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Hey guys,

So I'm new to 40k and only recently finished up my first real army. My roommate is a competitive serious Chaos SM player who regularly goes to tournaments and I'm planning to go with him to the St. Valentine's Day Massacre tournament in Philly in 3 weeks.

That said this is what I came up with and I have the models for the most part. Any glaring weaknesses? I'm really worried about the lack of assault, and lack of enough Anti-AV14 or anti-Rhinos weaponry but my duel councils leave me strapped for points.

Any experienced Mech'dar players help me out I would really appreciate it against those jerks who will have cheese Space Wolves, leafblower IG lists, and deep-striking Blood Angel land raiders.

Eldar Mech List

1x Wave Serpent w/BL, spirit stones & Shuriken Cannon
1x Wave Serpent w/BL, spirit stones & Shuriken Cannon
1x Wave Serpent w/BL, spirit stones & Shuriken Cannon
1x Wave Serpent w/SL, spirit stones & Shuriken Cannon

10x Dire Avengers w/Duel Shurikens, Bladestorm
10x Dire Avengers w/Duel Shurikens
10x Dire Avengers w/Duel Shurikens
6x Fire Dragons no Exarch


Farseer on Jetbike: spirit stones, doom, fortune
w.6 Warlocks on Jetbikes
Farseer on Jetbike: spirit stones, doom, fortune
w.5 Warlocks on Jetbikes

Fire Prism w. Shuriken Cannon
Fire Prism w. Shuriken Cannon

Total: 1997

Standard mechdar. There's nothing really special here. All in all it's a good list. It's competitive, but probably not very fun. Maybe drop some spirit stones or something, for star engines, so you can move 36 inches for last minute objective and tank shocking fun.

Don't I need more Fire Dragons?

Don't Fire Prisms stink? I already have two models of the new ones >_>

HELP!

Not bad from what I can tell. It's actually pretty solid. A few notes though, EML's are better than bright lances for serpants. You can probably get away with 5 dragons instead of 6. Your DA units NEED bladestorm if you're running 10 man. Other than that it looks solid.

If this is what you're planning for St. Valentines day its not bad, but the tournament is 1850 not 2k

As Souix and yermom said, the list is do-able. And doesn't need tweaking. Far more valuable for you is general tourney advice.

Has the St. Val. Day Mass. organizers printed the missions? If so, read up and read up. After looking up those, you could re-print the gist of some mission specs and ask for some tweaking on your list, but the knowledge is simply better to have so you know what pitfalls might come up. But, I'm sure your roommate has given you this kind of tip?

2k down to 1850: One Farseer crew out and more bladestorms in.

well, drop your dragons down to five. dragons are suicide 100% and 5 will get the job done just the same. drop the shuriken cannons off the fire prisms, they should be moving twelve in. at all times if possible (well more then 6) for assault reasons so they'll never shoot it. take all of your waveserpents BL for EMLs. with the dragons and fire prisms able to to gut av13/14 better/more efficiently than BLs, EMLs are the better choice. my personal preference against AV10/11 is TL shuriken cannon/ shuriken cannon. drop shuriken cannons off the serpents too, no need. If you do all that and drop the extra warlock jetbike you'll get back about 160 points. perhaps bladestorms for the other two dire avenger squads and another prism...star engines for fire dragons.
overall the list seems solid, just need to drop the unnessesary stuff...also you could give some of your warlocks powers (enhance and destructor are the best).

Is there a copy/paste mistake somewhere? I thought that list looked a little big, so I double checked and you have 2187 points!

OK, so you will need to cut some things. I'll talk about the units you do have first:

Fire prisms are great. I have 3. Shuriken cannons are a mistake on them though, they should never be within 24" of an opponent if at all possible, 60" range is absolutely their best protection.

I am opposed to both chin-mounted shuriken cannon and spirit stones in all cases. Lots of people like both options though. Be aware that this current list has 100 points on such upgrades, so it would be a good place to begin cutting!

I would personally want 2 units of dragons at this points level, and 3 units would be perfectly fine. I think you should get another unit, the cost can be defrayed by dropping the brightlances to EMLs. Brightlances are so expensive I find it better to rely on fire dragons (and sometimes combined prisms) for almost anything AV13+.

I currently use 4x5 dire avengers, all in wave serpents of course. I think the only avenger units worth running are the full 10 with exarch, 2 catapults, and bladestorm, or the minimum of 5. 3 big units is honestly a little much. Not that dire avengers are bad, it's just that they are useless against armour, and so many competitive infantry units can shrug off their shots. Perhaps 1 big unit to fight, and 2 minimum units to score, would be a better idea.

Farseer(s): runes of witnessing and especially of warding would be better than spirit stones and doom here. You want to focus on letting the council do it's job, not pour points into helping other units. And always take runes of warding at this points level, in a competitve crowd. You will run into some enemy psykers designed to ruin your day otherwise.
I would give the warlocks some upgrades. One embolden, one enhance at least are necessary for the unit. You might consider some singing spears, I don't know much about that.

You don't have enough points to do both shooting-tanks and 2 councils. You will have to either do one slightly bigger council, or cut a load of tanks.

Hope that helps, good luck in the tourney.

1850 points? ahhh crapp!

I knew I was missing something.

I'll take bounty's advice!!

-I'll get rid of chin cannons on the Fire Prisms.
-Take out 1 Jetbike Seer Council + use the points to add warlocks to the one
-Add another unit of Fire Dragons in a W.S. with SL

good?

dang it! I need to buy more models.

I'm not sure that'll cut enough points mate. You're well over the limit atm.

St valentines is 2K points or 1850?

I'm going to disagree with a lot of what people have said in this thread so far, so sorry in advance about the confusion.

Brightlances on wave serpents are expensive, but okay. With 2 or 3 of them you can be a credible threat to AR13+ from across the table. Don't expect to be killing 3 land raiders a turn without a lot of luck, though. Cover saves and unpredictable dice on single-shot weapons (even twin-linked) mean you'll be causing headaches for like one, maybe 2 heavy tanks per turn.

EMLs on wave serpents don't really bring anything to your list. An expensive single-shot weapon that isn't as good as a bright lance against heavy armor and isn't as good as your DAs at anti-troop? Missiles work great for space wolves who can mass them in a single unit, but not so much for wave serpents.

Also if you have bright lances, on the serpents, you're going to be wanting to stand off at 36" and move 12" most of the time, so shuriken cannons aren't really worth the points in this case because they'll hardly ever shoot. Shuriken cannons are a good upgrade on a scatterlaser serpent.

The whole list in this form is actually heavily tooled to go against tanks, even without a second unit of fire dragons. Bike councils are actually among the best rhino-killers you can get. And don't forget you have 2 fire prisms with long-range str9 shots.

Hopefully also the warlocks on bikes have powers: one with enhance, one or two with embolden, and a couple with destructor?

Well the DAs are going to be the primary Anti-Infantry and 3 full 10x deck out squads should be pretty solid.

I need to cut 150 points somewhere somehow.

Flavius is a epic Mech'dar player with proven success at tournaments. Do you recommend I keep the 2 councils (with spears or witchblades?)

Yes, DAs and some big blasts from fire prisms should be adequate anti-troop.

One bike council should be plenty. Always keep the witch blades--you need the extra attacks more than the single-shot weapons. Typically a bike council of 6 or 7 can combo-charge at least three or four vehicles, so throwing a spear can mess up your charge if you happen to blow up the vehicle you shot at, and those extra attacks on each model count when you're ganking dreadnoughts or rhinos.

Cut the shuriken cannons, tweak the bike council into a single unit, add the warlock powers (destructor > bladestorm against troops in cover), and that should be a workable army.