Killing Seer Councils

I have been busy and have gotten behind, so it is time to catch up!



E-mail in! (I have always wanted to say that)

Magilla Gorilla wrote:

I have been following your batreps on Dakka for awhile, but I have never seen you having to deal with a mounted Seer Council. Mounted Seer Councils are the range where I play and there are no less than 2 Seer Council Eldar players at every local tourney the FLGS has....So, the question is this? How would you deal with them?



You are right! In all of the batreps I have posted, I have never posted a batrep with a Seer Council. There is one big reason why I have never done it is because I have never faced one.

The Seer Council has had a lot of popularity in the UK for a while now, and it seems like only in the last year that it has made its appearance on these shores. Since it is rearing its ugly head more and more, it would behoove people to learn how to take them out.

Now there are 2 kinds of Seer Councils, Jetbikes or Wave Serpents as mobility.

Jetbikes have a stat boost from the bikes as well as turbo-boosting, and serpents can fly across the table in one turn and they are both formidable.



The Seer council gets a ton of its durability from Fortune. Without it the Jetbikes have the same stats as Thousand Sons: Toughness 4, 3+ save. 4+ Inv save, and the walking variety just has a 4+ inv save. But what make them a pain is the re-roll. So whenever you catch them without Fortune, you must unleash hell upon them. There are a few ways to get them to drop the fortune.

#1. First strike!

If they start on the board and go second, they will not have Fortune up for the first turn and if you can get some fire on them, hit them with everything that you have. If they choose to be kept in reserve then the first turn that they come on the board they will not have fortune up either, then shoot them with as much as you can (though most of the time they will have turbo boosted, so they have a 3+ cover save so you need volume of fire).

#2. Cancel Fortune with Wargear

This will be harder that most people think because the Seer Council normally has a Warlock with Embolden in it meaning that they can re-roll failed Leadership Tests, so things like Shadow in the Warp and Stones of Warding will not help much, and not only that, there are so many races that do not have access to anti-psychic wargear. But there are a few codexes that have access to wargear like Psychic Hoods. Although the Hoods have less than 50% chance to shut it down, when you can stop it, all you need is one round to hit them with everything that you have. If you are a Marine Player you should also have Null Field to also cancel Fortune. You can also purchase an Inquisitor with a Null Rod will ignore Fortune, which is nice.

Remember, any round that they do not have Fortune up that is when they are vulnerable and hit them with everything that you have. You may not be able to stop them, but you will reduce them to more manageable numbers.

#3. Luck!

If they roll an 11 or 12 on three dice taking out the highest with a re-roll on their psychic test it will not go off. If you manage to do this, then the Dice Gods smile upon you and you must go out and by a lottery ticket because you have a better chance at winning that then having Fortune not go off do to a failed psychic check.



General Tactics

If they are in a Wave Serpent they will have to get close to assault. So what will happen is that they will cast Fortune on the Wave Serpent and fly across the board with Star Engines and get into your face. Since they are moving over 18" they get a 4+ obscured save, and with a re-roll for fortune, good luck taking that down, but if you can, try to destroy it, because a walking Seer Council is not much of a threat. If they do fly that close to your lines, and you have units near them (and you should have since they are planning on assaulting you), then you should have units close enough to assault the Wave Serpent. Now you are not planning on taking down the Wave Serpent, but all you want to do is block the back hatch. Since they only have one exit port, you can block it and they can't get out and assault, so that will buy you some time.



What can't Seer councils kill?

Elite infantry. If you have some throw it at them. Since they lack power weapons, they can't kill things with good saves. That means Terminators, Plague Marines, etc. Anything that has a good save they get tarpitted with. It they get in a fight with Marines they will have trouble killing them, because a 3+ save is your friend. Be careful of what you attack them with though, because a high toughness does not matter to them, only saves.



What kills Seer Councils?

A lots of firepower will take them down, especially if you can get it strength 6 and above. Lootas should be blasting them every chance they get. War Walkers with scatter lasers and even rapid fired bolters will help in a pinch. Remember that nothing really kills them, but you want to reduce them to a reasonable number so when they assault you they don't do much damage. Also try to keep your army together. They want to assault where they can't be counter attacked by large numbers, but when you hit them, you will need to throw a lot of units at them. Note: This is only good if you have a good save. If you have a poor save then they will kill a lot and you will have to take massive leadership checks on your army. If you have a bad save you want to spread out so they will slaughter a unit and them you can shoot them some more.


Here is a good example of a Seer Council in action. Lazarus's army at the Necro last year. When I saw it I thought it was a very formidible army, and wondered how I would beat it. Read his batreps and see what they can do. Yriel+Eldrad is a tough nut to crack.

Tactica: Anchor units

Tactic Level: Beginner


Overview

In objective based missions, you need a durable troop unit that will hold objectives in or near your deployment zone.
Concept

When you are playing objective based missions, as everyone knows, troops are important to hold them. You need several of them but throughout a game they move around, get killed, and end up out of position.

Now if you have a mobile army or an assault army you will find yourself scrambling to get back to the objectives that you left behind in your deployment zone at the end of the game. Sometimes you make it, sometimes you don't, but what an anchor unit does is make it so that you do not have to worry about any other objectives that that are close to you, and it lets you focus on taking/contesting the ones in the middle of the board and in your opponent's deployment zone.

So this is article is to try to get you to think of taking a hard and resilient troop unit that just sits on an objective and holds it for the game.

Anchor units

Most armies have a form of anchor units and have troops with some special rules that help them stay alive and hold an objective during a game.

In general if you have terrain, you have a pretty durable unit. With most terrain now being a 4+ cover save in 5^th edition, going to ground means that all units can have a 3+ cover save. It is hard to kill anything at over 12" if it has a 3+ cover save.



Now we are going through some units that make good anchor units:



Tau: Most people think that Tau do not have any durable troops that can hold up to fire, but that is not the case. Kroot make an excellent anchor unit. You place them in woods, and when they do go-to-ground they have a 2+ cover save.

Eldar: 10 Wraithguard are durable, but they are too expensive to just sit back and hang around. What makes for a good anchor unit is Pathfinders. They have a natural 2+ cover save, and if you want to get the same cover save without spending the points you can get Rangers, but to get a 2+ cover save you have to lose a turn of shooting to go-to-ground.

Space Marines: You take some Scouts and give them camo-cloaks and they have a natural 3+ cover save, 2+ when you go to ground.

Orks: Although they do not have any units that are hard to kill in cover, they do have dirt cheap gretchin that can sit in cover, and hide for a game while your heavy hitters head to over to the enemy to do some serious bashing.

Tyranids: Just take a unit of spinegaunts and stash them in the rear. You will not have to worry about synapse if they do not move and you can just lurk while your opponent has other things to worry about coming at him. If you do worry about them getting killed, you can also take Without Number so they can just run back to where they just died.



So this is just something for you to think about when building your armies to add a unit that will stay at home and claim that odd objective that is behind your army.



Pre-game set up

There are 2 things that you have to do to make sure that your anchor unit will be successful:

#1. If you are placing terrain at the beginning of the game, you have to make sure that each deployment zone has a good or at least reasonably sized piece of terrain in it.

#2. In an objective based mission, you have to place an objective at least near a piece of terrain in the deployment zones.


A few things to remember: When you are placing terrain and objective markers you do this before you know which side of the table you will start on, so keep in mind that you will need to place a piece of terrain and an objective marker in both deployment zones to be sure of getting the proper set up. Also if you are playing in a tournament you have had a chance to look over your opponents list be sure to check to see if he has units that outflank. If he does have outflanking units, you will need to place the terrain away from the short table edges so you do not get hit by outflanking units coming on from reserve.



Set up

This is the easy part after bringing the correct unit, and placement of the terrain and objectives. Just plant your units in there, and you are good-to-go! Just remember when you get hit by any serious firepower, duck and cover and go-to-ground.