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As a spin off from the Eldrad/Avatar thread I found the notion of Wraithguard in 5th extremely interesting and worthy of a bit more thought. Not wantng to further derail that thread I thought it'd be good to start a new one.

based on what many are saying will be useful next ed, solid/hard to kill troop choices which give up few 'Kill Points' and can be flexible, How can you beat the Wraithguard?

Drawbacks in 4th were... lack of range - now they can run. Too big an investment in points - now thats maybe a good thing for KP denial.
Teamed with conceal and fortune, a couple of squads of 10 as troops will surely be a tough nut to crack. Their guns can kill pretty much anything quite happily and in combat they're resilient, esp with the fist nerf in 5th.

Perhaps they lack something vs horde, but you have the rest of the army to deal with that.

What do you guys think, will the hugely expensive (in $£ and points) Wraithguard become the troops of choice in 5th? I'm already looking at the online order page drooling!

Alternatives - For troops you have the...
Avengers who are cheaper and better against horde, but much much less resilient.
Guardians, same as avengers but usually relegated to gun escort duty - surely not efficient.
Pathfinders, good troops but in order to take advantage of objective grabbing you have to be able to move them, and as soon as they move they suck. I also suspect many more flame templates in 5th due to emergence of hordes, not good for the Pathfinders.
Bikes, Fast and resilient (due to denying incoming fire) but usually taken in small units so like all the above choices will surrender many more Kill Points.

The point cost vs. KP coupled with the resiliency of the unit would make it a nightmare for the opponent. Sort of a damned if you do(kill them) damned if you don't situation. Do i think there will be a massive shift towards WG? Probably not, but i would expect to see a lot more of them.

Rending, esp in CC, makes the unit go away.

So does heavy weapons fire that pierces their armor.

With so many points sunk into said units (more than half your army for 2 squads kitted out) the enemy won't have much else to fire at, so they'll get shot and assaulted by everything he can spare.

They are not good in CC, btw. Easily tarpitted, and dedicated assault units can cripple them before they even attack. MC just have a field day killing them.

They've improved, but they still rely on a short ranged shooting weapon for 85% of their damage output.

In 5th ed Troop units will be invaluable to hold objectives, we'll have to see how that works out for them. Wraithguard backed up by long ranged shooting and elite counter-assault/ assault may breathe new life into them.

It's 750 points for 2 squads of ten, with warlocks. There isn't much left for anti troop after that. They do the same amount of damage as fire dragon (for double the points) and have no close combat threat. The PF nerf they die a little slower, but they still die.

That said used in a clever manner I'm sure you can win with them. I just don't think they are a de-facto troop choice.

Stelek wrote:Rending, esp in CC, makes the unit go away.

So does heavy weapons fire that pierces their armor.

With so many points sunk into said units (more than half your army for 2 squads kitted out) the enemy won't have much else to fire at, so they'll get shot and assaulted by everything he can spare.

They are not good in CC, btw. Easily tarpitted, and dedicated assault units can cripple them before they even attack. MC just have a field day killing them.

Remember this is 5th ed. Rending will zap that save away, but you still have T6 to contend with (when most rending attaks are S4).

The other points are valid and weaknesses that come with fielding such expensive units with crap for assault capability. Though the move towards limiting heavy weapons will do something for the heavy gun death, I think relying on the old conceal + fortune is still your best bet (when not getting knocked around in combat).

- Salvage

I appreciate that they're easily tarpitted, but I see that as potentailly being a strength. Because they now block LOS, you can have a handy counterattack unit screened behind them.
Not so sure that rending will be so scary next ed, and even if you do kill two or three that way, you'll be lucky to get many wounds beyond that unless you have fists. And there are few units that have fists and rending.
Anti troop is a problem, but I'm sure flamers on wraithlords and warlocks can help. The question is what to put with them. It is indeed a lot of points to spend on a couple of units, but then the other 1000 points or so of your army get to act with a degree of freedom. I don't really expect them to survive, but as they're fearless they'll hang on a long time and give little away for the opponents efforts.
Fact is, I think that you've got to look at spending a fair proportion of your points in 5th on troops choices. What can you take thats much better and does not give away truckloads of KPs?

counter attack is going to be a must for this tactic. without that i know exactly what wraithguard will accomplish against my necrons: fight scarabs away from the objective all game.

wraithlords might be a good choice since they can shoot as well. or falcons carrying harlies/scorpions, which i think will still be a good option.

Tau and Imperial Guard will always be a thorn in their side.

Horde armies will flat out over whelm them, flamers or no flamers.

Screening is still held as dubious. Every wound you take diminishes the screen. And the as of yet unclear wording suggests that if you can see one model, you can see the whole unit.

And as a personal choice, I dislike the idea of a eldar phalanx. Your army isn't all that fast. and it's hard to break up you army since the phalanx need support to work.



Now I'll agree that wraith guard work like a multi model dakka fex. It's not that they are bad. they are expensive and have alot of weaknesses despite their steep cost. Also on non kill point missions you only have two scoring units. that need to sit on objectives with short ranged guns in order for you to win the game. Granted, I might not be able to kill them. but if there are six objectives, I don't have to. Gaurdians might have brittle bones but i can fan out and grab multiple objectives.

Stelek wrote:Rending, esp in CC, makes the unit go away.

Yes so Steelers, death company, and harlequins are a problem, but then again so is any other hand to hand unit so we already know this. In general there just isn't enough rending out there to really worry too much about it. Prepare, yes, but scrap the idea due to the potential presence of rending, no.

So does heavy weapons fire that pierces their armor.

Most of this stuff isn't multi shot so it’s not going to be killing them in droves. Let’s also not forget the 5+ rerollable cover save (55% chance to avoid death) they get too. The biggest fear for them is things like plasma guns which can possibly shoot twice and ignore armor. However, it looks like these sorts of things are going to be less prevalent. The high toughness is also very important because things like star cannons still need decent rolls to wound them. All in all, the unit is very resilient even to things like las cannon fire due to the cover save, the reroll, and the low rate of fire of these weapons. I’ll post some mathhammer on this a bit later.

With so many points sunk into said units (more than half your army for 2 squads kitted out) the enemy won't have much else to fire at, so they'll get shot and assaulted by everything he can spare.

I think the general plan for an army of this type is to have it backed up with hand to hand units (scorpions, banshees, and harlequins) on foot so that when the enemy gets close, the assault units rush up to do what they do best. With the running and fleet rules being what they are (ok what they may be) it looks like this will be fairly effective. The only thing the army really needs after that is some long ranged anti tank support that can be provided by dreadnaughts (which shouldn't have any problem shooting over the screen of smaller units in front of them.

They are not good in CC, btw. Easily tarpitted, and dedicated assault units can cripple them before they even attack. MC just have a field day killing them.

As stated before, they will be backed up by hand to hand troops so its unlikely they will take much damage in hand to hand in the one round they are likely to be in it. Their high toughness combined with the new fist rules should keep them fairly safe. MC risk a lot getting into hand to hand with wraithguard. Getting that close means getting into range of their guns which excell at killing big creatures like that, so if an MC does get into assault, he earned it.

Ok, as promised, some math hammer on killing wraithguard.

Proposed squad layout: (someone with a codex, please work out the points on this)
10 wraithguard
1 warlock, conceal
1 farseer, fortune, runes of witnessing (because you can't afford to fail)

Depending on exactly how game mechanics work out, it’s possible that the farseer may not need to actually be included in the squad (he may be in a squad behind the writhguard screen for example). For the most part, I will assume that he isn’t in the squad and is thus not taking any hits from incoming fire.

So, how many licks does it take to get to the chewy center of a wraithguard squad? Lets find out.

First lets look at the good news…what happens when the wraithguard are fired upon and they get no cover saves at all (as if the squad didn’t include a warlock). Imperial weapons will be considered to be fired at BS4, eldar weapons have been calculated at BS 3.

Las cannon: 18 shots are required to kill 10 wraithguard = 18 rounds of fire
Star cannon: 40 shots are required to kill 10 wraithguard = 20 rounds of fire
Plasma: 23 shots are required to kill 10 wraithguard = 23 or 11.5 rounds of fire
Heavy Bolter: 135 shots are required to kill 10 wraithguard = 45 rounds of fire
Melta Gun: 18 shots are required to kill 10 wraithguard = 18 rounds of fire
Auto Cannon: 68 shots are required to kill 10 wraithguard = 34 rounds of fire

That’s a lot of shooting to kill them. Now lets look at the gains from putting in a warlock with conceal. For simplicity’s sake, we will make the bold assumption that the warlock is not being assigned hits at this point. If the warlock does get hit and killed, then the toughness of the squad reverts to the previous numbers.

Las cannon: 27 shots are required to kill 10 wraithguard = 27 rounds of fire
Star cannon: 60 shots are required to kill 10 wraithguard = 30 rounds of fire
Plasma: 34 shots are required to kill 10 wraithguard = 34 or 17 rounds of fire
Heavy Bolter: 135 shots are required to kill 10 wraithguard = 45 rounds of fire
Melta Gun: 27 shots are required to kill 10 wraithguard = 27 rounds of fire
Auto Cannon: 68 shots are required to kill 10 wraithguard = 34 rounds of fire

So we can see that there is a fair bit of improvement (50% increased survivability) on the guns that require the fewest rounds of shooting to kill the squad. The warlock seems like a good investment even if it does get killed off once the squad size dwindles down to only a few models. By then, it has done its job. As a side note, the weapons that are not AP 3 or better are not affected by the warlock.

Now lets look at what it takes when there is a warlock with conceal and a farseer with fortune going.

Las cannon: 41 shots are required to kill 10 wraithguard = 41 rounds of fire
Star cannon: 90 shots are required to kill 10 wraithguard = 45 rounds of fire
Plasma: 51 shots are required to kill 10 wraithguard = 51 or 26 rounds of fire
Heavy Bolter: 405 shots are required to kill 10 wraithguard = 135 rounds of fire
Melta Gun: 41 shots are required to kill 10 wraithguard = 41 rounds of fire
Auto Cannon: 203 shots are required to kill 10 wraithguard = 102 rounds of fire

Here we see a huge bump in survivability across the board. Things that are not AP3 (or better) really suffer and even the weapons that are find that it takes an additional 50% more shots to kill them.

All in all, they are an extremely tough unit. Even in hand to hand, it will take lots of high strength power weapons to really do significant damage to this unit, but that’s a post for another time.

On thing not to forget is that the squad won't be doing a lot of damage in HtH, so it won't take that good of a unit to tarpit them. Tarpitting normally doesn't solve a problem (it merely defers it), but if the goal of the WG is to hold an objective, two IG squads that lock it in HtH are equally protected from shooting. Meaning, as long as the IG pass any morale checks, they'll still be a scoring unit as well.

Wow, thanks for taking the time to work that out, really appreciate it.

Thats gotta make people sit up and take notice. Sure, its a huge points investment, but with those numbers.... What else in the eldar codex outside of 4th ed falcons has that many impressive force multipliers for that sort of output in points?

I know that there are lots of potential drawbacks, but what i want to know is what in the eldar codex is a better option? (I figure that in 5th you really have to work a list around the troops choices you make for the missions with kill points and those in which only troops are scoring)

Polonius wrote:On thing not to forget is that the squad won't be doing a lot of damage in HtH, so it won't take that good of a unit to tarpit them. Tarpitting normally doesn't solve a problem (it merely defers it), but if the goal of the WG is to hold an objective, two IG squads that lock it in HtH are equally protected from shooting. Meaning, as long as the IG pass any morale checks, they'll still be a scoring unit as well.

The thing is, the standard tactic, as it stands now, is to have a hand to hand unit directly (2-5 inches) behind the wraithguard. This means that if they end up in hand to hand, there is backup comming in next turn. Due to the screening rules, the hand to hand unit should have no (or at least little) fear of being shot at while its moving up. The only thing that's really going to threaten it is indirect fire and elevated shooters. This may being about the tactical manuver of the eldar's opponent seeking elevated positions to fire from and the eldar player investing in long ranged shooting units (war walkers or dark reapers perhaps) to eliminate those elevated shooters.

All in all, it sounds very interesting to me.

That's an interesting tactic, but now you've got 10 wraithguard, a warlock, a farseer, and a hand to hand unit all working to claim a single objective. Yes, it seems pretty likely you'll get it, but you're spending ~600 pts on that one objective, while not getting any meaningful shooting out of that block.

I don't think it's a bad tactic in that it might work, the question is if it's worth it.

It would seem to me the best army configuration would be to scrap the Warithlords and take Guardians. Squads of Guardians would serve the duel purpose of thrusting more bodies into the army and giving you mobile anti-tank long range fire. Guardians lend themselves to the Avatar which would make the majority of the army fearless (all guardians and wraithguard are already fearless) and present a decent enough counter assault element all at the same time.

The synergy of Wraithguard, Guardians and the Avatar seems like a good one. Add in the obligitory Farseer (Eldrad would be best), some fast moving anti-horde (2 units of Warp Spiders) and I think you have the making of a viable 5th edition army list.

The thing with Eldar is that their army has always had units standing around not doing anything. Most of their elite units suffer from the same drawbacks as Wraithguard, and have none of the advantages. Yet currently Eldar lists do fine. Eldar are sort of special in that they can afford to have 800 points of their army doing nearly nothing for a few turns; the amazing firepower of their support units and speed of their interceptor units makes up for the slowness and short range of the core troops.

I think Wraithguard combined with Dire Avengers will be very powerful. Dire Avengers would mean that the Wraith units live ridiculously long in assault (distract), and would help neutralize incoming horde or other fast-moving units that can jump the Wriathguard's range. Combine all of this with a nearby avatar, a farseer with doom, and a pinch of counter assault, and you have the makings of a classic Eldar combined-arms force. God I love Eldar. Properly played and synchronized, they can be neigh-unstoppable. I don't see this changing in the near future.

What is their role in the game?

With the three missions, you are trying to take your opponent's single objective while keeping your own; loot counters; kill points.

Will Wraithguard be a useful unit to take the single objective, which I would imagine is set up in a difficult location for you to acheive? 10 won't fit in a Wave Serpent and even with run (d6"), I don't see them really walking all the way across the board. They could hold their own objective with reasonable certainty. Playing for the tie could put the Eldar player at an advantage as there is a lot of points tied up in one unit that will likely survive the game.

Can they secure a loot counter? Yes. It is one unit (although I suppose someone will run 2+ units of Wraithguard). Seems easy enough to try and counter. Let the Wraithguard go for one objective and then go after the others. That is an awful lot of points for one unit to hold one objective while you can dedicate your army to go after the other objectives. Granted, you can set up the Wraithguad to go after an objective that puts them in shooing range of other objectives to remain threatening.

They are worth 1 KP. This is hard to figure for me. I'm not going to waste a lot of effort trying to kill that unit as it is worth so little. The trick is I don't want it running around with 12" nasty weapons. I'd try to tie them up for as long as possible w/o losing much in return (obviously). I'm not sure I'd want my Harlies running in there (are they worth 2 or 3 KP's. Can't remember) as they really can't absorb a return strike. The Wraithguard will get to strike back as you can remove casualties from anywhere in the unit. Basically, it appears they are a tough unit that can't be ignored, yet only give up one KP.

This is a bit general, but I'm thinking the expensive 10 strong Wraithguard/Warlock combo as being useful in 1 to 2 missions out of the three missions. Their guns are scary, but still only 12". Additionally, target priority may change a bit as Troop choices will definitely be more important and I don't see Wraithguard as a great Troop choice killer. I'm really on the fence with them at this point w/o actually playing them. I just don't see them as a no brainer choice at the moment.

I'd be curious to hear from folks who have played the new rules and missions with Wraithguard.

For what it is worth I played Iyanden a fair amount in 3rd edition when the wraithguard were distinctly weaker than they currently are and I think that a lot of peopple are really underestimating what the unit can do in hand to hand. I ran my army with two units of wraithguard each of which had an "escorting" wraithlord. That combined with a warlock with enhance (+1 WS, +1 I) really made the unit a pretty rough hand to hand contender. From there I would season to taste with at least one dedicated hand to hand unit, a farseer, then either a second farseer or the avatar and run the list as a phalanx (ie: each component of the list was capable of supporting the other components). I won't claim that it was the best but it was good and I won with it a lot more than I lost. So now with wraithgurd being significantly better than they were in the 3rd ed. book I think that this list would be worth a look and might even be pretty good.

I absolutely love the Phalanx idea, whether it's viable or not. I've been kicking this list around for a couple days, and just need to decide where to drop the remaining points (probably on something that kills hordes since it's definitely weak against them right now).

HQ: Avatar- 155
HQ: Farseer; Doom, Fortune- 110
Elites: 6 Harlequins w/ Kiss- 132
Elites: 6 Harlequins w/ Kiss- 132
Troops: 10 Wraithguard, Spiritseer w/ Conceal- 396
Troops: 10 Wraithguard; Spiritseer w/ Conceal- 396
Heavy Support: Wraithlord; Brightlance, Starcannon- 155
Heavy Support: Wraithlord; Shuriken Cannon, Eldar Missile Launcher- 125
Heavy Support: Wraithlord; Shuriken Cannon, Eldar Missile Launcher- 125
1,726

Employing the strategy already outlined, I think this army should be able to take on quite a bit. Before 5th Edition I probably wouldn't even consider this, because you're spending almost 800 points on what 300 points of Fire Dragons could do just as well and survive just as long behind the Wraithlords, but now those 800 points have a pretty good chance of being scoring at the end of the game.

One concept you guys need to let go is the concept of shielding. As someone who plays Niddzilla I can tell you that the barricade wall is easy enough to counter. Fast armies like tau, eldar, D. eldar, blood angles, ect swoop around the wall and shoot you up on the flank.
As for the wall itself the RAW in the .pdf indicate that you have to block LoS to the whole unit or they can be shot anyway.

Terminizzle wrote:I absolutely love the Phalanx idea, whether it's viable or not. I've been kicking this list around for a couple days, and just need to decide where to drop the remaining points (probably on something that kills hordes since it's definitely weak against them right now).

HQ: Avatar- 155
HQ: Farseer; Doom, Fortune- 110
Elites: 6 Harlequins w/ Kiss- 132
Elites: 6 Harlequins w/ Kiss- 132
Troops: 10 Wraithguard, Spiritseer w/ Conceal- 396
Troops: 10 Wraithguard; Spiritseer w/ Conceal- 396
Heavy Support: Wraithlord; Brightlance, Starcannon- 155
Heavy Support: Wraithlord; Shuriken Cannon, Eldar Missile Launcher- 125
Heavy Support: Wraithlord; Shuriken Cannon, Eldar Missile Launcher- 125
1,726

Employing the strategy already outlined, I think this army should be able to take on quite a bit. Before 5th Edition I probably wouldn't even consider this, because you're spending almost 800 points on what 300 points of Fire Dragons could do just as well and survive just as long behind the Wraithlords, but now those 800 points have a pretty good chance of being scoring at the end of the game.

This is pretty similar to what I ran in my 3rd ed. Iyanden list. Harlequins were still MIA from 2nd ed. so I ran scorpions in a wave serpent. Now that Wave serpents aren't scoring and since you can no longer assault out of transports the Harlequins with their ability to use fleet of foot (as opposed to the scorpions) might be the ticket. Also, I generally screened the Wraithguard with a couple of smallish guardian defender units. Since 5th ed. is rumored to be bringing back screening to some extent this might be the way to go again.

gdurant wrote:One concept you guys need to let go is the concept of shielding. As someone who plays Niddzilla I can tell you that the barricade wall is easy enough to counter. Fast armies like tau, eldar, D. eldar, blood angles, ect swoop around the wall and shoot you up on the flank.
As for the wall itself the RAW in the .pdf indicate that you have to block LoS to the whole unit or they can be shot anyway.

While the RAW does say you have to block line of sight to the whole unit, it also says that you can't shoot through the gaps between members of a unit. So all you have to do to screen a unit is run your screening unit in a U formation with your screened unit in the middle of the U. That will mean that you'll have to get all the way behind the U if you want to shoot at them. So while it might be easy to get around a couple of monsterous creatures in a line, a U formation made up of 10 guys that are all 2" appart is going to really be hard to do. However, if you do manage to acomplish it, you are rewareded with the chance to kill the whole squad. Seems like a proper reward for good tactical movement on the battlefield to me.

I think if I had Wraithguard I would use them to flush enemy units off of their own objectives, with pathfinders or a reserve unit on one of my own objectives. Shock troops, in other words.

Tacobake wrote:I think if I had Wraithguard I would use them to flush enemy units off of their own objectives, with pathfinders or a reserve unit on one of my own objectives. Shock troops, in other words.

Agreed, though if an objective is in/near cover then the job get punted to someone else.

OT since it pertains to 4th ed, but useful tips. Crossposted from Tau Online.

I've faced this sort of thing a couple times, the 10 man squad w/ Eldrad (the Brick) following that is.

Here's some ways to take it on with Necrons.

First off, no need to hurry, in general, the longer you wait the more you are winning by. As long as that brick doesn't do anything you are adding the ~600 points in it to your codex granted fire superiority. Make sure you have handled everything else before moving on to the combat brick.

The easiest thing to do is send a full unit of scarabs at it, turbo boosting right up into its face. They fire and do squat, between your invul save and their inability to ID except on a 6 to wound. They can try and fire with the rest of their army (good # of S6 weapons on their skimmers), but you most likely shook them all. Next round you charge and they are stuck for the majority of the game.

A Lith can mess them up pretty well. Hang back and shoot the particle projector at them. They have to choose between hanging around on the objective and hoping you don't make them non scoring by game's end or chasing after your lith. If they chase you eventually charge them and begin the recycling Lith/avoiding Eldrad dance with your warriors, somewhere far from the objective. If they stick you keep shooting pie plates at them, and charge some destroyers in on the last round to contest the objective.

The best option of all, though, is a C'tan. Walk your compulsories towards the brick, followed by the C'tan, while your immortals/destroyers stun the rest of his force. If he steps up to fire he can only get the warriors, as his range is trash and your boss is hanging back. If they back up you get the objective. Presuming they fire on the warriors you lose half of one unit and charge with the remaining 1.5 units of warriors. If you manage to stick for your charge round and their charge round the C'tan joins in on your next round and that's it for Eldrad and his Brick. It is worth noting that the Deceiver is occasionally able to skip the foreplay and misdirect off of someone else (Harlies, etc.) and zip in on the Brick before they manage draw a bead on him.

Functionally, the key to remember is that the Brick and the skimmers/whatever that compose the rest of his army don't support each other. You can defeat them in detail. The army, as a whole, can't win a long range shooting game with the Necrons, so just focus on that. If none of these strategies are applicable to your particular situation you should still be able to do alright by just blasting the rest of the list down and then initiating a scrum with the Brick on the last round/second to last round. Sometimes you don't even have to oppose the Brick. If he wants to recon, let him, just recon with your army on the other flank, and win by the skimmers you blasted down. If its an alpha game his ~600 point one scoring unit isn't all that great.

It's a psychological weapon, he wants you to fixate on trying to wound his brick by dakka. This is like when people fire on the Immortals you are recycling in cover in front of a Monolith. Don't fall for it.

End of cross post.

5th ed makes much of the snide, "this unit costs too much" observation invalid, but basically the strategies remain valid. Tie em up and score with em, jump em with scarabs, crsuh them with your Star God, whatever.

Sarigar wrote:What is their role in the game?

With the three missions, you are trying to take your opponent's single objective while keeping your own; loot counters; kill points.

This is a bit general, but I'm thinking the expensive 10 strong Wraithguard/Warlock combo as being useful in 1 to 2 missions out of the three missions. Their guns are scary, but still only 12". Additionally, target priority may change a bit as Troop choices will definitely be more important and I don't see Wraithguard as a great Troop choice killer.

Lets look at the 3 different missions.

First kill points. In this mission the wraith guard work extremely well as a denial unit. Your opponent will basically never get the points for them and if by some miracle they do, they only get 1. This will make them totally not worth the effort of killing. However since they will be screening the majority of the rest of the army, the eldar's opponent will have little choice but to expend firepower and assault power on them since they will not have much in the way of other targets. Once the wraithguard get in range, they can do a lot of damage with their weapons. If they end up in assault, they are still very resilient (power fists and rending being their only real weaknesses) and they are fearless. All in all, they should do a decent job in these missions.

Single objective missions. In these missions I think the wraithguard will also excel. The pile of wraithguard moving up should be able to (with the assistance of assault troops behind them) crush just about any defense the enemy might muster against them. This isn't garmented, but they are a hard unit that pack a punch at close range and have assault troops to back them up. Defending your own objective can be left to long range shooting units like pathfinders or a squad of guardians. Remember that in order to hold / contest an objective, you have to be within 3" of it. This means that if the writhguard walk up to say 10" away from the objective and start shooting, the defending unit will have to leave the objective if they want to assault the wraithguard.

Multi objective missions. In these missions there are 3-5 objective markers around the board. If you are running an army with 2 wraithguard squads (or even just one and then some guardians or jetbikes) they still serve a very valid purpose. They can be used to push towards the objective that is the farthest away from your starting lines. If they can move up to hold or contest that objective (hopefuly causing a lot of damage along the way) then the objectives that they leave behind them can be easily taken by a softer unit of guardians or jetbikes. In addition, to hold / contest an objective, you have to be within 3" of it. If a 10 man wraithguard unit stretches out in 2" coherency, the line is 31" long (don't forget the warlock). Even if its only a 5 man unit (+ the warlock) due to half the squad being killed , its still 16" long and that's likely to be long enough to stretch between 2 objectives and hold them both. If the farseer joins the squad, it adds an extra 3" to the chain.

So all in all, I see them as being very useful in all 3 mission types.

Good points. Cant stress the usefulness of Eldrad enough in this setup. He`s far superior to a normal Farseer, with the ability to cast Fortune twice if needed and use Mindwar on hidden Fists, as well as redeploy the unit pregame.

Hi all, interesting topic...

I don't hold much stock in screening being the be all and end all tactic in 5th edition. Sure the wraithguard are a tough unit, but you really need to decide what the game is - holding objectives or merely KP denial?

Firstly I'd think about how tough the unit actually is (easily tied up in hth = not so tough IMHO). I'd definitely think about what I could get for the same points.

There have already been a plethora of counter tactics to screening such as elevated firing positions, tall vehicle shooting etc. mentioned. Also with the addition of scouting/infiltrating units being able to enter from a board edge...combined with the known problems of attempting it (as gdurant already mentioned) against very mobile forces.

Using this tactic, the wraithguard are extremely reliant on 'handlers' to deal with the expensive unit being tied up and rendered inneffective.

Just some food for thought; current optimal builds for chaos include 2 lash of submission HQ and between 6 and 9 obliterators and if the rules are going to make this combination even better then why change? Even if the chaos player only gets one lash off (its worth a go against eldrads runes) then a major component of your army goes bye-bye relatively easily.

Because you no longer need to bunch the models up too tightly to maximise hits, you can make it an even spread and maximise your chances of never missing with your plasma cannons (obliterators).

I don't think that I can even approach an adequate or close to in-game reality mathhammer example for this, because of the number of variables (how high you roll for lash etc) but just the concept alone should make you realize that the wraithguard turn out to be only marginally tougher than guardians...

Aside from the fact that you don't even need to shoot the wraithguard because they aren't screening stuff behind them anymore...

I'm not trying to say that chaos will be the wraithguards paper to their rock, as I am confident that there are plenty of other ways of rendering them similar in effect to guardians dying.

I have to agree though, in terms of KP denial...I can't think of a more expensive durable unit. So for this reason I can see them as worth a shot.

In terms of actually choosing to use them I really only see harlequins being the effective unit to 'handle' the wraithguard as they aren't reliant on the screening shenanigans to protect them from ranged fire.

I think the problem with implementing the wraithguard wall is more about what units to use to complement it and as 40Kenthusiast stated they don't seem to complement each other very well.

What's so scary about them getting into HtH combat? First of all, it won't happen too quick if your wraithguard are behind 3 Wraithlords and the Avatar, but even if they get tied up in hand to hand they have T6 and the enemy squad is about to get charged by Harlequins.

Troops are the only scoring units in 5th Edition, and 2 Wraithguard Troops squads is almost 800 points. Your opponent will probably have around that many points in troops as well, but theirs are going to be killed while you will most likely still have both WG units scoring at the end of the game. Keep your objective and contest the other two, and it seems like a pretty sound combination to me.