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Hi Guys, A quick one,


In the not too distant future, I expect to be playing against a friends Eldar army, with my HH adeptus custodes at 4k.

He will be using heavy amounts of the D including a cobra type 2.

I know this is essentially the most effective hard counter match up ever, and i might as well not bother playing. But Im setting it as a personal challenge to myself to see what I can accomplish during the game.

The one thing Im a little iffy on is the Cobra. My friend tells me, its a 10 hull point, 4++, 48inch barrage 10inch stD pie plate. But Ive seen conflicting information on this rules set online.

So first off, is this correct information for the current Cobra rules?

Second Any tips on how to not have it level my entire army? Ive accepted Im probably going to lose between 1 and 2 vehicles per turn to his wraith knight, but as far as his infantry/transports go, i think I can manage distance and have effective shooting without having to commit my troops to the fight before removing most of his mobility. But Im genuinely concerned about that cobra just removing whole chunks of my battle line, at a distance that I cant outrange.

All tips appreciated.

Kind Regards
Secretforge.

Looked into IA Apocalypse 2, it is generally right with that 4++, with a 48 inch 10" blast StrD barrage with "3 structure points" (translate into current Hull Points is 9 right?), and more bad news for you it is only 600 points. Are you taking Imperial Titans? If yes, even more bad news for you that main gun ignores power fields and void shields, so one less saving measure for your Titan!!!

Now I think you have to accept that any vehicles and MCs (such as Grey Knight Dreadknights) without a decent inv save you put on the board is As Good As Dead when this thing turns its eye on them. Your only saving grace against this thing is try have a lot of elite infantry units jump from cover to cover, place as many of ruins terrain on the field as you possibly can, because even that mighty D won't ignore "toe in terrain" cover. Vehicles and MCs on the other hand, can only gain cover save by 25% blockage of LOS, which is ignored by the barrage rule. If you take flyers they are good in surviving that Super Heavy, but if your opponent is taking a couple Crimson Death formations then your flyers are dooooomed as well. Basically the only idea I can think about is have multiple Librarius Conclaves, each formation fish for Invisibility (may Emperor protects ) and form lots of "Death star" type units on the field, take down his WKs, WGs and other stuff like D Cannons quick, and leave those Eldar Titan class stuffs. Even they are criminally undercosted, they tends to be relatively few in number, so you if you take out other sources of Str D, you could loss fewer guys in late game.

Im told there are updated rules in Imperial Armour: The Doom of Mymeara but apparently there are also 2 versions of this.

Type 1/type 2 refers to the model, not the rules; there's only one Cobra profile. The most current rules are in IA11 2nd edition, where it's got nine hull points, a 36" range 7" blast, and isn't Barrage (it does come with fancy rules for the template remaining in play and hitting things that end their move on top of it, though); the rules he's giving you are two revisions old (the version with a 48"/10" blast/barrage gun is from a 5e-vintage book, long before the current D rules, and is 75pts cheaper than the current version).

As to how to avoid having it level your entire army I'm not sure what you're using but the best advice I've got is to just focus it down immediately. Nine hull points and a 4++ sounds like a lot, but remember this is an Eldar tank, so it's only AV 12/12/11; by my calculations nine Jetbikes (Las-Pulsers and Adrathic Devastators have roughly equivalent performance in this case) should be able to kill it in one round on average rolls.

So it'll totally have a good chance of blowing one hole in your lines, but without 48" range and Barrage it'll have to get itself somewhere you can get to it to do so, and you should be able to kill it back fairly easily if you hold enough jetbikes to retaliate. And with a 7" blast instead of a 10" blast it'll be a lot easier to hold units far enough apart that it can't blow up too many at once. And keep in mind that a single Destroyer hit is quite a lot less of a death sentence than it sounds like at first glance; it causes Instant Death at S10, so even if it picks out your jetbikes each bike it hits has around a 45% chance of surviving, between the refractor field, the chance of a normal hit only dealing one wound, and the chance of just rolling a 1 on the D table and doing nothing at all.

So...it's not really a hard-counter matchup. Working from my knowledge of the Codexes and without seeing specific lists I can't say that it won't be an uphill battle, but you've got the mobility to prevent the Eldar from engaging on their terms, Dreadnaughts and adrathic guns that'll give Wraithknights pause, units that can eat most of the non-Destroyer firepower an Eldar list can throw at you and keep going ("Scatterbikes? Oh. Cute. I'm AV13."), and jetbikes that can casually kill or cripple the skimmers before they get close enough to disgorge Wraithguard. The Eldar can't throw down anything you don't have an answer to.

Except possibly Hemlocks. If one of those takes to flying about you've got to pray to the dice gods your twin-linked weapons can deliver enough 6s to drop it before it does too much damage.

ADDENDUM: On the subject of the Cobra you will need to be wary of Farseers; you don't have the Warp Charge for denial, Sisters of Silence don't strip Blessings in the 30k rules, and they can Fortune the thing for a reroll on its 4++. If the plan comes together just right you may be facing it for longer than my earlier remarks indicated.

Im fortunate enough to have 12 las pulsers at my disposal, so yes Im hopefully going to be able to play the keep away game for a turn or 2 once I kill that beast.

Thanks for the info on the rules (now all I have to do is convince my friend that he has an out of date book).

If he starts buffing it with psychics there isn't much I can do about it, other than accusing him of dishonourable space elf trickery.

I've still got the issue of at least one wraithknight, but if Im lucky, Ill still have something left to take it out once the more immediate threats are resolved (Im not exactly certain on the mathematics, but I think that valdor might be able to take one out with his 4+ to causing insta death).

Mathematics say "...maybe?", as far as I've worked it at this point I'm going to say that you shouldn't throw anything at a Wraithknight in melee until you can gang up on it, but the math (especially with Lightning Strikes) is long and convoluted to the point that I'm not that confident in that answer.

Volume of las-pulsars should do it too, if enough are left after the Cobra's dropped.