Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I was thinking about 500 point games, and pondering what some people said about making sure to have a theme, in that vein, I have built a list around 2 Serpents. Let me know what you think

HQ: 78
Farseer- Guide, Spear (runs with fusion guardians)

Troops
10 Storm Guardians- 2 fusion guns
Wave Serpent- Scatter Laser

10 Storm Guardians- 2 flamer
Wave Serpent- EML

comes out to 497 points, and offers up 5 kill points.

This gives me two fast skimmers to kite around the enemy with, 2 guided meta guns to deal with lists built around big tanks

I have enough points to replace the Flamer squad with a scatter laser defender squad for extra damage at range, but bs3 is blah, and 2 flamers can really punch a horde if the need arises.

Looks good.
This is the way to play Eldar at the 500 pt level: Farseer, 2 troop units in Serpents.

I think it's pretty good for 500. Can't complain with guided 2 fusions and a spear in a serpent.

No real critique to give without completely changing and that's not needed.

Not sure if you need those fusion guns.
They are only needed for Landraiders.
Otherwise, I'd leave them at home.

I thought that fusion guns would be good since the impression I got was that a lot of lists at this level will be built around one big killy tank, such as a land raider, Fusion guns give me a way to blow those open, as well as a few more s8 shots which could finish off an MC.

Anyway, I figure for all comers, it'd probably be best to be able to deal with the stray LR list

I'm not a fan of storm guardians (or any guardians for that matter). however the guided fusion guns are a bit overkilly in a 500 point game. There won't be any land raiders out there because it wouldn't leave enough points left for compulsories. MAYBE at best you'll be using them against a predator or something similar that can be taken out by a side shot anyways. Your EML serpent is fine for anti-tank work anyways and will blow up light vehicles fairly easily. I just really don't like storm guardians anyways though. They have to get too close and they die too easily.

Ok, so the consensus is that 2 twin linked melta shots at 500 points may be a bit much. How about this alternate list?

HQ:
Farseer- Bike, Spear, Guide 108

Troops
3 GBJ- Cannon 76

3 GBJ- Cannon 76

Heavy Support
Fire Prism- underslung cannon 125

Fire Prism- 115

Comes out to 500 points on the dot. This seems a lot cheesier than the first list however... the troops do seem to be rather vulnerable though

akaean wrote:Ok, so the consensus is that 2 twin linked melta shots at 500 points may be a bit much. How about this alternate list?

HQ:
Farseer- Bike, Spear, Guide 108

Troops
3 GBJ- Cannon 76

3 GBJ- Cannon 76

Heavy Support
Fire Prism- underslung cannon 125

Fire Prism- 115

Comes out to 500 points on the dot. This seems a lot cheesier than the first list however... the troops do seem to be rather vulnerable though

No, its not cheesier, its softer than the list of the OP.
Serpents are damned hard to take down at the 500 pt level.
See Lanchester's square law.

In view of the original list, bright lances could be given to the Serpents to deal with AV 14.

Keep the jetbikers moving and out of range or out of sight as best you can and let those fire prisms do their job. The bikers are a lot more durable than regular guardians and you might just have a winner there squeezing the two prisms into such a small points range. It's kind of shocking to tell the truth, two powerful tanks in such a small force.

Guitardian wrote:Keep the jetbikers moving and out of range or out of sight as best you can and let those fire prisms do their job. The bikers are a lot more durable than regular guardians and you might just have a winner there squeezing the two prisms into such a small points range. It's kind of shocking to tell the truth, two powerful tanks in such a small force.

This army will achieve nothing at the battle field.
Keeping the GJB's out of sight is difficult theses days, since the enemy can look through area terrain.
One casualty and the unit might be gone.

I agree on the GJB. Keeping them 'hidden' in 5th edition is easier said than done.

yeah but you have to consider that the badguys only have 500 points worth of stuff to shoot at them, and will be more worried about taking down those prisms. There's always SOMETHING to hide behind unless you play on a really bad table. I'm just saying... if you use that list, keep your jetbikes as far from harms way as possible, while your prisms knock the sh!t out of anyone that can threaten them. then... poof! scoring units zoom over in last turn = win!

That's kind of what I was getting at with that advice, appologies if I was misunderstood.

To tell you the truth I'm not even sure if their Suricannons will be necessary since you'll be trying to stay away from most firefights with so few troops to lose.

To tell you the truth I'm not even sure if their Suricannons will be necessary since you'll be trying to stay away from most firefights with so few troops to lose.

Well, its more efficient to use the Serpents in tandem, taking on a single enemy unit.
Disembark, shoot, and embark in the next turn.

Yeah I'd dump the storm guardians for min-Dire Avenger squads. Dump guide for fortune and bright lance up with EML serpent and give them both shurtiken cannons. Destroying a fortuned Wave Serpent at 500 points is basically impossible.

I agree with the others that hiding 6 jetbikes at 500 points is easier said than done and any opponent worth their salt will target the GJBs first knowing he can then stop you from possibly winning.

As for LRs min HQ = 100 points, min troops = 75 (scouts) so yes they could take a basic LR with no upgrades (or an LRR with a multi-melta). But it wouldn't be a partictularly effective army. You'd reserve both serpents, just stay away from the LR whilst annihilating the other scout squad and when game ends you grab 2 objectives...

yea I kinda thought that the first list would beat the second list, but I wasn't sure if the second list wouldn't be stronger overall.

obviously in the second list I would reserve both bike squads, and try to pound the enemy into oblivion with the fire prisms before they have a chance to target the bikes, but that won't always work.

I'm hesitant to take min Dire Avenger squads, I like the fire power that a two flamer storm guardian squad can offer, and I feel like 5 Dire Avengers couldn't really contribute anything in a pinch?

wuestenfux wrote:

To tell you the truth I'm not even sure if their Suricannons will be necessary since you'll be trying to stay away from most firefights with so few troops to lose.

Well, its more efficient to use the Serpents in tandem, taking on a single enemy unit.
Disembark, shoot, and embark in the next turn.

I agree. At first I assumed he was trying to avoid aspect warriors for some fluff reason, but if there are figures available, maybe we should discuss entirely different army builds. If I was playing 500 I would go with 1 squad of bladestorming avengers (147) in serpent with EML/shcan (125 I think - no codex handy): That's half the army. Follow up with a doomseer who rides with them (80), , and a set of footslogging defenders with Scatlaser or shuricannon (85-95?), then with the leftovers you can probably squeeze in a warwalker with 2 shuricannon(40) and a weapon upgrade for an exarch or some other trivial add-on. My math may be off slightly because my codex is not here, but I think this would be a much more 'diverse' army...

Doomseer
Avengers(10) + exarch, bladestorm
-Wave Serpent + twin EML and hull shuricannon)
---(this is your power unit to drop'n'pop, reload, reposition, and drop'n'pop again, and the seer rides with them so whatever they open up on is DOOMED)

Guardians(10) + scatterlaser or shuricannon: essentially just a scoring unit you hope won't die and try to keep back. The weapon platform can perform anti-tank duty on any kind of vehicle or MC you are likely to run into at this point level too. S6x3 or x4 means dead rhinos, speeders, trukks, razors, Kans, 'nid monsters, dreads, etc...

finaly:
Warwalker + 2 shuricannons: It's ridiculously cheap for its firepower, and at such a low points level, it may not be threatened by much heavy weapons fire and it's really funny when it tarpits a whole ork mob who can't hurt it, or flanks in and side-shot kills a rhino and blows some of the occupants up with it depending on dice of course. It is one of the best weapons in our arsenal... if you can squeeze a warwalker into such a low points game, you will not be disappointed.

That's actually the list I ran when I first started out, or something very similar. I had an additional war walker, and a shuri cannon serpent though.

So I know the list is rather effective, mainly because warwalkers are pretty hype at low point level games. However I'm not sold its better than the first list. Primarily because I have learned to hate guardian defenders, and think that storm guardians are better than them in all circumstances... except foot slogging... which I feel eldar troops not named Rangers should not be doing.

I'd rather have jet bikes then defenders in that list because they still get a shuri cannon, and can at zoom around the board... and both will get slaughtered if the enemy looks at em wrong anyway.

At the end of the day, I figure I'd rather have a second serpent than War Walkers and guardians on foot for target saturation and redundancy reasons. With War Walkers joining the fray in slightly larger point games.

Anyway, I like these 500 point thought experiments because everything is so tight knit . Anyway here is a retooled version of the first list, incorporating advice.


Farseer- Fortune, Spear

10 Storm Guardians- 2 flamers
Wave Serpent- EML, under-slung cannon

5 Dire Avengers
Wave Serpent- EML, under-slung cannon

comes out to 500 on the nose, can fortune a turbo boosting serpent for awesome survivability, and adds more fire power into the wave serpents.

here's another fun one, but it is pretty spammy:

5 rangers (120), pathfinders upgrade
5 avengers (60)
5 avengers (60)
3 warwalkers(180), double EMLs
1 farseer(80), Doom power


I'm wondering about the inclusion of a wraithlord in such a small thing too, since there won't be a lot out there that can hurt it. I like these small builds too, they really make you have to scrounge around and recognize the comparative pointsiness of things. I think it could take the place of one of the Warwalkers and a squad of Avengers, and sport an EML and shurican for about the same price.

It will be very light on troops, but its the walkers that do the damage. The only thing for troops to do is stay alive. Ranger pathfinders are good for that.

I used an Avatar, 2 wraithlords, and 2 squads of GJB at the 500 point level last week. My opponent crapped his pants and got smoked

akaean wrote:I was thinking about 500 point games, and pondering what some people said about making sure to have a theme, in that vein, I have built a list around 2 Serpents. Let me know what you think

HQ: 78
Farseer- Guide, Spear (runs with fusion guardians)

Troops
10 Storm Guardians- 2 fusion guns
Wave Serpent- Scatter Laser

10 Storm Guardians- 2 flamer
Wave Serpent- EML

comes out to 497 points, and offers up 5 kill points.

This gives me two fast skimmers to kite around the enemy with, 2 guided meta guns to deal with lists built around big tanks

I have enough points to replace the Flamer squad with a scatter laser defender squad for extra damage at range, but bs3 is blah, and 2 flamers can really punch a horde if the need arises.

I really like this list at 500pts, probably the only thing I'd change would be to give the Serpents two Shurican Cannons each. Gives 12 Strength 6 shots (nine of which are twin-linked/guided), and still makes the Serpents a threat after a weapon destroyed result.

yeah but what about the whole "guardians kind of die easy" point... um... T3 S3 save 5+? yeah that's an impressive assault troop innit? you get tarpitted with those guys against some ork mob or gaunts or even guardsmen and they are just overpriced target dummies... versus shooting and moving... seems like a far better option to me.

Guitardian wrote:yeah but what about the whole "guardians kind of die easy" point... um... T3 S3 save 5+?

That's what the Serpents are for....

Bartali wrote:

Guitardian wrote:yeah but what about the whole "guardians kind of die easy" point... um... T3 S3 save 5+?

That's what the Serpents are for....

Till they get out, nearly kill a squad of SM, and die a horrible death. lol

of course, when we are talking about a 2 serpent list, a squad of 10 guardians should be about as durable as a unit of 5 dire avengers, or 3 GBJ.

As well if the guardians are going to be shooting at a tac squad, I'd expect the entire army would focus fire on them as well. In the case of the first list, that would involve the SGs shooting flamers, then all the tanks shooting, and the guided melta guns... I mean... storm guardians obviously don't carry the day by themselves, but they do have a decent damage output for only 92 points. And Eldar more than anybody have the mobility to encourage favorable firefights

And Eldar more than anybody have the mobility to encourage favorable firefights

That depends when your Serpents turn up though because if you don't go first against marines you have keep everything in reserve (or you're basically conceding the game).

Why would you keep everything in reserve against 500 points of Marines? Sure, there will be one, two or three S8+ weapons in it, but if the Serpents are in cover, the chances of destroying one of them is still rather small.

Well, Witzkatz is right.
If the Serpents are obscured or at least one of it, it should be no problem to start the game from the table.

Why would you keep everything in reserve against 500 points of Marines? Sure, there will be one, two or three S8+ weapons in it, but if the Serpents are in cover, the chances of destroying one of them is still rather small.

How will cover help them against auto-hitting powerfists in assault. If they go first you don't count as having moved (because you haven't). Bang goes one of your wave serpents, then you're a 1 WS army for 5-7 turns which will lose.

To me the first list looked fine but the guardian jb's in the second one look waay to soft. Also did no one think of 2 x 5 grey hunters a wolf guard battle leader and a land raider. It even leaves room for upgrades.

FlingitNow wrote:

Why would you keep everything in reserve against 500 points of Marines? Sure, there will be one, two or three S8+ weapons in it, but if the Serpents are in cover, the chances of destroying one of them is still rather small.

How will cover help them against auto-hitting powerfists in assault. If they go first you don't count as having moved (because you haven't). Bang goes one of your wave serpents, then you're a 1 WS army for 5-7 turns which will lose.

CC attacks vs. Serpents in 1st turn?
You're kidding.
Its hardly doable.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

FlingitNow wrote:

Why would you keep everything in reserve against 500 points of Marines? Sure, there will be one, two or three S8+ weapons in it, but if the Serpents are in cover, the chances of destroying one of them is still rather small.

How will cover help them against auto-hitting powerfists in assault. If they go first you don't count as having moved (because you haven't). Bang goes one of your wave serpents, then you're a 1 WS army for 5-7 turns which will lose.

CC attacks in first turn?
You're kidding.
Its hardly doable.