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So as the title suggests I'm looking for opinions of people that have play and played against Sicarans and how they did. I'm playing a drop pod heavy Blood Angel dreadnought list and need some back field fire power with mobility and thought these might do the job. Thanks in advance.

I've played against sicarans. They used to be good now they're meh. Too expensive for what they do. I'd wait till 8-th - maybe they'll roll the power creep back and sicarans would be worth it once again.

Well, at least they have av12 side and back. They'd do fine in non-competitive games.

A bare-bones Sicaran is pretty good if you need to deal with jetbikes and skimmers. With the right Legacy of Glory to get Tank Hunter, it becomes better. Lascannon Sponsons are iverpriced.
All in all... It's not the worst buy, but it is rather situational.

I am assuming you are talking about your own back field. I guess it depends on what you are looking for.

1 or 2 Thunderfire cannons can cause a lot of damage, they have a S6 shot though so they are really only for light vehicles/infantry blobs. They also have a S5 ignore cover shot so they can drop a lot of wounds on things that jink.

Other thing that you could do, wouldn't be back line persay, is take Imperial Navy Section formations out of the Imperial Agents codex.
You can take up to 3 Valkries per formation, they have hell strike missles and you can give them a Lascannon, this would give you AA and some heavy firepower. It also comes with an optional HQ slot, you could take an Officer of the Fleet which you can use I think he either gives +1 to your reserve roll or -1 to your opponents reserve roll for a mere 20 points if you are playing drop pods already it might be an appealing bonus.

Sicaran's were the answer to Wave Serpents before the new Eldar dex nerfed them and mega-buffed everything else.
Still a nice pick with Schism of Mars, a very nice tank hunter. Rerolls to hit and rerolls to pen on 6 st7 rending (ignores jink) shots is pretty damn good. The lascannons are overpriced unless taking Schism. But if taking Schism + Lascannons then you want to also take Ceremite to give it more durability. At this point it is 220pts but is immune to melta, half immune to haywire and has 13/12/12 - so pretty durable.

Bare bones it's nice too. Anything in the middle just isn't worth it - either barebones or fully decked.

Lets compare barebones to a Baal Pred:
20pts more
Has 6 st7 ap4 48" rending, ignores jink shots, compared to 4 st6 ap4 24" rending shots
Has a hull mounted Heavy Bolter
Both Fast
Has 13/12/12 compared to 13/11/10
Has Heavy Armour

Now Baal Preds suck tbf, but you can see how much rediculously better a Sicaran is in comparison. It makes a Sicaran a very good tank. Not out of this world. But solidly good.

Thanks for all the help guys!

i would suggest looking into the deredeo Dread from forgeworld since you already play heavy dreads .I think you can even stick it in a Lucous Pod for extra protection.

 zedsdead wrote:
i would suggest looking into the deredeo Dread from forgeworld since you already play heavy dreads .I think you can even stick it in a Lucous Pod for extra protection.

I just tried one in a tournament last week and it did little to nothing all 3 rounds

Thanks for this thread too, OP--I am also struggling with Blood Angels against Eldar. While I know that's not going to be an easy fix, the Sicaran was something that had been suggested to me too, so I really benefited from reading this.

BA have no fixes for Eldar. The main gun on the Sicaran doesn't penetrate windrider armor.

Yeah, I know... As you know, Martel, I'm in Indonesia for work and the only guy here who plays 40k plays Eldar. I literally have not won a game against him in these last two years! It's really pretty depressing.

I have been running an Angel's Blade force with Dante & two 5-man units of Sanguinary Guard, along with 3 units of 5 Terminators (two shooting and one assault) to try to get close to him and kill him. I tried out my Imperial Knight last game but he countered with his D-weaponed Wraithknight and killed it on turn 2. In fact, I usually get shot of the table by turn 2 or 3 at the latest...

He's countered with Fire Dragons in Wave serpents and they pop my Terminators for half the cost. His flyer kills mine pretty much right away too, and now he's added in a Void Shield generator and Aegis defense line so he just castles and I have to approach, and get shot to pieces. But, yes, the Jetbikes are the big problem--they just pump out so much high STR dakka at such range! If I can get to them I can kill them, but then I am left out of combat and get shot...

I don't see many ways around it.

BA are reliant upon units with the marine stat line. This is a major problem for the BA, as the marine stat line is severely depowered in 7th ed.

WKs hard counter Imperial Knights. That's never going to go your way. The terminators don't bring enough to the table, either. especially at BA pricing.

What about totally throwing the toys out of the pram and buying a Forge World Mastodon? Use it like a vehicular Death Star, move up the table, and then use it to deliver hunter killer teams of Sternguard veterans or Death Company (perhaps without jump packs)?

I have a problem with that on a philosophical/fluff level, but it might be effective?

If it's a vehicle, D weapons will smoke it. You need to go smaller, not bigger. Honestly, an allied skyhammer will help a lot vs Eldar since they don't have interceptor.

Ok, that makes sense and jives with what I have been trying to do--place my fighty troops close enough to him that they can squish his soft Eldar. When you say Allied, I am thinking Imperial Fists because of their improved shooting?

For skyhammer, it hardly matters I think.

How do you kit out the Devastators? With 10 men in each squad, you've got bolters in there right? So the IF rerolls there might be helpful.

With 10HP it could still get 1 shotted by D sadly.
The mastodon really isn't great for it's price.

If your willing to go big then throw in a warhound with turbo lasers.
200 less than the mastodon and tends to just kill most things in range.
Just keep dragons away from it.


BA really have no counters for eldar that are effective.
Almost anything you take against them will get shot to pieces quickly.
Atleast if he castles the hound can cause heavy damage.
Also plenty of chances to kill his wraithknight too.

Thanks, @Jackal. I mean, not for the reminder that "BA really have no counters for eldar that are effective" but for the advice. It's just crazy that I am thinking about buying giant ridiculous Lord of War resin models to compete in a normal game with an eldar player.

The basic cost analysis is just so discouraging! I mean, he gets 5 Fire dragons for 110 points; a unit of Terminators with ONE assault cannon (still only 24" range...) is going to cost me 220 points. And they're going to get just popped by the Fire Dragons (who can also hide in a wave serpent, which has 3 weapons...)

Are there other Space Marine chapters that are better against Eldar? I mean, just for playing the game purposes, I could "counts as" and try out some other rules?

For what it's worth, I play nids.
Try facing eldar with them and see how fun it is lol.



Chapter wise you could go insanely cheap and run iron hands.
Grab a smashfether on bike and some friends for him.
While it won't kill the wraith knight, you should be able to bounce around combat with him staying safe from shooting and kill off units.

Failing that, spam grav cents in pods.
Back that up with grav bikers for good measure.




And atleast you get nice resin toys :p
My main big critter is twice the cost of a hound, a bitch to pin and assemble and doesn't even have strength D.
No AP1 or 2 either on it's guns haha.

Poor gribbly Tyranids...

Thanks for the advice!

 pantheralegionnaire wrote:

Things that worked for me vs elves:
A formation of 3*5 assault termies that charge from ds
2 fragioso in pods with beacons
min tacticals with a heavy flamer in a pod with beacon
min scouts with a heavy bolter and sniper rifles sitting in a bunker with comms relay
The rest is usually either sang guard/death company or gravbikes or anything like this.

First turn dreads try to fry scatbikes. If possible, place them in a way that other scatbikes and spiders have to remain within 6-15" of a pod to damage dreads. If he reserves stuff, than drop marines. Turn 1 dreads die and than turn 2 you have ~8/9 chance of termies arriving and multicharging as much stuff as possible - but don't over-extend cause overwatch is fearsome. Luckilly, fragioso should have done some damage 1-st turn.

Don't try to kill WK - just spread out termies and let him chop through them. 2+/3++ is quite durable and spreading out helps vs stomps.

The rest of your preferably fast stuff runs around the map hunting msu and scoring. If you do it right, you can keep the pressure for 3-4 turns and than when all the termies are dead, you're supposed to be ahead on maelstorm and he's supposed to be lacking firepower to finish off your mellee msu to come close to points and catch up on points. In the end, you usually have scouts and a small vp advantage and he has 30-40% of his list.

At least that's how it worked for me. It's not an assured victory and might easilly end up in a wipeout for ba but they just scream early turns harassment. So, yeah, dreads and termies. Who could have thought, right?

Thanks @koooael! The fragnoughts trying to get the Scatbikes was something I had not considered at all. They are also not that expensive so that's good. When you say "in a bunker with comms relay" what do you mean? I don't have any GW terrain, but I could scratch build something. I just don't know rules for that. But hiding my 36" range scouts sounds like a good idea...

 pantheralegionnaire wrote:
When you say "in a bunker with comms relay" what do you mean? I don't have any GW terrain, but I could scratch build something. I just don't know rules for that. But hiding my 36" range scouts sounds like a good idea...

i used wall of martyrs bunker. Costs something like 50 pts for an av14 4 hp building with 8 shooting points. You can also get an imperial bunker. It's taller, wider and has a couple more heavy bolters. But costs a bit more.

Also the Typhon or a Plasma Oblitorator with an allied Vindicare inside absolutely demolishes Scatbikes (and pretty much everything else shy of a WraithKnight)

The underpowered Imperium forces have that sick allies matrix to really make up for anything you lack. You have a ton of options outside BA, and when going against a top tier army with a frankly mid-bottom tier army, you are gonna need to pull in some help. If your skill levels are remotely similar, the army imbalance will place your victories soley in the realm of lucky happenings. That isn't fun.

Assassins, Inquisitor teams, and super point *efficient* units are gonna pay big dividends. I'm not super familiar with the new Deathwatch guys yet, but Deathwatch and Sisters of Silence both offer some pretty helpful small model count options you can tag in for few $$$ and lots of benefits.

EDIT: The new fluff gives me a huge cadia boner too. The planet broke first. *rawr*. The Cadia detachment allows you to really cheese out the force org for cheap. Unlimited SOLO Hq choices. Command Squads and Tank Command Squads with orders benefits just by themselves as many as you want and still all detachment legal. But wait theres more.

You can pick up an HQ Lord Commisar and attach him to any BA unit, and then that unit can be issued orders. A BS 4 Punisher, Executioner, and bare bones commisar is 390 pts. It's buying more stuff, but its a decent bargain pts wise.