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So i have a seer council problem.
I play nurgle chaos space marines, and nurgle chaos daemons as allies, and my opponent is running a seer council. He's making a mess of my army. What can i do to counter this nonsense. I have pretty much every unit from both codex that can have a mark of burgle. You name it, I got it. What can i do. WE play 1500pts usually.

Seer council is unkillable, immune to psychic powers and has hit and run. You basically have to ignore it and let it kill a unit a turn and bubble wrap objectives so far out that he cant contest.

for this you can either use typhus with 120 plague zombies or 2 helcults (see hellbrute dataslate). The helcult is my prefered option since its cheaper and you get to have 2 attacks instead of only 1.

the rest of your army needs to be capable of killing off his scoring units including popping waveserpents (a priority given your mass bodies have nothing but a 6+ vs their shields

an alternative tactic would be to ask your opponent to play a less cheesy list :-)

I killed a seer council, once.

It was the first turn, and my Deflier dropped a pie plate on their heads (the size of the deflier meant he could see over where they were hiding.) Killed most of the unit in one turn.

Other than that I feel ya bro, there ain't much that we can do against such a unit. Leaving it alone is pretty hard due to the speed and you can't exactly tarpit it.

One does not simply ignore a unit that moves up to 24" a turn while throwing psychic powers around while executing every organ of your army that is too tough for the regular Eldar scrubs...

Your best shot is to distract it with expendable units and try to prevent it from helping the rest of the army with psychics.

And Heldrake is never a bad bet against them. They can do barely nothing against them and he forces those saves.

I was thinking that the black mace might work, if i can only get one wound through it could really hurt the council badly.

I also was wondering if simple weight of fire would do it, any thoughts of what i could take that would work?

 orknidious wrote:
I was thinking that the black mace might work, if i can only get one wound through it could really hurt the council badly.

I also was wondering if simple weight of fire would do it, any thoughts of what i could take that would work?

Neither of these solutions will work. A 2+ cover save with rerolls = 36 saving throws to cause 1 wound = 72 hits = ~100 bolter shots to kill 1 warlock.

A black mace prince will get challenged by the baron and he has a 2+ rerollable invulnerable flicker field save. Then if they feel like it they will hit and run and shoot your daemon to bits since he will be on the ground.

Your chances as a pure chaos army are literaly spam fearless cultists (zombies/helcults) and/or spam heldrakes. At least heldrakes shooting from the correct angle only face a 4+ rerollable instead of 2+.

I'm not sure a Chaos list can reliably beat a JetCouncil list if played properly. 3 Drakes are your best bet because you can chase down his troops and maybe force a draw, and if he misses out on the 2+ armour then you can actually do ok with Vectors + flame. The issue being that a good player is never going to give you the chance for that and will be in combat with something turn 2. If the Council gets Terrify as well as Fortune then it will just single handedly wipe out everything on the ground, they might have an issue with they ran into a Terminator unit, but any Marine or Cultist unit is going to lose combat and get run down every time.

Your best bet is to counter with everything and anything that Ignores Cover.

Dont forget Noise Marines, you will out range him with Blast Masters, and being strength 8 AP3 always helps.

Heldrakes will be your friend in this match up, again, because of the ignores cover due to flamer templates.

Hilariously, try out the new Hellbrute formations like the Mayhem Pack. Outfit them all with anything AP2 (Lascannons or what have you) and just nudge them away from things you don't want them near. If they get to close, stomp on them with your Hellbrutes in CC.

The JetCouncil really doesn't mind Helbrutes or any kind of Dread tbh, an 8 man Council (which is light on Warlocks assuming there are 2 Farseers) is going to reliably scrap a Helbrute before it can swing if they get charged (or are multicharging). A full/untouched Council will likely scrap 2 and if you get the +1S buff (which is fairly likely) then its closer to 3 (depends on some Pen rolls). In return each Helbrute has a half decent chance of killing a single Warlock, and trading 100pt Helbrutes for 50pt Warlocks is always going to be a losing trade.

What are Warlocks outfit with in a typical JetCouncil for them to be killing Hellbrutes?

Last time someone brought a Jet Council around I ended up just flaming it from all odd angles and it went away.

Do they have a 2+ armor save or a 3+ armor save.
It they have the 3+ a bale flamer or the Brand should work pretty well.

Singing Spear? Sure it's armorbane, but with their weaponskill they're hitting on 4s needing 9 on 2D6 for even a glance.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
They get a 3+ armor save when given an eldar jetbike. and for 5 points they get a Str User Armorbane weapon. Which isn't all that scary.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I'm guessing there is some sort of shenanigans with taking Runes of Battle and granting +1 to their armor saves?

iirc, they all rock 4+ invuls. If not stock, then through Forewarning.

Also with all those Warlocks, it's going to be Str User +1 to +3, depending how many times they rolled up the power.

Wait no, this doesn't make sense. Blessings from this codex even if taken from different sources, are still the same Blessings... How can anyone be stacking the SAME BLESSING?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
This seems like one of those things that otherwise shouldn't be allowed until an FAQ arises from GW on the matter stating otherwise. It's the same blessing. Different blessings with the same effect may stack, but the same blessing cannot be stacked from multiple sources...

They should be rocking a 2+ cover, and a 2+ armour if he rolled protect up. That means you'd be needing Ap2 ignore cover, and then have to content with a 4++, and if he's half decent he's spaced things out pretty good. Even then, you need to get a chance to shoot at the council, which against a tough, fearless army such as this, he'll be hiding in combat on your turn.

Unfortunately for you, the Council is pretty badass, and particularly badass against a slow, fearless army such as your own. If he's a decent general, and all the pre-game rolls go his way (getting fortune, 1st turn, etc) there's little you can do to win the game. Your best bet, is to shoot his scoring units, and hope he can't get to all of yours.

Against vehicles, the council may each have a S9 12'' attack, and come with 2-3 S3 (potentially 4) armourbane attacks in CC. Coupled with guide/prescience/doom, they will take out any vehicle in a single turn. I play the council myself, and i've never had it fail to kill a vehicle in a single turn. Even against Av14, where i'm needing to roll an 11 to glance, it happens when i've got doom on it, and am rolling that many dice. It struggles against flyers, as it has to waste a turn snap shotting 3-4 S9 spears at one. So usually I just ignore them and focus on the non-flyer units.

Helldrakes are good for hitting his scoring units. Don't plan to take out the council, this is almost exactly what your opponent wants you to try and do.

I could be wrong, mind. But as I read it, I see no reason for it not to stack.

Page 68 of the BRB states that DIFFERENT blessings may stack unless otherwise stated.

Way I'm seeing it is if you have Blessing X already on a unit, you cannot gain from Blessing X again. You may cast Blessing Y if it does the same thing, but the SAME SPELL cannot be stacked. This is something interpretation wise needs to be addressed because that is simply exploiting the rule set by the generals perception.

That's really a discussion for YMDC. Search in there, it's been done to death.

People treat it like gk +1 str buff that can stack. It's not exactly specified as blessing, so it can stack. Just don't play vs seer council - it's frustrating. Even if you win it's like pushing a huge rock uphill. You feel good only when it's over and ain't enjoying the process. Remember, it's a hobby you pay your money for.

wtnind wrote:

 orknidious wrote:
I was thinking that the black mace might work, if i can only get one wound through it could really hurt the council badly.

I also was wondering if simple weight of fire would do it, any thoughts of what i could take that would work?

Neither of these solutions will work. A 2+ cover save with rerolls = 36 saving throws to cause 1 wound = 72 hits = ~100 bolter shots to kill 1 warlock.

A black mace prince will get challenged by the baron and he has a 2+ rerollable invulnerable flicker field save. Then if they feel like it they will hit and run and shoot your daemon to bits since he will be on the ground.

Your chances as a pure chaos army are literaly spam fearless cultists (zombies/helcults) and/or spam heldrakes. At least heldrakes shooting from the correct angle only face a 4+ rerollable instead of 2+.

You can't assume that they will automatically get Fortune...

 soomemafia wrote:
You can't assume that they will automatically get Fortune...

No, you cannot. But the question "how do I kill the Seer-council when they don't have fortune?" is pretty easy to answer. Shoot them.


FYI, fortune is a 75% chance w/ 2 Farseers rolling 6 times for it.

I've never actually fought Eldar (amazingly enough), but I have a great deal of experience with Chaos so...whatever.

The main thing seems to be volume of fire, I know that Chaos is more often then not an elite army but really you need to be spamming as many shots as you can so they can fail saves.
Obviously heavy and special weaponry is pretty much a waste because of their cover save.

Noise Marines would work well. The only issue this unit has is that compared to the Seerstar it has basically zero mobility. Still, it can provide a fair sized zone that they will want to avoid.
Alternatively anything with a lot of shots, Predators, Havocs and Obliterators could all be used.

Using either AP 2 or ignore cover weapons can bypass at least one save (I hope they don't have FNP ?).
Baleflamers ? Termicide with combi plasma ?

Hexwolf wrote:
I've never actually fought Eldar (amazingly enough), but I have a great deal of experience with Chaos so...whatever.

The main thing seems to be volume of fire, I know that Chaos is more often then not an elite army but really you need to be spamming as many shots as you can so they can fail saves.
Obviously heavy and special weaponry is pretty much a waste because of their cover save.

Noise Marines would work well. The only issue this unit has is that compared to the Seerstar it has basically zero mobility. Still, it can provide a fair sized zone that they will want to avoid.
Alternatively anything with a lot of shots, Predators, Havocs and Obliterators could all be used.

You're missing one thing. 2+ rerollable makes you literally immune to damage. you need 36 wounds to force him fail one save. Count how many pts you need to inflict 36 wound to kill a 55 pt seer? They can have 2+ armor, 2+ cover, 2++ invul from baron. If eldar fails some vital buff which is not very likely considering the ammount of rolls, he can withdraw 48' + 2d6' across the whole map if needed to come back next turn.

All you can do is ignore them when they're at full strength and focus on killing the rest of his army which won't be easy. Wave serpents are one of the toughest vehicles in game now. And they have significant firepower. You got to tailor your list to have chances vs such list. Don't know if such list exists for CSM really. Anywayz, treat it like fighting vs a stronger, faster, cheaper screamer star that can't be locked and has much tougher, shootier and faster support. And thank eldar codex writer team for creating such a product.

would a large unit of tzeench terminators with a level 3 sorcerer do the trick? they'd have a 4+ deny the witch, power axes to ignore the saves, and 4++ saves against anything AP2. if ten charge and 3 die (guesswork there) then it's still 21 attacks from the terminators and a few more from the sorcerer.

with regard to the daemon prince being challenged out, that can be countered by the wonderfully simple technique of throwing a cheap unit into the assault as well. some plaque zombies, for example, still have the champion in there. if he challenges with the one survivable guy, you accept with the weakling, and the survivable guy is out of the way & can't save his unit from the prince. if he challenges with a warlock to try and avoid this, the prince accepts, kills the warlock and the black mace still goes off. both the units are fearless even if they lose combat.

if you have enough zombies, I'd charge one unit in then surround the combat with the other units. without being able to use hit&run, you can hold him there until the end of the game. (hit & run requires you to go 3D6" and not end up engaged, and you stop 1" away from other units - which can cause you to not get away.)

if you really want to deal with them, and I have no sympathy for people who bring that kinda seer council, bring a lord of war, drop a D weapon on him, remove the unit. that's the superheavy's points made up in one shot.

Powerguy wrote:
Cultist unit is going to lose combat and get run down every time.

Cultists are Fearless if you take Typhus as an HQ or take a Hellbrute formation Helcults

You're planning the tactix as if you're moving 48 + 2d6 per turn with your termies and cultists and not him. Also, there are wave serpents that will affect your cultist's surrounding by killing the closest and making a breach. Even a couple inches is enough to fail.

I think the best bet is just to camp objectives with helhuge blobs and focus on wiping out his scoring units. Cultists will hold their own for a couple of turns. He'll probably kill like 15 on his charge so they'll probably be fine. But you got to solve a question: "What can kill wave serpents with constant 3+ or 4+ cover and possibility to ignore penetration hits in one turn". Cause the things that are most threatening will die to his shooting and jetcouncil.

 koooaei wrote:
You're planning the tactix as if you're moving 48 + 2d6 per turn with your termies and cultists and not him. Also, there are wave serpents that will affect your cultist's surrounding by killing the closest and making a breach. Even a couple inches is enough to fail.

I think the best bet is just to camp objectives with helhuge blobs and focus on wiping out his scoring units. Cultists will hold their own for a couple of turns. He'll probably kill like 15 on his charge so they'll probably be fine. But you got to solve a question: "What can kill wave serpents with constant 3+ or 4+ cover and possibility to ignore penetration hits in one turn". Cause the things that are most threatening will die to his shooting and jetcouncil.

Yes the cultists bubble wrap objectives, there is no reason to be trying to move with them.

Killing waveserpents is the problem everyone has and it's what I highlighted in the first post. Some options include:

2/3 Heldrakes (with maybe some allied vendettas for popping crimson hunters)
Single Nurgle Obliterator squads (drop behind and fire TL melta or MM depending on scatter
Chaos Warhound Titan with D weapons (bubble wrapped out 20" of cultists)
Allied LOS blocked Manticore

Or you could ally in imperial guards with 50-strong blob + 50-strong conscripts and 2 comissars or priests - comissars are somewhat better to go to ground at will in this case. They all have 5+ armor and you guarantee that they won't be killed in mellee by jetcouncil for at least 5 phases of mellee. If you get a priest instead of comissar, he can try to give you rerolls to armor saves but it's somewhere around 54% sucksess chance with ld7.

 koooaei wrote:
Or you could ally in imperial guards with 50-strong blob + 50-strong conscripts and 2 comissars or priests - comissars are somewhat better to go to ground at will in this case. They all have 5+ armor and you guarantee that they won't be killed in mellee by jetcouncil for at least 5 phases of mellee. If you get a priest instead of comissar, he can try to give you rerolls to armor saves but it's somewhere around 54% sucksess chance with ld7.

That works too but you have to worry about precision strikes/shots taking out your commissar/priest but then with cultists you have to worry about Terrify. Both are fine but at that point you might as well just play full guard and OP likes chaos. But I think the real answer here is that you have to max cheese your army (and probably buy a bunch more models you don't necessarily even want to play thematically) to stand a chance against a tourney winning army list.