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I know a lot of people dont like Wraithguard and say they suck. I know that they cost a lot and that there not good in cc but when I take them they rock. I take 20 as troops and keep them togeather. Anything brave enough to get in there way dies, blows up, or get walked over. There warlock, spritseers, give them the 5+ cover and they just walk and kill. Whats not to love?

Ooo and please Mr. LandRaider come close with your payload.

Don't forget all the Instant Death they're packing.

neverstandalone wrote:Ooo and please Mr. LandRaider come close with your payload.

Mr. LR with TH/SS Termies hovers at 19 inches and peppers them with fire until it decides to rush 12", offload 2" (4" if you count the bases), and charge 6" never allowing you to shoot.

I concur with Gornall, but I will say I expect them to be a really good counter Nid DSing mc unit unit.

Gornal:

That's why Vaul invented Distort Cannons.

They suck because they're short ranged, expensive, and very slow. Sure they'll wreck tough units that linger around in their ~18" threat range, but... they're slow. What do you do if someone chooses not to hang his expensive instant death vulnerable units around in that range? Suddenly you're paying ~750 points for 20 dudes to sit on your home objective when you could get 10 pathfinders to do a better job of it for, what, 200?

Wait until you play somebody who's running hormagaunts with toxin sacs. They might change your opinion of wraithguard.

I think wraithguard are ace! I don't field many becasue of thier ridicoulous £8 price tag, but i would if they were cheaper money. I personnaly take them with a warlock with enchance, it boosts thier CC ability a bit, coupled with thier high stregnth it makes them good CC killers.

Well, nobody says you have to field them in their 10 troop formation. While that certainly does give you core that can take punishment much more effectively then normal Eldar, it seems a bit excessive unless you are fielding a craftworld of Iyanden force, in which case it just makes sense. They are much more useful in a squad of 5 with spirit seer, and perhaps another character in a wave serpent, allowing you to compensate for their lack of mobility and go after the big-bads of forces a little more effectively.

Personally I think they should increase their combat effectiveness, maybe give them an extra attack, so 2 attacks at S 5, making them not brutal in close combat, but capable of dishing out a bit of punishment, but that is a discussion better left to the rules section.

They don't suck, ask Greg Sparks.

I think they complement Wraithlords well. They can provide cover to it, and whatever can threaten a Wraithlord in combat can be dealt with by Wraithguard, while the Wraithlord provides the long range and anti-horde firepower.

BossGlefang wrote:Personally I think they should increase their combat effectiveness, maybe give them an extra attack, so 2 attacks at S 5, making them not brutal in close combat, but capable of dishing out a bit of punishment, but that is a discussion better left to the rules section.

Yeah, this would be one of my Eldar cahnges as well. They should give Wraithlords an extra attack too.

I support more use of wraithguard. They get murdered real nice by my hordes, just like their big friends. Your 350 points + warlock squad that gets 10 shots before getting charged and klawed to oblivion by a 220 point mob just isn't getting a good return. You have to back them up with real good anti-horde stuff like guided scatter laser war walkers.

Wraithguard suffer from high points for a anvil unit that really doesn't have the firepower or the range to threaten anything. I've used a small unit in a waveserpent and as mobile cover in Apoc, but that is it.

If they had better range, or fired small blasts, then they might add something to the line, but right now Dragons do the same job at half the cost. If you really want a cover save for wraithlords park your jetbikes in front of them.

neverstandalone wrote:I know a lot of people dont like Wraithguard and say they suck. Whats not to love?

Because in a 5th ed environment they're a slow, close-ranged firefight unit that can't deal with hordes or fast transports and suck down wounds from anti tank weapons.

Orks kill them, TH Terminators kill them, Twulf Cav kill them, and even Hormagaunts will kill them with ease for far fewer points.

To make them really work you either have to babysit them with a Farseer spamming Fortune in cover, or spend even more points on other units to babysit them, thus also removing a significant mobility aspect from the fast and mobile army.

Finally, if you run into an army that can afford to sit 19" away from them until they're dead (IG, DE, SW, SM, CSM) or with fast assault face-rapers (SW, Nids, CSM, some SM, some Orks, CD) or simply overwhelm you with hordes (Orks, Nids, CD), you get maybe 1 turn of shooting, maybe, and then all your d00dz are ded.

The problem, for me, is that they aren't good enough to base my army around supporting them.

But they cost so much that you need to base your army around supporting them, if you take them at all.

Though 5 in a WS seems promising. I'll look into that.

Actually the minute they make plastic wraithguard is the minute I play Iyanden eldar. 30 wraithguard and 3 waithlords in 1500 points....mmm

Nurglitch wrote:I think they complement Wraithlords well. They can provide cover to it, and whatever can threaten a Wraithlord in combat can be dealt with by Wraithguard, while the Wraithlord provides the long range and anti-horde firepower.

Clarify this for me; I thought Wraithlords were Monstrous Creatures, which would preclude them from getting cover saves unless they were 50% occluded by intervening terrain/models ?

Wraith guard are pretty tall models and wraith lords are pretty skinny. I haven't used my guard in a while but I don't think its a stretch that the WG can cover 50% of a lord. Although I do use the old, old lord models so YMMV.

I wouldn't say Wraith guard suck. That's a bit too strong a word. If you are able to get them in range of something they will do damage and if fortuned with conceal they can take quite a bit of fire without suffering heavy losses. They aren't easy to use and have drawbacks, but I don't think they "suck." If you're using them you have to build your list around them. They aren't something you can simply plug in any list and expect them to do well.

Wraithlords are >6" tall, Wraith guard are <2" tall.

A Wraithguard will/can block LoS to an entire leg of a Lord, 2 could cover both legs+waist. That's about half of the Lord. If you play it very strictly you probably can't claim a cover save, but a lot of opponents would allow it I think.

The biggest problem with wraithguard is their cost. Both in game and RL they are expensive per model, being expensive in both means that few people can play with very many of them.

If there was a plastic kit for wraithguard there would be many more of them showing up, it would be a lot easier to experiment with them and we would actually see them a bit more often.

Also, they shine most strongly in an area that the eldar already have a superior answer: they are great vs heavy armor but so are fire dragons for half the cost.



Sliggoth

As a Iyanden eldar player I have to say I really enjoy my wraithguards.

However atm I'm only using 10 of them. I'll probably wait a while before getting more of them.

I've never actually lost an entire 10 man wraithguard squad so far. But I do tend to try and keep them fortuned as often as possible. And a rerollable 4+ cover save (cover is easy to get..) and a rerollable 3+ armor save with toughness 6 is just pretty hard to kill. Which makes them great for guarding your own objectives or just take a lot of punishment whilst moving up to secure a enemy objective.

Sure they are slow, but it works in a footslogging list.

Honestly though, you can get any unit to work just aslong as you know how to play with them, and know how to build the army so it works together as a whole.

Last saturday I played a 1500p game against Chaos Space Marines, and the only model I lost was one harlequin (and that was a lucky scattered blast). Yriel + 2 wraithlords got wounded, but nothing more. And I even had 200p worth of yo-yoing swooping hawks (had the models, wanted to try them out...) in that list, and the rest just normal iyanden footsloggers ofc.

So far I've not lost or drawn a single game with my footsloggin eldar, so you don't need to mech up just to be successful.

They 'suck' because of the cost. Both in real world dollars and in game terms.

labmouse42 wrote:They 'suck' because of the cost. Both in real world dollars and in game terms.

True but if you get enough of these guys your enemy will struggle to kill them. I normally rock with 10 (as a troop choice) and smile as eveything bounces of them.

I'm planning to get 5 wraithguard, with a warlock with enhance, in a WS.