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Great tactica so far, Lukus.

Let me contribute with my insight into the entity know as the Canoptek Wraith.

BTW, the original saying goes:

"Know your enemy and know yourself and you can fight a hundred battles without disaster. "
- Sun Tzu


Part I - Understanding Wraiths

I'm going to skip Basic Wraith Tactics 101. These will include the basically the very obvious things that the codex goes over, such as they can reduce Init to 1 with whip coils, they ignore terrain, they are jump infantry and they have S6 rending attacks. Instead, I'm going to focus on the finer and my subtle points about wraiths.

Wound Allocation: One of the keys to wraith longevity is wound allocation. We all know that 3++ and 2W are pretty good. Wound allocation just makes them that much better. Always kit them with primarily whip coils as the main piece of wargear. I then usually kit out my wraiths with 1 particle caster as well due to its relative cheapness. Avoid the transdimensional beamer because it a) is really expensive and it b) discourages your wraiths from moving. This is how I normally kit out my wraiths for wound allocation (assuming a 6-wraith unit):

6x Wraiths - 3x Whip Coils, 1x Particle Caster - 245pts

Wound allocation really helps with the survivability of your wraiths. Say, for example, a 10-man veteran squad with 3 meltaguns fire at your wraiths. For the sake of simplicity, assuming all 3 meltaguns and 10 lasguns hit and wound. Now assume you make all your lasgun saves but fail all your melta saves. Without any wound allocation, you would lose 3 wraiths to Insta-death.

But with wound allocation in effect, I would allocate all 3 melta wounds to the particle caster model and the 10 lasgun shots to the other wraiths instead (note: allocation occurs before rolling for saves and can be stacked on similar models if there are different wound groups). Now after failing all 3 melta wounds, I've only lost 1 wraith model instead.


Wraiths Are Not Uber-Assault Units!

"He who knows when he can fight and when he cannot, will be victorious."

Many seem to be under the impression that wraiths are ultra-killy, uber-assault units. They are not. They are good combat units and can handle most regular infantry. However, throw numbers at them such as 10-man marine squads or stubborn units and you can actually hold them in combat for a few rounds. Worse yet, units with better resistance (i.e. terminators, FNP marines) will actually give them problems, even in smallish squads.

You can actually beat them in combat if you throw even medium assault units into them if you have the numbers. Units such as decked-out grey hunters (with mark, power weapon/fists, wolf guards and standard), berserkers, genestealers, furiously charging BA assault squads and other units with large volumes of attacks can actually hurt wraiths if they can get the charge off.

Against these units, wraiths actually need help. And that is why I also normally run command barge Overlords as well as multiple wraith units in my armies. It is against these types of armies where I have a secondary unit ready to help out "on the fly".

On the flip side, against dangerous enemy assault units that wraiths cannot overcome, then wraiths are used instead to tarpit these units. Thanks to their resiliency, they can actually survive assault from smaller squads of TH/SS assault terminators, paladins and other such units. Just don't expect them to hold off larger 10-man dedicated assault units for too long. Then if you feel that you can overcome such a unit, help out those wraiths with your counter-attack forces (i.e. other wraith units, Overlords, etc.). Just be careful about sending scarabs in to help out, especially if it is against a unit with a lot of insta-death weaponry (i.e. S6 or better weaponry, nemesis force weapons). If the unit is too strong (i.e. 10-man TH/SS or Draigowing deathstars), just ignore and go after other easier targets.


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I'm going to post now to keep this tactica at the top of the page. To be continued.....

Spam str 6 weps on your serpents. Bright lances and missile launchers are a waste the str 6guns arr atleast twin linked

Good write up jy2. A lot of people should take heed. For some reason people say "Wraith wing" and think they are just going to murder everyone. In my experience they are a decent match for an equal number of terminators. They have their uses, but aren't going to wipe out squads on their own. Where they get scary is when a destroyer lord tags along.

Kevlar wrote:people say "Wraith wing" and think they are just going to murder everyone [...] aren't going to wipe out squads on their own [...] get scary when a destroyer lord tags along.

heh
heh
heh

*polishes Destroyer chassis*

Eldar have some good tools for dealing with wraiths.

First and foremost would be a double farseer list. Doom and guide do a lot against wraiths.

The # to keep in mind isn't 108 bolter shots, it's 36 wounds.

Math hammer....

9 dire avengers against a doomed unit=18shots=12 hits=9 wounds, or 13.5 with bladestorm.

3 war walkers with guide=24 shots=18hits=15 wounds

6 Fire dragons with guide= 5.33hits=.4444 wounds=1.58 unsaved wounds=1 or 2 dead wraiths=forget about it, get back to the big picture, look at the rest of the army, and blow up the catacomb command barge instead and guide a different unit isntead.

So it takes 36 wounds per unit to drop a squad of wraiths. Let's take Eldrad + a 2nd farseer against 3 squads of wraiths. 108 wounds are required to drop 18 wraits...

9 war walkers with guide=45 wounds.
2 units of wraiths are doomed...4 units of 9 dire avengers shoot them.
2 dire avenger squads bladestorm for 27 wounds
2 dire avenger squads fire regular shots for 18 wounds
Total # of wounds=45 from war walkers, 45 from dire avengers, 30 out of 36 wraiths drop. Average squad size is 1, so say a squad of 1, a squad of 2, and a squad of 3. Bladestorming dire avengers assault the smaller squads...
Fire dragons focus on CCB.
The real problem for eldar would be how to deal with annihilation barges after the fire dragons die.

A fortuned seer council would also do well against wraiths. Both the wraiths and seers wound each other on a 2+. Wraiths make their invo 66.6% of the time, seer council 75% of the time. Wraiths hit on a 4+, seer council hit on a 3+.

That would work if you play 2500 point games. If you add Wave Serpents to the mentioned units and include min size Fire Dragons and their transports your looking at a minimum of 2359 points. Sure, that will kill some wraiths
It's good advice anyway, thanks.

Nivoglibina wrote:That would work if you play 2500 point games. If you add Wave Serpents to the mentioned units and include min size Fire Dragons and their transports your looking at a minimum of 2359 points. Sure, that will kill some wraiths
It's good advice anyway, thanks.

Yeah, while that might get rid of the wraiths, you've just shot your entire army at 3 pretty cheap units. The other 2000 points of necrons are probably going to hit you back a lot harder.