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I just got tabled in a tourney by a screamerstar and we sat down and had a talk about what we should have been differently in the game (it was done in about an hour). I was running a Necron royal court with CSM allies (it could have been better optimized but it wouldn't have made much of a difference that game since the extra heldrake would have done squat to his list)

Anyways I am in need of ways to fight this army, are there any well known weaknesses/counters to this list so I can prepare my army for when I eventually fight it again.

I know that a good alpha strike list can do a number to it but it has to go first so the screamerstar can't get the 2++ up and running

So does anybody know anyways to fight a screamerstar? Or is it just playing on easy-mode

Last (and first) time I faced a screamerstar I threw 1960pts of Nob Bikers and Biker Warbosses at it. Caused one wound before they all died.

Moral of the story is, while the grimore is active this deathstar is invincible. If 20 Nob Bikers can't kill it, nothing can.

So in this case, apply the advice in your own sig - throw your third best at their first and tie them up chewing through Warriors or something until the end of the game. Necron Royal court list is going to get punished here because it has no third best unit to send their way.

Eldar seer council

misfortune

grey knights flamer I think that makes you re roll invuls

Massed fire (like really massed) fire power, it takes a ton.. My eldar jetbike squad is basically the same except nowhere near as many attacks in combat. and they can easily take a whole armies worth of shooting in a turn and lose maybe one guy.

 A GumyBear wrote:
I just got tabled in a tourney by a screamerstar and we sat down and had a talk about what we should have been differently in the game (it was done in about an hour). I was running a Necron royal court with CSM allies (it could have been better optimized but it wouldn't have made much of a difference that game since the extra heldrake would have done squat to his list)

Anyways I am in need of ways to fight this army, are there any well known weaknesses/counters to this list so I can prepare my army for when I eventually fight it again.

I know that a good alpha strike list can do a number to it but it has to go first so the screamerstar can't get the 2++ up and running

So does anybody know anyways to fight a screamerstar? Or is it just playing on easy-mode

Snipe the herald out.

GK Allies with vindicaires are pretty good for this.

I keep one, blow the Grimoire holder's brains out with a turbo-penetrator for two wounds, and then nuke the now vulnerable daemons and now the enemy has lost a huge investment.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Alternatively, you can use barrage weapons to snipe him out. In a dual FOC game, two sets of three griffons ought to nuke the guy out of his squad.

Well, instead of a Royal Court, I'd go for lots of Wraiths.
The idea to take GK allies including a Vindicare is tempting.

Don't try to kill the Screamerstar. It won't work.

Instead, slow it down. Charge it with a full unit of Wraits and a Destroyer Lord. Bury the Destroyer Lord in a challenge with one of the Heralds and you should be able to basically nullify the Screamerstar for 2-3 game turns.

Kill the rest of his army.

Win game.

Easier said than done, of course, but that's the plan.

Tar pit them.

Depending on the game length the screamer star will kill 4-6 units out of your army. Unless you've something really durable to tar pit the unit you are more than likely just have to face it that you're gonna lose those units.

Look it at from another angle;

You've 4-6 turns to win the game by going after everything else except the star. Just pray you have enough units to sacrifice to his star.

Also pray that you are not playing a kill point game, because if you are - you are going to lose.

Sorry for sounding Noobish... Without having a Daemons player in my meta, I have no idea what a Screamerstar is.

What is it?

Puscifer wrote:
Sorry for sounding Noobish... Without having a Daemons player in my meta, I have no idea what a Screamerstar is.

What is it?

A unit of Screamers of Tzeentch (fast close-combat units) and 2-3 Heralds of Tzeentch (psykers with Divination). One of the Heralds can pick a wargear that gives the unit +2 invi and one of the Heralds probably get the psychic power that gives the unit a 4+ invu. Herald1 casts this pwoer for the 4+ invu, Herald2 boosts it to 2+ with the special wargear and Tzeentch units can re-roll save rolls of '1'. So it is a unit with good shooting 8from the Heralds), good close-combat (from the Screamers) and a 2+ invulnerable save with re-rolls...

 AtoMaki wrote:

Puscifer wrote:
Sorry for sounding Noobish... Without having a Daemons player in my meta, I have no idea what a Screamerstar is.

What is it?

A unit of Screamers of Tzeentch (fast close-combat units) and 2-3 Heralds of Tzeentch (psykers with Divination). One of the Heralds can pick a wargear that gives the unit +2 invi and one of the Heralds probably get the psychic power that gives the unit a 4+ invu. Herald1 casts this pwoer for the 4+ invu, Herald2 boosts it to 2+ with the special wargear and Tzeentch units can re-roll save rolls of '1'. So it is a unit with good shooting 8from the Heralds), good close-combat (from the Screamers) and a 2+ invulnerable save with re-rolls...

But like the actual Death Star the Screamer star has a weakness.

The caster may never benefit from the grimoire himself, so sniping him out is quite valid. Of course they'll do their damndest to make sure you never can target him, but that's why we have barrage spam and vindicaires.

Some griffons work wonders for wiping out the heralds.

I agree on vindicare assassins, like 1-3, snipe out the heralds, eat his squad alive.

 Kain wrote:

But like the actual Death Star the Screamer star has a weakness.

The caster may never benefit from the grimoire himself, so sniping him out is quite valid. Of course they'll do their damndest to make sure you never can target him, but that's why we have barrage spam and vindicaires.

Some griffons work wonders for wiping out the heralds.

They can use LOS like everyone else. It is pretty much a 2+ invu, so I wouldn't rely on it so much.

The weakness of the Screamerstar is the same that plagues all Daemon builds: the rolls. The Daemon palyer should roll on so much stuff that he must fail one of them eventually and then the whole thing collapses like a house of cards.

 AtoMaki wrote:

 Kain wrote:

But like the actual Death Star the Screamer star has a weakness.

The caster may never benefit from the grimoire himself, so sniping him out is quite valid. Of course they'll do their damndest to make sure you never can target him, but that's why we have barrage spam and vindicaires.

Some griffons work wonders for wiping out the heralds.

They can use LOS like everyone else. It is pretty much a 2+ invu, so I wouldn't rely on it so much.

The weakness of the Screamerstar is the same that plagues all Daemon builds: the rolls. The Daemon palyer should roll on so much stuff that he must fail one of them eventually and then the whole thing collapses like a house of cards.

And when he does, make sure it's to a sniper who blows his brains out *and* pins them, leaving the Daemons to stare fearfully as to where the shot came from only to see the emotionless mask of a Vindicaire who then gives that two fingers to the eye and two back at you gesture.

Because that's what Adrian Shepard would have done.

Except Daemons automatically pass Pinning. Part of the Instability rules last I checked.

 Godless-Mimicry wrote:
Except Daemons automatically pass Pinning. Part of the Instability rules last I checked.

Shoosh it was an awesome mental image.

In fact, the point is to kill the rest of the army. This should be possible with a bunch of Nightscythes loaded with Immortals or Warriors, and Annihilation Barges.
I've done in an RTT where the Daemon army was consisting of 4 winged DPs and the GUO.

There are better ways then a Vindicare, if you want to work wth grey knights (Which work surprisingly well with Necrons) then you should go for a Storm Raven. 2 mind strike missiles onto the unit and boom, every single herald is dead with no saves. Mind strikes cause perils to any psyker under them, no saves, no nothing, just death! Admittedly once he sees what they do for the first time, you will be hard pressed to get a second shot in with there movement.

3 GK stormravens make short work of them tbh..., but that is the only valid counter i know.

Tarpitting them in hth aint actually easy, but a imperialguard blob or a Th & Ss unit could do that for some turns.

On the other hand he wont have much more than

Fateweaver
3-4 heralds

Deamonettes, plaguebaerers, Horrors

9 Screamers

that will be 1750 fast, and fateweaver wont be on the board everythime, if he is, he won't be protected by the grimoire and will be killable.

not a big fan of it, but it is quite valid and a lot of armies will have issues with it.

You approach it as you would any deathstar. Screamerstar is not killable in cc ( unless you multi-charge with twenty wyches or something). A large hound squad with heralds and grimoire is also a pain and cheaper and scout. So you really need to shoot them at a distance or tie them up with what is a relatively disposable unit and then shoot them up. It is what we have being doing with deathstars for years. Deathstars mean that the rest of your force is relatively easy to take down. That is the trade-off. Use it to your advantage.

Have not played against it yet but one of the biggest problems with it I have heard is that if they are going second then they can spend all game running around, avoiding getting locked down with their turbo boost, then on the last turns of the game Shoot out and then contest everything but the 1 that they need.

So I think a big thing would be try and go second(If possible) and then avoid until you can claim on the last turn maybe? I think the grimoire is in the shooting phase? So they would have to split up before getting its benefits.

 felixcat wrote:
You approach it as you would any deathstar. Screamerstar is not killable in cc ( unless you multi-charge with twenty wyches or something). A large hound squad with heralds and grimoire is also a pain and cheaper and scout. So you really need to shoot them at a distance or tie them up with what is a relatively disposable unit and then shoot them up. It is what we have being doing with deathstars for years. Deathstars mean that the rest of your force is relatively easy to take down. That is the trade-off. Use it to your advantage.

I threw 20 Nob Bikers at one to see if it could die.

It didn't.

If theres a benchmark for invulnerability in this game, it's "can this unit effortlessly kill 20 Nob Bikers"

 ALEXisAWESOME wrote:
There are better ways then a Vindicare, if you want to work wth grey knights (Which work surprisingly well with Necrons) then you should go for a Storm Raven. 2 mind strike missiles onto the unit and boom, every single herald is dead with no saves. Mind strikes cause perils to any psyker under them, no saves, no nothing, just death! Admittedly once he sees what they do for the first time, you will be hard pressed to get a second shot in with there movement.

2 Mindstrikes is highly unlikely to end every Herald in the unit since they have to actually be touched by the template themselves, and the Daemon player would have to be very stupid to place them all close to each other knowing there is a Grey Knight Storm Raven coming his way. That's not to mention the change of scatter.

 Dakkamite wrote:
If theres a benchmark for invulnerability in this game, it's "can this unit effortlessly kill 20 Nob Bikers"

No it really isn't. T5 W2 is great but they have piss poor saves and are also actually rather easily dealt with by any MC with decent toughness. There are much tougher units in the game. If Nob bikers were as tough as you make them out to be, then Orks might be placing in tournaments, yet you are lucky to see them at all.

Don't SW have an advantage of being able to nullify that power on a 4+?

Every codex has either tough things to tarpit with, or killy things to put on the attacks to kill off screamers. Or just so much massed firepower that they die off anyway (looking at you, fire warriors).

The issue is that these are rarely useful against other armies or have only some success against the screamers because the save is still rather strong.

 Godless-Mimicry wrote:

 ALEXisAWESOME wrote:
There are better ways then a Vindicare, if you want to work wth grey knights (Which work surprisingly well with Necrons) then you should go for a Storm Raven. 2 mind strike missiles onto the unit and boom, every single herald is dead with no saves. Mind strikes cause perils to any psyker under them, no saves, no nothing, just death! Admittedly once he sees what they do for the first time, you will be hard pressed to get a second shot in with there movement.

2 Mindstrikes is highly unlikely to end every Herald in the unit since they have to actually be touched by the template themselves, and the Daemon player would have to be very stupid to place them all close to each other knowing there is a Grey Knight Storm Raven coming his way. That's not to mention the change of scatter.

Huh, common man, seriously you only need to kill the grimoire guy then he will have at best a 4++ on the unit and you can kill like every other. Since you cannot lookout sir, one or two raven will kill it, in one or two turns, bar crap dice for scattering... precience for the win...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Puscifer wrote:
Don't SW have an advantage of being able to nullify that power on a 4+?

you can stop the 4++ and maybe his shooting but the grimoire will still take his save to 3++ and reroll 1's, then the star will fly over and kill your runepriest, unless you have somehow a deathstar of your own...

 Valek wrote:

 Godless-Mimicry wrote:

 ALEXisAWESOME wrote:
There are better ways then a Vindicare, if you want to work wth grey knights (Which work surprisingly well with Necrons) then you should go for a Storm Raven. 2 mind strike missiles onto the unit and boom, every single herald is dead with no saves. Mind strikes cause perils to any psyker under them, no saves, no nothing, just death! Admittedly once he sees what they do for the first time, you will be hard pressed to get a second shot in with there movement.

2 Mindstrikes is highly unlikely to end every Herald in the unit since they have to actually be touched by the template themselves, and the Daemon player would have to be very stupid to place them all close to each other knowing there is a Grey Knight Storm Raven coming his way. That's not to mention the change of scatter.

Huh, common man, seriously you only need to kill the grimoire guy then he will have at best a 4++ on the unit and you can kill like every other. Since you cannot lookout sir, one or two raven will kill it, in one or two turns, bar crap dice for scattering... precience for the win...

What's your point? He said that two missiles will kill all of the Heralds in the unit. If you kill just the Grimoire guy have you killed all of the Heralds? There's no mention of multiple Ravens or multiple turns, just an claim that a single Raven in a single turn will kill 2-3 Heralds, which is unlikely. Your post in no way invalidates what I said.

Well all that needs to die is the grimoire guy and now you have a painfully vulnerable unit.

 Kain wrote:
Well all that needs to die is the grimoire guy and now you have a painfully vulnerable unit.

or he fails to roll a 3+ twice in a row and you kill the unit, otherwise you loose the game, hoping for an errata soon tbh...

 Valek wrote:

 Kain wrote:
Well all that needs to die is the grimoire guy and now you have a painfully vulnerable unit.

or he fails to roll a 3+ twice in a row and you kill the unit, otherwise you loose the game, hoping for an errata soon tbh...

??? Why lol

Because something is strong? Or because personal preference dictates it's unsavory to play against...

I personally like the idea of a strong list to play against... But if the Errata hits the 2++ Daemons with the ball-sack-kicker, I would also expect crap like MSS and 2 hour Tau shooting phases to be changed as well...