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Here's the current incarnation of what I'm considering taking to this years Ard Boyz, and although I like it I have some misgivings, mostly my lack of any ranged anti-tank. However, from test games I've played I found ranged anti-tank to be very lacking in its effectiveness due to how many 4+ obscured saves my opponents were getting/making, and it seemed too fickle to trust it in an environment like ard boyz. I took 1st in qualifiers last year and 5th in regionals, and am looking to go a bit further this year.

Comments and Questions are more than welcome,

HQ: 785

Eldrad : 210

Warlock Bodyguard: 3 Warlocks (75), Enhance (15), Embolden (5) 95

Farseer: 125
Upgrades -> Jetbike (30), Fortune (30), Runes of Witnessing (10)

Warlock Bodyguard: 7 Warlocks on Jetbikes (315), Enhance (15) 355
Embolden (5), 2x Destructor (20)

Troop: 1272

6x Guardian Jetbike: 212
Upgrades -> 1 Warlock on Jetbike with Conceal (60), 2x Shuriken Cannon (20)

6x Guardian Jetbike: 212
Upgrades -> 1 Warlock on Jetbike with Conceal (60), 2x Shuriken Cannon (20)

6x Guardian Jetbike: 212
Upgrades -> 1 Warlock on Jetbike with Conceal (60), 2x Shuriken Cannon (20)

6x Guardian Jetbike: 212
Upgrades -> 1 Warlock on Jetbike with Conceal (60), 2x Shuriken Cannon (20)

6x Guardian Jetbike: 212
Upgrades -> 1 Warlock on Jetbike with Conceal (60), 2x Shuriken Cannon (20)

6x Guardian Jetbike: 212
Upgrades -> 1 Warlock on Jetbike with Conceal (60), 2x Shuriken Cannon (20)

Heavy Support: 434

5x Dark Reaper: 217
Upgrades -> Exarch (12), Tempest Launcher (20), Crack Shot (10)

5x Dark Reaper: 217
Upgrades -> Exarch (12), Tempest Launcher (20), Crack Shot (10)


Total: 2491


The idea is Eldrad + his retinue sit back mid-field ish and stay protected/bolster the gunlines of dark reapers, which I found to be extremely effective due to the new blast template rules combined with crack shot. The rest of the army plays a cagey game up front, as most eldar do, of moving in, shooting, and moving out. Large squads of jetbikes are used for their speed/ability to take objectives/resilience when combined with conceal. The jetbike farseer squad is there to handle any uber units I may see, as that many witchblade attacks can shred land raiders/monoliths/etc with ease, and also should be good points denial with fortune.

For anti-tank I plan on using the farseer JB squad, the shuriken cannons for light AV, and if against a 6-7 LR list, charging with the jetbike squads, since all of them will have 3 str 9 attacks on the charge (from the one warlock in each squad, and many more from the HQ version). This should be auto-destruction against most tanks with weak rear armor, against LR's its considerably iffier.

Let me know your thoughts on it and changes you'd make, Thanks!

I like lots of Jetbikes (as you may have been able to guess, tehe). I've never been a fan of actually fielding a Jetlock squad, but that's just me. I would also say to change out crack shot for fast shot on the DR Exs, but that's just me as well. I'm not sold on the Warlocks in the Jetbike squads... they may give you anti-tank, but for that purpose I prefer Fire Prisms or Vypers. If you maneuver right, you can Fortune your jetlocks, and screen the rest of your Jetbikes with them. Also, if you turbo-boost, you get a 3+ cover save anyways. With all the points from the Warlocks, you could buy yourself some Vypers, which is my preference.

Yea, I'm not entirely sold either, thats something I meant to mention for debates:

My reasoning for the jetlock squads -> the cover save keeping alive my scoring units
-> But as you siad, if you turboboost its moot, and you're paying 60 points for that 5+ cover save and potential witchblade use, dropping all the jetlocks in the jetbike squads would net me a whopping 360 points

My reasoning for no vypers -> They absolutely bleeeeeed kill points in annihilation, as they're so easy to take out, however, this could be a place to slug in a few AT guns

Crack shot I've found to be exponentially superior to fast shot, sure you may lose one template, but being able to re-roll wounds in my experience makes up for any loss in coverage of models from only having 2 templates instead of 3, and you can oust almost any squad from cover, which is a really nasty ability.

Hrm....

Seer Council on bikes = good.

Two = better.

Those guardian squads need to be maxed out (9 or 10) plus a warlock with embolden and a spear. If you don't know how to get them cover saves, let me know and I'll explain.

The reapers are fine, but you have no CC in your backfield to protect them, and one turn to stop vehicles from arriving on your doorstep.

Your reaper build is the correct one. Not sure it fits too well into this army, but whatever works for ya.

My first incarnation of this list featured two, however I do like my crutch (Eldrad) and his divinitation, which is esp. nasty in dawn of war deployment, but then again, thats only one scenario, and it only work if you get to set up first, so maybe thats a bit too situational to build a list on.

How do you get cover saves for your guardian jetbikes, I'd like to hear it, do you use the hq bike squads to block them?

You feel 9-10 is necessary?

How many squads would you run if the were that large?

The spears im disliking recently, due to my aforementioned shooting at tanks problems, and the fact that its a one shot deal when you could just charge the front and work on the back armor, but I'd like to hear your reasoning on it.

And yea, if I drop eldrad, I may drop the reapers, I've just found them to be so amazingly effective Im loathe to give them up, but you are correct when you say that they're going to be pretty lonely in my backfield, and a bit exposed if anything manages to get in behind me (although with this many jetbikes, I should be able to prevent that).

What do you need divination for in 5E in a Jetbike army?

Who are you fooling? Besides yourself. lol

You put the majority of the bikes in between the goalposts of some area terrain and call it good.

Given the high likelyhood that you'll face torrents of fire and not AP3 or AP2 fire, you don't need cover anymore. You're a marine, play like one.

I'd run at least 3 troops at 2500 points but jetbikes are pricey and I think you can do just fine with 2. It's not like you're going to lose both since the only way to lose them is to expose them to the enemy long enough that he can do something about them.

You use the spear in conjunction with the cannons. If you get lucky, you get a high strength hit. If you don't, nothing happens and so what? If you run in to kill tanks with 1 warlock, odds aren't in your favor that you will do so. That's why the seer council is so very good--because ten warlocks with swords will drop any tank in the game.

Divinitation recently in a RTT was nasty, as it was Dawn of War deployment, I deployed eldrad and 2 bike squads, covering the mid-field line, he had to deploy basically on the back 6 inches of his board. I then used divinitation and moved everything back to where I wanted it, effectively making an assault army start much further back.

But, as you say, Im not sure its extremely important anymore, and pretty situational at best.

3 Troops seems a bit low, as 2 of the missions rely on your ability to hold objectives, albeit one only has 2 objectives, the other has D3+2, if you need to hold say, 2 or 3 more than your opponent in order to get a full-point massacre, you'll want more scoring units to do so.

Gonna go ponder over the need for eldrad a bit more and look at revamping, thanks for the tips, anymore are definitley still welcome.

Hmmm. You can do that anyway with a Jetbike army.

You really only need to clear the enemy off his objective, contest any others, and score one.

Until GW fixes the KP system, you can't really encourage troops for scoring purposes AND playing purposes because they are among the worst elements of an army...being able to score multiple objectives is nice, but not necessary. So why make yourself a loser in KP missions if you don't have to?

Part of my want to take more troops stems from not knowing exactly how they're going to define "massacre/solid/minor/raw/minor loss/etc" in ard boyz. If it comes down to a system like in the token scenario:

5 tokens

If you contorl the same number of token, its a draw
If you control 1 more token than your opponent, its a minor vict.
If you control 2 more tokens, its a solid
It you contorl 3 more tokens, its a massacre

Im worried something like the above will occur, and I just wont have enough troops to pull off a full points game. Given my ard boyz experience, if you want first place, you need max points on every game, just winning won't cut it.

What do you think of this new list?

The dark reapers have been cut down to include minimum points in order to still get the only thing I care about, which is the crack shot/tempest launcher combo. With only 3 models, it should be easy to hide them in some cover that isnt too close to outlfankers/my back board edge, and just make sure nothing gets by the jetbikes in that spot to get to them.

HQ: 975

Farseer: 140
Upgrades -> Jetbike (30), Fortune (30), Runes of Witnessing (10),
Runes of Warding (15)

Warlock Bodyguard: 7 Warlocks on Jetbikes (315), Enhance (15) 355
Embolden (5), 2x Destructor (20)

Farseer: 125
Upgrades -> Jetbike (30), Fortune (30), Runes of Witnessing (10)

Warlock Bodyguard: 7 Warlocks on Jetbikes (315), Enhance (15) 355
Embolden (5), 2x Destructor (20)

Troop: 912

6x Guardian Jetbike: 152
Upgrades -> 2x Shuriken Cannon (20)

6x Guardian Jetbike: 152
Upgrades -> 2x Shuriken Cannon (20)

6x Guardian Jetbike: 152
Upgrades -> 2x Shuriken Cannon (20)

6x Guardian Jetbike: 152
Upgrades -> 2x Shuriken Cannon (20)

6x Guardian Jetbike: 152
Upgrades -> 2x Shuriken Cannon (20)

6x Guardian Jetbike: 152
Upgrades -> 2x Shuriken Cannon (20)

Heavy Support: 441

3x Dark Reaper: 147
Upgrades -> Exarch (12), Tempest Launcher (20), Crack Shot (10)

3x Dark Reaper: 147
Upgrades -> Exarch (12), Tempest Launcher (20), Crack Shot (10)

3x Dark Reaper: 147
Upgrades -> Exarch (12), Tempest Launcher (20), Crack Shot (10)


Total: 2328

My opinion on the troops hasn't changed.

Without a farseer giving fortune, reapers aren't very good IMO.

As far as the Ard Boyz, I hope it isn't another "SURPRISE! We run lame tournaments!" like last years was, maybe you should go to the GW community forum and ask Dave Taylor what the scoring system is.

The scenarios are going to be the ones from the books, so that steaming pile o crap from last year wont happen again. However, the scoring system...ive got no clue.

Where's this mythical gw community forum at?

Edit: NM, Found it

I asked. The scenarios for Vegas are the ones from the books.

I don't see anything that says GW hasn't come up with scenarios just for the Ard Boyz.

I'd rather not play if they are using their own scenarios, given how bad they are at making them.

The rules packet states that they'll be using the book scenario, its up on the ard boyz section of the events portion of the GW website. Its buried within, but its in there. I've also spoken to two of the shops running it and they gave me and others the rundown on times to start games, breaks, what scenarios will be used, etc.

Its going to be the 3 book scenarios, pre-determined as to which game is which, each paired with a predetermined book deployment, although you wont know which is with which, ie, annihilation and dawn of war, or annihilation and pitched battle, etc.

Im pending joining that usergroup on gw us community, then hopefully i can get more specific info on how they're doing the breakdowns 20/0, 17/3, etc, since the book makes missions more of a you win/you lose thing now.

Edit: Actualy it doesnt say in the packet that book scenarios will be used, but the people running it that told me that I trust to not BS

If you really must have Eldrad give him a full 10 warlocks with 2 embolden, enhance 0-3 destructors and put them in a Wave Serpent with Spirit Stones, Vectored Engines and weapon of your choice. Not quite as good as a Jetbike Council but you have Eldrad. Problem here is you have no other tanks so this tank will get lite up like a Christmas tree by all the opponents anti tank. This doesn't help the Dark Reapers either.

If you can fill out your Jetbike Warlock Squad to 10 do so. You have 2500 pts so can afford it. However modding them can be a pain. Although a Guardian Jetbike with Dire avenger sword works it doesn't look all that cool.

Unless you really like Siam-he I think going with Wave Serpents and Avengers might be better then Jetbike Squads. That gives you two units instead of one for missions where there are multiple objectives. You can use the Serpent to tank shock troops off objectives. Downfall is if your Serpent explodes your Dire Avengers are stuck.

What do you do against Hordes like Green Tide or Infinity Gaunts? You do have some destructors in your seer council which will help. Some fire prisms would help, or destructors on warlocks in the guardian squads.

I don't really like Dark Reapers that much. In Dawn of War you have to walk onto the board and lose one round of shooting. The game may end on turn 5 and you might still have bad firing lanes that you have to blow a second turn walking. Run might help here. I just remember Dark Reapers sucking in Escalation. They sure kill Marines well though. I agree with Stelek that you need to Fortune them. I used to have Eldrad with some warlocks, Guardians, Avatar, Wraith Lords and Dark Reapers as my back field when I would play foot eldar. Harlequins worked well as a counter assault unit to protect your back field and couldn't be shot because of the shadow seer. Dark Reapers need a counter assault unit to protect them if you don't want them dying to assault troops.

The Token Scenario would really suck with 5th edition rules. Last years 40k Ardboys was pretty lame how it worked. This years Fantasy was a bit better but some of the custom scenarios were lame.

Where is the GW Community Forum?

I haven't really worked on my 2500 Eldar for Ardboys yet. I have two RTTs 40k and Fantasy this weekend that I been testing for.

Good to see ya, I finally got myself on DakkaDakka Kirika!

Im working on a new list currently, although I love the damage potential of the dark reaper combo, Im starting to agree with you two that it doesnt fit so well, and will probably just get shot off the board in short order, leaving me wondering why I paid for them.

The new list is similar to the one I just posted, except with embolden/spear seers as Stelek suggested (although still 6 man with 6 squads), and 3 wraithlords, giving a spiritseer upgrade to the jetbike walocks and 1 warlock in each hq squad, they shouldnt have any problem staying within 12 inches of at least 1 warlock. This will give me some long range HS weapons, and also another tough unit which is hard to get a KP from, as well as 2 flamers on each one for an advancing horde army.

Whats your favorite wraithlord setup? BL/EML or BL/Wraithsword, thats the two im going between currently.

BL/EML or BL/WS are both good. You pick.

[I recommend BL/EML cause CC troops fear wraithlords now, and you lack shooting.]

The forums are at:

http://gwuscommunity.com/forum