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But what is likely to happen could in the game be the most unlikely thing to happen as what happens was the unlikeliest thing to happen in the first place.

wait... what?

I'd say think of the odds to make your plan, but don't ignore uncanny luck

RedGuardian73 wrote:Quit bringing up stupid statistics , they dont mean anything when you're actually playing. 40k is a game of luck and rock paper scissor tactics. There is a chance that you could hit all three of them and pass all the wounds, killing them all.

There is a chance to roll nothing but ones all game. What point is there in even bringing that up? You can talk about potential, but is difficult to tie it into a reasonable argument.

WH40k is not a game of luck, even though dice bring a very noticable amount of it to the game. You even spoke of chance within your statement. You can get a hard number that will emerge over the course of many games, showing you beforehand, what you are generally going to experience with a unit. Sit down and play out 100 rolls concerning the same factors, you'll clearly see the odds found through basic maths, form before your very eyes. A roll on a 4+ over the course of 100 rolls, will produce anywhere from 49-51 hits on average. If you fail to see that average over 100 rolls, try those 100 rolls 1000 times over. You'll see the pattern, it is there. When you discuss many units, taking into account that if everyone sat down and rolled 100 rolls, 1000 times, you would see what you could have predicted from the beginning.

Generally knowing that certain weapons will perform better than others, in certain situations, gives you a stable platform to make decisions about target priority and such. You have 3 weapons/squads that can deal with the transport that will cause serious problems for you the next turn, which weapon do you fire first? If you decide the transport is very important, you're likely to benefit from using the most effective weapon first. If that weapon fails, you can use the second, or move onto shoot at something else, because the dice are just being mean. OBEY MY COMMAND DICE!

You're right though, sometimes the dice gods just crap on you, sometimes they shower you with gold plated boobs. Most of the time they don't care. The fact that they don't care is called odds, and it plays out through statistics.

As to the question of how to get a demo charge close enough to the WL, Guardsman Marbo has a democharge so getting close to them is no problem, supposeing he survives he aslo has a 2+ poison sword and sniper pistol, so he can kill WL no problem. The hope is that any WL marbo doesn't kill he can take in melee since Marbo has a WS of 5 and the WL have only 3 or 4? so it should be harder to hit him, and easier to hit them. If he gets hit then he will die supposing he doesn't make armor saves or if the WL has a power weapon, but the hope is that the 65 point piece can kill a few 100 point pieces. theorettically even killing one is worth it.

Killing one is worth it for his cost, even though I feel Marbo will almost always have a much more important target to deal with. I am not entirely sure he can reliably kill a WL before dying himself, and it will become a situation where even though he is cheap, there are even cheaper ways of delivering the 1-2 wounds he will probably average. The demo charge is a large blast, and at a moderate S8, it isn't going to have a great chance of actually delivering the wound, and it will only be one wound of three. You're effectively flipping a coin that could bounce off of the table and kick you in the forehead, with it's coin feet.

Sure Marbo hits on a 3+, and he wounds on a 2+, and he is Ini5, with 6 attacks on the charge. 6a, 4h, 3.3w. He has a good chance of getting a second wound on the WL (who has a 3+ save) when he assaults, which I am pretty sure he can, unless there is a rule that stops him from doing so out of 'behind you' infiltration. He can deliver 2 wounds in one turn on average, which is not enough to drop a WL on it's own. The WL will not only ignore his armor if he gets hit, it will also ignore his second wound, killing him outright. If the WL has a sword, it means that he effectively has a WS better than hitting on a 3+, meaning the WL is better than Marbo at actually hitting. With only 2 attacks the odds aren't great, but every landed hit is as close as you can get to guaranteeing an insta-kill, you just need anything but a one on the roll to wound.

Marbo pays for himself, but he can find better targets, against which he can pay for himself twice. S8 Large blasts are good against MCs, especially when you find 2 of them standing next to each other, even if you have a more substantial chance of targeting/hitting one over the same against two. You'll find many situations where Marbo can drop in and hit a full squad of infantry with a good chance of landing a solid hit on a tank at the same time. I wouldn't go out of your way to use Marbo against WL in the hope that you can kill it, when it is so much easier to pick a more vulnerable unit for better results overall.

If you have LC and Marbo, use the LC against WL, and Marbo against things like aspect warriors and tanks. He also has melta bombs, which cause a great deal of pain to WS.

Rogu
yep. exactly.

Marbo cannot assault on the turn he arrives from reserves. Seriously, we should all stop trying to reinvent the wheel and just stick to vendettas, as they are ridiculously good at killing wraothlords.

Mah' bad, didn't take the time to look at Marbos' rules, and just went by a quick glance. The few times I have seen him in a game, he has never been underwhelming, but he suffers from 'dying after firing' syndrome, making me wonder how many opportunities you actually have to use Marbo in assault.

The vendetta seems like a pretty good option. 3a, 2.25h, 1.49w. Not bad. The main advantage to using LC-HWSs instead, is that they are slightly cheaper, if not the same price as a vendetta, all things considered. You can TL the shots, even if it is on an Ld roll, as well as ignoring cover instead if it makes sense to try.

Having both vendettas and LC-HWSs will give you the best of both worlds though, and if you can fit them both into a list, those WL are in for some serious hurt.

nooo my wraithlords : (

Joe (guardian) you forgot one thing, i target everything you have to kill my wraithlords X.x and i know exactly how to kill your ranged weaponry : D

Stupid Main battle cannons
Range 72?!?! Large blast!??!

that is where a Wave serpent and Fire dragons come in : D

Despite being ridiculously expensive, Wraithguard would be pretty good at taking down both the Wraithlord and those pesky tanks.

Of course, they'd only be taking on a WL if the game is Eldar v. Eldar...

Lascanons!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Demolisher cannons, lascannons....Anything above str 9 really.

Well with the CSM army, just gun it down with firepower from across the map, the least you could do is weaken it and allow a Chaos Lord or a PF holder to finish it off.

Or even better, step up please DP+Warptime or Oblitorators!

Skull taker.
Instant death - problem solved (unless WL have EW now?)

Or a las pred Much easier than attempting to kill it in CC

Lascannons are a very good choice when attacking WLs. On the other hand, counting on vendettas to take out WLs is not a very safe bet, because half the time the eldar player will be going first...and guess what hes probably going to be shooting at? All the arguements about how hard it is to find cover for the WL are even more valid for the vends, if the eldar player goes first then you can count on your vends getting shot at.

And any hit, a glance or a pen, will mean that the vend isnt going to be shooting itself the next turn. The WL will be shooting until it takes 3 wounds, the vend will be shooting only if it doesnt get hit at all.

So lascannons in vends will be the cheapest way to get the hits on the WL, its just not going to be the most reliable since the vends are fairly fragile. It takes a lot of heavy weapon squads and inf squads to bring that many lascannon hits but they will be far more durable firing platforms.


Sliggoth

PS yes, one can keep the vends in reserve and have them roar in to get the first shot. Eventually. And usually piecemeal. Ba luck with one vend on turn 2, another on T3 and the last on T4 would be more of a turkey shoot than a WL killing strike.

Mephiston, Str 10 Force Weapon at Init 7 and with no invulnerable save for the wraithlord all you gotta do is pass a Ld 10 test and BAM wraithlord dead on to the next one. Oh and if you have crappy rolls more than likely the Wraithlord wouldn't kill Mephiston just try again next turn.

Sorry I love my BA's especially Mephiston

then Mephy commits suicde by perils since any Eldar player should have RoWard

Wraithlord are often near guardians for an extras spiritseer.

Multi charge the guardians and wraithlord and kill it's fearless butt with combat resolution.

against wraithlords i've tended to lean towards poison if i can get it... in the guards... a banewolf will ignore a 3+ armour save and wound on a 2... put in a stack of 3 for about the same coast as a wraith lord... plus it also gives you some pretty affective fast attack troop removal should you no longer have WL to worry about. Plus even if you should unluckily roll a 1 out of your 3 rolls... you can always finish it with something else from afar...

I will give a briefing of what I have learned from this forum.

A) Shoot the wraithlord lots with big guns - the universal solution
B) Beat it to death with powerfists - an almost universal solution
C) Don't let them bottle you up.

They're(EDIT: there, their, they're, so may options...) kind of obvious, but sometimes those things just need to be said.

Mustela that kind of general advice is not really useful.

Shooting a wraithlord with "big guns" is not always best. It depends more on the specific gun.

For example, a Russ and a Vendetta cost pretty close to the same, and also pretty close to a wraithlord. The Russ *might* get one hit with its battle cannon, and that hit only has a 50% chance to wound.

A Vendetta is pretty likely to get two hits that both have a 67% chance to wound, and is obviously the superior choice.

Yes, you are right, maybe I shouldn't have been so general. BUT, a battle cannon is one big gun, and a vendetta has THREE big guns, thus, lot's of big guns is better. On second thought though, it should take 2-3 turns for that vendetta to kill the wraithlord by itself.

Some facts:

In an IG army, the thing that the wraithlord is gonna hurt is the tanks.
Even with the vendetta, you still need to shoot it quite a bit.
A commissar can keep your squads in cc
Tanks can move faster than mr. wraithlord, russes can move and still fire turret

With these four facts we can assume (operative word here being assume) that it would be best to keep your tanks out of the way and tarpit the wraithlord, while the rest of your army focuses on the rest of theres, (maybe with a combined commissar squad you could multiassault two wraithlords.) you can reduce the rest of the army, then, if you have time, focus any idle guns on the wraithlords when the finish of the commissar and his buddies.

the Wraithlord will also likely be carrying Brightlances and shooting your tanks as they backpeddle blasting it.

lascannons are better as you can get more of them.

Battlecannons are for shooting Infantry.

Grey Templar wrote:the Wraithlord will also likely be carrying Brightlances and shooting your tanks as they backpeddle blasting it.

I'm not saying backpedal blasting as much as just moving away from it to avoid 10+2d6

I giggle when I can manage to get maxed out squads of Grots into CC with Wraithlords, especially as I arm the Slavers with their poisoned weapons.

I've a Grot with a banner pole that has a head skewered for every oddball significant kill that unit has. There are currently three Wraithlord noggins on there.

The fact that wraith lords only have two attacks means they're easily tarpitted. The fact that they're fearless means they're quite vulnerable to No Retreat as well.

Mustela wrote:I will give a briefing of what I have learned from this forum.

A) Shoot the wraithlord lots with big guns - the universal solution
B) Beat it to death with powerfists - an almost universal solution
C) Don't let them bottle you up.

They're(EDIT: there, their, they're, so may options...) kind of obvious, but sometimes those things just need to be said.

Forgot one.

A) Shoot the wraithlord lots with big guns - the universal solution
B) Beat it to death with powerfists - an almost universal solution
C) CC the wraithlord and slaughter the squishy eldar in a multi assault, kill the wraithlord through combat res.
D) Don't let them bottle you up.

Option C is actually the best possible option, but the most difficult to pull off. If for example an ork player catches the eldar off guard with a Waaaaaagh and a decent fleet role 30 ork boys will slaughter guardians or dire avengers in CC, and a the 2 extra attacks from the wraithlord that's sucked into the cc won't do that much against 6 point ork boys. The resulting combat resolution combined with a wound or 2 from the nob's power fist should drop a wraithlord. The icing on the cake is at best the wraithlord will squash 6 point ork boys, a much cheaper solution than nobs, manz, or nob bikers.

I follow the same logic with my CSM. Lash guardians or shooty aspect warriors close the the wraithlord and assault them both with vanilla csm or PM+ the DP going into the squishy eldar. The wraithlord will at best squish 2 MEQ, all the squishy eldar die, the pfist might hurt the WL, and the combat res should kill him. This trick actually works best on a large scale. I've dropped multiple eldar MC in a single assault though nothing but combat res. 20 MEQ +2 chaos MC charging 20 squishy eldar + 2 eldar MC=20 dead squishy eldar. Keep the chaos MC out of CC with the eldar MC and just focus on squishing the 20 squishy eldar. If all the squishy eldar and 6 MEQ die the eldar MC will take 14 or so wounds from combat res.

CC the wraithlord and slaughter the squishy eldar in a multi assault, kill the wraithlord through combat res.

That Sir, is truely genius!

I kill him with knife fighters or I just ignore him.
But the more obvious way is taking a vendetta. But Vendettas normally target the eldar tanks, because they are far more dangerous.

The solution with multiple combat is honourable, but depends on the unawareness of the opponent

One thing to keep in mind is that the eldar player is probably going to be aware of the common ways to remove the wraithlords, especially if he is fielding three of them.

This means that taking vendettas and counting on them to kill the wl is an iffy proposition. Hlaf of the games the IG will be going second, and if the vendettas are starting on the table, guess what the is going to draw a LOT of fire? And all it takes is a glance to meant that three TL lascannons wont be able to fire next turn, so it wont take very much firepower at all to neutralize the vendettas IF they are your only counter to the WL.

Yes, the vendetta can start in reserves, but then they arent exactly countering the wl in any meaningful fashion.

Taking a lot of lascannons in more mundane troop choices isnt as flashy, but it removes a lot of the uncertainty of vendettas. Also, as has been pointed out, a blob infantry thats fearless can tarpit a wl that tries to close, so can give you a bit more options that way as well.

Dont knock the grunts, with the right tools they can work quite well.



Sliggoth

You could use ten ratlings - slightly less expensive than the vendetta, wouldn't need to be shooting at tanks, and should as well.

10 shots
6.66 hits - one rend
5.66 not rends = 2.86 wounds
2.86 wounds = a good chance to fail a save
Total: ~2 wounds - almost as good as vendetta - though you should kill it in the same amount of turns easily.

Ratlings aren't as scary as a vendetta, which offsets their vulnerability

Kindness. Kill them with kindness.