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Farseer 130
- Doom
- Fortune
- Spirit Stone
- Runes of Warding

Farseer- 130
- Doom
- Fortune
- Spirit Stone

10 Dire Avengers (140) in a Wave Serpent (100) - 252
- Exarch
- 2 Avenger Shuriken Catapult
- Bladestorm
- Wave Serpent
- Twin- Linked Shuriken Cannons

10 Dire Avengers (140) in a Wave Serpent (100) - 252
- Exarch
- 2 Avenger Shuriken Catapult
- Bladestorm
- Wave Serpent
- Twin- Linked Shuriken Cannons

10 Dire Avengers (140) in a Wave Serpent (100) - 252
- Exarch
- 2 Avenger Shuriken Catapult
- Bladestorm
- Wave Serpent
- Twin- Linked Shuriken Cannons

7 Fire Dragons (137) in a Wave Serpent (100) - 237
- Exarch
- Firepike
- Crackshot
- Wave Serpent
- Twin- Linked Shuriken Cannons

7 Fire Dragons (137) in a Wave Serpent (100) - 237
- Exarch
- Firepike
- Crackshot
- Wave Serpent
- Twin- Linked Shuriken Cannons

HQ - 260
Elites - 473
Troops – 756

Total - 1504

The basic idea is to move flat out across the board so that i should be able to start shooting things second turn. If i can, I'd get the dragons behind transports, pop them and the dire avengers to mop out the passengers, which brings me to my first to questions:

1) How many dire avengers will i need to wipe out/make useless a termi squad in a LR?
2) What's the likelihood of wiping out/making useless 20 ork boys in a battlewagon with dire avenger fire?

I was also thinking to put the farseers with the fire dragons so that i can cast fortune when zipping up the board on the wave serpents and then the fire dragons themselves when they pop other and shout 'say hello to my little friend!', hopefully making them a little less suicidal, good idea?

Thanks for replies in advance.

sHOEbOX wrote:7 Fire Dragons - Exarch - Firepike - Crackshot

With 7 plus an exarch, these are prolly over done ... since the exarch is so pricey. And CrackShot is better for ranged shooting (like on DReapers), you might be over spending on points.

sHOEbOX wrote:Total - 1504

Given that you might trim point on at least one FD exarch, it is a good idea to try to stay under a points limit.

sHOEbOX wrote:1) How many dire avengers will i need to wipe out/make useless a termi squad in a LR?

Heh. You might add Defend to help out, given T armor saves. Go the full 10.

sHOEbOX wrote:2) What's the likelihood of wiping out/making useless 20 ork boys in a battlewagon with dire avenger fire?

BladeStorm, plus an assault might well be good, with a full 10 DAs. Defend is good in keeping those boyz neutered too.

sHOEbOX wrote:I was also thinking to put the farseers with the fire dragons so that i can cast fortune when zipping up the board on the wave serpents and then the fire dragons themselves when they pop other and shout 'say hello to my little friend!', hopefully making them a little less suicidal, good idea?

Yeah.

Two Farseers is too much. What they are going to fortune?
I'd take a Doomseer with both runes.

Moreover, I'd take two 6 men FD squads and leave the Exarchs at home.

If you play it smart, you need not more than 2 DA squads.
This gives you options to include 2 naked Fire Prisms.

@ wuestenfux. I think his plan is to Fortune the Fire Dragon Serpents on the first turn and boost them forward to get a 4+ re-rollable.

Well the problem with your plan is that its going to fall over against anyone who has more than 2 tanks/transports, your Fire Dragons can kill one tank each and then they are most likely dead (particularly when used like this), Fortune won't save them. After that you are stuck with short ranged S6 weaponry to deal with enemy armour. You can do a fair amount of damage but unless you wipe out what you are targeting then you probably lose your army in one go. With this list you basically don't have a backup plan, you are just boosting at the enemy, leaving yourself exposed for a turn to shooting and hoping you survive, and then hoping you can kill his army in one go. Relying completely on your Fire Dragons is particularly problematic as any opponent with a brain is going to pop smoke with any of his exposed tanks which means you aren't guaranteed to get anything.

The problem is that you can't expect to be able to do the kind of damage I think you are hoping for. Assuming they are Doomed (which remember isn't possible when they are inside a transport at the start of the turn) each Bladestorm unit averages 2.25 dead Terminators, without Doom you average 1.5. So with Doom you can possibly wipe out a single unit (you can use the Serpents to finish them off if needed) in a turn but without it that Terminator unit is more than likely still going to be there (ready to run over and beat you to death + you can't fire next turn either) even assuming you disembark with ALL your Bladestorm units in a single turn, which if you haven't figured out already is an incredibly bad idea. Against something more reasonable like a Tactical squad you would need roughly 2 units with Bladestorm if they are Doomed and 3 if they aren't. Against the Orks you mentioned you get 13.5 per Bladestorm (with Doom), 9 without. Essentially what this shows is that, assuming you get everything in perfect position (i.e don't lose anything beforehand), you would have to disembark your entire army in order to kill pop a couple of tanks and get one, maybe two units (if they aren't MEQ you might get two). At which point you leave your fragile army completely exposed to being countered by ever other unit in your opponent's army. If you could catch say half of his army isolated from the rest then it might work, you can crush part of his list at a time, but thats not going to work against a good opponent who knows not to spread out too much.

Considering you are relying on Bladestorm units for most of your firepower you should really have Guide on your Farseers as it bumps up your anti infantry firepower to a point where you are at least closer to being able to do what you are planning. It also has the advantage of not requiring that the unit you are targeting is outside a transport, for example you can't get Doom on a Terminator unit the same turn the Fire Dragons pop their Land Raider. You would have to get the Land Raider the turn before, which makes keeping your Fire Dragons alive even harder.

As mentioned 7 Fire Dragons is overkill in most circumstances, you need 5 maybe 6 Fire Dragons to give you a very good chance of popping anything other than a Monolith (no such thing is guaranteed but 5 FD average 0.96 destroyed results against a LR). In some cases taking larger units to take down Terminators and other tough units is viable but in this list you basically have no choice but to use them as anti tank. The Exarch is definitely not worth it, the Fire Pike is a waste of point as any time you are using it you are effectively wasting the rest of the squad (either won't be in range at all or not in melta range). The only reason I would take an Exarch is to give the unit a Heavy Flamer but thats not needed most of the time.

You also really need Spirit Stones on your vehicles. When you are expecting to move in close to the enemy with them you really don't want to get stuck there.

Basically I think this list really needs some reworking in order to be viable, as a priority it needs better weaponry on the Serpents so you can actually kill things (particularly armour) without having to close to within assault range.

@ wuestenfux. I think his plan is to Fortune the Fire Dragon Serpents on the first turn and boost them forward to get a 4+ re-rollable.

Well, when there are 2 FD units in Serpents there is generally no need to fortune them.
One will eventually survive and reach the target.

I don't think you need two Farseers really and could cut back on the Fire Dragons. You;ve only got two anti tank units, which is the Dragons, you have no ranged anti tank. Brightlances on the Serpents would be great.

wuestenfux wrote:

@ wuestenfux. I think his plan is to Fortune the Fire Dragon Serpents on the first turn and boost them forward to get a 4+ re-rollable.

Well, when there are 2 FD units in Serpents there is generally no need to fortune them.
One will eventually survive and reach the target.

Usually yes, but they are his only anti tank currently so he needs both of them to get where they need to intact. Fortuning Fire Dragon Serpents is certainly not a bad plan, its something I would love to be able to do more often, but I can't justify adding Fortune just for that (except in higher point games when I take Eldrad). As mentioned I think this is a flawed plan with this list anyway, with nothing to put some damage on your opponent as you boost in close to him his army is going to be completely intact and able to hit you hard in his turn. If you focus everything on the Fire Dragons you can still get through, you are still only armour 12 and all its going to take is a single melta shot getting through and you are probably dead (even without AP1 you have a good chance).

I'd rather take guide on Dragons instead of fortune. AP4 is too common so they won't get a armour save to re-roll, but with guide you can make sure you hit better.

If you are going to try to blade storm large packs, termies (not a great idea there), or space marines you need a guide/doom seer. Doom alone isn't going to cut it since you will statistically lose about 10-11 hits due to your BS.

I agree with most of the points made overall, especially about overspending on farseers and fire dragons.

Also, I was messing around with 1500 point builds, and I know for a fact, you can have 3 bladestorming avengers in serpents, 2 dragon wagons, AND 2 fire prisms in the list without breaking a sweat, thats 2 more tanks and alot more fire power.

(95) Farseer- Doom, Warding

(80) 5 Fire Dragons
(100) Wave Serpent- tl cannon

(80) 5 Fire Dragons
(100) Wave Serpent- tl cannon

(152) 10 Dire Avengers- exarch, blastorm, 2 cats
(120) Wave Serpent- eml

(152) 10 Dire Avengers- exarch, bladestorm, 2 cats
(120) Wave Serpent- eml

(152) 10 Dire Avengers- exarch, bladestorm, 2 cats
(120) Wave Serpent- eml

(115) Fire Prism

(115) Fire Prism

its 1501 points, you can drop an eml into a scatter laser to drop under if you need to.

Lets see, that gives you 2 more tanks at the expense of the overbuilt farseers and fire dragons. More target saturation, and more fire power, and you still have psychic defense and some doom support.

Powerguy wrote:

wuestenfux wrote:

@ wuestenfux. I think his plan is to Fortune the Fire Dragon Serpents on the first turn and boost them forward to get a 4+ re-rollable.

Well, when there are 2 FD units in Serpents there is generally no need to fortune them.
One will eventually survive and reach the target.

Usually yes, but they are his only anti tank currently so he needs both of them to get where they need to intact. Fortuning Fire Dragon Serpents is certainly not a bad plan, its something I would love to be able to do more often, but I can't justify adding Fortune just for that (except in higher point games when I take Eldrad). As mentioned I think this is a flawed plan with this list anyway, with nothing to put some damage on your opponent as you boost in close to him his army is going to be completely intact and able to hit you hard in his turn. If you focus everything on the Fire Dragons you can still get through, you are still only armour 12 and all its going to take is a single melta shot getting through and you are probably dead (even without AP1 you have a good chance).

I don't play this way.
Its better to approach an enemy flank moving 12'' each turn and annihilating whatever is a (close-range) threat.

OK, thanks very much everyone, especially powerguy to the shear volume of information given and akaean for the list (whilst walking the dogs my mate and I talked about a very simular list). In going away tomorrow so will have no internets for a week, just a couple of final questions:

1) Where can i get some useful eldar tatics, army builds etc, but especially mech eldar ? The dakkadakka articles are not as good a quality as say, ork or IG, so where else?
2) How competitive are Eldar? This is purely out of curiosity, I'm not very interested in tournaments (I would use IG anyway).