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So before you roll your eyes i play dark eldar and it's a hard fight regardless to face admech and skitarii. However i was fighting all this with the new books and possibly his special formation. Now i can understand a lot of my issues were based around not knowing how to deal with some of the units considering the super tough 3+ armor save dudes seem weak vs poisoned. While the army is tough there are good chunks of it i can handle provided i have the right weapons and units or play really well. For instance my skimmers can either jink or sit in area terrain with their night shields for a 3+ cover save. Same goes if i have units obscuring said vehicles.

However as stupid as 3 or more models in a unit with toughness 7 and 3+ armor with possible feel no pain and ap 3 guns is it is nothing compared to this guy. This guy has a toughness 6, 2+ armor, probably a 5+ inv. save and a re-rollable 5+ feel no pain and 5 wounds and if this wasn't bad enough he can heal D3 wounds at the start of each of his turns. After throwing a good amount of firepower at this guy on turn 1 (to which he only took one unsaved wound after a bunch of str 8 ap 2 blasters and str 5 ap 2 disintegrators hit him which i'd like to state he just healed on his turn anyway) i realized it wasn't worth it to attack him and tried to maneuver around to kill the unit he was with. Keep in mind while i did get 2nd turn (he got to go first) i positioned my forces so that half or less of his army could hit me (deployed entirely on the left side of the board and most of his guns either had no range, couldn't move fast enough or were blocked by buildings to fire at me). I'll admit i haven't faced admech or skitarii before and i will say they combine a couple of the most hated things tau have with some of the most hated things necrons have. They are super durable and hit fairly hard except they have melee too. The melee isn't too hot except on the huge bots which is in many ways comparative to freaking monstrous creatures but smaller (str 8 ap 1 or str 10 ap 1 attacks and such). The new Warlord traits he seemed to have that changed on the spot (+1 or +2 BS, cover improvements, perhaps re-rolls to hit with shooting at least, etc.) were also pretty ridiculous (the electro-priests that can shoot managed to re-roll to hit against my reavers when shooting and on 6's they scored additional hits to which i realized the hard way how disgusting that is in overwatch. With 7 guys or less he hit or wounded me like 12 times in overwatch or something. It was absolutely stupid and absolutely absurd. Only 2 guys died but one was a cluster caltrop and magically the other cluster caltrop didn't make it into base contact so that was a hard and stupid fight.

I would just like to say i don't think there's a singular thing in my book (dark eldar) that can hurt this new HQ. Incubi are only str 4 so their ap 2 doesn't do enough and they'd get destroyed. Grotesques while having instant death on 6's can't go through any armor which is awful esp. since i won't have enough instant death possibilities to kill this guy. Poisoned won't work as they almost always get their armor. While lance wounds on 2's and goes through armor it's just one wound that they still get like a 5+ inv. save with a re-rollable 5+ FnP save which they often make anyway (so you'd need to spam this garbage and usually i don't have enough and there are better targets elsewhere that'd hurt his damage potential much more). Reavers would never do enough. Most other weapons we have just won't work. Perhaps Talos could handle him with ichor gauntlets (2+ fleshbane with ap 2 and 6's do instant death but i dunno if they'd be able to do enough or if their initiative means they'd go first or 2nd which is huge). Oh and if it's not hard enough to punch through he just heals D3 wounds anyway. It's just not fun to fight against.

So my tactic is probably going to be just avoid him and hurt everything else if this is possible. He's even a beast in melee and shooting. The only super small possibility is if he fails a leadership check with his unit (which i think he's leadership 10) and then he runs away or perhaps you just tank shock him with enough skimmers until he fails to destroy one and it rolls over him (provided it even can). Keep in mind my opponent plays a new army almost constantly regardless of Power Level (he probably has a super low attention span or gets bored easily but he's a decent guy and player) and i'm unsure if he has all the rules right and the rules for the new 'Fall of Cadia' stuff is very new so maybe some things were done incorrectly. However this Cawl guy is stupid good. Seriously for 200 some odd points he can tank for units and just eats bullets and punches to the face, puts out decent firepower or at least melee and just will not die.

Anyway i just can't handle this HQ unit. There's nothing i can do to stop him. Congrats making a nearly unkillable HQ monster GW (or at least unkillable for certain armies).

Taloses?

Dude no problem. I got you. By my math it will only take a little over 200 poison shots to kill him. So like 17 venoms. 1105 points. Hrmm wait no this is not reassuring. How about 67 scourges. Only 1072 points. How about 100 kabolite warriors in rapid fire range for 800 points. All to kill a 200 point model. Poison is probably not the answer.

More reasonably a corpse thief claw with ichor injectors should be able to do the trick.

Unfortunately dark eldar are in a bad spot so they are going to have trouble dealing with a lot of things. Cawl is just another unit to add to the list. Corpse thief claws are legitimately great units though so thankfully they are the right option against Cawl, as well as just being worth taking all the time anyways.

Yeah as i came to the conclusion taloses are perhaps the only thing that can handle this jerk.

He's. Slow. Super slow.

Ignore him and take potshots at him as necessary.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
He's. Slow. Super slow.

Ignore him and take potshots at him as necessary.

Honestly i may just avoid him completely where possible. That or talos en masse. I honestly can't think of many other options.

He isn't fearless. Whatever unit he is with, kill it on CC. Get a nice negative leadership debuff, and sweep him in CC if he fails that morale check. For non-DE, the same tactic works, as do force weapons. A few force axes will carve him apart.

He isn't fearless???

If not, then that makes armour of misery quite good and not just to be taken for a 4+ on a succubus.

What unit did your opponent join him with?

Anyone have the rules available that I can see?

 jifel wrote:
He isn't fearless. Whatever unit he is with, kill it on CC. Get a nice negative leadership debuff, and sweep him in CC if he fails that morale check. For non-DE, the same tactic works, as do force weapons. A few force axes will carve him apart.

This is probably the best option. Just don't think that throwing a horde of trash will keep him tarpitted. He can do quite a number with 2d6+1 extra attacks. You can also ally in a darkstrider and gunrig. 185pts with a good chance to 1 shot him.

Well that more into question what kind of unit he's in. If they're already fearless that's not an acceptable tactic to rely on.

 jifel wrote:
He isn't fearless. Whatever unit he is with, kill it on CC. Get a nice negative leadership debuff, and sweep him in CC if he fails that morale check. For non-DE, the same tactic works, as do force weapons. A few force axes will carve him apart.

That's legit or it would be if the unit wouldn't destroy most of my guys. I still think it'd end up with talos carrying the day. Keep in mind he's t5 so even incubi only wound him on 5's. If you go for units he's in he's probably in a durable unit. In my case this units was a bunch of robo treadmills with like str 8 or str 10 ap 1 weapons i think. Wounding them on 6's with incubi vs a unit which is super durable and elite (so no 'rampage') is a pain. Grotesques could probably handle this much better being they always wound on 4+ because they're poisoned and the fact they are really tough so only instant death vs str 10, on 6's to wound we instant death them and most of their units are 3+ armor saves. That said this techmagos guy is rough. I can't imagine anything less than grotesques in our army standing up to their units in a fight and you're much better off just getting the talos for facing the magos.

Cawl is a rock-hard mammajamma, no matter how you slice it. If you're a freak show list fan, you could certainly try to psychic shriek him away, but even that's not terribly reliable with a 5++/5+++ re-rollable. He has a buttload of attacks, but they aren't scary to big stuff. If you can't stick a Talos or five on him, try to tarpit with Grotesques. You can also just ignore him. Melta really isn't that scary when bolsters frag your vehicles just as well. Keep on the move, and deal with the rest of his army.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:

 jifel wrote:
He isn't fearless. Whatever unit he is with, kill it on CC. Get a nice negative leadership debuff, and sweep him in CC if he fails that morale check. For non-DE, the same tactic works, as do force weapons. A few force axes will carve him apart.

That's legit or it would be if the unit wouldn't destroy most of my guys. I still think it'd end up with talos carrying the day. Keep in mind he's t5 so even incubi only wound him on 5's. If you go for units he's in he's probably in a durable unit. In my case this units was a bunch of robo treadmills with like str 8 or str 10 ap 1 weapons i think. Wounding them on 6's with incubi vs a unit which is super durable and elite (so no 'rampage') is a pain. Grotesques could probably handle this much better being they always wound on 4+ because they're poisoned and the fact they are really tough so only instant death vs str 10, on 6's to wound we instant death them and most of their units are 3+ armor saves. That said this techmagos guy is rough. I can't imagine anything less than grotesques in our army standing up to their units in a fight and you're much better off just getting the talos for facing the magos.

Kataphron Servitors are only T5, not 6, have a low initiative and WS and if they have taken the special close combat weapon that makes them hig strength then they only get a single attack. They are pretty rubish in combat and Grotesques will mulch them.

As for Cawl, a Corpsthiefe Claw is the only real answer. He's WS5 so you're hitting each other on 4's but the Talos go first as Cawl's Power Axe is unweildy (and he's not an MC) and 5 Talos on the charge have 25 attacks, hitting on 4's, wounding on 2's with the Ichor Injector (3's normally, and Chain Flails giving you re-rolls To Wound) and getting ID on 6's. It's the ID thats really important as it negates Cawls FnP and leaves you with just the 5++ to get through and no Eternal Warrior to worry about. Those Talos should take him down in a single round of combat, and it doesn't matter if he's joined with Kastellan robots because they are no match for Talos in combat (I've had that fight several times, Talos always win, most recently 2 weeks ago when 1 Talos killed 2 Kastellans in one round).

The problem here is getting to combat, Cawl gives out major buffs to the rest of his army and Ad Mech shooting with Doctrines and Canticles can be horrific. In reality you'll need a Corpsthiefe Claw deployed opposite Cawl and Scouted forward, which means you probably want to go second to make sure you can set up as close to him as you can. You'll then need to run at him forgowing you first round of shooting and hope that your in range for a Turn 2 charge. You'll also need the Dark Artisan formation directly behind to provide the +1 to FnP and the Haemonculus as the Warlord to let the Talos and Cronos re-roll FnP rolls of 1. These two formations should be able to tear through most Admech forces when they finally get there, the problem is keeping them alive long enough to make the charge.

If your opponent is playing War Convocation though, it's probably just not worth playing, I just don't think DE can possibly win that fight.

ID is your friend. If that happens to have AP2 even better.

Can you take a D weapon from ForgeWorld ? Dark Eldars have some FW units but I don't know much about them.

 Imateria wrote:

 flamingkillamajig wrote:

 jifel wrote:
He isn't fearless. Whatever unit he is with, kill it on CC. Get a nice negative leadership debuff, and sweep him in CC if he fails that morale check. For non-DE, the same tactic works, as do force weapons. A few force axes will carve him apart.

That's legit or it would be if the unit wouldn't destroy most of my guys. I still think it'd end up with talos carrying the day. Keep in mind he's t5 so even incubi only wound him on 5's. If you go for units he's in he's probably in a durable unit. In my case this units was a bunch of robo treadmills with like str 8 or str 10 ap 1 weapons i think. Wounding them on 6's with incubi vs a unit which is super durable and elite (so no 'rampage') is a pain. Grotesques could probably handle this much better being they always wound on 4+ because they're poisoned and the fact they are really tough so only instant death vs str 10, on 6's to wound we instant death them and most of their units are 3+ armor saves. That said this techmagos guy is rough. I can't imagine anything less than grotesques in our army standing up to their units in a fight and you're much better off just getting the talos for facing the magos.

Kataphron Servitors are only T5, not 6, have a low initiative and WS and if they have taken the special close combat weapon that makes them hig strength then they only get a single attack. They are pretty rubish in combat and Grotesques will mulch them.

As for Cawl, a Corpsthiefe Claw is the only real answer. He's WS5 so you're hitting each other on 4's but the Talos go first as Cawl's Power Axe is unweildy (and he's not an MC) and 5 Talos on the charge have 25 attacks, hitting on 4's, wounding on 2's with the Ichor Injector (3's normally, and Chain Flails giving you re-rolls To Wound) and getting ID on 6's. It's the ID thats really important as it negates Cawls FnP and leaves you with just the 5++ to get through and no Eternal Warrior to worry about. Those Talos should take him down in a single round of combat, and it doesn't matter if he's joined with Kastellan robots because they are no match for Talos in combat (I've had that fight several times, Talos always win, most recently 2 weeks ago when 1 Talos killed 2 Kastellans in one round).

Cawl actually goes first.

Mechadendrite Hive and Dataspike are attacks made at the Initiative 10 step, but do not grant Pile In.

They're also not weapons, but rather wargear that adds in attacks.