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 zephoid wrote:
Fortuning 2 of 3 wraithlords doesnt help when they just shoot the un-fortuned one.

I've managed to have three wraithlords on one wound each before through doing just that. If you add the wounds up that should be two dead wraithlords. By 'persuading' your opponant to choose a different wraithlord to shoot you can keep up the rate of fire and not give vp's away for a good while.
You can also get 5+ cover from standing right behind the wraithguard squad which helps a little.

Thats just what you call bad target priority. Wraithlords arent particularly hard to kill. Most anti-vehicle weapons to just as well at killing them as vehicles. (Lascannons pen on 4s, wound on 3s, 3 lascannon damages to kill a vehicle, 3 to kill a wraithlord). In one round an army should easily be able to kill a wraithlord. Also, if walking 3 behind a wraithlord squad you now have ~1000 points if not more walking in one small bunch. Id laugh at that tactic, kill the rest of your army, and wait until those wraithlords start to break away from the farseer before bursting them down. They cant be fortuned if they start the turn more than 6" away from eldrad so that would need to happen fast if they have any hope of catching an opposing army by game end.

 zephoid wrote:
Thats just what you call bad target priority. Wraithlords arent particularly hard to kill. Most anti-vehicle weapons to just as well at killing them as vehicles. (Lascannons pen on 4s, wound on 3s, 3 lascannon damages to kill a vehicle, 3 to kill a wraithlord). In one round an army should easily be able to kill a wraithlord. Also, if walking 3 behind a wraithlord squad you now have ~1000 points if not more walking in one small bunch. Id laugh at that tactic, kill the rest of your army, and wait until those wraithlords start to break away from the farseer before bursting them down. They cant be fortuned if they start the turn more than 6" away from eldrad so that would need to happen fast if they have any hope of catching an opposing army by game end.

Lol - it's doesn't even count as a tactic...

3 Lascannons should do two wounds to an unfortuned wraithlord. Add in a cover save too and it's more like 1-2.

But anyway they wouldn't even walk forwards. So you can either come to me or leave me alone with my objective.
Even if you start walking forwards turn one with wraithwall you might not get to your opponants objective, so I find it easier not to bother.

Then at the end of the game, I love playing the jetbike gamble. You know, the one where you cover your opponants objectives in jetbikes and hope that the game ends.

Not having enough spells to go around is simply part of playing CWE. That's not news. Any CWE force will suffer from an enemy taking advantage of that fact.

I find that keeping more points in fewer units to be highly advantageous for CWE. Fewer units means that any given unit is more likely to benefit from spell support.

The need for more spells is another reason why Eldrad, especially with C:E powers, is so important. His ability to cast three spells and often the same one twice, helps get those boosts to the units that need them.

PredaKhaine wrote:

Lol - it's doesn't even count as a tactic...

3 Lascannons should do two wounds to an unfortuned wraithlord. Add in a cover save too and it's more like 1-2.

But anyway they wouldn't even walk forwards. So you can either come to me or leave me alone with my objective.
Even if you start walking forwards turn one with wraithwall you might not get to your opponants objective, so I find it easier not to bother.

Then at the end of the game, I love playing the jetbike gamble. You know, the one where you cover your opponants objectives in jetbikes and hope that the game ends. :

So you are using a 5-800 point unit as an objective babysitter? What happens in a 4+ objective game? What happens when the opponent shoots the rest of your army besides the WG and slips onto the rest of the objectives? what happens in KP missions? In any of theses situations you will be walking towards the enemy.

3 lascannon damages kill a vehicle, just as 3 kill a wraithlord. Read the words, not what you want to read. Its ~5 lascannons to get those 3 damages, do the math on 5 lascannons. Also, wherever WL get cover, vehicles get cover, so that point is moot.

As much as i like turbo boosting jetbikes on turn 5, not only is it a gamble that the game continues, its a gamble your opponent hasnt killed them or, if you went first, still can kill them. Good players account for jetbike turbo boosting. I have even had players bubble wrap the objective so i couldnt contest. Turbo boosting jetbikes around assumes you cleared the objectives and had some source of firepower to whittle down your opponents. If your wraithlords are your heavies and arent advancing, your wraithguard are a good chunk of your points and arent advancing, where is the damage in this army? Sounds like you are depending on your opponent to play poorly and come to you.


Most CWE armies dont have a huge problem with not enough powers (well, it would be nice to have infinite power, but there is going to be a limit). Most have problems with not enough range on powers. However, WL dont have the ability to squad, requiring more fortunes than other units for similar damage output. Similarly they cant be joined by a farseer to protect the farseer. Its like putting a Shadowseer in a 5 man Harlequin squad. Its better to put your expensive buffs on larger squads that gain more benefit and can do more damage.

To call that unit an objective babysitter is to make a straw man argument. That unit, backed up by wraithlords & harlies, marches to the center and then marches down the enemy's throat. It forces the enemy to make hard choices. It disallows the enemy the opportunity to casually blast away far less threatening targets. It takes an objective in their deployment zone if it can and one in the center if it can't. A "distraction unit" doesn't sit back and allow itself to be ignored. Wraithguard don't "babysit" objectives.

Straw man?

PredaKhaine wrote:

But anyway they wouldn't even walk forwards. So you can either come to me or leave me alone with my objective.

If you are throwing WG and harlequins together, do you move at the speed of harlequins or wraithguard? if the harlequins are in front, they only get 4+ covers and can get shot down pretty easily, even with fortune. If you have the WG out front, the unit is still slow and unweildy. In addition, this unit is now ~1100 points, depending on how many farseers, harlequins, and WL you are running together. This is the trap newer players get into.

What do the WG provide that Harlequins wouldnt just do better on their own? Harlequins reach the enemy slightly faster than the WG can shoot due to fleet and ignoring terrain. Harlequins can also operate without loading stupid numbers of psychic powers into them. For ~1k points i can grab 3 harlequin units with 2 doom/fortune farseers and deploy them in different areas of the map to make it hard for the enemy to run away. Throw in Eldrad and you can swap all 3 units over to the side that he is on after he deploys.

What WG are is expensive troops that dont do much more than survive. Even if they get in range, they arent killy enough for their point value. They dont deal with hordes, they dont deal with large units, they dont deal with cover saves or shadowfields. All of these are the common expensive deathstar units they will be running against. No one uses Terminator deathstars anymore. You dont have the luxury of simply ignoring on 12" shooting and calling it a good unit because of it. Their only selling point is troops, but id rather take 6 3 man jetbike units for the same cost as one WG squad before adding farseers. Both better troops and let farseers run around with the things that will actually be winning the game for the Eldar player: Harlequins.

 zephoid wrote:
Straw man?

PredaKhaine wrote:

But anyway they wouldn't even walk forwards. So you can either come to me or leave me alone with my objective.

If you are throwing WG and harlequins together, do you move at the speed of harlequins or wraithguard? if the harlequins are in front, they only get 4+ covers and can get shot down pretty easily, even with fortune. If you have the WG out front, the unit is still slow and unweildy. In addition, this unit is now ~1100 points, depending on how many farseers, harlequins, and WL you are running together. This is the trap newer players get into.

What do the WG provide that Harlequins wouldnt just do better on their own? Harlequins reach the enemy slightly faster than the WG can shoot due to fleet and ignoring terrain. Harlequins can also operate without loading stupid numbers of psychic powers into them. For ~1k points i can grab 3 harlequin units with 2 doom/fortune farseers and deploy them in different areas of the map to make it hard for the enemy to run away. Throw in Eldrad and you can swap all 3 units over to the side that he is on after he deploys.

What WG are is expensive troops that dont do much more than survive. Even if they get in range, they arent killy enough for their point value. They dont deal with hordes, they dont deal with large units, they dont deal with cover saves or shadowfields. All of these are the common expensive deathstar units they will be running against. No one uses Terminator deathstars anymore. You dont have the luxury of simply ignoring on 12" shooting and calling it a good unit because of it. Their only selling point is troops, but id rather take 6 3 man jetbike units for the same cost as one WG squad before adding farseers. Both better troops and let farseers run around with the things that will actually be winning the game for the Eldar player: Harlequins.

How much faster are harlequins than WG? A rerollable D6 every round? OMG! SO FAST! Because WG totally can't run too! Better trade a 2+ cover save for a 4+ cover save so that they can go out in front and gain that extra inch or two! They can't tie up large units and hordes indefinitely? They can't charge units that they can shoot that are hiding behind cover? Is that so?!? Well thats news to me! A unit has a hard time dealing with shadowfields?!? Crazy! Because those aren't a problem for everyone, right? I hear harlequins are almost immune to small arms fire too and aren't slowed down all by having a farseer when they have to move through terrain. I hear harlequins aren't pathetically vulnerable to templates and the wide range of ignore cover weaponry out there or that they aren't vulnerable to having their lynchpin 1W character sniped. I also hear that 3 man jetbike squads, which somehow get mowed down when used in conjunction with WG in an army, somehow survive easily with 3 units of harlies rolling around.

Farseers simply have to walk around any terrain Harlequins go through. They should be in the back anyways, so its not like they change their position. Ignoring terrain also means that 2+ cover save is much easier to gain from simply finding a bit of area terrain and dropping 2 harlequins in it. Shadowseer has a 4+ LOS, 4+ save, and 4+ reroll at MIN. thats assuming he doesnt have a 2+ cover. "sniping" that shadowseer requires 8 precision shot wounds on average. Now, by the time that many characters have provided that many precision shots, you probably have killed most of their army.

Wanna see how easy harlequins deal with shadowfield? Assault, kill unit as he challenges farseer to a duel. His squad gets wiped he runs, decent chance to catch. If not, charge, deny challenge, wipe shadowfield. It was the combination of the inability for WG to deal with almost ANY deathstar effectively besides terminators (does anyone field 10 man terminator squads in competition? yeah, thought not). Honestly, what are they actually good at killing that can justify that point cost? MEQ squads? what doesnt kill those these days, and they arent particularly effective at that even.

Ever see what happens when wraithguard PURPOSEFULLY charge a few marines behind an ADL? yeah thats EXACTLY the situation that eldar players DONT want them in. They will kill a few, get locked, then the other player can slowly feed them squads over the rest of the game and they will never break combat. Harlequns break marine squads (or just about any squad) in 1 turn usually, catch them to hold them in melee, then hit and run to charge another squad if they dont kill them in the next assault round.

Harlequins have slightly better than a 4+ save against flamer templates. Tbh, thats not bad seeing as not many units in the game still have the ability to load up on more than 2 flamers. If you kill 3 or 4 harlequins and i get to eat a squad of yours, id call that a fair trade. On the charge, just throw the wounds on the farseer as overwatch flamers really arent going to deal 3 wounds unless you roll horribly (and by the time they hit melee, farseers have usually done their job).

As for anything else that ignores cover, what are you referring to? Thunderfire cannons? Whirlwinds? C:SM are one of the easier matchups and those two units really dont provide enough to kill 3 squads before they are in turn killed by the rest of the army (Yes, i have a rest of the army because, unlike WG lists, 3x harlequin lists actually have points left over after their main unit). Besides that, their is Tau, and what do tau have? Riptides, which eat wraithguard just as, if not easier than harlequins (5+ inv vs a small chance of a 4+ inv, since invis is probably your priority). What other ignores cover weapons are in common use?

3 man jetbikes die to concentrated fire. Bolter fire usually doesnt kill a whole unit and they will always be >25% to allow regrouping. Where 2 or so in a WG list can be singled out, 6 of them are much, much harder to deal with.


You might want to actually present realistic situations rather than being sarcastic. You provide nothing to the argument that isnt pretty obvious if you start running the math on many of the situations you propose.

First, lets talk ignoring cover. Chaos daemons and all the other sm chapters have cover ignoring weaponry.

Second, your spell choice asaumption is wrong. I almost always go for 4+ vulnerable and ignore invis entirely. It is better in more situations and allows a second spell to be cast.

Third, a 4+ save vs flamers is only with fortune, which is in short supply, since flamers ignore cover.

Fourth, a WG squad as I described would do the exact same thing vs. the shadowfield (a piece of wargear a single army has). Spray 10 re-rollable BS4 shots that wound on 2+, ID on 6+, and ignore armor then charge & beat down the enemy with 20 rerollable S5 attacks that'll probably be rerolling to wound too in the setup I described. Eldrad will take the challenge. Problem solved.

Fifth, lets look at the math for the scenario you described because I think your conclusion is incorrect. More spells will be cast but I'll include the usuals that would be involved: prescience, doom, and fortune. It'll be against 10 space marines behind an ADL. Spell casters SP shots & CC attacks will be ignored. Rounded to the nearest whole number. Actually will be included beside them in brackets.

• Shooting
10 rerollable BS4 2+ wound 6+ ID AP2 shots
= 9 (8.88) hit, 9 (8.74) wound, 4/5 (4.5) casualties.

• Overwatch
Doesn't really matter against SM w WG so I'm being lay & skipping it.

• Assault
20 rerollable WS4 S5 attacks
= 15 (15) hit, 15 (14.58) wounds, 5 casualties...Eldrad finishes the sergeant.

Hmm...looks like a dead squad to me.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Edit: and that still ignores the fact that a Harlie squad is right on the WG tail to take out the trash.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Sorry for snapping on you. I was wrong to lose my cool. In some respects I should thank-you for broadcasting messages that will encourage people to underestimate the power of my nearly unkillable killy fearless scoring eldar troop choice that also serves as a virtual bunker for my warlord: Eldrad. You should see how mean they get when I am lucky enough to roll tenacity as his warlord trait on the personal trait table! This unit is nearly unstoppable when near objectives with that added 5+ FNP.

 zephoid wrote:
Really the WG unit is a trap for newer players.

I agree with the rest of your post, but I will disagree with this. I think it is more that a newer player doesn't use the unit properly. You should really use them as a screening unit to give your Wraithlords and units behind them a cover save because they are so big. Form a skirmish line of 7 figs with the 3 behind with Eldrad and the other Farseer right behind the middle 5 figs. I leave a good 1.5"-2" gap between them so my Clowns can move through the gaps (I run about 8) and I keep the WraithLords (I run two) behind the line with the clowns between them. You then march this unit toward an objective or an opponent's strongpoint (ADL line or something) to /force/ them to shoot on the unit because it is otherwise in the way. You can not chase units, your to slow for that. You pick a point and you march to it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Heh... I think Warpspider and I run the same list.

Chaos demons have ignore cover weapons that i have never seen is a single list that has shown its head in any tourniment i have been in or i have seen in the top lists for every event that i have seen.

the "other sm chapters" have Whirlinds. Thats about it for ignore cover weapons unless you count a librarian who goes for perfect timing, which only a few chapters can get and even less can utilize well. Then there are flamers, but most SM chapters get only 1 or 2 flamers in a squad. The exception is obviously pod lists, but those have been seeing less and less play with interceptor being more common and are seeing more plasma than flamers, often using the 6" deployment to ignore most defense lines and such cover. The few that do run a (WG, sternguard, ect) squad with flamers will do heavy casualties, but only to one squad.Since thats only once per game, thats leaving me 2 and the remnants of the 3rd units left to wipe a SM army ,which isnt hard.

"fortune is hard to come by" hah! are you kidding? I have 3 units in the whole of my army list that i need psychic powers for and eldrad+ farseer between the three. Simply send the fortune squads in first and the unfortuned ones after farther targets if i ever have a situation where a fortune fails, is canceled, or is out of range in a situation where they could be flamered. I control when i hit flamers unless someone is running a farsight bomb with flamers (does anyone do that? if so, how is that supposed to win vs any other army?) or podded lists with flamers (have largely been phased out for plama in tourney lists).

Recalculate your math with the marines going to ground. 1.5 casualties from shooting. 15 hits in melee, 12.5 wounds (yes, math is hard, S5 VS T4) so 4 dead. Even with eldrad finishing the sergent, you have 3.5 marines still around, who will be locked. Then you get piled in by a dedicated combat unit from the other army which then proceeds to rip WG apart with fists/hammers/klaws/axes/ect.

Shadowfields are run in deathstar units. Harlequins or beast swarms. Either of which you will NOT be charging with wraithguard (you probably wont even get a turn of shooting with beast movement speed). 2 harlequin units can take down a beast pack in melee in 1round (80A, 54H, 48W, 40 unsaved on LD10) Even 1 unit is nearly enough. 10 WG cant even take on 4 razorwing squads without getting tarpitted for the whole game. Did you not read my past comment that the Shadowfield comment was about ALL armies who run non-armor save based deathstars. Nob bikers, beast swarms, Ravenwing squads, deathwing w SS, ect. All of them are pretty unconcerned by your wraithguard.


Running 1 unit of harlequins means that all that anti-cover firepower you keep mentioning is going to be focused 3 times as much on that squad. Without even getting fortuned most likely (you are running thin here with your powers). Therefore, its unlikely they will remain at good strength to be able to take on any sort of dedicated melee unit that would threaten the WG, especially after 3+ turns of walking with the WG

Wraithguard Squads like Warpspider89 runs are also usually packing cover ignoring spells so your math may be a little off. There will be no going to ground saves vs those Wraithguard. After all, he's probably packing a farseer with 4 powers to get a greater chance of getting Forewarning. So Perfect Timing may also be cast and say goodbye to a good portion of those marines.

Then there is the other minor detail of having a Wraithguard unit show up on your back doorstep due to the Master of Maneuver personal trait on the Warlord Traits table. Suddenly they aren't marching down the table for turn after turn just letting you shoot them with your entire army. Nope, now they are coming in from a flank and causing you to re direct your firepower to them.

They can be a very nasty unit but they do take quite a bit to babysit and that is why I tend not to run them. But used well, they can be a pain in the butt for even experienced players to deal with.

He is already casting presence and forwarning, so that is the casts for the turn from the farseer. If he cast perfect timing that would screw up the math, especially on the charge.

Zephoid - If you are charging a TAC squad behind an Aegis Line, looking at this situation as a pure hypothetical, then why would anyone cast 4+ invulnerable when you could remove their cover save? That would be an awful decision.

Well, it is totally situational. If he knows he can kill the tac squad with very little in the way of return attacks and be in a position where he won't need that invulnerable save next turn then he would probably cast Perfect Timing instead.

That is what I would do. Then when I won combat I would try to consolidate into cover so I will at least have that vs the enemy shooting in their next turn. It's really about knowing what spells to cast when for running a good Wraithguard squad. Screw it up and they are dead. Played right though, they can do some serious damage.

Or he may even forego Prescience and go with Perfect Timing and Forewarning.

You would ALWAYS cast forewarning as there may be something else in his army besides the one thing you will be shooting at. Say a Vindicator sitting at 18" backing up and blasting you every turn.

I was simply posing a generic situation since you cant account for every possibility. There are too many individual cases to account for them all. For example, you could not have any one of the powers that you need.

Lets say you assume you have every power in divination for simplicity's sake, you would cast perfect timing and forewarning and kill 6, try to charge (with the ADL there, fleet and ignoring cover could determine that ability), and still have a decent chance of not killing them all. If you fail to kill them all, you will not break out of melee for the rest of the game as he feeds you a squad to keep you tied up or attacks with his dedicated melee without fear of overwatch. Therefore i think the whole argument that you would charge a unit of marines with WG is silly, it simply wouldnt happen unless you were desperate (very likely, as you probably dont have much of an army left if the enemy has any target priority).

Now we can probably dispense with the theory hammer. I have ~18 wraithguard and have tried this before. probably 10 fun games between 5th and 6th and i was struggling to win even half, despite playing vs mediocre lists. Random assortment of guard gunline, two games vs C:SM, a game vs chaos marines+guard allies, a DE game(that one went bad fast), and a few others in there. Now, i take 20+ harlequins in my tournament list and i have placed in the top 3 in almost every single attempt through 5th and 6th. I have even played versus WG lists with both nids (in 5th, with no tervigons) and eldar and won handily versus both. Both games the enemy ends up with nothing on the board but that silly little deathstar thats either stuck in melee or not in range of anything the whole game. Im not basing these posts on just theory, there is a lot of practice behind them. WG simply dont work against experienced players.

Zephoid

First, saying that a person would always doing something while saying in the same sentence that it is for a situation that MAY happen is illogical. It was clearly pointed out that spell use is situational.

Second, the assumption that not killing the TAC squad will lead to a game of being locked in combat is based on a large number of assumptions that may or may not be true. These include that other enemy units are in proximity that will be fed into the fight, which has the built in assumption that the enemy general can afford to feed them into a fight. Not to mention the assumption that the WG are charging forward in isolation.

Third, the final paragraph contains a logical problem. It says that this happened to me so therefore it'll happen to everyone. Something that applies for an individual (you) will not necessarily apply for everyone in a group (members of dakkadakka). I do appreciate your perspectives that are based your experiences, which you are sharing. Please avoid the presumption that those experiences will be duplicated in all of our lives. To state such creates the feeling that you are invalidating the experiences and perspectives of your fellow members of this community.

And that is where I disagree with your assertions on a Wraithlist but since we've both stated our different views and will not change either ones mind I wish you the best of luck in your games and I will bow out.

 zephoid wrote:

Also, wherever WL get cover, vehicles get cover, so that point is moot.

cover is based on los though. my wl would be twenty five percent obscured and able to see over the wg. so it works.
i run wraithwall at three k plus. if i do it i also take two prisms, a warp hunter, a phoenix bomber, a pair of nightwings and a wraithseer. it needs to be backed up

however, all of this is moot. this thread was about how to run eldrad in a wraithzilla list. we left that behind some time ago...
so, leaving aside the fact you think it's awful, how would you run a wraithzilla list?

as a side note, my ot question is
how do you keep your harlies safe from heldrakes?
could you start a new thread and post your tournament list? i'd like to see it.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
one last thing, as you've made your position clear that wraithguard are a trap for newer players, would you be interested in selling them?

 BlkTom wrote:
Jesus... getting my ass handed to me today... Ok, I mis-read the chart. I thought Flyers were immobilized and that equaled wrecked. I swear I read that somewhere, concerning the zoom rules or something. I no longer care at this point, as I am probably wrong on that as well and it is to late for me to dig up something that might save a shred of credibility. I will look it up again later.

Forewarning from the Divination school gives you a 4+ Invuln save. You use your second HQ slot as a Farseer who buys as many book powers as your willing to get (I shoot for the 4 cheapest) and then burn them for Four rolls on the Divination table (should run you around 180pts with all the gear you need). You then run Eldrad and place both the Divination Farseer and Eldrad as part of the Wraithguard (I run my Warlock with Conceal just incase I fail my Divination roll for Forewarning). The Farseer casts his 3 powers and Eldrad puts Fortune up on the Wraithguard unit and a second unit (clowns for example). The shared Toughness rule will actually really help those guys as well... I believe.

This is why, IMO, the superior HQ choice for Eldar are Eldrad and a second Farseer and why it is important for Eldrad to keep the Codex powers. He is the lynchpin. Then fill with Heavies for long range fire support and as many of the 5 remaining troop slots that you can afford. But others seem to have success with other lists, but it is hard to not run Eldrad in a list. For right now, till the new codex comes out this might be the best build Eldar have... but it is very focused. I think there are other builds that can work, but it is hard. I think the Codex is still viable, but it is really showing it's age.

Skimmers that have moved flat out that then are immobilized are wrecked.