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I started playing Necrons as my first army about a year ago - got my but kicked on a regular basis. Switched over to GK and at least had some success (still a newbie). Now with the new Necron codex I've dusted off my 2500 points of necrons and ready to give it another shot.

Based on what I've read we're pretty much a shooty army still. I think GW wants us to think Lychguard or Praetorians are the CC answer - all nice and shiny like. So I looked to see what happened to the wraiths. Whhooohooo!! Two wounds, 3 S6 rending attacks, 3+ invul, jump infantry that ignore all terrain/tests. Plus they are now configurable so they can be made a little different allowing me to take advantage of wound allocation shananagins. At first I didn't think I'd like the whip coils until I noticed how many armies have I6 or higher models. I realized it only applies to models in base contact but still...I think it's a good trade off in the land of DE, GK and the like.

I'd like to hear of anyone's experience with them under the new codex. I'm considering them for my 500pt escalation league army.

Wraiths are arguably the best thing in that codex and by far the best cc. Theyre like better genestealers. If you want to see more in action check out the batreps. Jy2 has been using the heck out of them and built a list around them.

Uh... Wraiths can be good and ugly, or can be bad and ugly, so I am not sure why you made good, bad and ugly mutually exclusive in your title. There are plenty of ugly people in the world who are good at things.

I personally don't think anything Necron looks attractive and some things look downright ugly to me. But I can say the same thing about walruses and I am sure walruses find each other attractive.

Draigo wrote:Wraiths are arguably the best thing in that codex and by far the best cc. Theyre like better genestealers. If you want to see more in action check out the batreps. Jy2 has been using the heck out of them and built a list around them.

This is pretty much wraiths in a nutshell. Wraiths are very good, in almost any situation. They can deal with Infantry, Elite infantry, Vehicles, everything but hordes, really well. They are also quite survivable. with their 3++ and 2W. Whipcoils and Wraithflight allow them to hit first if they charge into units that are in cover. S6 means they are often wounding on a 2+, and rending helps remove that pesky armor save, as well as helping cut up vehicles.

For the Whipcoils, you really only need 2-3. They are likely going to be on the 40mm bases, In today's MSU lists, that's usually more than enough to cover a squad.


So, in short. Wraiths are a fantastic unit, that work well in a wide variety of roles, and preform a much needed dedicated assault unit, in a codex that lacks decent assault units.

Having played against them, I want to see as few wraiths on the field as possible. Those are some nasty beasties.

Wraiths with whip coils are the greatest thing in our codex. It makes our blanket I2 less of a hinderance, and the fact they're fearless as well is spectacular (though honestly I would have MUCH preferred stubborn). Their only drawback is that they're still only T4 so very susceptible to heavy weapons (even with the invul, one failure is one dead). Regardless, they are excellent front runners to the army, but their cost reflects that as well. In every game I've played using them they have either totally dominated or required 2 or more dedicated CC units to take them down and even then it took two turns to do it. Hell, they've even taken down a land raider for me, so that made me happy.

Joe Mama wrote:Uh... Wraiths can be good and ugly, or can be bad and ugly, so I am not sure why you made good, bad and ugly mutually exclusive in your title. There are plenty of ugly people in the world who are good at things.

I personally don't think anything Necron looks attractive and some things look downright ugly to me. But I can say the same thing about walruses and I am sure walruses find each other attractive.

And yes, Wraiths are both the bees knees and all that and a bag of Doritos. In fact, and this has not been 100% confirmed yet, rumour has it that they are actually the bees knees in a bag of Doritos, which is a figurative superlative that exceeds the constraints of human imagination.

Nasty to fight. My mate took maximum amount and tore my army up. Very good unit, worth da points

In my opinion, the 2 best units in the codex are 1) wraiths and 2) warscythe overlords on command barges.

But play what you like and not necessarily what everyone else likes....unless what you like is winning.

Some comparisons help illustrate the strenghts and weakness of the Wraiths.

Assume 6 wraiths with no upgrades for now. Now lets compare versus some of the more common units in tourney play--5 THSS termies, 8 Grey Hunters, 6 Purifiers.

So versus 5 THSS termies, you get 12 hits, 2 rends and 8 wounds, assuming you charge. You are looking at 2 dead termies. 2.5 wounds back at you, and its a bit less than 1 dead Wraith. Now, without the charge bonus the THSS termies pull ahead, but still you have a unit capable of matching well with one of the best assault units around.

Versus the 8 grey hunters, assuming the pf guard and banner. The 7 hunters attacking first, with counter attack, get 2.4 wounds at init 4, killing a wraith. The wraiths fight back with 3 kills. Then the fist swings, and does about half a wound, which when doubled thanks to instant death is about 3.4 dead crons to 3 dead GH, when the grey hunters use both counter attack and their banner. Again, this stacks up very well, and in subsequent rounds with no banner and no counter attack the wraiths see an advantage assuming the pfist doesnt go crazy and instant death everything it touches. Here wound allocation tricks pay dividends for the wraiths btw, but Im not considering them for this excersize.

Finally versus 6 Purifiers. Lets assume hammer, 2 pcannons for the setup. Lets also have the psychic power go off like we let the grey hunters have counter attack. The 3 purifiers at init 4 get 3 hits, and 1.5 wounds pre saves. This is about 1 wound of instant death on the wraiths. In addition, you have .33 non instant death wounds from the pcannons. So say 1 wraith dies. As above, wraiths swing and kill about 3 MEQ with 5 charging models. The fist then swings and gets ¼ of a wound, so we wont count that one. Wraiths win here, and we see that it would take several more purifiers to come out on top.

So in the end, the wraiths compare favorably with some of the best assault units in the game with similiar points. This makes them a top notch cc choice, with their weakness mainly being hordy units that use a volume of attacks to overwhelm a 3+ or 3++ save. Orks for example, with a 30 strong mob, give wraiths trouble. At 30 strong if the wraiths charge, whip coils will not stem the orks attacks as there are too many to reduce the entire unit to swinging last. In addition, with 29 regular orks swinging in total, the 3++ invuln save may as well be just an armor save. Again, wound allocation tricks help, but the ork fist only needs 1 decent round to win the combat basicly by himself, and with orks fearless until mostly dead, he will get 2-3 rounds of swings almost guarenteed.

DevianID wrote:Some comparisons help illustrate the strenghts and weakness of the Wraiths.

Assume 6 wraiths with no upgrades for now. Now lets compare versus some of the more common units in tourney play--5 THSS termies, 8 Grey Hunters, 6 Purifiers.

So versus 5 THSS termies, you get 12 hits, 2 rends and 8 wounds, assuming you charge. You are looking at 2 dead termies. 2.5 wounds back at you, and its a bit less than 1 dead Wraith. Now, without the charge bonus the THSS termies pull ahead, but still you have a unit capable of matching well with one of the best assault units around.

Versus the 8 grey hunters, assuming the pf guard and banner. The 7 hunters attacking first, with counter attack, get 2.4 wounds at init 4, killing a wraith. The wraiths fight back with 3 kills. Then the fist swings, and does about half a wound, which when doubled thanks to instant death is about 3.4 dead crons to 3 dead GH, when the grey hunters use both counter attack and their banner. Again, this stacks up very well, and in subsequent rounds with no banner and no counter attack the wraiths see an advantage assuming the pfist doesnt go crazy and instant death everything it touches. Here wound allocation tricks pay dividends for the wraiths btw, but Im not considering them for this excersize.

Finally versus 6 Purifiers. Lets assume hammer, 2 pcannons for the setup. Lets also have the psychic power go off like we let the grey hunters have counter attack. The 3 purifiers at init 4 get 3 hits, and 1.5 wounds pre saves. This is about 1 wound of instant death on the wraiths. In addition, you have .33 non instant death wounds from the pcannons. So say 1 wraith dies. As above, wraiths swing and kill about 3 MEQ with 5 charging models. The fist then swings and gets ¼ of a wound, so we wont count that one. Wraiths win here, and we see that it would take several more purifiers to come out on top.

So in the end, the wraiths compare favorably with some of the best assault units in the game with similiar points. This makes them a top notch cc choice, with their weakness mainly being hordy units that use a volume of attacks to overwhelm a 3+ or 3++ save. Orks for example, with a 30 strong mob, give wraiths trouble. At 30 strong if the wraiths charge, whip coils will not stem the orks attacks as there are too many to reduce the entire unit to swinging last. In addition, with 29 regular orks swinging in total, the 3++ invuln save may as well be just an armor save. Again, wound allocation tricks help, but the ork fist only needs 1 decent round to win the combat basicly by himself, and with orks fearless until mostly dead, he will get 2-3 rounds of swings almost guarenteed.

Why are these wraiths hitting last so often? Hasn't anyone bought them whip coils, or is this about points equality?
It's also nice to note that wraiths are more capable of early game screening than these squads and early game vehicle disruption, though, you'd much prefer to charge the unit that falls out of the vehicle than charge the transport itself (even if clever generals will put them out of range). You are right about how they seem to hold their own against elite cc guys but lose vs hordes, but their other weaknesses are that they are often as expensive or more than the units you are hunting down with them, they are easily bogged by fnp as bad as anyone else and that they really don't want to weather a turn of dedicated shooting, no matter wound allocation and invulnerable save.
You are really going to want to pick your targets wisely and find favorable circumstances for you to screen with them. All said though, you can really lean on that invulnerable save.

their invulv save and 2w is pretty hard to take down for just about everything. I really depend on str 8+ weapons hitting/shooting at them to down effectively. Unfortunately most of those would just happen to be melta guns that get in range to get charged right after if I can't down them all. Plasma just isn't enough but wierdly enough, torrent of cheap lasguns still manages to do ok.

Even in the old codex they rocked, and they pretty much keep the same role. Hard to kill, able to come at the enemy out of nowhere, and now they can actually deal some pain as well. There's pretty much no reason to not take them now. Only thing I wonder about is unit size under the new codex. I'm still running them in a swarm of 3, but I'll have to feel out how they work without reanimation.

units of 6 are possible under the new codex. Very deadly especially since you can actually do some minor wound allocation with them as well with the cheap upgrades in there. Usually see them running but at least the whip coils are useful.

ShadarLogoth wrote:And yes, Wraiths are both the bees knees and all that and a bag of Doritos. In fact, and this has not been 100% confirmed yet, rumour has it that they are actually the bees knees in a bag of Doritos, which is a figurative superlative that exceeds the constraints of human imagination.

So much win.

The problem was not is 6 possible. The problem is that it's probably super overkill even now. I used to run them in groups of 3 so they had a stronger chance of what is now called "reanimation protocols", and since you can't do that now, you must measure it differently.Without spreading yourself too thin by taking whipcoil, I think 3 is still a magic number, with it still being extremely damaging and damage resistant given the new rules.

DevianID wrote:Some comparisons help illustrate the strenghts and weakness of the Wraiths.

Assume 6 wraiths with no upgrades for now. Now lets compare versus some of the more common units in tourney play--5 THSS termies, 8 Grey Hunters, 6 Purifiers.

So versus 5 THSS termies, you get 12 hits, 2 rends and 8 wounds, assuming you charge. You are looking at 2 dead termies. 2.5 wounds back at you, and its a bit less than 1 dead Wraith. Now, without the charge bonus the THSS termies pull ahead, but still you have a unit capable of matching well with one of the best assault units around.

Versus the 8 grey hunters, assuming the pf guard and banner. The 7 hunters attacking first, with counter attack, get 2.4 wounds at init 4, killing a wraith. The wraiths fight back with 3 kills. Then the fist swings, and does about half a wound, which when doubled thanks to instant death is about 3.4 dead crons to 3 dead GH, when the grey hunters use both counter attack and their banner. Again, this stacks up very well, and in subsequent rounds with no banner and no counter attack the wraiths see an advantage assuming the pfist doesnt go crazy and instant death everything it touches. Here wound allocation tricks pay dividends for the wraiths btw, but Im not considering them for this excersize.

Finally versus 6 Purifiers. Lets assume hammer, 2 pcannons for the setup. Lets also have the psychic power go off like we let the grey hunters have counter attack. The 3 purifiers at init 4 get 3 hits, and 1.5 wounds pre saves. This is about 1 wound of instant death on the wraiths. In addition, you have .33 non instant death wounds from the pcannons. So say 1 wraith dies. As above, wraiths swing and kill about 3 MEQ with 5 charging models. The fist then swings and gets ¼ of a wound, so we wont count that one. Wraiths win here, and we see that it would take several more purifiers to come out on top.

So in the end, the wraiths compare favorably with some of the best assault units in the game with similiar points. This makes them a top notch cc choice, with their weakness mainly being hordy units that use a volume of attacks to overwhelm a 3+ or 3++ save. Orks for example, with a 30 strong mob, give wraiths trouble. At 30 strong if the wraiths charge, whip coils will not stem the orks attacks as there are too many to reduce the entire unit to swinging last. In addition, with 29 regular orks swinging in total, the 3++ invuln save may as well be just an armor save. Again, wound allocation tricks help, but the ork fist only needs 1 decent round to win the combat basicly by himself, and with orks fearless until mostly dead, he will get 2-3 rounds of swings almost guarenteed.

Looked at them a bit from my DE point of view. Certainly not something I would want Incubi fighting but Wyches and Wracks do very well as they can still tarpit a bit and deliver some wounds while costing much much less.

Then it hit me, shooting. Wraiths dont have a shooting weapon. Sure you can buy them one but that costs more. Grey hunters know they are going to get counter charge so they might as well double tap and wait till next turn. Purifiers can blaze away with stormbolters+psycannons, Da Boys can even do some damage with their sluggas. THSS well yeah they still got nothing. If properly outfitted sure you can wound allocate but you can only do so much of it and eventually things die.


Without a missile weapon they still look great as combat troops but you cant put them on even footing with other combat troops that have missile weapons and end it there.
Wracks for instance looks great compared to grey hunters if you assume you are starting combat with each other. But the hunters can shoot, the wracks cant, unless you buy them junk.
Wyches look great in CC against just about anything, its in the shooting phase where they die and their pistols do jack.

While it's true they don't shoot, the charge range of 18 keeps them safe from lots of incomming fire. For example, grey hunters are good versus wraiths, but they have to move forward in order to rapid fire. This means getting out of the metal box, closer to the tesla immortals, and risking losing as much as they gain to whittle down the wraiths.

Its all about saturation. Wraiths, while point efficient, dont fight fair. They hit a flank hard, multiassault, pick off stragglers, ect. If you have 40 cc grey hunters mutually supporting each other, then the max of 18 wraiths cant compete. But most people dont bring as much as that, making room for other units that dont bother wraiths as much.

As a general point, I think that if you are comparing Wraiths to Grey Hunters -who are universally considered to be amongst the most undercosted units- then it's fair to say that Wraiths are excellent units.

Why are wraiths being compared to gh and troop choices? Also in the math area why would you not add in at least whip coils? Unless you wiff all your attacks wraiths will decimate any of the mentioned troops its compared to no contest. Best you can hope for is to have a pf to hopefully kill one or hope you have enough halberds the coils dont drop everyone to 1 I.

Not really a fair comparision for troops who are not str 6, don't have invulns, and might have one weapons to insta gib a wraith. Wraiths cost almost 2 gh.

I think the general idea is comparing the Wraiths to other elite CC-oriented units, and not making a direct apples-to-apples comparison. I'm not sure why naked Wraiths were selected, however. I would have thought a truer comparison would be between a properly kitted Wraith unit and a properly kitted SS/TH Terminator unit, etc.

I used naked wraiths because often I find that the common build of 5 wraiths with 3 whip coils and 1 pistol, which costs the same as 6 naked wraiths, shows that 6 naked wraiths are better most of the time versus most of opponents. Wound allocation tricks seem to be just as helpful as the whips, and you can do wound allocation with just 5 points base.

As to why I didnt add a 6 wraith, 4 whip +1 pistol comparison, well that unit costs 45 points more, and is only situationally better. I would then have to give the target 45 more points, assume the target is deployed in such a way that the whip coils hit a useful majority of the squad despite counters being available to limit contact, ect ect.

Also, I chose Grey Hunters, Purifiers, and THSS termies because they are the most common CC units to be found in the tourney scene. GK Purifiers are very prolific even outside of Crowe lists, Space Wolves have been big in tourneys for even longer and almost always run Grey Hunters, and BA, Vanilla, DA and Templars combined all have a form of THSS.

After those units, I would add Paladins, Thunderwolves, and DE beast units to compare to wraiths, but I felt the point was made with the first 3 units I picked--namely that while Wraiths are comparable to other deathstar units, they dont totally blow them away but instead use speed and the local superiority to win.

I love my wraiths. I usually run 5 - 6 or two units of 4 in a 2000 point list. I REALLY love combining a unit of 6 wraiths with 3 or 4 whip coils with a Destroyer Lord with a scythe and MSS. Oh my....