How to kill a Wraithknight

[Infinite Freedom]

i did the math for las predator, again you are advocating a statistically improbable event.


so again either you have great luck / weighted dice, but that is not somethign i would rely on

Since I just bought the dice before the game, it was luck.

[G00dySmiley]

Since I just bought the dice before the game, it was luck.

luck happens

I once had group of space wolf troops hop out of a rhino in 5th edition and attack 10 gretchin, the marines player rolled spectacularly bad and killed zero gretchin (thats right the models without an armor save at all) killed half of them and they broke from combat running away with thier tails between their legs... however my answer to taking on close combat marines is not now bring more gretchin

I also once in the most spectacularly bad luck took a SAG big meks, 3 groups of 15 lootas and 2 groups of gretchin for troops, and a few bgi guns there was minimal terrain so i posted up in two small peices with tightly packed models because my opponent had no template weapons. I went first and rolled double 1's on both SAG, 6's on both for areas, gretching gone, big guns gone, lootas down to half or less all groups, all failed leaderships and ran off the table as the terrain was by my table edge... my opponentts strategy for dealing with SAG big meks is not going to be let them blow themselves up.

these are rare and statistically unlikely events but they do happen. given the choice between relying on luck and relying on statistics I will always bow to law of averages

[Infinite Freedom]

luck happens

I once had group of space wolf troops hop out of a rhino in 5th edition and attack 10 gretchin, the marines player rolled spectacularly bad and killed zero gretchin (thats right the models without an armor save at all) killed half of them and they broke from combat running away with thier tails between their legs... however my answer to taking on close combat marines is not now bring more gretchin

I also once in the most spectacularly bad luck took a SAG big meks, 3 groups of 15 lootas and 2 groups of gretchin for troops, and a few bgi guns there was minimal terrain so i posted up in two small peices with tightly packed models because my opponent had no template weapons. I went first and rolled double 1's on both SAG, 6's on both for areas, gretching gone, big guns gone, lootas down to half or less all groups, all failed leaderships and ran off the table as the terrain was by my table edge... my opponentts strategy for dealing with SAG big meks is not going to be let them blow themselves up.

these are rare and statistically unlikely events but they do happen. given the choice between relying on luck and relying on statistics I will always bow to law of averages

Plasma pistol to the rear armor of my Baneblade Chain Reactioned into an Apocalyptic explosion that removed a third of my army the last time I played an Apoc game.

[DarkLink]

Ways to kill a wraithknight.

1. My favorite is to run psyker battle squad to lower to leadership of 2 and than have a calldius pop up with it's strength 8 weapon and instant kill the wraithknight.

That requires you to take a Callidus. And for the Eldar player to let it get close enough to the Wraithknight to pull this off.

2. If you can pull off 3 enfeebles and blast him with a strength 10 shot and instant kill kim. Only army which this is even realistically possible is tyranids which I have had gotten up to 5 enfeebles before. Zonathorpe fires a strength 10 shot.

I question the general liabilities of this. It's possible, but the stars have to align to get it to work, and with a 36" range the Wraithknight can just run away from the Zoanthropes while still taking Str 10 AP 2 shots at stuff. Not what I'd call a hard counter.

3. Poison gaunts will kill him.

Yup. This'll do the job pretty well. 1/3 so far.

4. Swarmlord. Lol. Easily kill him. Just need one smash attack to hit.

How stupid would the Eldar player have to be to let the Swarmlord assault his Wraithknight under normal circumstances?

5. Bloodthirster can kill it.

Unlike the Swarmlord, at least the Bloodthirster's fast enough to catch the Wraithknight. Of course, Eldar are pretty good at forcing Grounding Checks, so the Bloodthirster might just get shot down and killed first. And two Str 10 guns certainly contributes to that. Don't compare units in a vacuum.

6. Trygon would be a good fight. I think re rolling to hit is a big factor.

7. Dreadknight smacking it with a strength 10 force weapon.

This can actually do it, except that Bladestorm kills Dreadknights dead.

8. Greyknights smaking it with strength 8-10 force weapons.

Why would you be stupid enough to get into assault with them? You're Jump Infantry, and you have a 36" range, and GKs are expensive enough that you can afford to just sit back and kill 1-2 a turn for most of the game and it will be well worth it.

Plus, not all GKs come with Daemonhammers. It's generally not worth it in a lot of GK units. Which means the Wraithknight can fly in and punch them without fear, generally at the Eldar player's leisure. Wraithknights are very good against Grey Knights.

9. 3 exorcist on average rolling can eventually kill it.

Eventually? That sounds really convincing. If you run the numbers, 3 Exorcists take more than two turns to do this on average dice. 405pts, spending multiple turns shooting at one thing, while the Wave Serpents and War Walkers and such are left completely untouched. Yeah. Makes the Wraithknight totally worthless. That last part was sarcasm, by the way.

10. Orcs can turn it into a squig.

WTF? Seriously? That's what you think the Ork's best answer to the Wraithknight is? Not Meganobz with Klaws or something, or Ghazgul with a 2++ and 7 Str 10 AP 2 attacks? Some random, obscure rule that no one actually ever uses that has a minuscule chance of actually working even if it is theoretically possible?

11. Lukas can kill it when he dies

Not very reliable. Besides, has anyone ever actually taken Lukas? Ever?

12. Screamers with a +3 invulnerable can kill it.

Nope. 6's to wound, and only one attack each. Not impressed.

13 Daemonettes can eat it.

Stupid, stupid Eldar player for not just shooting the Daemonettes to death first. Eldar in general slaughter light infantry.

14. Deathcult w/ hammerhand and rad grenades can kill it.

Nope, not very reliable. Still wounding on 6's.

15. Plasma and Meltas eat it.

Not really. I mean, they can wound it, but there are very few units that pack in enough shots to actually kill it quickly. Sternguard with combi-weapons, DA Black Knights, Fire Dragons, but really not that much else. Melta is too short range to be able to realistically engage the WK before it does damage, and Plasma can't do much better since you can only really just plink away and hope the wounds add up. So the only units that can quickly kill the Wraithknight to the point of hard-countering it are all much more expensive than a Wraithknight. The fact that 10 Sternguard in a Drop Pod can kill a Wraithknight is hardly unique to the Wraithknight, 10 Sternguard in a Drop Pod kill pretty much everything they shoot at.

16. Lascannons can kill it, just takes awhile.

Hmmm, 'X can kill it, it just takes a while' describes just about every unit in the game shooting/assaulting any other unit in the game.

17. Dark eldar lance death.

Mechdar hard-counter DE. Who cares.

18. Several Agonizers can rip it apart.

No. Sevaral Agonizers can put a few wounds on it. It takes a lot of Agonizer attacks to actually kill it. It would take one Wych with, what, 3 attacks, literally all game to try and kill it, and the game would have to last until Turn 8.

19. The Dark Angels terminators Knights in smite mode can seriously kill it.

What sort of moronic Eldar player would let the Wraithknight get assaulted by them? It's Jump Infantry. It literally flies circles around footslogging units.

20. Oh sniper rifles with guide and doom.

Slightly better than just sniper rifles, but still not that impressive. Why do people see that sniper rifle can wound the Wraithknight, then assume that means they're super-awesome against it and that taking even a handful of them automatically makes the WK useless?

21. Tau sniper rifles with ethereal boost.

They can put some wounds on it. It takes them a long time to kill it, though.

22. 30+ kroot sniper rifles.

40+. But, yes, Tau are the only army in the game which can reasonably spam enough Sniper to actually seriously threaten to actually kill a WK. 2/22 so far.

23. Psycanon spam.

You don't play Grey Knights, do you? No. Psycannon spam is not good against the Wraithknight. They can kill it, yes. It requires the GK player to dedicate a massive amount of firepower to doing so, which means you're ignoring the rest of the Eldar army, in which case the Wraithknight is doing its job. And thanks to the 36" range, you're doing this at the Eldar player's leisure. He can just hop back out of range of most of your units when he wants to keep the Wraithknight alive.

24. Jaws of warp wolf.

I5. Good luck with that.

25. Grey knight libby psi flame attack.

I5. Except you also have to get super-close, which means you're probably only ever going to be able to pull this off if the Eldar player is either extremely stupid, or you're already beating them so badly that the Eldar player is desperate enough to risk exposing the Wraithknight.

26. Space Wolf missle spam

3 for 26.

That's just off the top of my head.

You've listed a bunch of random things that theoretically can kill it. That is a far cry from most of those thing actually being particularly good at killing it. Of the 26 items, only a handful are actual solid counters, and of those handful all are things that a good Eldar player could reasonably find a way to counter with a well balanced list. The vast majority either fall under the flaw of list tailoring, the mistaken presumption that just because something can theoretically kill something that automatically makes it super-awesome-amazing against that something, or a heavy reliance on the incompetence of the Eldar player.

[Wolfshade]

I think what this thread is actually showing is that if you take a big shiney people will spend an entire game/army trying to deal with it leaving your other troops to actually win you the game.

This wraithknight captures the viewer's attention and distra... ooo, pretty...

[chicop76]

@ Darklink. The Calladius is placed on the board. I don't think it's hard for the Calladius to follow up on it's shooting attack. #1 is a bit harder to pull off thanks to deny the witch, but I pull it off a lot. Only thing that screws it is deny the witch, failing psychic test or rolling 1s to wound. Not to say the Calldius usually dies.

#15 Guard can dish out a ton of plasma and melta shots. Thanks to vendettas and chimeras they can get in range. With bring it down they can kill it. Speaking from experance with Nightbringer, even though he doesn't have 12" movement, but a +4 invulnerable save.

#13 if 20 daemonettes can get across the table with an entire guard army shooting them than I think it's plausible. Even though they had +3 invulnerable save, fire shield, invisibility, and endurance on them. I only lost 6, go +2 cover saves.

#14 has worked on wraithlord several times. That being said I failed to mention crusaders as well.

Ok Nob bikers with power claws.

# 12 works if in a group like 9. The issue here is the screamers can dish out more wounds than the wraithknight can, especailly sitting on a re rollable +2 invulnerable save or a 3+ with re rolls on a 1. Through in invisibility and it's over.


With greyknights you can take 4 psycannons on purifiers and on your heavy support. That's 16 shots per squad that can hurt the wraithknight. It may take 6-7 squads to hurt it, but they can. It might be your entire army.

[eris]

I think what this thread is actually showing is that if you take a big shiney people will spend an entire game/army trying to deal with it

And usually with units that are quite bad at doing so! That only makes the wraithknight stronger imo.

[DarkLink]

I think what this thread is actually showing is that if you take a big shiney people will spend an entire game/army trying to deal with it leaving your other troops to actually win you the game.

Pretty much. I just played a game against Reecius yesterday, and I never even had an opportunity to shoot his WK. I had pretty terrible luck, though, I was failing saves like nothing else. But he's played a WK in every game since he got the model, and he's never had it die once. And they play at a very high level competitively in general, so it's certainly not for a lack of quality opponents that his WK performs.

@ Darklink. The Calladius is placed on the board. I don't think it's hard for the Calladius to follow up on it's shooting attack. #1 is a bit harder to pull off thanks to deny the witch, but I pull it off a lot. Only thing that screws it is deny the witch, failing psychic test or rolling 1s to wound. Not to say the Calldius usually dies.

But you still have to take the Callidus. And since all the assassins suck, you're either talking about a joke army that isn't really that competitive in the grand scheme of things, in which case you're missing the forest for the trees, or you're tailoring your list, in which case you're basically cheating.

#15 Guard can dish out a ton of plasma and melta shots. Thanks to vendettas and chimeras they can get in range. With bring it down they can kill it. Speaking from experance with Nightbringer, even though he doesn't have 12" movement, but a +4 invulnerable save.

Vendettas are stupidly underpriced and overpowered anyways. They're outstanding at killing anything in the game while being neigh untouchable in return. I don't know why you don't see more of them competitively (though I'm glad you don't). But if the Guard player drops off the fifty Vets it takes to reliably plasma the WK, that's a golden opportunity for the Eldar player to kill the Guard player's troops. I would absolutely bait my opponent into killing my WK for that.

#13 if 20 daemonettes can get across the table with an entire guard army shooting them than I think it's plausible. Even though they had +3 invulnerable save, fire shield, invisibility, and endurance on them. I only lost 6, go +2 cover saves.

If you use half your army to buff the crap out of something, sure. Of course, the Wraithknight is still faster than Daemonettes, so I don't know why this in particular would work. I would just avoid them for now and focus fire on the units you didn't give the 3++, because you can only give it out to so many units.

#14 has worked on wraithlord several times. That being said I failed to mention crusaders as well.

Wraithknights are much tougher than Wraithlords. Crusaders have a much weaker offensive output than DCA, I don't know why you think they would make it easier to kill the WK. A full squad of 12 DCA will only do 5.33 wounds on average dice on the charge. That's far from a guaranteed kill. Crusaders only take wounds off of that number. But the real problem is, how do you actually get into assault? Rhinos and Chimera are out, you can't assault out of them so you're going to get shot up and the WK can just move out of the way. You'd just be throwing away points. Land Raiders are prime targets for the WK to kill, so that's pretty much out. Storm Ravens would work, but you'd have to drop into hover mode and let the Eldar player kill your Flyer, so I doubt it would be worth it.

Ok Nob bikers with power claws.

Yes. Though they'll be ID'd by the Wraithknight's shooting and assault attacks, so the WK will probably kill enough to make its points back, and you're using a, what, 700pt unit to kill the Wraithknight? They can certainly do it, but again, I would totally bait you with my WK to keep your Bikerz away from my squishier stuff.

# 12 works if in a group like 9. The issue here is the screamers can dish out more wounds than the wraithknight can, especailly sitting on a re rollable +2 invulnerable save or a 3+ with re rolls on a 1. Through in invisibility and it's over.

Rerollable 2++ doesn't help the fact that they get one attack each, and only wound on 6's. It takes 72 Screamers on average dice to kill the Wraithknight.

With greyknights you can take 4 psycannons on purifiers and on your heavy support. That's 16 shots per squad that can hurt the wraithknight. It may take 6-7 squads to hurt it, but they can. It might be your entire army.

Bolded for emphasis. And, again, since you ignored it, Psycannons have a 30" threat range (and with Purifiers, that decreases the damage output as well). The Wraithknight has 36" guns. You do the math.

Also, I play Grey Knights. I have since they were Daemonhunters back when 5th ed came out. I know how this works.

[Eric French]

I like the direction that [URL="http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/member.php?10377-chicop76"]chicop76[/URL] and [URL="http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/member.php?2254-DarkLink"]DarkLink[/URL] are going with this topic, how about we try to make a compendium of the best way for a particular ARMY to dispense with the WK by using it's particular UNITS that have the best chances/weapons/Special Rules to do so. Just this morning a friend of mine, playing for 1 month or so now, said his Tau got decimated by our other friend's (just almost as new) WK and I had no advise for him, so far I guess 40+ Kroot is the best TAU option? Some one start compiling and maybe the OP can edit his first post to include the information!
My first thought being a Chaos x 2 player was Any Monstrous creature with Instant Death or Abaddon or at least a ton of Cultists to attempt to pit it. But to meta specifically for it only works if you play against the WK every game or if you know that when it's Eldar, it's going to have at least 1 WK.

[chicop76]

Vindicare assassin doesn't suck. How you think I one shot those 13 armour barges. He usually doesn't live long since the entire army is shooting at the poor guy.

I play the calladius when I take a psyker battle squad. I don't run grey knight and ig as a competive list though. I do run it as a low tier list. If you beat it you can than fight my sisters, than tyranids, than tau, than daemons, etc. It still causes rage quitting when you kill a swarmlord and 3 hive guard. +4 deny the witch can still be failed.

I threw in crusaders due to hits back.

I forgot screamers no longer have melta bombs. Haven't used them since 5th.

Depends on the melta/ plasma gunners. I like to use the cheap platoon squad ones over the veteran squad for suicide missions. That's what special teams are good for. 60 points for 3 melta guns with bring it down is not a costly unit. That leadership 7 makes me sad though.