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I watched a game at my FLGS last night. It was between CSM and Eldar, the CSM player got tabled without actually killing any of his opponent's models.

The Eldar player went first and had a list that included the following, along with some other units that escape me right now.

Spiritseer
Wraithguard x2
Warp Spiders
Wraithknights x2 with Suncannon & scattershield
War Walkers

The CSM player was running a list that included a Nurgle biker CL, 3 squads of Plague Marines in Rhinos, 2 Forgefiends, a squad of bikers, 2 Laspreds, and a Heldrake.

The Wraithknights were able to take out the bikers and the CL on the second turn. The War Walkers, the Wraithguard and the Warp Spiders were able to take out one of the forgefiends and 2 of the of the plague marine squads the third turn. The last forgefiend, the last PM squad and the 2 predators were taken out the fourth turn, before the Heldrake could come on.

In terms of what was so rough about the Eldar list:

- The Wraithknights both took a ton of shots, but only 2 wounds. They had 5 or 6 wounds to start and were shooting multiple template weapons.

- The Warp Spiders were able to move, shoot, then run, making it impossible to return fire. They dropped a metric ton of shots each time they got in close to the PMs.

- The Wraithguard just pounded the PMs. The did a wound with every shot the entire game.

- The War Walkers were doing a ton of shooting and were hard to kill as well.

While some of this was due to bad dice rolls for the CSMs and great dice rolls for the Eldar, I honestly did not have any ideas for how a CSM force could stand up to this. Like, how would you assign target priority, how could you actually kill any of the wraith units, how could you buff your fiends so they could stand up to some of the shots, etc.

It's bugging me this morning. How would you take on this army using CSMs?

Zombies...lots of them.

WraithKnights most likely also had Scatter Lasers.

Was there sufficient terrain on the board? Sounds to me like there might have been a lack of it if Wraithguard are dealing 1:1 wounds to anything lol

Also, just to note, Wraithknights are basically Riptide 2.0 accompanied by all the hate normally given to Tau players multiplied 50 times. The things are crazy. But you can deal with them. I find Tri-Las-Preds work wonders. Hitting on 3s wounding on 3s and they only get a 5++. The Drake should focus Vector Striking what ever it flies over and burning the Wraithguard. Unless Runes are making them 2+ kill them before they get into range and you should be safe from their wrath.

Warwalkers are paper, but they have great shooting. The PMs could focus on them first and take them out with relative easy so long as they don't get caught in the open and eat a gross amount of fire. Don't forget that although you cannot re-embark on a transport after you get out of it to shoot, you CAN move the transport flat out and gain cover from it AFTERWARDS. That 6" Flat Out move should be used to block LoS to your little bundles of Plague-Ridden joy.

The solo Wave Serpent won't be much of a problem, I'd personally ignore it until the Drake can take a VC on it to scare it. Aside from that, it's really all up to the dice. I mean, you could take out the Forgefiends, Eldar give 0 gaks about av12 at this point, and since the Wraithknight is already Str 10 it doesnt care to smash. I would focus on more Las-Preds and possibly some additional, expendable troops. Zombies for tarpit or mass groups of 10 man squads of cultists. I mean for the 350 ish points poured into the Forgefiends, you could sub out for 7 Cultist squads lol

You COULD also run double Land Raiders with Terminators + Combi-Plasma and Power Firsts. Throw a Dirge Caster on the Land Raider so what ever you are charging so long as you're within 6" of the Raider they can't overwatch, charge in and either Tarpit it, or outright kill it with weight of AP2 attacks.

Why are Wraithknights hated so much?

I suggest zombies you can only kill so much.

pm713 wrote:
Why are Wraithknights hated so much?

I suggest zombies you can only kill so much.

Mostly for the simple fact they have 6 wounds and come stock Str10/T8 Initiative 5 is also a pain because they tend to strike first against most other models and with 5 attacks they tend to kill pretty much everything. Initiative 5 Imo is the only thing I WOULD change, and make them I4. I don't find the rest of the profile to be rather off, but I can see others points of view on the matter when you consider everything the little monsters can go toe to toe with.

 GoliothOnline wrote:

pm713 wrote:
Why are Wraithknights hated so much?

I suggest zombies you can only kill so much.

Mostly for the simple fact they have 6 wounds and come stock Str10/T8 Initiative 5 is also a pain because they tend to strike first against most other models and with 5 attacks they tend to kill pretty much everything. Initiative 5 Imo is the only thing I WOULD change, and make them I4. I don't find the rest of the profile to be rather off, but I can see others points of view on the matter when you consider everything the little monsters can go toe to toe with.

They also cost a lot and have a 3+ save so I don't really see it.

Wait so they cost alot and "only" have a 3+ save?

How amusing. Compare the stock wraithknight to 2 dreadnoughts armed with lazcannons and tell me which one wins. Heres a hint, it doesnt start with D.


Comparable price, but easy win for the wraithknight.


It definately needs a nerf to initiative to make it a fair match.


As for the OP, plauge marines can take out a wraithknight but you would have to get off 2 units of them charging it at the same time for that to happen.

Wraithknights are good, but compared to a (cheaper) Riptide, they don't have as good defense and not nearly as good shooting. It's in board-control (CC) where a WK pays it's points back. To be honest, I don't see how they aren't pretty fairly priced, considering there are hard-counters to them in this game.

Eldar dex isn't OP because of a WK.

first time i played against eldar, I took out their wraithknight with some FNP plaguebearers. mind you thatwas almost a +300pt unit (x20, banner, herald and such)

Eihnlazer wrote:
Wait so they cost alot and "only" have a 3+ save?

How amusing. Compare the stock wraithknight to 2 dreadnoughts armed with lazcannons and tell me which one wins. Heres a hint, it doesnt start with D.


Comparable price, but easy win for the wraithknight.


It definately needs a nerf to initiative to make it a fair match.


As for the OP, plauge marines can take out a wraithknight but you would have to get off 2 units of them charging it at the same time for that to happen.

Comparing it to a single unit to judge it's worth....makes sense. Khorne Berserkers tear through Plague Zombies I guess they're OP too!

The Eldar list is stupidly good at taking out low model count durable forces.

The CSM list focuses on highly durable low model options.

Terrible matchup for CSM. Pick almost any other viable option.

 techsoldaten wrote:
I watched a game at my FLGS last night. It was between CSM and Eldar, the CSM player got tabled without actually killing any of his opponent's models.

The Eldar player went first and had a list that included the following, along with some other units that escape me right now.

Spiritseer
Wraithguard x2
Warp Spiders
Wraithknights x2 with Suncannon & scattershield
War Walkers

The CSM player was running a list that included a Nurgle biker CL, 3 squads of Plague Marines in Rhinos, 2 Forgefiends, a squad of bikers, 2 Laspreds, and a Heldrake.

The Wraithknights were able to take out the bikers and the CL on the second turn. The War Walkers, the Wraithguard and the Warp Spiders were able to take out one of the forgefiends and 2 of the of the plague marine squads the third turn. The last forgefiend, the last PM squad and the 2 predators were taken out the fourth turn, before the Heldrake could come on.

In terms of what was so rough about the Eldar list:

- The Wraithknights both took a ton of shots, but only 2 wounds. They had 5 or 6 wounds to start and were shooting multiple template weapons.

- The Warp Spiders were able to move, shoot, then run, making it impossible to return fire. They dropped a metric ton of shots each time they got in close to the PMs.

- The Wraithguard just pounded the PMs. The did a wound with every shot the entire game.

- The War Walkers were doing a ton of shooting and were hard to kill as well.

While some of this was due to bad dice rolls for the CSMs and great dice rolls for the Eldar, I honestly did not have any ideas for how a CSM force could stand up to this. Like, how would you assign target priority, how could you actually kill any of the wraith units, how could you buff your fiends so they could stand up to some of the shots, etc.

It's bugging me this morning. How would you take on this army using CSMs?

Honestly what it comes down to is that Eldar is a really tough match up for Chaos to begin with, and this Eldar players list looks pretty nasty. If it were me I would shoot at everything but the wraithknights first. They have the same issue that riptides have, while they hit like a truck and are tough as nails, they are still a single model. They will at best kill one unit per turn each. The target priority would change depending on the game type as well (objectives, killpoints, tactical objectives, etc.). But with two laspreds and two forgefiends SOMETHING should have died, so my guess is the dice were REALLY bad or the Chaos player shot everything at different units. It's easy to forget that many units stay just as effective when they are down to their last wound/hullpoint as they were when they were at full wounds/hullpoints.

When it comes to wraithguard units I usually just throw a couple plasma cannon shots, battlecannon shots, plasmaguns, basically anything with high str. low ap at them.

In terms of buffing the fiends, or any daemon engine model, you either gotta ally in some daemons or take a daemon prince of your own and hope for Cursed Earth from the Malefic table. If you have defilers you can give them some wargear to make them a bit tougher, but the biggest thing is still gonna be Cursed Earth and/or the Grimoire to make their invuln saves really serious.

Things that are good in codex chaos space marines:
Flying nurgle daemon princes with brand and lvl 2 psyker for summoning squads of daemonettes (6+ to hit 2+ cover)
Squads of 5 nurgle spawn 12" move ignoring cover (beasts), run them down the board through ruins and they will be garuanteed to make combat
5 man csm squads with either melta + combi melta or plasma + combi plasma in rhinos (put a dirge caster on to help out your spawn too), I like these more than plague marines because they are so cheap ~140 points
Nurgle bikers can be ok but I like to run them 3 special weapons and no extra wounds (keep them cheap). Running 10 can work quite well too but only if PF+LC nurgle lord is with them
Chaos Warhound Titan
1 man nurgle suicide drop obliterators
Heldrake (really 1 is enough, maybe not even 1 if you have the prince with brand)
Maulerfiend (ok but not incredible - would really rather just have a soulgrinder instead)

This CSM player seems like he didnt have any of this stuff. For the best chance ally in 20 flesh hounds, a soulgrinder and a squad of horrors with a herald with portalglyph.

What works well is having an entire army of 12" + moving models and some summoners to land folk onto tactical objectives. What doesn't work well is trying to shoot at stuff that is basically impervious to shooting (wraithknights, imperial knights, waveserpents cheesy JSJ lol LOS dodgying units). Just swarm them instead (or take a warhound and blow them to pieces with turbolaser destructors).

 GoliothOnline wrote:

pm713 wrote:
Why are Wraithknights hated so much?

I suggest zombies you can only kill so much.

Initiative 5

-_- never mind, apparently ive been playing my wraith knight at one less initiative.

How did wraithguard get shots on demon engines. They have a 24 " advantage on them?

Against that list in particular - a plasma spam would smash it.

6 10 man havoc squads with 4 plasma guns in each
2 10 man chaos space marine squads with 2 plasma and 1 combi-plasma.
2 10 man cultist squads.
1640pts.
Enough points for a Juggerlord and another HQ to make sure its not unbound.
That's 30 plasma guns protected by plenty of extra wounds. 2 cheap cultist squads that can camp objectives.
A juggerlord could take a few wounds off a knight too.
Close to get in rapid fire.

pm713 wrote:

Eihnlazer wrote:
Wait so they cost alot and "only" have a 3+ save?

How amusing. Compare the stock wraithknight to 2 dreadnoughts armed with lazcannons and tell me which one wins. Heres a hint, it doesnt start with D.


Comparable price, but easy win for the wraithknight.


It definately needs a nerf to initiative to make it a fair match.


As for the OP, plauge marines can take out a wraithknight but you would have to get off 2 units of them charging it at the same time for that to happen.

Comparing it to a single unit to judge it's worth....makes sense. Khorne Berserkers tear through Plague Zombies I guess they're OP too!

This is awful logic though... He's comparing point values. You're just basing models that CANNOT compete with models GUARANTEED to win against the first group as a poor example =/

 TNT925 wrote:

Honestly what it comes down to is that Eldar is a really tough match up for Chaos to begin with, and this Eldar players list looks pretty nasty. If it were me I would shoot at everything but the wraithknights first. They have the same issue that riptides have, while they hit like a truck and are tough as nails, they are still a single model. They will at best kill one unit per turn each. The target priority would change depending on the game type as well (objectives, killpoints, tactical objectives, etc.). But with two laspreds and two forgefiends SOMETHING should have died, so my guess is the dice were REALLY bad or the Chaos player shot everything at different units. It's easy to forget that many units stay just as effective when they are down to their last wound/hullpoint as they were when they were at full wounds/hullpoints.

When it comes to wraithguard units I usually just throw a couple plasma cannon shots, battlecannon shots, plasmaguns, basically anything with high str. low ap at them.

In terms of buffing the fiends, or any daemon engine model, you either gotta ally in some daemons or take a daemon prince of your own and hope for Cursed Earth from the Malefic table. If you have defilers you can give them some wargear to make them a bit tougher, but the biggest thing is still gonna be Cursed Earth and/or the Grimoire to make their invuln saves really serious.

Yes, I agree, this was a tough list and the dice were against the CSM player.

He spent a lot of time targetting the WKs with the Laspreds and Forgefiends. I think he managed to knock 2 wounds off each.

I could see the reason for it, the WKs (and the WWs) were shooting everything up on the board. There was just no chance to get back at them.

I would take care with the DP since it can get insta gibbed by the Wraithknight. And as psyker only it is simply too expensive.