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.

In 4e it took quite a bit of practice and restraint to get WW's to work correctly.

You needed to block lanes of fire and shoot at extreme ranges to get WW's to work correctly and survive the battle. Now, in 5e, with firing lanes being much wider open and 50% cover for a model as tall as a WW possibly being difficult to find...is this unit scrapped?

I'm wondering if 3' ranges and alternate threats in an army list will be enough to keep these bad boys alive....since hardly anything in the eldar codex can keep up with their infantry kill rate as far as clearing infantry if equipped correctly.

What about the possibility of holding them in reserve, then bringing them on when it is more opportune?

Capt K

Or letting them outflank. If you don't build for a tri-falcon sort of list, you can bring warwalkers on the flank for side armor shots and the like.

Are Warwalkers scouts, like Sentinels? See as how they're HS, probably not... If they are, there's always the flank march.

I kinda like the idea of Shuriken Cannon Warwalkers. This makes them cheap enough that survivability isn't so much of an issue and the squad can spit out 18 S6 AP 5 move and fire shots.

I kinda like them in 5th, coversaves and possible fortune works wonders as usual. 2x scatters for a bit of range and you wont worry too much about coversaves against you.

I think you're going to be pretty hard pressed to get cover saves for these guys.

Rule says 50% of the model has to be covered, 50 percent doesnt neccessarily mean height and these guys are all body and long skinny legs.

How does cover work for a squadron? If you have three walkers do two need to be in cover for the unit to count in cover? Would a unit of wraithguard in front do the job?

I dont think wraithguard are going to do it...they 'might' be half the height of a WW but they wont conceal 50 percent of it....Like I said, WW's are all body. This is true line of sight, concealing those skinny legs isnt going to do the trick.

I have been trying out 1 squad of 3 warwalkers with scatterlasers backed up by a farseer with fortune/guide.
The volume of fire is amazing, 24 shots and it averages 18 hit at S:6 with guide. Sitting them in cover gives them a 75% of cover saves with fortune. They are my Eldar answer to Ork hordes.

I will try 2 squads of warwalkers next time I face Orks.

Darrian

I see Deadshane1's point though, what kind of cover will they benefit from? Place them in a building with windows? Or perhaps a 2" or 2.5" hill? I've been thinking about the warwalker setup as well, but I suppose it'll come down to how most folks treat the LOS and cover rules in tournaments...

On a related note, I'm working on a big factory kit that'll have a roughly 1'x2' footprint, windows all around, and walkways inside or outside the building, 6" up. This would certainly fit the bill for a warwalker squadron, and pathfinders too! I'll be posting pics as soon as I get the prototype done.

Darrian13 wrote:I have been trying out 1 squad of 3 warwalkers with scatterlasers backed up by a farseer with fortune/guide.
The volume of fire is amazing, 24 shots and it averages 18 hit at S:6 with guide. Sitting them in cover gives them a 75% of cover saves with fortune. They are my Eldar answer to Ork hordes.

I will try 2 squads of warwalkers next time I face Orks.

Darrian

Interesting. What cover gives you 50%+ coverage of your hull?

Just curious.

I've seen alot of players claim cover for vehicles that do not actually get it. Not saying you are, just wondering...the WW chassis is huge, especially up top.

I think most forests will be great cover for warwalkers, Trees tend to be about the same hieght and while Pine tree type trees tend to be widest at the bottom of the tree most other trees tend to be top heavy, creating the perfect cover for WarWalkers.

True, NinjaRay.

However it's from the POV of the firing unit towards your whole squadron.

So it's not easy to get those saves.

Reserve units tend to give them problems, which is a good thing.

forests and the GW ruined buildings.

Darrian

I haven't read the rules, but it's a lot more complicated than just 50% cover. I was under the impression that simply being inside of area terrain gave a vehicle cover automatically, so long as the terrain is tall enough. It's if you're outside the terrain that things get wacky, something along the lines of the shot needing to pass between two elements of the terrain to give you cover, i.e. between two trees.

It is a bit complicated, basically forests need to be really tall to give saves. Buildings as a general rule are tall enough.

People aren't taking into account the fact that vehicle squadrons don't follow the normal rules for "units mostly in cover" per page 64:

Under the heading "Shooting Phase" third paragraph: "Once all of the armour penetration rolls have been made... Then he takes any cover saves available to the squadron – use the rules for vehicles to determine if each squadron member is in cover (ignoring other members of the squadron, as if they were not there), and then the rules for normal units to work out if the entire squadron is in cover or not..."

So in a 3 man WW unit you'd have to have 2 of the WWs 50% or more obscured for the unit to count as being in cover. Yeah. Maybe for 1 WW unit, but if you're running 3 you'd basically need some custom-fitted cutouts with head and weapon holes to stick the WW into like those cheesy things people take their pictures with.



P.S. There is absolutely no exaggeration whatsoever in the above image example.

I did say it was difficult.

WW go down like hootches locally.

YMMV.

I guess that's what I was really getting at, it's difficult enough that I've not seen it pulled off once in a 5E game so far. I'm thinking people are overrating their ability to flank march too...

They go down like a lead balloons around here.

I do love the pic. lol

I can back up Darrien13's claim, as I have seen him use warwalkers and get the cover save.

the walkers were well placed, were covered 50% and did massive amounts of damage.

That's neat.

Im not sure how they are any less surviveable than they were. It's not like having them walk behind your other units helped -before-. And with the improved damage tables and possibility of saves (can warlocks give them cover now?) and the now much more viable scatter laser and shurikan catapault... Honestly I'm not seeing how they are any worse, they would at first glance look to be much better.

They aren't worse.

They got better.

Does that make them "good"?

Not in my opinion.

No matter how powerful a single unit might be in mathhammer, it isn't that powerful on the tabletop.

War Walkers have been out of luck since they lost their AV14 shields (they had that in the Ravening Hordes style book at the start of 3rd).

Since then they've just been fragile and expensive.

BYE

Flanking and Eldar Missile Launchers seem to be the most versatile and probably viable way to utelize them. An army may need to be tailored to benefit from them, however. An example would be utelizing 1-2 Autarchs to help ensure they come in when you want. Being fragile as they are, flanking could help you limit the fields of return fire they get (this also is dependent on the type of terrain people use- locally, we have varying terrain where LOS can be blocked as well as just grant cover saves) and the EML gives you the ability to stay at a good distance.(caveat: no one locally runs an Ork horde, so I've not seen anyone fill up the table with models).

Unfortunately, I've not gotten in a 40K game in 3 months, but I can say the War Walkers are soon to get tested with 5th in mind. If anything, I'd think the WW are more useful in 5th than in 4th. Playing 4th edition, mine would only survived if I had 10+ vehicles total on the table or if I played Cityfight. 5th seems somewhat more lenient with them.

ShumaGorath wrote:Im not sure how they are any less surviveable than they were. It's not like having them walk behind your other units helped -before-. And with the improved damage tables and possibility of saves (can warlocks give them cover now?) and the now much more viable scatter laser and shurikan catapault... Honestly I'm not seeing how they are any worse, they would at first glance look to be much better.

First off, there is no way to have a warlock give them cover saves. Warlocks must always be bought as either a sergeant style upgrade for guardian units or as a retinue for farseers. In either case, they are not free to roam on their own and even if they could roam on their own, there is no way for an independent character to join a vehicle squad anyway. Would be cool (and broken) though.

H.B.M.C. wrote:War Walkers have been out of luck since they lost their AV14 shields (they had that in the Ravening Hordes style book at the start of 3rd).

Since then they've just been fragile and expensive.

While they are fragile, they are hardly that expensive considering the amount of fire power they have. I’ve had nothing but good experiences with them in late 3rd and all through 4th. The trick is to keep them back as far from the enemy as possible. In those editions, it was all about creeping out from behind terrain and picking off the one unit that could see you. In 5th it looks like it’s going to be all about just putting distance and piece of area terrain between you and your enemy. If you hang back at 36” from the closest unit, there isn’t going to be much it can do to you, particularly if you have some cover (particularly area terrain) between you and the enemy.

Now while I haven’t had a chance to try them out in 5th just yet, the things people are saying have hardly convinced me that they should be taken out of my list. Although I may start giving the farseer that guides them fortune as well.

Using their scout ability to come on the board anywhere other than in your own deployment zone is just screaming "Kill Me" though. Range is what keeps war walkers alive.

I hate to be a dick about it, Phoenix...but if you really believe there is a "trick" to deploying War Walkers so with their 36" range they can "only" shoot one enemy unit and not get annihilated immediately...

STOP PLAYING NOOBS!

Noobs or not, it takes a lot of fire power to down a unit of war walkers from that range simply because the weapons that can function from there are few and far between (relatively speaking). It generally takes heavy weapons to do the job and while there are certainly a fair number out there, it takes a lot of dedication put into killing the unit to actually accomplish it.

Quick math-hammering of weapons need to kill war walkers in 5th (taking into account that immobilized results = destroyed). These numbers don’t take into account any cover saves the walkers might be entitled to.

BS4 Las Cannons, 3.4
BS4 Missile Launchers, 4.1
BS4 Heavy Bolters, 4.5 (13.5 shots)
BS3 Scatter Lasers, 2.5 (10.3 shots)

And while non-killing shots will disrupt the squad to some degree or another, since the owning player assigns the hits and since not too many units fire large amounts of heavy weapons all at once, you can pile up damage on one war walker and leave the others mostly untouched.

Now if a good (or well prepared) opponent can get close, either via deep strike or particularly fast units, then your war walkers can be in trouble. However, if they are sitting in your back field where they belong, nothing that makes it over to harass them will live to tell the tale. And just about anything (short of IG drop troops) that does get over there is going to be significantly more expensive than the 210 point war walker squad anyway.