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I had a squad of 10 WG and a warlock that were engaged by khorne. 2 10 man deamon squads, and a deamon prince took 4 turns to kill them all, and I killed half the lesser demons and the deamon prince (thanks to yriel).

in a 2v2 eldar vs tau, they were the most shot troop, and by the end of the game they were still alive (3 strong and lock) and took out a devilfish last turn.

WG, Pathfinders, and WL's are my ultimate MVP's. Hard to kill, dish out some good firepower, and have great morale.
~dan

I like this topic as it is really getting to the specifics of 5th edition and specific unit dynamics.

A big thing to consider is a newer rumor: units you shoot through to another unit will provide a cover save, not block LOS. It's been pointed out in the rumors forum and on Warseer.

The single objective marker. I'm just not seeing how a walking (even w/ d6" run) will make it across the board to contest your opponent's objective. I suppose if your opponent places the objective as far forward as possible, but I really don't see anyone doing that. I'd imagine they will place their objective in the most difficult and distant position possible. If the WG get tied up in an any assault lasting more than a turn (not sure how the changes to assault will affect this), they will have a very difficult time getting to the objective.

With loot counter missions, I typically will automatically give up one counter and let my opponent have it. It allows me to focus more points against his on the other counters. Currently, if I still have the capability, I'll contest that one counter last turn. With the WG, I'll gladly let my opponent take an objective with that very expensive unit. It would appear I can still take advantage by fighting against my opponent with a lot more army as the WG unit is getting close to 400 points (maybe more with an attached Farseer).

KP: They just don't seem worth the effort for a single point. I totally concede this. If my opponent is running two of these units, I think I'm going to have big problems. This mission seems right up the WG's alley.

I think for tem to be seriously useful, you have to be going for 2 units, it makes them almost impossible to ignore from your opponent.

Whether screening is a cover save or otherwise, space clowns with the veil of tears are still a great backup unit for the WG, even if you have LOS you're not usually going to not roll high enough to see them. I could be wrong as I don't have to book to hand but I believe if you opt to shoot the clowns, you forfeit a chance to shoot at something else. Screening could be a tricky tactic to pull off in 5th however the rules work, but harlequins are seriously easy to hide.

Sarigar:

I hate to say it but you seem naive to the intricacies of movement in this game. By the second turn of normal movement, especially if you run on the first, you will be easily within range of any one of your opponent's units that moved into the 24" no-man's land. If he's sitting in his deployment zone, well, you've probably already won the game. 6" movement with a possible run move will do so much for the Eldar and other short-ranged units it's not even funny. This will be a completely different game in a very short time.

@MrJones and others, concerning 2 units of Wraithguard.

Wraithguard, like other units, work much better with redundancy. One unit of wraithguard with a warlock with conceal provides a nasty nut to crack with some serious ranged firepower, but they're vulnerable in assault (and thus are paired well with monstrous creatures and counter-assault units). One unit is easy to fortune every turn in most Eldar armies.

Two units brings you on to specialized territory. Now, if you want to go the "I'm invulnerable because of conceal" route, you need two farseers, or your opponent will simply whittle down the unit not fortuned all the time. Eldrad, as stated, is golden for this role. If you don't use two farseers or Eldrad, then I suggest going with Enhance, as it gives you considerable assault punch, but cuts your survivability about in half against SAFH setups.

And finally, to address the reply that seemed to assume that Wraithguard will be used in a mechanized force with "lots of skimmers and S6," it is dead wrong. Any mechanized force will automatically be gimping itself if it takes slow, pondering units like wraithguard that tie up so many points that aren't already eaten up by the tanks, leaving very little for a viable force to be fielded. The long and short of it is, I think, that you will rarely, if ever, see Wraithguard in a mechanized or highly mobile army configuration. They're much more likely in a foot-based SAFH Eldar build.

Ellios has it correct.

Wraithguard will need big units of Harlequins (or Banshees, or Scorpions) to keep them alive because they are incredibly weak to specialist CC troops.

It is an extremely resilient army which isn't trying to beat your army, it's trying to beat the mission. You can hurt them with mass shooting, but most people don't run 20 lascannons/missile launchers. That said, if they do you're going to have a very hard time walking across the board.

Having Eldatar, 2 Wraithguard units, and 3 Wraithlords(all with 5+ cover because of the wraithguard in front of them) in 5th edition is going to be a huge pita. It's scary because it's got lots of killy, and is very difficult to kill. Toss in 2 counter assault units and some anti-horde firepower (DA work great for this)....whew boy.

I've run Nidzilla and my DE against it, Nidzilla didn't do so well. My DE shot them off the table, but I brought the 20+ Dark Lance army which isn't normal by any means.

BeefyG wrote:I don't hold much stock in screening being the be all and end all tactic in 5th edition. Sure the wraithguard are a tough unit, but you really need to decide what the game is - holding objectives or merely KP denial?

Depending on what mission you roll when you start depends on what you are going to do. Obviously you don't care about kill points if you are not playing a total annihilation game. You also don't care about objectives if you are playing a total annihilation game. However, the wraithguard can do both so once you find out which mission you are playing, you can decide what you are going to have them doing in that game. They can be a dynamic unit if you use them as one.

Firstly I'd think about how tough the unit actually is (easily tied up in hth = not so tough IMHO). I'd definitely think about what I could get for the same points.

Well seeing what else you could get for the points is always a good idea when building an army. However, I think that tying up the wraithguard in hand to hand is going to be very difficult for several reasons. The first is that this tactics has from the beginning gone on the assumption that there will be a squad of eldar hand to hand specialists (banshees, harlequins, or scorpions) behind the wraithguard screen. So even if something charges the wraithguard, it will be counter charged on the following turn by something that’s likely to be able to end the combat. Don't forget that for every wound you lose combat by, you get a -1 leadership modifier. With that in mind, you're not likely to do many if any wounds to the wraithguard (fists and rending are the only real hand to hand dangers to them) so that modifier is likely to be rather large. If you work out the averages a 10 man tac squad with a power fist will kill 1.7 wraithguard (without fortune, the farseer being in the combat, or the warlock's attacks) on the charge. The wraithguard will kill 1.1 marines back and then the next round the banshees / harlequins charge in. If you charge in with assault marines (including a sergeant with a fist) that number (again, without fortune or the other characters being factored in) goes up to a whopping 1.9 dead wraithguard. While this is an impressive number of them dead in comparison to other methods of killing them, it’s just not enough to really swing the tide of battle or kill them off.

There have already been a plethora of counter tactics to screening such as elevated firing positions, tall vehicle shooting etc. mentioned. Also with the addition of scouting/infiltrating units being able to enter from a board edge...combined with the known problems of attempting it (as gdurant already mentioned) against very mobile forces.

While elevated troops will be able to see over the screen, it may not do them much good. Any unit that does elevate itself is likely to be fairly stuck in its position since moving the unit will remove its benefit of elevation. While this may not be an issue for things like devastator squads and other long ranged nasties, it’s something to consider. In addition, if the unit that is following the wriathguard gets right up next to them (in base to base contact or very close) no amount of elevation will help you see over the screen since only a portion of the screened model needs to be covered to keep them from being shot at (per the leaked pdf). The only down side to this formation is that the screened unit then becomes vulnerable to blast templates so its a double edged sword and you will have to decide on the battlefield what formation is best. Finally, if the unit being screened is every ones favorite killer clowns from outerspace (harliquins) you are going to have to make spotting checks to find out if you can see them. So roll your 2d6X2 and see if you can see the quins. Chances are, you won't be able to until they are up in your face, and by then, they are in hand to hand. What makes it even worse, if you roll 2d6X2 and the range doesn't make it, you can't shoot anything else. It’s a big risk to take.

Just some food for thought; current optimal builds for chaos include 2 lash of submission HQ and between 6 and 9 obliterators and if the rules are going to make this combination even better then why change? Even if the chaos player only gets one lash off (its worth a go against eldrads runes) then a major component of your army goes bye-bye relatively easily.

Well, lets look at some numbers here. First off, how likely are you to be able to use the lash going up against the eldar runes. If you are casting at leadership 10, 3d6 leads to 216 possible die combinations and 108 of them are 10 or below, so you have a 50% chance of the power working. That's not too bad. However 81 of them (37.5%) are 12 or over which means you have about a 1/3 chance of taking a wound every time you cast. Worth it...maybe? So what do you get for your effort if you do get the power off? I assume you will be attempting to bunch up the wraithguard and hit them with plasma cannons. This is a point where we get into the sticker side of theory hammer, however lets look at what we have. In order to move them together, you will have to move each end towards the center by however much you roll on 2d6. If you roll 2, you accomplish nothing while you can get a good bunch of the squad pilled up if you roll a 12. Even with the average of 7, you probably are not going to pile more than 4 up together in the middle since they will be strung out by a substantial margin. So if all your plasma cannons hit (lets assume you have 9 obliterators shooting, which is overly generous I think) you can get a maximum of 36 hits. You need 3's to wound and they get rerollable 5+ saves. This comes out to 10.6 dead wraithguard. So if you could shoot at the pile in the middle with all 9 and hit with all 9, you would probably kill them all. However your shots are going to scatter 2/3 of the time due to the new rules for blast weapons. Sometimes they wil scatter and hit nothing. Sometimes they will scatter and still hit 1-2 models. Sometimes they will hit dead on. Mathing this effect out is cumbersome at best and requires way too many assumptions for me to make on the fly without sitting down with models and templates (that I don't have with me at the moment) to work out. I would suggest you roll out the situation yourself and see what the results are like. In general, I think you will find that while the combination may be one of the better ones for the application, its very hit or miss depending on lash casting rolls, lash distance rolls, plasma cannon rolls, and the cover saves (with rerolls). On the plus side, the presence of plasma cannos (or other blast marker weapons) will mean that the screened unit will have to stand back (6-7 inches) from the wraithguard or risk blast markers scattering into them.

...but just the concept alone should make you realize that the wraithguard turn out to be only marginally tougher than guardians...

While they may be only marginally tougher than guardians against the plasma cannon fire from obliterators (a fact I must concede since the only difference is you wound guardians on 2+ and wraithguard on 3+), wraithguard weapons are much more dangerous and they are much much tougher against most other units and weapons (see the above numbers on how many las cannons, plasma guns, and the like it takes to kill them).

Aside from the fact that you don't even need to shoot the wraithguard because they aren't screening stuff behind them anymore...

Even with the lash, I think you will find it difficult to remove the wraithguard screen. You can’t shoot between the gaps in models and as I mentioned before, an 11 man unit (10 wraithguard and the warlock) can spread themselves out in an line 31” long. If there is a unit behind the middle of that 31” line, you are going to need to move it 12-15 inches over to see past them. While its more likely that the line will be less stretched out than that (due to more bunching up or from losing models) a 15-20” line isn’t unreasonable and getting around that without really mobile units is going to be tough, particularly if you want to stay out of shooting range of the wraithguard and out of charge range of whatever is behind them.

edit: Upon a bit of additional thought, I suppose you could move the wraithguard backwards to expose the unit directly behind them. That should only require ~7" of movement or so which is the average result for a lash. The thing to consider here though is if that unit is harlequins, you still need to spot them. If its banshees, you are going to have a good time laying waste to them. Any other units that are further back behind the screen will still be covered though.

I'm not trying to say that chaos will be the wraithguards paper to their rock, as I am confident that there are plenty of other ways of rendering them similar in effect to guardians dying.

Again, I must give you the point that against plasma cannons and other very high strength weapons, wraithguard die just like guardians. The thing is, however, the wraithguard are virtually immune to small arms fire. It takes 51 marine bolter shots to kill a 10 man guardian squad with fortune and conceal. It takes 810 of the same bolter shots to kill the 10 man wraithguard squad. That’s 16 times as many shots. So in general, opponents will find that their basic troops are worthless at killing wraithguard and they will be forced to use their limited number of special and heavy weapons to accomplish the job. If guardians are around, people will just devote their basic weapons to killing the guardians and use their special / heavy weapons to do damage to harder or more valuable targets. The presence of the wraithguard will make these choices more difficult.

I think the problem with implementing the wraithguard wall is more about what units to use to complement it and as 40Kenthusiast stated they don't seem to complement each other very well.

Agreed. 2 units of wraithguard seem to be the maximum one could reasonable field in an army of 2000 points or less (possibly down to 1 at 1500). In general, the best setup seems to be a farseer with fortune (and possibly doom), a warlock with conceal attached to the squad, and a squad of harlequins with kisses and a shadow seer. Beyond that, a squad of guardians or pathfinders for back field objective holding seems prudent. Then you would also need some heavy support to back up your advance. Dark reapers will work if you can get elevated positions, but you may not want to count on that. Dreadnaughts would seem to be a good option. Their heavy weaponry is well matched to supporting the wraithguard from range and their hand to hand resilience is noteworthy. They also fit into the fluff of the ghost craft world. A falcon or a fire prism would also work well since they could zip around the back field and deal with any incoming side threats or weak points that open up in the line. Anything that is going to support the wraithguard is going to need to have a way to shoot past the screen however or you are going to find that your own screen is hurting you as much as helping.

ColonelElios:

Sarigar:

"I hate to say it but you seem naive to the intricacies of movement in this game. By the second turn of normal movement, especially if you run on the first, you will be easily within range of any one of your opponent's units that moved into the 24" no-man's land. If he's sitting in his deployment zone, well, you've probably already won the game. 6" movement with a possible run move will do so much for the Eldar and other short-ranged units it's not even funny. This will be a completely different game in a very short time."

I see where you are getting at regarding shooting. However, you're taking my movement comments out of context. I was referring to them, as a walking unit, trying to hold your opponent's objective on the other side of the table. It won't matter how good their shooting is if I can capture/contest your objective and still hold mine; you simply lose. I think what may keep them from being a no brainer choice is the fact they are expensive while being slow (relative to other Troop choices). I don't think they are an excellent choice for that particular mission. KP missions seem to be the ideal mission for WG. The new Recon appears to be an OK mission for them, but not necessarily game winning, especially if playing a 1500 point game. 2000 Point games will offset their points somewhat as you can still build a lot of cohesion with the Eldar.

Short range shooting certainly is getting hugely boosted with wound allocation. Putting everything into context, I think horde armies will be even more popular, which in turn, makes my Guardian heavy army looks to be gaining many improvements simply by 5th edition.

Stelek wrote:Rending, esp in CC, makes the unit go away.

So does heavy weapons fire that pierces their armor.

Conceal + Fortune = Statistically better than a 4+ cover save. I won't deny that CC will make them vanish, but with T6 across the board, they could last a long time to incoming fire. That said, cause enough wounds and you'll eventually ping the Warlock, then they're screwed. That said, I think it will depend on the army they're facing. I doubt Orks and 'Nids would have much trouble - rush them with a few squads and win on attrition - but for shooty armies it'd be a lot of tough wounds to plough through.

The reason I doubt anyone will do it though is because A). Wraithguard are overpriced (points) and B). Wraithguard are overpriced ($$$).

BYE

Also, according to the newest 5th Ed rules leak, screening doesn't block LOS, it just provides a 4+ cover save. So it will likely just make more sense to kill everything behind them by massing bolter fire and then smash them in H2H once they are isolated. Case Closed.

Are you kidding Samwise? A free 4+ save is awesome. Eldrad or two farseers w/ fortune can keep a unit of wraithguard and their supporting unit of Scorpions (which are ideal for this role) alive for an incredibly long time. Harlequins can't be shot, and so are also an ideal choice. Case closed...I think not.

A fair amount of Guardians, with conceal can provide an equal 4+ Save for the units behind, and don't cost 400 points. My point is that if you buy eldrad or two Farseers plus a large enough unit of Wraithguard to actually screen the units behind them (Harlies or Scorpions) you are looking at about 800 points or so. For a chunk of units that can be foiled pretty easily by a psychic hood, that's an awful lot of points. I guess my point is that I feel like you are investing a lot of points in units that have short range and rely on a lot of component parts working together without any glitches. It could work against some armies, but would get destroyed by others.

Samwise158 wrote:Also, according to the newest 5th Ed rules leak, screening doesn't block LOS, it just provides a 4+ cover save.

Okay, how about using the Harlequins as your screening unit for the first turn or possibly two turns. Likely the Harlis can't be hit due to the veil, and yet potentially give the WG a re-rollable 4+ cover save. I think that might be a pretty nasty combo.

Hmmmm. Interesting. I could easily see this winning.

Ok so you've got 2 wraithguard squads with warlocks and it's like 800 points, meaning you have 700 points of... meh, whatever you want to take.

You plop one wraithguard unit on one objective, one on another, and blast his troops choices.

Odds are you'll be able to destroy two of his [sound fair?] so now he can take objectives or contest the ones the wraithguard are holding, meaning....

It'll likely be a tie? Meaning we go to victory points, and really what all has he killed? All of your points are well-invested in these bricks.

Sounds like it'll be good to me, but it kind of does what most armies do: reward the player who's got the most money.

This is NOT a rail against GW, but if you look at a lot of army setups, some of the most effective ones are the ones that cost a lot. 3rd edition crystal targetting Saim-Hann with vypers for troops choices? Skaven armies with 50 jezzails and some 700 infantry models? All ridiculously effective but ludicrously expensive. I'd almost call it a game-balancing effort to "punish" the people who try for super uber lists. If you want to drop some $250 or more in one troops squad, well, be my guest but I'm gonna buy two baneblades and a Leman Russ.

-Spellbound

Plastic kit?

Seriously, I will never ever shovel that much cash out for a unit! No way in hell, even if they get the option for a I-win-button.

Greets
Schepp himself

So the "new" 5th edition rules are that a screened unit receives a 4+ cover save. If it's behind a monstrous creature, it still can't be shot at correct? I think no matter which way the rules end up for wraithguard, wraithlords will be unreal in 5th.

Edit: and how is one wraithguard squad possibly $250? The retail price is $15 per, which means every store has them for about $12 per, so there's 120, plus 9 or 10 for a warlock. 130 = 250?

You've proven that his math is off. Certainly you're not claiming that $150+ (10 WG retail) for 1 troop choice is good value are you?

1. Where did I say (or intimate) that?
2. Why look at it that way? It's not like you're running 6 squads of them. I'm not sure how much most competitive armies cost exactly, but this one's under $450; surely that's close to or less than the cost of many competitive armies at 1850 points.

1) You said it in #2 above

2) $300+ for your 2 compulsory troop choices is significantly cost prohibitive.

3) Go Giants

Only having too few troopchoices is gonna hurt alot. If someone focuses and manages to take 1 out, you will have 1 scoring unit. They are still good and definently more useful in 5ed especially with some other backup and maybe some other troop choices for scoring. Both the pathfinder and jetbikes have some awsome abilites.