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So, I just played my first real 5th edition game with my iyanden.

All in all, I found that wraithguard were more viable/mobile and still take a lot of punishment when fortuned. Considering how they can be taken as troops, that makes them very nasty considering how they can hold an objective and blast anything that comes near. I am seriously thinking of taking 20-25 in 1750 =).

Harlequins are awesome with doom/fortune and are still quite a nice counter-assault unit to back up the wraithguard.

Pathfinders are always my mvps and are super awesome now that they are among our few scoring units and are pretty difficult to shake out of an area. Great fire support.

Wraithlords were a dissapointment and just had ineffective shooting. They can get easily overwhelmed in assault and are kind of reliant on luck at times. I wish I took dark reapers or more troops.

War walkers I have not got to use too much because they always came in too late via the outflank maneuver. all in all though, their firepower is insane now and they are more survivable with the 4+ cover.

Anyone else have any experiences with iyanden style lists in 5th? All in all, since it is either a win/draw/lose, I think taking tons of wraithguard is pretty viable these days since they won't really die unless assaulted by something nasty and can be more maneuverable.

mortetvie wrote:Wraithlords were a dissapointment and just had ineffective shooting. They can get easily overwhelmed in assault and are kind of reliant on luck at times. I wish I took dark reapers or more troops.

I suppose it depends on what you are looking for. Dark reapers will out perform dreadnaughts every time when it comes to troop killing. However, if you are looking for long ranged anti tank, the dreadnaught is the way to go. Reapers can't really do anything effective to tanks. So I think you may want to rethink exactly what you want your units doing. How did you have the dreadnaughts armed anyway?

War walkers I have not got to use too much because they always came in too late via the outflank maneuver. all in all though, their firepower is insane now and they are more survivable with the 4+ cover.

Why were you war walkers not on the board at the start of the game? They have the scout rule which lets them always be deployed at the start of the game (unless that got changed) and you want them as far away from the enemy as their weapons will allow them to be anyway. I think you just need to adjust how you are using them. There is no reason for them to ever leave your deployment zone.

Anyone else have any experiences with iyanden style lists in 5th? All in all, since it is either a win/draw/lose, I think taking tons of wraithguard is pretty viable these days since they won't really die unless assaulted by something nasty and can be more maneuverable.

While I haven't tried it myself yet, I'm looking into the possibility of doing a wraithguard army. One of my opponents pointed out how rough it can be a while back and I've been thinking about it ever since.

I had my wraithlords with EML/BL and just never was able to do what was needed to be done. They are usually a hit or miss, literally in games.

As far as warwalkers, the new rulebook doesn' say scouts can always set up, just that they get a free move so I thought I'd just put them in outflank maneuver to see how that would work. Well, rolling a lot of 1s for reserves kinda sucks =(.

Autarchs are your friend, mortetvie!

I have used the warwalkers with scatterlasers to great effect in 5th. I put a farseer with them against Orks and the killing power was amazing. 15 dead orks per turn of shooting was my average.

I am kinda torn on pathfinders though. They hit less often but they kill more marines when they do hit.

Though in cover pathfinders become extremely difficult to remove via shooting.

True, they are very hard to shoot out of cover, but I hate the fact that they now hit on a 3+ instead of a 2+. I guess I am just spoiled.

Darrian

I find 3 Wraithguard with no Warlock hoofing it have quite a bit going for them.

Make sure they get 4+ cover by intervening models, let them run first turn and you get a very versatile unit for just 105 pts. Its a threat to tanks and monstrous creatures one can hardly ignore.

It needs dedicated (Powerfists) assault units to get killed relyably which cost way more then 105 pts and will be ready for shooting/countercharge once they dealt with the Wraithguard.

Propably a pretty good speed bump unit. Fearless should help too shouildnt it?

well, stelek. I kind of was using Eldrad and an avatar so no room for autarch =). The 3 man wraithguard squads are an interesting idea but probably not worth the effort.

Solution to those is just outnumbering, really. Small 3-man units are very likely to lose 1 and then start taking auto-wounds from losing combat and being outnumbered.

Sure, large 10-man squads are going to be more difficult, but that's a lot of points and after causing a few casualties from a disproportionate amount of shooting [god it'll take a lot], a good solid assault can finish the rest.

That and My doomsirens are loving the idea of All wraithguard lists!

I don't think outnumbered matters anymore.

Darrian

Again - it matters when you are fearless and lose combat. Never any other time.

Otherwise fearless troops would never suffer any consequences to losing combat, something that was so in 3rd edition and they moved to change.

Again - It does not.

Fearless troops (No retreat rule) is only with how many wounds you loose combat. Outnumber does NOTHING.

@Kallbrand: + 1

@everyone else:

Why do warwalkers shooting become more effective in 5th ed? Did they get a bonus BS that I am missing?

Warwalkers became more effective because cover, while harder to get, is far more effective. Instead of it reducing the damage down to a shaken result at best, it now gives a 50% of negating the hit entirely. That is massive for a AV:10 warwalker. Scout also got better due to outflanking.

The shooting also got better because scatterlasers are the preferred weapon of Eldar n 5th and warwalkers can pack 6 per squadron.

Kallbrand wrote:Again - It does not.

Fearless troops (No retreat rule) is only with how many wounds you loose combat. Outnumber does NOTHING.

Having gotten to see the rulebook again, you're right.

Why the hell did they take away outnumbering completely? I don't understand. In 4th they wanted to make numbers count for something, now they don't even give an additional -1.

Spellbound, I have the same reaction. In fact, a -1 for outnumbering is definitely going to be a house rule in my games. Given the impact of minuses for wound-difference, i think more than a -1 might be a bit much, but having it count for _something_ is important.

In fact, I'm also considering giving standards and icons an additional +1, like in WHFB. Just a little comment OT...

Back on topic, Wraithguard might be more survivable now (and more likely to get shots in due to Run), but they still lower your firepower-per-point ratio. A single unit of 10 might become pretty common both in Iyanden builds and even vanilla builds, but more than one will reduce your other necessary elements. It's probably wise to take one unit of 10 accompanied by Guardians or Avengers to grab objectives, and then mount a unit of 5 for vehicle hunting if you're really committed to being thematic. Although Dragons have more effectiveness per-point against vehicles, the WG can effectively contest far-afield objectives while your foot troops hold nearby ones solidly.

Well, here are some thoughts after playing in an RTT with 5th edition rules:

I think that wraithguard are super awesome-they ARE the reason I got into eldar. Having 25 I want to go extreme and fit them all in smaller games of like 1500-1750 but it just isn't viable (or maybe I just don't have the skill to make it work). I remember playing a few games in 4th where I had 25 wraithguard and it was just overkill and redundant...

So, with most all armies this is especially true with Eldar-Ballance is key. Sure, 25 wraithguard will be a pain to kill but you'll need to deal with the tradeoff of not having the points to spend on CC support or long ranged fire support... so where do we draw the line of what?

In 5th, I found my wraithguard were my MVP of all my games for the most part-the avatar really helped in soaking up fire and dishing out the CC pain too so avatar+wraithguard is one SOLID anchor-anything that gets too close is basically going to die in a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad way.

The thing is, you need a little extra umph to support this base, that being some long ranged fire support to either force (or fool/entice might be a better choice of words) the enemy to come to you, or to deal with threats as you go to them. Also, You need a little extra umph to deal with close combat threats even though wraithguard/avatar can handle most anything at close range/cc and survive to get there, you want to minimize downtime of being locked in combat while minimizing your own casualties. One nice thing now is you don't have to worry about how much you lose as long as at least one model in the unit is alive as far as objectives go!


So let us discuss tactics and army lists central to having wraithguard:

Specifically, an avatar and 10 man wraithguard unit with conceal is quite a great block to build an army around, that is where I begin when I make my list.

For HQ:
the one ideal and obvious choice is either eldrad if you can spare the points or a farseer with fortune/guide and possible doom. These powers and their application should be obvious, re-roll saves, shooting and wounds. Nothing sucks more than having 10 wraithgun shots with only 3 or 4 hits or rolling a ton of 1s when every wound counts or even worse, failing 4 armor saves (when each failed one really hurts in the first place). The re-rolls really skew the game/luck/dice in your favor. If you use 2 squads or more of wraithguard-I would strongly reccomend eldrad, otherwise one cheapy farseer should be enough (and not as cheasy).

If you want to go for flavor or anything else, by all means, mix it up but realize that you will just have to play that much harder/better to pull off your fluff-which can make your army THAT much more satisfying and fun to play!

Elites:

This is where you can really fill in some holes in the army as far as dealing with specific threats. Specifically, I like to focus on harlequins here being an obvious choice for CC support. 8-10 harlequins with shadowseer and kisses are more than enough to turn the tide in any combat-plus they synergize REALLY well with doom! One main reason I love harlequins is that they pretty much have a guarantee of not dying to shooting from anything over 24" and the enemy needs to basically get close to take them out meaning they have to deal with the possibility of getting shot by wraithguard and getting charged by an avatar. Harlequins just really compliment the army IMO. Depending on your enemy and your preference, banshees and scorpions are also pretty viable but I find that MEQ armies give iyanden the hardest time so that is why I like to focus on harlequins or possibly banshees. Against horde armies, just take initial charge with wraithguard and countercharge with your CC support so they will not take the brunt of the enemy attacks.

Another choice that I recently found amazing is a unit of fire dragons in a WS for zipping towards any pie plate of doom throwing vehicle. A small 5 man squad is cheap and deadly enough to deal with even a monolith. Specifically, the exarch is the reason to take the squad giving everyone tank hunter and the exarch himself being able to ignore hull down with crack shot . So, you have an exarch that basically gets +1 to any pen roll (ap1) so needs a 4+ to kill any vehicle on the damage roll. For pure anti-vehicle, fire dragons have a new found respect in my book as I fidn that tanks at range give iyanden trouble at times.

Troops:

With the assumption we have at least one 10 man wraithguard squad, I think taking some hard to kill troops are great for the feel of the army and for the objectives in general.

pathfinders really shine for me as they will most always get a 2+ cover save so to shake them from an objective via shooting is nigh impossible (meaning enemy will have to CC them, possible through your wraithguard). They can infiltrate/outflank to get to objectives off the bat possibly and also ignoring terrain and fleet/run makes them able to get to objectives halfway through game quickly a really nice option. Not to mention they realy help take out monsterous creatures/light vehicles now with their awesome rending/5-6 ap1 shooting goodness at range. They also synergize with doom REALLY well.

With that said, I have not much experience with dire avengers but they seem like they would be a great asset for close support. The problem for me is, I either need dedicated CC support (which harlequins or banshees can do much better) or longer ranged fire support. Feel free to post comments/experiences with avengers-they either ROCK my socks or just die horribly for me =(.

Also, jetbikes are awesome. I never used them but played against them and see how viable they can be for zipping around VERY fast to get objectives as well as dishing out pain with their actually impressive firepower. Warlocks just make the unit THAT much better-reasonably priced too!

Guardians...well, we are iyanden. Let them stay at home and make babies =).

Fast attack:

You guys can fill this in, I usually don't take anything as it doesn't really flow with the army unless you take vypers or something. I used to take shining spears which are awesome but I just don't roll well enough.

Heavy support:

Wraithlords have more respect now IMO. Against the right army, they are GOLD. Just keep them in cover as best you can, it just sucks losing one to one good round of shooting from the enemy. Great ranged support firebase (either brightlance if you don't take firedragons or just EML/wraithsword or simply wraithsword). They can run now which makes it awesome to get where they need to be and they really add to a combat when going gets tough for wraithguard. I usually take at least one.

Dark Reapers:
I used to never take them but they really just rock agaisnt anything with their range, AP and rate of fire. If you are walking up, they can kind of get left behind which doesn't synergize very well (since you want to fortune/guide them probably) but they can definately do a lot of damage! EML with ignore cover saves is quite nice if you want that rhino dead, too =). *On a side note, meq armies usually give iyanden a hard time (partly due to the masses of powerfists) so dark reapers can really chew up the enemy problem squads and even the field unless you play against some dubious space marine players that take 6 squads of marines with apothecary sergeants =*(.

Warwalkers:
They either do a lot or nothing from my experience. I usually do 2 scatter lasers if I ever take them but recently saw EML/scatter laser do amazing things. They can keep up with army, can get cover and dish out the pain no matter WHO you fight. If I take eldrad and can spare points, usually take a squad of these guys.

I don't really take anything else since I don't particularly like taking skimmers if I can avoid it and weapons platforms are so limited.

Well, post lists, discuss and lets explore our wraithguard fetish.. ha.

bah at double post, just edited to delete the large post until figureing out how to delete it.

mortetvie wrote:
In 5th, I found my wraithguard were my MVP of all my games for the most part-the avatar really helped in soaking up fire and dishing out the CC pain too so avatar+wraithguard is one SOLID anchor-anything that gets too close is basically going to die in a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad way.

Go go Alexander! I haven't heard that story referenced in a very very long time. Shows my age I guess.

I've actually been thinking the best way to handle the wraithguard unit is just a really large group of terminators. A Librarian or Slaanesh Daemon weapon-wielding chaos lord can get lucky and inflict instant death on the avatar if you chose to bring him in, and against the wraithguard a standard imperial termie squad of all powerfists would devastate them. Chaos terminators have a slightly tougher time but each 6 they get punches through. Granted your job would be avoiding combat with them at all costs but they're not exactly child's play to kill either.

I just double-checked the Avatar's stats, and unless he's fortuned I'm really not that impressed. 4 attacks, even with a 3+ to hit means he's usually hitting 3, sometimes even 2 times and wounding with most. Without fortune he'll suffer the same fate as any daemon prince, and that is just rolling badly. Too often has my daemon prince hit twice and rolled snake eyes when fighting the lowest enemy infantry.

With what you are playing, how useful is the Avatar? He seems like a counter assault unit for your Wraithguard, however, it looks like the Harlies and Wraithlords are also counter assault.

Fire Dragons became a mandatory unit for myself when the new codex was released. One reason they were great is the effectiveness for killing tanks vs their very low points (80 points for 5 Fire Dragons). I see the value of an Exarch with a Fire Pike and Crack Shot, but I'm not convinced it's mandatory for a small unit. This is a unit I'm still trying to figure out how many points is too much to spend on them. With cover saves for vehicles, the Exarch seems to be worth it, but on a 5 strong unit? Not sure yet.

Harlies really need Doom cast on their target unit. I think Eldrad would really need to stay in your style list. Guide/Fortune/Doom. I've just not had good luck with them with 5th edition. I need more games with them, I suppose.

I'm going to get more games in with War Walkers. However, 1-2 Autarchs will be mandatory for me to get them to work. Most likely, I'll have to utelize the outflank to help ensure little/no return fire on them. Very fragile and very situational.

I've not tried the Wraithsword as of yet. I can see some purpose, but I've typically been very happy with the EML/Brightlance combo on mine.

A buddy of mine who runs 10-20 Wraithguard has been utelizing Yriel. He's been working out as a pretty good counter assault element. No Avatar as the fearless bubble is not very useful for him.

well, yriel is pretty cool too and I love him lots but I always kill him off =(.

As far as spellbound goes... yes powerfists suck a lot to fight against but that is why you have the avatar who will be hit on a 5+ from those terminators. Only having terminators in a LR driving up and spitting them out to charge is really reliable to get into combat with wraithguard, otherwise it is a game of cat and mouse...

The avatar is the MVP due to his fearless bubble and his incredible h2h ability. I know the OP put all of his guys in Wave Serpents, but I have a hunch that he will find them on foot the more he plays his list. The wraithlords are situationally effective in h2h. They can beat alot of things but they do die eventually to powerfists. The Avatar is great in concert with the wraithlords in h2h.

His biggest unit is fearless, the Wraithlords are fearless and the Harlies are tough to even target. I just didn't see the massive gains the Avatar gives to his build. If he's using Reapers, they are likely to end up out of the 12" fearless bubble as well.

The Avatar is decent in H2H, but I wouldn't think it as incredible. He's ok, but I think the points could be better spent in this particular army build. For what is effectively a counter assault element, I think there are better options. He doesn't count as 10 models in assault (not that it matters anymore). You need something to cause a lot of wounds to whatever attacks the Wraithguard to break them, preferably with a high initiative (WG are only a 4 for purposes of sweeping advance). WG against great armor save units such as Terminators will be in a lot of trouble. A specific example I can give is throwing Eldrad (Fortuned) into the exact WG build as previously described. One model effectively stopped this huge chunk of an army. More rending or even power weapon attacks seem more viable than 5 attacks on the charge Avatar.

Spellbound wrote:

mortetvie wrote:
In 5th, I found my wraithguard were my MVP of all my games for the most part-the avatar really helped in soaking up fire and dishing out the CC pain too so avatar+wraithguard is one SOLID anchor-anything that gets too close is basically going to die in a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad way.

Go go Alexander! I haven't heard that story referenced in a very very long time. Shows my age I guess.

I've actually been thinking the best way to handle the wraithguard unit is just a really large group of terminators. A Librarian or Slaanesh Daemon weapon-wielding chaos lord can get lucky and inflict instant death on the avatar if you chose to bring him in, and against the wraithguard a standard imperial termie squad of all powerfists would devastate them. Chaos terminators have a slightly tougher time but each 6 they get punches through. Granted your job would be avoiding combat with them at all costs but they're not exactly child's play to kill either.

I just double-checked the Avatar's stats, and unless he's fortuned I'm really not that impressed. 4 attacks, even with a 3+ to hit means he's usually hitting 3, sometimes even 2 times and wounding with most. Without fortune he'll suffer the same fate as any daemon prince, and that is just rolling badly. Too often has my daemon prince hit twice and rolled snake eyes when fighting the lowest enemy infantry.

I don't have my codex on me, but is the Avatar a MC? That would make him invulnerable to instant death, unless they changed that rule in 5e.

Sarigar wrote:His biggest unit is fearless, the Wraithlords are fearless and the Harlies are tough to even target. I just didn't see the massive gains the Avatar gives to his build. If he's using Reapers, they are likely to end up out of the 12" fearless bubble as well.

The Avatar is decent in H2H, but I wouldn't think it as incredible. He's ok, but I think the points could be better spent in this particular army build. For what is effectively a counter assault element, I think there are better options. He doesn't count as 10 models in assault (not that it matters anymore). You need something to cause a lot of wounds to whatever attacks the Wraithguard to break them, preferably with a high initiative (WG are only a 4 for purposes of sweeping advance). WG against great armor save units such as Terminators will be in a lot of trouble. A specific example I can give is throwing Eldrad (Fortuned) into the exact WG build as previously described. One model effectively stopped this huge chunk of an army. More rending or even power weapon attacks seem more viable than 5 attacks on the charge Avatar.

Are you serious? The best counter assault (or primary assault if that makes sense) against terminators and regular squads with a PF is an avatar...considering how the avatar will be hit on a 5+. If you already have harlequins all you need is an avatar and you are set as far as assault/counter assault goes. I don't agree with what you are saying at all =/.

And also, no, the avatar can not be instant killed due to double toughness (because he is t6 not because he is an MC though) and for that reason alone he definately comes out over yriel. Being able to take a powerfist (or any s6 attack for that matter) to the face and keep going is the main reason I take him over yriel.

I mentioned instant death via force weapon or Slaanesh daemon weapon, didn't say powerfists. They need 6's to wound, but hey it's a 1-shot solution if you fail your save.

As far as being a MC, yes he is but being an MC is no proof against instant death just because. You need a special rule like Synapse or Eternal Warrior to prevent it beyond that - it just so happens that MCs are at least T5, mostly T6, and thus nothing is double their toughness.

In terms of counterassault, I think the Avatar is a bit lackluster. A unit of banshees, harlies, anything would do the job better, I think.

What the avatar is is a sponge. T6 to wound it with a 3+ armour and 4+ invul with fortune makes for something ridiculously hard to shoot down, and if they do manage it the rest of your army gets off scott free. In close combat most enemies need 5's to hit you, and have the same problems with causing damage as before, with fortuned saves and T6. It by itself only has 4 attacks so is prone to missing like I said unless you guide it, but to be honest then you're adding the points of Eldrad and The Avatar together into one super unit that doesn't do a whole lot of damage, just soaks it well. Best to throw small crappy units at it to keep it occupied while otherwise ignoring it.

Spellbound wrote:I mentioned instant death via force weapon or Slaanesh daemon weapon, didn't say powerfists. They need 6's to wound, but hey it's a 1-shot solution if you fail your save.

As far as being a MC, yes he is but being an MC is no proof against instant death just because. You need a special rule like Synapse or Eternal Warrior to prevent it beyond that - it just so happens that MCs are at least T5, mostly T6, and thus nothing is double their toughness.

In terms of counterassault, I think the Avatar is a bit lackluster. A unit of banshees, harlies, anything would do the job better, I think.

What the avatar is is a sponge.

In regards to the instant death bit, I gathered it was obvious a wraithgun or forceweapon could instant kill avatar so didn't bother talking about that (as the reference the other poster was making seemed to be about toughness unless he thought avatar had eternal warrior rule). So yeah...

In regards to the avatar being lackluster and a sponge, well, that is your opinion and you are welcome to it. I disagree.

Moving on...

Yes the avatar + Eldrad is expensive but it ti the centerpiece of my army. Everything else revolves around that combo. Eldar are synergy and there is no better synergy than Eldrad and the avatar.

darrian is right on, the avatar has one pratically won games by himself for me, and to be honest i think the avatar is better now then in 4e since there are no more hidden pf's and he can run. the 5e wound allocation rules means that the pf won't always be the last guy to die. it's simple if the avatar gets in close combat against marines w/o power fists he wins. if he gets in combat with marines w/powerfists he still usually wins all though then fourtne is a good idea. he is too good not to take if you plan on using anykind of footslogging army, espically like iyanden.

while your wraithguard are fearless not eveything in the army is going to be. dire avengers, banshees, scorpions, guardians especially benefit from him. not only does he make them fearless, but they can use him to get cover saves, bail them out of combat and sometimes keep squads like guardians from ever being assaulted.