Is there a unit that can *probably* survive one round of being hit with 5x D-Scythes?

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**GoliothOnline**

35 Chaos Cultist Zombies that have Infiltrated. What are they going to do? Go out of their way to stomp them out of existance with 3/4 of their armies single target firepower? Ok.... Then the other 2-3 squads advance up the board lock things down for the remainder of the game and you casually walk up to Objectives and capture them.

Wraithknights are a good example. Throw 35 Cultsits at it. What's the worst that can happen? It stomps them? kills maybe 6, 3-4 with its CC Attacks? they're fearless and they aren't going anywhere... There goes 2-3 Turns of wasted WK power. Wave Serpents? Ok, Force them to disembark and try to kill you, then what? They're in the open, Shoot them to crap with something from long range since theirs is short.

**Oberron**

Alcibiades wrote:
Poor C'tan Shards. You were viable for 2 months. Now a squad of scatter laser jetbikes will kill you in one turn.

Scatter laser jetbikes have better targets then the slow t7 c'tan shard. 40shots (assuming max count) 26.4 hits needing 5+ to wound is 8.71 wounds 4+/4++ is 4.356 wounds on average. The burning one formation makes it even tougher with the crypteks and better saves and FNP. The C'tan shard has 4 powers that can reach the jetbikes.

AMM is s8 ap3 so ID and will force a jink on the jetbikes. If fired by the nightbringer scatters 3" on average depending on how spread out the bikes are hits 1-2. So around one dead but forces them to snapshot, Deceiver scatters 2" average hitting 1-3 depending on spread making 1.5 dead bikes.

Herp'd on math went back and fixed it. Should be right on the jetbikes fireing at the C'tan. But on another note that is a lot of wasted firing potential to use against the C'tan.

**harkequin**

bikes are 4+ armor right?

3+ , they are MEQs (basically)

The strength of the C'tan would be making them declare a jink before drawing the card, Target-jink-draw power.So either they jink for the AP3 blast/D/S9ap2 , or dont. It's 50/50 wasted jink.

**hiveof_chimera**

HawaiiMatt wrote:
Warp Spiders.
Dance out of range with flicker jump when the scythes target you.

Beast Pack of Khymereae, speed to get to the target, large enough bases to really spread out, and 5+ invul to reduce losses.

I've already imagining the WG wasting their shots on spiders right now

**Alcibiades**

Oberron wrote:
Alcibiades wrote:
Poor C'tan Shards. You were viable for 2 months. Now a squad of scatter laser jetbikes will kill you in one turn.

Scatter laser jetbikes have better targets then the slow t7 c'tan shard. 40shots (assuming max count) 20 hits

BS 4 = 26 hits.

On average they do around 4 wounds = dead C'tan Shard.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
awful unit design. Awful.

**Lou_Cypher**

Unit of Flesh Hounds on their sweet new 50 mm bases?

**Oberron**

harkequin wrote:
bikes are 4+ armor right?

3+ , they are MEQs (basically)

The strength of the C'tan would be making them declare a jink before drawing the card, Target-jink-draw power.So either they jink for the AP3 blast/D/S9ap2 , or dont. It's 50/50 wasted jink.

Oh yeah that's pretty funny.... a small useful thing for the C'tan to have to roll for powers after picking his target.

**Zippokovich**

greatbigtree wrote:
Ah! Someone that uses this idea!

So, combined with say, 15 Scatter Bikes, what kinds of units / strategies would survive well? My concern is that between 15-20 Scatter Bikes, and a couple 5-man units of D-Scythe guard, I'd have precious little left after 3 turns.

AV 12- or infantry without a 2+ save will likely be shredded pretty effectively by the long range Scats, and then anything sufficiently tough to survive them is apt to be targeted by D-Scythes. It seems like a pretty workable idea at 1500 points, more so at 1850, I'd guess.

Does that seem like a practical [abusive?] build? I'm not sure what a person could take to counter it. I've never faced Screamer Star, but it seems like Daemons in general would have a tough time with the rest of their units being wrecked by Scats, leaving just the one Deathstar to whittle down / avoid as best as possible. Score a handful of objectives at the end of the game [I play 95% Eternal War missions] and life should be easy.

Trying to dance at the outer edges of Necron ability to return fire seems like a good solution to their durability. Admittedly, 3/4 of the Scatter wounds get shrugged off, but with so much firepower focussing on one unit at a time, it feels like you could just dance around them all game. Anything that gets too close gets smothered in templates?

White Scars with Knights should be able to wipe a squad of bikes per turn with D-Scythes, and if not the Scats could probably drown them in saves.

Scatter Bikes should be able to overwhelm TWC, if they have SS. Without an invul, D-Scythes should get them too.

*Smirk* I think I might be derailing my own thread here. Are there many "high end" lists that 20 Scatter Bikes + 2x 5-Man D-Scythes in Serps would have a lot of trouble with? Say, at 1500 points? I haven't faced a proper Decurion list yet, so I don't know how insanely resilient they are.

Perhaps a better question, is how effective do you find a pair of WG units to be? What would you think supports them the best?

I would consider scatter bikes plus scytheguard to be a power/competitive/cheese list. They synergise very well with the bikes handling the spam and the guard handling everything else. My list is using war walkers for the massed fire rather than bikes which have the same fire-power but are much easier to catch and counter (any CC or S6-7 stuff will wreck walkers) so not as cheesy (also I have 6 walkers painted). A list with mostly bikes and scythes would go toe to toe with the best other top armies have to offer and there is really very little hard counter to them.

Guard are not invincible though and they do die when out of transports - heavy weapons, CC (which can survive the over watch) or massed fire will bring them down and scythe guard cost 42 points each so each loss is a blow - its really just how much damage they can do before going down.

Overall I think its up to Eldar players to not bring disgusting lists where they are not appropriate and after a few games of experimenting most non-tournament lists will settle down.

**dark_red**

I was talking about this recently with a few people and they are a real threat. I generally play guard or ba but also a few other armies.

With guard I'd just fire ignore cover lascanons at the transport and make them walk while slowly picking them off.

Ba or sm I'd get grav bikes near to take out the transpot then get some plasma in there.

Vindicare vs the WS is the other option but as a mate pointed out, if your going down this road you wont rely on just one of these units. It would be a real headache for any non invis unit

**Leth**

Honestly, outside of deep striking I am not worried about the D scythes. Max of a 20 inch threat range(absolute max) 6 +6 disembark + 8 inch template.

If the wave serpent gets too close then I just cover the back and blow it up, forcing an emergency disembark(literally one model in the back would force a disembark since they are on larger bases)

**harkequin**

forcing an emergency disembark(literally one model in the back would force a disembark since they are on larger bases)

Can you emergency disembark within 1"? If not then the unit would be destroyed, also you could always charge the WS , surround it and glance it to death in CC.
No disembarking then.

**HawaiiMatt**

Leth wrote:
Honestly, outside of deep striking I am not worried about the D scythes. Max of a 20 inch threat range(absolute max) 6 +6 disembark + 8 inch template.

If the wave serpent gets too close then I just cover the back and blow it up, forcing an emergency disembark(literally one model in the back would force a disembark since they are on larger bases)

If anyone took the Wind Rider host AND a Wraith host, you can add a 6" Battle Focus to that 20" threat range. Turn 1 I could dump D-Scythe Templates 4" into your deployment zone.

Bare Bones, this would give you
Jet Seer
Jetlock
Vyper
3x3 Jetbikes
Spirit Seer
3x5 Wraithguard
Wraithlord
Wraith Knight

That's 1323 points.
Then you pick up 3 Wave Serpents for transports (330 points), and upgrade ~2 units to scythes (100 points).
You're at 1753, and still have just under 100 points for other upgrades.

Having a wraithlord and wraith knight that gains battle focus is kind of cool, cause we know they aren't good enough as is.

-Matt

**harkequin**

Since when do your Wraithguard have battlefocus!?

**Bharring**

Since the Spirit Host formation.

Its just bonkersly BS. Undoes a major balancing factor on a stupidly-strong unit. At least it's D6, so its random, right? ...

(The new Formations have stupidly good buffs for units that don't need them)

**harkequin**

Where is the spirithost formation?

In the craftworld warhost you get the automatic 6" run, with the wraithhost you get re-roll hits on enemies within 18" of the spiritseer.

Even with it, it's still 6"move 6"unload ~3.5"run 7.5" template. so about 23" threat range, assuming your ideal target starts directly across from you. I don't think a turn D-Flame is a worry

**HawaiiMatt**

harkequin wrote:
Since when do your Wraithguard have battlefocus!?

Page 145, Wraith Host Formation.
Special rules:
*Battle Focus.

Page 95 Craftworld Warhost
Command Benefit:
Matchless Agility: If a unit complased entirely of models from this detachment runs, do not roll a D6... counts as having rolled a 6.

And the combining super sauce:
Page 94, last paragraph.
Although units cannot normally belong to more than one Detachment, units froma Formation that is part of a Craftworld Warhost are an exception. They count as part of both their Formation and the Detachment, and have all associated Command Benefits and special rules.

The Wraith Host gives them battle focus. The Craftworld formation lets them always count the run as a "6" without rolling.

**Leth**

Pretty powerful but still overall "meh". There is almost no ranged threat in that list, nor is there anything remotely resilient outside of the wraithknight.

It would crumble to any army with a hybrid ranged/assault presence.

I would happily play against such a list with my current forces

**harkequin**

Ah gotcha, I know how the detatchment works. I just managed to miss the "special rules:battle focus" part of wraithhost. Only saw the next part.

Goddammit, this is just getting ridiculous.

**HawaiiMatt**

Leth wrote:
Pretty powerful but still overall "meh". There is almost no ranged threat in that list, nor is there anything remotely resilient outside of the wraithknight.

It would crumble to any army with a hybrid ranged/assault presence.

I would happily play against such a list with my current forces

I don't know, turn one taking 5 wraith cannon shots, 10 D-Scythes, a sun cannon, and 9 scatter lasers is a little rough, along with a shuriken cannon and 3 twin-linked shuriken cannons, and for giggles, 6D6 S6 ignore cover shots.
Wraith Knight, Wraith lord, and 15 wraith guard aren't durable? huh.
It puts a hell of a wall in front of those shuriken cannons and scatter lasers (hint, you use the remaining 97 points to buy 9 scatter lasers and the last 5 on a wraith glaive for the wraith lord).
Then you've got a level 3, level 2 and level 1 psyker floating around as well.

I don't think it's as strong as webway D-scythes disembarking from a wave serpent, but if you don't want DE allies, it's an option.

**Leth**

I didnt say it was not powerful, I said I am not more worried about it than I am other lists. What would this army do if it didnt go first?

With my army I have the ability to reliably kill a unit of wraith guard with 1 character in 1-2 turns. I have throw away models for eating overwatch.

Basically if you are advancing into that range you had better be sure you are going to get the kill. Otherwise I will kill most of your models quite easily on my first turn.

But then again I run a hybrid of Dark Angels, Space Wolves, and Skitarii so I have answers to all of that(Dat -1 toughness rad grenades). If I was mono book I would definately be very worried, and in two sources I would be worried. However in 3+ sources I am not really that concerned.

Eldar can do a lot of things well, but they cant do it all at once.

If they over specialize they deal with hard counters, if they generalize then they are still powerful but not as overwhelming.

**Exergy**

extremefreak17 wrote:
I dont know where you guys are getting this "only 10 hits" from. Even with 40mm bases you should get at LEAST 3 each. Even if it were possible to position like that, they could just target something more clumped, hop back in the serpent, and do it again in 2 turns. Also, Corpsethief and Grots get rekt thanks to no invul, no FNP and taking d3 wounds each.

Can the Talos Cronos take FNP though, it's only Str10 for ID, so FNP would apply.

**Desubot**

Exergy wrote:
extremefreak17 wrote:
I dont know where you guys are getting this "only 10 hits" from. Even with 40mm bases you should get at LEAST 3 each. Even if it were possible to position like that, they could just target something more clumped, hop back in the serpent, and do it again in 2 turns. Also, Corpsethief and Grots get rekt thanks to no invul, no FNP and taking d3 wounds each.

Can the Talos Cronos take FNP though, it's only Str10 for ID, so FNP would apply.

You cannot take FNP Against D weapons i though or did they fix that too?

**Roknar**

Nope, no FNP versus the D.

**extremefreak17**

Bharring wrote:
Wraithguard should be, but aren't Slow and Purposeful.

That said, 10 Tacs in a Rhino.
The Rhino is toast, but the Tacs are mostly fine.

On a more serious note, sans Formation:

-Serpent pivots on spot, 0" gain
-Disembark 6"
-Shoot 8/9"

That's a 15" threat range, not 20.

Alternately:
-Serpent moves up6", doesnt pivot. 9" long, so a gain of -3"
-Same as above

That's only 12" threat...

Remember that no part of the Serpent can move more than 6". So, unless it starts with its hind end facing you (then, why haven't you popped the expensive AV10 with no Shield?), the Serpent only helps the round before they disembark.

Pivoting does not count as movement man. Also with the formation, Wraithguard can battle focus for a guaranteed 6" so it looks more like this.

Move 6" + pivot disembark 6" + run 6" +fire 8" template = 26" max range.

**TheCadreofFi'rios**

Possibly a farsight bomb with 7 dual fusion blasters, a buff commander and 16 gun drones. Doesnt even need to survive a round of d scythes if they are all dead. Deep strike in front of the squad and shoot them to death.

**Exergy**

TheCadreofFi'rios wrote:
Possibly a farsight bomb with 7 dual fusion blasters, a buff commander and 16 gun drones. Doesnt even need to survive a round of d scythes if they are all dead. Deep strike in front of the squad and shoot them to death.

until another D scythe unit DSes next to them and wipes them out.

He who DSes first dies.

**Bharring**

Does the Pivot rule overrule the movement rules?

If the back hatch moves 6.1 inches, the vehicle moved more than 6".

If that really is overridden, I have a lot more mobility than I thought!

Automatically Appended Next Post:
The second DSing Scytheguard has full scatter. Only one is precision.

**DarknessEternal**

The way to fight Strength D flamers isn't trying to find one unit that can survive it. It's using units that you don't mind getting killed.

No one is going to cry when 5 of their Tactical Marines die to 5 D-Scythes.

**harkequin**

Bharring wrote:
Does the Pivot rule overrule the movement rules?

If the back hatch moves 6.1 inches, the vehicle moved more than 6".

If that really is overridden, I have a lot more mobility than I thought!

Automatically Appended Next Post:
The second DSing Scytheguard has full scatter. Only one is precision.

Yes, pivots dont count towards movement, unless you are a MC/Bike with a long base.

And someone can bring up to 3 WWPs easily for precision deepstrike.

**Kap'n Krump**

greatbigtree wrote:
Toughness doesn't factor much, due to the D table. However, if they can get 10 hits total, those should inflict 6 damage results, with an average of 2 wounds each. Cutting that roughly in half with a 4+ FNP keeps one of those guys alive, so that's a good answer.

Solid.

FNP can never be taken against D hits of any kind. Same for reanimation protocols. From what I understand, D scythes only affect the D damage table and their effective strength for instant death, but no FNP still stands, I believe.