Reasons why Eldatatard isn't good in 4th edition:

1) All the newbs you pwned with it have figured it out. The advantage of surprise is over.

2) At 'wussy' points levels of 1500 points, optimized lists have a 365 point advantage on you. It's crippling. (Almost 25%)

3) At more normal points levels of 1750, 1850, and 2000 points....optimized lists still have a 21%, 20%, and 18.5% advantage. Rounded my math, be kind and spare me the equation to Pi, please.

4) Avatar is just a cheerleader with T6, 4 wounds, and a 4+ invul save. 155 points gives you a big target, and a fearless-causing blanket. So what? Either your troops are cheap (Guardians), already fearless (Wraithguard, Wraithlords, Phoenix Lord-led squads), or more expensive than basic space marines (everything else). Best part is, his ability doesn't work on vehicles--the current strength of the Eldar Codex.

5) Eldrad, or the 210 point wonder bread. Casts 2 fortunes/guides, and 1 fortune/guide. Big deal. Go ahead and fortune your expensive but fragile units (almost everything). Guide your vehicles. Better to do it now before they're stunned (Falcons) or destroyed (everything else). Do you really need someone to tell you that Warwalkers (the favorite guide target) are horrible if the other guy has the ability to beat AV10? Wait, not even auto-glancing like Land Speeders--the glass hammers of 40K? One turn of shooting, hmmm good choice. I highly recommend investing in additional Warwalkers so they can be guided too. Or Dark Reapers, guide and fortune those. SCARY one-shot, one-turn, wonders.

6) Mobility is king in 40K. Being able to move and fire is great. The Avatar doesn't shoot, and doesn't boost anyones shooting ability. Sure that last Guardian is going to stay around until he eats another heavy bolter round and finally dies, but so what? If you were smart and advanced your Guardians every turn, and kept the gunner ahead of cover on the way back to your board edge...I like to call this 'tactics' but it seems lost on people. Yes, I will shoot you with my stupid Scatter Laser guardians until you kill them; whether I have an Avatar or I don't. Whether they break or don't.

7) Better to not be seen at all, than to be seen and be 'almost' invulnerable. Especially when everyone can see you, and shoot you. My Eldar army apparently infuriates all that play it, because the only thing they can shoot at are my Falcons or the Biker Council. Everyone's favorite topic of discussion when it comes to unkillability. The Avatar and Eldrad? Shoot the Avatar dead. Oh was he fortuned? Fine, I'll shoot the Dark Reapers. Or the War Walkers. Eldrad is good at casting powers, but he can't make up for T3 and AV10. Everyone makes a big talk about bringing these units in combination with Eldrad, then talk about Tri-Falcon. Really? So you have 5 heavy supports? Neat! Make up your mind, are you running Mech Eldar or foot slogging Eldar? You can't run both! Well, you CAN but if you run Wave Serpents with a bunch of infantry...I'm sure your opponent will find it an odd combination. Then proceeed to beat you.

8) What else can I get for 365 points? Well, you can get 2 Falcons. You can get a Warlock Biker squad. 4 Guardian squads. Lots of stuff, that will be effective.

9) Counters: Tyranids. Well quite a few people think Choirs are autowins if you run foot Eldar without the Avatar / Eldrad Combo. I find this interesting, given you lack a serious amount of points just so Zoanthropes can't give you penalties. Aren't you mobile? You can split your army along the board edges, and stay beyond a dakkafexes range for a long time. Does being Fearless prevent you from being shot to pieces once they get in range? No. Given most well-run Tyranid lists are gunwalls and the lists running 2-3 groups of MC, some in front and some in back....are just not sound tactically, and the gunwalls hide Genestealers, Raveners, and/or Gaunts...all units that can match or beat your speed; you can't really tie down TMC lists in CC with Guardians. It's too easy to block or eradicate with a properly run gunwall. Eldrad gives extra protection and more shooty, but the Tyranid MC list will nullify your Falcons, and put tons of wounds on everything else he could be protecting (or in the case of Serpents, Vypers, and War Walkers; just blow them up). If you are running pathfinders and Dark Reapers, what happens when the TMC get to 18" and put 6-7 wounds on your squads? Being fortuned only goes so far. All these units are vulnerable to assault, so without a solid counterattack you're in trouble. The Avatar isn't bad, but if he runs into a Hive Tyrant with implant attack he drops, and if he gets shot...he better be fortuned. Not that most TMC lists will care about the Avatar, they'll punish all those cheap guardian units first then worry about him. Eldrad hurts TMC, one wound at a time...exciting and effective in CC he isn't. Even MW doesn't really faze TM lists.

10) Counters: Drop Podding Librarians with Fear of the Darkness. Not something I favor myself, as it's easily dealt with. As most drop pod armies are entirely drop, you run your entire army forward if you are foot bound. Unlike static shooting armies, Eldar can maneuver and shoot drop pod armies to pieces once they arrive as they are then horribly static armies with...bolters. If you are forward, when and if Fear comes, a couple units will break. So what. Unless he is psychic, he won't know which ones will break; and he has to drop everything he got reserves in for before he can drop fear on your army. It also has a serious drawback, in that against savvy players they'll give you a couple units to 'feed' on and hope they break so the supporting squad cannot shoot you (thus cannot reduce you below half, and since it's your next turn...you'll be able to try rally, but even if you fail...you can still move and shoot.) Still in range because you rolled low, and cannot rally? Fleet! All you need to do is get the other guy to think his 'uber' tactic is not going to work because you'll rally next turn and he'll drop pod a marine unit in a bad spot just to escort your squad off the board. Awesome! You can nullify a 200 point squad with a cheap 100 point squad...this is bad, how? If you don't fall back off the board, don't forget to shoot 'em with the heavy weapon. Now add in some more advanced tactics, and you'll find you've nothing to fear from the darkness. Put squads in a long line (max coherency horizontally). The cheap ones you could care less about. Move them forward, fleeting ahead. Now put 3" between your squads vertically. Sorry, there are no 1" drop pods. Do the math. With just TWO cheap squads in front and 2 on the side, you can nullify almost everything a drop pod army can do to your entire army. 10 guardians covers 22" of board. 1" away from your models is the closest he can place. Your models are 1" across. With 3" between the squads in front and behind...that's 1+1+3+1+3. Woah is that 12"? Oh too bad, so sad. You can't get anything but my cheap guardians + 1 'good' unit with your librarian. Good luck with that strategy. Assuming you roll a hit or don't scatter away from me, you get...3 squads? Big deal. Let's say 4. 2 run away, pretty much every time. Since you should be 10" to 17" up (if you didn't get to go first, squads 1 + 2), you should have no problem getting away and trying to rally. Even if you don't, so what? He's wasted alot of points on the Librarian, Command Squad, and Drop Pod (even more fun if it's a terminator squad!). Gee, why do I need to spend 155 points to 'save' what isn't going to be lost? Save 2 squads? Oh boy! I just spent 75% of their points to 'save' them. Why not just let the Librarian come, then shoot/assault his entire unit to death. They're just marines, after all.

11) I expect a lot of one liners coming into this thread, and while I can't do anything about the people who swear they have 'perfect' foils for everything I say and do; the truth is the truth. Eldar run properly are very hard to beat. Phil Kelly saw to that with the new Codex. I just don't think Eldrad and the Avatar are good for their points, and this was brought to his attention before and after publication. You may find use in them, but if you ever face me in a game I'll make you regret taking them. Not just with my drop pod list or my TMC list. With any army (I have all of them, barring the Inquisitorial crapfest and the Necraponicon), I'll make you feel those 365 points sunk into two slow cheerleaders. They can't be everywhere, and they can't do much from across the board but be annoying.

12) 5th edition. I expect alot of people to change their mech Eldar lists. They can't handle the new rules. I've been examining them as they get pushed out. I think my Autarch on a bike will be replaced with a 2nd farseer on a bike...maybe. That's it. The Eldar aren't indestructible as they stand now, but since the Eldar Codex was designed with 5th edition in mind when it comes out next year I think alot of people will be surprised at how resilient Phil Kelly's design is. I will fear Wraithguard, for the first time in almost a decade. I guess you'll all just have to watch and see for yourself, but unless Hasbro-Mart takes over the hobby or Jervis kills Phil off and puts Gav in his place (or allows Allessio to put more Fantasy rules in) the Eldar; both foot and mech, will be completely viable and the above advice will hold true. Remember, what works against deep strike works against other new strategies being added to the game....and if you bring Eldrad without bringing a Phoenix Lord or the Avatar, he'll get shot off the board along with his squad. Oh and divination won't be useless like some people think. Trust me.

Post your 5th ed 1850p Eldar mech list.

I'm not sure if it's as dire as you say but your probably right. I've been trying to think of what my next gen list is going to be. I've tried the avatar elderad gun line. And like you said so many time before stelek good generalship can pull it though. You just feel like your playing at a disadvantage because your shooting base needs to follow the avatar around. You can hide him, but then you aren't mobile. A question I'm going to need answered is whether or not fortune can be cast on vehicles before I give up on them.

My one-liner:
You sir, are a muppet.

Rebuttal:
Eldratard at 1850 is the absolute best pick for any non-mechanized list that includes a farseer.

The avatar is 155pts of melta-shooting, fearless causing, close combat denying, rerollable 3+/4+ monster.

Eldrad is as good as two farseers for fewer points, and lets you redeploy a unit. He's frigging amazing. I originally disagreed with this, but I came around after thinking about it a lot.

He can use any of the powers, all of which (barring eldritch crap) are good. mind warring heavy weapons squads, fortuning advancing units, guiding warwalkers, whatever.

Since mechanized is by far the more powerful list in 4th edition you are correct. In 4e, Eldratard is a poor choice, because autarchs are a better choice for mechanized. However, 5th ed skimmer nerf + rending nerf + the KP changes will make the mechanized army essentially useless.

plus, I wonder how you got the energy to write six pages about something everyone already knows?

wow, mechanized Eldar are the best in 4th edition, and Eldrad is too expensive for that. thanks for the news flash there olson.

Stelek wrote:

3) At more normal points levels of 1750, 1850, and 2000 points....optimized lists still have a 21%, 20%, and 18.5% advantage. Rounded my math, be kind and spare me the equation to Pi, please.

Stelek, it appears you want to take the worst of two stances.

You like to optimise like a minimaxer. Thats ok, so long as you dont fall into the minimaxers trollpit of decrying anything not optimised as 'sucks'.
However your optimisation stats are far more often wrong that right.

You like to diversify like a themed gamer. Taking options the minimaxers, and the herd that follow them, would not take.
Howver you dont do it to theme an army but as misguided optimisation.


Stelek, feel free to find ways to take rarer choices and unit combinations for your armies. You will in time become a very good player by learning to play well without resorting to minimaxing, after all anyone can minimax. However if you insist on trying to become the next math guru, listen to what the other minimaxers are saying, they have a concensus, and reluctantly they have a point.

"Eldrad + Avatar isnt good"

Stelek, you suck at this game, understand NOTHING about eldar synergy, and offer probably the worst advice I've ever seen on Dakka....especially for eldar.

Your post smacks of someone who just got schooled by an Eldrad/Avatar list and wants to blow off steam. To say that they suck and arent worth the points is sheer idiocy...really...give it up. (though I know you wont)

Not everyone will stand there and let you blast Eldrad off of the board. Even in 5th, Eldrad can hide BEHIND vehicles (warwalkers). Smart players wont let you simply shoot the lynchpins of their armies. Especially considering your static lists that you constantly post.

1) What surprise? Everyone knows what Eldravatar can do by now or are Noobs....their synergy is still reliable however.

2) I cant see an "Advantage" since Eldravatar is so effective...against any army.

3) Any point limit, the combo is still effective.

4) Avatar only a cheerleader...more like he is a rock that holds the army together, nigh unkillable with Eldrad in tow.

5) Eldrad is such a versitile force multiplyer it isnt even funny. He's capable of MUCH more than just guide and fortune, if you dont know that, you havent played and experemented with him enough.

6) No the Avatar doenst boost shooting ability. A unit of 10 shooting a heavy weapon until the last man is dead without fear of routing or last man standing checks even with a leadership of only 8 hasnt been boosted at all.

7) Again, you obviously dont understand the versatility of Eldrad. More than simple fortune and guide. He murders multible wound models in the endgame, sometimes lowers armour 14-13 to a simple 10, provides good psychic defense, great situational assault point defense against things harlequins might have trouble against, makes wounding against anything easier and more reliable....the list goes on.

8) 365 points you would trade in for HQ units wouldnt be NEARLY as effective as Eldrad and Avatar together.

9) Eldrad and Avatar work magic against tyranids, they're hardly a counter. Tyranids cant do ANYTHING against Eldravatar they cant do against the rest of the eldar list. You say that Tyranids are a counter when Eldrad can almost reliably KILL a tyranid monstrous creature a turn with mind war....throw in an avatar and you have serious damage done. You're number nine example is absolutly ridiculous.

10) I dont understand your aversion to fearlessness against FoTD. Since fearlessness trumps it and doenst even require clever positioning or tactics...it simply takes it out of the equation.

11) You'll make people regret taking Eldrad/Avatar. That makes tons of sense. Yea, I wish I didnt take units that effected my army as a whole with abilities that you arent able to shut down. If you beat someone with Eldravatar, it means you beat their list, not that Eldravatar is garbage....it isnt.

Eldrad/avatar has to be like the #1 combo you hate seeing as a daemon prince player. heh.

I'm going to play devils advocate a bit.

1. We all agree that avatar and elderad are slow, being slow they aren't that great for fast/mech armies.

2. Stelek believes that better eldar armies tend to have fast moving elements that wouldn't receive much benefit from the combo.

3. The list I see Stelek routinely refer to is a bike heavy army wih biked council and 3 falcons full of dragons.

Stelek loves his list, and thats fine. He believe a good eldar army should be fast, honestly I kind of agree. Now the crux of this argument is wether a ground pounding army is competitive or not. If it is, then there is more than likely a place in it for ederad and an avatar.

SO the first question is what does a competitive ground list look and play like? Is it full of waithguard guardians and wailords? Is it just guardian with DA support?

@Deadshane, Stelek cannot "offer the worst advice that you have ever seen on Dakka", can he? There has to have been somebody, sometime who offered worse advice. I just can't think of anyone right now. Can someone help me out here? Anyone?

Darrian

@gdraunt, Blackmoor did very well with his footslogging Eldar at the GT's this year. As a matter of fact, I believe that he has the highes overall battle points for any Eldar player in the circuit this year.

My point, footslogging Eldar are very powerful.

Darrian

It's a comedy everybody!

Longshot as Agent Polk.
Darrian as Lt. Snyder.
Deadshane as Doyle Lonnigan.
Orlanth as Floyd.

Ah the humor of the regular crowd humors me greatly. Thanks for being so predictably you!

Yes, this is all the response you rate, sorry fellas. Great comedy though!

gdurant wrote:I'm going to play devils advocate a bit.

1. We all agree that avatar and elderad are slow, being slow they aren't that great for fast/mech armies.

2. Stelek believes that better eldar armies tend to have fast moving elements that wouldn't receive much benefit from the combo.

3. The list I see Stelek routinely refer to is a bike heavy army wih biked council and 3 falcons full of dragons.

Stelek loves his list, and thats fine. He believe a good eldar army should be fast, honestly I kind of agree. Now the crux of this argument is wether a ground pounding army is competitive or not. If it is, then there is more than likely a place in it for ederad and an avatar.

SO the first question is what does a competitive ground list look and play like? Is it full of waithguard guardians and wailords? Is it just guardian with DA support?

It's always 2 Falcons full of Dragons, actually. My 3rd choice is always a Fire Prism.

I think if you are going to go ground, you need to max out your slots and not worry so much about bringing a cheerleading section. I don't know why some people think what they do, I just chalk it up to inexperience. So many people seem to fear 'The Gimmick' which can be removed by generalship but when we talk about THEIR 'The Gimmick' they think all of a sudden it's the best thing EVARGH!

I don't know if Wraithguard will ever be truly 'mobile', but like the other T6 400+ point units in the game (Nurgle Bikers) they're something to fear when they have a Warlock + Farseer (fortune for the 3/5 reroll) and are running up the board at you and you can't stop them. Right now, you can avoid them and pummel them with shots. When you can't avoid them I know I'm not looking forward to it. 20 T6 guys and 3 Wraithlords...toss in some Harlie or Shining Spear support to break MC's and assault squads off the Wraithlords...well, I haven't gotten anything better than a draw so far with 5 attempts in.

Darrian13 wrote:@gdraunt, Blackmoor did very well with his footslogging Eldar at the GT's this year. As a matter of fact, I believe that he has the highes overall battle points for any Eldar player in the circuit this year.

My point, footslogging Eldar are very powerful.

Darrian

cool beans, whats his list look like?

Stelek wrote:It's a comedy everybody!

Longshot as Agent Polk.
Darrian as Lt. Snyder.
Deadshane as Doyle Lonnigan.
Orlanth as Floyd.

Ah the humor of the regular crowd humors me greatly. Thanks for being so predictably you!

Yes, this is all the response you rate, sorry fellas. Great comedy though!

Believe it or not, you do actually have the option of not posting.

You might be received a little better (although it's probably too late for that) if instead of creating a topic that says basically "everyone's wrong and I'm right" without providing alternatives or explaining why those alternatives are better you asked "How sure are you that Eldrad+ Avatar is useful in 4th and 5th" and maybe used a little math (!) to back that up.

Terminizzle wrote:Believe it or not, you do actually have the option of not posting.

So do you! Please exercise that right more frequently.

Terminizzle wrote:You might be received a little better (although it's probably too late for that) if instead of creating a topic that says basically "everyone's wrong and I'm right" without providing alternatives or explaining why those alternatives are better you asked "How sure are you that Eldrad+ Avatar is useful in 4th and 5th" and maybe used a little math (!) to back that up.

Gee, was that your best attempt at a cheap shot? Try harder, or if you could just make the minimal effort and read what I posted. You know, the bit with the math in it. Do you need it in a formula before you can 'accept' it? 155/8*X+Y=Z. X is number of guardians. Y are warlocks and guns. Z is the points spent to gain said fearlessness. Factor out Z across 4 squads of Guardians (a reasonable number), where 1*G equals the number of shots you'll get with your heavy weapons vs marines. G can be ML, BL; Starcannon; or Scatter Laser. Effectiveness of all of these with 2 guides (from Eldrad) is still questionable. Maybe you've played Eldar before, and you're all excited with twin-linked BS3. It's been crap for a decade, but hey let's bury our head in the sand and pretend like all the other BS3 shots you've got that aren't twin-linked are suddenly going to do so much better.

Alot of you guys think spending more points on the cheapest troops you get (and that aren't very good) makes for a solid list. I scoff at the very idea. I'll take two more squads of guardians instead, and just suffer through not being fearless. Almost 10% of my army points for a big shoot me sign that makes everyone within range fearless? Please! You want to bring in real arguments, fellas?

Please, more 'Stelek sucks'. Really drives home my point that you have nothing but bullsh** to argue with. All the people reading this are getting a kick out of one of us, so it's all good. I'm here to entertain!

Eldrad can be great for a mech list:

Redeploy Skimmers pregame - it even affects an opponent who expects it.

Fortune a unit of Shining Spears first turn and guide 2x5 Pathfinders.

Move forward covered by Spears and Falcons going ahead.

Each turn doom a target to drastically improve Pathfinders and throw up to two Mindwars per turn against TMCs/Marines etc or rotate enemy tanks to hit their rears with multiple Falcon shots.

Using Eldrad like this of course only works with the right units, namely Harlequin carrying Falcons to zoom ahead accompanied by Spears. Pathfinders arent nesseccary but do work well.

The Avatar is far from useless in this list, but is a bit slow to really shine in comparison to Shining Spears (<-pun) plus Bike-Autarch.

Stelek wrote:All the people reading this are getting a kick out of one of us, so it's all good.

True that.

Raider, I have a few questions for ya.

Why would redeploying skimmers (who can already redeploy) affect anyone? Against Eldar you usually don't setup like a twit across the whole board, you sit in a corner and deny them their greatest strength--mobility. Don't you?

The Shining Spears being fortuned is great until after they assault after speeding, and get hurt in CC and/or hit n'run but can't be fortuned again and die.

Do you really get away with having Eldrad 18" from your opponents army? I'm just curious why he isn't getting killed. I'll trade an assault squad to kill him off. I dunno, I've never been MW'ed or or Stormed without being able to immediately threaten said Farseer. Doom is fine, I just don't see the strength in it unless you fire your whole army at the doomed unit. Which is usually not a great way to use your army.

Well anyways just curious what the answers are.

Redeployment: Theres normally some pieces of area 3 terrain and an opponnent can either split his force (good for Eldar) to snipe around the terrain from both sides, or he will keep his army in one place covering only one side of the area terrain. Redeployment allows Eldar to set up in an optimum angle behind terrain after the opponent made his decision.

Btw its funny to place a model like Eldrad next to the table when setting up even if you wont actually use him. I do that with Space Wolve OBEL-Scouts at times, often taunting an opponent into guessing games.

Spears alone dont do well unfortuned similarly to an unsupported Eldrad, but using them all in conjunction with 2 units of Harlequins and (possibly tankshocking) Falcons changes the equation.

Even using Eldrad as a bait to make the opponent send his fast stuff ahead can work in your favor, given that Eldrad can survive a bit of a beating on his own as long as you make sure not whole sqads can make it into contact. (using terrain and skimmers to hinder opponents movement.)

Open for business again. And enough with the flaming.

The Eldratard just isn't that great for Mech. If you want to disprove it's strengths, it has to be looked at in an advancing or static gunline setup. Trying to argue about it in a mech list (where it is a slight mismatch at best) is like arguing that knives suck because they can't be used to eat soup.

Raider: Cheap and evil but funny!

Whoah. Just realized how useful Eldrad will be with Run around. Sitting still to cast shooting-phase powers is going to be a bad idea when everyone else is super mobile. Being able to use multiple powers (or instances of the same power) during other phases is going to rock. He's a Fortune pump for me as soon as 5th begins.

Stelek wrote:Reasons why Eldatatard isn't good in 4th edition:

1) All the newbs you pwned with it have figured it out. The advantage of surprise is over.

2) At 'wussy' points levels of 1500 points, optimized lists have a 365 point advantage on you. It's crippling. (Almost 25%)

3) At more normal points levels of 1750, 1850, and 2000 points....optimized lists still have a 21%, 20%, and 18.5% advantage. Rounded my math, be kind and spare me the equation to Pi, please. Trust me.

I was tempted to pick apart your points one by one and show everyone (again) how wrong you are, but Longshot did a good job of it.

As for proof of its effectiveness, I took the Eldrad/Avatar combo to several events this year and the only thing in my army that had a base move over 6” was my 2 Falcons.

I went 4-0-1 with 80 battle points (3 above Steleks Mech list) at the Las Vegas GT
I went 5-0 with 97 battle points at Baltimore GT (I would have gotten a perfect 100 battle points, but I misread the missions and I thought you needed to keep a unit alive, when you needed to kill it, and I put it on my fortuned Dark Reapers that never die).

Oh, and I also went on to win 2nd place at the Game Empire Pasadena ‘Ardboyz, tournament, won the Southern California semi-finals, and went 2-1 at the finals.

And I did all of that wasting my points on the Avatar/Eldrad combo. The odd thing is that most players buy 2 HQs that cost a lot anyways, so you might was well buy the best.

In 10 of my GT games, the Avatar only died once, and that was after 2 rounds of Tau shooting that he should have shot at my army. He was upset afterwards because if the went for the strait out gun duel, he would have shot me off of the table, but he chose to take down the Avatar.

gdurant wrote:

Darrian13 wrote:@gdraunt, Blackmoor did very well with his footslogging Eldar at the GT's this year. As a matter of fact, I believe that he has the highes overall battle points for any Eldar player in the circuit this year.

My point, footslogging Eldar are very powerful.

Darrian

cool beans, whats his list look like?

Ask, and you shall receive!

Not only will I show you my list, here are my 5 games at the Las Vegas GT:
Game #1
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/168713.page
Game #2
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/168916.page
Game #3
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/169437.page
Game #4
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/169568.page
Game #5
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/169568.page

The funny thing is that he says that the Avatar is just a cheerleader, but if it was not for him, I would have lost game #5. I was hit by DE Wyches that killed my Dire Avengers, then killed my Harlequins, and them would have gone through the rest of my army.



Here is the last turn of Game #1 at the Baltimore GT where you had to get the most scoring units within 12" of the middle of the table. You see that he has 3 scoring units, and Mr Avatar makes it 4 for me. Are there any other Eldar HQs that are scoring units?

And see that Monolith to the right? It was shot down by a Guardian Brightlance!

All I want to see is a picture, Blackmoor.

Glad you did well with your army against your opponents, kudos to you.

I'll withhold comment till I see a pic.

Stelek wrote:All I want to see is a picture, Blackmoor.

Glad you did well with your army against your opponents, kudos to you.

I'll withhold comment till I see a pic.

Pictures steal your soul.

Here is one when I was not looking

http://www.adepticon.org/gallery/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=1151&g2_serialNumber=1
Hmm, didn't come out. I will change it to a URL.

Picture of what? I think we can ALL see very clearly that Blackmoor has proven you wrong.


Darrian

lol poor darrian. You just never give up.

Blackmoor which one is you? lol can't see anything.

Eldrad is pretty much the only thing that will make a wraithguard list viable too =P

Longshot wrote:Eldrad is pretty much the only thing that will make a wraithguard list viable too =P

What makes you think so? Just curious.

The double Farseer/double Wraithguard troops army has been kicking my trash. lol and here I thought Nurgle Bikers were annoying.

Wraithguard are slow , wraithguard as troops are guaranteed slow because you cant transport them with anything less than a Vampire, and wraithguard are very expensive.

Slow and short ranged is a poor combination no matter how good your statline. What you described as an army core is 900pts lightly tooled up, with a ball and chain move and 12" guns, albeit good ones.

Unless you are playing a themed list full of deliberately chosen junk (like Iyanden do), or you havent a clue, a wraithguard Iyanden list should not be persistent challenge.

Longshot wrote:Eldrad is pretty much the only thing that will make a wraithguard list viable too =P

I don’t see how Eldrad is that much better for Wraithguard.

The thing that makes Eldrad so good is that he is a force multiplier, and the ability to cast whatever he wants, whenever he wants to makes him good.

For Wraithguard the thing you need is Fortune to make them nearly indestructible. It seems like you can get away with a regular Farseer since you will not use Doom and Guide much.

Orlanth the problem is as follows:

T6.

Screen everything but MC and vehicles.

Fearless.

Run.

Farseer + Warlock in the unit for CC goodness.

3+ armor save, re-rollable.

5+ cover save, re-rollable. Oh you're going to light me up this turn? Ok, I'll go to FOW mode and take myself to a 4+ cover save, re-rollable. Darnit I'm pinned. What's behind me waiting to come out?

Run almost anything from the list of goodies (Banshees, Harlequins, Scorpions, Warp Spiders, Warlock units, Shining Spears) up behind them, use Falcons or Wraithlords (for fire support) plus a few guardian squads (fire support and objective grabbing)...

Yeah, it's a bunch of bullsh*t. You should try it.

Where is the run coming from? They are not fleet, and noone wants to be stupid enough to get close to them. Other units are fleet, but you would either have to lurk them behind the wraithguard and hope they fail priority tests. That will work against guard half the time, and Tau if the dont take the C&C node or Pathfinders. Everying else had the Ld to igfnore screening. Screening has been by and large dead since 3.0

Sorry Stelek Wraithguard are fairly resilent, but not 35pts of resilient. The guns that will be taking them down will be ignoring their armour save, a rerolled 5+ will save just over half, but with your core of the army being 24 models the saves you make will not be enough. Acadfemic freally, as most armies will shjoot past them.

As for the close combat ability. s5 is good, but there is nothing in the unit that can bypass an armour save. There are many much cheaper options available to most army lists that will tear apart wraithguard up close.


Your biggest problem remains the cost, 900pts that doesnt do anything half the game, its a crippling handicap. In a 1500pt game you are playing with 600pts against 1500pts until the wraithguard get within 12", assuming hyou set up o the front line, and the opponent falls back 6" you wont get to do anything until turn 3 at the earliest, by which time a shooty army would have taken a very heavy toll of the Eldar army, and an assault army would have seized the initiative.

Orlanth wrote:Where is the run coming from? They are not fleet, and noone wants to be stupid enough to get close to them. Other units are fleet, but you would either have to lurk them behind the wraithguard and hope they fail priority tests. That will work against guard half the time, and Tau if the dont take the C&C node or Pathfinders. Everying else had the Ld to igfnore screening. Screening has been by and large dead since 3.0

Sorry Stelek Wraithguard are fairly resilent, but not 35pts of resilient. The guns that will be taking them down will be ignoring their armour save, a rerolled 5+ will save just over half, but with your core of the army being 24 models the saves you make will not be enough. Acadfemic freally, as most armies will shjoot past them.

As for the close combat ability. s5 is good, but there is nothing in the unit that can bypass an armour save. There are many much cheaper options available to most army lists that will tear apart wraithguard up close.


Your biggest problem remains the cost, 900pts that doesnt do anything half the game, its a crippling handicap. In a 1500pt game you are playing with 600pts against 1500pts until the wraithguard get within 12", assuming hyou set up o the front line, and the opponent falls back 6" you wont get to do anything until turn 3 at the earliest, by which time a shooty army would have taken a very heavy toll of the Eldar army, and an assault army would have seized the initiative.

Waithguard (and pretty much everything) can run in fifth ed

You do realize this is a discussion about 5th edition, right?

Wraithguard can run.

You can choose to pin and improve your cover save to 4+.
Re-rollable 4+ saves...who does that sound like. Oh yeah, Seer Council....but at T6.

Since Wraithguard can block LOS, you park them 1+" apart and screen a full unit of Harlequins right behind them.

Go ahead and assault. See how fun it is for the Eldar player. By the way, can you tell me what will 'own' Wraithguard? Remember the power fist nerf, friend.

900 points whittled down to 1 Wraithguard per squad is still two scoring units. Since it only takes 2 turns to get close to the other army, you have a choice. Get shot by the Wraithguard, or assault the tarpit and get owned by Harlequins.

Just FYI, I've played 3 games against the list. My drop pod marines lost, my Tau drew, and my Nids got a win. It's perfectly viable because in the new missions if you don't kill every single wraithguard, they contest and you can't win.

Play with the new rules...really.

The Avatar is good, and always will be, if you're taking Guardians and Dire Avengers he's twice as good. There's more than one way to play Eldar and foot slogging/ combined arms is perfectly viable.

Eldrad is good but you have to have a plan for him. I don't use him because he can't fleet but I might consider him in 5th because now he can run. A Farseer pays about 70 points each for his powers and Eldrad pays the same. He works well with an Avatar because you can fit 3 powers in one HQ slot.

Guardians are good but if you don't use them for their Shuriken catapults they are crap. You get way more Shuriken catapult offensive point for point with guardians than you do with Guardian jetbikes. Guide + Avatar is a great way to use them, which only makes sense for Eldar's basic Troop choice.

And Wraithguard are ok. Fearless is the bomb and everytime you pass one of those conceal saves you just got 35 points for free. They will block LoS in 5th which makes baby Jesus grow into big daddy happy pants.

Excelsior!

*sniffs some more paint*

You get more shuriken cat offense with the Guardians?

12" move + 12" range + 6" fallback; twin-linked.

6" move + 12" range + take it in the ass; not twin-linked.

lol how's it better again? Pay for a farseer to 'guide'? No thanks. I think Jetbikes are superior for delivering firepower. They lack heavy weapons, but they also don't get shot off the board.

I run my guardians in a 14 man squad including conceal w/ a Scatterlaser, that comes to 159 points. Compare this to Jetbikes at 152 points for 2 Cannons and 4 twin-linked Shuricats.

So 12 Shuricats + Pistol Shot vs 4 TL Shuricats for the same price. Given their mobility lets say the Bikes shoot twice as much so it's 12 vs 8 TL so it's about the same.

In exchange Guardians give you many more bodies in close combat.

If you like Farseers you can guide the guardians giving them massive concentrated fire power. Effective in a 20 man squad but then you're taking a big chance since your opponent will likely charge them first.

I'd say pure shooty/ objective grabbing bikes might be better (and they fit the theme of a mech list) but guardians are a perfectly good unit in their own right.

I've only had them actually killed to shooting a couple of times. Once against a Railhead w/ 3 markerlights helping it, and a couple times against a grumpy marine player heavy on storm bolters.

Normally they get cut down in close combat or run away (firing their weapon) but the Avatar stops this, making them a much much better squad.

I'll admit one army I used to have problems with was Speed Freak Orks with all their burnas everywhere. The lack of a stand and shoot option on their catapults hurts them when they are outmanouvered.

foot slogging orks I did good against but that was via scorpions and shooting down anything with an armour value.

gdurant wrote:
Waithguard (and pretty much everything) can run in fifth ed

The original topic was about 4th and 5th edition Avatar and Eldrad, not wraithguard

Stelek wrote:You do realize this is a discussion about 5th edition, right?

Wraithguard can run.

You were discussing having problems with wraithguard in current games.

Blackmoor wrote:

Longshot wrote:Eldrad is pretty much the only thing that will make a wraithguard list viable too =P

I don’t see how Eldrad is that much better for Wraithguard.

The thing that makes Eldrad so good is that he is a force multiplier, and the ability to cast whatever he wants, whenever he wants to makes him good.

For Wraithguard the thing you need is Fortune to make them nearly indestructible. It seems like you can get away with a regular Farseer since you will not use Doom and Guide much.

Eldrad lets you fortune two units and guide one, vs. fortune and guide of a normal farseer. Plus he lets you redeploy your massive, unwieldy, very expensive units.

Since wraithguard are Bs4 and have Ap2 guns, being able to guide them is great. Being able to guide your antitank guns (EML + Brightlance wraithlord) is even better.

Oh and the redeploy thing, if you get first turn, is going to be frigging ridiculous. You deploy your whole army. Wait for opponent to deploy.

Redeploy your units, then go first.

Ouch:(

Stelek wrote:You get more shuriken cat offense with the Guardians?

12" move + 12" range + 6" fallback; twin-linked.

6" move + 12" range + take it in the ass; not twin-linked.

lol how's it better again? Pay for a farseer to 'guide'? No thanks. I think Jetbikes are superior for delivering firepower. They lack heavy weapons, but they also don't get shot off the board.

Why do you keep switching back and forth between 4th and 5th Edition?

Also, you mentioned a Power Fist nerf- haven't read anything about that yet- what does it entail exactly?

Power fist no longer counts as 1 handed weapon unless it is coupled with another power fist like weapon. So you don't get +1 attack for fist and pistol in 5th edition.

Sorry the point of the thread was the difference between 4th and 5th edition Eldadator's zomg factor.

I think he's so-so in 4th, and in certain army matchups he's craptastic.

5th edition, I think the Avatar gets stronger in CC (against Marines) but weaker vs shooting, and Eldrad while he's a good psyker is a really bad choice unless you have an Avatar to keep his protective guardian squad fearless.

K?

Longshot wrote:Oh and the redeploy thing, if you get first turn, is going to be frigging ridiculous. You deploy your whole army. Wait for opponent to deploy.

Redeploy your units, then go first.

Ouch:(

Yes ouch indeed, not only do you get an early charge as Eldar are wont to do, but you get to flumox the opponent with the deployment of your most powerful assault units and get to assault with them along axes of advance the enemy has least covered with their guns. Given certain aspect lists that is a game winner right there.

Thankyou, notes have been taken.

I don't understand what's so great about Eldravatar. Am I the only one that runs an army that's very big on infantry that won't care about their starcannons and brightlances and can easily gun down every guardian squad into non-scoring while ignoring the avatar?

And if they're down to a handful of models, I'll go ahead and assault them. They're guardians. Some will die, the rest of the fearless ones will fail their puny saves due to No Retreat! and then there we are. Sure, the avatar will get into combat. But honestly if I'm in there mixing it up with the avatar, Eldrad is closeby, and he'll be the target for the next squad.

What army do you play spellbound?

Greets
Schepp himself

Hmmm....I think spellbound runs any army. Well ok, probably not Khorne.

You guys are funny.

You need to follow me around when I play at RTTs so you can convince my opponents that it is a waste of points. It seems like after I beat them very badly they all think it is cheesy.

Spellbound wrote:I don't understand what's so great about Eldravatar. Am I the only one that runs an army that's very big on infantry that won't care about their starcannons and brightlances and can easily gun down every guardian squad into non-scoring while ignoring the avatar?

And if they're down to a handful of models, I'll go ahead and assault them. They're guardians. Some will die, the rest of the fearless ones will fail their puny saves due to No Retreat! and then there we are. Sure, the avatar will get into combat. But honestly if I'm in there mixing it up with the avatar, Eldrad is closeby, and he'll be the target for the next squad.

This sounds good on paper until you notice.

Unless you are facing an Eldar horde army, all those dirt cheap guardians are only a fraction of the armies power, you want to assault what is left, face the counterassault of aspects and harlies.

If you are facing a guardian horde gunning down units of 20 guardians with conceal and Avatar is not something you can dismiss as a certain win. There is a lot of hidden power in those unit from the walking heavy weapons, the spear, 5+ cover saves and fearless. Don't underestimate them.

Guardian lists are overshadowed by holofalcons, but is by no means weak. 5th edition will make them strong with untargetable aspects and D-Cannon behind the marching guardian wall.

well, i try to stick to only speaking from experience, so i'll just say that eldrad has been a total waste for any opponent who's fielded him against me. has something to do with being eaten by scarabs.

I think Eldrad is priceless, but I have to admit that my more gamier opponents tend to get a powerfist into base contact with him, and then he always fails his save...

However, in 5th he'll be attached to a fortuned unit most of the time, so that won't be such a prob...


EDIT: Eldrad might actually make good sense attached to a squad of 10 Wraithguard...

Blackmoor wrote:You guys are funny.

You need to follow me around when I play at RTTs so you can convince my opponents that it is a waste of points. It seems like after I beat them very badly they all think it is cheesy.

Play better opponents. :(

I suppose you just ask the tourney organizer to only pair you up with the best opponents in the tourney as it is a waste of time to do otherwise.

Blackmoor played in multiple states and GT's and has a good record with the craptastic combo and your rebuttal is to play better opponents???

Wow....

Sarigar wrote:I suppose you just ask the tourney organizer to only pair you up with the best opponents in the tourney as it is a waste of time to do otherwise.

Blackmoor played in multiple states and GT's and has a good record with the craptastic combo and your rebuttal is to play better opponents???

Wow....

Can't agree more. Sari, you totally posted like right as I was logging in to post the same thing.

Stelek Cred = 0
Blackmoor Cred = Alot more than that

Is there anyway we can convince you to just go away? Maybe by offering you some money or something?

Oh no, I've been hit with the cred bat by the trolls!

Rofl! The sad facts of me playing in multiple states and having a good record without using the craptastic combo is I suppose meaningless for people such as yourself.

I do ask for the 'local champion' when I go to events, or at least someone who builds competitive lists. Often I'm disappointed as all hell.

Sadly you've contributed nothing to the discussion.

Sadly, neither have you.

And actually, I'm willing to contribute 100 dollars to this conversation. Seriously, if I paypal you 100 dollars, will you promise to never post on Dakka again?

Everyone, ray of sunshine. Sunshine, everyone.

Can we honestly ban this total fething waste yet, or do we have to keep the moron around for a few more weeks. Its not really funny anymore, he is just a boring, trollish donkey-cave who doesn't understand math, can't distinguish between objectivity and hearsay and has the fething bravado and nerve to tell a multiple GT contender to play better opponents. I don't care how good of a person he is in real life, because on this forum he is a joke, and an old one at that.

Oh my god! Alert a mod! Bring out the censorship gun! Stelek is being attacked! I REPEAT: STELEK IS BEING ATTACKED!

HIT THE DECK!!!!!



edit: if I were Stelek, I'd take that offer. What an easy $100...and everybody wins! (and no making new accounts...the ignorance smacks too loudly so we'd know!)

Darkhellion, you know the only possible outcome of doing this again is another temporary ban.

Your post would have been just as or more effective at making your point without the insults.

Please folks, bear in mind that deconstructing someone's post or argument and attacking the ideas is always better than attacking the person.

I simply don't use the eldrad+avatar combo, because I dislike special characters in a standard army list. Without that credo, I would take him everytime, just because he is almost always better than a ordinary farseer. If you start to tool him up, e gets almost as expensive as eldrad but far worse. So in conclusion, saying that eldrad isn't good (in this case with avatar) is like saying a farseer ain't any good, which is in fact, simply untrue.

Not in every list, sometimes you need that ride for your seer, but in every other list...

Greets
Schepp himself

Well, it think the secret to my army is that I have a lot of victory points left over at the end of the game.

It always looks like I have been chewed up, and a lot of units have been killed, but they are mostly cheap Guardians and Dire Avengers.

I normally have the Avatar, Eldrad, Dark Reapers and a Falcon or 2 still flying around at the end of turn #6. Those units are very hard to kill and that is 800+ VPs right there. It might look like I have nothing left, but what I have costs a lot.


Also why does everyone say that my army will be getting a lot worse in 5th edition? Is it just because of the skimmer nerf? I just don't see it. The only change I see is that I have to be more careful when I move my Falcons, and I just can't throw them out there. I think this army gets better in 5th edition because I have a lot of troop choices.

I think for the next RTT I will chalenge myself by not using Eldrad or Falcons.

Stelek wrote:
I do ask for the 'local champion' when I go to events, or at least someone who builds competitive lists. Often I'm disappointed as all hell.

If I did not play the 'local champion' on the way up, then that is who you end up facing in round #3.

I played the 'local champion' (Scored in the top 10 in the GW Tournement Circuit) in the third round of an RTT a couple of months ago, and I beat his Eldar with my little bug horde.

I have already deconstructed Steleks behavior before. If you want to be pissed at me for thinking he is a worthless member of this board go ahead, but how much actual contribution has he done compared with his inane trolling, and post-count inflating pretenses of martyrdom. While there seems to be an increase in posting with him on the board, the majority of said posting is worthless posts telling him to shut up. I provided the exact reasonings why I feel he should be banned. They are plainly obvious. Now instead of getting pissed at me for forcing the language filter to trigger, and pointing out that an enormous douche is in fact an enormous douche, why don't we see his badgering and trolling actions being censured? Because he has the audacity to follow the letter of the rules of the board, while totally disregarding all the standards of forum etiquette, rational debate, and simple internet communication? I'd rather use profanity, be un-liked by the board staff, and be actually contributive, than to play some internet pariah like Stelek and be a worthless pompous joke.

Blackmoor I think the way you run the army will need to change, and it's finding that sweet point again that will determine if the army is the pits or not.

Skill makes up for a great many things.

Darkhellion, neither I nor any of the other moderators are angry at you. It’s not about anger. It’s about the rules.

If you see a post in which Stelek or another user is breaking a rule, hit the Alert Mods button. The little yellow caution sign with the ! on it. =

Profanity and personal attacks don’t make things better, no matter how frustrated you are with someone.

I completely agree with you Darkhellion.

It is sad that the current MODS, not only tolerate Steleks behavior, but they actually seem to encourage it. Makes me wish Russ still owned the site.

Darrian

Darrian, please hit the Alert Mods button on any posts in which you see Stelek violate the rules.

Once again dude, you can always just not read his posts. I personally like reading the arguments that come up, he's a funny guy in his own way and regardless of whether or not you agree with him he does love playing the game.

Believe it or not these are also the exact sort of arguments/whining/trolling that came about when mauleed starting posting with his condescending, bait-style posts and his min-max marine style. Not that I'm trying to run a comparison here, I severely doubt that we'll all be playing Stelek-pattern Eldar a year from now (though it looks like I will be, as I hate the Avatar models, both FW and stock, and I find special characters to be distasteful), but rather that it's easy to become offended by someone's posting style and contrary ideas and miss the point of what they're doing or saying. Maul eventually lightened up too.

Simply put, it's easy to get riled up because someone has an odd manner while posting, and maybe sees and plays the game in a different way than you think is proper. This board is here so that guys like Stelek can tell you that an Avatar and Eldrad is a waste of points, so that you can either a) try his version out and see what's up or b) do some contrary thinking and disregard the guy. Banning someone like that is contrary to what discussion's all about.

Personally I don't think mech Eldar will be as weak as people are saying in 5th. Certainly it will be harder, you can't just place your Falcons anywhere the hell you want any more, but they'll still have a save against hits, they'll still have SS, VE, and HF, and a boatload of guns. Harlies will lose about 20-30% of their killing power, but that will still be enough to down or break a lot of units, and rending was all about lucky rolls anyway. Plus Fire Dragons can and maybe will do a lot of the things that people are relying on Harlies to do now. Of course, you won't be able to just take 2 units of Pathfinders to round out your troops anymore, but there's lots of cheap, good infantry running around the army list.

I guess what I don't see with the Eldrad/Avatar combo is how the Avatar isn't just shot off the board. As an MC he's hard to hide, and T6 4+ save isn't exactly great. Sure he can be fortuned, but even then medium arms fire has to catch up with him eventually, plus it means one less power being used on someone else. Eldrad is an excellent farseer, but lists without seers are perfectly viable and the fact that he's a footslogger imposes certain restrictions on list construction. I won't say that the Eldrad/Avatar combo sucks, but I also wouldn't just recommend it to everyone either.

Also, the whole 'kiss the rings' mentality with Blackmoor's GT record bothers me. Not to besmirch Blackmoor, as I respect him as a contributing member on this board, but simply quoting some guy's win record doesn't win arguments on list strength. People have won GT's with laughable army lists, and gotten very good scores in battle points while they were at it. Scenarios, terrain, players, luck, all come to the fore when playing in a GT, good lists/players can lose, bad lists/players can win. I don't mean that Blackmoor didn't have a good list or that he is not a good player, I just want to say that using him as an argument to try to squash debate is a little bit trite.

Back on subject.

The eldravatar backed up by guardians seems to provide a cheep and effective fire base that can survive far longer than it would without the two big guys or the points investment would make it seem.

I am not sure how it will hold up in 5th edition.
On one hand it will provide cheep troops that are good at not running (they still get chewed through).
On the other hand they aren't that hard to kill and the buffs to assault armies mean they can get to the guardians and maul them better than the current environment would allow.

On the thought of wraithguard, anyone who thinks chewing through 10 concealed, fortuned wraithguard in shooting is easy should try it. It is almost with normal levels of shooting. On the other hand, my thunder hammer equipped chaplain can kill all of them in three rounds of combat, tops. This will only get better in 5th when the wraithguard can run, scoring troops become more important, and the powerfists of the world get one less attack.

The same goes, to a lesser extent, for the avatar once eldrad fortunes him. And, because you have eldrad, if the first attempt fails you can do it again.

So, all in all, i think that the eldravatar/guardian combo, with or without wraithguard, is a decent combo that will get better as 5th edition rolls around.

DarkHellion wrote:I have already deconstructed Steleks behavior before. If you want to be pissed at me for thinking he is a worthless member of this board go ahead, but how much actual contribution has he done compared with his inane trolling, and post-count inflating pretenses of martyrdom. While there seems to be an increase in posting with him on the board, the majority of said posting is worthless posts telling him to shut up. I provided the exact reasonings why I feel he should be banned. They are plainly obvious. Now instead of getting pissed at me for forcing the language filter to trigger, and pointing out that an enormous douche is in fact an enormous douche, why don't we see his badgering and trolling actions being censured? Because he has the audacity to follow the letter of the rules of the board, while totally disregarding all the standards of forum etiquette, rational debate, and simple internet communication? I'd rather use profanity, be un-liked by the board staff, and be actually contributive, than to play some internet pariah like Stelek and be a worthless pompous joke.

dude, if you want me to read that you need to break up your sentences into paragraphs like Stelek does.

I personally think he's wrong about Eldrad and really wrong about the Avatar but he's had no shortage of good ideas around here.

All I can say is that the Avatar / Eldrad Combo is what got my team to 6th place in the Adepticon Team Tournament.

Usually someone who is unanimously disliked on an internet forum is such because they start a lot of controversial discussion and arguments. Unfortunately there are members (or, at least one member) of this forum who do the exact opposite, and derail all constructive conversation, think they know everything, and resort to the most immature behavior only when they've been proven wrong so many times they have nothing left to babble about. These (this) member contributes very little and is very quick to point out why someone is wrong (often they are incorrect themselves) while offering no alternatives.

The particular member I have in mind at the moment constantly claims he or she is being victimized by personal attacks. Personally, I have been "attacked" by them, without ever making a personal attack of my own. I'm not offended, it's an internet forum for Christ's sake. If you're still thinking about it a few minutes later, that's your own damn fault. This member, though, chooses to pretend or may actually believe that I have attacked them by politely and until a point respectfully asking them to not derail my threads and avoid posting in them if that wasn't possible. Whatever, who cares, I can ignore them and it won't affect me any further as long as they don't prevent the discussion I try to generate. I post this because this seems to be the exact complaint many members have themselves with the same user(s).

Clearly, the moderators are okay with this behavior, as at no point in the rules does it state that a member's posts may not be comprised of mindless drivel, or that they must contribute to the discussion at hand (I think?). This user does not need to be banned in my opinion, but he or she should certainly examine their posting habits. I fail to see how it does them any good to spend hours a day on an internet forum pissing people off, actually inhibiting discussion rather than contributing to it, and generally wasting our time and theirs.

The mods (again, correctly IMO) won't step in, but that doesn't mean nothing can be done. Stop feeding this user so much attention. Of course it will be easier with an ignore function, but it's certainly not impossible without.

To contribute something relevant to the discussion-
I think the only build where the Avatar and Eldrad are auto-includes come 5th edition is the Wraithguard build. It's certainly a strong pair of units, but it seems that many successful Eldar players are about equally successful without them. This doesn't by any means imply that the Avatar and Eldrad won't be solid in 5th edition, but that their inclusion might not be so automatic. A lot of numbers need to be run, which is good because that's what I like to do.

Darrian13 wrote:I completely agree with you Darkhellion.

It is sad that the current MODS, not only tolerate Steleks behavior, but they actually seem to encourage it. Makes me wish Russ still owned the site.

Darrian

Ouch man. That's pretty cold coming from you. I'm not sure what you remember about Russ's tenure, but he banned very, very, very few people. In fact, the only person I can even recall being banned from Dakka in the last several years was Chris Valera and only then because he refused to accept even the most basic forum rules (and it was upon my recommendation).

The point is, one thing I feel I learned from Russ is that it pays to be fair and patient when it comes to banning someone from your forums, because once you start doing it you run the real risk of sliding down a slippery slope where you are banning people simply because you don't like their opinions, and IMHO that's not the kind of site I want to be associated with.

In the end, I don't feel that Stelek is purposely trying to hurt the forum. If I did, he would be banned. I do not agree with most of his opinions and I certainly don't care for his arrogance. However, he has been penalized in the past for certain outbreaks and I do know that he has made efforts to clean up his act which is one of the signs of someone who wants to contribute to the forum as opposed to ruining it.

In many ways, he reminds me of how Mauleed was when he first started posting here (his tone, not so much the content of his arguments) and Mauleed got many of the same responses and attacks that Stelek is getting now. You may not think much of Stelek's advice or arguments but you can rest assured that there are people out there who do appreciate his differing point of view.

Remember that no one is forced to read or respond to any post. If you don't like what he is saying the best thing to do is often simply not reply at all to it. Also, within a few months time we will have an 'ignore user' function implemented so you can automatically choose not to see any poster's posts that you don't care to read.

I do know that Stelek still straddles the line of acceptable behavior at times and when he does the appropriate response is to alert the moderators.

yakface wrote:
In many ways, he reminds me of how Mauleed was when he first started posting here (his tone, not so much the content of his arguments) and Mauleed got many of the same responses and attacks that Stelek is getting now. You may not think much of Stelek's advice or arguments but you can rest assured that there are people out there who do appreciate his differing point of view.

Remember that no one is forced to read or respond to any post. If you don't like what he is saying the best thing to do is often simply not reply at all to it.

Considering that those paragraphs are almost exactly what was in my post, can I be a moderator now yak?

What's wrong with using special characters?

I agree, back in the day when you had to have "opponent's permission" to use them, I was against their inclusion in any army list and for good reasons.

However, with the advent of the new codex structure GW seems to be leaning towards the option of taking special characters for "variant" army purposes. The Ork codex, Dark Angel, Eldar (lesser extent), and Chaos codexes all comply to this new strategy. Special characters are now equivalent to "traits", "craftworlds", or other "variant lists" that previously resorted to entire new sets of rules.

ColonelEllios wrote:What's wrong with using special characters?

I agree, back in the day when you had to have "opponent's permission" to use them, I was against their inclusion in any army list and for good reasons.

However, with the advent of the new codex structure GW seems to be leaning towards the option of taking special characters for "variant" army purposes. The Ork codex, Dark Angel, Eldar (lesser extent), and Chaos codexes all comply to this new strategy. Special characters are now equivalent to "traits", "craftworlds", or other "variant lists" that previously resorted to entire new sets of rules.

This is a current trend in GW's codices and one that I accept, I personally just don't like using them. It's one thing for me when generic Farseer/Commander Steve bites it, entirely another when Eldrad Ulthran personally takes the field with 4 squads and a tank and gets smacked by a force weapon by some Librarian.

If other guys want to, I have no qualms with that, it's necessary to play some armies and fun for a lot of people. It's just an invisible restriction I put on my list construction.

Turtle wrote:

ColonelEllios wrote:What's wrong with using special characters?

I agree, back in the day when you had to have "opponent's permission" to use them, I was against their inclusion in any army list and for good reasons.

However, with the advent of the new codex structure GW seems to be leaning towards the option of taking special characters for "variant" army purposes. The Ork codex, Dark Angel, Eldar (lesser extent), and Chaos codexes all comply to this new strategy. Special characters are now equivalent to "traits", "craftworlds", or other "variant lists" that previously resorted to entire new sets of rules.

This is a current trend in GW's codices and one that I accept, I personally just don't like using them. It's one thing for me when generic Farseer/Commander Steve bites it, entirely another when Eldrad Ulthran personally takes the field with 4 squads and a tank and gets smacked by a force weapon by some Librarian.

If other guys want to, I have no qualms with that, it's necessary to play some armies and fun for a lot of people. It's just an invisible restriction I put on my list construction.

That's not 4 squads and a tank, that's a small focused skirmish, the center point of a massive battle bringing ruin to a planet's entire ecosystem. And the fact that the players are recreating an epic confrontation involving a storied hero of the 41st millenium just makes it all the more exciting.

As for the force weapon thing, even Eldrad has set backs . I actually thought he was dead but shows what I know.

I will say that I do not agree with Darrien's statements, as I like Yaks running of the board quite a lot. Russ would have had to deal with exactly the same thing as Yak is having to deal with, and would have been forced by board rules and past board culture and precedent to do the exact same things.

What really irks me is that Stelek abuses these things. Whether he knows it or not, his tenure on this board abuses the fact that there is simply no way to make hard mechanistic rules to discourage trolls. As long as he follows the letter of the law, he is safe. Despite the derision that many members of this board feel for him, and the fact that despite his grandiose claims, unlike Ed or Therion he has not shown much to prove his skills as he has shown a distinct lack for objective reasoning, he is perfectly safe, because in no way is being an arrogant, probably very insecure person bannable, even if they literally post more in a week than most posters have posted in their lifetime on this board and yet fail to do simple statistics to back up their ideas.

As you said Yak, I don't think that Stelek is trying to hurt the board, the problem is he cannot see that he is, because in his mind, he does not see why we have standards of objectivity, why we shouldn't take his claims at face value, or that someone disagreeing with his opinion in a confrontation way is not an excuse for his sickening display of pseudo-martydom. It is this display above all else that makes me despise him... as I have said, what kind of grown man has to painstakingly point out every time someone attacks them on an internet forum about pushing army men around the board? It smacks either of insecurity or that he is truly trying to be a troll, not understanding that such trollishness engenders hatred.

You guys need to look at the bright side of this.

Dakka tollerates differences in opinion! You try to post an opinion at Warseer and people yell at you over your 'tone' and how 'cheesy' you are. You try to defend yourself and get warned by mods for 'not playing nice'. It's pathetic. Here the competative player rules supreme, and we're allowed to argue out our views on various strategies. Be thankful for that.

Sure, Stelek is probably the most arrogant person on Dakka who fails to see that there are other ways of playing this game besides his own, but Ed wasn't any different when he first showed up. He'll eventually learn that there are ways of playing 40K that are equally as competative, and that there is such a thing as 'local metagame', but in the mean time do what Dakka does best - tollerate him. We could be different. We could be Warseer. And no one here wants that.

BYE

DarkHellion wrote:I will say that I do not agree with Darrien's statements, as I like Yaks running of the board quite a lot. Russ would have had to deal with exactly the same thing as Yak is having to deal with, and would have been forced by board rules and past board culture and precedent to do the exact same things.

What really irks me is that Stelek abuses these things. Whether he knows it or not, his tenure on this board abuses the fact that there is simply no way to make hard mechanistic rules to discourage trolls. As long as he follows the letter of the law, he is safe. Despite the derision that many members of this board feel for him, and the fact that despite his grandiose claims, unlike Ed or Therion he has not shown much to prove his skills as he has shown a distinct lack for objective reasoning, he is perfectly safe, because in no way is being an arrogant, probably very insecure person bannable, even if they literally post more in a week than most posters have posted in their lifetime on this board and yet fail to do simple statistics to back up their ideas.

As you said Yak, I don't think that Stelek is trying to hurt the board, the problem is he cannot see that he is, because in his mind, he does not see why we have standards of objectivity, why we shouldn't take his claims at face value, or that someone disagreeing with his opinion in a confrontation way is not an excuse for his sickening display of pseudo-martydom. It is this display above all else that makes me despise him... as I have said, what kind of grown man has to painstakingly point out every time someone attacks them on an internet forum about pushing army men around the board? It smacks either of insecurity or that he is truly trying to be a troll, not understanding that such trollishness engenders hatred.

I think you need to realize that some of the problem here rests with those posters that just can't simply tolerate him. It is an internet forum, he has a differing opinion and states it, the fact that you don't like it or how he says it does not change the fact that most of the things he's done are perfectly allowable. Freedoms are made to be pushed to the limit, abused as you put it, you can in fact call the president a bad person, you can in fact believe that Avatars suck. Getting offended on the basis of opinion and flying off the handle at the guy is what causes this enmity to occur.

What I find so funny in all of this is that there are posters on this board that just can't stand to have someone stand up to their conventional wisdom, and that such posting inevitably leads to shouting matches and name-calling. You have an opinion, post it, list your arguments, counter the ones your opponent has logically and civilly, then end it there.

Exactly this has happened before, and rather than banning people we've let them continue to be valued and contributing members of Dakka easily, rather than banning someone for not violating our rules then crossing our arms secure that our little boys club is safe once again. That's what makes Dakka great, that differing opinions can contribute. Hell, the fact that we're even getting the chance to argue this reinforces that point, as obviously you guys haven't had enough contact with real trolls if you're trying to string out this guy.

It's true that he defends his sentiments rather harshly and has a hell of a way of posting. Coming back from my little gaming hiatus when I saw this Stelek post I hated it. Sometimes his brevity and borderline offensiveness still bothers me, especially in army lists. But here I am defending this guy's right to do just that. Why is it so hard to just accept that he's got something to say, even if you don't like it?

What was the topic of the thread again? All about my Stelek?

I have serious flashback memories of all the talk about quitting and never buying anything else for like ever. It happens all the time when a codex/edition/white dwarfs gets released. And with posters like stelek it's the same. Many people brag about ignoring him in the future, but what happens? Threads are being lead off-topic to discuss his behavior!

go figure

Greets
Schepp himself

The thread topic was:

Whitedragon will paypal 100 US Dollars to Stelek to never post on Dakka again.

And to compare Stelek to Mauleed just because they are both coarse is well, missing the other half of what makes Mauleed "special."

Ed actually backs up his stuff with credible evidence, whether it be a solid "Win/Loss" record, or careful dissection of the Rulebook.

Stelek does NEITHER, and is just coarse. And it is also disturbing to see that the top weekly and monthly poster is "Stelek" again and again. Alot of the threads he posts in almost become a sort of "chat session". This is a discussion board, not a chat room people.

And Eldrad and the Avatar are the modern Odd couple. One's a geek, the other is the flaming God of War. Together they are an inseparable pair, and further proof that opposites attract.

Schepp himself wrote:What was the topic of the thread again? All about my Stelek?

I have serious flashback memories of all the talk about quitting and never buying anything else for like ever. It happens all the time when a codex/edition/white dwarfs gets released. And with posters like stelek it's the same. Many people brag about ignoring him in the future, but what happens? Threads are being lead off-topic to discuss his behavior!

go figure

Greets
Schepp himself

Stelek, I wish I could quit you.

Seriously though. I'm surprised this thread hasn't been locked for being off topic not to mention the sniping and ad homanims.

Again the break down of this thread was?

1. Does the odd couple make for a competitive crime fighting duo?

This begs the question what does a good eldar army look like. As I said before it looks like Stelek made this post because he feels eldar armies should be fast and fierce. Makes sense, for the most part eldar are fagile and do best when they can deliver the fight on their

own terms. Again this view point can be evidenced by Stelek's army comp. A lot of bikes and mobile elements. When running the odd couple it behooves you to take multiple units that would benefit from the Avatars cheer leading and Ederad's powers. Jet bikes like being

fearless, but the odd couple is too slow to keep up. Dire avengers don't offer a lot of threat (though they might make decent support fire.) Pathfinders are stationary and don't really need to be cheer lead in order to do well. So this leaves wraithguard and guardians.

Waithguard as competitive has yet to be established. Either way they don't need the odd couple to do well. So that leaves us with guardians. Storm guardians will always be useless. You need at least 15 of them with enhance before they get any good. So transports and

walking both become bad options. Defender units move at the same speed as the merry odd couple. And can carry a heavy weapon to boot. So they seem like a solid choice for this composition.

Possible Tactics:
Avatar screams and waives is bloody hand around while marching forward.
Elderad fortunes his buddy, then he fortunes/guides as needed.
Guardians move forward shooting at targets and eventually part themselves on an objective.

Downsides.
1. Not as mobile as Mech/bike lists.
2. Vulnerable to anti horde firepower. (I know conceal helps and fortuned conceal really helps, but you can only fortune two units, and one of those better be the avatar because.....
3. Lynchpins (Kill either the avatar or ederad and you have problems.)
4. Prone to assaults.
5. Has to be within short range to get maximum firepower.

Upsides.
1. Very resilient
2. Decent fire power
3. Sneaky way to add more wave serpent to the list (they make decent tanks in 4th and 5th alike)
4. Has counter assault elements built in.
5. Pretty good at holding objectives.
6. Gives me an excuse to get the FW avatar model

Can this be an effective list? Sure why not. Blackmoore has had a lot of success with it. I ran this same list in third edition when it wasn't nearly as good and did very well. I don't think it has the intrinsic value of say a 4th ed nidzilla list. But then again what does?

In 5thed with snipers getting rending, and even now, pathfinders on a doomed unit are amazing.

Fortuned pathfinders are one of the most resilient units in the game for non-template shots, as well.

I played a version of Blackmoors list with my IG list. It was designed to defeat marines. Game didn't last very long. Hellhounds decimated the Guardian squads, the leman russes took out the reapers and pathfinders. Plasma drops took out the Avatar and the guardians started folding. The Harlies in both Falcons hid the whole game, nothing to kill but 1-2 guardsmen then get plasma'd or templated. It was really boring to play against, and my opponent wasn't too happy--he thought I was playing a list built to kill his. What numbers am I supposed to post? I shot what wasn't fortuned (hellhounds) and kept shooting what was (leman russes). The plasmas took 16 shots to down the Avatar, then I sat back and waited for the Eldar to fold. Lost almost every guy I dropped to return fire, but that's normal. In the end it was a draw. Under 5th edition rules, it was a win due to KPs. This army does well against my Eldar too, since it's essentially a marine army (T4, 3+ saves). Difference is in the numbers. I never killed the Eldar HQ's, even though the Farseer Council got pounded by plasma fire, hellhounds, and leman russ shots. They just zoomed around most of the game. 3+ invul with a re-roll is so much crap.

I guess the point is, I think the Eldatar combo is based around Guardians. Guardians aren't good troops by any stretch of the imagination. Even buffed by Warlocks, Eldrad, and the Avatar.

It's weak to alot of light fire, template weapons, and as others have noted--you lose the Avatar, suddenly your basic troops aren't so hot.

5+ fortuned is *not* uber. 3+ fortuned *is*.

More on that in a minute.

I have yet to take a footslogging Eldar into my gunwall Nids and survive--one based around the Avatar. I don't know how Blackmoor does, but I suspect the Tyranid MC list players are not running the gunwall properly. The reapers are a real problem, but what else is new? The harlequins can come play anytime before the wall has suffered serious losses, and the 24 stealers/32 gaunts will see them dead. Especially in 5th edition, where small squads suck. Just my random thoughts.

My experience with my own gunwall army (which doesn't use expensive stuff, it uses everything on the cheap so there is more of everything--barring spinegaunt usage) against a footslogging Eldar army is shoot what isn't fortuned. How do I deal with reapers/pathfinders? Gaunts. If you screen them with guardians, I'll lock you in combat until I can shoot your guardians--then I will start crunching your guardians while you kill a fex a turn. Killing 30 guardians, even fortuned, is not difficult for my gunwall. In comparison, my fortuned Seer Council unit is too mobile to deal with effectively--sure I can turn the gunwall to face it, but the Falcons and Guardian Jetbikes then get clear shots at the stealers. If I focus on the Seer Council, not only do I face the very real possibility of achieving nothing but I also don't degrage any other elements of the Eldar army. The Falcons *have* to be stunned constantly, or they attrition your 3+ MC units away and leave you vulnerable to a drop'n'pop by a FD unit. Anyway the gunwall likes gunline armies, since it's superior to almost all of them. Only my mech Eldar and my drone Tau have stood up to the gunwall successfully.
My IG guts it, but loses everything doing so. Which I don't mind really, it is a last chancer suicide list after all. It doesn't let you win games in 5th edition though, not with any kind of assurance the crappy plasmagunner units will be alive at the end of the game. Cool breezes kill them. lol

Anyway, my Seer Council has hit the gunwall on turn 2 and ground it's way through multiple MC and genestealer units before folding. It's worst performance, it only made it's points back. That isn't a priority for me, but alot of other players value it that way.

It gets its punch with the Spears/Autarch unit running in and out of combat. Comes in, kills stuff, leaves. Repeat until it's too dangerous to leave combat (you'll get shot alot, for example), or the Seer Council has finally been ground down.

Having a Fire Prism and 2 Fire Dragon units to zap MC units or template units gives the army flexibility the Eldatar combo usually doesn't take. Destructor is fine and all, but it isn't scary. S4 is just annoying. S5 with re-rolls to wound? Yeah, that's scary. Hellhounds? Yeah, scary. Can wipe entire units out. Destructor kills or wounds a few guys, big deal.

Anyways, while I really like say GBF's army (really nice color scheme) playing with poor terrain, and trying to substitute rhinos for it...just asking to get shot away. For me, the end opinion for and against the two army types is the same one as for and against a 'normal' Gojira list and a 'Choir' list. I think the former is better against any and all comers, while the latter is better against a few army types but overall is weaker against any and all comers. Same thing here with the two armies.

Interesting...and I can see your point.

Only problem I see here is that even though your army list (bikelocks with seer+ falcons+bikes i suppose?) can be better, it doesn't make the avatar+eldrad combo a point waste. In 3rd there were very ugly power armies out there, but IW, Seer councils and Pathfinders didn't invalidate other very good but maybe not as optimized choices completely!

Yeah, maybe your army is better than the guardian+eldratar combo, but that doesn't make them points waste extra ordinaire as your threadtitle suggests.

Greets
Schepp himself

Elravatard is best in an advancing foot army made up of Dire Avengers, Guardians, and wraith constructs, IMO. And unfortunately my opinion here is formed by being on the pointy end of this setup rather than the wielder (a fact that will change as I experiment towards 5th ed. infantry builds). Here's what fighting this setup has shown me:

As you all know, resiliency is greatest with multiple similar units, restricting the number of enemy weapons available to deal with a given threat. If you're taking tanks, take lots of tanks, etc. Here, it's stuff that kills high toughness units (the Avatar) through volume of fire. Other units that take that kind of killin' include Wraithlords, wraithguard, and vehicles. Three Wraithlords plus the Eldravatard, surrounded by tons of Avengers and Guardians, make for a very nasty nut to crack. It's a moving firebase surrounded by tons of ablative wounds. Add cover and Fortune, and it's really deadly. It's like TMC, but with better high-strength low AP shooting and rerolls on important stuff. Add in Mind War picking out your powerfist equivalents before you get into CC, and gaunt-equivalents that can actually shoot, too. Admittedly, I was definitely having a bad day when I fought this list. Still, all the heavy weapons are a lot to deal with.

I've never played against the Wraithguard version of this, but can imagine that it would be too short-ranged to force the enemy to come to you effectively.

The Wraithlord version, however, is really nasty. 6 BS4 heavy weapons, 3+ BS 3 heavy weapons, and tons of anti-infantry shooting make staying in the medium range not a very good idea.
Closing sucks because the WLs and Avatar are a serious countercharge when they attack en masse, plus a fearless troop mass keeps you stuck on that anvil 'till the big guys jump in. The only good way to deal with the force is to stay at long range and down the Wraithlords, then the Avatar with your heavy weapons... and that's assuming that you have the mobility and range to do so.

I also disagree the Dire Avengers "don't offer a lot of threat". Bladestorms are terrifying at medium range, and with SS/PW, Avengers can live a long time in hand to hand while the big boys close in. Yes, they die to heavy bolters very quickly- but then those bolters aren't shooting the Avatar. And if they're within regular bolter range, the enemy is close to Bladestorm range.

Let's say you lose the Avatar turn 1 to shooting.

Tigerius drops on turn 2 and gets past the runes.

Did you just lose?

I don't think gimmicks (even semi-powerful ones like this, or lash) are worth spending points on when common occurances invalidate your army from the get-go.

Having matchups and terrain that favor your army doesn't mean your army list is sound, it tends to hide it's weaknesses. Blackmoor is aware (as most players are) that the standard tournaments run 2x2x1 terrain pieces.
There is also a preponderance of marine armies and a distinct lack of xenos armies at most tournaments.

If you plan (hope?) that there will be little terrain (but there's a building!) and marines will be your opponent 2/3 or 3/5 times; you can do really well in the GW game system with almost any army.

That doesn't make the army good! For me, good armies are ones that can go into anything (exception: stupid scenarios) and handle themselves well.

I don't think much of the Avatar, Mr. Shoot Me. Everything from heavy bolters through lascannons will ring his bell. Diversity and flexibility, the army doesn't have much of it with 390 points sunk into two slowpokes.
I daresay GBF would have done much better in his game if he'd have gone first. A fault in the game system, not in Blackmoors army. Anyway, I hope everyone mentioned doesn't take any of this personally. I don't.

Sometimes, you just have to feel your way. Numbers and theoryhammer can only take you so far. Play as many people as you can, with as many different armies as you/they can muster. Makes for better armies, and better opponents. Which is still my primary reason for posting here on Dakka. I want challenges, not grudge matches with the 'my paper vs your rock' games. Those aren't ever fun.

Alright- what kind of shooting will it take to drop the Avatar on turn one, given that he's Fortuned?

Especially if he's shieldwalled by three Wraithlords? Opponents would have to shoot through at least one of the Wraithlords, then the fortuned Avatar. Not bloody likely, unless you're playing against IG gunline and have been very unlucky with terrain.

Sure, he's Mr. Shoot Me. Let 'em do that. Meanwhile, all those missile launchers and heavy bolters haven't been shooting troops, and lascannons haven't been shooting your Wraithlords.

Finally, you're right that a smart player will not _depend_ entirely upon the Avatar. He's just an extra layer of kickass. A second CC plan should always be there, and tons of SS/PW Avengers plus multiple Wraithlords or a decent countercharge unit like Scorpions should do fine against the (much shot-up) remains of the enemy. The Fearlessness is nice, but not the end of the world if you lose it. Well, if you have something other than Guardians around.

That's it- I'm tacking together the 3rd ed. Wraithlords sitting in my bitz box and trying this list out this weekend. Should I _get_ a weekend, that is. Startups suck.

Oh, and that was a well-reasoned and even-tempered post, Stelek. Hope you're not going all soft on us. Heh.

I'm suprised that no one has mentioned the ability of an inconvienient psychic hood block against fortune and how much it can throw a wrench in Eldrad's day. If the Fortune's tend to go on the Avatar and Eldrad, if one is blocked that leaves one of them open to a major firestorm, especially in 5th ed. They work well as a pair, but if one goes down the army as a whole really suffers.

You're right about hoods- but Eldrad rarely needs the Fortune as long as he avoids template fire. Losing one power per turn on average really does blow, though. On the good side, that librarian probably won't be casting as much either.

Savnock wrote:Alright- what kind of shooting will it take to drop the Avatar on turn one, given that he's Fortuned?

Especially if he's shieldwalled by three Wraithlords? Opponents would have to shoot through at least one of the Wraithlords, then the fortuned Avatar. Not bloody likely, unless you're playing against IG gunline and have been very unlucky with terrain.

Sure, he's Mr. Shoot Me. Let 'em do that. Meanwhile, all those missile launchers and heavy bolters haven't been shooting troops, and lascannons haven't been shooting your Wraithlords.

How exactly are lascannons not shooting your Wraithlords? Also, that's a massive investment in points, three EML+BL Lords go for just under 500, though you could drop some weapons and thus cost, not to mention the 365 that the Avvy and Eldrad net you. Putting close to 900 points in those models seems like free pickings to me, and you'd have scarcely an army for the Avatar to make fearless, or the Seer to cast spells on. Not only that, but I'm finding the best spot for the WL is generally somewhere in cover with a good angle at range, using them to stand in front of a model who has to be in the thick of your force is just asking them to take bullets. I'd be very surprised if most competitive armies out there weren't done with them in 2 turns, 3 max.

I don't think the important part is getting the Avatar turn one, just that he can indeed be gotten, and if I was your opponent taking down those Lords would net me a massive points advantage and take away your hardest and best long range fire power (as taking up the three Heavy slots means no Falcons or Fire Prisms). Try it out and let us know, in no way am I convinced it's a good build though.

Don't forget the 3 WL + Avatar is 9 kill points and a lot of VPs.

They don't take objectives.

Triple strike, they're out!

Stelek- Dude, we're not playing 5th edition yet. And everything powerful is a lot of VPs.

As for the WL survivability, at least one would definitely go down per turn vs, competitive armies. After one goes down in turn one though, the return fire from the other 7-10 heavy weapons should reduce the enemy's hitting power as well. And I would definitely put the WLs moving through cover on the way in, Fortuned if possible. In that state, they should be a little harder to kill.

As for "lascannons not shooting [the] Wraithlords", I certainly didn't say that the weren't shooting _anything_: The lascannons aren't shooting the wraiths if they're shooting the Fortuned Avatar- that's what I'm saying. Although I would prefer them to be shooting the Wraithlords, of course.

And just to make things clear, I'm not sure that it's a good build either. I had trouble against it one time, and want to know how it works. Normally, I play mech and believe in mobility as the big winner in every 40K game. but I'm really trying to learn how to use footsloggers better for 5th. This extreme seems like a good way to learn the pros and cons of all footslogger Eldar armies. I'm not even going to use bikes. Haven't done that in a looooong time.

gdurant wrote:

Stelek, I wish I could quit you.

Seriously though. I'm surprised this thread hasn't been locked for being off topic not to mention the sniping and ad homanims.

I quoted gdurant for example, though this reply is not properly directed at him, but to everyone reading this thread. Sorry this comment is a page late.

This has been a useful thread, while admittedly Off Topic. We need to have this discussion, because the doctrines of decency and tolerance must win through and be seen to win through.

Please remember that a troll is known by his manners not by his intellect, I have pressed ahead against the concensus flow for many years in a polite and logical manner, and from time to time have encountered trolling. The key is NEVER to get upset. Posts on the internet usually sound a lot crabbier than intneded, so if you are getting genuinely crabby it shows through a whole lot. Stelek or anyone else, is not obliged to agree with you, me, us, the concensus, maths or anything; it is not a requirement to be accepted here.

I dont think Stelek opened the thread by 'trolling' he just thought contrary to the concensus. However the counterpoint arguements and returns from Stelek eventually get heated. It is not all his own fault, it is too easy to see a counterpoint arguement as an attack, and it is very easy to take an arguement that you consider poor and assume the person who posted it is stupid.

I want to highlight here, that while 40K has done a good job in dumbing down the hobby, wargaming is still one of the higher IQ groups by hobby base (historical wargamers are second only to astronomers). Very very few persons here, if any, will be much below average smarts, and I would not include Stelek in this number. I wouldnt even like to attempt to work out who is.

Stelek needs to grow up, and not reply to baiting towards him, let alone bait others, but there is NO EXCUSE to wish him ill. Is it really morally worthwhile saying that they hate someone because of what the post here.

Let us assume, purely for the point of the example, that Steleks posts are wholly inaccurate and illogical, if that in itself angers anyone the person with the problem is the person angry. Get angry about crime, the senseless things you read in the newspapers, politics, religion even (though it is best to keep those last two off the boards), but dont get angry about Eldrad Ulthran- he ain't worth it. If you are angry because someone thinks an obviously decent unit sucks, or an obviously sucky unit is 'da bomb' they dont have a problem. You have.

Noone has any excuse to be angry. The only time you can afford to be angry here about this hobby is if you are robbed of your miniatures or the victim of someone who cheated at a tourney, and with GW itself, sure bring that here, but even then you wont be angry at Dakka, just venting with us to help share the steambath.

Stelek has some growing up to do, but he is not the only one, and many times he starts posting in a polite manner and is only responding to baiting against him, or what your be read as baiting against him. Let us keep this civil.

I guess I'd also like to point out that, as people on the internet for a while, I'm guessing you can count the number of people with whom you have argued that changed their minds on one hand. Forum debates don't happen to change the mind of the other side, they occur to demonstrate to the onlookers who has the better argument.

In some situations, the opposing view is in such a minority, is so entrenched, yet is clearly incapable of convincing very many people of his point. In those cases, make your brief rebuttal, point them to other threads where it's been hashed, and then walk away!

On the internet, everybody is more certain of their point, whether about the nature of God or if Eldrad is a good unit, then are dying martyrs in real life.

I for one have enjoyed this thread above all others recently on Dakka.

I don't play with or have any interest in using an Eldar army list. My Eldar opponents in the local metagame don't really use special characters either, this disagreement is of trivial tactical use for me actually at this point in my gaming experience.

I love this thread for the dynamics of communication going on within it. I agree with those who believe that Stelek started off alright, went quite wrong and has come back around to being a better poster (all of these in the 'manner' of posting, not technical details). Technically as i said, I'm not really interested in the tactical discussion. For those who have made their disagreement to the WAY an argument was formed by attacking the arguer personally... shame on you. Be at least big enough to insult the arguer with BETTER logic or tactics, not slams.

For those who have read the thread and eeked out the tactical details they need despite the tone and petty posts... I am sorry I'm wasting your spce here without any on topic (of the tactics) discussion!

I like the fact that both sides, or even more than 2 sides are represented. The way you represent your own character or morality is totally up to you though and I see no point in putting that into a tactical discussion... my opinion of course.

Thanks again to all the posters who have cooperated, carried on and those who have come about to the discussion & recovered from personal feelings dominating thier comments. It has made the thread a good lesson for me, but without having ANYTHING to do with Eldrad or Avatars!

If this is what we're talking about ...

H.B.M.C. wrote:You guys need to look at the bright side of this.

Dakka tollerates differences in opinion! You try to post an opinion at Warseer and people yell at you over your 'tone' and how 'cheesy' you are. You try to defend yourself and get warned by mods for 'not playing nice'. It's pathetic. Here the competative player rules supreme, and we're allowed to argue out our views on various strategies. Be thankful for that.

(edit) We could be different. We could be Warseer. And no one here wants that.

BYE

Agreed. I honestly find that hard to believe (Warseer editing honest opinion), but I'll accept it at face value. I certainly find Warseer generally bland.

there is a reason dakka is the only site with tactics threads worth reading, and people like stelek are a big part of that.

yes, people correcting Stelek does make for good tactics threads

Yep, it does. Pot.

Conceal is expensive these days. I can have 3 guardian squads w/ a tank busting weapon/ or anti troop weapon (or a EML as a happy medium) for 300pts. If I want conceal I only get two squads. If oyur just going to take scatter lasers are you better off with DA's?

These are questions that pooped up after I played a couple of games with the combo in question. They did well against chaos, blood angels, and I tied gun line guard. I utterly lost against swarm nids and orks.

The formation can't take hordes head on, it's also not fast enough to redeploy.