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I disagree as Storm Guardians are very fluffy for Iyanden and can ride in a serpent.

G

Green Blow Fly wrote:I disagree as Storm Guardians are very fluffy for Iyanden and can ride in a serpent.

G

Fluffy for Iyanden, yes.

Good fit for a competitive Eldarzilla list? I'd rather have harlequins, warlocks, or even Striking Scorpions.

Warlocks and Harlequins can kill things stormguardians can't even touch. Scorpions can infilitrate/outflank, which in the 5th edition metagame and tourney scene is pretty important.

Storm Guardians either need a serpent, which completely offsets their cheap point value, or they become the only thing on the table worth shooting basic troop weapons at, which means they die horribly while all the heavy weapons shoot at your MCs and wraith guard. The only advantage is that they're a troops choice, which means they actually can sit on an objective.

-DaR

I think eldR zillA could rock in the hands of the right person.

G

I am honestly not impressed with Eldarzilla. I've seen it played the following.

Avatar

Eldrad


Wraightguard w/ Seer

Dire Avengers w/ Wave Serpent

Fire Dragons w/ Wave Serpent

some bike squad thing

3 Wraithlords


I don't know why people play this army period.

I find 9 War Walkers a bit more annoying than 3 Wraithlords as a marine player.

Have 40+ shots coming at you while you deal with Harlequins and Fire Dragons and Scorpions and gak like that is incredibly annoying.

On that context.. 2-3 v.small units of harlies w/ a shadowseer. Well maybe only 2 concidering the cost of the seer..

I prefer 20 wraithguard, and 3 Lords with SC SL as a base, then add Eldrad and others for flavor. HQ choices change this army a lot.

I am honestly not impressed with Eldarzilla. I've seen it played the following.

Avatar

Eldrad


Wraightguard w/ Seer

Dire Avengers w/ Wave Serpent

Fire Dragons w/ Wave Serpent

some bike squad thing

3 Wraithlords


I don't know why people play this army period.

I find 9 War Walkers a bit more annoying than 3 Wraithlords as a marine player.

Have 40+ shots coming at you while you deal with Harlequins and Fire Dragons and Scorpions and gak like that is incredibly annoying.

Elfzilla is a tear 1 army in games 1500 points or lower, Have someone play this list and see how you fare:

Avatar - 155pts
farseer, Jetbike, Doom, fortune, SS, runes of warding
5 x warlock, Jetbike, 1 x embolden, 1 x enhance, 3 x destructor 450pts

20 x storm guardians, 2 Flamer, warlock w/ enhance 212pts

20 x storm guardians, 2 Flamer, spirtseer w/ enhance 212pts

wraithlord BL and EML 155pt
wraithlord BL and EML 155pt
wraithlord BL and EML 155pt

Total: 1500pts

I run a Wraithlord with Sword and Bright Lance. I've been told over and over again that it's not a good build, but it's always been good for me, as it's a threat to tanks at long and close range.

If there's an enemy tank that I need to try to kill, I advance and fire the bright lance. When I get closer, the enemy has to make a tough choice: either run away, or sit and fire. If it moves 12" to get away, I can either run to keep pressure on it, or fire the brightlance. If it stays, I get to possibly fire the bright lance AND assault the tank, giving me an even better chance at blowing it up.

The sword helps because if the tank moved far enough to need 6's then it gives you much better odds. Also, warbosses with klaws and other scary things fear 2 attacks with re-rolls a lot more than just two attacks.

Those are good reasons to take a sword... plus you will need the WLs to fight in close combat.

At first I thought this style is not so good but after doing more research and reading the posts here I really like it a lot. I would definitely take the WG to keep the list fluffy and to shrug off small arms fire as was noted here. This is the only Xenos army I have found interesting enough to play.

G

Since I've been talking about the subject of elfzilla for a bit now, I figured it would be a good idea to get in a couple of game with it and see how it really works out on the field. So I got in a game (didn't have time for 2). Here is a gloss over of what I had

Avatar
Eldrad
10 wraithguard + spirit seer warlock with conceal
10 wraithguard + spirit seer warlock with conceal
6 pathfinders
10 Harlequins with kisses and shadowseer
Dreadnaught with sword
Dreadnaught with sword
Dreadnaught with sword
1850 points all told

My opponent was Lormax, who's a very good blood angles player. His list looked something like this
Lamarties
Force Commander with jump pack
6ish death company
10 man Tac squad with missile launcher and plasma (and fist I think)
10 man Tac squad with missile launcher and plasma (and fist I think)
Medium sized assault squad with fist (I think it was 8 man but I don't remember exactly)
5 man assault squad with fist
Vet assault squad with 2 meltas and 2 fists
3 attack bikes with 3 multi meltas
3 attack bikes with 3 multi meltas
3 attack bikes with 3 heavy bolters
1 whirlwind

The mission was 5 objectives and the deployment was table halves with 1 hq and 2 troops. The end result of it all was that I pulled a loss after the bottom of the 6th turn. I did however learn a lot of valuable lessons about how this sort of army works.

First off, the army is virtually immune to shooting. Oh my goodness did it just suck up the fire power. Even with 6 multi meltas shooting at me, I hardly took any casualties from shooting, and most of those were to my monstrous creatures. They will also stand up to just about anything in hand to hand that doesn't have a huge number of rending attacks or a lot of power fists. On the down side, the army is slow and needs to concentrate its force to truly be effective. With 5 objectives on the table and a very mobile opponent, I found that I was spread too thin in most places and he was able to assault me from odd angles to pull my wraithguard off of objectives. A more unified front and/or some long range support would have helped a lot in that area.

So lessons learned about this force.
1) The pathfinders are a great addition since they are a troop unit that can stay in the back field and still contribute to the fight, hold a rear objective, and are an extremely hard target to kill from range.
1.5) If you do have pathfinders, they must remain behind the wraithguard, not back and sort of off to one side...directly behind. With a slow army, you can't afford to let a mobile enemy run around your lines and get close to the pathfinders.
2) Wraithguard with fortune and conceal suck up huge amounts of abuse without dieing. This means they are great in kill point missions.
3) Having a power fist hit your wraithguard lines isn't that big of a deal, just make sure you kill it quick with something else (like quins) because the damage will add up over time.
4) You can not spread out your forces with this army. There are simply too few models to devote your attention across several fronts. This means this army works good in 2 objective missions and fine in 3 objective missions, but starts to struggle with more.
5) The dreadnaughts really need ranged weapons. I tried to run them with just swords and I've found that it just doesn't work out that well. When nothing in your army shoots farther than 12" (other than the one sniper squad sitting in the back), you tend to suffer if a mobile enemy starts to dance around you

That was probably the hardest mission you could have played... multiple I objectives and a highly mobile assault army to fight against. Sounds like you did very well. What changes do you plan to make to the WL?

G

Green Blow Fly wrote: What changes do you plan to make to the WL?

I'll add missile launchers to them for sure. That will give them some solid fire power that's good all the way round. Since I'm still planing on them being in assault, I think I'll keep the swords on them for now though and see how things go. If I find that I still need some more shooting, I may just drop a dreadnaught and pick up a squad of dark reapers. Of course all of this will require messing around with the other squads to get the ponits to balance, but that's the name of the game. I'll probably end up droping down the pathfinders to 5 men and then cutting into the quin squad.

Phoenix wrote:A unit of 10 wraithguard with a spirit seer warlock (which makes them count as troops).

It does? Is this in the Codex somewhere? I don't recall seeing it...



Ghidorah

Ghidorah wrote:

Phoenix wrote:A unit of 10 wraithguard with a spirit seer warlock (which makes them count as troops).

It does? Is this in the Codex somewhere? I don't recall seeing it...

Yeah, Phoenix is right. Look more thoroughly.

Grrr... I suppose I should actually READ my codex then, huh? Truth be told, in 10 years playing Eldar, I have not ONCE used Wraithguard. I only have 3 of the models...

I don't use 'em, I don't read their rules. I really should change that, huh?



Ghidorah

Well, WG has a place in an Eldarzilla list. However, its a huge point sink so that I'd take only one unit and some units supporting them. Harlies for counter-strike and some shooty support units like DAs. In particular, blade-storming DAs can help to thin out hordes before they hit the front ranks.

Ghidorah wrote:Grrr... I suppose I should actually READ my codex then, huh? Truth be told, in 10 years playing Eldar, I have not ONCE used Wraithguard. I only have 3 of the models...

I don't use 'em, I don't read their rules. I really should change that, huh?

Wraithguard blocks of 10 with a conceal spirit seer are simply the best standalone troop choice Eldar have right now, in my opinion. They're the only troop choice which can reasonably expect to march across the field and still have enough models left to take and hold an objective. T6 with a Sv3+ makes them capable of absorbing mass amounts of shooting without flinching. Doubly so if you keep a farseer nearby to fortune them (at which point it takes an average of 81 BS4 bolter shots to generate a single casualty on the unit). That leaves opponents with several equally unpalatable choices. Ignore them and let them shoot the wraithcannons; try to shoot them away and thus leave the rest of the Eldar army untouched; or attempt to engage them in melee. The last is the only thing that really works to any degree, which is why most Eldarzilla lists run Wraithlords with swords, units of counter-charge harlequins, and/or seer councils put an end to any combat that is tying up the wraithguard unit.

By comparison, the only other Eldar troop choices with significant survivability requires they be mounted in a wave serpent. Untransported Guardians or Dire Avengers tend to get shot to pieces before they can make too much impact. Rangers and Pathfinders are quite survivable against basic shooting, but a single model with a flamer (damnable drop pod dreads, ambushing Ork Kommandos, outflanking Landspeeders or Sentinels, etc) or fast/outflanking assault troops will destroy them in a single turn.

-DaR

Ghidorah wrote:Grrr... I suppose I should actually READ my codex then, huh? Truth be told, in 10 years playing Eldar, I have not ONCE used Wraithguard. I only have 3 of the models...

I was in the same boat till about a year ago when someone pulled this on me in a tournament. I was like "Really?!? Can you show me where that is in the codex please. Hummm... Yah, you're right. Never noticed that before." I though he was just making stuff up or something. Just goes to show you learn something new every day.

wuestenfux wrote:Well, WG has a place in an Eldarzilla list. However, its a huge point sink so that I'd take only one unit and some units supporting them. Harlies for counter-strike and some shooty support units like DAs. In particular, blade-storming DAs can help to thin out hordes before they hit the front ranks.

While they do cost a lot of points (~400 for the squad), they can dish out a fair amount of punishment at short range (3+ to hit, 2+ to wound, ap2 and hell on wheels against vehicles) and they can suck up insane amounts of enemy shooting. In my game against Lormax, I watched 2 squads of multi melta attack bikes fire into one of my squads and not kill a single one. While that was a bit of luck on my side, it does take an average of 4 marine multi meltas to kill a single wraithguard with conceal and fortune. If that isn't crazy survivability, I don't know what is.

Now, adding in dire avengers is a move I would question. The whole concept of the army is that it has no soft targets. Everything in it is extremely tough and nothing is really worth shooting at. The addition of dire avengers changes this dynamic. Those avengers are going to get one turn of shooting (at best) before they die due to the simple fact that every small arms weapon in the enemy army is going to point their way the instant they disembark, if for no other reason than the fact that they are far more likely to kill the avengers than any of the other models on the field. So be careful when you put them in. On the bright side, anything in a serpent will really help out this armies’ lack of mobility.