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I can deal with just about everything else Necron put on the table, but a MSS D-lord with 6 Whip Coil Wraiths is driving me nuts. I can do kill it, but by the time I do the rest of the armie has gotten to close for comfort and then the Night scythes show up to drop another 24 foot sloggers in the face. The mas of 3++ saves has stood up to volume fire from 48 FW, 16 GD, 9 crisis suits, Broadside and Railhead only to fail 2 saves on different Wraiths. So even though I get an effectively free turn of shooting, just shooting it down is not working, and it eats through bubblewrap.

It is to fast to ignore, to tough to just focus down, and there are other nasty things like Scarab swarms that need to be dealt with early also do to speed.

48 FWs should easily bring this down in 2-3 turns. It seems you just had really bad luck.
The problem is that you should not use your Broadsides to shoot on the wraiths. You should focus your anti tank on his Anni-barges as you stated even if you shoot the wraiths with all of your units it will probably not bring them down fast enough and at the end of the day the Railguns will be saved by the inv exactly the same like a pesky pulse rifle.

We sadly do not have any good S8 weapons with enough shots to cause ID so all we can do is volume of fire.

I was going to say you need more small arms fire, but 48 FW should be enough.

You are either:
Having very poor luck with the wriths 3++
Deploying the FW poorly
Being out menunvered by the wriths.

6 wraiths should take the same amount of PR shots to kill as 12 space marines. Not too hard to do. I do agreed that if you have a tough time with them or it takes too long the rest of the necron army is in their 24 inch kill range.

How do you position your guys?

I imagine that csstled up in bastions and behind an adl would help you to survive, especislly if you cram yourself in so tightly as to not give them any room to get at you.

Think of the battle of thermopylae, close down their avenues of attack and dictate where they come at you from, and plan overlapping fire arcs accordingly

 Shadox wrote:
48 FWs should easily bring this down in 2-3 turns. It seems you just had really bad luck.
The problem is that you should not use your Broadsides to shoot on the wraiths. You should focus your anti tank on his Anni-barges as you stated even if you shoot the wraiths with all of your units it will probably not bring them down fast enough and at the end of the day the Railguns will be saved by the inv exactly the same like a pesky pulse rifle.

We sadly do not have any good S8 weapons with enough shots to cause ID so all we can do is volume of fire.

Being a footcron list with two scyths for Transport, there is nothing better to shoot at. Only other option is warriors. His list makes both my A-T units feel a bit useless. Broadside is looking for the 6 to precise the D-lord, won't ID him but if I can kill it, the wraiths are a little less rough.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

First0f0ne wrote:
I was going to say you need more small arms fire, but 48 FW should be enough.

You are either:
Having very poor luck with the wriths 3++
Deploying the FW poorly
Being out menunvered by the wriths.

6 wraiths should take the same amount of PR shots to kill as 12 space marines. Not too hard to do. I do agreed that if you have a tough time with them or it takes too long the rest of the necron army is in their 24 inch kill range.

Definitely poor luck with the 3++ wraiths. They just don't seem to fail. I am keeping the wraiths in a nice kill zone from about everything without the wraith ever hitting the line, so I think deployment is okay. I may be getting herded a bit to much by them because they are not dieing.

Even his 2+ guys fail more often than those wraiths.

In 1-2 turns 48 FW should kill all of them with RF

Fire warriors are the answer, not battlesuit spam. Also make sure you have some makerlights in the army, because BS 5 firewarriors destroy.

The lord however presents a positional problem. Deep striking may be the answer.

Finally if you use plasma missile and or fusion guns, and don't like fire warriors, simply ally in 10 space marine scouts and a single space marine librarian with null zone and some other power. Forcing him to re-roll his successful invul saves will be a game changer.

 ImotekhTheStormlord wrote:
In 1-2 turns 48 FW should kill all of them with RF

Yes should, but thanks his constant stupid luck it takes up to 4 and 5 turns. So I am looking for some other approaches to dealing with them. Can't use terrain as an issue as they just ignore it.

barnowl wrote:

 ImotekhTheStormlord wrote:
In 1-2 turns 48 FW should kill all of them with RF

Yes should, but thanks his constant stupid luck it takes up to 4 and 5 turns. So I am looking for some other approaches to dealing with them. Can't use terrain as an issue as they just ignore it.

Can't really give advice on how to beat lucky.
I used to spam drones from vehicles, dropping off pairs of drones all over the place, and then using them to physically get in the way of an enemy advance/assault. It usually bought me an extra turn, of shooting, two if I was lucky.

What I used to run was cheap HQ, 3x1 crisis suits (flamer, fusion), 4x12 fire warriors with devil fish, 2x6 warrior on foot, 3x minimum path finders, 3x2 broadsides each with leader with target lock.
With disruption pods on all 7 devil fish, it's 1999 on the nose.
The idea was unit saturation. I after dropping drones, I have 27 different units on the table. It produces a lot of over-kill and wasted firepower from my opponent.

It doesn't like immotek's lightning.


-Matt

A few ideas that may or may not help.

Add 1 squad pathfinders for marker lights. BS 5 would give N*1.16 more chances to fail saves.

And have 1 or 2 six man FW squads, to throw at the wriaths. Get close double tap, get charged, die/break and flee. Regroup and unload.

First0f0ne wrote:
A few ideas that may or may not help.

Add 1 squad pathfinders for marker lights. BS 5 would give N*1.16 more chances to fail saves.

And have 1 or 2 six man FW squads, to throw at the wriaths. Get close double tap, get charged, die/break and flee. Regroup and unload.

Actually did something like this the first game, but had an ethereal in the squad. It managed to type on the wraiths for a turn and give the  whole army preferred enemy. It seemed to wrk but the game was called early. Since we are not running Forgeworld, I am looking at pathfinders. Short one devilfish at the moment, though

Outmanuver him with JSJ.

Wraiths are dangerous going forward, if you drop two 2x Crisis Suit squads, with each guy having a Fusion+<something; MP IMO>, behind them, he either turns around, away from your line, or completely ignores them, leaving them free to destroy those mid-field Anni Barges.

Or completely ignore them, and eradictae everything else. Even wraiths cant stay stood up to a whole army's worth of shots.

I have had some good luck with Hammerhead Submuniions from time to time.

You really cant ID them so well with Strength 8 plus due to the nature of our codex, but a Fusion Cannon Hammerhead can do some nasty work on them if you get to use Forgeworld.

Realistically you have to save flood them, so lots of Kroot and Firewarriors are the way to go.

 IHateNids wrote:
Outmanuver him with JSJ.

Wraiths are dangerous going forward, if you drop two 2x Crisis Suit squads, with each guy having a Fusion+<something; MP IMO>, behind them, he either turns around, away from your line, or completely ignores them, leaving them free to destroy those mid-field Anni Barges.

Or completely ignore them, and eradictae everything else. Even wraiths cant stay stood up to a whole army's worth of shots.

works great until the d-lord breaks off and they kill both units of suits.
I wouldn't sacrifice 2 units of elites in such a way.
20 point drone add ons are much better for that.



-Matt

HawaiiMatt wrote:

 IHateNids wrote:
Outmanuver him with JSJ.

Wraiths are dangerous going forward, if you drop two 2x Crisis Suit squads, with each guy having a Fusion+<something; MP IMO>, behind them, he either turns around, away from your line, or completely ignores them, leaving them free to destroy those mid-field Anni Barges.

Or completely ignore them, and eradictae everything else. Even wraiths cant stay stood up to a whole army's worth of shots.

works great until the d-lord breaks off and they kill both units of suits.
I wouldn't sacrifice 2 units of elites in such a way.
20 point drone add ons are much better for that.

-Matt

Not to mention the idea of jumping in to the middle of strong mid range army with better assault is not exactly appealing.

its just a case of Target Priorities for your opponant. If you drop turn 2 with both things, you should be at the same level as the Anni Barges/Other vehicles. Any good Necron player know the only thing that will drop two squads of full strength Crisis suits is a decent assault. If the locations im imagining are correct, he will turn the wraiths around to kill them next turn (before the suits can harm too many of the precious vehicles.) Once they come for you, just start to move away and shoot, if you can make it heading toward your table half then better.

Step 1: Include an allied C:SM librarian with null zone.

Step 2: Drink the finely aged despair of the Necron race as he has to reroll successful invo saves.

 schadenfreude wrote:
Step 1: Include an allied C:SM librarian with null zone.

Step 2: Drink the finely aged despair of the Necron race as he has to reroll successful invo saves.

+1

 schadenfreude wrote:
Step 1: Include an allied C:SM librarian with null zone.

Step 2: Drink the finely aged despair of the Necron race as he has to reroll successful invo saves.

This necron player is more worried about allied runepriests with Jaws of the World Wolf.

As lots of people have said, 6 wraiths are basically the same as 12 marines. Small arms will take them down.

The d'lord up front makes things more difficult, but also makes things more expensive. Still, the best approach is small arms fire... plus a strategic spread of units to limit the damage when they hit... due to their expense, you just want to limit their impact on the game.

DarthDiggler wrote:

 schadenfreude wrote:
Step 1: Include an allied C:SM librarian with null zone.

Step 2: Drink the finely aged despair of the Necron race as he has to reroll successful invo saves.

+1

Wraiths have +3/++3 so null zone isn't that bad.

Being T4 it's very easy to pile the wounds on a unit. Use your superior range and focus fire in one unit at a time, expect a turn 2 assault if aren't deploying defensivly.

What about kroot? The kroot have several advantages when lead by an ethereal. First, 32 bodies are a lot to get through, and even with whip coils most of the kroot will strike first. You also have good shooting as they approach, not s5 but close enough. 40 shots on overwatch too. Then in assault you get 60+ attacks, and the enemy hits on 4+ which makes up for the lower save when using fire warriors.

Finally, the unit with character is cheap, cheaper than wraiths with coils before counting the lord.

and you can challenge the DLord to wound him on 4s, before dieing and giving PE to your whole army.

 IHateNids wrote:
its just a case of Target Priorities for your opponant. If you drop turn 2 with both things, you should be at the same level as the Anni Barges/Other vehicles. Any good Necron player know the only thing that will drop two squads of full strength Crisis suits is a decent assault. If the locations im imagining are correct, he will turn the wraiths around to kill them next turn (before the suits can harm too many of the precious vehicles.) Once they come for you, just start to move away and shoot, if you can make it heading toward your table half then better.

Footcron as mentioned, with no vehicles. By turn two Wraiths are normally ready to make charges in to the lines on my table half, that whole ignore terrain things makes them horribly fast. So the last thing I want is getting them any more in to my lines. If he had vehicles this would be a strong approach.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

DarthDiggler wrote:

 schadenfreude wrote:
Step 1: Include an allied C:SM librarian with null zone.

Step 2: Drink the finely aged despair of the Necron race as he has to reroll successful invo saves.

+1

Not unless you are packing more AP3 than Tau do. The Wraith still get the 3+ Armour save. Not to mention that is an Allied C:SM solution rather than a Tau solution. Interesting to see that so man suggested small arms fire, when the start of the post was that small and large arms fire was not bringing these guys down. Statistically yes they should die after 80 Pulse rifles, reality is they just keep making the saves.

Good suggestions so far:
Get Marklights to increase the number of total hits.
Bait the Wraiths, might work if the bait is juice.
Ethereal chickenbone, hitting them first with something they don't really want to kill, might be interesting since I already have 'ui upgrades in all squads.

Non tau suggestions:
Take <insert non Codex Tau Unit>.

Solutions by folks not reading:
Threating the vehicle that don't exist.

As a cron player your best bet is to just unload with pulse rifles and burst cannons. They are only T4 and as any marine player will tell you Being T4 and having a 3+ save is hardly safe. Just make them roll enough dice and you should be golden.

well, is the DLord the Warlord?

If he is, then dropping suits is useless. If he isnt, send them after the Warlord

Am I the only one that thinks an ...interesting... solution would be to send a lone Ethereal after the Wraiths? You get a turn of shooting, then the Ethereal is sacrificed, then you get another turn or shooting with PE in place.

Suicide Ethereals is nothing new, and works just as well against everyone else.

The main issue with it is the high-risk factor of the "price of failure" ability. statistically some of your guys WILL run away, quite a few of them will actually, and it just might be vital units.
As only units who actually TOOK the test gain the bonus, it nullified the tactic of embarking and reserving the majority of forces, as they will gain nothing from the ethereal that way.

So, a concept has risen how to solve it.
Take shadowsun as well!
the LD10 bubble (and a pretty large one) will mean very few of your guys will run away, making your side of the double-edged sword far more blunt.

Now this is nowhere as cheap, and shadowsun is a point-blank AT HQ in a ranged army, but far more efficient in terms of getting an army-wide PE.

Question: Is almost army-wide Preferred Enemy actually 'worth' the requistion cost of the ethereal itself, ignoring for the moment the logistics of getting it suicided?

Considering the ethereal is a mere 50 points?

I would been OP if it wasn't for the risk factor. after all committing suicide isn't hard as long the enemy got SOMETHING on the board, just charge someone. if you actually managed to kill something while at it, all the better.

Not to mention you got rerolls to LD checks to every tau in LOS to him until he actually dies.

The risk factor is the only flaw, everything else about him is pure awesome. you completely forgo actually paying for any combat skills as his only purpose is to buff everyone else, not to do anything by himself.

Just think of it-reroll any 1's at shooting, in an army that has a tendency to get 2+ rolls for wounds quite often and can pump BS of anything to 1 if its required. the PE ability on them is AMAZING.

Another tip to consider against Wraiths (and a lot of CC armies) is your troop unit sizes.

When I charge with my wraiths, I DO NOT want to wipe out the unit on the turn I charge. Ideally, it'll hang around through to the opponents turn so I can't be shot.

Against wraiths, you're probably better off with two units of 6 firewarriors than one unit of 12. When the wraiths charge your units, you WANT your unit to get wiped so that you can shoot at the attacking unit in your next turn. I realise that in most cases, the 12 firewarriors will get wiped too, but sometimes they won't... and two units of 6 takes 2 turns and two charges to remove, whereas the 12 only takes 1.

This is a bad idea if you always play purge the alien. Also, if you're already running max troops, it might not be an option. But it's worth considering.