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Alright so here is my situation:

I started a CSM Army about 6 months ago. I got about 1200 points in and realized my true passion is Daemons (shooting for a summon heavy FMC list). So, I currently have a WIP Daemons/CSM Army. I recently got in contact with a local guy and am playing him for the first time today. He said he will be running a tournament Eldar list (in prep for an upcoming tourney) It will include 2 Serpents, a Wraithknight, Seer Council, Jetbikes etc...

So I put together most of what I have (minus a few random WIP daemon units and useless CSM stuff). I don't want to look like a fool and be run off the table in the first few turns. I was hoping for some advice. How should I go about attacking his army? What should I target first, which psychic disciplines and powers should I use, etc... I am a little newer to the hobby and do not have extensive experience, especially against competitive lists. Any and all advice is welcome. Here is my list (1850 Points):

Primary:

HQ
Be'Lakor

CSM Lord on Bike (MoN, Power Weapon, Sigil of Corruption, MeltaBombs)

Troops

8x Plague Marines (2x Plasma, Rhino)

8x Plague Marines (2x Plasma) ..... I could not give this unit a rhino...because I only have 1 ATM.

Fast Attack:
4x Bikers (MoN, 2x Melta) + Champion w/ Melta Bombs

Heavy Support:

MaulerFiend


Allied Detachment:

Daemon Prince of Nurgle (Armour, Wings, 3x Mastery, 2x Greater Rewards, 1x Lesser)

Troops:
3x Nurglings

Heavy:

Sould Grinder of Nurgle (w/Phlegm Bombardment)


I know it is a bit of a crapshoot at the moment, but how can I use this list effectively? I was thinking of targeting down the WraithKnight first and then aiming for the Wave Serpents next. Or should I just focus on his troops and HQ first? What should be my target priorities, how do I stay alive....and if possible.... how could I win?

Don't worry about the Wraithknight in terms of killing it. Hide your tanks or use them as bait if you prefer, but you NEED more nurglings (not familiar with their rules but they're swarms right) or Cultists or whatever you can summon in mass quantities. Tarpit the Wraithknight instead of kill it. That should be priority 1. Only good advice I can give.

Unless you can change the Mauler to a Forgefiend. They are death to Eldar with all the high power shots. Can glance a Serpent to death even with Shields active in a single turn.

So you don't think it would be a smart idea to target the Wraithknight with Be'Lakor? If I can cast Invis on him, I feel like he should have a pretty good chance of taking the WraithKnight out in one turn and not dying in the following turn.....

Yes... I want more bodies, I just do not have them ATM. So I need to work with this. I have a unit of PlagueBearers that I could possibly summon at some point in the game... but I don't really have the warp charge or the models to have an efficient summoning factory yet. So....really have no way to tarpit that WraithKnight, unless I could get a squad of Plague Marines in there.

It is going to be quite a cagey game.

Your Nurgle DP can easily take down his wraithknight in cc make sure you take that balesword. Be'lakor can do the job too. However both will get shredded by serpent shields, so you are going to have to play smart unless the DP gets iron arm.

I like both the bikes and the maulerfiend. Speed and decent cc ability is good for taking out serpents.

As for tactics: Eldar are very fast. Going into a game and thinking "I'll kill the troops first" is too rigid in its approach especially with a melee centred army like chaos and daemons. Up until the midgame he is going to determine what units you can fight and where you can fight them. Be adaptive and try to take an advantage if he gives you one.

You are going to need to close the distance and limit his movement. If you are able to do this then you should win. I'd keep those nurglings out of the way until you need them. Serpent shields will make a horrible mess of them.

This is great advice.

I know it won't be easy. I will retain some flexibility in my approach, I just wanted some target priorities. With a CC heavy army, I feel that I need to find my target and follow through with my plan. I'm going to roll the hell out of Biomancy, and pray I get Iron Arm. Do you think it is even worth it to go for the Summon Spell from Malefic? Or should I just focus all my DP's rolls on Biomancy, hoping for Iron Arm?

And yes...Nurglings will hopefully deepstrike on an objective in the mid-late game.

A thought I just had... should I deepstrike my Soul Grinder? I know he would miss a turn or two, but it give me the option to land right next to some of his units.

Well target priority is easy, take down those serpents. Without the cover ignoring shots flying around Be'lakor and the Nurgle DP will be able to control the board more easily.

Besides the werpents, the eldar list you mentioned is quite short ranged. This suits your needs.

Take out the bikes wherever you can. They can and will avoid you until they want to hold objectives or get linebreaker.

Soul grinders are horrible things to deepstrike unless you have an icon on the ground. Their base size is huge, so the chance of mishap is sizable.

Ok, so Wave Serpents will be my target priority out of the gate. What do you think is my best option for taking them out? Do I rush the DP, Be'Lakor, MaulerFiend and Bikes toward them? I'm assuming I will need to stay out of LoS as much as possible. (those damn shields) Those Serpents should be pretty squishy if I can get close....

The problem with the serpents is that they will be trying to stay as far away as possible, and have the speed to do so. cc is certainly the way to go about bringing them down, but you only be getting there around turn 3 at the earliest.

If you get iron arm on the DP, then by all means rush them asap. Keep Be'lakor out of LoS and flying until they are no longer a threat. Cover ignoring shots are lethal to Be'lakor.

The maulerfiend might scare the opponent. I would guess that his wraithknight's attention will be on it. I would say that good use of invisibility will go a long way in closing the gap, especially when your FMC drop down ready to charge.

Yo get a balesword on your nurgle prince and bee line for the wraithknight. You'll kill it on the charge 100%. Roll biomancy for iron arm and leech life.

I'd change the bikes to spawn. Spawn are points efficient.

I'd also swap the mauler for oblits.

My 2 cents.

As for attacking the eldar. Wave serpents are a pain. Deep striking oblits behind them can work but theyll die next trn for sure. Belakor should be tossing out invis and hopefully helping something get to the wave serpents alive. Putting spawn in front of a lord give you a huge wounds shield of T6. Then get the powerfist into wave serpent butt. You need to be putting mutliple tough threats out so that something makes it there.

Another risky option that I have been toying with recentl is just going heavy daemons and just deep striking a ton of crap (summoning too) right behind the wave serpents at once. Drop a GUO, sceamers, Oblits, Soul Grinders, and plaguebearers in one turn, Daemons have good deep striking tools. A lot of Eldar players put their gunline close to objectives that you can easily take after you turn them into dust. Get your nurgle units into cover and consider taking the grimoire to give belakor a 2++ (he can use his cover if it fails i guess) Sorry for so much rambling -jakl

The thing I don't see in your list are Chaos Spawn, which typically do 2 things:

- move up the board quickly

- attract a lot of attention from the big guns

These might give you an advantage. They are not what will kill the wave serpents themselves, but they will open the door for your melta troops to get there.

The Maulerfiend is very much wasted points in this list, just so you know.

Be'Lakor and the Balesword Prince should be able to handle any Wraithunits just fine, but you're going to have an issue with the serpents. There's not many things you can really do against them in the codex. Your list looks short on points; you used the full 1850?

If te wave serpent get sight of Be'lakor, he dies and you're army crumbles. If you kill the serpents without losing either prince, you win.

I would consider an exalted reward on the Nurgle DP for the grim. You can hit both the soul grinder and belakor with it. Another thought would be to make the grinder slaanesh to take advantage of the additional run move if you have to reposition.

The eldar jet bikes will probably not be on the board till the end. If you take the grim and get invis off successfully and iron arm you have 4 pretty resilient units.

Belakor, Maulerfiend, Nurgle Prince would all be hit on 6's (assuming you are swooping the princes) and the Grinder would have a 3++ with armor 13. It is hard to hide from serpents as they have great mobility but if he only has 2. I am guessing he has a huge seer council. Make sure he only attempts to manifest the same power once from that unit.

 techsoldaten wrote:
The thing I don't see in your list are Chaos Spawn, which typically do 2 things:

Do NOT buy GW spawn, instead convert your own. No matter how terrible they look, hey they are chaos spawn. Save yourself a ton of $$ and gives you are super fun 150-180pt unit


Automatically Appended Next Post:

jakl277 wrote:


I'd change the bikes to spawn. Spawn are points efficient.

I like to run Spawn AND bikes


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 AutarchRion wrote:

8x Plague Marines (2x Plasma, Rhino)

8x Plague Marines (2x Plasma) ..... I could not give this unit a rhino...because I only have 1 ATM.


4x Bikers (MoN, 2x Melta) + Champion w/ Melta Bombs

Why not plasma on the bikes? Bikes can charge after rapid firing....

Well, I was able to pull it off. The nurgle DP pretty much won it single handedly for me. I used invis and Iron Arm (thank god I was able to get it) on him every turn. He was able to take out the Wraithknight, a Wave Serpent and all inside, two squads of jetbikes with Farseers and Warlocks and a gun line of 4 heavy weapon platforms with a bunch of guardians. His units were losing combat by so much, that they kept failing their morale tests.

I lost the MaulerFiend and Soul Grinder Early, they did not do a thing except draw fire. The bikers drew quite a bit of fire as well, but my lord was able to stay alive. Be'Lakor was taken down to 1 wound on turn 1 as well. So my heavy hitter was the nurgle DP. He had a Balesword and the Re-roll Invuls greater gifts. It was insane to see how much he beat up the opposing team. He took out close to 1000 points worth of eldar... .and still had 2 wounds left.

That Instant Death Balesword is NASTY!

The plague marines proved to be very effective as well. They are just so durable.

I have to admit, there was a lot of luck involved. At one point Be'Lakor passed 4 invul saves (4+) in a row, and my Nurgle DP just wouldn't die. Not sure if I could expect the same result if we did it again, but I was pretty happy with how the list held up. DPs are disgusting.