NoArmorSave wrote:Roboute,

I don't completely agree with your assault example above. It will be a bloodbath on both sides, but the Crushers will come out on top most of the time if the Chaos Daemon player knows what he is doing.

Secondly, I at no time, dismissed Draigo Wing as an army, or said that Blackmoor is a bad player. I think Draigo Wing is a very good army, and I like playing against it. This is a thread about how to beat Draigo Wing, and what it's weaknesses are.
Fatecrusher is a big achilles heal for Draigo Wing; you can choose to accept\believe that or not.

On the subject of Blackmoor; I am sure he is a skilled, competitive, tournament player. I would absolutely love to play against him with my Fatecrusher Daemons. I guarantee you there would be some of the ugliest assaults in the history of the 40K game occurring on the table. I am sure we would both give each other pure hell.

I might do some more math tomorrow morning and find out who would win in successive rounds of the assault I math hammered. If you have any specific criticisms on my math hammer (beyond who would win if the combat continued), I'd be happy to hear them. In many ways, there is just too much variability given wound allocation and other factors for my non-math-major skills to handle.

I agree that Fatecrusher is an uphill matchup for Draigowing, but I would hesitate to call it an achilles heel, at least when you compare players and lists of similar strength. You've made a lot of assertions to the tune of "Crushers would definitely win," and I have no doubt this is based on extensive personal experience. It's nice, however, to hear you admit you don't know what would happen against a skilled tournament-honed Draigowing player. It seemed at first that you were being arrogant, and I have a tendency to play devil's advocate when I feel that someone isn't giving the other side of the argument a fair shake. Make no mistake, I would be scared to face your 24-Crusher army no matter what I brought to the table.

You know what we should do:

Blackmoore Vs. NoArmorSave - Vassal Match
Draigo Wing Vs. Fatecrusher - The ugliest 40K assault phases you will ever see.

$5 entrance fee to watch game (procedes donated to charity).

**Draigo**

I would think that the rounds of shooting, sanctuary, etc would make the initial bc squad less then optimal and do very little.

Though if 2 could hit at once that could get ugly for the same reason ap 2 spam would be rough(granted lack of cover lol). Prob would be a focused fire effort to fateweaver from such things like vindicare who erases big birds invuln and psyfleman...

If the bird goes down the crushers arent as bad.
Which again you need a lot of things to go well for the fateweaver list to be completely effective. Prefered wave, weather round of shooting before combat can be engaged, etc

**Blackmoor**

NoArmorSave wrote:
Blackmoor wrote:What does your full list look like at 2000 points?

You first.

You can find my lists all over the place. Here is the list I used to win the Wild West Shootout a couple of weeks ago:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/422339.page

My Draigowing List
HQ
Draigo
Librarian w/Warding Staff, Shrouding, Might of Titians, Sanctuary, 2 Servo Skulls

Troops
10 Paladins w/3 Psycannons, Master Crafted Psycannon, Warding Stave, 2 Swords, 2 Demonhammers, 3 Halberds, Master Crafted Halberd, Brotherhood Banner

5 Grey Knight Strike Squad w/Psycannon

Fast Attack
9 Interceptors w/2 Psycannons
Justicar w/MC Demonhammer

Heavy Support
3 Dreadnaughts w/2 Autocannons, Psybolt ammo

Here is why I wanted to see your list:
24 Bloodcrushers (plus Bloodthirster and Fateweaver) are over 1600 points compared to Draigo, Libby and 10 paladins that are around 1170 points. You do not have much in the way of troops.
So you need to have a bunch of cheap crappy units (plaguebearers?) that my dreads can just gun down.
Also you have to split your army in two. I hope you have enough troops or you will have to leave a unit or 2 of bloodcrushers behind.
Also you have a 33% chance of getting the wrong wave in. If that happens, it is open season on your troops until the heavy hitters trickle on a few units a turn (That would be bad for you). So in essence you have a 33% chance of losing the game right from the beginning.
If you do get your preferred wave, you can scatter all over the place. You have a huge footprint so you have to keep a large distance from your other units. If you have a unit that ends up being outside of fateweavers bubble (and there is a good change that might happen even with your run rolls) I could shoot it and do about 10 wounds with everything except the Strike Squad even with your 3+ save and T5.
If you have a unit that is even close to me that is even slightly misplaced, I will assault it, and your pile in move will pull you out of fateweavers range, and it will be wiped out. Then your can counter aassault and the battle will end up like Roboute's example.
Even in his example. the size and placings of models are going to be so hard that I do not see all of them being able to attack. You have 14 of those giant 60mm bases and your placing will be difficult to get them all in to assault. Also if you slip up and leave a unit out of Fateweaver's range it will be killed. Then while the giant assault is being resolved my interceptors will be either running around killing things (like your tropps or fateweaver) or counter attacking to do a lot more wounds.

It is entertaining to think of what could happen if Fateweaver was there, but what would really happen is that I will have my whole army shoot at Fateweaver the turn he lands. He is critical to your army and it's linchpin.
Paladins shooting vs. Fateweaver=1.5 wounds
Interceptors shooting at Fateweaver= .83 wounds (1.18 wounds stationary)
Each Dread shooting at Fateweaver=.32 wounds
Shooting at Fateweaver the turn he lands I should do 3.29 wounds to him, and then after he is dead I will pick your army apart.

**NoArmorSave**

Blackmoor wrote:
NoArmorSave wrote:
Blackmoor wrote:What does your full list look like at 2000 points?

You first.

You can find my lists all over the place. Here is the list I used to win the Wild West Shootout a couple of weeks ago:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/422339.page

My Draigowing List
HQ
Draigo
Librarian w/Warding Staff, Shrouding, Might of Titians, Sanctuary, 2 Servo Skulls

Troops
10 Paladins w/3 Psycannons, Master Crafted Psycannon, Warding Stave, 2 Swords, 2 Demonhammers, 3 Halberds, Master Crafted Halberd, Brotherhood Banner

5 Grey Knight Strike Squad w/Psycannon

Fast Attack
9 Interceptors w/2 Psycannons
Justicar w/MC Demonhammer

Heavy Support
3 Dreadnaughts w/2 Autocannons, Psybolt ammo

Here is why I wanted to see your list:
24 Bloodcrushers (plus Bloodthirster and Fateweaver) are over 1600 points compared to Draigo, Libby and 10 paladins that are around 1170 points. You do not have much in the way of troops.
So you need to have a bunch of cheap crappy units (plaguebearers?) that my dreads can just gun down.
Also you have to split your army in two. I hope you have enough troops or you will have to leave a unit or 2 of bloodcrushers behind.
Also you have a 33% chance of getting the wrong wave in. If that happens, it is open season on your troops until the heavy hitters trickle on a few units a turn (That would be bad for you). So in essence you have a 33% chance of losing the game right from the beginning.
If you do get your preferred wave, you can scatter all over the place. You have a huge footprint so you have to keep a large distance from your other units. If you have a unit that ends up being outside of fateweavers bubble (and there is a good change that might happen even with your run rolls) I could shoot it and do about 10 wounds with everything except the Strike Squad even with your 3+ save and T5.
If you have a unit that is even close to me that is even slightly misplaced, I will assault it, and your pile in move will pull you out of fateweavers range, and it will be wiped out. Then your can counter aassault and the battle will end up like Roboute's example.
Even in his example. the size and placings of models are going to be so hard that I do not see all of them being able to attack. You have 14 of those giant 60mm bases and your placing will be difficult to get them all in to assault. Also if you slip up and leave a unit out of Fateweaver's range it will be killed. Then while the giant assault is being resolved my interceptors will be either running around killing things (like your tropps or fateweaver) or counter attacking to do a lot more wounds.

It is entertaining to think of what could happen if Fateweaver was there, but what would really happen is that I will have my whole army shoot at Fateweaver the turn he lands. He is critical to your army and it's linchpin.
Paladins shooting vs. Fateweaver=1.5 wounds
Interceptors shooting at Fateweaver= .83 wounds (1.18 wounds stationary)
Each Dread shooting at Fateweaver=.32 wounds
Shooting at Fateweaver the turn he lands I should do 3.29 wounds to him, and then after he is dead I will pick your army apart.

Blackmoor,

You are wrong on your analysis of Fatecrusher Vs. Draigo Wing on so many levels. Before we go any further, I need to ask: Have you actually played against a Fatecrusher build I am talking about? If so, how many times?

First of all, your dreads aren't going to just gun down Plaguebearers. They are almost always in cover, and they go to ground if shot at. That gives them a 3++, T5, and they still get Feel No Pain against your ST8 autocannons, because their natural toughness is 5.
You can try to catch them with rending psycannons, but you have to get within 24" to do it. And if you are shooting at Plaguebearers, you are not shooting at other threats.

"Also you have to split your army in two. I hope you have enough troops or you will have to leave a unit or 2 of bloodcrushers behind. "
I have 20 troops, and normally dominate objective games. There are going to be Crushers everywhere dude. Trust me, the table is going to
be covered with them, and Draigo and his Paladin's will wish they were back on Titan.

"Also you have a 33% chance of getting the wrong wave in. If that happens, it is open season on your troops until the heavy hitters trickle on a few units a turn (That would be bad for you). So in essence you have a 33% chance of losing the game right from the beginning. "

NO. You don't understand the army. There is no "wrong" wave. There is wave 1 and wave 2. The competent Daemon general will balance each wave so that each one can function on it's own. In the last 2000 point tournament I played at, I got wave 2 in 2 of my 3 games (rolled a 1 or 2). I still easily won each game.

"If you do get your preferred wave, you can scatter all over the place. You have a huge footprint so you have to keep a large distance from your other units. If you have a unit that ends up being outside of fateweavers bubble (and there is a good change that might happen even with your run rolls) I could shoot it and do about 10 wounds with everything except the Strike Squad even with your 3+ save and T5. "

If wave 1 comes in, Fateweaver will always be covering his Oracle of Eternity over the Crusher squads. He will run in the shooting phase, and the crushers will run in the shooting phase after deep strike. I know how to position things, and I know how it goes down with Fateweavers base relative to the massive Crusher footprints. It is unlikely that you will catch a crusher squad outside of the Oracle. Very unlikely.

"If you have a unit that is even close to me that is even slightly misplaced, I will assault it, and your pile in move will pull you out of fateweavers range, and it will be wiped out. Then your can counter aassault and the battle will end up like Roboute's example."

It won't happen; my pile in move will not pull me out of his Oracle. In many cases, it can actually move crushers that were back closer to the Oracle. The unit & bases are so large, it just isn't a factor.

"but what would really happen is that I will have my whole army shoot at Fateweaver the turn he lands. He is critical to your army and it's linchpin. "

This is where you are gravely mistaken my friend. The last time I played Draigo Wing, Fateweaver was killed on turn 2 by lucky, massed Psycannon shots. I still went on to win the game. The army can still easily win with Fateweaver gone, especially when all of my assault is focused on
your 1 unit of Paladins. I have won several games where I got in wave 2 first and Fateweaver died. It isn't the showstopper you think it is.

Dude, I am not trying to be mean or anything, but looking at your list, it wouldn't be a matter of if I can beat you or not. It would be a matter of if I could table you in the process of beating you.
I have absolutely no fear of the list (or tactics) you have posted here. Based on the information you have written, you really don't understand Fatecrusher and it's nuances. Which isn't unexpected,
it's not your army and you probably haven't even played against a build like this before.

I hope we can play a game (or 3) someday, I think it would be a real eye opener for you.

**Lukus83**

1. Blackmoor was pointing out that if your preferred wave was entirely Crushers and the hard hitters then if you get the wrong wave all you have is squishy Troops. That's a turn where there is nothing else to shoot at.

2. If you split the Crushers between waves then you can hardly count on the secondary waves arriving when planned, and even less likely on getting a multicharge with all 3 units.

3. You can't guarantee Fateweaver will be able to cover all the units that need it. Bad scatters happen, as do bad run rolls. By placing too close to each other you run the risk of mishaps. The large bases sizes of Crushers in this instance works against them.

Now I'm no expert on Daemons, but my above 3 points look like something any competent General should be able to see and take advantage of.

**-666-**

@ NAS...

I don't see how Dark Excommunication isn't going to majorly factor into the game plus it's not something you as a player have any say over whether or not your opponent can take... Greater daemon and Crushers no longer ignore armor saves plus it negates BotBG... Bottom line Crushers die quickly to Draigowing in melee when hit with Dark Exommumication... It is a major effect not a minor one. Statements like that just make me have to wonder how realistic is what you're saying. One major weakneses of daemons in general is when the player suffers from poor rseserve rolls which you've ignored. It does happen from time to time.

**Pyriel-**

How to beat a draigo list?
Simple, just wait till 6:ed rules idiocy is out and paladins will be unable to allocate away wounds and the whole list will be so crappy it will become totally unplayable.

**Clauss**

This thread in hilarious.
Blackmoor, just play him on vassal and destroy him. I play daemons competitively, or at least I like to think so. Sadly i have yet to see anyone brave/ingenious/stupid enough to field 24 bloodcrushers/fateweaver/bloodthirster+blessing. Simply because of a few reason, it costs 1668. So lets say its a 2k list. you now have 332 points. 150 at least much be troops. so 2 5 man squads of beares. Thus you have 182 points. Which could be a prince..some seekers for speed, some hounds for blessing plus speed. Or you go more small troops. So we will assume 1-2 more choices in your list.
Thus your list is some iteration of:
fateweaver
bloodthirster
8 crusher+upgrades
8 crusher+upgrades
8 crusher+upgrades
5 plagues
5 plagues
10 seekers/hounds(last 182 points)
8 kps, all hard to get. cool

Now, the reason you dont see this, is because any GT dark eldar player who can copy an internet list, will evade you with skimmers. and pussyfoot around while not getting out of his vehicles. No good DE player will let you catch him. Since DE are popular, you dont have a chance of winning the GT now. Now if you play mechdar, same situation, less shots. You still lose. I am not saying this because of your ability to play, nor your ability to analyze a situation. But I have been there, i have played these games, and seen what an equal general with a better army will do. DE and mechdar are only one example of this.

I played my daemons at the nova invitational. I played a GK player in the 4th round, his army had strike squads, and absurd amounts of str7 and str8 shooting. he warp quaked about half the board with first turn, and moved up. I could barely deep strike on the board, please tell me how you would defeat a warp quaked table full of str7/8 shooting that wiped any squad I had when it went down, IF any squad could go down. yes your squads are larger and tougher, but yours is slower and has a larger footprint. you will lose, you will lose badly. trust me, i want daemons to work as well as anyone else. But it wont against real players like those I faced at the nova invitational.

In all seriousness you most likely are a big fish in a small pond, but trust me. Go face a good grey knights players who has played hundreds of games in GTs like Nick N and blackmoor. you will lose.

**necron99**

Flavius Infernus wrote:Well, if you don't want to go out and buy a DE army, you can just max out your GK cheap vehicles (rhinos) with cheap minsized squads--even take a henchman army if you have the models--and tank shock him over and over again until he breaks and runs.

Others have mentioned it as a last resort, but I use tank shock as my primary offensive tactic with Eldar and IG against paladin units with FNP, especially if Draigo is in there too. It's not worth the trouble of trying to shoot them when you can just chase them off the board.

Before ten people who don't understand the tank shock rules jump in with the usual mistakes, here's the technique:

-Only models you run over can make a death or glory attack, so don't run over anybody with a daemon hammer and you're safe from that.
-If you tank shock a unit that's already falling back, they fall back again immediately automatically with no chance to rally. So you don't have to wait around for them to go off the board--just hit a falling back unit again, and you can chase them all the way off in a single turn.

The odds of a Ld9 unit failing a leadership test are about 9%, about 6% for the Ld10 unit. So throw out five or six tank shocks--or even ten--per turn, and you can table him in a couple of turns without causing a single casualty.

Also tankshocking your opponent off the table a couple times will tend to encourage the Draigowing player to think about a more balanced list.

Ok, I think I like this idea best - mostly because I have what I need to put it together. I was thinking about doing this last night:

HQ: Xenos
Troop: 6x 5man strike squad w/rhino & dozer blade
Elite: 2x 3man accolite w/chimara & dozer blade
Fast: 2x Storm ravens TL PM & TL MM
Heavy: 2x Psyrifle dreads
Elite: 1x Vindicare assasin

That came out to 2k. What if I dropped my 5 man units out of the rhinos and warp quaked the whole board? A spread out 5 man unit can warp quake a 3' x 2' area. Saying, of course he doesn't make his turn 2 reserve roll. That would kinda force him to walk in on his board side. Mean while the 8 tanks can go and tank shock his terminator unit while the everyone else shoots his vindicare assasin & techmarine who usually hole up in a building.

I know - certainly not at all competitive against any other army. I'd just like to see the look on his face...

**NoArmorSave**

-666- wrote:@ NAS...

I don't see how Dark Excommunication isn't going to majorly factor into the game plus it's not something you as a player have any say over whether or not your opponent can take... Greater daemon and Crushers no longer ignore armor saves plus it negates BotBG... Bottom line Crushers die quickly to Draigowing in melee when hit with Dark Exommumication... It is a major effect not a minor one. Statements like that just make me have to wonder how realistic is what you're saying. One major weakneses of daemons in general is when the player suffers from poor rseserve rolls which you've ignored. It does happen from time to time.

Yes, it is a major efffect, but 1 instance of it is not a show stopper. It only shuts down 1 unit, that is not enough to save 10 Paladins.
This is the second time I have asked you to go back and reread what I have written.

**-666-**

A good player is not going to let you multi charge their brick of Paladins with 2-3 units of Bloodcrushers... so really it only has to work versus one unit.

**Roboute**

NoArmorSave wrote:"Also you have a 33% chance of getting the wrong wave in. If that happens, it is open season on your troops until the heavy hitters trickle on a few units a turn (That would be bad for you). So in essence you have a 33% chance of losing the game right from the beginning. "

NO. You don't understand the army. There is no "wrong" wave. There is wave 1 and wave 2. The competent Daemon general will balance each wave so that each one can function on it's own. In the last 2000 point tournament I played at, I got wave 2 in 2 of my 3 games (rolled a 1 or 2). I still easily won each game.

Wait, I'm confused. About a page ago you said you'd be multi-charging on Turn 2 with a Bloodthirster and 2 units of Crushers, all supported by Fateweaver. Now you're saying there's no wrong wave? If you brought in those four units in Wave 1, Wave 2 will by necessity be one unit of Crushers and some Plaguebearers. If you balance your waves, you won't be charging with three units on turn 2, or turn 3 in all likelihood. Warp Quake isn't just a first turn problem - subsequent units of Crushers won't be able to land within 12" of Interceptors or GKSS, and Icons don't make a difference in this respect. Fateweaver is your army's only significant shooting, and he kills a maximum of 4 PAGKs a turn with Breath and Bolt, not enough to wipe even a combat squad.

Furthermore, it's impossible for a Fatecrusher list to have balanced waves, because Fateweaver can only be in one wave. If the wave that drops first doesn't include Fateweaver, whatever drops will be severely weakened in short order. Yes, I know, most armies aren't packing enough firepower to dent even one unit of Bloodcrushers, but an army like Blackmoor's will have an easy time of it.

The reason the Daemon vs. GK match is so poor (in my opinion) is because the Daemon player needs a lot of luck to have a chance. You need first turn (50% chance to fail, otherwise shunt quake makes the game near-autolose). You need your preferred wave (33% chance to fail) unless you gimp your army by balancing the waves. You need to get your other heavy hitters in on Turn 2 (50% chance to fail each roll). If the dice all go your way, it'll be a rough battle, but if they don't, I know where my money is.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
At least you're willing to put up. I'd love to see that Vassal game, or better yet an honest-to-goodness battle report.

**NoArmorSave**

Clauss wrote:This thread in hilarious.
Blackmoor, just play him on vassal and destroy him. I play daemons competitively, or at least I like to think so. Sadly i have yet to see anyone brave/ingenious/stupid enough to field 24 bloodcrushers/fateweaver/bloodthirster+blessing. Simply because of a few reason, it costs 1668. So lets say its a 2k list. you now have 332 points. 150 at least much be troops. so 2 5 man squads of beares. Thus you have 182 points. Which could be a prince..some seekers for speed, some hounds for blessing plus speed. Or you go more small troops. So we will assume 1-2 more choices in your list.
Thus your list is some iteration of:
fateweaver
bloodthirster
8 crusher+upgrades
8 crusher+upgrades
8 crusher+upgrades
5 plagues
5 plagues
10 seekers/hounds(last 182 points)
8 kps, all hard to get. cool

Now, the reason you dont see this, is because any GT dark eldar player who can copy an internet list, will evade you with skimmers. and pussyfoot around while not getting out of his vehicles. No good DE player will let you catch him. Since DE are popular, you dont have a chance of winning the GT now. Now if you play mechdar, same situation, less shots. You still lose. I am not saying this because of your ability to play, nor your ability to analyze a situation. But I have been there, i have played these games, and seen what an equal general with a better army will do. DE and mechdar are only one example of this.

I played my daemons at the nova invitational. I played a GK player in the 4th round, his army had strike squads, and absurd amounts of str7 and str8 shooting. he warp quaked about half the board with first turn, and moved up. I could barely deep strike on the board, please tell me how you would defeat a warp quaked table full of str7/8 shooting that wiped any squad I had when it went down, IF any squad could go down. yes your squads are larger and tougher, but yours is slower and has a larger footprint. you will lose, you will lose badly. trust me, i want daemons to work as well as anyone else. But it wont against real players like those I faced at the nova invitational.

In all seriousness you most likely are a big fish in a small pond, but trust me. Go face a good grey knights players who has played hundreds of games in GTs like Nick N and blackmoor. you will lose.

"any GT dark eldar player"

No, not ANY GT Dark Eldar player. The weakness of the list is against DE Venom Spam. I know all about this matchup, I play Dark Eldar as well. Why are you even mentioning a seperate weakness of Fatecrusher? We are talking about how to beat Draigo Wing
in this thread, don't try to derail it.

"I played my daemons at the nova invitational. I played a GK player in the 4th round, his army had strike squads, and absurd amounts of str7 and str8 shooting. he warp quaked about half the board with first turn, and moved up. I could barely deep strike on the board, please tell me how you would defeat a warp quaked table full of str7/8 shooting that wiped any squad I had when it went down, IF any squad could go down. yes your squads are larger and tougher, but yours is slower and has a larger footprint. you will lose, you will lose badly. trust me, i want daemons to work as well as anyone else. But it wont against real players like those I faced at the nova invitational."

Did you go first during this game? That would have mitigated the warp quake spam situation.
I am sorry you lost to Grey Knights, but don't try to say that the army is gimped and doesn't work against them. Also, we are not talking about warp quake spam here, smart one. We are talking about how to beat Draigo Wing.

"
In all seriousness you most likely are a big fish in a small pond, but trust me. Go face a good grey knights players who has played hundreds of games in GTs like Nick N and blackmoor. you will lose."

In all seriousness, this is a very rude and assholish statement to make. "Go face a good grey knights player". Give me a break. How do you know who I have played isn't a good Grey Knights player?
Just because Blackmoor and this other dude travel to a bunch of tournaments and post battle reports on Dakka, doesn't mean they are better. I play on average 2-3 times\week, and play some very skilled
opponents.

I have made my case, and have shown beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Fatecrusher is a very powerful answer to Draigo Wing. Only the uneducated and ignorant - players you have never actually played the matchup, will continue to talk s hit about something they honestly
aren't qualified to speak on. You are just angry and are derailing the thread, because I have shown (and proven in many games), that Chaos Daemons can and do destroy Grey Knights. It is what it is, and insulting the players I play and running off about how a pure Warpquake Spam list will destroy me (it won't 50% of the time), when we are talking about Draigo Wing specifically, shows utter, fanboy, ignorance. You can continue to vent and dissbelieve, and I will continue to table Grey Knights.

I am not going to derail this thread anymore debating how to beat Draigo Wing with Fatecrusher. I have adequately proven it, and if you have any deductive reasoning, you will realize what I have written is true.

If anyone wants to talk this anymore, please PM me.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

-666- wrote:A good player is not going to let you multi charge their brick of Paladins with 2-3 units of Bloodcrushers... so really it only has to work versus one unit.

He won't have a choice. I will force this in the game thru good positioning, outmaneuvering, and overwhelming the army.
The model count on a 2000 point Draigo Wing list is really small. An extra strike and Interceptor squad isn't going to prevent this.

I can assure you, that 10 man unit of Paladins is going to get assaulted by multiple units.

**Crusaderobr**

Im gonna have to agree with NoArmorSave here, this thread is filled with dumb fanboys who clearly cant believe that their "incredible" Draigo Wing list can be beaten. When they start talking about other armies and your particular armies weakness to them instead of Draigo Wing you know they are not logical poeple, and that they are now just blatantly trolling. This thread is hilarious and has no tactical value and doesn't deserve to be on Dakka except for entertainment value /popcorn.

That Eldar battle report was hilarious. Not only was his list horrible with the exception of Eldrad and the 3 Fire Dragons squads in Waveserpents, but he proved to not be one of the best general's out there. That battle report doesn't prove anything, except what happens when the Dice Gods have blessed a Grey Knight army in a game ( he got really lucky ).

**-666-**

@ NAS

The thing you have not by any means shown that FateCrusher > Draigowing... it is just in your mind... and that is fine... just don't expect all of us to buy it. But do go on.

**Draigo**

Crusaderobr wrote:Im gonna have to agree with NoArmorSave here, this thread is filled with dumb fanboys who clearly cant believe that their "incredible" Draigo Wing list can be beaten. When they start talking about other armies and your particular armies weakness to them instead of Draigo Wing you know they are not logical poeple, and that they are now just blatantly trolling. This thread is hilarious and has no tactical value and doesn't deserve to be on Dakka except for entertainment value /popcorn.

That Eldar battle report was hilarious. Not only was his list horrible with the exception of Eldrad and the 3 Fire Dragons squads in Waveserpents, but he proved to not be one of the best general's out there. That battle report doesn't prove anything, except what happens when the Dice Gods have blessed a Grey Knight army in a game ( he got really lucky ).

Fanboys? So because we disagree with him were now fanboys?Really dude? I would say more of the posts were praising blackmoors ability as a general not the army itself. If people are mad about that well idk what to tell them because there is proof there that he has a clue unlike the fatecrusher is better camp. While I have no real opinion on either side(since I own both armies) I do see that the daemons need more to go their way to be successful. Lots f variables and unknowns could gimp the list be honest. If stuff goes as you say yes the daemons can pull off a win.

As far as beating Draigo in the current edition. Lots of shots or attacks that negate the 2 + are a good start or use your own vindi to nix draigo and the libby's invuln assuming he has the stave.

**Hyd**

Draigo, he was trolling. His two posts on this thread boil down to mere flamebait ; don't fall for it

The idea of the Vindicare with shieldbreaker ammo is wicked. I like it.

**Alpharius**

Quick reminder:

When discussing theoretical potential maybe army list solutions and stuff involving wargames/toy soldiers, please remain polite and avoid insulting anyone.

Thanks!

**Roboute**

-666- wrote:@ NAS

The thing you have not by any means shown that FateCrusher > Draigowing... it is just in your mind... and that is fine... just don't expect all of us to buy it. But do go on.

The thing is, it's not just in his mind. I'm sure he's won a ton of games against Draigowing with his Fatecrusher. He just hasn't presented much in the way of substantive reasons beyond his own personal experience and assertions that "no, it wouldn't go that way.." That sort of thing doesn't really work on the Internet, because people don't know each other, so it's only what you post that matters. Perhaps he's reluctant to discuss his tactics in more detail because he doesn't want to give anything away to a potentially dangerous opponent? If the battle will be so one-sided, though, I'm not sure why he can't just go ahead and throw out some theoryhammer for his army's game plan.

**-666-**

I'm reluctant at times to believe people I don't know on the Internet. If he said he won most of the time then to me that would go a lot further towards credibility.

**Roboute**

-666- wrote:I'm reluctant at times to believe people I don't know on the Internet. If he said he won most of the time then to me that would go a lot further towards credibility.

To me, it doesn't really matter whether he won most or all of his games (he very well could have). Without the ability to translate that personal experience into a response that will convince an Internet dweller who doesn't care about how many games you've won, personal experience doesn't mean a whole lot.

**-666-**

That is the main point - he hasn't really convinced anyone. I'll leave it at that.

**Roboute**

Aaaaand segue back to on-topic ....

I did enjoy the suggestion of a Vindicare to snipe away Draigo's 3++ save. This would be particularly important for a Purifier list, because damage would be greatly increased if Draigo can't just tank the one or two psycannon rends from each squad.

Also, as I have in other GK threads, I will shamelessly pimp the Stormraven deathstar as the Purifiers' counter to Draigowing deathstars. While perhaps not the best unit in a TAC list, a Stormraven filled with a LIbrarian, Techmarine with nades and 9 Purifiers with halberds will be able to survive incoming fire with a 3+ cover save and then deliver a heaping helping of smackdown into the Paladins' lap. If you can flat-out your SR into the sweet spot (more than 12" but less than 15" away), you'll have a guaranteed assault next turn if the SR stays mobile. Rad grenades make the Paladins T3 against the Purifiers' S6 or S7, which means they can ID them with impunity. The Purifiers will probably die horribly to the return attacks of Draigo, the Libby and the stave wielder, of course, but they can alpha strike the heck out of the Paladins first, and your deathstar costs half as much as his does.

If you wanted to stray into Henchmen territory, that same Stormraven can be just as effective for even fewer points by filling it with a mix of DCAs and Crusaders. Supported by a Techmarine and Librarian (or Inquisitor if you're feeling cheap), this squad can also achieve ID with S6 vs. T3. Paladins don't like ID. With an Inquisitor, you can get this unit down to just a little over 500 points, giving you enough room to fill the rest of your army out to counter his support units.

Come to think of it, this one unit works far more efficiently than Bloodcrushers against a Draigo deathstar. GKs all have assault grenades, so Sanctuary won't impede them, and they have the nade cheese to ID the Paladins, which is huge. It does suffer from the "eggs in one basket" syndrome, but the eggs are in a fairly tough basket in this case.

**Hyd**

If you're fielding a Stormraven, you can also throw them a few Mindstrike missiles before going for the kill, ideally aiming at the libby. With him gone you'll have disabled their psychic defense, which will be instrumental in ensuring your own Hammerhands pass.

**Roboute**

Hyd wrote:If you're fielding a Stormraven, you can also throw them a few Mindstrike missiles before going for the kill, ideally aiming at the libby. With him gone you'll have disabled their psychic defense, which will be instrumental in ensuring your own Hammerhands pass.

An excellent point. They're defensive weapons, so you'll be able to fire them all as a matter of course in any turn you're disgorging passengers.

**ShadarLogoth**

Question:

Do army lists really have fanboys?

I'll hang up and listen.

**-666-**

There are only two armies that can field Stormravens-only gk get the msm... Mirror match advice I don't think is that helpful since typically getting the charge and activating NFW gets the job done.