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Hey guys, so I played a game tonight against a guy I've never played. Needless to say it was a curb stomp. He had a Storm Raven with a kitted out Chapter Master with Shield of Eternal and PF and Honor Guard with Hatred banner, Storm Raven with kitted out Chapter Master with Talons of Terra and LC and Honor Guard with Hatred banner, 3 Storm Talons, and 3 Land Speeder Storms with Scouts. They all had Iron Hands Chapter Tactics with IWND. I only had an ADL Quad Gun and a Nephilim Jetfighter as my AA.

What do guys recommend for taking on such a heavy list? He was a super nice opponent, but I do not plan to play him again, as I saw his other list was drop pod spam, 2X Thunderfire Cannons, and Centurions.

What do you play? I can tell some form of Dark Angels but is it DW, RW, mix wing, or green wing?

Both of his lists look like pretty moderate and interesting lists. They are not particularly abusive or heavy duty.

I can tell you partially what you are doing wrong. You consider nephilim an AA unit. With S6 shots it is not an AA unit and instead is a light armour and anti troops unit. For a DA army you are almost always better ignoring flyers and concentrating on the ground game. Depending on what type of army you play you will either block charges with cheap units, take the charges with terminators and kill the unit, or out maneuver the opponent with bikes.

If you want to get enough AA to handle such a list then there are some forgeworld options that would do it for you (mortis dread with missile launchers or autocannons is the new hotness these days). That or a fortification network (rarely a good idea with DA).

I usually take a mix wing. I don't take the Flier as AA, but he asked if I had a flyer, I said yes the Nephilim, and he brought this. Honestly, there was no ground game really to speak of until I had little left to deal with his Honor Guard he dropped off. I don't plan on playing this list against, I'd probably fight his other, I was just curious how to handle this much flyer spam.

What mission did you play?

The ground game refers to taking the objective and wracking up points in maelstrom both of which he cannot do while in flyers.

If you want more comprehensive advice than to concentrate on the ground game then you will need 1) mission type (or maelstorm), 2) your army list, 3) general idea of the table.

I have on multiple occassions fought a flyer list with an all scout DA army and my ravenwing+deathwing mixed wing army. The secret too it is to either kill all of his units turn 1 or play to the objectives and use the limited mobility of the fliers against him; ie if he zooms then he can only turn 90 degrees, if he hovers charge him with krak grenades and shoot him up for his trouble, and if he charges the honour guard out let them chew 5 man TAC squads or 5 man scout squads at the rate of 1 every 2 turns (because you use your movement to retreat out of range).

This all becomes less of an issue if you take some mortis dreadnaughts (I use my TL autocannon dreads as these now days) from Imperial Armour 2 second edition and use them to knock some flyers out of the sky.

His second list should provide an engaging game no matter what you bring.

Wow, that is a lot of great advice! It didn't help he got lucky and blew up my Godhammer LR T1 with full HP. 2nd time this has happened to me :(

Yeah, I would actually love to play his 2nd list, as I have some hard counters for it. It just pissed me off because he asked if I had any fliers, I told him only the Nephilim, and he brings this cheesetastic list. I tried to play to the objectives, but everything just got blown off too fast

Yeah landraiders blowing up with a single shot happens and it is always a bad memory. That is a lot of the reason they have fallen out of popularity.

If you ever decide to play that list again (I would just to see honour guard again). Then I would concentrate my nephilim and quadd gun on the storm talons and essentially just consider the storm ravens as honour guard delivery platforms and something to minimize the effects of (you wont effectively kill them). I would thus kill his troops as first priority (and keep my troops alive as best as possible), then his honour guard, his storm talons, and lastly his storm ravens (who will be essentially ignored).

BTW just to check are you aware that the land speeder storms are not flyers? So starting turn 2-3 you should have had a bunch of land speeders and scouts to shoot at on the ground.

If you don't mind FW, Sicarans are a great way to take down flyers, especially with schism of mars. A StormEagle Roc pattern is absolutely lethal against other flyers too. Whilst there is also a cheap anti-air option of three AA missile gun battery (can't remember its name without looking at IA:2). And as mentioned above - mortis dreads and contemptor mortis dreads.
All would require significant investment however as all are FW models.
A cheaper option would be to politely ask him if he could next time limit himself to 2 flyers. You said he seemed a nice guy, so you lose nothing from asking!

 ansacs wrote:
Yeah landraiders blowing up with a single shot happens and it is always a bad memory. That is a lot of the reason they have fallen out of popularity.

If you ever decide to play that list again (I would just to see honour guard again). Then I would concentrate my nephilim and quadd gun on the storm talons and essentially just consider the storm ravens as honour guard delivery platforms and something to minimize the effects of (you wont effectively kill them). I would thus kill his troops as first priority (and keep my troops alive as best as possible), then his honour guard, his storm talons, and lastly his storm ravens (who will be essentially ignored).

BTW just to check are you aware that the land speeder storms are not flyers? So starting turn 2-3 you should have had a bunch of land speeders and scouts to shoot at on the ground.

Yeah, he started his Land Speeders on the ground. I know they're not fliers, I just got unlucky trying to kill them. I probably could've beat his Honor Guard, its just he whittled my troops down before even dropping them. Side note, he can't charge after delivering troops out of a Storm Raven correct? I don't believe he did, but just trying to remember.

If he hovers the storm raven it becomes an assault vehicle and so he can disembark and charge from it.

Sounds like part of this was just bad luck. I would still be interested in what your list entailed.

Sure. I tried to adjust my list as much as I could to compensate for my lack of AA.

10 man squad of DW, 2x Assault Cannons

1 Drop Pod, Ven Dread w/ Assault Cannon and HF

Razorback w/ HB and 5 man Tac squad.

Godhammer LR w/ Tac squad

6 Bikers, 1x Plasma Gun, 1x Attack Bike w/ MM

Nephilim Jetfighter w/ Avenger Mega Bolter

ADL w/ Quad Gun

2x Whirlwinds

Librarian with ML 2 and PFG

Dev Squad w/ 2x ML, 1x Lascannon, 1x Plasma Cannon

Pretty general list. Like I said, I tried to modify it as much as I could, but it was pretty rough

Do you guys use FW rules? You could proxy the whirlwinds as hyperios version (which have AA missiles).

It also appears your list is unbound as it has 1 troop choice. Is this pretty much your entire collection or do you have some alternatives?

 ansacs wrote:
Do you guys use FW rules? You could proxy the whirlwinds as hyperios version (which have AA missiles).

It also appears your list is unbound as it has 1 troop choice. Is this pretty much your entire collection or do you have some alternatives?

Never used it, but I think my meta would be okay with it actually its battleforged. 1 troops in the LR and 1 troops in the Razorback