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Hey everyone,

Today was a sad day. I was tabled for the first time in my 40k career. The loss was entirely due to one unit - Necron wraiths led by Destroyer Lord with Scythe. This unit killed a combination of 16 deathwing terminators of varying loadouts (mostly TH/SS) and almost all with Feel No Pain. I did one wound in return. ONE. WOUND. Maybe it was my below average rolls combined with my opponen'ts ability to roll 3++ saves like it was his job but I cannot fathom how such a one-sided fight can even take place. More often than not I got the charge on him as well. And I had Prescience on my unit(s). I understand that terminators of any kind are not that great in general but come one. 16 deaths, plus a terminator librarian, for ONE WOUND is ridiculous. I would like to keep my list as intact and "themed" as possible but against something like that I really don't see what I can do. Any help or tactics on how to deal with wraiths is greatly appreciated. Terminators, even Deathwing Knights, certainly are not the answer it seems.

- VardenV2

Wraiths are a counter to hard-hitting, low attacks units like Terminators. You got caught by your foil, unfortunately. The way you bring down Wraiths is with volume of fire and drown them in saves.

 curran12 wrote:
Wraiths are a counter to hard-hitting, low attacks units like Terminators. You got caught by your foil, unfortunately. The way you bring down Wraiths is with volume of fire and drown them in saves.

Yeah that seems to be the only thing, but my current list really has no way to deal with that :/ I have an all deep striking army with 20+ terminators and allied blood angels death company and Cassor the Death Company Dreadnought (he was really effective). Not sure what I can really do to deal with them besides bring a ravenwing dakka list instead. When I was fighting anything other than that unit I was winning combats easily. But dang, that unit is impossible.

- VardenV2

Send one of your most resistant units to hold it off while you focus on objectives/killing the rest of the army

Tarpit the wraiths (oh, and if he's using the Canoptek formation, gun the spyder down fast!)

Sad fact is that you were playing one of the most uneffective ( points cost and current meta-wise ) units/armies against one of the most effective units in the game.

The short painful answer is: There is no way for you to do what you wish by keeping your list themed.

My advice is to use Space Marines -allies but play them with your DA miniatures to keep the look and feel. You need something really hard hitting and durable ( Smashbane and friends ) or a really big number of shots/attacks to take them down, or a tarpit with a huge number of wounds.

You could try just putting Invisibility on your main squad with your hardest hitters, you might do well. For that you would need Tigurius, a good diceroll, or perhaps Sevrin Loth. If you can allow yourself to ally them even if it feels dumb themewise, then it would increase your chances.

It should be noted that by playing a heavily themed list in general one puts themself in a vulnerable position against varying opponents, the rock-paper-scissors factor is increased quite a bit.

Wraiths are very good, terminators vary from mediocre to awful. I think Deathwing are also paying for rules that don't help.

In short, you don't kill wraiths without something special like s: D, stomp or another remove from play mechanics. If you don't have a huge stompy robot, you got to tarpit them. If you got no stompy robots and you can't tarpit them you play for the mission and hope he gets really unlucky with missions.

But don't get upset - it's not just wraiths. It's the whole cron codex you can't reliably hurt with regular stuff cause they have 4+ with rerollable 1-s save anywayz. I think the best bet is sweeping advances. Unfortunately, termies have none.

GW designers got a bit carried away with formation buffs. So, it's either disallow cron formations or...buy more stompy robots. Or tarpits like ig blobs + conscripts.
Can't give any suggestions for deathwing. It's not a super-competitive army in the first place. I think you could look in for allies. Something like psychostroke+rad inquisitors. ID-ing wraiths can prove helpful.

 Vector Strike wrote:
Send one of your most resistant units to hold it off while you focus on objectives/killing the rest of the army

Tarpit the wraiths (oh, and if he's using the Canoptek formation, gun the spyder down fast!)

I didn't realize the spider was giving him the buff until far too late. And my "most resilient unit" is 2+ 3++ T5 FNP DW Knights. and they got wiped to a man before they swung back. So yeah, no dice there really :/ The wraiths can outmaneuver pretty much anything I have objective wise bc they are so fast. They just run up to whatever they want to kill and kill it :(

My ork list will do much better I think because it is fast and has TONS of shooting. I also have a Stompa which could be more effective.

I understand that terminators are pretty meh. Deathwing in particular are pretty blah and have mostly irrelevant rules. I have had success with them against certain opponents. I think i might try a dakka ravenwing list and see how that does. I can move just as fast and overwhelm them with shots. But if I get caught my units die without much hope of dealing damage back. It's rough.

I don't really want to go buy more models just to be able to kill one unit in the game. I may just have to refrain from playing the cron player until I can get a more suitable list made.

- VardenV2

I don't get it, how did you only get one kill back?
Did he Rend that much to ignore the 2+?

Not gonna lie, I saw posts like this coming a week ago.

An AM manticore is like one of the only things I've seen that does an efficient job of hurting them.

Assuming you don't have one, you can try to go for objectives and just give up on any that wraiths go after, because unless you commit a huge section of your army to go against them, they're taking it.

If the necron player is good AND running a good list with wraiths in as support elements, you're pretty hosed from the word go. I've been playing since 3rd, have been known to go on 30+ win streaks with meh-tier armies like old tau, dark eldar, and my favorite: my BA, and I've only managed to eke out one win with eldar of all things against a new well-built cron list (I helped build it) with a couple harvests in it, played by a guy who has run crons since 3rd as well.

And even that win was kind of flukey. We played the maelstrom mission where you can claim the enemy's "claim objective # whatever" cards, and he literally drew 6 points for me across his first two turns, and I never drew any for him. Still almost got tabled.

MOAR DAKKA is the solution to this. I regular run TWC, which are essentially the same. Things that kill me is not any high powered killing devices or elite units. It is Guardmen, Bolters, Serpents, Dire Avengers, Warp Spiders, Deathrain Crisis and all that jazz. A 3++ can only hold so much.

Saw a game recently where 15 Lootas opened up on 6 Wraiths. One volley, 3 were down.

So yeah, torrent of fire. Quantity, not quality does it

OP, I think this is due to bad luck rolling dice on your part than Wraiths being broken - because against such a matchup, you had good chances given you strike with S8

 Sir Arun wrote:
OP, I think this is due to bad luck rolling dice on your part than Wraiths being broken - because against such a matchup, you had good chances given you strike with S8

What does striking at str 8 do?


OP, have to tried using bikes or the regular marines with the Dakka banner?
Don't the DA have a unit of knights equipped with maces who can briefly go str 10?

Attached Destroyer Lord?

I could be wrong, but aren't DLords Jet Pack Infantry now? So a 6" Move, compared to the Wraiths 12"?

Wouldn't that really slow the unit down?

 grendel083 wrote:
Attached Destroyer Lord?

I could be wrong, but aren't DLords Jet Pack Infantry now? So a 6" Move, compared to the Wraiths 12"?

Wouldn't that really slow the unit down?

Yes, all Destroyers are Jet Pack now. You will probably just see several Wraith units run around. Or you see the Kanoptek Harvest Formation, but that one is easily take out of commission if you kill the single Spyder (can't take more in that Formation) to take away that RP from the Wraiths.

 VardenV2 wrote:

 curran12 wrote:
Wraiths are a counter to hard-hitting, low attacks units like Terminators. You got caught by your foil, unfortunately. The way you bring down Wraiths is with volume of fire and drown them in saves.

Yeah that seems to be the only thing, but my current list really has no way to deal with that :/ I have an all deep striking army with 20+ terminators and allied blood angels death company and Cassor the Death Company Dreadnought (he was really effective). Not sure what I can really do to deal with them besides bring a ravenwing dakka list instead. When I was fighting anything other than that unit I was winning combats easily. But dang, that unit is impossible.

- VardenV2

Drop all the wargear upgrades on the Death Company in favour of more Death Company with bolt pistol and chainsword.

Drown them in black-armoured, raging, I5 assault marines. Get a chaplain in there if you can. Attach Azrael if you can afford it for the squad-wide 4++ to blunt the effects of Rending.

Yup, Death Company can put out quite the pain on Wraiths.
It's important to kill a few Wraiths, not wipe them out.
If you kill around two then the Wraiths don't really have a strong punch any more.

Akiasura wrote:
What does striking at str 8 do?

Wound them at 2+?

 VardenV2 wrote:
I didn't realize the spider was giving him the buff until far too late. And my "most resilient unit" is 2+ 3++ T5 FNP DW Knights. and they got wiped to a man before they swung back.- VardenV2

I haven't played against the new necrons yet and haven't looked at their rules too, are you saying that wraiths are initiative 5 now?? I knew about the RP and T5, but I 5 as well?

 Trade_Prince wrote:

 grendel083 wrote:
Attached Destroyer Lord?

I could be wrong, but aren't DLords Jet Pack Infantry now? So a 6" Move, compared to the Wraiths 12"?

Wouldn't that really slow the unit down?

Yes, all Destroyers are Jet Pack now. You will probably just see several Wraith units run around. Or you see the Kanoptek Harvest Formation, but that one is easily take out of commission if you kill the single Spyder (can't take more in that Formation) to take away that RP from the Wraiths.

"Easily"

In the games I've seen, played, and played against them so far, there is nothing easy about killing a t6 3 wound MC with 3+, a constant near invincible wall of 5+ cover at the very least, and 4+ RP, especially when it's trying to keep a low profile. No 50 point model should ever be that hard to kill. :/ I'd normally try to catch it in combat with a librarian or something, but there are guaranteed to be two units within 12" of the thing that are very intent on that not happening.

Also you could still run a D lord with wraiths if you want. Start them all in a line with The Lord on an end, move up and stretch unit coherency back to The Lord, then have him jet pack move to catch up. On average he'll be going faster than the wraiths.

Another tidbit is that harvest wraiths are so durable that they are past the threshold of worrying about getting into combat ASAP, like virtually every other melee unit ever. Ork boys, death company, etc all want to get to your face before you shoot them to death. Shooting at harvest wraiths without killing their spyder is so inefficient that it's a small necron victory every time you aim a gun at them instead of something else. This means they can totally slow to a trot so the spyder can find a wall to hide behind.

You would think that with riptides and wave serpents as precursors, most people would've figured out that "nigh immortality" is an AMAZING ability on the board. But there seem to be a lot of people who don't understand that them being awesome does not mean "spam them to win."

I killed the Spyder with a Daemon Prince of Nurgle with a Balesword... Then casually charged the wraiths with plague drones and another Daemon Prince. The Spyder was just outright annihilated due to ID from the Balesword, the drones had ID from Venom Sting and kicked off 3 in their assault phase alone.

It might be the armies I'm using, but I'm just not afraid of these "new wraiths" as I was before I had played against them. Drown them in wounds they can't save. ID weapons seem to be the bees knees.

I fought new necrons yesterday and it was a brutal fight.

I barely lost with my chaos army 11-10 on the maelstrom of war missions, however I did learn a few things.

One is that the Spyder and the Barge thing need to die right away as they buff many units all around them.

Next is that my Vindicator can make short work for Wraiths since it's instant death against them.

My suggestion is, run at least 2 vindicators, and 1 land raider crusader with deathwing knights in it (st10 ap1 attack for 1 round WILL KILL WRAITHS very nicely)

My friend runs a list like this for Dark Angels and does quite well as an assault force with Deathwing deepstriking all around shooting plasma canons and crushing.

Good luck

I play dark Eldar. My poison shooting cares not for t5 wraiths.

Terminators are absolutely not the answer. With DA the Dakkapole and Black Knights are probably your best solution (Black Knights for the rad grenade so they're T4 against the follow-up hail of bolter fire).

Wraiths are not a big fan of the devestation banner next to 3 full ravenwing squads. Or they weren't in the old codex, now that they are T5 that isn't great.

Used to be the command squad with the banner would fire, take them down to T3, then 72 twin linked bolter shots later the ravenwing squads were driving over smashed up robot but I think that doesn't play in the new codex. I have fond memories of deleting an entire wraithstar first turn with that and a little help from 4 typhoon land speeders. Good times.

 grendel083 wrote:
Attached Destroyer Lord?

I could be wrong, but aren't DLords Jet Pack Infantry now? So a 6" Move, compared to the Wraiths 12"?

Wouldn't that really slow the unit down?

Not really, he has a 2D6" move in the assault phase.

 wuestenfux wrote:

 grendel083 wrote:
Attached Destroyer Lord?

I could be wrong, but aren't DLords Jet Pack Infantry now? So a 6" Move, compared to the Wraiths 12"?

Wouldn't that really slow the unit down?

Not really, he has a 2D6" move in the assault phase.

It would be tricky though, He'd have to be at the front of the Unit for the entire Enemy Turn?

Only way i can see it work: Move D.Lord as far as 6" takes him. Last wraith has to move 8" to wait for him. Assault phase: D.Lord jumps 2D6 in front of the Wraiths. Enemy Turn. Repeat.

Wraith LeapFrog !!

Kangodo wrote:
Yup, Death Company can put out quite the pain on Wraiths.
It's important to kill a few Wraiths, not wipe them out.
If you kill around two then the Wraiths don't really have a strong punch any more.

Akiasura wrote:
What does striking at str 8 do?

Wound them at 2+?

Yeah that means termies are losing. I thought someone thought they were still T4.
If you aren't bringing str 10 or a bucket load of dice, stay out of melee and shoot them.

Why is everyone discussing Death company? Isn't he a DA player?

He stated that he plays DA with Death Company allies.

Also, the Spyder is not restricted to only one in the formation. That's a stupid whiner "interpretation" of the rules.that is equivalent to saying that because it says "unit of wraiths", the wraiths can't be given whip coils, because if they could, it would say "a unit of wraiths with whip coils".

 Furyou Miko wrote:
He stated that he plays DA with Death Company allies.

Also, the Spyder is not restricted to only one in the formation. That's a stupid whiner "interpretation" of the rules.that is equivalent to saying that because it says "unit of wraiths", the wraiths can't be given whip coils, because if they could, it would say "a unit of wraiths with whip coils".

Not at all. It's the actual rules, and the actual rules do let you select options (so your example is incorrect).

But this isn't the place for a rules discussion.

Lots of replies. The unit was as far as I can remember
6x Wraiths. Whipcoils. Destroyer Lord with Scythe. It also didn't help that he had the giant deathstar laser thing from forge world doing str 10 ap1 beam attacks every turn.

Kangodo wrote:I don't get it, how did you only get one kill back?
Did he Rend that much to ignore the 2+?

He didn't kill 16 terminators in one turn. But he did manage to kill 3-4/5 man squad before they got to swing. So essentially I got three attacks back and he has a 3++ 4+ reanimation protocols. It was silly. Repeat for 4 squads. I have almost no shooting in this army because it is primarily TH/SS and knights with a few assault cannons and cyclones thrown in (which were reasonably effective at putting on wounds).

Sir Arun wrote:OP, I think this is due to bad luck rolling dice on your part than Wraiths being broken - because against such a matchup, you had good chances given you strike with S8

S8 does nothing but help me wound and hurts me by putting me at initiative 1. His Wraiths still get a 3++ and 4+ reanimation protocols. And he is I2 < my Initiative 1. See above for results.

Akiasura wrote:

OP, have to tried using bikes or the regular marines with the Dakka banner?
Don't the DA have a unit of knights equipped with maces who can briefly go str 10?

I think that dakka wing is definitely a better answer to necrons. I have a crusader and around 18 ravenwing bikes and 3x Land Speeder Typhoons. Being able to keep pace away from the wraiths and drown them in shots/weaken toughness with black knights is the answer I think.

Yes I have DW Knights but they go at I4. Wraiths on the charge go at Initiative 5 so he got 4/5 before I got to swing. At that points it wouldn't make a difference. And remember, it only makes them 3++ 5+ reanimation instead of 3++ 4+. So it's really not that big a deal. ID is nice, sure but I am probably only killing 1-2 :/

Furyou Miko wrote:

 VardenV2 wrote:

 curran12 wrote:
Wraiths are a counter to hard-hitting, low attacks units like Terminators. You got caught by your foil, unfortunately. The way you bring down Wraiths is with volume of fire and drown them in saves.

Yeah that seems to be the only thing, but my current list really has no way to deal with that :/ I have an all deep striking army with 20+ terminators and allied blood angels death company and Cassor the Death Company Dreadnought (he was really effective). Not sure what I can really do to deal with them besides bring a ravenwing dakka list instead. When I was fighting anything other than that unit I was winning combats easily. But dang, that unit is impossible.

- VardenV2

Drop all the wargear upgrades on the Death Company in favour of more Death Company with bolt pistol and chainsword.

Drown them in black-armoured, raging, I5 assault marines. Get a chaplain in there if you can. Attach Azrael if you can afford it for the squad-wide 4++ to blunt the effects of Rending.

Currently I have 8 death company in a drop pod with Azrael and a Librarian. 2 powerfists and 3 power swords. They annihilated anything other than Wraiths. Azzy + 4 surviving DC + Librarian took out like 11 Warriors without losing a wound in one round of combat. Until that dumb Lord on his AV13 chariot ran in and Azrael, being fearless, can't run away or hurt him back (str 6). Got ID'd a turn later. Garbage. It didn't help that my librarian refused to get off any good powers :/

kingbobbito wrote:

 VardenV2 wrote:
I didn't realize the spider was giving him the buff until far too late. And my "most resilient unit" is 2+ 3++ T5 FNP DW Knights. and they got wiped to a man before they swung back.- VardenV2

I haven't played against the new necrons yet and haven't looked at their rules too, are you saying that wraiths are initiative 5 now?? I knew about the RP and T5, but I 5 as well?

Konrax wrote:I fought new necrons yesterday and it was a brutal fight.

I barely lost with my chaos army 11-10 on the maelstrom of war missions, however I did learn a few things.

One is that the Spyder and the Barge thing need to die right away as they buff many units all around them.

Next is that my Vindicator can make short work for Wraiths since it's instant death against them.

My suggestion is, run at least 2 vindicators, and 1 land raider crusader with deathwing knights in it (st10 ap1 attack for 1 round WILL KILL WRAITHS very nicely)

My friend runs a list like this for Dark Angels and does quite well as an assault force with Deathwing deepstriking all around shooting plasma canons and crushing.

Good luck

Vindicators are on the list for other reasons, but even then they still get a 3++ 5+ reanimation. IDing is useful but say I hit 3 guys with the template, odds are I kill 1 at best. Then they munch a squad per turn and I can't shoot them for the rest of the game.

AnomanderRake wrote:Terminators are absolutely not the answer. With DA the Dakkapole and Black Knights are probably your best solution (Black Knights for the rad grenade so they're T4 against the follow-up hail of bolter fire).

I agree. I am in the process of reviving my RW atm. I think 3x Typhoons can go hunt down that spider and the rest of the army can go focus down the wraiths and D Lord. Torrent of fire kills my bikes as well though and they are so expensive

Thanks for the tips guys. I am also looking into making a SM version of my DA list to be a bit more competitive against higher tier books. Or I will just play him with my Ork list which is ALL THE DAKKA ever.

- VardenV2