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.

Just posting this here to ask for any advice. Will be playing a friend when she comes to stay in a couple of weeks and we will probably be having a few battles whilst she's here. She plays Dark Eldar on a regular basis and is somewhat of an expert having played solidly for who knows how long. I on the other hand will be fielding my Blood Angels army and haven't played a match in around 8 years or so, never with Blood Angels since years ago I was a CSM although I mostly played fantasy with my Dark Elves. Just wondering if anyone here has some advice on tactics for me to do or things to watch out for to avoid getting squished too much. I'm pretty resigned to dying but if I can avoid dying too badly then I can at least feel better about being dragged back to Commorragh and having my life ended in a rather grisly and painful fasion

Unsure of her exact army list since she has so much to field that she can pick and choose but we've opted for a 2k points battle. I currently have painted a Terminator Captain (powersword storm bolter), terminator LIbrarian (force stave storm bolter), Librarian, Mephiston, Chaplain with jump pack, Sanguinary Priest, Tactical Squad (meltagun, missile launcher and champ with plasma pistol), Land Raider, 10 Death Company (2 power swords, 2 power fists, 2 thunder hammers, 4 chainswords and 2 infernus pistols), Death Company Dreadnought (blood talons and magna grapple), Land Speeder (heavy bolter and assault cannon), Whirlwind, Devastators (missile launcher, 2 plasma cannons and a lascannon), and have almost finished a Baal Predator. I have at least one of most other units sat on my shelves waiting to be painted. So yea.......any advice would be good or if you can see that I should definitely be taking x or y models then I have a couple of weeks to get something painted up

Thanks in advance hopefully for some assistance

Stay backfield and cripple the DE mobility by popping transports, leave the troops for later.

A storm raven would be extremely useful, as dark eldar have very poor AA.

 ImotekhTheStormlord wrote:
Stay backfield and cripple the DE mobility by popping transports, leave the troops for later.

I'm dubious as to how effective this will be - Dark Eldar have a number of ways of protecting their vehicles at range, including the shield that reduces your range but also cover saves and the like. Couple this with Blood Angels generally not having that many long-range weapons unless you build for it, I don't see this working. Unless you have a number of Devastators, Land Raiders and/or Predators at your disposal, that is.

A storm raven would be extremely useful, as dark eldar have very poor AA.

This, on the other hand, is great advice. Their own flyers and the standard gun emplacements are really the only options they have - and the former aren't really built for anti-air.

Otherwise, this is largely a tricky one, if you're building for assault at all your success will depend on getting the charge. Remember that most Dark Eldar vehicles are open-topped so they will be able to assault straight out from it. You can only really properly counter this with your own Assault Vehicles - Land Raiders are better but can be vulnerable to blasters. Stormravens are safer but much riskier for the troops inside if they *do* get a lucky shot off.

What do you have available, and normally use? Any idea what this friend might be bringing?

Imperial 48" guns don't care about the range reduction field of the DE. The cover save thing is annoying, but it too can be overcome by weight of fire.

I don't like the Stormraven idea because you want to knock out the mobility as soon as possible. If I'm tailoring for a list that is not likely to have helldrakes, I don't use Stormravens. They are too inefficient.

Deploy as much 48" firepower as you can get and then get a couple of counter attack units and maybe add on a whirlwind to rain death on their troops. If you knock down their transports with 48" guns, you will cut them apart on foot. Focus down their dedicated HTH troops and the rest will crumble before FNP ASM.

Last time I played DE, I got the 4++ save on my main ASM squad and they were able to eat the incubi and two other squads. The incubi look really dumb when you are getting 4++ and FNP.

Well, Venom spam supported by some HS units (Ravagers, Flyers) can be very successful. Therefore, I'd take as much heavy bolters you can get. Landspeeders, Predators, and Dreads all carry decent weapons to destroy Ravagers, Venoms, and Raiders, and they are immune against poisoned weapons. Don't go for upgrades like power fists or whatnot. Its a waste of points vs T3 units with poor armor saves.

What do you have available, and normally use? Any idea what this friend might be bringing?

Well I listed on my initial post the models that I have already although looking now I did fail to mention the unit of death company has jump packs as well to go with the jump chaplain. Still to paint I have sternguard vets, vanguard vets, attack bike, stormraven, commander, sanguinary guard, command squad, tactical marines, land speeder, termy assault, scouts with sniper rifles, dreadnought, termies, grey knights, grey knight termies, grey knight termies, bike squad, bike squad, furioso dread, vindicator, predator, Techmarine, termy chaplain, sanguinary priest, apothecary x 2, astorath the grim, chaplain with crozius/powerfist, grey knights brother captain, grey knights brotherhood champion, vindicare assassin and the sanguinor. I have a massive backlog to do and so have plenty of models to pick from that I could try to get painted before then. Models I would normally field like I said is none atm since this will be my first match using Blood Angels and my first game in over 8 years so I'm pretty much starting from scratch on my tactics

As for what she would be using its unsure. She has at least 1 of every unit and after finally purchasing the latest codex since she's been using an older edition for a while she's been discussing Lilith hesperax a fair bit so im guess she will make an appearance. I also know that she's just added more scourges, hellions, mandrakes and a second razorwing to her force

Kaeltheron wrote:
Just posting this here to ask for any advice. Will be playing a friend when she comes to stay in a couple of weeks and we will probably be having a few battles whilst she's here. She plays Dark Eldar on a regular basis and is somewhat of an expert having played solidly for who knows how long. I on the other hand will be fielding my Blood Angels army and haven't played a match in around 8 years or so, never with Blood Angels

Unsure of her exact army list since she has so much to field that she can pick and choose but we've opted for a 2k points battle. I currently have painted a Terminator Captain (powersword storm bolter), terminator LIbrarian (force stave storm bolter), Librarian, Mephiston, Chaplain with jump pack, Sanguinary Priest, Tactical Squad (meltagun, missile launcher and champ with plasma pistol), Land Raider, 10 Death Company (2 power swords, 2 power fists, 2 thunder hammers, 4 chainswords and 2 infernus pistols), Death Company Dreadnought (blood talons and magna grapple), Land Speeder (heavy bolter and assault cannon), Whirlwind, Devastators (missile launcher, 2 plasma cannons and a lascannon), and have almost finished a Baal Predator. I have at least one of most other units sat on my shelves waiting to be painted. So yea.......any advice would be good or if you can see that I should definitely be taking x or y models then I have a couple of weeks to get something painted up

Thanks in advance hopefully for some assistance

Ok, first that is a lot of upgrades that arent going to do you much good. Powerswords arent that good against armies with a lot of 5,6+ saves. Thunderhammers arent that good against t3 units with 6+ saves. Plasma pistol, and even more so infernus pistols are rarely going to be in range and a bolt pistol kills on 3+ right. The more of this stuff you can cut, the more marines you will be fielding which is good.

DE have trouble killing vehicles at range. They can do it, but if you have a bunch of fast vehicles that can keep some distance you will do well. The land speeder will do well, the Whirlwind will do well, although it is not fast, the Baal Predator will do well(although it is basically AV12 front to DE) but you need to have a bunch of vehicles so see if you can get a razorback painted. The dread might be a different story, DE have grenades that eat vehicles at init6, so only take this if you already have a ton of other vehicles to go around. The landraider probably has twinlinked lascannons(not so useful) and land raiders are AV12 all around vs DE, so leave it at home.

As said, heavy bolters are actaully pretty good against DE. If you have any, paint them up and field some devistators.

Hm, If HBs are good a squadran of HB attack bikes can put some hurt out. Include a ptiest on a bike and they're though to remove.

D

Heavy bolters. Interesting weapon. I don't think the army list I used against DE had any heavy bolters. I used MM attack bikes, since it was a TAC list. Barbecuing those fragile skimmers from 18" out is still pretty nice. Who needs the extra melta die against AV 10 or 11?

Martel732 wrote:
Heavy bolters. Interesting weapon. I don't think the army list I used against DE had any heavy bolters. I used MM attack bikes, since it was a TAC list. Barbecuing those fragile skimmers from 18" out is still pretty nice. Who needs the extra melta die against AV 10 or 11?

the AP1 obviously helps the damage chart, but you need a 2 to glance or a 3 to pen. With heavy bolters you need a 5 to glance or a 6 to pen, but you have 12" more range and 3 shots.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 evildrcheese wrote:
Hm, If HBs are good a squadran of HB attack bikes can put some hurt out. Include a ptiest on a bike and they're though to remove.

D

I think attack bikes lack the extra bodies to survive incoming fire.

3 attack bikes with with a 3+ and 5+ fnp is not easy to remove, and they're so cheap you could fill all 3 slots of your FA and still have plenty of points to play with, that's 9 HB attack bikes!. Run them together and with a priest and rotate the squads around if you want to be a real douche. I think they'd earn their pounts back and if you get the scouring you've got 3 more scoring units.

D

 evildrcheese wrote:
3 attack bikes with with a 3+ and 5+ fnp is not easy to remove, and they're so cheap you could fill all 3 slots of your FA and still have plenty of points to play with, that's 9 HB attack bikes!. Run them together and with a priest and rotate the squads around if you want to be a real douche. I think they'd earn their pounts back and if you get the scouring you've got 3 more scoring units.

D

3 bikes with 3+ and FNP are no harder to removed than 3 assault marines with FNP. If you are going the AI approach the cover save doesnt mean anything either.


DE really struggle with low AV, fast vehicles that spit out dakka. I would use my FA slots on those, rather than giving everything with a splinter cannon an early pain token.

I don't use HB attack bikes in my TAC lists, so it wouldn't be fair for me to consider them.

If I were tailoring for DE, I'd probably break out the typhoon land speeders for 42" pain.

Thanks for some of the ideas here floating around. I've already spoken to her about the models and we aren't going to pay attention to the whole 'what you see is what you get' rule so I can tweak the weapons of my models a little using some of the ideas here. Ignore some of the harder hitting weapons like powerfists and thunder hammers and spend more points on heavy bolters and the like