If there is one thing you need to do these days is to figure a way to kill characters and special weapons models. I’ve recently had it happen a few times in my chaos army and the loss of banners or characters is a hard thing to stomach when it limits the abilities of a squad. If you want need to remove a character from the board there are a few ways to do it. There are a few ways to avoid these sorts of attacks but if you can’t stop it happening to you, do it first.
Precision shots:
On the roll of a 6 characters and a few weapons have the ability to allocate the wounds they inflict to specific models in a unit. The most common weapons that do this are snipers. Snipers are dangerous, they have precision shots on a 6+, rending and always wound on a 4+. Space marine scouts make cheap but effective snipers. Wolf Scouts are good but at 15 points each plus 3 for a sniper rifle they are bloated in comparison. Space marine scouts are better in two ways. They are scoring and they are cheaper. While this does mean spending points on another HQ, you can go for a cheap psyker to bump your range of powers available.
If you take a full squad of Space Marine Scouts they provide more wounds per point than a full squad of Wolf Scouts. Space Marine scouts do have a lower ballistic skill but they are dirt cheap and can take camo cloaks for better cover saves and still remain more cost effective than Wolf Scouts. That would make them harder to kill and give you far more tactical flexibility. Sniper units won’t be infiltrating so it’s no loss to drop behind enemy lines and acute senses.
Now if you are going off the beaten track for snipers, Eldar or Tau can give you an interesting sniper squad available to you. Eldar Rangers have standard sniper rifles and come with stealth for cheaper than vanilla scouts with cloaks. Rangers are a good choice if you’d like to include some Eldar units. Tau have Kroot, cheap and plentiful snipers that come in at 7 points per model. Kroot die in their droves, require woodlands to get a decent cover save and the third problem with them is that they have only 24” range with their guns. If you’re going to go full moron with snipers then you can infiltrate 20 Kroot into the thick of it and blast away with a barrage of sniper rounds. Kroot also offer the flexibility of different firing modes when you need more shots or want to move and shoot.
Tau also have sniper drones which have some greater fragility but while their spotter is alive they fire at BS5 and their guns are rapidfire. These units can move and fire unlike most snipers. With their additional range and shots this unit is quite cost effective.
Shooting squads with characters is an ok way to fish for precision shots but unless you’re using plasma weapons or a heavy weapon on a Wolf Guard then it won’t do very much to ensure a kill. A character on a quad gun or Tellion would be useful but expensive for what they do.
Barrage Weapons and how I learned to love the bomb:
Barrrage weapons are so different to most weapons it really hurts. They don’t require line of sight to the target, the centre of the blast is used for working out cover saves and the damn things can come in bursts. They range in strength from a weak 4 to a monster killing 10 and can be delivered across the board in most cases.
One of the comments on my previous article extolled the virtues of the Whirlwind tank. It’s a decent option for a few reasons it has large blasts and can generate a decent haul of wounds when it fires. While it’s not the best option in the game for this sort of attack, it does come in Codex Space Wolves and Space Marines so you won’t have to go looking too far away from power armour. I still think Long Fangs are usually a better choice in primary detachments of Wolves but there are times when it’s worth it. In an allied marines force I think it would be a good choice.
Imperial guard however are the kings when it comes to barrage. With multiple tanks in an Ordnance Battery even an allied detachment of guard can bring severe pain to a foe. Manticores are very effective with D3 strength 10 shots, these shots are only AP4 but they can mount up lots of damage with their large footprint. These units are more expensive but their ability to instant kill HQs is well worth their cost.If you centre the template on the model you would like removed then all you have to do is wait for dice rolling to take it’s toll. With 4 or 5 wounds inflicted on a unit there is a good chance the model under the centre will die from a failed armour save or look out sir for more lethal ordnance. The best way to avoid this sniping is to spread out units carefully to minimise the models hit and to keep characters and special weapons troopers far apart in the unit. I had two independent characters and a chaos banner under a Tyranid bombardment and it was very costly to lose feel no pain in the middle of resolving that massive barrage.
The tip of the spear:
Combat offers a dangerous method to kill troublesome models. A lot of characters aren't worth engaging in combat due to their prowess and in the middle of a squad they can be hard to pin down. Avoiding challenges is easy when you have a sergeant or similar character to take a turn on the bench when you turn it down. If as a Space Wolf you are running a character in a squad, the only way to avoid the challenge trap is by taking a Wolf Guard model in the unit. Especially when you’re being challenged by character killers like Lucius the Eternal or Lelith Hesperax, having a character to throw under the bus is worth its weight in gold. At a minimum of 18 points for a basic loadout the Wolf Guard is going to make a decent meat shield.
A Wolf Lord should be fine in combat unless you’re facing a real monster but Rune Priests will never be combat characters and with an AP 4 power maul Wolf Priests are not what they once were. A Rune Priest is not going to be an answer to a character with a 2+ armour save, a runic weapon is going to be AP3 until the next codex drops and despite the added strength Wolf Priests don’t have enough attacks to overcome their shoddy AP.
The real risk with resorting to combat as your only method to kill characters is that you can fail the charge and be left in the open for a full turn of shooting followed by an assault against your units. While in assault you risk getting swamped with opponents, even the toughest beast can be killed with enough bee stings.
Covers saves:
Focus fire is a little remembered but devastatingly deployed piece of rulescraft. If you are shooting at a unit that has mixed coversaves and the model you wish to kill in in the group with the worst coversaves then focus fire is king. Declare the worse coversave and then roll to hit. Any wounds must be allocated to the nearest model in sight with the appropriate cover save. You don’t need to be in a situation where the models would be rolling their cover save, you just need to have mixed covers saves to run this. It's a very useful tactic is to wipe out allied Dark Angel biker HQs from White Scar biker lists as the Dark Angel will have a lower jink save. These wounds can be moved around with Look out Sir! so using high volumes of fire or instant death weapons for the maximum effect. I would recommend this for anyone running a drop pod heavy list as plasmagun and flamer fire can reap rewards in an alpha strike.
The only way I can see to ensure you don’t fall foul of this is to move units in such a way that that important models have the best coversave available without being exposed. It’s a pain and will force you to be a little more cautious.
Conclusions:
That’s all I can think of for now to improve the odds of taking out problematic models. There are a few models that are well worth taking out in general, Chaos Lords, Commisars, psykers and of course your opponent’s Warlord. Specialist weapons such as missile launchers with flakk missiles are well worth taking out when you get the chance and having the ability to hit units that are out of line of sight with ordnance is beyond priceless if your opponent is playing defensively. When you are facing someone with a lot of barrage weapons do not play defensively, get up in their face and try and break those units down. Biovores, artillery pieces and vehicles don't enjoy a powerfist or two in their face so give them one. If you put range between you and them, it plays right into their game.