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There seemed to be at least a little interest here in Dark Eldar's ability to use Leadership negatives coupled with allied psykers to put down bikes and Wraithknights. I thought sharing my own thoughts on the strategy might help, so I started a series of tactica posts on the subject, which you can find here.

If a weapon is AP4, ignores cover is totally meaningless because these guys have a 3+ armor save. Ignores cover only matters when you're trying to kill them with low AP stuff or rules like rending.

koooaei wrote:

 sudojoe wrote:

the beam I suppose can be deep struck within range but you'll still be able to jink it correct?

Can't jink a beam as it doesn't target anything.

Hrm.. I didn't know that, I'll add it and credit.

Jimsolo wrote:There seemed to be at least a little interest here in Dark Eldar's ability to use Leadership negatives coupled with allied psykers to put down bikes and Wraithknights. I thought sharing my own thoughts on the strategy might help, so I started a series of tactica posts on the subject, which you can find here.

nicely written article. Makes me afraid to field anything not fearless/ATSKNF lolol.

Mavnas wrote:If a weapon is AP4, ignores cover is totally meaningless because these guys have a 3+ armor save. Ignores cover only matters when you're trying to kill them with low AP stuff or rules like rending.

Some systems are just there to force wounds. Some things don't ignore armor but can still be useful if at range and can just force enough saves to be worth it. Anything particular that you don't agree with on the list?

I would like to point out that Daemons don't shoot at Eldar, they assault them.

I have played many games against Eldar and with enough Fleshhounds & Screamers, I have yet to fail to kill all their Serpents by T3, I don't see how the bikes will be any better.

"But bikes are so much faster that Serpents!" you say? That may be true, but not if there is nowhere on the board for them to land without being within 12" of a Hound unit, Screamer unit, Soulgrinder....you get the point. They may be able to get away for some units, but not enough

My Daemon list usually consists of 16-20 Hounds, 2x 5 Screamers, 2 Soulgrinders & summoned Daemonettes. I usually have enough to spread out and corner those pointy eared jerks

The difference is that bikes are 3 times shootier than a 6-th ed wave serpent point-to-point. Not taking into consideration the squad that's inside the serpent and not shooting at all.

I do hope you can counter it with assault. But i'm skeptical yet.

 koooaei wrote:
The difference is that bikes are 3 times shootier than a 6-th ed wave serpent point-to-point. Not taking into consideration the squad that's inside the serpent and not shooting at all.

I do hope you can counter it with assault. But i'm skeptical yet.

I think if you factor in the 6th ed Serpents being twinlinked and having some of their shots ignore cover, then compare that to the 7th ed bikes, it is not much more actual wounds getting though. Especially since the Screamers will get to benefit from Jink and the Hounds can move from ruin to ruin. Nightfighting will have a bigger impact than before.

It is true that the Bikes will put out more shots, but the 6th ed Serpents had more "quality" to their shots. In either case, the Eldar player only gets 1-2 turns of shooting at me before I am in his deployment zone. If they turbo over the nastier units, I have Soulgrinders waiting in midfield to deal with them.

The 2 armies I have played for the last 5-7 yrs are Daemons and Eldar. I know the tactics of both pretty well and I am very confident that Daemons can easily make all-comers lists that can hard-counter Eldar

Can I add Obelisk?

20 Tesla shots and forces the Jetbikes to make a dangerous terrain test if within 18". Also invulnerable to fire and it's also likely to survive the first round of shots from a WK even without it's 1st-round 3++ if it starts powered down.

I'd second the obelisk. If someone is spamming Jetbikes, a 36" denial bubble will really hurt them.

Dangerous terrain, for movement, dangerous terrain for turbo, dangerous terrain for assault move.

The Obelisk can then also move 12", getting to the centre of the board for denial, is AV14 all around, and Super heavy.

In addition to this, it has S7 Tesla out the wazoo.

That obelisk though isn't likely to be shooting more then 2 guns a turn because of its wierd shape. That and the controversial status of its guns. If you opponent demands RAW those guns with likely never be shooting at much of anything due to not being able to draw LOS to most stuff. If they allow them to count as turrets then I suppose it might be pretty good for the area denial.

But it is 300pts that has no ability to hide because of its giant goofy shape. So it will go down hard to WKs. Then you're out 300pts and your obvious main counter to scatbikers.

In savy hands and a generous opponent it could do pretty good. Or it will be the main reason why you lost lol.

Not sure if anyone has mentioned it, but fragioso dreads in pods? 2 of them should be able to wipe 2 bike squads on the drop, or at least weaken them enough to not matter. Wounds on 2s, averages 3-4 hits per shot even with spacing, so 6 to 8 rending hits that ignore cover. Throw in a heavy flamer and watch those space pansies vaporize.

 koooaei wrote:

A squad of 10 lootas has a potential to kill from 0.74 to 2.22 bikes. Statistically. And they even don't force bikes to jink. That's for a 150 pt squad that's gona get erazed by return fire next turn. Not great.

Lootas are also not an option imo.

Lootas are 14 pts each now and you can bring up to 15 in a squad now so it's 15-45 shots per turn instead of 10-30. (I'm guessing they used to be 15 pts each and only a squad of 10 from your post)

 Galef wrote:

 koooaei wrote:
The difference is that bikes are 3 times shootier than a 6-th ed wave serpent point-to-point. Not taking into consideration the squad that's inside the serpent and not shooting at all.

I do hope you can counter it with assault. But i'm skeptical yet.

I think if you factor in the 6th ed Serpents being twinlinked and having some of their shots ignore cover, then compare that to the 7th ed bikes, it is not much more actual wounds getting though. Especially since the Screamers will get to benefit from Jink and the Hounds can move from ruin to ruin. Nightfighting will have a bigger impact than before.

It is true that the Bikes will put out more shots, but the 6th ed Serpents had more "quality" to their shots. In either case, the Eldar player only gets 1-2 turns of shooting at me before I am in his deployment zone. If they turbo over the nastier units, I have Soulgrinders waiting in midfield to deal with them.

The 2 armies I have played for the last 5-7 yrs are Daemons and Eldar. I know the tactics of both pretty well and I am very confident that Daemons can easily make all-comers lists that can hard-counter Eldar

I agree, if Eldar player brings 5-6 units of jetbikes, they can't stay out of range for more than 1 maybe 2 turns at best if they hug the board edges which subject them to the risk of running off the board if they fail a LD check from one terror or psychic shriek. It would be a big factor if Daemons get the buff spells up and grimoire first before the scatbikes alpha strike tho...

 sudojoe wrote:

 KiloFiX wrote:
Did we already include:

+ Knight Acheron
+ Lord of Skulls
+ Malcador Infernus

All high Str AP3 Hellstorm.

Added to the list and credited. The lord of skulls didn't get full points as it is not actually a torrent hellstorm template so it's range is limited to 12' move + 16' template = 28' threat window

Btw, what's a plague hulk? I'm not sure where to find the stats for that one.
Also still wondering what a torment launcher does.

I love the ideas so far btw. Keep'em comming folks.

A Plague Hulk is the Nurgle Soul Grinder from FW and it is in IA13. It has a S6 rending battle cannon and a 3+ poison ap3 flamer

Ork Weirdboy spam may take them out. If your opponent allows multiple CADs, take a lot of weirdboyz in a unit of boyz. Then use Da Jump to get the unit close and Power Vomit (S7 AP2 Template) to fry away.

Well this is a topic about Jetbikes, now about WK's.
And assuming they have one, then you offer it more important priorities. Deep strike an Enclave, or start bringing up other vehicles looks a Doomsday Ark or Swarms of Warriors/Ghost Arks. Jetbikes can't do anything to Ghosts, meanwhile they pump out 10 Gauss shots and bring 1d3 warriors back.

Even still, unless the WK gets a 6, the Obelisk won't go down first turn, but it sure as Hell will limit Jetbike movement, and you're still going to get AT LEAST 5 Tesla shots off.

The Infernal Relic Predator for Chaos in IA13 can take a AP3 autocannon and rending HB side sponsons, which might be useful for forcing the bikes to jink?

To whomever the OP is: you would need 2 sky rays to complete the 3 markerlight combo because one sky ray can only provide 2 networked marker lights itself so can only get ignores cover or bs +2. Also HYMP's on broadsides don't ignore cover.

Mavnas wrote:If a weapon is AP4, ignores cover is totally meaningless because these guys have a 3+ armor save. Ignores cover only matters when you're trying to kill them with low AP stuff or rules like rending.

Some systems are just there to force wounds. Some things don't ignore armor but can still be useful if at range and can just force enough saves to be worth it. Anything particular that you don't agree with on the list?

th3maninblak wrote:Not sure if anyone has mentioned it, but fragioso dreads in pods? 2 of them should be able to wipe 2 bike squads on the drop, or at least weaken them enough to not matter. Wounds on 2s, averages 3-4 hits per shot even with spacing, so 6 to 8 rending hits that ignore cover. Throw in a heavy flamer and watch those space pansies vaporize.

I'll add it in as well and credited

JimOnMars wrote:Ork Weirdboy spam may take them out. If your opponent allows multiple CADs, take a lot of weirdboyz in a unit of boyz. Then use Da Jump to get the unit close and Power Vomit (S7 AP2 Template) to fry away.

I'll add it in and credited.

Camundongo wrote:The Infernal Relic Predator for Chaos in IA13 can take a AP3 autocannon and rending HB side sponsons, which might be useful for forcing the bikes to jink?

Didn't know this one, added and credited.


Also fixed the error with the HYMP's. As to the skyray issue, it already says that it will require additional ML to do that particulra manuver.

As to the meleeing jetbikes option, I've decided not to include that in this list. We should make a seperate thread on melee options vs bikes.

As to the oblisk, I'm not entirely sure about that thing as locally we don't allow it to shoot as a turret but your local meta may vary. The board denial is indeed useful and I like it. Since it can deep strike, I'll include it but it's not my personal favorite now a days lol. Also, with the way things are going, alot of folks are going to be using D-scythes + DE perfect deep strikes to wipe out anything super heavy. Don't need the Wraith Knight at all now a days actually.

I like all the out of the box thinking we got going on here. Hopefully it'll help some folks find some options that they may not have thought of to fight bikes in the future.

Sicaran, doesn't ignore cover, it ignores jink.

Space Marines - legion of the damned. All weapons ignore cover, deep strike them.

Go unbound and bring 2 squads of 3 gravturians. Put each one in a drop pod with a bad ass Libby. Tigirius or loath and give them ignores cover and prescience

Also, FW imperial Armor 2 2nd edition, allows Space Marines to purchase upgrades for vehicles and super heavies called legacies of war.

You can purchase one legacy of war for one vehicle every 1000 points. Can only give one legacy of war to one vehicle.
One of the legacies you can purchase is Ignores Cover for like 25points.

Find a weapon platform you like and give it ignores cover.

 Johnnytorrance wrote:
Sicaran, doesn't ignore cover, it ignores jink.

Space Marines - legion of the damned. All weapons ignore cover, deep strike them.

Go unbound and bring 2 squads of 3 gravturians. Put each one in a drop pod with a bad ass Libby. Tigirius or loath and give them ignores cover and prescience

Also, FW imperial Armor 2 2nd edition, allows Space Marines to purchase upgrades for vehicles and super heavies called legacies of war.

You can purchase one legacy of war for one vehicle every 1000 points. Can only give one legacy of war to one vehicle.
One of the legacies you can purchase is Ignores Cover for like 25points.

Find a weapon platform you like and give it ignores cover.

those are already on the list as is the list of legacy of wars and the ignore cover only applies to blasts but it's in there already

sudojoe wrote:
As to the oblisk, I'm not entirely sure about that thing as locally we don't allow it to shoot as a turret but your local meta may vary. The board denial is indeed useful and I like it. Since it can deep strike, I'll include it but it's not my personal favorite now a days lol. Also, with the way things are going, alot of folks are going to be using D-scythes + DE perfect deep strikes to wipe out anything super heavy. Don't need the Wraith Knight at all now a days actually.

Honestly, I can hope that that's what people will do. Guard or anyone else that can afford some cheap blobs can laugh at the hubris of an eldar player that thinks perfect deep strike will get him close to things of value every time. (Rememeber at max spacing, it only takes 12 small bases to cover a square foot of table.)

Speaking of guard, the stormlord can fire 30 S5AP3 shots. They're BS3 and don't ignore cover, but you can split fire half at a unit and half at another. It's an average of 10 wounds total, which means on average, you forced two squads to jink and still killed 5 bikes. The sponsons can then target a third unit and force them to jink as well, and up to 20 of the 40 passengers can fire while embarked on your AV14 vehicle which can accomodate multiple units. (So really, it and its passengers could force 4+ squads to jink while still wiping about a third of them out or more depending on the passengers.) Assuming your opponent didn't bring all the D weapons and you can set up enough bubble wrap around your tank, it might live long enough to ruin someone's day. Oh, and while you can't twin-link the passenger's guns with a divination psyker, you could easily do that for the tank itself giving you another 5 (or 2.5 if jinking) wounds from the main gun and a kill or two from the sponsons.

(OK... now I kind of want to assemble mine. I didn't want to be TFG, but I think against Eldar it's actually a balanced choice.)

Actually... this is the part where things get broken. If you attach multiple techmarines/techpriests/whatever to three servitors, RAW, each of them gets to repair a hull point on like a 2+. It's expensive, but a super heavy that repairs 3-4 HP a turn and can ignore the bikers while sheltering 40 dudes is a scary thing if you can keep the D weapons at bay.

If you don't go that route, then I still think the low AP weapons' best bet would be to take MSU that do just enough damage that the enemy will want to jink. Then if he jinks, either your next unit forces the same choice on a second squad or you get free ignores cover. With the lasers not being twin-linked forcing a jink negates 75% of the unit's offensive potential for a turn. If you can find ways to do that cheaply enough, that's better than trying to send 600-800 points at the unit only to see those points wiped by a D weapon the next turn.

That's just mean.

If we're presuming the Jetbikes are backed up by a WK, then I get to back up my Obelisk with Spyders.
Keeping in mind it'll have IWND, and the Spyders will likely be screened.. (If they want to get around the Obelisk LOS, they'll have to take the dangerous terrain test), it'll be extremely hard to kill without a lucky 6, plus it provides protection from witchfires and etc.

You'll almost always get AT LEAST one Tesla sphere off, and likely a second if they're really massing the bikes. Just my opinion


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Alternative:

Use formation with two Mono's and an Obelisk.
Deploy behind enemy lines, activate both Eternity Gate's and deploy two full troop squads of your choice. Eliminate WK. Then laugh because no matter what happens to your troops after, your Obelisk and Mono's obliterate the jetbikes with impunity.

Oh, other fun thing you can do with a Stormlord. Add a DA character with a PFG to the blob wrapped around it. Now you have a 4++. It won't help with the rolls of a 6 on the D weapons, but the 2-5 are now only 1 HP on average.

You could also have 20 of the non-shooting models pop out of it in any given turn and replace the blob around it preventing the enemy from approaching closer than 7" (so no melta, and deep striking D-Scythes will be hard pressed to get the whole unit within range).

I'm starting to think that they key to defeating the cheesiest Eldar lists is having a few AV13-14 front and sides tanks along with enough firepower to kill the wraithknights. Once you get those down, the bikes are a mere annoyance to your tanks unless they can get behind you. 13/11/10 are OK, but you really need to hide them between some 14/13/??s or terrain and only show the AV 13 side.

In this regard, I almost think not buying the sponsons might be the better bet for things. People talk about the Relic Sicaran with lasers, and ceramite, and the legacy, but you're probably better off just having two of them for slightly more points (Assuming multi-CAD is allowed in your meta.)

Otherwise, guard can field a bunch of Lehman Russes and a Stormlord and enough cheap infantry to last until the enemy has done his deep striking. By my math, a 2'x4' deployment zone could be completely filled with 96 troops if it contains nothing else (like no terrain and tanks). If you deploy on your own back line, you don't really need the full 12"+ buffer against deep strikers, but really you just need to protect the super heavy. A command unit + 3 separate LRs would require the enemy to bring 4 different sets of D weapons into range. If your enemy's army can do that, bikes are the least of your problems.

 ProwlerPC wrote:

 koooaei wrote:

A squad of 10 lootas has a potential to kill from 0.74 to 2.22 bikes. Statistically. And they even don't force bikes to jink. That's for a 150 pt squad that's gona get erazed by return fire next turn. Not great.

Lootas are also not an option imo.

Lootas are 14 pts each now and you can bring up to 15 in a squad now so it's 15-45 shots per turn instead of 10-30. (I'm guessing they used to be 15 pts each and only a squad of 10 from your post)

They used to cost 15 ppm but could still be taken in 5-15 squas. I'm talking about 10 cause it's the most common ammount of lootas you see on board. It's way harder to effectively hide a larger squad, remain spread out to avoid blasts and keep everyone within los / not giving easy cover at the same time.

15 will simply kill 1.5 times more, right? So, 1.11 - 3.33. That's 59.94 of bikes on average from a 210 pt squad. 210 pt of bikes will put 17.28 wounds on lootas before cover. So, if you're camping ruins, it's 8.64 dead lootas - 120.96 pt of dead lootas in cover! Than lootas have ld7 to not run away.

 Ferros wrote:
If we're presuming the Jetbikes are backed up by a WK, then I get to back up my Obelisk with Spyders.
Keeping in mind it'll have IWND, and the Spyders will likely be screened.. (If they want to get around the Obelisk LOS, they'll have to take the dangerous terrain test), it'll be extremely hard to kill without a lucky 6, plus it provides protection from witchfires and etc.

You'll almost always get AT LEAST one Tesla sphere off, and likely a second if they're really massing the bikes. Just my opinion


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Alternative:

Use formation with two Mono's and an Obelisk.
Deploy behind enemy lines, activate both Eternity Gate's and deploy two full troop squads of your choice. Eliminate WK. Then laugh because no matter what happens to your troops after, your Obelisk and Mono's obliterate the jetbikes with impunity.

If you're going to use Spyders, why not use the Tesseract Vault instead? 3 more HP and a selection of guns that can threaten both the WK and the bikes.

EDIT: Also,

How about the Valkyrie Missile pods, surely the bikes would suffer under two large blasts? It would also force a Ld check if a few died.

Tesseract Vault could do a lot of damage for 2 reasons.

A) you target the bikes with C'tan powers, ask if they want to jink, then find out if you get an AP3 large blast, either they jink, or potentially take a lot of damage. On top of that, if you dont get the AP3, you're still killing a few bikes (assault 20 S6/Apocalyptic barrage/ Apocalytic Blast/ 2 dead bikes D/2-6 dead bikes las cannon)

And B) if there is another threat involved, eg. WK, target it, and either it gets hurt by the big guns, or the blasts hurt everything around it. Then theres the Tesla spheres.

Problems are, 1) 550 points, and loses obelisk dangerous terrain bubble,
2) its a big 9 HP super heavy, you might as well add in almost all titans at this stage.

The obelisk is just sort of a bigger (super heavy) monolith, it would be more accpetable to pull out in a TAC game.

EDIT: Also ,

Noise marines with sonic blasters and blastmasters will make them cry a bit