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Author Topic: Dealing with Dark Eldar Venom spams  (Read 3285 times)

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Offline mrspungebob

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Dealing with Dark Eldar Venom spams
« on: July 27, 2012, 02:19:18 AM »
One guy around here is using a Venom spam list with Ravagers and allied War walkers and Farseer with Guide and those runes which makes the enemy do psychic tests on 3D6. The Venoms are absolutely death to everything we have as they outrange everything, hurt everything and since they are many individual vehicles they easily force flying MC's to the ground. I haven't played against it, just heard about it. How to we handle something like that?
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Offline Travellar

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Re: Dealing with Dark Eldar Venom spams
« Reply #1 on: July 27, 2012, 11:21:23 AM »
Hive guard and Biovores are a good starting point.  After that, consider warriors and termagants.  Termagants give you a 5+ save for being behind another unit, and warriors can out-fight just about anything in the DE army.  Leave the Flyrants at home unless you know you can support them properly; they're just too dang expensive.  Termagants broods of 20 or more tend to stick around, even when Venoms light them up.  Which makes them cheap, annoying, and disposable.

Hive Guard can and will break any vehicles the pointy ears get anywhere near you, forcing either a melee or long range fight.  I already suggested Warriors for the melee, but the Biovores are death to Eldar.  Nothing too fancy, just brutally effective.
« Last Edit: July 27, 2012, 11:23:41 AM by Travellar »
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Offline Locarno

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Re: Dealing with Dark Eldar Venom spams
« Reply #2 on: July 28, 2012, 04:37:21 AM »
Quote
Termagants give you a 5+ save for being behind another unit
Depends. They are very small, after all, so monsters often have trouble claiming this.

But yes, Gaunts are quite a nice answer to dark eldar - Poison 4+ is great against T6 targets but becomes an overpriced lasgun against T3.

Equally, warriors have enough wounds to tank gunfire that doesn't kill them outright with scary ease, and even heavy-calibre splinter cannons aren't AP4.

I'm still not entirely convinced about winged tyrants being a bad idea unless razorwings show up - yes venoms pack a lot of dakka but they still need to land a hit to have a chance of forcing you down, and they will have precisely 1 turn to do it in!
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Offline enlg

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Re: Dealing with Dark Eldar Venom spams
« Reply #3 on: July 28, 2012, 06:07:40 AM »
This is coming from an Eldar player who has played against tyranids a decent amount. TL-brainleech devourers might be the best solution to the venoms, as you can reliably kill any venom you shoot at if you have 2 brainleech devourers.

The War Walkers are more powerful and difficult to deal with. They have long range, and with guide/prescience they should be doing a lot of damage. You want to avoid being within that range for long. I'm not experienced using tyranids, so others can testify whether or not they think these ideas are plausible, but from an Eldar perspective, these guns might worry me somewhat:
-heavy venom cannons (they have range)
-rupture cannons (they can outrange scatter lasers)
-hive guard that are not visible

You can also drop a mycetic spore with devourers (carnifex or gaunts) which should deal with them. That's how my opponents used to deal with my 3 scatter laser war walkers in 5th edition, and nowadays they are even easier to destroy in this fashion.

Also, I forgot the fact that you can have a flyrant swoop and also shoot devourers. This might allow you to swoop in and kill the war walkers without getting shot my them once if you fire 2 pairs of devourers at them.

Also some mathhammer for the devourers just for perspective:

12 TL BS3 shots = 9hits on average.
9 hits should yield 4.5 glances or penetrating hits. This means you are, on average, killing about 2 war walkers with this flyrant, or carnifex in pod. And if you get a lucky penetrate and an explodes, you could kill the entire unit.

Offline mrspungebob

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Re: Dealing with Dark Eldar Venom spams
« Reply #4 on: July 30, 2012, 02:37:49 AM »
I agree on dropping carnifexes with devourers on the walkers, even on the venoms even. With the venoms, the pods cluster spines will do wonders to escaping passengers.

But I'm not so sure about the gaunts. Why give 5+ cover to warriors when they have 4+ save anyway from the splinter weapons? Yes, they save 1/3 of them from dark lances, but then it's just as well to just buy 1/3 more warriors than gaunts.

Also, not really sure about hive guards either as the venoms outrange them. One venom kills on average one hive guard per round of shooting. 6 venoms will then easily deal with two full squads before the hive guards get to do anything.

Lastly, the tyrannofex is really really expensive. 300p for 1 S10 hit on the walkers each turn isn't really worth it.
"Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups"

"You know, the most amazing thing happened to me tonight. I was coming here, on the way to the lecture, and i came through the parking lot. And you wont believe what happened! I saw a car with the license plate ARW 357! Can you imagine? Of all the license plates in the state, what was the chance that i would see that particular one tonight? Amazing!" - Quote from Richard Feynman (physicist)

Offline enlg

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Re: Dealing with Dark Eldar Venom spams
« Reply #5 on: July 30, 2012, 06:01:06 AM »
Just one more somewhat naive suggestion, as I don't use Tyranids.

Gargolyes with adrenal glands. The can only glance the venoms, but have a high chance of wrecking them, and with large enough squads, could easily wrap around venoms to trap the troops after the venoms are wrecked.

And if you are worried about these getting killed...welll...th ey're cheap.....and you could have tervigons helping out too I guess.

Also since you mentioned warriors, if you really are into tailoring lists, deathspitters could easily down venoms at decent range too.

Offline faitherun (Fay-ith-er-run)

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Re: Dealing with Dark Eldar Venom spams
« Reply #6 on: August 1, 2012, 12:32:02 AM »
How bout flying hive tyrants with 2 TL Devourers.

12 shots at with glances on a 4+ from each should drop a vehicle per turn.



Trygon Primes, DS in and kill a Venom in one go as well.

Then take the Deathleaper and drop that Farseer's LD by a few pts.

You can place the Deathleaper relatively close to the Farseer, and then DS the Prime in nearby (without scattering) and now the Farseer is LD decreased and testing on 3d6.

Get that Prime locked into CC with the Farseer next turn and then try and munch him up. All it takes is one hit to get through and the Farseer goes splat. Always try and challenge him if you can. Do a multi-charge with the deathleaper and Prime too to stop extra combatants from giving bonuses for watching
« Last Edit: August 1, 2012, 12:35:26 AM by faitherun (Fay-ith-er-run) »
So, what your saying is it's not your fault you look stupid by using words you don't get?
Flawless logic.

Offline mrspungebob

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Re: Dealing with Dark Eldar Venom spams
« Reply #7 on: August 1, 2012, 05:36:24 AM »
The problem with the flyrant and trygon prime is that they cost alot compared to the one venom they destroy when they arrive. Splinter weapons are excellent at taking out MC's so unless you can get them all to arrive at the same time (Hive Commander), then I would expect them to die the next turn from splinter, lance and blaster fire, effectively trading a 250p beast against a 50p paper plane.
"Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups"

"You know, the most amazing thing happened to me tonight. I was coming here, on the way to the lecture, and i came through the parking lot. And you wont believe what happened! I saw a car with the license plate ARW 357! Can you imagine? Of all the license plates in the state, what was the chance that i would see that particular one tonight? Amazing!" - Quote from Richard Feynman (physicist)

Offline faitherun (Fay-ith-er-run)

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Re: Dealing with Dark Eldar Venom spams
« Reply #8 on: August 1, 2012, 08:56:42 AM »
While I would agree with you, if your opponent has say 6 venoms, and you knock out 3 in one turn, that is pretty effective. And if they are venoms, then the guys inside are very small and easy to kill. So yes the pt to pt ratio is not there, but that is not the issue. You need to hit hard, and kill as many as possible in one go, and then try to weather the retaliation strike.

What is the point limit that you play at and how many venoms are we talking about?

DE and Nids are both my armies, so I am pretty familiar with them both...
So, what your saying is it's not your fault you look stupid by using words you don't get?
Flawless logic.

Offline Death_Homer

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Re: Dealing with Dark Eldar Venom spams
« Reply #9 on: August 1, 2012, 09:39:02 AM »
A walking hive tyrant with amoured shell will last longer and give him a couple of guards for "a look out sir" against AP 2 shots. You could also spam " drop pod devil guants" in his face, you pay a bit more for this than a a vemon with crew but you are the one shooting first at your opponent. Your pod could also do some damage as well if you gave it a weapon.

Offline enlg

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Re: Dealing with Dark Eldar Venom spams
« Reply #10 on: August 1, 2012, 09:54:26 AM »
Well one question, what points limit is this at?

On another note, maybe this kind of group might work. I know this has worked for some people as a general build.

(240) Hive Tyrant, 2 TL-devourers, armored shell  (armored shell isn't always taken, but I see it in a decent number of lists)
(60) Tyrant Guard
(100) Tyranid Prime, boneswords, regenerate      -he uses look out sir! to allocate wounds, and to absorb wounds himself (and regenerate them hopefully).


(195) Tervigon, AG, TS, catalyst
(195) Tervigon, AG, TS, catalyst
(50) 10 Termagants
(50) 10 Termagants

(100) 2 Hive Guard
(100) 2 Hive Guard

(380) 2 Carnifexes, 4 TL-devourers     -maybe as two squads, but catalyst affects a unit, so having them together makes them both get FNP

This is 1470pts, and would scale nicely proably to 1750/1850 if you needed it to. Add some more heavy support, and/or some stealers maybe (this isn't my list, but a template I've seen on a lot of lists)

Generally you keep the units clumped up, not necessarily in cover, though the tervigons should be further back. The strategy I would employ would be to allow the venoms to approach you (to get within range).

Try and get catalyst off on at least the tyrant or the carnifex brood. This will give your opponent their first negative incentive scheme: shoot the tervigons that don't directly threaten their venoms.
-tervigons will be behind the MC's+termagants.
-venoms will have to get way in range of the other tyrant, fexes, and hive guard in order to kill the tervigons.
-either way, you can move 6" and get in range of venoms when they come for you.

Once the venoms get within range, you can unload the fexes, tyrant, and guards. On average, just the tyrant's shooting should down one venom that has 5+ cover (they only have 2HP). The fexes should overkill one venom, and the hive guard together should kill 1-2 venoms depending on your luck.

If all goes according to plan, he should fail to kill more than 2 of your groups (tyrant, fexes, or both hive guard units) since you have lots of wounds and a prime as a unit that can throw wounds all around models.

Lastly, if it is a 1850pt game....I'm not sure this would work either, but you could maybe grab 2 venom cannon harpies... its 340pts for both of them, and they could possibly remove the war walkers, leaving the ravagers to be dealt with.

Offline mrspungebob

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Re: Dealing with Dark Eldar Venom spams
« Reply #11 on: August 2, 2012, 01:44:43 AM »
I don't know exactly the point limit of his list, as I haven't actually played him. Just trying to get some theory in first :) But the tournaments around here are usually around 1750p, so it's something like that.

I like some of the ideas, like dropping devilgaunts, gargoyles and warriors with prime. I'm thinking about a 2+ dakka Tyrant with a guard or two and hive commander to try to drop alot of devilpods or carnipods on turn 2. I'm not sure that I will actually try this anytime soon as I am quite busy on work, but atleast I'm about more optimistic about facing such lists now.
"Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups"

"You know, the most amazing thing happened to me tonight. I was coming here, on the way to the lecture, and i came through the parking lot. And you wont believe what happened! I saw a car with the license plate ARW 357! Can you imagine? Of all the license plates in the state, what was the chance that i would see that particular one tonight? Amazing!" - Quote from Richard Feynman (physicist)

 


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