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Wraithlords are easily killed by poison rounds, but WraithKnights are now immune to poison since they are GMC now.

 pantheralegionnaire wrote:
Hello all, thanks for the great thread. I have been getting my butt handed to me by Eldar and this has given me some ideas I can at least try out.

Sorry to change the subject, but I do have a question about Sternguard loadouts that I'd love to hear your thoughts on. If I am trying to use Drop Podded Sternguard to kill a Wraithlord, would I ever take Combi-Grav guns or even just straight Gravguns over the basic Hellfire (Poisoned 2+) rounds? Isn't wounding on a 2+ better (and cheaper), or am I missing something about the other benefits of Grav weapons?

If it's just a Wraithlord, a few combi-meltas or poisoned rounds will kill it. Wraithknights are a whole different level of threat. You need those combi-gravs, as melta isn't powerful enough against six wounds and potentially a 5++ save with Feel No Pain, and poison doesn't cut it against GCs. Sadly, Wraithknights are not easily countered by the sort of Leadership shenanigans the thread has discussed so far, being both LD 10 and Fearless.

Force weapons are actually fairly good vs wraithknights, particularly when combined with Quickening and furious charge. Our librarians are the punchiest in the game, with 4+d3 ws5 high initiative instant death attacks on the charge (assuming you can get 2 wc1 powers off) all for a really low price. Even with a bog standard force sword, you're denying feel no pain and averaging d3 or even 2d3 wounds on the charge vs a wraithknight.

Mephiston, if you can get him into combat, will also cut a WK in half in a single turn. Or an imperial knight. Or a stormsurge.

Really Mephiston answers a lot of our problems if he can get his vampire-jesus hands on them.

Your strategy isn't sound, because you have to actually get into combat with the Wraithknight, roll the right powers on the table, and assume that Scatterbikes and WWP Wraithguard won't get you first.

I dunno if you're actually facing a good Eldar army, because they're ridiculously brutal at the moment.

 th3maninblak wrote:
Force weapons are actually fairly good vs wraithknights, particularly when combined with Quickening and furious charge. Our librarians are the punchiest in the game, with 4+d3 ws5 high initiative instant death attacks on the charge (assuming you can get 2 wc1 powers off) all for a really low price. Even with a bog standard force sword, you're denying feel no pain and averaging d3 or even 2d3 wounds on the charge vs a wraithknight.

Mephiston, if you can get him into combat, will also cut a WK in half in a single turn. Or an imperial knight. Or a stormsurge.

Really Mephiston answers a lot of our problems if he can get his vampire-jesus hands on them.

Yeah its just too bad he doesn't have the mobility to actually catch units in cc. A jump pack or bike would be very useful on him

I don't think you can count on getting any psychic powers off against Eldar. Its fairly easy for them to shut us down in the physic phase. And most of my opponents save their dice to stop the Quickening.

I think Pod sternguard are the best way to handle backfield threats early in the game. The main issue with them is they take an elite slot from DC.

CC characters need to be supported, if not of course they will fail.

Getting into combat with a fast unit -- you either need some chaff to lock it in place, MTC/Fleet to charge it successfully, recieve a charge in cover to drop enemy Initiative, or boost your CC Psyker to strike first.

Rolling the right powers -- There are several lists that revolve around critical psychic powers (Fortune, Invis). More MLs can help but at the end of the day it's still a dice game!

Scatterbikes have the best volume-of-fire value in the game, but that said they're still 27pt 3+ models. If you can't tank their fire then you need a way to strike first. So, what are the options to mess them up on T1?

Webway D-Guard are still a ~400pt reserves unit and they still shoot at one target. So if you have Reserves disruption and cheap MSU frolicking around the board scoring Maelstrom VPs, when they finally come in T4 to kill a 45pt Rhino, well, so?

In terms of SW and DE, I think CC Force weapons are perhaps worthwhile, they will one-shot multiwound models. Invis is a problem but maybe there's a way to snipe out the supporting Conclave character. Seer Council is definitely a pretty hard counter though.

 Crimson Devil wrote:
I don't think you can count on getting any psychic powers off against Eldar. Its fairly easy for them to shut us down in the physic phase. And most of my opponents save their dice to stop the Quickening.

I think Pod sternguard are the best way to handle backfield threats early in the game. The main issue with them is they take an elite slot from DC.

Actually, the main issue is that they become suicide troops in a list that can't afford suicide troops.

" So, what are the options to mess them up on T1? "

There are none, if the Eldar player is good.

Martel732 wrote:
There are none, if the Eldar player is good.

Oh come on. You can get a 56% chance to Seize with Corbulo and Kaarlen.

You don't have a single weapon that can cause damage in your entire codex?

Yoyoyo wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
There are none, if the Eldar player is good.

Oh come on. You can get a 56% chance to Seize with Corbulo and Kaarlen.

You don't have a single weapon that can cause damage in your entire codex?

They'll wrap the bikes with WK and WS. The WS and WK absorb the alpha strike, and then all your stuff dies. Remember that Eldar dont' need the shooting from WS anymore, so they are free to jink at will, making them very hard to crack.

Even if you ace the WK, you just spend probably 900 pts to kill 290 ish. The Eldar beta strike will cripple the BA list in one turn.

How many WKs and WS are involved in this kind of bubblewrap? Interesting idea but I'm sure there's a counter (besides Barrage units).

Anything that Ignores Jink and can scrub 3HP would help crack his shield.

Yoyoyo wrote:
How many WKs and WS are involved in this kind of bubblewrap? Interesting idea but I'm sure there's a counter (besides Barrage units).

Anything that Ignores Jink and can scrub 3HP would help crack his shield.

There is no real counter, as he only needs it the first turn. You commit your drop pods with special weapons, kill zero bikes, and then he's off to the races. Depending on the board, this can be accomplished with 2-3 WS and 1-2 WK.

Wait so we're no longer talking about the much dreaded all bike army with wraithknights? Now they're running enough serpents to bubble wrap the bikes? I seem to remember you talking the other way around in another thread, with the bikes bubble wrapping the important stuff like Wraithknights. Or was it that they would just reserve everything that wasn't a wraith construct so you couldn't just ace 3+ bike squads in one go? I dunno, I'm getting rather lost in all these conflicting strategies that eldar have to counter the effective tactics that we have against them.

So in summary, in order to counter our allied in 1CTF and fragnoughts dropping in to ace their bikes, they'll either bubble wrap their bikes with wave serpents no one runs anymore or just hide everything but the WK, thus leaving it totally exposed? Makes sense.

And Mephiston is INCREDIBLY hard to get into combat, I'll admit. Though putting him in a pod with a durable command squad has been very effective in my experience. But jump pack Librarians are not all that hard to get stuck in, and are surprisingly effective vs GMCs.

Edit: and since when do you have to roll for Quickening and force? Any sanguinary libby has those by default. Learn your stuff.

I could've sworn that the Primaris was the Morale test power.

Either way, that's gonna require the Librarian to actually wound the Wraithknight. Trying to kill the Wraithknight like that is an exercise in futility. You're wounding on 6's and, depending on the loadout, have to get through the 5++. I'm not sure what your definition of "surprisingly effective" is, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't fit the broad definition of it.
Plus Stomp and the Wraithknight attacking back at S10 (or SD). That's likely to knock the Librarian and his retinue out of the way, and the Wraithknight made the points back essentially.

What's really needed is Grav. If you're already running the units for it, the Formation giving Sternguard free Combi-Weapons might be the way to go. I haven't done the Mathhammer yet, but 20 Grav Shots seems like enough to kill the Wrauthknight (unless they have the 5++, in which case, with the FNP on top, they'll ignore half the wounds).

So the question becomes what's really cost effective against a unit that's essentially 100 points too cheap, especially when the opponent decides to bring two of them, and if the force can be kept pure Blood Angels. I just don't see anything realistic.

I hate to break it to you Martel732, but no tournament-level Eldar list runs Wave Serpents anymore. Scatbikers put out a lot more firepower for significantly fewer points. Don't get me wrong, Wave Serpents are still the best dedicated transport in the game and are balanced by their cost, but they aren't overpowered enough to justify being run alongside Scatbikers and D-weapons.

For reference, the standard tournament-level Eldar army looks something like this:

2-3 units of Scatbikers
1-2 Wraithknights (in ITC)
Maybe a Jetseer council
Maybe a Hemlock Wraithfighter
Maybe an Aspect Host with three units of Warp Spiders

If you are playing against Eldar at a competitive level, you can't build around what they might bring. You have to build around what you know they will bring, and therefore bring counters to Scatbikers and Wraithknights.

Note that especially sneaky space elf players might take advantage of this and build and anti-meta tournament list that contains exactly none of the above. You have been warned.

Even things meant to counter Scatterbikes and Wraithknights don't fair well, so that's not a realistic argument with the whole "anti-meta" thing. They're literally THAT cost efficient and underpriced.

Wrap with the warp spiders and flicker jump against the alpha strike.

And yes eldar can go with reserve shenanigans or wrapping the bikes. I cant imagine anyone wrapping with bikes so if I said that I was wrong.

Hitting on 3s and wounding on 6s with between 5 and 7 attacks still gives you pretty good odds of slipping a wound through, 2 if your dice are hot. And if the WK is runnings sword and shield over the D cannons, I am actually just not afraid of it at all.

 th3maninblak wrote:
Hitting on 3s and wounding on 6s with between 5 and 7 attacks still gives you pretty good odds of slipping a wound through, 2 if your dice are hot. And if the WK is runnings sword and shield over the D cannons, I am actually just not afraid of it at all.

Why? It's not like BA have any good targets for the Dcannons anyway. The WK is a counter assault unit vs BA. It stomps all of our CC units into the ground on the assault.

 th3maninblak wrote:
Hitting on 3s and wounding on 6s with between 5 and 7 attacks still gives you pretty good odds of slipping a wound through, 2 if your dice are hot. And if the WK is runnings sword and shield over the D cannons, I am actually just not afraid of it at all.

Assuming we can actually wound the Wraithknight (T8 is gonna require you to get the correct stuff to even wound it), with 6 attacks you do. 666 wounds without force. Force bumps that to 1-2 wounds.
And then you die. Those aren't good odds like you think.

I'd also say that one Wraithknights should be using the Sword and Shield while the other uses the D Range stuff. It let's you get close and deal with things that need a melee killing. Anything invisible can be while the other shoots at other targets.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 th3maninblak wrote:
Hitting on 3s and wounding on 6s with between 5 and 7 attacks still gives you pretty good odds of slipping a wound through, 2 if your dice are hot. And if the WK is runnings sword and shield over the D cannons, I am actually just not afraid of it at all.

Assuming we can actually wound the Wraithknight (T8 is gonna require you to get the correct stuff to even wound it), with 6 attacks you do. 666 wounds without force. Force bumps that to 1-2 wounds.
And then you die. Those aren't good odds like you think.

I'd also say that one Wraithknights should be using the Sword and Shield while the other uses the D Range stuff. It let's you get close and deal with things that need a melee killing. Anything invisible can be while the other shoots at other targets.

Str5 wounds anything up to t8, so yeah, we can wound it. Force staves (like Gallien's Staff) wound on 5s on the charge but allow armor, so the odds are about the same.

A 105 point character doing an average of 2 wounds to a WK on the charge is pretty impressive if you ask me. And if you can put a few shots into it (like grav, lascannons, combi meltas) to bring it down to around 3 wounds, a 5 man squad of death co with a fist and a libby can finish it off. And before you give me the whole "Oh but you had to dedicate a lot of points to kill it", yeah. I did. It's super undercosted. But I can shoot it for a turn or 2 and then finish it in the assault phase. I'll risk the 33% chance of the unit getting stomped out of existence if I take the knight down with me.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Assuming we can actually wound the Wraithknight (T8 is gonna require you to get the correct stuff to even wound it)

Both Iron Arm and Enfeeble can tip the scales here.

T7 is going to be relevant to Krak Missiles, Lascannons, Axes, PFs and THs, Life Leech/Smite, and certain high Str ICs like Dante.

Iron Arm is going to push a Lib from anywhere from S8 to S10 on the charge, Warp Speed and Quickening will help sneak more wounds in. You probably want a Grav source to endure Concussive.

It's not easy button but WKs are hardly unkillable, the issue is board control -- as long as Seer Council, Warp Spiders and Scatterbikes are running amok, you can't set up properly for the KO punch.

You don't have any models left to deliver the KO punch. All killed by an endless stream of S6.

 th3maninblak wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 th3maninblak wrote:
Hitting on 3s and wounding on 6s with between 5 and 7 attacks still gives you pretty good odds of slipping a wound through, 2 if your dice are hot. And if the WK is runnings sword and shield over the D cannons, I am actually just not afraid of it at all.

Assuming we can actually wound the Wraithknight (T8 is gonna require you to get the correct stuff to even wound it), with 6 attacks you do. 666 wounds without force. Force bumps that to 1-2 wounds.
And then you die. Those aren't good odds like you think.

I'd also say that one Wraithknights should be using the Sword and Shield while the other uses the D Range stuff. It let's you get close and deal with things that need a melee killing. Anything invisible can be while the other shoots at other targets.

Str5 wounds anything up to t8, so yeah, we can wound it. Force staves (like Gallien's Staff) wound on 5s on the charge but allow armor, so the odds are about the same.

A 105 point character doing an average of 2 wounds to a WK on the charge is pretty impressive if you ask me. And if you can put a few shots into it (like grav, lascannons, combi meltas) to bring it down to around 3 wounds, a 5 man squad of death co with a fist and a libby can finish it off. And before you give me the whole "Oh but you had to dedicate a lot of points to kill it", yeah. I did. It's super undercosted. But I can shoot it for a turn or 2 and then finish it in the assault phase. I'll risk the 33% chance of the unit getting stomped out of existence if I take the knight down with me.

We need to clarify: you aren't dealing an average of two wounds. The average is 1.4, which is considerably less than two, seeing as we have 4.5 more to go. This also relies on getting the charge: literally everything fails if the Wraithknight just keeps jumping or charges first. That's a different conversation though.

So I wouldn't tout Librarians as a solution at all. Grav Centurions are really the only cost effective, and even then they're mostly at their nastiest when you threw 2+ characters in there.

Notice how I didn't say anything about 5 death co and a libby will singlehandedly kill a WK. I said that they could be the final knockout punch after an average round of shooting. And are you forgetting that we move 12+ inches a turn too? 1.4 wounds, with another 1 or 2 from the fist and maybe 1 more from regular close combat attacks means that charging a knight with 2 or 3 wounds left is a safe bet. It also helps that we can run 2 libbys and 4x5 death co in any given list.

And Martel, we have already talked about the solution to Scatbikes. If we go 1st, drop the 1CTF in and combine that with a little of our own shooting (and hopefully 1 or 2 instances of fear of the dark) and makes 2-4 of those squads bolt. If we go 2nd, deploy out of line of sight and then do the same thing.

In your proposed squad of 5 Death Company, 1 Power Fist, and a Librarian:
We will assume the Librarian rolled a two for Quickening, as that's the average. We will also assume he rolled successfully to cast Force. We get the 1.4 Wounds from earlier.
Death Company will have the extra CCW's for additional attacks instead of Bolters. That of course means that those four have 3 base, and five upon the charge. 10 will hit, about 0.56 make it through the save, and then after FNP it is about 0.37.

So after that, before the Wraithknight strikes back, we still dealt less than two wounds. Please don't tell people this is remotely viable, as this is just a way to lose your Librarians fast. This also assumes no 5++, since, in a hypothetical scenario where I play Eldar, one is swinging that sword and the other is gunning and stomping. Obviously I'd run the Sword one at you to get my points back almost immediately.

Did you read what I posted? You forgot to factor in the power fist, which will deal another wound or two. And all of this totals up to around 3 wounds. As I have said before, TWICE, I am NOT expecting this unit to bring the WK down from full wounds, only finish it off if it's on 2-3 wounds. Something you seem to continuously miss.

And stomp isn't anywhere close to an automatic ZOMG EVERYTHING DIES LAWL button. You have to get kinda lucky for that 6 to show up. Not only is this a viable way to finish a wraithknight off, I have done it before. On several occasions. And 4 attacks at ws4 means 2 dead marines, tops. What will probably happen is I finish off the wounded wraithknight and maybe lose 3 death co. Cool trade there, pal.

Anecdotal evidence means literally nothing. I had a Biker sergeant kill a Daemon Prince before, and I haven't touted it to be a decent way to handle Daemon Princes.

Adding the Power Fist, assuming the dude lives, adds a grand total of 0.67 wounds. That adds up to a total of less than 2.5 wounds. I've been generous with my rounding for you, too.

So no, the fist is hardly relevant because Stomp and Wraithknights striking back, you aren't going to successfully finish off a Knight to the point this would be a viable way to do it, and you should in no way be trying to engage one in melee with Blood Angels.

The problem with the Wraithknight is that it is just so durable for its points cost that you are almost always going to have to spend more points than it costs to kill it, even if you take the easy route of spamming Grav Centurions. The best that Blood Angles can do is Sternguard or Command Squads with combi-gravs/grav guns to try and put as many wounds on the Wraithknight as possible while negating its Toughness and armour save.

Martel732 wrote:

 Crimson Devil wrote:
I don't think you can count on getting any psychic powers off against Eldar. Its fairly easy for them to shut us down in the physic phase. And most of my opponents save their dice to stop the Quickening.

I think Pod sternguard are the best way to handle backfield threats early in the game. The main issue with them is they take an elite slot from DC.

Actually, the main issue is that they become suicide troops in a list that can't afford suicide troops.

" So, what are the options to mess them up on T1? "

There are none, if the Eldar player is good.

@Martel, unfortunately this is what I have been finding. Pretty much everything I have dies...it's just a question of whether I can do any damage against him first. We are playing a narrative campaign where, depending on what the results of the battle are, you carry X plus a certain number (escalating scale) of points worth of models from that battle forward to the next one. So in this final upcoming battle, he's up 500 points on me, and has been hammering me anyway.

So, I guess I am just trying to make as good a use of my suicide troops as I can before they're gone. Last game (one of the Maelstrom of War missions) he scored 5 Tactical victory points in turn one. That was basically it for the game...and then he Skyfire Interceptored my Stormraven on Turn two, blowing it up. Man, it's been brutal out there.

Anyway, thanks to all of you for the discussions and the clarification on the Wraithlord vs. WraithKnight weapons load out options. I'll try not to embarrass Baal out there Saturday.