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Hello everybody...

I play mostly Dark Eldar flavour Ynnari, and there's this guy at my local club who has genuinely not been beaten in about 2 years, and I'm getting pretty desperate. If anyone has any tips, tactics or list advice it would be sincerly appreciated. He plays Uptramarines and his current list goes
Like this:

Marneus Calgar

Primaries ancient w/ relic standard thing

Primaries leuftenant w/power Sword and pistol

2x Primaris Hellblasters (5 man squads)

2x Tactical squads, 5men each and each has two plasma guns

I think that's about it, thanks in advance for any ideas and I hope I'll beat him with your help!

Well, for a start you're going to struggle until you get a Codex. The marine codex is pretty "meh", but it's still cheaper/better than most indices.

That army has very few models and seems pretty mediocre. What parts of do you have problems with? Does the guy use loaded dice or something?

That Army doesn't seem overtly ridiculous. How exactly does this become undefeated for that long? There's got to be more than just his dudes.

I...I think you need to git gud? That Ultra Marine list is pretty garbo compared to what he could field.

His list does not look too fearsome...I think you need to add in plenty of big guns like Blasterborn, or the like, and use Power from death to get extra shots. Having access to Word of the Phoenix is pretty important, so you should try for that as well. Good luck!

Custodian607 wrote:
Hello everybody...

I play mostly Dark Eldar flavour Ynnari, and there's this guy at my local club who has genuinely not been beaten in about 2 years, and I'm getting pretty desperate. If anyone has any tips, tactics or list advice it would be sincerly appreciated. He plays Uptramarines and his current list goes
Like this:

Marneus Calgar

Primaries ancient w/ relic standard thing

Primaries leuftenant w/power Sword and pistol

2x Primaris Hellblasters (5 man squads)

2x Tactical squads, 5men each and each has two plasma guns

I think that's about it, thanks in advance for any ideas and I hope I'll beat him with your help!

Is that the entire army? Looks like you guys play relatively small games?

Either way, he's got a total of 23 models on the field kitted entirely with heavy infantry killing weapons and little mobility. Almost none with any particularly strong resiliency or ability to deal with long range firepower or hordes. Ynnari Dark Reapers should eat this alive quite effectively. If you're sticking primarily to Dark Eldar, load up on Lances and Blasters, get a couple of Venoms, and go to town.

Dark Eldar have a lot of things that should be excellent against that list. All of his weapons have pretty short range so you expect to strike first with just about everything. Blasters and disintegrators are great against the Hellblasters, and pretty good against the tacticals. You can force him out of cover by shooting him with 36" guns, and then marines in the open are fairly vulnerable to all the splinter fire your vehicles and troops can put out. Hellblasters are pretty ineffective against DE stuff since you're not relying on armor saves anyway.

Drop Ynnari, they do very little for the majority of DE units. But frankly, Ravagers with tripple Dissies, Voidravens with Dark Scythes, Blasterborn, Scourges with Blasters/Dark Lances, Incubi or Clawed Fiends with a Beastmaster would all muller that list pretty easily.

Hell, take some Talos, the only thing they're actually good at is killing elite infantry lime Primaris marines.

First there has to be more to the list, that's only around 850 points which is an odd point level to play at.

But if that is what you guys play at you could go simple and whoop it.

2 archons with agonisers. 8 true born kabilite squads, 5 man, each with 2 dark lances (you would probably have to drop one dl for points)

Thats 15 dark lances shots outside his range. At best he can kill a few squads with his plasma but using plasma on kabilites is a waste. Takes out robby g's advantage too, what difference do rerolls make when yeah, they are going to kill what they shoot at anyways, but that's kind of the point.

Or you could go with straight forward kabilite warriors and aim for pure numbers.

2 archons. 6 squads of 10 man kabilite warriors, 1 splinter cannon in each squad, a ravanger with 3 disintegration cannons, and about 50 pts left over for anything else you can toss in. Pure numbers, Bank on posion and pure numbers to win, you have the same range as they do.

Gl.

with a stick, while he slept... couldnt resist.

Firstly, I'm pretty sure that's everything he had, and anything I can't remember probably wasn't that big a deal. Anyway, thanks for your advice I'll see what I can do

Use Mandrakes to prioritise the Helblaster squad, whack some Reavers with cluster caltrops into the Tactical squads and Scourges to snipe the characters.

Orrrrrr, a few Ravagers with 3 disintegrators apiece would be a nightmare for low model count armies.

That army should fall apart pretty easily.

Either he has weighted dice or you guys need to git good


Now when that's out of the way we can look for solutions


His main weaknes - 2 squads of Hellblasters is his main killing force, Hellblasters themselves being a pretty mediocre choice as they cost a lot of points and suffer from one huge flaw - being they still die in 1 wounding hit from damage 2 weapons.

Can you tell what you have?


Because I'm sure I could easily beat that list with Renegade Heretics and 3 Demon Princes which total way below in points of what he wields.
Heck, that list would strugle vs 3 Demon Princes by themselves, even without any Heretic support

 thekingofkings wrote:
with a stick, while he slept... couldnt resist.

With a lead pipe in an alley...

It's likely his army is more point efficient than your army for codex reasons. Also if you're only playing small games that's going to affect the unit diversity and balance of your army, perhaps more so than his army.

Also 40k is very much about using the right tools at the right jobs, and target prioritization. Try to dissemble his army unit by unit.

There are loads of Dark Eldar lists that can comfortably deal with that sort of marine list. Here's a couple at the 500 points mark, there are loads more possible.

Patrol Detachment

Yrvaine

5 Kabalite Warriors

5 Scourges, 4 Dark Lances

Ravager, 1 Dark Lance, 2 Disintegrators

492 points (add an 8 point shredder for exactly 500!), should kill 8+ Primaris a turn on average just from the darklight, will also melt Clagar and all from 36" away. Remove both squads of hellblasters turn 1, chuckle.

Vanguard Detachment

Yrvaine

5 Trueborn, 2 Lances
5 Trueborn, 2 Lances
5 trueborn, 1 Splinter Cannon, 1 Blast Pistol

1 Venom, 2 Splinter Cannon

This list is similar in concept, but a little more bodies on the ground.