kingheff wrote: The biggest potential drawback I can see is their lack of speed. If there's a lot of line of sight blocking they could get outmanoeuvred unless there's a nice place they can for and fade back behind. I think it'll take a few games playing with the new terrain rules will show whether non fly units lose out on too much.
You're right about the mobility
*stares at six unpainted support weapons*
I think I'm going to have to make peace for now with the fact that my army is a bit of a static gunline, with spears walkers and my hand-me-down fire dragons to contest the board. I'll maybe be able to wrestle some synergy from these two elements when I can get near a table next month.
I've got nine vibro cannons done so I'm hoping slower guns can be viable too!
The smaller board size could make d-cannons interesting for vehicles in the midfield though.
Granted, LOS ignore and confirmed blast in 9th in case you wanted to absolutely dunk on aggressors. It looks like death guard are an army to beat in 9th so if you want to delete units of 6+ monsters then they're a strong shout.
Barbachop wrote:Granted, LOS ignore and confirmed blast in 9th in case you wanted to absolutely dunk on aggressors. It looks like death guard are an army to beat in 9th so if you want to delete units of 6+ monsters then they're a strong shout.
Barbachop wrote:
kingheff wrote: The biggest potential drawback I can see is their lack of speed. If there's a lot of line of sight blocking they could get outmanoeuvred unless there's a nice place they can for and fade back behind. I think it'll take a few games playing with the new terrain rules will show whether non fly units lose out on too much.
You're right about the mobility
*stares at six unpainted support weapons*
I think I'm going to have to make peace for now with the fact that my army is a bit of a static gunline, with spears walkers and my hand-me-down fire dragons to contest the board. I'll maybe be able to wrestle some synergy from these two elements when I can get near a table next month.
I think a bigger blob of reapers might be good. With LOS blocking terrain as standard feature fire and fading them as well as hiding in serpent or falcoln might be it for me.
Also, support weapons have the vehicle keyword as well as guardian keyword.
With LFR probably no longer soaking up a lot of the CP, you could potentialy run d cannons and give them celestial shield as well as have them in cover. And they could also move and shoot without penalty so vibros are still good. But I think I am looking at runing 2x d cannons and 4 vibros or 2x d cannon and 4 weavers (probly the latetr for horde clearing).
Then have 5 man blob of reapers with rapid shot and falcons and wraith lords and a couple vypers. Most likely looking at brigade with 2x storm guardians and 4x DA min squads for objective grabbing.
Not sure what supreme command means for my ynnari wraithseer thing.
^ I missed the infantry keyword implications, that's very interesting to think about strategems. Feeling a decent bit better about my backline. 100% gunline armies might not be ideal but the supp weapon/ec synergy just seems too good to pass up, and yeah I think some D cannons creeping in might be a solid idea.
With the change to objectives to "domination style" hold ( no need to stand on the objectives) hopefully a solid backline to hold down a third of the board, with some fast moving objective grabbers should do quite well as anything your opponent leaves behind in his advance is easy pickings.
I've had a fun thought about avenging strikes Dire avengers.
Obviously there's the max squad in a serpent and waiting for an explosion to lose one or two but how about cheesing the new coherency? Just put one out of coherency at the end of the unit and you can hide first turn, lose one from coherency and profit from that beautiful +1 to hit and wound for the rest of the game.
Sixty in a death star around Asurman looks like a lot of fun!
kingheff wrote: I've had a fun thought about avenging strikes Dire avengers.
Obviously there's the max squad in a serpent and waiting for an explosion to lose one or two but how about cheesing the new coherency? Just put one out of coherency at the end of the unit and you can hide first turn, lose one from coherency and profit from that beautiful +1 to hit and wound for the rest of the game.
Sixty in a death star around Asurman looks like a lot of fun!
Sarigar wrote: In respect to the support weapons, they become individual units once deployed. LFR would only work Mon one support weapon.
Supreme Command no longer works the same. Primarch, Chaos Primarch, Low, or Supreme Commander (New keyword?).
I think its more that we won't be burning CP every round on the lfr usual suspects so frees up CP for something else
The deploy quirk is part of the reserves idea I am pondering as being able to drip feed them on to the table as needed could be handy
Ooh I didint consider dropping support weapons as DS.. Would be potentially Savage to drop 3x D cannons I think. Given their shortish range might be ideal to plonk behind LOS blocking terrain and blap stuff then spread out the following turns.
They have the guardian keyword but are vehicles interestingly enough. I have thrown people off with a cheeky celestial shield before when they threw some heavy-duty AT to get an easy kill.
And yes I meant we are unlikely to spend cp for LFR if it doesn't stack with conceal or natural abilities or traits. A -1 I can get from terrain will be sufficient in most cases and with the amount of rerolls its unlikely to be worth the 2CP.. Its a big shame my shadow specters will no longer be -3 :(
Do we know if ignore LOS also ignores terrain modifiers to hit ?
Do we know if ignore LOS also ignores terrain modifiers to hit ?
Reading through the terrain section of the rules there's no mention of LOS ignoring shots avoiding the bonus to saves from Dense Cover (-1 to hit from ranged if 3" tall, doesn't apply to defenders, doesn't give bonus to aircraft or 18+w models)
No mention in the light cover, obscuring, nor the shooting phase section.
Doesnt Masterful Shot ignore cover assuming EC/MS as stock trait, although a patrol with a couple of suicide guardian blobs along with some support weapon with EC and Military citizens (?)(the guardian re-roll 1s trait) might theoryhammer quite well
Have they changed the super heavy auxillary detachment? The wraithknight got the traits in 8th, I thought it was just things like guard super heavies didn't get the traits because it was specifically mentioned in their codex?
kingheff wrote: Have they changed the super heavy auxillary detachment? The wraithknight got the traits in 8th, I thought it was just things like guard super heavies didn't get the traits because it was specifically mentioned in their codex?
Yes. It states Super Heavy Auxiliaries, Auxiliary, and Fortification detachments never gain Detachment abilities. Craftworld traits fall under this category.
Play more aggressively – your plan for taking and holding meaningful numbers of objectives needs to begin from your first turn.
Trade more aggressively – spending units to earn or deny points has a more concrete impact, and you have less time to use them anyway!
Deploy most of my objective grabbers on the board – I want some durable threats I can push forward onto objectives straight away.
You can read this at goonhammer.
It appears that the competitive play is now vastly different.
Tanks are great for holding objectives but our infantry and whatnot are still rather squishy.
Need to rethink of army building and tactics.
kingheff wrote: Have they changed the super heavy auxillary detachment? The wraithknight got the traits in 8th, I thought it was just things like guard super heavies didn't get the traits because it was specifically mentioned in their codex?
Yes. It states Super Heavy Auxiliaries, Auxiliary, and Fortification detachments never gain Detachment abilities. Craftworld traits fall under this category.
Ah, didn't realise they'd updated the detachment rules like that. The wraithknight really isn't looking like it's in a great spot.
Been thinking about it and I feel like lists need to bring some shooting (to kill things off objectives across the table, or to defend against enemy objective stealers) and melee (to steal objectives from enemy units).
Problem is the only army who does both effectively wears power armour since you also need durability to actually score primaries.
I feel like Eldar might have to play the game of maximizing secondaries and denying primaries since we've got mobility to do that, and we have some decently killy weapons, but not the durbility to hold ground.
Turnip Jedi wrote: So thinking Serpent spam might be back on the menu, maybe splash of Falcons for more pewpew and extra hiding places for our squishy footsloggers
Mechdar looks like a good early edition build, depending on how points shift going forward.
Turnip Jedi wrote: So thinking Serpent spam might be back on the menu, maybe splash of Falcons for more pewpew and extra hiding places for our squishy footsloggers
Mechdar looks like a good early edition build, depending on how points shift going forward.
At least in the Eternal War missions!
I see like Wave Serpents with like Spirit Stones, maybe even vectored engines, just to be obnoxious. Then stuff them with Dire Avengers as objective holders, maybe even Wraithguard. They can body-block stuff from a point, screen a charge and shoot back with some pretty decent shuri-power and if they get popped suddenly you've got a bunch of obsec spilling out.
Not sure Falcons are really up to that particular job as much. They're less durable, heavy hits at -1 in combat and you're really gonna want to shoot the pulse laser at bigger stuff than what might be touching you. Probably better as something you keep back to take potshots before driving up as backup.
I built a 1750 list with that premise in mind based on current painted models .
1749 Pts
Battalion
Farseer, Guide, Doom, Focus Will
Warlock Conclave (2 models): Protect/Jinx
3 x 7 DA, 1 Exarch; Avenging Strike, Dual Catapults
3 x 1 Wave Serpent, Twin Cannons, Cannon
1 x 3 Hornets, Hornet Pulse Lasers
1 x 4 Shining Spears, 1 Exarch
3 x 1 Falcon, Starcannon, Pulse Laser, Twin Catapult
I'm still not sure about secondaries It can depend on opponent and overall familiarity with the army utility.
The Hornets, hoping they are still availablefor 9th edition, is the real firepower 'brick' unit. They put out 18, S6, -3AP, 2D shots. They are one unit, and I'd like to see how this unitinteracts with terrain.
The Warlock Conclave is to cast Jinx at 36" out of LOS with Focus Will assisting.
The army feels small at 1750. I'm hoping The points will be off and have more points available once they are known. But, the list has 9 vehicles with a fair amount of shooting.
Axe Wraithguard might be the choice to take a forward objective. They're durable as is, add protect and fortune, maybe a -1 to hit and you have a serious brick. They can perform actions if you need not charge. From there you have to hold two objectives in the back and kill the opponent off their forward objective. That's the theory for static play ofc and falls apart at first enemy contact ^^
Cpt. Icanus wrote: Axe Wraithguard might be the choice to take a forward objective. They're durable as is, add protect and fortune, maybe a -1 to hit and you have a serious brick. They can perform actions if you need not charge. From there you have to hold two objectives in the back and kill the opponent off their forward objective. That's the theory for static play ofc and falls apart at first enemy contact ^^
Bubblewrapping a seer who can share their invul to Wraithblades might be an aggressive objective taker as well.
Sarigar wrote: Possibly give the Spiritseer Faolchu's Wing so he can land within the Wraithblades unit.
Also an option. Thought was you could punt the Spritseer and a unit of Wraiths up the board (likely in a Wave Serpent so they get there faster) and start applying pressure rather early in the game to.a key objective or or opponent's back line. Blades will chew through stuff easier (though need the seer to share their invul), but axes are tanky and still appreciate the bonus the seer can give them.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Anyone have thoughts about Wraithlord load outs in the new edition? I'm feeling swords are looking better, and the Aeldari Missile Launcher or Star Cannon could be nice but I haven't dug too deep yet.
The army feels small at 1750. I'm hoping The points will be off and have more points available once they are known. But, the list has 9 vehicles with a fair amount of shooting.
This is the biggest thing I'm noticing while constructing new lists. Our armies were already fairly light on model count so things are only going to get tighter.
Also thinking of Wrath of the Dead and Superior Shuriken over Iyanden. Extra range for stuff like Dire Avengers and Guardians who need to hold objectives is never a bad deal, plus I'm looking at running around 1k of Wraith units.
Sarigar wrote: Possibly give the Spiritseer Faolchu's Wing so he can land within the Wraithblades unit.
Also an option. Thought was you could punt the Spritseer and a unit of Wraiths up the board (likely in a Wave Serpent so they get there faster) and start applying pressure rather early in the game to.a key objective or or opponent's back line. Blades will chew through stuff easier (though need the seer to share their invul), but axes are tanky and still appreciate the bonus the seer can give them.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Anyone have thoughts about Wraithlord load outs in the new edition? I'm feeling swords are looking better, and the Aeldari Missile Launcher or Star Cannon could be nice but I haven't dug too deep yet.
I've not found many instances where I needed to use the sword. With d6 damage, it is too random for my taste. I prefer the fist for a flat 3 damage.
After being reminded why AP0 sucks against Marines, I still think the Starcannon is a solid weapon. I've used two AML on a Wraithlord and it performed well. In 9th, it should have better utility, depending on points.
For starters i'll add EMLs on Wraithlords and Walkers, assuming points fit. Blast on the frag profile seems promissing. Serpents will prbly remain on Shuriken to add vectored engines, maybe even star engines.
I think of a backline battery of 3 Weaver platforns and a squad of Dark Reapers to fire and fade into cover. From there we'll see how many heavy slots will be needed. It's gonna be some serious listbuilding exercises though. So many thoughts, such incoherent posts, i need to get the book in my hands
I'm thinking that I want my Wraithlord weapons to be solid against infantry so that I can get them stuck in and still be shooting (and they're most likely to be tied up by infantry who might not want a wraithlord charging their tank). However, as pointed out, AP0 sucks, especially into cover. Maybe shuriken cannons, if they're still cheap and cheerful? Also agree with the Starcannons, they have a very wide range of valid targets and are very, very good against Primaris.
Starcannons with ignore cover are amazing against primaris. I used it to great effect in my last battle. Even shuriken cannons get a great boost for their rend with it.
I think going forwards MSU and mech spam is the way for anyone who can do it well and were one of the best at it. However, I also think it's down to how they price the wave serpent as it's almost a crutch unit for us it's so good.
I am really liking WW and vypers at the moment as they can both put out fair weight of fire with good movement option's as well.
Star cannons are sounding good. I was thinking the sword for bigger targets since it doesn't remove the fists as an option, but fair points all around.
We have a fairly good number of Custodes players locally as well. Any recommendations there?
My biggest problem in the past with war walkers has been that it was too easy for small infantry units to tie them up and make them useless. Between "outflanking" coming back, and the ability to shoot into troops tying them up, I'm liking them a lot better.
My current builds of double brightlances, however, are exactly what I don't need for that...again maybe looking at starcannons.
Standard disclaimer for not knowing the points anything will cost inserted here.
Argive wrote: Ive run my serpent as backline anchor with twin BL + spirit stone with cover and EC. Very nice platform with a 2+/6+++ and damage reduction.
Im probably going to use a few more aml overall. Points depending.
So far, I played it differently using several Serpents with triple shuricannons moving gradually forward and constantly shooting the enemy.
The units inside were unmounted when needed, mostly 5 DA and 5 FD.
A snippet from the News and Rumors thread regarding new point values.
. Eldar are in a very tough spot. Even if points changes are a little deceptive for this army, they still have some large obstacles to overcome. I feel like currently the mission structure does not provide a great outlet for Eldar, as their speed is of less value on a smaller board (potentially), and they need to be able to sit on objectives to claim them. Their durability in the past version of the rules revolved around massive penalties to hit, and that is not the case any longer with capped modifiers to hit. Things like the Night Spinner going up 25 points, Fire Prisms going up 30 points, and Shining Spears going up 15 points a model will all be large blows to this army, as these were commonly seen, competitive units. Flyers will be of lesser impact, though they both went up about 10%. Troops also went up quite a bit, with Guardian Defenders going up 2 points (platforms 7), Rangers up 3 points, and Storm Guardians also going up 3 points will put a tax on many of these units. I don’t think it’s a great time to be a Craftworlds player, but they do still have some very competitively pointed psykers and perhaps other units will come to the fore as the choice – Wave Serpents are extremely good in this version of the rules and I expect that to be the default choice in the future. Roomba game still strong.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Looks like some of the points increases roll innstandard wargear costs meaning that the end points bump isn't that high, but it's still a points bump.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also, huh. Axe Wraiths are cheaper than the swords if I read thst correctly?
Goonhammer had a similar cross faction write up. My interpretation is that it's not doom and gloom time yet, but until a new codex we have a system that further entrenches the winners and losers units of 8e.
"I can’t pretend that these changes aren’t rough, but the key requirement is being able to still build a mobile, durable force, which you definitely can. It is a real shame that a whole bunch of mid tier stuff gets thrown straight back on the scrapheap – Howling Banshees and Striking Scorpions both get inexplicably massive above-rate increases as a final screw you."
Argive wrote: they are still the cheapest infantry outside of storm guardians now tho...
Indeed. Regular guardians are 10. Our infantry got disproportionately hit with our price increases. Efficiency-wise, definitely steers us into less infantry. How the new rules and missions will support that or not I'm not yet certain.
Well, looks rather confusing as they shifted the model cost and the wargear/weapon cost slightly.
Wargear/weapons often got cheaper and model cost went up.
I'm of the veiw that points across all factions are going to be a best guess rollercoaster for at least the next 2 CA and/or faq cycles, and The Event stopping events means in game feedback, however skewed, is going to limited
Also think the talk of granularity was a tad "I do not think that word means what you think it means", and whilst I dont have the sum-fu to back it up starting by doubling everything then tweaking seems to give far more wiggle room
Ghost axe wraithblades looking very good with only a 5ppm increase. No idea who decided that the sword blades should be an extra 10 ppm though, that's crazy.
kingheff wrote: Ghost axe wraithblades looking very good with only a 5ppm increase. No idea who decided that the sword blades should be an extra 10 ppm though, that's crazy.
There are several units where the Goonhammer gents feel mistakes may have been made; GW rolled a lot of unique weapons costs into the models, and then made the more expensive options a points bump. There are some cases where it clearly looks like they forgot to tidy up with zero-ing out the base weapon choice. This might be one of those. We'll have to wait for FAQ to find out of course.
kingheff wrote: Looks like CTM now changes heavy to assault if the vehicle advances. Interesting...
Opens up options on WS if you were going to do something like aggressively push them up the table first turn, and disgorge something mean the following. Before I took the shuricans, pushed up, shot/ate fire, and then the scytheguard got out and messed up the stuff around them turn 2.
Now you can take things like starcannons, and do the same thing.
Verthane wrote: There are several units where the Goonhammer gents feel mistakes may have been made; GW rolled a lot of unique weapons costs into the models, and then made the more expensive options a points bump. There are some cases where it clearly looks like they forgot to tidy up with zero-ing out the base weapon choice. This might be one of those. We'll have to wait for FAQ to find out of course.
Yeah a unit of 5 fire dragons jumped from 110 to 165 points, before you pay for your 9e exarch. A nice 50% bump for a unit that hasn't seen a final tournament table in a long time. I think the point is correct about not accounting for the extra weapons cost, however if the points listed are those that appear in the book that GW puts out for more than a few pennies, on top of the shiny new rulebook cost then I really have to question the value of such a tome.
Yeah a unit of 5 fire dragons jumped from 110 to 165 points, before you pay for your 9e exarch. A nice 50% bump for a unit that hasn't seen a final tournament table in a long time. I think the point is correct about not accounting for the extra weapons cost, however if the points listed are those that appear in the book that GW puts out for more than a few pennies, on top of the shiny new rulebook cost then I really have to question the value of such a tome.
Aren't fire dragon weapons included in their base cost, yielding a net increase of only one point per model?
Yeah a unit of 5 fire dragons jumped from 110 to 165 points, before you pay for your 9e exarch. A nice 50% bump for a unit that hasn't seen a final tournament table in a long time. I think the point is correct about not accounting for the extra weapons cost, however if the points listed are those that appear in the book that GW puts out for more than a few pennies, on top of the shiny new rulebook cost then I really have to question the value of such a tome.
Aren't fire dragon weapons included in their base cost, yielding a net increase of only one point per model?
This is correct. Minimum unit of 5 dragons is 115 points now.
It's interesting Vibros got mentioned in the FAQ confirming their wound rolls being capped at +1 unless you encounter models with -1 to wound modifiers. AP can still scale to +3, but wounds can't. I think considering the interaction with how support weapons use EC they're still very strong indeed.
If they don't change the rules for Hornets, CTM will be a nice addition for them.
Looking at the terrain rules with the rules and point values, 10 strong Warlock Conclave looks to be a possible aggressive unit backed by Wave Serpents and Dire Avengers.
Overall points and FAQ/Errata has little other surprises for me. The hard part is coming to terms with the army being smaller.
Honestly it feels like army lists aren't really going to change much outside of dropping some toys here or there. Too much of the army just didn't punch at it's points level and still doesn't. With everyone in the game seeing a points bump on their troops I don't feel we're worse off, we just need to be more concious of the options we throw on our units.
The points changes seem fairly similar over all the factions, broadly speaking. There are definitely winners and losers but a lot of it seems to be internal balancing changes rather than factions getting big changes, though of course some have come out better than others.
The big thing looks to be finding lists that play the mission well since killing isn't much of a reward in itself but rather something that's done in service of the mission.
It's not just missions that matter either, surviving is paramount with the way objectives work, and surviving isn't an overwhelming attribute of the glass hammer nature of a lot of our units. I wonder if competitive eldar in 9th boils down to wraith units and wave serpents.
Well, that's what I meant really. Being able to take and hold objectives is the most reliable way of winning the mission. Obviously you still need to be able to clear the enemy off of objectives so offence is still vital.
I still think I'm looking at a masterful shots/superior shuriken battalion with avengers, vypers, falcons and Psykers and an expert crafters/masterful shots spearhead for vibro cannons and Asurman as a rough framework.
Yes, falcons/serpents for sure. I just finished nine vibro cannons before all this happened, that thankfully wasn't a waste. I also think hornets will be good, I have three also recently finished, going to test those soon.
Being able to aggressively push while simultaneously grabbing objectives will be key. Worked out a preliminary list that can push fairly hard to protect the units trying to score. I'd also spend 1 CP to make it a Windrider Host.
The 12 CP opens up a lot of stratagem options to hopefully synergize with such a smaller army.
I might be careful doing expensive models in units >5. It's no big deal vs. d6 and better guns but there's several d3 shot guns out there that can pack a punch and giving the freebie 3-shots means a lot more value there.
It doesn't really matter for squishy infantry, since the max loss is an additional cheap model, but when it's an additional Wraithblade or Shining Spear, you know?
I was thinking of basing an army around Assurman, a warlock, a serpent and, 3 full units of Avengers with Avenging Strike. The idea would be to load the warlock, Assurman and 1 full unit in the serpent and deliver them to a central objective. The warlock would have protect. Then I would shuttle the serpent back to pick up another unit of Avengers while the 3rd unit should be able to make it to the central point on their own by no later than the 3rd turn. This gives you 3 units of Avengers with 3++ and probably all of them shooting at +1 to hit and wound. The second and third units are mostly there to keep filling in loses but should still give you good fire support. Also having a 5+ overwatch (before vetern status is added in) should make them tough to dislodge.
peteralmo wrote: It's not just missions that matter either, surviving is paramount with the way objectives work, and surviving isn't an overwhelming attribute of the glass hammer nature of a lot of our units. I wonder if competitive eldar in 9th boils down to wraith units and wave serpents.
Early 9th, sure. But this game is going to go through going pains as we all adapt and learn to play the new game format.
Honestly I think this explains why way back in our 9th edition faction focus the guy said that Dire Avengers with a shimmershield is the way to go. We were all like "Is he trolling?" but now that we know the missions and points it makes sense. An exarch with shimmershield is the same price as an exarch with dual catapaults. And since you can't shoot while performing an action anyway, there is no point in giving the exarch extra guns if you are going to use the DA's to capture objectives. You want the survivability of the 5++ instead.
What are we thinking of for go-to secondaries? I'm thinking Table Quarters for most games, maybe raise the banner, and attrition for wraith heavy builds. But I'm not really sure if those are our best picks.
I mean maybe a Warlock casting one of the Psychic powers why hidden away in the darkest corner of the table?
ClockworkZion wrote: What are we thinking of for go-to secondaries? I'm thinking Table Quarters for most games, maybe raise the banner, and attrition for wraith heavy builds. but I'm not really sure.
Some would eventually argue that Eldar should in the first place go for the secondary and hamper the enemy to get the primaries.
ClockworkZion wrote: What are we thinking of for go-to secondaries? I'm thinking Table Quarters for most games, maybe raise the banner, and attrition for wraith heavy builds. but I'm not really sure.
Some would eventually argue that Eldar should in the first place go for the secondary and hamper the enemy to get the primaries.
It does feel like that would be the fluffier playstyle. Problem is the only secondaries that really rack up enough points to be worth trying to hinge our playstyle around are basically the ones that will get us killed due to needing to expose our models to danger.
Well, I'll go back to my Serpents with triple shuricannons or dual scatterlasers and underslung shuricannons.
Load will be 5 DAs and 5 FDs.
The lack of armor piercing weapons mounted on the Serpents will be counteracted by the FDs.
If heavily armored enemy units come close, the FDs will take care of them.
This is what I'll be trying to start with. Fast deathball of triple falcons, triple vyper squads and characters head for midfield, vibros fire support from the rear. Lots of dakka to clear objectives and big units physically to move block said objectives. Some melee counter with autarch and wraiths. Fairly durable with cheap, semi tough wounds without sacrificing too much firepower.
Batallion (Bladestorm and masterful shots)
Warlock skyrunner 65 (Jinx)
Autarch skyrunner 105
Farseer 115 (Doom, Executioner) Seer of the shifting vector, Faolchu's wing
3x5 Dire avengers exarch with twin cats (Bladestorm) 210
3x3 Vypers twin cats, shuriken cannon 450
I am leaning towards the following based on how I build armies and playstyle:
First Strike
Engage on All Fronts
Something from Purge the Enemy.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
rbstr wrote: I might be careful doing expensive models in units >5. It's no big deal vs. d6 and better guns but there's several d3 shot guns out there that can pack a punch and giving the freebie 3-shots means a lot more value there.
It doesn't really matter for squishy infantry, since the max loss is an additional cheap model, but when it's an additional Wraithblade or Shining Spear, you know?
Fair point. The Shining Spears could be lowered to 5. If I did that, then I could tweak something to then take 2 x 5 Wraithblades. My thoughts on the larger squad sizes is to make them more enticing to target. My Dire Avengers and Wave Serpents are what I'll be utilizing to gain primary objective points.
kingheff wrote: This is what I'll be trying to start with. Fast deathball of triple falcons, triple vyper squads and characters head for midfield, vibros fire support from the rear. Lots of dakka to clear objectives and big units physically to move block said objectives. Some melee counter with autarch and wraiths. Fairly durable with cheap, semi tough wounds without sacrificing too much firepower.
Batallion (Bladestorm and masterful shots)
Warlock skyrunner 65 (Jinx)
Autarch skyrunner 105
Farseer 115 (Doom, Executioner) Seer of the shifting vector, Faolchu's wing
3x5 Dire avengers exarch with twin cats (Bladestorm) 210
3x3 Vypers twin cats, shuriken cannon 450
3 Falcons with starcannon, twin cats, 390
Spearhead (Expert crafters and masterful shots)
2 x Wraithseer with starcannon 260
3x3 vibro cannons 405
Total 2000
Any thoughts about having a Farseer Skyrunner? Could swap with the Warlock Skyrunner, putting the Warlock on foot. While expensive at three CP, you would have Tempest of Blades available (Assuming you pay 1 CP for the Windrider Host). The Vypers at close range with a -2 AP. I assume you meant Hail of Doom rather than Bladestorm.
Yep, should be hail of doom. I may play around to fit in the farseer on bike. I was partially thinking about the fact that I could keep him safe in a falcon turn one but with the eliminator price hike they may not be so prevalent. I'd keep the warlock on bike, a 66% chance of exploding heads on a perils is just too big. I could run an autarch with glaive and the wing instead. With the 3 cp spent on the spearhead I was wary of spending more cp on the specialist detechment and then the 3 cp on the strat. I have had good success with the specialist detachment before but with longer range weapons, I'm not sure how effective it will be in the closer quarters of 9th though, definitely an option though.
If I can get a unit into each quarter each turn, including 2 into thier deployment zone by turn two, I will gladly 'yeet' a couple small units into thier zone to score and die. My list is designed to stagger in scorpions, hawks, and spiders for just that reason!
kingheff wrote: Yep, should be hail of doom. I may play around to fit in the farseer on bike. I was partially thinking about the fact that I could keep him safe in a falcon turn one but with the eliminator price hike they may not be so prevalent. I'd keep the warlock on bike, a 66% chance of exploding heads on a perils is just too big. I could run an autarch with glaive and the wing instead. With the 3 cp spent on the spearhead I was wary of spending more cp on the specialist detechment and then the 3 cp on the strat. I have had good success with the specialist detachment before but with longer range weapons, I'm not sure how effective it will be in the closer quarters of 9th though, definitely an option though.
Completely understand regarding Eliminators. I played in a small local tourney last weekend and I was surprised that I faced so few Eliminators. I generally keep my psykers on foot Form The exact same reason. Hoping they go out of fashion in 9th.
kingheff wrote: Yep, should be hail of doom. I may play around to fit in the farseer on bike. I was partially thinking about the fact that I could keep him safe in a falcon turn one but with the eliminator price hike they may not be so prevalent. I'd keep the warlock on bike, a 66% chance of exploding heads on a perils is just too big. I could run an autarch with glaive and the wing instead. With the 3 cp spent on the spearhead I was wary of spending more cp on the specialist detechment and then the 3 cp on the strat. I have had good success with the specialist detachment before but with longer range weapons, I'm not sure how effective it will be in the closer quarters of 9th though, definitely an option though.
Completely understand regarding Eliminators. I played in a small local tourney last weekend and I was surprised that I faced so few Eliminators. I generally keep my psykers on foot Form The exact same reason. Hoping they go out of fashion in 9th.
Tourneys in the EU, almost impossible these days at least in Germany.
I noticed that Illic's and Amallyn's cameleoline cloaks keep the -1 to hit. The FAQ in both cases tells us to change the 2nd sentence, and the -1 to hit is in the first sentence.
It is only the rangers cloaks that lost the -1 to hit.
Seems like everything got hit pretty hard, including some of our best units like CHEs and vibro cannons. It definitely feels a bit gloomy but then again, just about every other faction got hit equally hard or worse with the exception of a select few.
Interestingly the scorpion superheavy tank was indirectly buffed by remaining at 710 points while retaining the ability to fall back and shoot. Toward the end of 8th edition I was fielding it with pretty fantastic results against just about every opponent that wasn't horde. In particular it did extremely well against knights and custodes, both of which are some of the biggest winners of the 9th edition points updates. Throw fortune, guide, and spirit stones on that thing and it essentially deletes a superheavy or elite unit every turn it's alive.
I feel like this may be the edition of lowered expectations. At least at start.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I guess I should back up my statement a bit: 9th edition, at launch, is the edition of lowered expectations. A lot of stuff that was good looks like it got a knee in the soul stones, and things that were bad got taken out behind the shed.
I'm not too mad about the latter because not even points changes where going to save the latter. The former just feels like trying to nerf the entire game equally.
Didn't expect fire prisms and night spinners to go up so much. And really sucks about troops, its not as if we were thrilled about their cost/performance ratio before.... Most point increases were as expected. I haven't looked over any other armies so can't compare.
New edition, new challenges I guess.
Prisms got an unexpected cut last time so I expect they got adjusted back on top of the general increase. Spinners got hit by the out of line of sight blast tax.
The troops increases also seem broadly in line with what other factions got.
I think the points adjustments were fairly slap dash, just a quick update before new codexes roll out.
I think that's to be expected until we get a new codex, shame about scorpions though, they were a hidden gem.
I also think it's important to remember we're pretty much just theory crafting in a vacuum until the meta adjusts to the new missions.
The increase to Prisms does make sense. Having played a few games of 9th, their ability to Linked Fire and Ignore Heavy is incredibly valuable (also Blast). Is 28 points too much? Hard to say but you shouldn't be surprised that they got an increase, they benefit a lot from the new rules.
I wonder if masters of concealment be worth revisiting? With vehicles being unable to get cover it could be nice to get to a 2+ for our vehicles, especially if you want to go in heavily on a spearhead with expert crafters, for example. Imperial fists aren't looking anything like prevalent in marines now so ignore cover isn't looking as likely an obstacle.
It's probably not something I'd use for the battalion since I'd expect too much close quarters fighting over objectives but for a backfield outrider or spearhead I think it's definitely got merit.
What are your thoughts on a unit of 10 wraithblades with axes/shields?
I figure they could go up and hold an objective or the center of the table. They don't shoot so they could simply perform actions.
If they literally encircle a group of psykers buffing them, those psykers could score theough psychic actions in the center of the table. They would also be in range of almost all of it.
The unit of 10 would suffer from blasts... which plays into the strategy. Keep shooting at this unit so that the rest of the army can focus elsewhere.
With the Wraithblades as described, I would look at Hunters of Ancient Relics as a possible Craftworld trait. In order to get the position you mention, Quicken would likely be an important power to utilize. Protect and Fortune are the two staple powers associated with large Wraithblade units.
Sarigar wrote: With the Wraithblades as described, I would look at Hunters of Ancient Relics as a possible Craftworld trait. In order to get the position you mention, Quicken would likely be an important power to utilize. Protect and Fortune are the two staple powers associated with large Wraithblade units.
Why not the masters of concealment?
I'm not sure what the "benefit of cover" means in 9th (+1 save? -1 to hit?)
Alaitoic is also pretty strong, as always.
But it's useless within 12" you may say. Well, now they're within 12" of the center which you can use to get around the sides or sneak in a corner somewhere.
I'm just hoping for something different for Biel-Tan when the next Codex rolls around. The current trait doesn't exactly do wonders for an all Aspect Warrior army that utilizes a wide variety of units.
Im also hoping that The Avatar becomes a Supreme Commander and gets the same steroid treatment the Greater Daemons got.
Wonder how quickly the Codex's will be released this time round. I suspect given we've at least got the 8th ed ones to fall back on it'll be a much slower pace.
I didn't make mention of Masters of Concealment. You get to choose two Craftworld traits the exception of one trait. I mentioned one that is not as widely used, but would benefit Wraithblades.
Armies will likely change in the next few months, but I don't rate Masters of Concealment very high currently. I tend to face many armies or units that ignore cover. I don't particularly like Craftworld Traits that can be mitigated in such a fashion (a big reason I stoped using Alaitoc once the Craftworld Traits were released). Additionally, the missions and terrain will force armies to get closer and long range shooting will become less dominant.
Wraiths are tanky, but costly. With everyone and their dog spec'd into anti-intercessor tech wraiths are often an easy pickup, and they tend to be built around, so that leads to failed plans more often than not. I love the way they look but rarely feel they're worth the points, especially with the hike.
After mulling the secondary objectives (CA 2020, I suspect will simply add more rather than replace), building a list around objectives appears more and more critical to win the game. It may sound obvious, but how does one go about it?
For the Primary missions, mobility and objective secured appear critically important. I think many are already leaning towards DA and Wave Serpents in a pure Craftworld army. I still think a combination of DA and Harlequin Troupes can be a solid choice for this duty.
The secondaries appear very specific. I think trying to take advantage of Craftworld mobility can be key. Two secondaries, from different sections, can be earned by the same unit(s).
Line breaker and Repair Teleport Homer look to give up a large amount of points which Craftworld can begin to earn on turn 1.
Looking at Warp Spiders and Rangers can be units that gain secondary objectives but look so bad on paper, opponents may or may not want to invest resources to deal with it.
The Exarch power Web of Deceit allows a Warp Spider unit to be placed anywhere on the table, outside of 9" of enemy units. Taking two units of 5 strong and send them into the enemy deployment zone on turn 1. Gain 4 points for Line Breaker. Hide them as well as possible. Declare one to Repair Teleport Homer (pick the one unit less likely to be removed by your opponent) and gain 5 points during your next command phase.
On turn two, drop in via Seen Unbidden a unit of Alaitoc Rangers. It seems like a single unit on the table is better suited as you can play the Alaitoc Rangers stratagem where they can only be hit by shooting on 6. I'm also looking at an Autarch with the Shiftshroud who can also enter play from Reserves. That is another two units that can garner points from these two secondaries. And, the Autarch can be used for the Repair Teleport Homer; just needs the infantry keyword and can be a character.
A third secondary can be the Mental Interrogation or Psychic Ritual and utilize a Wraithseer. The rules may change, but its psychic powers are the least likely to be missed while trying to score a secondary. Have other psykers in the list as back up, but then it will become a bit harder to choose; score points or bolster force with psychic powers.
I think another strategy is to have some brick type unit that forces your opponent to respond. There are many examples, but I'm currently leaning to Warlock Skyrunner Conclave. I hope to play it this weekend to test it out. I'd spend the 1 CP for Windrider detachment to further make this unit very difficult to deal with.
Below is a list to give an idea of how a list might look.
Right now, taking first turn appears to provide a lot of advantage as the list can get right into position and have the Warlock Conclave immediately provide a threat that must be dealt with creating a hard choice for the opponent.
Nice analysis! Personally I think psychic actions will quickly dominate our secondary tactics due to the quite tanky 60pt Spiritseers we can throw at that secondary - troop actions are a poor choice for us, imo, unless we go deep into guardian blobs. 6 wounds of spiders, the destruction of which stops us scoring 5vp, is just too important for your opponent to ignore. 20 Guardians with celestial shield and protect would do the job, but that's an obscene 200pts without platforms.
still a bit wary of the ritual secondary as its a bit all or nothing and having it denied on a low cast roll or the various counterspell strats will hurt
grouchoben wrote: Nice analysis! Personally I think psychic actions will quickly dominate our secondary tactics due to the quite tanky 60pt Spiritseers we can throw at that secondary - troop actions are a poor choice for us, imo, unless we go deep into guardian blobs. 6 wounds of spiders, the destruction of which stops us scoring 5vp, is just too important for your opponent to ignore. 20 Guardians with celestial shield and protect would do the job, but that's an obscene 200pts without platforms.
the secondary objective like data recovery or raise banners, as we dont really have the cheap bodies to forego dakka, cos elf tax(weighted partly on a stat deemed unfair to Marines so had to go)
Turnip Jedi wrote: the secondary objective like data recovery or raise banners, as we dont really have the cheap bodies to forego dakka, cos elf tax(weighted partly on a stat deemed unfair to Marines so had to go)
To explain it further, in order to fulfill a data recovery or raise banner secondary objective, a unit has to forgo shooting and instead choose to perform one of these "actions." Is that basically the gist of the new rule? I'm a little confused myself.
Turnip Jedi wrote: the secondary objective like data recovery or raise banners, as we dont really have the cheap bodies to forego dakka, cos elf tax(weighted partly on a stat deemed unfair to Marines so had to go)
To explain it further, in order to fulfill a data recovery or raise banner secondary objective, a unit has to forgo shooting and instead choose to perform one of these "actions." Is that basically the gist of the new rule? I'm a little confused myself.
Pretty much its usually do action x after movement ( but not advancing ) and forego anything else and the pskyer ones prevent other casts and so far you can only do each action once per turn
They are generally difficult to achieve. The challenge I have are the ones where you need to perform the action on an objective or near the center of the board. To me, it can create a situation of putting your models in higher risk the challenge to mitigate it.
Repair Teleport Homer at least allows some mitigation factors.
I believe we should get better balanced secondaries in chapter approved if the grapevine is to be believed.
Hope so, most of these are pretty underwhelming.
kingheff wrote: I believe we should get better balanced secondaries in chapter approved if the grapevine is to be believed.
Hope so, most of these are pretty underwhelming.
part of me still thinks people are weighing them against the ITC or other comp system where maxing them was the expectation, but with a fixed turn limit it might be that 9-12 is a more realistic aim with 15 being a outlier of hot dice in magic christmas land
although would be cool to see traits, options or strats that play with objectives and vp rather than the do more dakka / soak more dakka that the majority boil down to
I get the feeling Repair Teleport Homer and Engage On All Fronts will be great for cheap deep strikers. Pressure your opponent into diverting forces from the mid board in order to deal with your deep strikers or screen them out.
If they don't, you drop two squads in your opponent's deployment zone, in cover, out of LOS, and score an easy 15-30 points.
slave.entity wrote: I get the feeling Repair Teleport Homer and Engage On All Fronts will be great for cheap deep strikers. Pressure your opponent into diverting forces from the mid board in order to deal with your deep strikers or screen them out.
If they don't, you drop two squads in your opponent's deployment zone, in cover, out of LOS, and score an easy 15-30 points.
I played a game with Drukhari and found this to be absolutely the case. I'm on the fence whether Engage on All Fronts is better or Linebreaker.
Vs an opponent who just absolutely does not screen his backfield, and instead goes all in on the big metaball fortress that I'm seeing a lot of lists doing, taking 2-3 cheap deep strikers like scorpion squads with the -1 to hit in cover trait and just dropping them into the backline to repair the teleport homer is ridiculously obnoxious. But vs an opponent who does a better job screening, just taking a couple and dropping them in 1 squad at a time to get Engage points is more reliable.
I'm also curious about Raise the Banners for CWE, if you have a lot of shimmershield Dire Avengers and min ranger squads. Definitely I think secondaries are for forcing your opponent to play a less lethal game by targeting stupid, tough to kill, low offensive output units instead of what he really wants to kill, and I thiink they're vital for making high mobility armies work in 9th.
So mulling it over I feel Wraiths have their place in the army, but likely as a block of Wraithblades with Axes supported by a Fortune casting Farseer.
I don't think high volume blast is the real threat to the unit as much as it is D3 blast with high damage. D6 averages a dead Wraith 60% of the time, so supporting a block is fairly important.
Basically I feel the anti-vehicle meta that is cropping up might hurt our more durable units more than initially thought about.
slave.entity wrote: I get the feeling Repair Teleport Homer and Engage On All Fronts will be great for cheap deep strikers. Pressure your opponent into diverting forces from the mid board in order to deal with your deep strikers or screen them out.
If they don't, you drop two squads in your opponent's deployment zone, in cover, out of LOS, and score an easy 15-30 points.
I played a game with Drukhari and found this to be absolutely the case. I'm on the fence whether Engage on All Fronts is better or Linebreaker.
Vs an opponent who just absolutely does not screen his backfield, and instead goes all in on the big metaball fortress that I'm seeing a lot of lists doing, taking 2-3 cheap deep strikers like scorpion squads with the -1 to hit in cover trait and just dropping them into the backline to repair the teleport homer is ridiculously obnoxious. But vs an opponent who does a better job screening, just taking a couple and dropping them in 1 squad at a time to get Engage points is more reliable.
I'm also curious about Raise the Banners for CWE, if you have a lot of shimmershield Dire Avengers and min ranger squads. Definitely I think secondaries are for forcing your opponent to play a less lethal game by targeting stupid, tough to kill, low offensive output units instead of what he really wants to kill, and I thiink they're vital for making high mobility armies work in 9th.
Imagine if striking scorpions and swooping hawks become meta. Oh man...
I heard Nanavati talking on stream yesterday about 70 avenging strikes dire avengers, loaded up in 6 wave serpents, backed up by Asurmen...
kingheff wrote: I believe we should get better balanced secondaries in chapter approved if the grapevine is to be believed.
Hope so, most of these are pretty underwhelming.
part of me still thinks people are weighing them against the ITC or other comp system where maxing them was the expectation, but with a fixed turn limit it might be that 9-12 is a more realistic aim with 15 being a outlier of hot dice in magic christmas land
although would be cool to see traits, options or strats that play with objectives and vp rather than the do more dakka / soak more dakka that the majority boil down to
It could be deliberate design and possibly is, but they're not very balanced so I hope the full matched play versions are better. Playing a knight list means you're just giving away Titan slayer for 15 VP, but then maybe you choose attrition for probable easy VP, it's a weird one. Guess we'll find out soon.
Imagine if striking scorpions and swooping hawks become meta. Oh man...
I heard Nanavati talking on stream yesterday about 70 avenging strikes dire avengers, loaded up in 6 wave serpents, backed up by Asurmen...
If Scorpions hadn't received such a big price hike I'd have probably run a brigade so it's a bit of a shame.
Nick soon corrected himself on that one though, I believe, saying you don't need that many Avengers, but that may be because he runs Harlequin players too. Nick tends to run crazy builds that require far too much finesse in the movement phase for a mere mortal like myself to try to undertake!
Lawrence giving the 10 man seer council a run out vs iron warriors on TT today for those with a sub. Keen to see how that works out, however I have purposely hidden my bank card from myself as I really really shouldnt buy any more models before playing this accursed game...
TT also heavily prefaced their game with a good few minutes discussion on 9th, making the point that we haven't seen the codices yet and suggesting that they had at least in some form, and this makes a heavily positive change to army composition/gameplay
Barbachop wrote: Lawrence giving the 10 man seer council a run out vs iron warriors on TT today for those with a sub. Keen to see how that works out, however I have purposely hidden my bank card from myself as I really really shouldnt buy any more models before playing this accursed game...
TT also heavily prefaced their game with a good few minutes discussion on 9th, making the point that we haven't seen the codices yet and suggesting that they had at least in some form, and this makes a heavily positive change to army composition/gameplay
Fair point, though maybe phantasm's advantage is heightened by having a large core of power in a position to best take advantage of your enemy's weak side, and with the changes to who goes first that strategem is definitely one of our S tier strats.
Not sure about quicken myself. He did one tap the demon prince in a combat with jinx and 10 witch striking warlocks. I think they actually misread the rule as Lawrence explains it as flat 3 damage when I understood it as 10d3+20 damage, wounding anything on 2s. Jinx offsets the lack of ap somewhat.
kingheff wrote: I thought witch strike only affects one of the warlocks weapons not the whole unit or am I misremembering?
I think this is correct upon reading the entry again
FAQ reads
"Q: How does the Witch Strike Rune of Fortune psychic power work when manifested by a Warlock Conclave unit with more than one model?
A: The psychic power applies to the model you select when you are asked to select a model to measure range, check visibility, etc. from."
From watching the VOD as played it looks like it was affecting the whole unit
Barbachop wrote: Lawrence giving the 10 man seer council a run out vs iron warriors on TT today for those with a sub. Keen to see how that works out, however I have purposely hidden my bank card from myself as I really really shouldnt buy any more models before playing this accursed game...
TT also heavily prefaced their game with a good few minutes discussion on 9th, making the point that we haven't seen the codices yet and suggesting that they had at least in some form, and this makes a heavily positive change to army composition/gameplay
++ Auxiliary Support Detachment -1CP (Aeldari – Craftworlds) ++
+ HQ +
Jain Zar
Too many eggs in one basket if you ask me.
Hello blast weapons.
I feel like people need to crunch the numbers a bit more on blasts, because they're not as scary as people are saying. Maxing shots only gives them more chances to hit and wound, and unless they're stacking other supporting options, or CP into the mix the weapon in question is only averaging a few more wounds.
Like I'm sure everyone else is I'm keen to get some first hand experience. I can see the wisdom of a lot of popular competitive streamers/commentators advocating MSU, however as a new 40k player with a small army that includes 20 newly painted guardians, I want to put them on the table to see for myself. Blast weapons in our codex and in others have paid a heavy premium (Thunderfire cannon nearly doubled) so if an opponent wants to throw costly weapons and a 3+ invuln buffed unit then fair enough. The only thing is that if I'm buffing a blob with protect/ shield then I have little left for wraith blades or spears.
Maybe it's an oversimplification, but if an army is used to competing with small msu units to trade objectives with, then they are poorly optimised to shift a powerful firebase, so assuming you're not neglecting everything else on the board your opponents is gona have to change up his strategy.
As a new player who bought his first 6 or 7 boxes of models based off of optimal 8e wisdom, I've learned a lesson about meta shift quickly, but that was coming at some point I guess.
I feel like a lot of the 9th ed meta predictions were based of 8th ed points as GW hadn't finalized the points at the time. In theory they have sound pointa, but in practice I don't think blast weapons will be as prevelant as they've said if only because of the restrictivs nature of points costs. Too many eggs in on basket to load up on blasts.
Barbachop wrote: Like I'm sure everyone else is I'm keen to get some first hand experience. I can see the wisdom of a lot of popular competitive streamers/commentators advocating MSU, however as a new 40k player with a small army that includes 20 newly painted guardians, I want to put them on the table to see for myself. Blast weapons in our codex and in others have paid a heavy premium (Thunderfire cannon nearly doubled) so if an opponent wants to throw costly weapons and a 3+ invuln buffed unit then fair enough. The only thing is that if I'm buffing a blob with protect/ shield then I have little left for wraith blades or spears.
Maybe it's an oversimplification, but if an army is used to competing with small msu units to trade objectives with, then they are poorly optimised to shift a powerful firebase, so assuming you're not neglecting everything else on the board your opponents is gona have to change up his strategy.
As a new player who bought his first 6 or 7 boxes of models based off of optimal 8e wisdom, I've learned a lesson about meta shift quickly, but that was coming at some point I guess.
A guardian bomb will still work well, they're a little expensive but when you're just running the one big blob with buffs they're pretty tanky as you say.
I think its the value blast will give against a full conclave thats the concern glooping an extra avenger or wotnot is say 12-15 splattering another jetseer is 50 or so
In theory, I'm hoping blasts would go after a powered up Warlock Conclave. At 10 models, it's 3 shot minimums. Those are weapons not going after the units scoring the points. That is its purpose, in my mind.
Now that the Wind Rider Host will no longer be allowed for tourneys, I need to review some strategies, but the core of the Conclave idea would still be intact. I'm not sure how this impacts other armies (loss of specialist detachments).
Sarigar wrote: In theory, I'm hoping blasts would go after a powered up Warlock Conclave. At 10 models, it's 3 shot minimums. Those are weapons not going after the units scoring the points. That is its purpose, in my mind.
Now that the Wind Rider Host will no longer be allowed for tourneys, I need to review some strategies, but the core of the Conclave idea would still be intact. I'm not sure how this impacts other armies (loss of specialist detachments).
Where is the specialist detachment thing? I'm on my phone and didn't spot it when skimming the leak.
Automatically Appended Next Post: So I'm going to do a littlw number crunching tonight, what are some blast weapons we're seeing being real boogeyman out of the gate? I know the Wyvern is one, and maybe the Doomweaver, any others?
Automatically Appended Next Post: Found the specialist detachment clause:
So those will be narrative/casual matched play exclusive I guess.
Does that rule mean that the Faction keyword must be the same between all of your detachments to be Battle forged (thus disallowing soup to retain being Battle forged) or only that the units within each detachment sure the same common keyword?
Leo_the_Rat wrote: Does that rule mean that the Faction keyword must be the same between all of your detachments to be Battle forged (thus disallowing soup to retain being Battle forged) or only that the units within each detachment sure the same common keyword?
You cannot mix Craftworld with Drukhari or Harlequins within a single detachment. You can have a Craftworld detachment and a Harlequin detachment in a battle forged army.
Sarigar wrote: In theory, I'm hoping blasts would go after a powered up Warlock Conclave. At 10 models, it's 3 shot minimums. Those are weapons not going after the units scoring the points. That is its purpose, in my mind.
Now that the Wind Rider Host will no longer be allowed for tourneys, I need to review some strategies, but the core of the Conclave idea would still be intact. I'm not sure how this impacts other armies (loss of specialist detachments).
Where is the specialist detachment thing? I'm on my phone and didn't spot it when skimming the leak.
Automatically Appended Next Post: So I'm going to do a littlw number crunching tonight, what are some blast weapons we're seeing being real boogeyman out of the gate? I know the Wyvern is one, and maybe the Doomweaver, any others?
Automatically Appended Next Post: Found the specialist detachment clause:
So those will be narrative/casual matched play exclusive I guess.
While I don't think we will see three Thunderfire Cannons in an army, one in an army would not be unreasonable to expect. Lots of folks bought that model when the Marine codex was released.
Did plasma weapons get the blast Rule? I recently faced a Leman Russ Commander variant whose shooting was vicious when stratagems were included (I don't own or play Imperial Guard).
So I'm going to do a littlw number crunching tonight, what are some blast weapons we're seeing being real boogeyman out of the gate? I know the Wyvern is one, and maybe the Doomweaver, any others?
Some strange entries on this blast list, most notably bolt sniper rifles. Eliminators still going to see play, even with a modest points hike. From a fluff point of view I want to see the sniper round that is blowing up units of 20 charging orcs...
The first thing worth noting that unless a weapon was D3, it's average number of shots was the same or higher than the minimum of 3 (2D3's average is 4 shots, D6 is average 3 shots, ect), which means that against 5-10 model units the average damage we can expect is the same, excluding the rare times we're being shot at by a single D3 weapon (illustrated by the random Devastator).
The second was that the numbers weren't exactly devastating the to squads. Even Guardians standing in the open with no buff only lost 5 models at most, and even then they'd hardly suffer under the new morale rules, unlike old editions.
Now yes, there are ways to buff this shooting further, but just on a raw points comparison and thus didn't get into the weeds on all the re-rolls and double shooting and other buffs we could stack both ways because we could be here all day, and then we have to look at points and CP investments for those things as well.
So long story short: blasts aren't bad, but I don't think it's the death of the horde, and in some cases I'd argue the horde is better because it takes more rounds of shooting to kill it off on average.
Some quick averages: D6 with no minimum averages 3.5. D6 with min 3 averages 4 (sum of 3,3,3,4,5,6 divided by 6), 14% more hits on average. So as noted, only 0.5 average extra hits. D3, obviously, goes from average of 2 to average of 3 (50% output increase)
Verthane wrote: Some quick averages: D6 with no minimum averages 3.5. D6 with min 3 averages 4 (sum of 3,3,3,4,5,6 divided by 6), 14% more hits on average. So as noted, only 0.5 average extra hits. D3, obviously, goes from average of 2 to average of 3 (50% output increase)
It has a higher floor, yes, but on average it doesn't change the average number of wounds we'd actually see so 5-10 man units are kind of the same thing statistically against anything that isn't D3. It just doesn't drop below 3 shots min if our opponent gets unlucky.
It now has Striking Scorpions, Shining Spears, and both flavors of Wraithblades (since the Swords have the same statline as Wraithguard, but are WAY more expensive, I just did them and didn't do my mathhammer run multiple times).
EDIT: And now that I've re-read what you were saying again, yes, it does average slightly higher, but it's not enough to really swing things in a significant manner. In most cases it's -maybe- 1 extra wound that gets through. Not enough to really throw the whole idea of 10 man units or 20 man Guardian blobs out of the pram over.
Sarigar wrote: Thank you for the spreadsheet. It helps put some things in perspective.
I will be interested to see how players react to blast weapons as it pertains to list building.
Happy to share my findings!
The meta shaking out will be interesting to.watch for sure.
Hordes may not die to blast, but building massive bomb units of expensive models is likely dead since you need to be spread out so.much and running all your eggs in one basket. So green tide may survive since it can run the numbers with multiple units but a single Possessed bomb buffed to the gills is likely not going to see play in the form anymore.
It feels, at least to me, that spreading the buffs put so you only give 1, maybe 2, to each unit seems like the best use pf those buffs. Between that and the fact that units have to survive more than blast weapons, running more bodies over the current logic of just running 5 man units feels like the better approach. Every buff gets more bang out of it, and the units are less likely to go down to any one unit shooting at them meaning more has to be invested (via character support, additional units shooting and/or CP) to take the units outmof the game.
Plus we're just not Primaris, so we can't rely on small units soaking large amounts of damage like they can.
Barbachop wrote: Not sure about quicken myself. He did one tap the demon prince in a combat with jinx and 10 witch striking warlocks. I think they actually misread the rule as Lawrence explains it as flat 3 damage when I understood it as 10d3+20 damage, wounding anything on 2s. Jinx offsets the lack of ap somewhat.
I watched the report. It was mentioned they misplayed Witchstrike, but it made no difference with all the failed saves.
The report somewhat showcased the idea of the big Warlock Conclave purpose. It became an immediate threat and drew a good amount t of firepower away from the parts of the army that was scoring points. I think the Conclave can be further optimized, but served its purpose well.
Barbachop wrote: Not sure about quicken myself. He did one tap the demon prince in a combat with jinx and 10 witch striking warlocks. I think they actually misread the rule as Lawrence explains it as flat 3 damage when I understood it as 10d3+20 damage, wounding anything on 2s. Jinx offsets the lack of ap somewhat.
I watched the report. It was mentioned they misplayed Witchstrike, but it made no difference with all the failed saves.
The report somewhat showcased the idea of the big Warlock Conclave purpose. It became an immediate threat and drew a good amount t of firepower away from the parts of the army that was scoring points. I think the Conclave can be further optimized, but served its purpose well.
Assuming you're still getting jinx/quicken/protect from other warlocks I still wonder whether the points would be better spend on 9-man shining spears unit, much cheaper than the warlocks, with protect just as durable, and better in combat now that witch strike has been FAQ'd to only affect one warlock.
ClockworkZion wrote: I feel like a lot of the 9th ed meta predictions were based of 8th ed points as GW hadn't finalized the points at the time. In theory they have sound pointa, but in practice I don't think blast weapons will be as prevelant as they've said if only because of the restrictivs nature of points costs. Too many eggs in on basket to load up on blasts.
Not really. Most armis don't really go out of their way to choose blast weapons, weapons they bring just have blast now. The bigger downfall of blast is the fact that it's worthless for multiple D6 and D3 shot profiles (ala the conflag exorcist's 3D6 shots) unless you go over 10. Up to 10 models will feel coherency more than they'll feel blast.
ClockworkZion wrote: I feel like a lot of the 9th ed meta predictions were based of 8th ed points as GW hadn't finalized the points at the time. In theory they have sound pointa, but in practice I don't think blast weapons will be as prevelant as they've said if only because of the restrictivs nature of points costs. Too many eggs in on basket to load up on blasts.
Not really. Most armis don't really go out of their way to choose blast weapons, weapons they bring just have blast now. The bigger downfall of blast is the fact that it's worthless for multiple D6 and D3 shot profiles (ala the conflag exorcist's 3D6 shots) unless you go over 10. Up to 10 models will feel coherency more than they'll feel blast.
They'll only feel it more if you're trying to string the unit out, something that doesn't benefit Craftworlds as much since all of our buffs either come from strats or psychic powers.
Barbachop wrote: Not sure about quicken myself. He did one tap the demon prince in a combat with jinx and 10 witch striking warlocks. I think they actually misread the rule as Lawrence explains it as flat 3 damage when I understood it as 10d3+20 damage, wounding anything on 2s. Jinx offsets the lack of ap somewhat.
I watched the report. It was mentioned they misplayed Witchstrike, but it made no difference with all the failed saves.
The report somewhat showcased the idea of the big Warlock Conclave purpose. It became an immediate threat and drew a good amount t of firepower away from the parts of the army that was scoring points. I think the Conclave can be further optimized, but served its purpose well.
Assuming you're still getting jinx/quicken/protect from other warlocks I still wonder whether the points would be better spend on 9-man shining spears unit, much cheaper than the warlocks, with protect just as durable, and better in combat now that witch strike has been FAQ'd to only affect one warlock.
Shining Spears are wave 2. Spend lots of resources trying to whittle down the Conclave, then have a Shining Spear unit hit to further challenge target priority. If an opponent is trying to deal with these elements, that is less that can go after the units that actually will win me the game. The real challenge is to ensure to not get the Conclave compromised on turn 1. If I don't get first turn, it is about maximizing things like Phantasm, range and LOS. Then, it's important to have the Farseer get a +1 to casting and the Warlock Conclave getting a +3 to cast. The Farseer can also take Seer of Shifting Vector, effectively providing two rerolls per psychic phase, and opening up a CP reroll for the Warlock Conclave should they need it. You can position the Conclave in such a way to get a single model out of Deny the Witch range, if at all possible. This is the unit you'd want to spend CP to auto pass morale with.
The Conclave will end up with a 3++/5+++, even in assault which is extremely durable. With stratagems and some other psychic upgrades, it is effectively a deathstar for 9th edition; these work very well within the construct of progressive missions. I played a lot of these style missions in 6th edition using this method and it worked very well. Edition is different, but the concept remains the same.
I'm hoping to get in some games today or tomorrow to play it as that will really help me better understand 9th edition nuances.
It seems like objectives are so important that you need to build "sub detachments" designed to take and hold one objective.
I'm getting a lot of mileage out of 10 Wraithblades with ghost axes and shields. The only time the have every dropped bellow half strength was against salamander terminators.
Due to defenders choosing who fights first, the terminators got to swing first and then double-fought.
I paid 2 CP to keep the last guy on the board, who died in my opponent's turn, then my dire avengers gunned the whole unit down.
My detachments are
1. A wraithlord and my farseer (home base objective)
2. Specialist detachment spiritseer with 10 Wraithblades
3. Asurmen and 30 Dire Avengers
4. 9 Shining Spears
I have a unit of 10 Dark Reapers that hang back and provide fire support.
The wraithlord is a great body guard. A unit of 5 wraithblades seems great untill you realize they don't provide "look out sir" after 3 losses. The wraithlord saves the farseer until death.
Sounds like a solid, competitive list. Do you find you have to put a lot of resources into your Dark Reapers - are they starting on the board? Played any armies that are putting pressure on your backfield? Are you bringing anything in in the webway/reserve?
Sounds like a solid, competitive list. Do you find you have to put a lot of resources into your Dark Reapers - are they starting on the board? Played any armies that are putting pressure on your backfield? Are you bringing anything in in the webway/reserve?
I've been playing against myself on TTS. I was focusing on the Eldar list so I ran it against
Adrax Agatone
Librarian
3x Flame Aggressors
All in a Repulsor
10 THSS Terminators on foot
3x 5 Intercessors with bolt rifles
2x Impulsors
Redemptor
Thunderfire Cannon
The first game I used powerlevel instead of using points for the marines... big mistake. I ended up playing 2400 of Salamanders vs 2000 Eldar.
Basically, the impulors sat on objectives with 4++. Everything else aggressively pushed into the Eldar.
Usually the salamanders were ahead 10 to 15 on the primary but the Eldar either tied it up or pull slightly ahead by turn 5.
The biggest changes were the cap at -1 to hit combined with vehicles moving and shooting with no penalties.
Also, my shining spears wanted to fall back and shoot a couple of times but couldn't.
The dark reapers were on the table often. They hid turn 1 so only indirect fire could hit them.
Being in a unit of 10, by my read of the rules, means automatic 12 shots from thunderfires as they shoot 4d3 shots. Greater than 5 models means the minimum per roll is 3.
Also, tempest launchers were not great against Intercessors but seem like they'd be AWESOME vs hordes with doom.
There is a belief among some players that the blast rule applies per weapon rather than per die. So that the thunderfires would roll 4d3 and if the total is less than 3 then it becomes 3. In other words as far as thuderfires are concerned unless they shoot at a unit of 11+ they just roll as normal.
Leo_the_Rat wrote: There is a belief among some players that the blast rule applies per weapon rather than per die. So that the thunderfires would roll 4d3 and if the total is less than 3 then it becomes 3. In other words as far as thuderfires are concerned unless they shoot at a unit of 11+ they just roll as normal.
That's because the rule says "dice" not "die" when discussing the total number of attacks. Plus a Thunderfire Cannon getting 12 shots at a unit of 6+? Not on your life would that be balanced.
EDIT: The rule
I strongly suspect some of the knee jerk reactions are from people reading that you adjust each die to 3 instead of the total number of attacks to 3 if you roll under 3.
I can't tell if you are agreeing with me or not but, I believe the reason people think that way is that the rule is about the weapon and not the number of dice rolled.The rule specifically says the weapon makes a minimum of 3 attacks. Not 3 attacks per die but just 3 attacks. So the number and type of dice used isn't germane to the rule. If a weapon is d3, 2d6 or even, 3d4 if it is shooting at a unit of 6 - 10 models then it makes as many attacks as it rolls with its die/dice or 3 whichever is more.
Leo_the_Rat wrote: I can't tell if you are agreeing with me or not but, I believe the reason people think that way is that the rule is about the weapon and not the number of dice rolled.The rule specifically says the weapon makes a minimum of 3 attacks. Not 3 attacks per die but just 3 attacks. So the number and type of dice used isn't germane to the rule. If a weapon is d3, 2d6 or even, 3d4 if it is shooting at a unit of 6 - 10 models then it makes as many attacks as it rolls with its die/dice or 3 whichever is more.
I'm agreeing with you, backing up why you're right, and saying that people are nuts for playing it the other way.
Long story short so you don't need to read the old thread: some things were pointed out about the math which have been corrected (as was my oversight on Wyverns re-rolling wounds), and I've expanded the target units to include MSU Ork Boyz and Grots as well as both units maxed out to cover some more horde profiles so people can get a look at how this impacts units who don't live with a T3 profile.
The shooting profiles have also been expanded, plasma cannon devastators are now a whole unit to illustrate D3 weapons being employed in a more realistic manner against units of all sizes, and I've also added in 6 new shooting units: Tactical Marines with bolters, Primaris with Bolt Rifles, Guardsman. The Marines come in both MSU and 10 Astartes sized units, and the Guard will be shooting normally, and while buffed with FRFSRF (the points cost for the buffing officer being added in for the bottom chart). This is to highlight the efficeincy of regular units shooting hordes vs blasts to give a better picture of where blasts fall into the mix.
I do want to say that all math was done using an 8th edition calculator (http://40k.ghostlords.com/dice/ ) as no 9th edition ones currently exist, and I'll be honest I'm not going to spend weeks trying to make one in excel to get an idea about this topic, so all average attack numbers with D6 weapons were done manually for 6-10 man units (as well as the Basalisk due to it's "roll 2D6 and take the highest" rule for attacks), and the Dire Avengers saves are all done on the basis of the worst save to smooth things out when dealing with the mixed profile nature of the unit.
So, after crunching, and re-crunching all the numbers, what do I think?
Well a couple of things: First there was only one instance of a single blast weapon wiping out half a squad on average, and it was against an MSU squad of Dire Avengers. To be fair, it was a Wyvern which averages 12 shots, so that's probably not too much of a shock.
Second, multiple blast weapons being fired at a target (such as the Devastators) was -far- more effective than any single blast weapon (or at least the ones I've seen touted more as the ones to be concerned about), and units like Marines and Guard were far more effective at dealing out wounds just by getting into rapid fire range than blast weapons against most targets. I could probably test out a no-rapid fire option for the units as well, but even if they're not as good we still have unbuffed squads doing more damage by getting close, something to be concerned about with smaller tables since that becomes far easier for them to do.
In actual game play I'd likely combine options (for example, a Whirlwind and an Intercessor squad at half range) to inflict the most casualties. Blasts to soften hordes (or even mid-sized units) first, followed by regular small arms to finish the job. This is because blasts are more effective against undamaged units, while the small arms don't care as much and can finish the job more efficiently.
As for list building, I'd have to say in most cases large units actually benefit you more. You become more resistant to any single shooting attack, and your buffs become more effective (especially important if your army doesn't rely on auras for your buffs, like Craftworlds who get most of their buffs via psychic powers and stratagems). The downside of course is debuffs are more efficient, and you give up slightly more casualties to any single blast weapon, or a whole lot more against units with multiple D3 blast weapons as they can keep getting the max number of attacks for a lot longer.
Long and short of it is that no individual blast weapon is going to break a horde, just give up slightly more casualties on average, and if your army leans into hordes get some games in with them before you decide to shelf the horde and go MSU, or even mid-sized units.
My detachments are
1. A wraithlord and my farseer (home base objective)
2. Specialist detachment spiritseer with 10 Wraithblades
3. Asurmen and 30 Dire Avengers
4. 9 Shining Spears
I have a unit of 10 Dark Reapers that hang back and provide fire support.
The wraithlord is a great body guard. A unit of 5 wraithblades seems great untill you realize they don't provide "look out sir" after 3 losses. The wraithlord saves the farseer until death.
It appears that the overall tactics in the 9th ed will change as one has to pay attention to the primaries and secondaries more than ever.
This makes a whole new game if you ask me.
In former editions, my Eldar advanced gradually with fire support and went for the enemy's throat in the end game giving a damn on objectives - it worked most of the time.
My detachments are
1. A wraithlord and my farseer (home base objective)
2. Specialist detachment spiritseer with 10 Wraithblades
3. Asurmen and 30 Dire Avengers
4. 9 Shining Spears
I have a unit of 10 Dark Reapers that hang back and provide fire support.
The wraithlord is a great body guard. A unit of 5 wraithblades seems great untill you realize they don't provide "look out sir" after 3 losses. The wraithlord saves the farseer until death.
It appears that the overall tactics in the 9th ed will change as one has to pay attention to the primaries and secondaries more than ever.
This makes a whole new game if you ask me.
In former editions, my Eldar advanced gradually with fire support and went for the enemy's throat in the end game giving a damn on objectives - it worked most of the time.
Seriously? You previously would discount/dismiss people's discussions regarding 9th edition and how it changes the game and are just just now realizing what folks observed weeks ago.
Ok, so I'm still a bit overwhelmed by all the changes, but so far I think Guardian bomb is a good option.
Especially considering that Rangers got nerfed.
This is a bit CP Heavy, but I think it works:
1CP for Webway, drop in turn 2.
Cast Doom on thier Target and Protect on the Gaurdians. Probably need 1CP here for Seer Council.
Shoot the target, then Fire & Fade - 1CP.
When the opponent targets the Guardians, use Celestial Shield- 1CP. Now they have a 3++ against shooting. Allocating wounds to weapon platforms could get you a 1+ (3+ armour + cover + Protect) if you are in Cover or have the Masters of Concealment trait.
But due to thier size and how much damage they may have just done, an opponent may still dedicate a lot of shooting at them, especially if they have Blast weapons.
Expensive and cost up to 4CPs to pull off, but could very well cause an opponent to waste a turn of shooting by over committing. Or they may ignore the Guadians which could let them do it again.
Galef wrote: Ok, so I'm still a bit overwhelmed by all the changes, but so far I think Guardian bomb is a good option.
Especially considering that Rangers got nerfed.
This is a bit CP Heavy, but I think it works:
1CP for Webway, drop in turn 2.
Cast Doom on thier Target and Protect on the Gaurdians. Probably need 1CP here for Seer Council.
Shoot the target, then Fire & Fade - 1CP.
When the opponent targets the Guardians, use Celestial Shield- 1CP. Now they have a 3++ against shooting. Allocating wounds to weapon platforms could get you a 1+ (3+ armour + cover + Protect) if you are in Cover or have the Masters of Concealment trait.
But due to thier size and how much damage they may have just done, an opponent may still dedicate a lot of shooting at them, especially if they have Blast weapons.
Expensive and cost up to 4CPs to pull off, but could very well cause an opponent to waste a turn of shooting by over committing. Or they may ignore the Guadians which could let them do it again.
-
I also plan to have a toy around with bombs, perhaps even if Ulthwe but not sure at the moment. The only thing I'd say about the above is that with all that investment, I think you probably want your opponent to waste shots on 20 wounds of 3++, so fire and fade is probably overkill - similar to planes in 8th and wave serpents, you're giving your opponents a juicy but inefficient target. IMO you might be better fire and fading reapers or other heavy fire support unit.
There's debate in places about fire and fade and reserves in 9e. As written the rules prevent F+F from allowing you another normal move after deep striking ( as was the case in 8th.) The rules say that incoming reserves cannot make a "normal move" however F+F specifically states that this movement is not a "normal move," its a fixed valued of 7inches. This might be FAQd and was taken from a discussion by Skaredcast, Richard Sieglar and Nick Nanavatti on Art of War.
whilst I dont think a ds guardian blob is bad its still quite the footprint and from the few 9e bat reps ive seen even a half hearted spread can deny a lot of table
Turnip Jedi wrote: whilst I dont think a ds guardian blob is bad its still quite the footprint and from the few 9e bat reps ive seen even a half hearted spread can deny a lot of table
Yup, I agree. That said a list probably has room for one chunky unit to contest and get protect/fortune so right now I'm weighing up wraithblades or the guardian blob. The former might be better as it's a little more resilient and doesn't require the upkeep - however I'm unable to make pew pew noises while rolling my dice when using them and that's a big consideration for me.
Today's AOW stream features dual Craftworld/Harlequin battalions. It's another objective grabbing footfest. Granted this is just one player's (quite extreme) adaption to a meta that puts so much focus on objective holding, and little on traditional trading of dakka, but I imagine most eldar players will find his list a little bland. Not looking to start a discussion on the merits of 9th as there's plenty of that elsewhere, but fwiw I'd prefer to see more variety in our top tier competitive lists. Hopefully as the edition develops our codex enables a more broad set of options. But hey warp spiders. One interesting thing is that he's gone back to bladestorm and 5mans instead of 6/7 mans plus avenging strikes.
Craftworld battalion- superior shurikens, expert craftsmen
Asurmen 160
Farseer doom, executioner 115
5 avengers- bladestorm, 65
5 avengers- bladestorm, 65
5 avengers- bladestorm, 65
5 avengers- bladestorm, 65
5 avengers- bladestorm, 65
5 avengers- bladestorm, 65
5 spiders- web of deceit 90
5 spiders- web of deceit 90
5 spiders- web of deceit 90
Frozen stars battalion
Shadowseer- -1 to hit, twilight pathways, extra role -6” range
Troupe master- fang, extra pivotal role darkness 65
9 troupes- 5 embrace 151
9 troupes- 5 kiss 156
9 troupes- 5 caress 156
Solitaire- rose 102
Jester- ignore overwatch/-2” move 50
5 sky weavers- 5 haywire, 4 glaives 270
I think 6 MSUDA is a pretty nice pick too, but I'm unsure that meets the threshold for bothering with Asurmen @160pts frankly. I think I'd rather keep with the 4++ Exarch power at that point and take more haywire, seeing how MSU avengers will be pretty spread out anyway... In fact that looks like quite a nice list for the Yncarne to do her thing in...
I'm still not sure about this list Nick is running. It's like he's got the core of two armies without it coming together into a cohesive whole. Granted he's forgotten more about 40k than I've ever known but it looks like he thinks T3 4++ models are hard to kill. I wish they were but they're really not.
I like that he's trying something different but I really don't see this being a list he'd take to a tournament anytime soon.
It's the MSU that's making them hard to kill. Splitting fire across that many MSU 4++ squads is horribly inefficient for shooty armies. His opponent ends up wasting a ton of shots overkilling units or wasting a ton of shots underkilling units and being forced to commit more firepower to finish them off.
Not sure how effective it is in the current competitive meta (whatever that is) but it seems like a solid plan.
AoW has also mentioned that they think the top 3 strongest armies are DG, Custodes and Admech. They put Space Marines at 4th, and Eldar/Sisters tied for 5th. So Nick probably isn't planning to win any events with CWE.
But they seem to be predicting a msu meta so surely min squads of marines with bolters, sisters with bolters etc just eat them up with volume of shots from many small units?
Yeah I'd definitely agree there. He mentioned transporting them in a bunch of serpents last week, not sure why we haven't seen any in their streams lately.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also, I watched his battle report with DA spam + quins against Siegler's Tau'nar last week, and I seem to remember him saying he really didn't like the skyweavers. Is he really taking skyweavers again or is the list posted the one from last week?
That's somewhat encouraging to hear. I'm really hoping there's a decent way to run support weapons in 9th. The 6 vibro cannons I built for Adepticon this year never made it to the tabletop due to COVID.
This was taken from the aow match tonight, so yeah is a refinement of last weeks list. MSU units with a focus on tactical movement. From listening to him talk about the game Nick relies on having sufficient knowledge to trade off objective points/units which is a lucrative strat but not one Im remotely competent enough to try myself. Id much rather go for balance, and have vibros to dust off also. I think another strategy of pinning down enemies and then supporting (a la Skarey) is a more fun playstyle, certainly for new players. That way the serpents and big guns get to come into the mix.
Honestly I'm less in favor of MSU with T3 bodies as it makes it easier to score Attrition off of us. Additionally removing 10+ of something tends to be harder than removing just 5 of something.
I think vibros are still more than fine. 45 PTS for a superior auto cannon with a built in tremor shell type effect is still great with expert crafters.
With expert crafters I'm sure they out damage a falcon, though I don't have the chance to do the maths now. Strength seven with free veterans of the long war is pretty great still. Wounding T6 and lower on a 2+ with a reroll is pretty efficient. Equally effective against T7+ as the pulse laser, though less damage of course. I'd still try to take both to be honest, they're both cheap efficient fire platforms.
More wounds but less toughness, three sets of five wounds probably being more annoying to take out than a single block of 12.
Yeah that sounds about right. But the cost of getting that 'free' votlw, or matching a falcon vs T8 is a 1d3 autocannon for 50pts shooting first.
The +2 wound, along with the ludicrously cheap cost, was always the double-whammy with vibros imo. They still have play, but just aren't the bleeding edge pick they were I guess.
ClockworkZion wrote: Honestly I'm less in favor of MSU with T3 bodies as it makes it easier to score Attrition off of us. Additionally removing 10+ of something tends to be harder than removing just 5 of something.
But that is likelt my personal bias speaking.
you don't put 1 unit of 5 on an objective. you put 2-3.
Units like Aggressors start to run into overkill/underkill (if you split) issues instead of just pumping all shots into a 10m unit. Feel like that is mostly what it is meant to counter, a limited number of highly effective units rather then many units with moderate effectiveness.
Like Grouch Im a bit on the fence about V-Cannons maybe if they can dodge the cut/paste curse come codex time the stacking bonus will get a tweak
Think even as pricey as they are d-cannons might be worth a try, with a whole foot lopped off table length and ( in theory ymmv) more terrain sneaking on behind los blocking and being able being able to hit the middle from the edge could work
One thing that may well be worth revisiting is the sniping trait dark reaper exarchs with tempest launcher. With the midfield battle ground being so essential that exarch could be a real nuisance for squishy buffers.
ClockworkZion wrote: Honestly I'm less in favor of MSU with T3 bodies as it makes it easier to score Attrition off of us. Additionally removing 10+ of something tends to be harder than removing just 5 of something.
But that is likelt my personal bias speaking.
you don't put 1 unit of 5 on an objective. you put 2-3.
Units like Aggressors start to run into overkill/underkill (if you split) issues instead of just pumping all shots into a 10m unit. Feel like that is mostly what it is meant to counter, a limited number of highly effective units rather then many units with moderate effectiveness.
Attrition is a secondary that gives 4VP each turn you kill more units than you lose. In the GT pack it's changed to Grind Them Down:
Making my units easier to pop and giving up free VP feels a bit off.
kingheff wrote: One thing that may well be worth revisiting is the sniping trait dark reaper exarchs with tempest launcher. With the midfield battle ground being so essential that exarch could be a real nuisance for squishy buffers.
So is there a feeling that the Exarch with a Tempest Launcher is superior to the standard Reaper Launcher with the new Blast rules?
kingheff wrote: One thing that may well be worth revisiting is the sniping trait dark reaper exarchs with tempest launcher. With the midfield battle ground being so essential that exarch could be a real nuisance for squishy buffers.
So is there a feeling that the Exarch with a Tempest Launcher is superior to the standard Reaper Launcher with the new Blast rules?
CB
I think in this caseits more the ignoring LOS letting you snipe out characters that you might have trouble getting direct shots at
I guess it depends on how squishy the characters are but a sniping Exarch with a reaper launcher would also be pretty scary. 48" range practically covers the whole board now.
I was thinking about a squad of five or six fire and fading forwards and backwards behind obscuring cover. Even if the sniping potential comes to nothing you still get a good squad of reapers and a tempest launcher.
The idea was floated of taking 2 squads of Dark Reapers and deep strike within the 18" range to snipe out characters on turn 2. Not sure 115 points per squad of 3 is worth the points, but combined with Masterful Shots, it could be a unique tactic that would prove difficult to defend against.
The deepstrike plan is probably too expensive now but I think the ability is a nice bonus as long as the unit itself is worth taking an reapers only went up 4pts each I believe? The tempest launcher is extra on top but worth it for the good indirect fire.
Has anyone read about how the Custom Craftworld attribute: Masterful Shots, will work in 9th. Targeted enemy units don't receive the benefit of cover. Will I be able to target a unit behind a ruin, because they don't get that bonus? Or is the attribute pointless since "cover" doesn't exist in 9th?
So I went ahead and snagged the app today and decided to check put one of the points issues we'd been wondering about in the 9th ed Chapter Approved and Wraithblades are 40ppm with no cost for swords, axes or shields:
That makes more sense, I figured it was a mistake. Axe wraithblades still looks like the best bet though.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Snuffling through the app I noticed the hemlock now has an assault 3 instead of d3 profile for it flamers which is nice. AML can fire the crack version into melee since only the frag profile has blast. Not sure if that was confirmed previously.
Anyone else noticed any little changes?
Agusto wrote: Has anyone read about how the Custom Craftworld attribute: Masterful Shots, will work in 9th. Targeted enemy units don't receive the benefit of cover. Will I be able to target a unit behind a ruin, because they don't get that bonus? Or is the attribute pointless since "cover" doesn't exist in 9th?
standing in a ruin makes you visible and you can shoot out of it with a +1 bonus to your save. So it negates armour saves for standing in cover. Thats my understanding
Watched a game with Richard Seiglar and Nick Nanavati and I have to my concerns about 5 man Dire Avengers is pretyy on point: namely because the units evaporate. I get the benefits, but I just don't think a T3, 4+ body is tough enough to spam as MSU.
Well, at least not unless you're sticking 2 5 mans in a Wave Serpent to cap each objective.
If you're not running that sort of Mechdar list don't expect them hold objectives for more than two turns tops since objectives aren't inside terrain.
Yes, proper terrain can break up the table quite a bit, but you have to be able cap the objective in then open so anything that can get line of sight on you is likely not suffering any sort of shooting penalty (save for dense terrain which works if you draw a through it).
As for secondaries, I feel like the killing secondaries give free points, but they're hard to max (kill 150 models to max the anti-horde one, kill more units than you lose for 3-4 turns to max the anti-MSU), so I'd tailor that one for my opponent for some easy points, but focus my other secondaries into the hold and hold more types since the army has the movement and hiding stuff while scoring secondaries isn't too hard.
The Taunar match? Agreed on the DAs, even as Nick runs them with 4++ our strength isn't bullying opponents off of 2 objectives or out tanking them, so unless you can rely on trading secondaries perfectly I feel we're in trouble vs any army that bullys us off of objectives. Everything in Scotland is still on lockdown so I'm yet to play any matches but I hypothesised 2 wave serpents running DAs making a run for early objectives while my wraithblades/possible guardian blob took the other might be viable. Tabletop Titans advocated double Wave serpent with msuDAs as a durable objective grabber which I think holds up as that takes a decent amount to punch through, so theres a decent chance that a buffed up blob can do work elsewhere, but I'm yet to see if that stands up to the real winners of early 9th.
They played a similar match last night with Nick on A heavy DA list vs World Eaters and he struggles to force the action, with the World Eaters winning on primaries and a lot of points from Engage On All Fronts
Barbachop wrote: The Taunar match? Agreed on the DAs, even as Nick runs them with 4++ our strength isn't bullying opponents off of 2 objectives or out tanking them, so unless you can rely on trading secondaries perfectly I feel we're in trouble vs any army that bullys us off of objectives. Everything in Scotland is still on lockdown so I'm yet to play any matches but I hypothesised 2 wave serpents running DAs making a run for early objectives while my wraithblades/possible guardian blob took the other might be viable. Tabletop Titans advocated double Wave serpent with msuDAs as a durable objective grabber which I think holds up as that takes a decent amount to punch through, so theres a decent chance that a buffed up blob can do work elsewhere, but I'm yet to see if that stands up to the real winners of early 9th.
Yup, that's the match. I feel like Wraithblades might help keep us from getting bullied, but more realistically we either need to take an early lead, or clear the opponent of the objectives by turn 2 so we can start claiming them. Primaries are just too important to avoid completely, and I feel like we need to be holding at least 2/4 to really be competing.
I feel a single Guardian blob for holding a backfield objective (horde it up to 20 models, raise the banners and take some high RoF weapon platforms for Overwatch is basically my plan) since we can easily toss a 4++ on it and leave it unsupported compared to much of the rest of the army.
I want to try outflanking a unit of Wraithguard (or maybe two units, but give one scythes so they keep hordes away from the edges too) as it might force my opponent to keep their more important units away from the table edges allowing us to dictate where they're going early game, but that's something I'm not sure of.
What do you make of the Warp Spider endorsement? Chance to grab one objective and then re-deep strike onto another seems pretty strong right? I've not seen anyone advocate their use before.
Keen to see how people get on once play becomes more regular for everyone. Personally I just finished Eldrad, so I'm super keen to run the ulthwe bomb for a little bit of durability, and as a new player that feels like the most "Eldary" playstyle available to me. That means I've invested a lot though, so any wraithblades I bring are gona have to do a lot of work off of their own backs
Barbachop wrote: What do you make of the Warp Spider endorsement? Chance to grab one objective and then re-deep strike onto another seems pretty strong right? I've not seen anyone advocate their use before.
Keen to see how people get on once play becomes more regular for everyone. Personally I just finished Eldrad, so I'm super keen to run the ulthwe bomb for a little bit of durability, and as a new player that feels like the most "Eldary" playstyle available to me. That means I've invested a lot though, so any wraithblades I bring are gona have to do a lot of work off of their own backs
Striking Scorpions and Rangers are a bit higher on my list, Rangers can grab an objective turn 1 and Scorpions can pop up mid to late game to bull a chaffe unit off a backfield objective to claim some points (or just deny some).
Swooping Hawks and Warp Spiders both have nice deep strike options and can do some decent work in shooting as well, which could help hit the enemy in places they less expect it and allow us to take objectives, or just drop into table quarters and hold ground for VP.
The more I look at the army the more I'm seeing our greatest strength is definitely mobility. There shouldn't be a space on the new tables we can't reach via deep strike or our high mobility. I feel that turns 1-3 our probably our best turns to score the primaries, maybe raise some banners too, and then 4-5 should be the turns where we try and keep what's left alive to score secondaries and try and deny opponent's scoring.
But that's one of those "plans last until contact with the enemy" sort of things too.
The more I look at the army the amore I'm seeing our greatest strength is definitely mobility
Probably correct here. I believe most of us will be running the space elf equivalent of "knock knock run away" for a while yet
At least it fits the lore. Eldar don't traditionally fight a drag out engagement. We harrass the enemy while bleeding them through a million cuts. They die tired and we get to be smug about it.
Honestly I don't hate that the game pushes us to recreate that on the table, I'm just less sure how to win while doing it. I probably just don't have enough games in and my army is going to take a lot of slow growing and tweaking as I get more games in to really hit a good stride with.
That said, with how deadly this game is to T3 models, I feel any unit we want to live beyond a turn (save Wraiths since they're fairly tough, but even then we might want to go max just to make sure we don't get missile launchered to death or something), is probably going to need to be full sized. We can do a lot to reduce how much is shooting at us, but 5 of anything doesn't last long in this game with our profile. Even if we can spam an invul save of some kind we fold like we're made of paper when pushed too hard, which means we need to likely operate on three fronts:
1. Harrasment units: these units need to be in the enemy's face causing a diversion and helping remove key threats whenever possible. Think Shining Spears as a key example. Melee isn't required, and some anti-tank should be used in some of these units. They don't have to kill the enemy completely, but tying it up and slowing it down is very good use of those units. Units that can threaten the enemy and dictate enemy movement (such as the outflanking Wraithguard, or perhaps Eldar Walkers) can also fit this role, but should be tailored to a list that hits later in the game instead of on turns one to two.
2. Primary Mission units: these units need to be able to squat down on an objective for 3-4 turns even without cover. Sticking them into a Wave Serpent is probably the best idea so they can pop out and sit on the objective. MSU Dire Avengers, small units of Wraithblades with shields, a blob of Guardians with heavy weapons, ect. They don't have to perform secondaries to help win games, but if they can raise banners or perform actions to help run up our tally early on it's probably not a bad plan.
3. Secondary Mission units: these are units that will need to pop up into table quarters, possibly jump onto mission secondaries (such as siphoning plasma) or other such tasks. They mainly try to stay in cover whenever possible, may try to do chip damage, but their main goal is to not die while scoring points. Things like Fire Prisms can fit into this category since they can hang back and still contribute to the game while allowing the army to hold ground on the table.
I feel, and this is just my limited understanding of our codex and 9th, that we'll want a mix of all three. Leaning too hard into any one camp will leave us unable to dictate game flow effectively, won't allow us to score points to win games, and will likely end up with us dying.
We're going to need to be expert clock-makers to win games with this army, with all the pieces lined up and ticking along smoothly to pull out wins. On the flip side, when we do win it's going to feel like we definitely earned it.
The more I look at the army the amore I'm seeing our greatest strength is definitely mobility
Probably correct here. I believe most of us will be running the space elf equivalent of "knock knock run away" for a while yet
Mobility and firepower.
I will skip the approach to use MSUDA units as they are easy to remove.
I'll go with Serpents and DA / FD inside, which gives me more confidence, DA for some fire power to whittle down a unit and FD for armored enemies.
Our biggest problem is obsec. Sure, mechdar lists will be good again, because all our mechdar elements got off lightly in the repoint.
But armies with good troops are going to completely outscore us unless we can deny points like bosses. So I think lists that can deny and clear objectives will be paramount. That or, of course, soup.
I think personally soup will be the way to go. Troupes are just so much better than what we can bring to the party, and even wyches with their brutal 38% increase are head and shoulders above our troops. Both have great movement and transport options, both can throw out a little AT, and both are great assaulters, capable of charging and contesting objectives.
I think we have to fall back on outshooting our opponents most of the time.
DA are good troops with a lot of firepower for their points but they need to be protected early on, probably via transports.
I still think vypers and/or warwalkers shuriken spam is the way to go.
Our obsec isn't super durable but we can take out infantry better than most with fast shuriken vehicles being more than happy to dump in shots and then charge in to deny enemy infantry firepower.
The way I see it is that so far ninth is as much about being hard to remove as it is about removing the enemy. If our troops aren't up to the job then we have to look elsewhere and that's where our light vehicles look good, cheap points per wound than our troops whilst also being tough and mobile with the potential to establish board control by virtue of having a large footprint for move blocking and being pretty durable for the points.
When gw give you lemons make lemonade.
I agree with light vehicles being very good for us. But alone they're not going to be able to do the job imo. Now compare 70pts for 5 DA to 100pts for 5 stealthy intercessors, we're really up against it here. While DA are okayish at holding back objs or bullying a surviving marine, moving up to engage, assault and then hold/tripoint/outnumber/survive an opponent, well I just don't see that.
Whereas 10 wyches running up, slashing impact killing 1.5 intercessors, shooting another, killing another 1.5 in cc, then tying the survivor in melee so they can't be shot at, with 4++/6+++ in cc for the fight back? That could work. Drazhar along for the ride to keep your opponent honest. Yncarne popping up and being a terror...
I think that kind of list (or its harly equivalent) is going to have legs, and can plug into 1k of mechdar very nicely. Yes, that relegates CWE to mooching around at the back shooting stuff, but against the strong obsec game that 9e is ushering in, we're gonna have to adapt to win until new codexes start to drop, imo.
Now compare 70pts for 5 DA to 100pts for 5 stealthy intercessors, we're really up against it here. While DA are okayish at holding back objs or bullying a surviving marine, moving up to engage, assault and then hold/tripoint/outnumber/survive an opponent, well I just don't see that.
Indeed, this looks like an uphill battle.
With overwatch used rarely, our cc units could make in unhindered into cc. That's a progress.
The way I'm looking at Avengers is probably four squads in two serpents that I wouldn't be looking to expose to enemy firepower until necessary because the serpents and vypers move up and start thinning out/shutting down enemy infantry with charges.
I just don't think the Drukhari stuff has the durability to build around, their transports are too fragile and shooting exposed wyches is too easy for my liking.
Harlequins look a better bet to me but honestly I'll still go pure craftworlds, serpents just present such a tougher nut to crack that my troops get out when I want because everything other than my troops is pretty durable against anything other than heavier firepower.
This is my tweaked list
Spoiler:
Batallion (Hail of doom and masterful shots)
Warlock skyrunner 65 (Jinx)
Autarch with Faolchu's wing 80
Farseer skyrunner with spear 140 (Doom, Executioner) Seer of the shifting vector,
4x5 Dire avengers exarch with twin cats (Bladestorm) 280
3x3 Vypers twin cats, shuriken cannon 450
2 Wave serpents with three shuriken cannons 320
Spearhead (Expert crafters and masterful shots)
Warlock jinx 50
9 x vibro cannons 405
3 x 1 warwalkers with two star cannons 210
With the prevalance of Eradicators, I don't see Waveserpents as particularly tougher than Raiders with their 5++ in the new meta; certainly not when you see the points are almost double.
2x5xDAs and a serpent with star cannons cost about 314pts.
10 wyches with blast pistol and good weapons in a dizzy raider cost 225pts.
I know which one I'd prefer to see rocking up and contesting an objective against my troops.
It takes two squads of eradicators to pop a serpent, if they're dedicating that much firepower to a transport I'm not complaining! Because I'm not looking to get aggressive with my avengers initially I can happily hide my serpents behind obscuring cover if necessary.
The problem I see is that drukhari transports is that they don't need heavy firepower to take down, things like assault cannons can take them out pretty efficiently. Then if you catch wyches out in the open even las guns take them out effortlessly.
kingheff wrote: It takes two squads of eradicators to pop a serpent, if they're dedicating that much firepower to a transport I'm not complaining! Because I'm not looking to get aggressive with my avengers initially I can happily hide my serpents behind obscuring cover if necessary.
The problem I see is that drukhari transports is that they don't need heavy firepower to take down, things like assault cannons can take them out pretty efficiently. Then if you catch wyches out in the open even las guns take them out effortlessly.
Just checking the math...
Unsupported 6 shots
4 hits
8/3 wounds
8/3 failed saves
64/9 damage (outside of Melta range), or just over 7 damage
With Support (CM and Lt.) 6 shots
48/9 hits
112/27 wounds
112/27 failed saves
896/81 damage (outside of Melta range), or about 11 damage
So, it will, on average, live even through supported Eradicators. I used 8/3 for the damage multiplier, since I assumed you have NOT used the Serpent Shield yet.
It takes, on average, 4.875 unsaved wounds (rounded to 5) to kill a Wave Serpent with Shield, outside of Melta range.
6.55% chance of killing it without support, assuming average damage.
40.17% chance of killing it with support, same assumptions.
If you close to Melta range, that changes the math.
Spoiler:
I'm bad at Melta math when damage is subtracted, so I'm doing it manually!
Hats off on doing the actual maths! I just used the mathhammer app to get 6.6 damage or 9.2 in melts range. I usually go for unsupported values because I think it's more representative of actual battlefield scenarios.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also, your maths has made me think that I may swap out the underslung cannon for twin catapults and spirit stones.
kingheff wrote: Hats off on doing the actual maths! I just used the mathhammer app to get 6.6 damage or 9.2 in melts range. I usually go for unsupported values because I think it's more representative of actual battlefield scenarios.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also, your maths has made me think that I may swap out the underslung cannon for twin catapults and spirit stones.
Ah, I see. The Mathhammer app is wrong-it uses 2.5 for the damage of a d6 weapon against a Serpent Shield equipped Wave Serpent, when it should be 2.67.
wuestenfux wrote: Kingheff - is this list already 9th edition?
If so, just curious and too lazy, how many points would this in the 8th?
In 8th this list was 1759, most of the difference is the Avengers (+48pts) and the Vibros (+90). Everything else is pretty minor, just a cumulative effect.
Good work on the math, that does change my mind somewhat, especially with spiritstones. A Waveserpent with TAML and stones comes in at 180pt. Expensive but solid.
The problem I see is that drukhari transports is that they don't need heavy firepower to take down, things like assault cannons can take them out pretty efficiently. Then if you catch wyches out in the open even las guns take them out effortlessly.
This is very true, heavy bolters and their ilk are bad news for Raiders. I'm happy enough to just deal with that, but the punishing increase to wyches really does sting, when as you say they are lasgun-allergic...
I think we need to focus on our strengths, speed and firepower.
I suspect we'll have to run as a mid game onwards force.
Tough and cheap stuff in midfield early to keep the scoreboard ticking over until we kill enough to hopefully take over the primary objective from turn three onwards.
kingheff wrote: I think we need to focus on our strengths, speed and firepower.
I suspect we'll have to run as a mid game onwards force.
Tough and cheap stuff in midfield early to keep the scoreboard ticking over until we kill enough to hopefully take over the primary objective from turn three onwards.
Indeed, this plan is worth considering especially because we have a chance to get cover and so eventually get unharmed through the initial game phase.
grouchoben wrote: Good work on the math, that does change my mind somewhat, especially with spiritstones. A Waveserpent with TAML and stones comes in at 180pt. Expensive but solid.
No problem. I kinda enjoy math, odd as that may be.
kingheff wrote: I think we need to focus on our strengths, speed and firepower.
I suspect we'll have to run as a mid game onwards force.
Tough and cheap stuff in midfield early to keep the scoreboard ticking over until we kill enough to hopefully take over the primary objective from turn three onwards.
Considering no scoring in turn one this doesn't sound that bad, moreso considering the mobility of bikes, serpents and well everything ^^ we're in a good position to cover the board.
kingheff wrote: I think we need to focus on our strengths, speed and firepower.
I suspect we'll have to run as a mid game onwards force.
Tough and cheap stuff in midfield early to keep the scoreboard ticking over until we kill enough to hopefully take over the primary objective from turn three onwards.
Considering no scoring in turn one this doesn't sound that bad, moreso considering the mobility of bikes, serpents and well everything ^^ we're in a good position to cover the board.
Assuming everything goes to plan, it's not like plans ever go wrong, especially when dice are involved!
2 Squads of Dark Reapers hidden in 2 Falcons with starcannon/SC on turn 1, pop them out at the beginning and lay waste to your opponents troops choices trying to move up and score ( goodbye Primaris models ) Falcons would provide fire support and move them if they need to later.
2 Squads of DA in waveserpents moving up to objectives to score, pop them out turn 2 and finish off any troops left alive after dark reapers and falcons hopefully fire for a second time on turn 2. Add whatever else you want to the list and psychic powers of course. Seems like a decent way to start 9th edition for these missions for a 2000 point list.
Crusaderobr wrote: 2 Squads of Dark Reapers hidden in 2 Falcons with starcannon/SC on turn 1, pop them out at the beginning and lay waste to your opponents troops choices trying to move up and score ( goodbye Primaris models ) Falcons would provide fire support and move them if they need to later.
2 Squads of DA in waveserpents moving up to objectives to score, pop them out turn 2 and finish off any troops left alive after dark reapers and falcons hopefully fire for a second time on turn 2. Add whatever else you want to the list and psychic powers of course. Seems like a decent way to start 9th edition for these missions for a 2000 point list.
I just so happen to have all of these models...Cool Beans
Crusaderobr wrote: 2 Squads of Dark Reapers hidden in 2 Falcons with starcannon/SC on turn 1, pop them out at the beginning and lay waste to your opponents troops choices trying to move up and score ( goodbye Primaris models ) Falcons would provide fire support and move them if they need to later.
2 Squads of DA in waveserpents moving up to objectives to score, pop them out turn 2 and finish off any troops left alive after dark reapers and falcons hopefully fire for a second time on turn 2. Add whatever else you want to the list and psychic powers of course. Seems like a decent way to start 9th edition for these missions for a 2000 point list.
It appears that the units stand one turn (the enemy turn) in the fire before they can score in the cmd phase.
For our squishy units this is not really good news.
But I have some really great news! I'm not sure it will continue like this into our codex, but for now, at the opening of the 9e meta, currently fusion guns are zero points.
This is very big news for Storm Guardians, as they can take two FREE fusion guns per squad now. That means 10 storm guardians w/fusions has actually gone down in points from 100pts to 90pts, and I can say from running two squads with exactly that loadout in Serpents for a lot of 8e, they are a solid little troops choice that synergise very nicely with expert crafters.
So here it is, the building block I'm going to be running in all my test games for the next month:
Wave Serpent w/Spirit Stones & Starcannons 11 Storm guadians w/ 2 fusion guns = 269pts for some nice durability, AT and obsec.
EDIT: Nope, as pointed out by the scotsman and Sariger, this is based off a battlescribe error.
But I have some really great news! I'm not sure it will continue like this into our codex, but for now, at the opening of the 9e meta, currently fusion guns are zero points.
This is very big news for Storm Guardians, as they can take two FREE fusion guns per squad now. That means 10 storm guardians w/fusions has actually gone down in points from 100pts to 90pts, and I can say from running two squads with exactly that loadout in Serpents for a lot of 8e, they are a solid little troops choice that synergise very nicely with expert crafters.
So here it is, the building block I'm going to be running in all my test games for the next month:
Wave Serpent w/Spirit Stones & Starcannons
11 Storm guadians w/ 2 fusion guns
= 269pts for some nice durability, AT and obsec.
Do you have the book to confirm that about fusions? I'm working off the leaks, which list 0 (Fire Dragons) 10 (other models).
I would be extremely pleased to be wrong on this one.
But I have some really great news! I'm not sure it will continue like this into our codex, but for now, at the opening of the 9e meta, currently fusion guns are zero points.
This is very big news for Storm Guardians, as they can take two FREE fusion guns per squad now. That means 10 storm guardians w/fusions has actually gone down in points from 100pts to 90pts, and I can say from running two squads with exactly that loadout in Serpents for a lot of 8e, they are a solid little troops choice that synergise very nicely with expert crafters.
So here it is, the building block I'm going to be running in all my test games for the next month:
Wave Serpent w/Spirit Stones & Starcannons
11 Storm guadians w/ 2 fusion guns
= 269pts for some nice durability, AT and obsec.
Do you have the book to confirm that about fusions? I'm working off the leaks, which list 0 (Fire Dragons) 10 (other models).
I would be extremely pleased to be wrong on this one.
The CA and the 40K App have Fusion Guns listed as 0 Pts for Fire Dragons and 10 Pts for Storm Guardians.
I still think avengers are decent if used right. Their fire power is good and their durability is ok, with asurman it's not too bad at all. Not death guard good obviously but the best we've got.
They could work ok with masters of concealment without transports in a heavy armour mechdar list designed to hose down as much of the enemy turns one and two. As long as you can get them out of line of sight a 3+ is strong enough against most ignore line of sight shooting. I'm starting to go with a crafters/concealment list with three squads in falcons. Not as tough as serpents but with a 2+ pretty durable and more dakka.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I'm thinking that concealment looks better than ignore cover since I believe objectives can't be on terrain features?
I figure that blasting stuff off objectives is key so ignore cover is less valuable, any thoughts?
Crusaderobr wrote: 2 Squads of Dark Reapers hidden in 2 Falcons with starcannon/SC on turn 1, pop them out at the beginning and lay waste to your opponents troops choices trying to move up and score ( goodbye Primaris models ) Falcons would provide fire support and move them if they need to later.
2 Squads of DA in waveserpents moving up to objectives to score, pop them out turn 2 and finish off any troops left alive after dark reapers and falcons hopefully fire for a second time on turn 2. Add whatever else you want to the list and psychic powers of course. Seems like a decent way to start 9th edition for these missions for a 2000 point list.
It appears that the units stand one turn (the enemy turn) in the fire before they can score in the cmd phase.
For our squishy units this is not really good news.
That is certainly a bummer. What can we do to make sure our troops score besides Psychic protection and cover?
Automatically Appended Next Post: Im thinking the only way for Eldar to win is to remove the chance of the opponent scoring, and then doing everything we can to swoop in and score ourselves.
What about simply giving up on bringing our terrible Obsec troops and focusing on fast and tough units that can contest and wipe other troops off to deny points? Not many troops in the game survive a blob of 9 buffed Spears shooting and fighting, after all.
grouchoben wrote: What about simply giving up on bringing our terrible Obsec troops and focusing on fast and tough units that can contest and wipe other troops off to deny points? Not many troops in the game survive a blob of 9 buffed Spears shooting and fighting, after all.
I think at least a battalion's worth of troops is pretty important to help with the mid to late game objective push. Without soup three or four squads of avengers do that whilst still having ok firepower. That still leaves a lot of points for the more killy stuff.
Our troops can't hold ground at all, they pretty much will need to stay in transports until enemy numbers reduced. So finding the most efficient weapon platforms to inflict casualties while biding time with troops will have to do in the time being IMHO. Not somthing my current list is built around, but I do have a second Eldar force in the wings to paint..
I'm also thinking of ignoring the troops and just going wraithguard, especially wraith blades. With Wrath of the Dead and Hunters of Ancient relics, sufficiently buffed they are tough to shift.
Certainly going to take some testing, the point adjustments are unforgiving.
Our troops can't hold ground at all, they pretty much will need to stay in transports until enemy numbers reduced. So finding the most efficient weapon platforms to inflict casualties while biding time with troops will have to do in the time being IMHO.
This is usually the way to play mech Eldar.
Use Serpents, Falcons, Warwalkers, Support Batteries and whatnot to diminish the enemy ranks.
Then in the mid game when the enemy comes close the transported units are dismounted contributing to the fire power.
I'll concentrate on DA and FD. The latter being a vital part of an army as they can remove tough units rather quickly.
The only enemy army I'm a bit concerned are Primaris. They get more and more shiny new toys and with 2W basic models (Intercessors) they are rather hard to remove. The meta seems to swing more and more into the direction of Primaris. Not a good prospect of the game development.
There's always strategic reserve if you don't want to spend points on transports.
Luckily for us both of ours are very good, serpent is pretty tough with good capacity, falcon is cheap with good firepower for the points.
I suspect a battalion of six prophets of flesh wrack squads would work well for a more resilient soup build with craftworlds providing the punch but I tend to prefer mono builds.
On the Dire Avengers, my personal thought is to do one unit of 10, not two of 5, in order to have some scary options for Overwatch… it's not *much*, but it's twice what a single squad would have.
And, in that vein, instead of the double-gun Exarch, to go with a melee weapon/shield combo to give the entire unit a 5++ save. It's not *much*, but for your ObSec troops, you want more DURABILITY than firepower, andhaving a bristly batch of Overwatch, and some invulnerable saves, will keep them alive longer, which is more important than killing one or two more target with the extra guns.
It's, obviously, a different way to play, but, 9th requires some brain recalibration, and "Get as man durable ObSec guys on point as possible" is one of the biggies. I'd take minimized Wave Serpents for each... shuricats not Starcannons, with a focus on surviving firepower, while letting the *other* units worry about firepower.
Those guys on points need to *live*.
Add in some wraith support, both the guard and the lords, and you get some sticky units on central objectives while the rest of the force, with high mobility and firepower, worries about blowing stuff up.
Make the objective-takers as tasteless as targets as possible, make the other units too tempting to NOT shoot, win the mental battle.
I'm tinkering with lists currently, first gane of 9th coming up this weekend. How many Psykers do we need? I can't build a list without doom, and with the new missions i sure want fortune for an objective holding unit (i'm playing around with axe-wraiths or shining spears). At this point i would have to run a second farseer for guide+mw output, then again i want protect and quicken, maybe even conceal for my central objective grabber. Warlocks are back to being trash with the new points and HQ slots come at a premium with the new detachment rules (bar one slot in a supreme command), leaving spiritseers for the RoB, but spamming 3 seems a bit much.
How do you guys set up the psychic support?
Wakshaani wrote: On the Dire Avengers, my personal thought is to do one unit of 10, not two of 5, in order to have some scary options for Overwatch… it's not *much*, but it's twice what a single squad would have.
And, in that vein, instead of the double-gun Exarch, to go with a melee weapon/shield combo to give the entire unit a 5++ save. It's not *much*, but for your ObSec troops, you want more DURABILITY than firepower, andhaving a bristly batch of Overwatch, and some invulnerable saves, will keep them alive longer, which is more important than killing one or two more target with the extra guns.
It's, obviously, a different way to play, but, 9th requires some brain recalibration, and "Get as man durable ObSec guys on point as possible" is one of the biggies. I'd take minimized Wave Serpents for each... shuricats not Starcannons, with a focus on surviving firepower, while letting the *other* units worry about firepower.
Those guys on points need to *live*.
Add in some wraith support, both the guard and the lords, and you get some sticky units on central objectives while the rest of the force, with high mobility and firepower, worries about blowing stuff up.
Make the objective-takers as tasteless as targets as possible, make the other units too tempting to NOT shoot, win the mental battle.
I'm still favouring the hiding approach to my avengers but bladestorm is pretty nice on overwatch so could be useful or you could go for the protection power for the minus to wound in melee which could be handy if you get charged.
Spoiler:
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Cpt. Icanus wrote: I'm tinkering with lists currently, first gane of 9th coming up this weekend. How many Psykers do we need? I can't build a list without doom, and with the new missions i sure want fortune for an objective holding unit (i'm playing around with axe-wraiths or shining spears). At this point i would have to run a second farseer for guide+mw output, then again i want protect and quicken, maybe even conceal for my central objective grabber. Warlocks are back to being trash with the new points and HQ slots come at a premium with the new detachment rules (bar one slot in a supreme command), leaving spiritseers for the RoB, but spamming 3 seems a bit much.
How do you guys set up the psychic support?
You could go farseer and two spiritseers in a battalion, farseers are too expensive for me to want a second unless I really really needed it. Guide is only useful on the spears and they're pretty accurate so personally I'd manage without, ymmv of course. Conceal can be replaced by lightening reflexes in a pinch so the three should be fine, it's also quite a lot of points for hq's so I'd personally try to leave it at that.
You watch my 10 man scropion squads with asurmen... holding stuff with their 2+/5++! You watch..
#strikingscorpionmeta you heard it here first
I really need to get the points and figure out some builds. I'm annoyed at the though of having to buy another CA so I'm sort of waiting for battlescribe to do its thing..
Argive wrote: You watch my 10 man scropion squads with asurmen... holding stuff with their 2+/5++! You watch..
#strikingscorpionmeta you heard it here first
I really need to get the points and figure out some builds.
I'm annoyed at the though of having to buy another CA so I'm sort of waiting for battlescribe to do its thing..
I will shed tears of isha if you can formulate a winning strategy with scorps. I love the models and lore so much.
Argive wrote: You watch my 10 man scropion squads with asurmen... holding stuff with their 2+/5++! You watch..
#strikingscorpionmeta you heard it here first
I really need to get the points and figure out some builds. I'm annoyed at the though of having to buy another CA so I'm sort of waiting for battlescribe to do its thing..
I will shed tears of isha if you can formulate a winning strategy with scorps. I love the models and lore so much.
Having played one game of 9th, my ''vast'' experience with using Striking Scorpions has been relatively positive. Once they were firmly seated in the enemy deployment zone, they secured linebreaker points exceptionally well! Build for survival instead of damage and they can be a pain to kill off! Opt for the exarch power that gives a -1 to hit in terrain, effectively turns gives all light cover dense cover and every lil bit helps.
Goobi2 wrote: Having played one game of 9th, my ''vast'' experience with using Striking Scorpions has been relatively positive. Once they were firmly seated in the enemy deployment zone, they secured linebreaker points exceptionally well! Build for survival instead of damage and they can be a pain to kill off! Opt for the exarch power that gives a -1 to hit in terrain, effectively turns gives all light cover dense cover and every lil bit helps.
I have a wraithlord converted up as a Scorpion, may have to put him in outflank to give the scorps some additional protection.
Argive wrote: You watch my 10 man scropion squads with asurmen... holding stuff with their 2+/5++! You watch..
#strikingscorpionmeta you heard it here first
I really need to get the points and figure out some builds.
I'm annoyed at the though of having to buy another CA so I'm sort of waiting for battlescribe to do its thing..
Argive wrote: You watch my 10 man scropion squads with asurmen... holding stuff with their 2+/5++! You watch..
#strikingscorpionmeta you heard it here first
I really need to get the points and figure out some builds.
I'm annoyed at the though of having to buy another CA so I'm sort of waiting for battlescribe to do its thing..
Battle Scribe is updated for 9th edition.
Right and it has a new look.
A max. unit of Striking Scorpions with a character model bolstering their surivability can be a bad news for the enemy as it eventually disrupts enemy plans.
Suddenly the enemy has to deal with a unit in his/her own backfield.
Thinking maybe 2x5 scorps coming on from deepstrike and an outflanking wraithlord (only 1 CP) to capture territory in enemy lines. Mostly just going for defensive buffs.
bullyboy wrote: Thinking maybe 2x5 scorps coming on from deepstrike and an outflanking wraithlord (only 1 CP) to capture territory in enemy lines. Mostly just going for defensive buffs.
Watching some 9th bat reps on TTT as no games happening near me still.
Couple observations:
With the smaller table and terrain rules It seems DS might not be as good. Maybe T3 But I think by T2 there still to manyt hings ont he baord.
I think mobility / big movement stats and quickening etc will be our key strengths initialy. as well as point denying I.e remove from objective.
I certainly cant envisions pending a single point on a troops choice at this stage. Not with these mad points.. Maybe some banshees and scropions though as infantry and wraiths.
Argive wrote: You watch my 10 man scropion squads with asurmen... holding stuff with their 2+/5++! You watch..
#strikingscorpionmeta you heard it here first
I really need to get the points and figure out some builds.
I'm annoyed at the though of having to buy another CA so I'm sort of waiting for battlescribe to do its thing..
Battle Scribe is updated for 9th edition.
Thanks just playing around with it.
How do we fit into the supreme command detachment ?
Currently supreme commands can only fit units with the PRIMARCH and DAEMON PRIMARCH keywords. I'm not aware of any units with the SUPREME COMMANDER keyword.
Automatically Appended Next Post: There could be an argument to eat 2 cp and stick a patrol in for an autarch. Also i cant figure out how to get the cp refunded on battlescribe. Any advice ?
So I'm considering a small army that has at its core:
1 or 2 wraithseers
Some wraithguard and/or wraithblades (axes/shields)
Wraithlords
You get the idea.
Now my current consideration is in the available traits. Mainly, whether there is enough benefit in trying Ynnari, vs just sticking to the tried and true "expert crafters + wrath of the dead".
Crafters and Wrath gets me rerolls of hits and wounds on most/all units, and it's pretty consistently useful.
However some advantages on the Ynnari side of things mainly hang on a couple things - A super hard to kill wraithseer warlord, and Word of the Phoenix being able to bring the already hard to kill Wraithblades with shields back from the dead (or just heal them).
I might be missing some stuff though. I suspect the pure craftworld list is still stronger, because soulburst is... complete useless garbage. But I'd be interested to see if anyone had any thoughts on the matter!
Niiru wrote: So I'm considering a small army that has at its core:
1 or 2 wraithseers Some wraithguard and/or wraithblades (axes/shields) Wraithlords
You get the idea.
Now my current consideration is in the available traits. Mainly, whether there is enough benefit in trying Ynnari, vs just sticking to the tried and true "expert crafters + wrath of the dead".
Crafters and Wrath gets me rerolls of hits and wounds on most/all units, and it's pretty consistently useful.
However some advantages on the Ynnari side of things mainly hang on a couple things - A super hard to kill wraithseer warlord, and Word of the Phoenix being able to bring the already hard to kill Wraithblades with shields back from the dead (or just heal them).
I might be missing some stuff though. I suspect the pure craftworld list is still stronger, because soulburst is... complete useless garbage. But I'd be interested to see if anyone had any thoughts on the matter!
Soulburst no longer excists. Until we get access to supreme command I cant see myself taking ynnari as a detachment. Currently would have to sink nearly 300pts into garbage tier ynnari troops for a battalion in order to unlock 3 HQ choices.
In 8th I was running Yvraine and 2 tooled up wraithseers as my go to. Been playing around on battle scribe and I don't think its worth it with the current points and troop costs. Our troops havent been great in 8th but paying nearly 80pts for 8 storm guardians is a joke..
Ive just started playign around on battle scribe but as things stand Its going to be really hard fitting into one detachment. So looks like starting 9+1 CP is going to be the new norm for us.
To be fair its pretty much what I used to start with in 8th but at least now I cna get get static regen.
Ynnari 2 wraithseer combo is hard to pass up. I think a ynnari battalion and a EC spearhead is going to be my first game.
Until we get access to supreme command I cant see myself taking ynnari as a detachment.
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Ynnari 2 wraithseer combo is hard to pass up.
I think a ynnari battalion and a EC spearhead is going to be my first game.
Lol, I like how you go from "losing supreme command makes ynnari terrible/expensive", to deciding a full battalion is what you're going to play because its too hard to give up, all in one post!
2x wraithseer, and Yvraine (or the Yncarne if going nuts) is a pretty strong combo, but I don't see a battalion coming out of it... theres not really any craftworld units that benefit from ynnari, especially not in troops. Maybe a Vanguard would work, but then it'd be expensive. Losing supreme command really is a pain.
Automatically Appended Next Post: There could be an argument to eat 2 cp and stick a patrol in for an autarch. Also i cant figure out how to get the cp refunded on battlescribe. Any advice ?
You chose a Spearhead. You are unable to have CP refunded with that detachment. Only having your warlord in a Patrol or Battalion detachment refunds the CP.
I can see a ynarri vanguard being decent. Yvraine and the wraithseer being marching up the field with three squads of scorpions in the shadows. Give the exarchs claws and they now pop extra attacks on 5+ once strength from death is active. Possibly a couple of wraithlords if you're feeling spicy with the shield of ynnead to get two more T8 5++ monsters to go smashing up objectives. Or go spearhead and take three lords for a big blob of wraith smacking.
I still value War Walkers with shuri cannons, they're super cheap and they get battlefocus. Anything else (but shuri, pulse or starcannon) is a bit expensive and better put on wave serpents, falcons or wraithlords, imo. I never ran Vypers si i've no oppinion there, guess the same applies though.
Played a test game (solo) today vs Ravenguard with my wraith heavy list, won 92-56. Definitely going to push the wraiths heavily moving forward. My Dire Avengers died Turn 1, they're just not worth it (Granted, not in transports..my wraiths were). I think x2 scorps in deep strike might be better, or something else entirely.
List was (Vanguard)
Farseer
Spiritseer
6 Axe Blades
2x5 Wraithguard with cannons
2 serpents, triple cannon, stones
wraithlord, lance, AML, flamer
2 x 5 Dire Avengers (twin cats)
2 shadow weavers.
2 hemlocks
Custom Craftworld (Wrath of the Dead and Hunters of Ancient relics...which is awesome when your wraiths are the ones contesting objectives)
Hemlocks were golden, maxing out Pierce the Veil (so easy to be within 6" of opponent's edge and casting on a 4). Granted, my RG are notoriously lacking in AT (had 3 eradicators, but they whiffed coming from deepstrike).May have to go 2x3 eradicators.
Other secondaries were Engage on All Fronts (maxed) and Grind them Down (12pts).
Definitely sticking with wraiths for resiliency on objectives (axe guard had Fortune/Protect cast on them most of time)
Consensus is fielding them with Starcannons? Do you bother with the shuriken cannon for the vyper?
Would you consider bright lances or missile launchers?
I run Vypers with Bright Lance and Shuricannon in expert crafters/ masters of concealment for a highly accurate 2+ save little points grabber. I like the cannon as the vyper is 100% a piece that lives and dies by its range management. It wants to be scoring you secondaries and objectives while dancing out of threat range to the best of its ability.
Speaking of vypers. Did you run them.as true msu singles or in squads of 2 or 3?
Im thinking of trying this out to see how the ynnari DAs do. I think with battle fortune and word of the phoenix the DA might be a thorn in the side of many armies.
I'm not sure what you're going with in regards to the DA and WotP. A 5 man DA sqd is so easy to remove, there is no unit left for you to be able to return a model. It can't just resurrect the exarch by itslef, there has to be a unit left and that won't happen.
bullyboy wrote: I'm not sure what you're going with in regards to the DA and WotP. A 5 man DA sqd is so easy to remove, there is no unit left for you to be able to return a model. It can't just resurrect the exarch by itslef, there has to be a unit left and that won't happen.
A 5 man unit is also fairly easy to hide behind some 5" terrain.
Also, running 3 units of DA is not the overarching play of the list. The plan is to hide them until later turns to cap backfield objectives by which point there hopefully wont be enough firepower to remove them.
