Dark Eldar and Daemons: The Unholy Union

[BigToof]

Hi All,
Just wanted to post this up, as I know we have both factions in our forum, and quite frankly, I have yet to see this combo put up.
I faced it recently (VERY RELUCTANTLY) with a cobbled together Space Wolf w/allies list and got beaten around the head by it.
I didn't realize it, but they seem to sync in some ways very well.
DE is all about shooty, long range shooty especially in 6th, given the whole assault nerf and the death of WWP shenanigans.
Daemons are all close range monsters (literally) that can have fliers.
DE?  Quality, but expensive fliers.

So it's not that hard to build a squishy but shooty DE backfield with Daemons that you HAVE to go through to deal with the actual part of the list that is dropping your mates.

This is not good, and I had a hell (haha, pun, yes) of a time dealing with it.

So, anyone else see this combo?  Thoughts on dealing with it?

Best,
-BT

[Chicop76]

Hi All,
Just wanted to post this up, as I know we have both factions in our forum, and quite frankly, I have yet to see this combo put up.
I faced it recently (VERY RELUCTANTLY) with a cobbled together Space Wolf w/allies list and got beaten around the head by it.
I didn't realize it, but they seem to sync in some ways very well.
DE is all about shooty, long range shooty especially in 6th, given the whole assault nerf and the death of WWP shenanigans.
Daemons are all close range monsters (literally) that can have fliers.
DE?  Quality, but expensive fliers.

So it's not that hard to build a squishy but shooty DE backfield with Daemons that you HAVE to go through to deal with the actual part of the list that is dropping your mates.

This is not good, and I had a hell (haha, pun, yes) of a time dealing with it.

So, anyone else see this combo?  Thoughts on dealing with it?

Best,
-BT

I had thought about this combo with flamers dropping above flamming. The problem I seen with it is I want to go heavy Daemons with Dark Eldar support. It sounds like this guy is doing it a bit differently. Fateweaver near some boats would give them extra endurance that would make them rather hard to take out.

The problem with Daemons is that it is like 4 armies in one book. Actually it is 4 armies in one book. Being such it is hard to guard against a Daemon army cause you do not know what is coming after you with 4 possibilies.

1. If it's the swooping MCs giving you problems I sugguest you need lots of mass fire. Since all you need is a 6 to hit which the creature will than have a 33% chance of falling out of the air recieving a big bump on the head. I dealth with a flying t7-9 flyrant that way and it worked pretty well. Daemons used to be really weak against psi weapons. Now with the grey knight nerf it is much harder to deal with Daemons, yes it is a nerf if I can beat or tie with them now instead of losing to them. Anyway Fateweaver weakness is mass fire and lowering his leadership. For example a psyker battle squad can lower his leadership to 2, which means if he takes a wound he will have to roll on leadership 2, it is very effective which is why I always kill these guys first every game. Nids is just as bad with the -1 leadership modifiers coming from the broodlords as well. Jaws of the warpwolf is not that good against the Daemons due to the high intitiave the models have with them being able to re roll if they fail. Great against a carnifex, but not so great against a Fateweaver.
If Fateweaver is off on his own it is best to tie him in combat and ignore him. if he is buffing the whole army you have to kill him and you really can't ignore him. Fateweaver in combat sux and it is rather easy to keep him tied up. Unless you have low toughness, which he can turn your men into spawn which can help him in said fight. Toughness 4 or higher models is a good option to keep Fateweaver tied up.

Bloodthirster and Keeper of Secrets want to be in combat and you do not want to engage these guys. Ap 3 weapons on Thirster and mass fire on Keeper is the best oprions. You do not want to ignore a Thirster and do not want to be in combat with him. Just think of a flying Avatar of Khaine with higher str, more attacks, with slightly lower int, that can fly. Also for a measly 5 points the Thirster have a +2 invulnerable against force weapons and psychic attacks. needless to say he laughs at Zonathorpes warp shots.

The flying Nurgle Prince is on the same lines as a Thirster. Ap 3 this guy to death and he goes down easy. Ws 7 and wounding on 2s means you do not really want to fight this guy in combat. Even if you have power weapons your normal guys need 6s to wound him which he will be wounding you more than you would want.

3. If he is using flamers you need to spread out and keep your throw away units placed in a way which they would be hit and not your good units. If he tries to deep strike at your prime units make sure you arrange your men in a way if he does do that he will mishap.

What is hurting you more DE or Daemons. If it's DE ignore the Daemons and deal with them later. If it's vise versa deal with the Daemons.

Without knowing what Daemons you are facing and assuming you are playing space wolves without looking at your codex I can only think of a few options off the top of my head.

1. Thunderwolves: You need to take at least 3 storm shields up front to deal with DE dark lance shooting. Ice Weapons if I remember right will make them str 6. With 6 attacks on the charge and I think they are ws 5 they can deal with most FMCs after you down them. If they can't kill they can easily tie up. I am thinking around 5 or so.

2. The regular wolves also make a good unit with the amount of attacks they can dish out. Against Daemons mass attacks is more important that power weapons, etc. Only a handful of daemons have a save which is a 3+.

3. Plasma love eats all. Plasma wounds on 3s and negate the big stuff +3 save. Do not use plasma on fateweaver, if you do you have a better chance of killing yourself before you kill him. Although plasma wounds him on 2s.

4. Lone wolfs are like gold to fire on DE.

I want to suggest deep striking, but I think it migh be a really bad ideal. I run pure daemons and unless i am going against Daemons another army using ds against Daemons is not really a good ideal. Tzeentch Daemons really benefit from deep striking and it makes it easier for deep striking flamers to toast units.

The big weakness I noticed with Daemons is the lack of anti flyer technology. I would run your flying box which unless he is running his 3 flyers he will not be able to deal with your flying boxes. Oh I forgot wolves do not have flying boxes. Would be nice if they did.

With space marine I am a fan of running land speeders. With your wolf army you can run 9 landspeeders with typoon missle launchers with 15 rockets coming form your heavy support. By doing so you can dish out 32 missles a turn with 20 hitting and 14 glancing or better aginst the DE. Sure landspeeders are not hard to kill, but he will have to kill 9 of them. Without thinking about the rest of your army that build can dish out enough fire power to seriously damage his skimmers. With your land speeders just fly around and keep away from blasters while taking out all dark lance units. The regular eldar troops lack the ability to really deal with vehicles. Also mass missle fire really jack up grounded Daemons unless it's Fateweaver.

Thinking about it more I think mass missle fire is your best bet.

[crisis_vyper]

Hi All,
Just wanted to post this up, as I know we have both factions in our forum, and quite frankly, I have yet to see this combo put up.
I faced it recently (VERY RELUCTANTLY) with a cobbled together Space Wolf w/allies list and got beaten around the head by it.
I didn't realize it, but they seem to sync in some ways very well.
DE is all about shooty, long range shooty especially in 6th, given the whole assault nerf and the death of WWP shenanigans.
Daemons are all close range monsters (literally) that can have fliers.
DE?  Quality, but expensive fliers.

So it's not that hard to build a squishy but shooty DE backfield with Daemons that you HAVE to go through to deal with the actual part of the list that is dropping your mates.

This is not good, and I had a hell (haha, pun, yes) of a time dealing with it.

So, anyone else see this combo?  Thoughts on dealing with it?

Issues I have with this is that they are Desperate Allies, which means that they do not truly support each other at large and the allied detachment are prone to the Wraithsight Syndrome. In my personal opinion, I would still shoot at the parent list as they are the one with the real scoring units. If no one can capture objectives then it is a big pain for the DE/Daemons player. It works for any army, especially when Desperate Allies can't capture objectives for their parent list.