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I was playing against Dark Eldar the other day, and I was rather leery of his Sybarites and his Wytch, so I Bladestromed 'em. On my first shooting phase, half of his army was gone, I was using two squads of Dire Avengers, backed up by two exarchs (both with direswords and Bladestorm). We checked with six different people, and apparently this was completely fair and legal. Like the Distort Cannon, whenever I use it I feel like I'm cheating. Your thoughts?

It is what it is. Not much else to say really. It can be handy and sometimes it turns out your points would have been better spent elsewhere.

IF you played it right, you played it right. Gotta realize man, Deldar are easy to kill, and if your pumping a crap load of AP5 shots into them, they die. They have a 6+ save right? So yea, no armor saves, and IVe seen bladestorm vomit shots in games. So yea, if its legal you just ate you some Deldar

yeah, bladestorming wyches is just mean.

It's a good ability, but it's not so good that it's cheating. Your opponent can mitigate the damage with things like cover, and the fact that you can't shoot again basically means that your opponent gets to eat them before they get to shoot again.

As said, played right and against the right armies, it's devestating, especially against those who don't see it coming. Just wait until you use bladestorm against berzerkers only to have them rip the unit apart in CC anyways, and you will begin to see its limitations.

It's not cheating it's how Eldar deal with most things massed fire. Honestly a full squad DA's w/ an exarch shouldn't even need to use bladestorm vs. the DE's 22 shots 15 roughly should hit, 9 should wound 9 dead evil cousins. That's w/ out Bladestorm, doom or guide. Toss that out on top of em then the DE's shouldn't stand a chance.

Then if they are close enough you finish off the last one with a charge.

If you feel like that's cheating wait till you play a Nid's player with regen on his Tervagant and it heals 4 wounds in one round.

Yea, as the above 2 said. Ive seen bladestorm vomit bullets. But in that very same game, it was towards SM and those DA didnt fair to well after the smoke cleared


And yes, Nids annoy me right now. It never fails, Ill bring a hive tyrant down to 1 wound.....and thats when it gains an additional 2 or 3 wounds. That pisses me off something fierce. And its not like it was that easy in the first place. My wife has a force of just over 1k points, and let me tell ya, its hard taking down a regen tyrant AND a carnifex with a bunch of better then me in CC guants running around on my face.

Bladestorm is as cheap as the cost of an exarch upgrade and the power itself. It affects the whole squad the exarch is in, so clearly it is a better buy for a full 10 man squad than a smaller 5 man because it is the same power for twice as many usages of it.

As noted above, Deldar are horribly bad at taking small arms fire in masses. The effectiveness of bladestorm goes down a lot when used on an army with an average save better than 5+. Bladestorm mows Ork boyz, Guardsmen, Deldar, gaunts, and such but against a MEQ it becomes less of a sure thing and with a good Eldar list, every point has to count like a precise pinprick.

If you have a wave serpent and a doomseer, that is usually the coolest way to really exploit bladestorm, as you can drop off your transport, hose down a 'doom'ed unit, hop back on your transport during your reloading turn and reposition them for the next drop-and-pop target while the seer 'doom's some other target for the rest of your army following up.

It's not cheap. The total cost is 39 points, and it affects at most 10 models. You aren't cheating, it was just a very unbalanced matchup versus Deldar.

Am I reading what you wrote wrong? You cant dump a unit from a transport in one turn, fire and then embark back into the transport.

Guitardian wrote: If you have a wave serpent and a doomseer, that is usually the coolest way to really exploit bladestorm

Right. The only problem is that by the time you're done paying for all that, you've put down like a third to half your points at lower levels, so it BETTER be good.

To echo what's already been said: Bladestorm is a great ability. It severely punishes any 5+ save or worse unit from sitting out in the open. The amount of fire simply astounding.

Throw in Doom and it's even better.

That said, try it on marines, tyranid warriors, bloodcrushers, and other similar units, and it's less impressive. I've had a squad of around 5 templars survive bladestorm, and then follow up by assaulting the 9 dire avengers, winning combat, and sweeping them off the table.

So it's a great ability, but it's certainly not cheating.

Was his army only 4 units of 14 guys each? That's really the only way 2 units of Avengers could kill half an army in one shooting phase.

I've run the math countless times. Even if Avengers could Bladestorm every turn, they'd still be slightly too expensive.

KingCracker wrote:Am I reading what you wrote wrong? You cant dump a unit from a transport in one turn, fire and then embark back into the transport.

Sorry I should have been more clear... in actual turn and phase sequence:
turn 1, cast 'doom' on target unit, move transport, drop off, drop-n-pop fire bladestorm...
turn 2, cast 'doom' on follow up units target, mount up while you reload, move transport to position for next target...

lather, rinse, and repeat.

turn 3, cast 'doom' on new target, drop-n-pop, catch up the follow up supporting unit (I like using Harlequins as my mop-up personally because they are hard to shoot at as they close in but whatever works for you)
turn 4, cast 'doom' on the mop-up target, mount up and reposition for the next strike.

lather, rinse and repeat.

I hope that made more sense.


Remember when Eldar are used PERFECTLY it seems almost too easy as we have such extremes of specific roles for our models. Who wants their land raider going down to a 80 point squad of fire dragons drop-n-popping? It happens all the time. Who wants to risk being countercharged by Harlequins they can't shoot at, and can't close with for fear of the doomed furious charge, to advance MEQs on a squad of reapers with a dominating fire lane? etc, etc. The problem is that one mistake, one mismatch, and your weak Toughness and armor means a lot of very expensive specialists getting gunned down almost as easily as your poor Deldar opponents did.

When Eldar win, they win a slaughter and immature opponents cry cheese if you get your matchups of your squads strengths to their targets weaknesses. When Eldar lose, it is because of one slight slipup that loses you an entire element of your army. One bad drop-n-pop with your fire dragons, (as a for-instance) means there goes your anti-tank capability for the game. One good drop-n-pop means a dead Hive Tyrant, or Land Raider, etc. Bladestorm works the same way. Ideally placed against an ideal target (preferrably Save 5+) will rape the field for bladestorming. Dropping and bladestorming a less valid target will leave you in the open to be blown the hell up by counter fire or assault if they fail to cripple their target enough to stop it from hitting back.

Mathhammer.

Against dark eldar 2/3 hit 2/3 wound 4/9 shots result in a kill, at 3 shots per da it may seem broken.

Against plague marines 2/3 hit 1/3 wound 1/3 fail armor saves 1/2 fail fnp 1/27 result in a kill so it takes 9 da bladestorming to drop a single plague marine.

Things are not much better for blood angels. It is just not effective against power armor with fnp.

Guitardian wrote:Who wants their land raider going down to a 80 point squad of fire dragons drop-n-popping?

180 point squad. That Wave Serpent wasn't free.

Well I tend to use my wave serpent as anit tank after the Dragons have gone down 110 points for Cannons and SS and you can put a Str 10 hit down on a tank.

People rarely see it coming they are just relieved the Dragons are out of the way

Don't forget that bladestorm is situational. I have found that often it is better to run naked DA's.

3 squads of DA's with Exarch, BS, and Dual S.Cat=456 points

4 squads naked DA's=480 points

Roughly equivalent. With the BS DA's you get one round with 90 shots, next round with nothing.

With naked DA's you get 80 shots a turn. You also get another scoring unit and 10 more bodies.

Not many people run that many DA's but you get the picture.

I find that in a Mechdar force combined with doom and guide you will do massive damage and then bail out to another spot.

With Footdar it's better to run the squads cheap and numerous.

As stated, Eldar of any flavor are amazing when used well and terrible when used poorly (which is what it sounds like your friend did). It takes practice to use them well, but they are brutal in the right hands.

You absolutely were not cheating. Your buddy, if he is any good, will learn to adapt to your tricks and hopefully have a better game next time around.

On that note regarding spamming the DA to the max... it's a really neat army build to try using nothing but swooping hawks for the haywire grenades and avengers for the dakka. head up the army with a doom/guide seer and wave serp the avengers. It is seriously deadly if you have enough models to put it on the table. Hawks are great against all vehicles, and can use the yo-yo trick as necessary, and bladestormers are great against all infantry. Combine the two and you have a sick combo - and its all kind of the same color scheme!

I don't think "tactics" is a good place to recommend swooping hawks as anti tank...

I must admit I did a bit of a double take when I read that...

Haywire grenades hit everything on a 4+ except walkers which they hit on a 6... oops. The haywires need a six to pen otherwise they glance, and you can't destroy a vehicle on a glance... oops. They also have paper armor, and can't sky leap if they charge... oops. They also are armed with las guns, for 21 points per model... oops.

WARP SPIDERS ARE ALWAYS BETTER. AT EVERYTHING.
Warp Spiders have an s6 gun. even at ap- it means they can bring down tanks by hitting rear armor with Volume of fire. They have an assault move jump, making them incredibly mobile and able to move out of pie plat position the turn they deep strike. They have 3+ armor... Anything Hawks can do, Spiders can do better, except taking a minimum squad and yo-yoing it for a single "bolter" pie plate maybe every turn pending on reserves.

but back on topic, bladestorm is good, its very situational. I've used it to volume of fire down MEQ, and occasionally MCs, with doom you will get some 6s. But they truely excell at killing Ork boyz, and DE / IG troops.

One thing you might try is 10 Storm Guardians with 2 flamers, and a destructor lock. They actually put out better fire power against units hiding in the ever present cover. Running a squad of those along with your avengers puts your enemies in a tight spot. Huddle in cover to protect from the bladestorm, and get wtfbbq'd by the Storms, or spread out and not get a cover save from the bladestorm. damned if they do, damned if they don't

akaean wrote:...you can't destroy a vehicle on a glance...

not on one glance, but on three you can (if the vehicle has only one weapon)

It's not as cheap if you include the Farseer. Of course, with Spirit Stones you could also cast Guide on the Dire Avengers as well as Doom on their targets. Suppose there's nine Dire Avengers and an Exarch with two Catapults. They open fire on a squad of Tactical Marines.

32 shots re-rolled, 27 hits re-rolling wounds, 20 saves for 6.68 casualties.

If you're worried about them being assaulted, pair them with a Wraithlord. He can carry the weapons to finish off the other three marines that turn.

Blade storm by it self is a very legal and powerful ability. Further increase its effectiveness with doom/guide, point at a unit and watch them die. anything with a 5+ save or worse is as good as dead (unless they are cover huggers, then only some die)

Hell, if your lucky enough you can put enough wounds into a 3+/2+ save unit and hes bound to fail a few rolls.

but it all comes down to luck I suppose:

2 examples:
Game1.
Eldar player dooms my berzerkers and guides his 10man squad of dire avengers. he lets rip his bladestorm and I go to roll the 18 wounds he scored. Being a 3+ save I should only fail a few... I rolled 5 2's, and 3 1's..... all of my berzerkers died.

game2.
Same one trick pony, he lets rip into my 8 zerkers who will be charging him next turn, He scores a decent 15 wounds.
I made ALL of my saves. Those zerkers went on from that to raping another 2 full squads after wards before the game ended.

Also, regarding Swooping Hawks, remember that Walkers that are Stunned or Immobilized are hit by Grenades on WS rather than the usual fixed 6.

10 Haywire Grenades, hitting on 4+, 2-5 Glancing, 6 Penetration

3.35 Glancing, 0.85 Penetration

Shaken 1.82
Stunned 0.71
Immobilized 0.71
Weapon Destroyed 0.71
Destroyed (Wrecked) 0.14
Destroyed (Explodes) 0.14

Pretty handy when you come up against AV13 Walkers...

As some people have already said, you were using it against one of the best possible targets. T3 5+ save troops (presumably in the open) who cost more than usual. Against marines it ain't too great. Even against orks, gaunts or guardsmen the enemy may have enough wounds to just absorb it. Dire Avengers are a specialist choice like any other aspect warrior. As a matter of fact, although they've done well for me on occassion, they're so mediocre against marines (and useless against vehicles) I sort of regard them as a weak point in my army.

I guess I see the Bladestorm as a good way to clean up damaged squads more than anything... I've had several instances where my FT's with a 6 man Assault Squad get bladestormed and lost maybe one guy due to the 3+ then 4+ saves from FNP... Probably why I don't use DA's much when I play Eldar :-) Our local guy who fields a lot of them in WS's openly admits that when his DA's get out of the vehicles, he's usually losing or has already lost... :-) I wouldn't go that far, but... Best case, things with the 5+ or worse save in the open just die in droves, anything else it gets a bit iffy.... And of course, there's the added investment in the Farseer if you're really doing it right for the Doom and maybe Guide...

I think everyone's covered how awesome Bladestorm is but how situational it can be, so I'll just say they're right.

On a side note, try switching your Exarchs from Dire Swords to Dual-Catapults. You get 3 more shots this way (and 6" more range), and DA are usually so poor in CC that having the Diresword doesn't buy you anything. I used to run around with a Shimmershield and Defend, but have found Dual-Catapults to work more in sync with the rest of the squad.

Grakmar wrote:I think everyone's covered how awesome Bladestorm is but how situational it can be, so I'll just say they're right.

On a side note, try switching your Exarchs from Dire Swords to Dual-Catapults. You get 3 more shots this way (and 6" more range), and DA are usually so poor in CC that having the Diresword doesn't buy you anything. I used to run around with a Shimmershield and Defend, but have found Dual-Catapults to work more in sync with the rest of the squad.

I agree with that. A woman in my group used to play Eldar and ran that very same build. They would bring the hurting. I think the dual catapults are a better fit as well

Hmm, dual-catapults, sounds good, may have been a game changer today. (I was wrecked by Termies)

Mordoskul wrote:Hmm, dual-catapults, sounds good, may have been a game changer today. (I was wrecked by Termies)

Welcome to the club. Since switching to Orks, they havnt scared me much. But I used to play CSM, and man oh man did I fear them back them. GOD they just murder things