Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I´m still very new to the game and so is my buddy i use to match.
Problem is, i´ve lost 4 games in a row against his Blood Angels versus my Dark Angels and get sort of frustrated about it.
Usually the first 2 rounds look pretty sweet for me but as soon as he is getting close i get curbstomped.
Most of the time we play 1000 pts matches and he uses a close-combat list build around Mephiston, Death Company and a Baal Predator. Meph seems to steamroll my whole army on his own and i barely can scratch him at all... Sure there must be some rule-issues or iffy tactical decisions on my side but would be the general gameplan against said match-up?
I have tried going greenwing, ravenwing and deathwing so far but i´m still not sure which works best...
What is the best way to handle very aggressive players?

Mephiston is awkward because he's so fast. Terminators will put a crimp on his day as he's only ap3.
An aegis defence line would help with the baal - but only with the icarus lascannon.
I'd take a couple of vindicators - they sort death company out.

What units do you have?
What does the rest of his 1000pt list have?

Roundabout everything I´ve got + what i remember what he´s got:
HQ
Ezekiel count-as librarian
Sammael
probably count-as Belial hammer/shield (never tried before)

DW-Knights
RW CCS
DW CCS

1x5 DW Termis
6 RW Bikes
2x 10 Tac Marines
1x scouts with shotguns+HB
1x scouts with 4 snipers + RL
1xRazorback (Lascan +twinlinked Plasma)
1x5 Dev Squad (RL, Plasmagun +2 LasCan)
Aegis with Quadgun
1xLRC

He´s got:
Mephiston
Corbulo
Death Company
1 or 2 TacSquads with 10 guys
1xscouts
1x 5 terminators
Baal Pred
Rhino

I'd go as gun heavy as possible and use the DW knights + Belial to hurt Mephiston. Don't forget Meph isn't an independant character so he can't lead any squads - if you can see him, you can shoot him.

The outflanking/scouting Ball pred needs to die as fast as possible as it's his fastest unit - I'd target it with extreme predjudice. Although if you can convert something to be an icarus lascannon, you'll have a chance of adl'ing it to death. Str 7 is just glances and you'd need to be the luckiest person alive to kill the baal with that.

He's got the edge in CC, so I'd try to shoot him off the table. He's not got much in the way of transport, so I'd turtle up, shoot like mad and ensure the only units he can reach in cc will stomp him - like the knights, led by belial.

tommse wrote:
I´m still very new to the game and so is my buddy i use to match.
Problem is, i´ve lost 4 games in a row against his Blood Angels versus my Dark Angels and get sort of frustrated about it.
Usually the first 2 rounds look pretty sweet for me but as soon as he is getting close i get curbstomped.
Most of the time we play 1000 pts matches and he uses a close-combat list build around Mephiston, Death Company and a Baal Predator. Meph seems to steamroll my whole army on his own and i barely can scratch him at all... Sure there must be some rule-issues or iffy tactical decisions on my side but would be the general gameplan against said match-up?
I have tried going greenwing, ravenwing and deathwing so far but i´m still not sure which works best...
What is the best way to handle very aggressive players?

if you are having trouble with mephy, remember he cant deal with terminators and is plasma fodder. If you are running Beliah, you can have 2 termite squads as troops and have a unit of DA vets all with combi plasma. Roll out in front of Mephy and unload. say 7 combis, 14 shots, 9 hit 6 wound, even if he somehow has cover dead mephy. You invested 250 points to kill his 250 but his 250 is also his warlord. You can also use combi plasma on his terminators, or his death company.

Turn 2 combat sounds a bit soon. Make sure you deploy closer to your own table edge to get an extra turn or two's shooting in. Don't be tempted to move up close, even with your own assaultunits like the Knights...whilst they're stuck in combat, you can't shoot at them further.

Instead, keep your assault units close but bait him into combat with your other units first. You can then counter-charge in yourown turn, this ensures you get the bonus for charging and you'll likely gain the advantage.

BA player here. Let me tell you his flaws. meFEASTon hates anything with AP2 or in termie armor. Your bud has very little scoring units, hit him where it hurts. DC can only contest an objective, they can't capture it.

If I were you, I'd go as shooty as possible and just blast them before they got to you.

Take termies, take plasma, shot his troop picks, protect yours, win game, watch buddy cry cheese.

Plasma should do fine? Hit on 3+ and wound on 3+ rapid fiering his ass?

Simply run a squad of DWK into him. Activate smite and watch him fall 15A, 7.5H, 6W AP2 kills him. He has an AP3 weapon so he wont reliably even deal 1 wound back.

Yeah, Mephiston's just a big bully. Luckily Dark Angels tend to have lots of AP2 weapons, so hit him with ~10 plasma shots and that should put him down for good.

Sounds like meph might be the distraction absorbing all fire while the death company closes in. I would still shoot meph as he is something you can't ignore but maybe have the DWK use st10 attack on the death company to instapaste them.

pepe5454 wrote:
Sounds like meph might be the distraction absorbing all fire while the death company closes in. I would still shoot meph as he is something you can't ignore but maybe have the DWK use st10 attack on the death company to instapaste them.

death company strike at init4, and have the weight of attacks to take down terminators, so I would avoid them with your DWknights.
DWknights would do much better against mephy than death company.

Rawenving knights and vindicator.
You first use grenade launcher on Mephiston and then instakill him with vindicator.
Or you use same grenades on Death Company and instakill them with Plasma (no feel no pain.

As already mentioned, Mephiston crumbles when he is faced with a character that has an 2+ armour save. Keep in mind that you always declare a challenge so you can get a reroll from your squad, so that in the event you would fail your 2+ you can reroll that.

Hard counter against Mephiston is Ezekiel with 5+ supporting models. Keep this squad in the center of your force and counter charge Mephiston with this squad (or bait him to charge it).

Another easy way to take Mephiston out (if you want to invest in some new models) is a droppod with veterans with combi-plasma's. Drop turn 1, rapid fire Mephiston. Since he can't join squads he is on his own and against a droppod it is almost impossible to hide.

Next up would be Corbulo with his 2+ FnP save that can soak a lot of fire for the incoming Death Company squad if he is in front. Key is to not waste small arms fire on this squad as long as Corbulo is the closest target. You should concentrate on him with your weapons that can ignore his FnP. So that's str 8 or higher (or str 6 if you can hit them with a Rad shell first). This results in either him failing his Look out Sir or a dead Death Company Marine. A good result in either case.

Alternatively (again you'd need to invest in a new model or convert your razorback) Corbulo + Death Company are terrified by a Vindicator , since a hit can decimate the entire squad.

Hope it helps.

Thank y´all! Some very nice ideas indeed.

I was thinking about another possible flaw in my tactics: I used my Combat Squad ability to seperate my units because i thought this would lead to more versatility. Instead it made Mephi eat my squads for breakfast...

Could you please explain why Ezekiel is a hard-counter or specify how to use him as one? I tried him today and he did nothing for me except of achieving a suicide by getting 3 perils of the warp in a row

I hope meFEASTon destroys you, I'm pulling for him. A small piece of my soul died when I gave you advice on how to destroy him.

I would imagine you're better off using combat squads. Ideally, when you get charged by Mephiston, he'll wipe out the 5 marines he hits in one turn, leaving the rest of your army to shoot at him the next turn.

The trick is to make sure he has to charge the 5 guys without special/heavy weapons, and the plasma gun/lascannon/combi-bolter can tear him apart.

 tomjoad wrote:
I would imagine you're better off using combat squads. Ideally, when you get charged by Mephiston, he'll wipe out the 5 marines he hits in one turn, leaving the rest of your army to shoot at him the next turn.

The trick is to make sure he has to charge the 5 guys without special/heavy weapons, and the plasma gun/lascannon/combi-bolter can tear him apart.

This. Combat squads is the best way, Meph will wipe them out and you can pour a ton of AP2 shooting into him on your turn.

He should be a piece of cake for DA, just charge him with terminators (even the DW Knights would do it with their uber charged maces).

If he's being tricksy and running away, bait him into CC with a weaker squad before you counter charge.

tommse wrote:
Could you please explain why Ezekiel is a hard-counter or specify how to use him as one? I tried him today and he did nothing for me except of achieving a suicide by getting 3 perils of the warp in a row

Ezekiel has a 2+ save and a master crafted force weapon. As long as he is in a 5+ model squad he gets a reroll in the challenge to reroll his 2+ save should he fail one.
This means if he gets into combat with Mephiston (either by counter charging or baiting) he has a very good chance to survive almost indefinitely.
And since he has a force weapon he even has a chance to kill Mephiston (although to be fair, that chance is about as good as Mephiston killing him).

But where he really shines is Mind Worm. 2 wounds will reduce the combat efficiency of Mephiston to the point where he is only a shadow of what he was. And until he is in close Ezekiel can get Divination powers to boost the shooting of the squads around him.

Good luck getting Mind Worm off though, it's only S4 to Mephiston's T6, Mephiston can deny it on a 5+, Ezekiel has to pass his psychic test, roll to hit and with the short range he's only ever going to get 1 shot at it.

DA techpriest have 2+ armor correct?
I'd take a pair of those guys and stick them in with my tactical squads.
When meph rolls in, challenge.
You get a 2+ save, he gets no save.

-Matt

 Andilus Greatsword wrote:
Good luck getting Mind Worm off though, it's only S4 to Mephiston's T6, Mephiston can deny it on a 5+, Ezekiel has to pass his psychic test, roll to hit and with the short range he's only ever going to get 1 shot at it.

This was my thought. Meph needs to wound once, rolling 2+ to ID, Ezikiel is not a hard counter. Terminators with powerfists are.

Terminators.

Mephiston can't ignore a 2+ armor save and S8 would severely put a crimp in his 6 Toughness. Also, Power Fists ignore 3+ armor saves and Feel No Pain. Basically they would counter everything in his dex, and better still, you can make an entire list out of Power Fist Terminators by using Belial.

My experience with Blood Angels facing terminators is that it is pretty easy to avoid close combat. Obviously, if a bunch of Deathwing catch Mephiston they will chomp him up, but I don't see a pure termie army being particularly strong against an experienced BA player.

How so? If it's a pure Deathwing army there's nothing else on the board and therefore you can't kill anything.

Terminators have always gone down easiest to massed fire - a blood angels army tends to have enough speed to outmanouver terminators and puts out enough shooting to take them down. The main weakness of terminators has always been a low model count, Put enough shots onto them and they struggle.

Outmaneuvering them, sure, but how do you take them down with shooting when most of your scoring units have pistols?

Are you talking about using TLAC Dreads to take them down?

Take a mix of tacticals and assault marines - The assault marines take the forward objectives supported by longer range units, the tacticals ensure that terminators have to walk through a storm of bolter fire to your own.

I've a friend who regularly does this and it works for him.
I play eldar and use dire avengers in the same manner.
Weight of fire

Any Blood Angel army relying on Assault Marines to do its dirty work is dead already. A special weapon on 5 guys is fine, but you need the shootier elements to do the real damage.

Even then, he can alpha strike w/ the Terminators. The turn he drops he gets TL shooting.

4 TL Stormbolters and 1 TL AC:

(.88*.5*.33*2*4)+(.88*.83*.33*.83*4)+(.88*.83*.16*4)
(1.16)+(.80)+(.46)
2.42 MEQs the turn they DS at 24" range per squad

2 of them can wipe out a combat squad the turn they DS

Also, if they charge a Tac squad, GL.