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Hi,

after the new Vampire Counts Book has arrived, what do you guys really think about Hex Wraiths?
There was a lot of discussion all over the net about them, people whining about how strong and imbalanced they are, now, after the book has arrived, it seems very quiet in that corner !?

It's quiet because they aren't very good.

They cost a lot. They're T3 with 1W and no save. They have a single attack. They just don't kill very much and they die very easily.

I believe people were assuming them to be A3, since they are after all mounted Wraiths. Wraiths have A3. However, as it proved not to be the case, people decided that they aren't as powerful as they believed them to be.

However, I'm quite curious on their role as harrassers (sp?). After getting past the opponents lines they have the choice to either run back and forth with their Fast Cavalry free reforming, or a easy rear charge, crunching Combat Resolution. Not sure if they're worth the points, but... You know the feeling. The feeling that they can be used to great power, you just can't place how.

I find them quite powerful, another choice the opponent needs to take care of.

Especially gunlines, they are like skirmishers. if a gunline dosent deploy with them in ming, they risk loosing the game to them. If you allow them to move through your lines with vanguard + march, then they suddenly become a huge threat. Ofc this can be "outdeployed", but if a 150p unit forces you to do a suboptimal deployment, sounds like a good choice by default.

It really depends on the army their up against, their pretty much useless against daemons as all units can hit them and with the what look like great weapons, attacking last. an empire gun army could struggle against them though come to think of it (and by struggle I mean waste a whole magic missile on that unit once)

an empire gun army could struggle against them though come to think of it (and by struggle I mean waste a whole magic missile on that unit once)

Its not quite as simpel as you let on in your bracketed part. Empire need to take them into account in deployment. If they actually let the wraiths slip over the main line, the damage will be moderate even if they get hit by banishment. It is a los and visibility arc spell, casters need to position them, units need to turn and so forth. additionally, you are basically limited to banishment, something that is definitely worth scrolling if it means that wraiths get their charge.

For a 150 points the wraiths do add nasty options for the vc player. I dont think they are broken or something like that, but I think they are a decent choice with a few tricks up their sleeve. As a empire player, I would be sweating if I had a fireball that has to remove 5 wraiths before they get their charge. A single wraith will beat warmachines.

At the very least while everyone is trying them, they'll force the meta to adapt by making opponents look to something other than lore of shadow for once.

Overall? They're annoying. You can screen them with things like fell bats which are even cheaper now and if they do get into the rear lines, well, unless you're playing dwarfs or daemons you can likely kiss your war machines good-bye and watch your missile units take moderate damage.
They're also great for countering the enemy's fast cav, skirmishers or other light units that have little to no static combat res. (just don't charge them into chaos knights)

Like anything ethereal, I wouldn't bother taking them against daemons or skaven though. Or dwarfs loaded up on rune'd war machines.

I have a specific question to ask.

Would it be possible to get say, a unit of 30 and line them like this on your edge:

-----------------------------------------------------

Then wheel them 90* (and only using about an inch or two of movement because your frontage is 25mm) until you are like this:
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| and so on....

If you do this would everyone in the 90* arc be affected?

Yes, but...

1) I think they're capped at unit size 10
2) This would only put a handful of cav through each unit that you touched.
3) I believe this would leave a big flank for anyone to charge with a magic weapon and plenty o' static rez.

I watched a couple games with the Hexwraiths and wasn't blown away, though they certainly seemed interesting.

Red_Zeke wrote:Yes, but...

1) I think they're capped at unit size 10
2) This would only put a handful of cav through each unit that you touched.
3) I believe this would leave a big flank for anyone to charge with a magic weapon and plenty o' static rez.

I watched a couple games with the Hexwraiths and wasn't blown away, though they certainly seemed interesting.

Ahh so its per model not for each model in the unit.

Can you inflict multiple hits by moving through the unit, turning around, then moving back through?

you only do the hits once a turn to one unit you pass over. so no repeat passes(even assuming you could get 2 passes out of a 16" move)


Overall, I think they are an interesting tool in the VC arsenal. I think they make for an excellent harassment unit. In essence they are the perfect light cavelry unit because they are basically immune to what typically gets shot at light cavelry. They can only be taken care of with magic missiles or magical attacks(which mandates a character going after them)

If I was a VC player, I would probably take a unit of 5 and use it to hunt Warmachines and other small flankers. They can also be a decent Tarpit unit if they can manage to beat the enemy static combat rez with their own damage output.

From my experience, they are very worth 150 for 5, and never worth 300 points for a unit of 10.
10 don't win combat by enough for the cost, so effectively 5 does the same job.
1) Kill warmachines
2) Kill fast cav
3) Kill Skirmishers
4) Disrupt gunlines
5) hit flanks/rears to push a combat from a tie to winning by enough to break the opponent.

I like running spirit hosts, wraiths and hex wraiths. They make your opponent want magic missiles, and want to take fighting heroes with magical attacks.

The support package I've had a lot of luck with so far is the Wraith heroes, hex wraiths, spirit hosts, varghulf, and vargheists.
Hosts just grab and hold, Hex wraiths are the big distraction, and the bulk of the work gets done by the Varg family. My opponent seems so caught up in those scary mounted wraiths, the old school varghulf gets a free pass. Vargheists seem to get ignored in favor of other threats.
The wraith characters are just their for saturation. Opponents can't have magically attacks everywhere (barring daemons), so those cheap wraith heroes provide a little extra punch for my infantry.
Honestly, I think my opponents would be better off focusing fire on the vargs. They do more damage and have enough wounds that they last long enough to get healed. Hex wraiths just don't bounce back as fast.

-Matt

I have yet to have them survive past turn 2. But I am playing Skaven and Dwarves so that's expected.

Need to play a few more games before I decide how I feel about them. Right now I'm thinking I'd rather have 3 Wraiths for the same points.

I like them for the simple reason they are perceived as a huge threat and so therefore become the main target for magic in turns 1-3 which allows my GG, Varghulf, Blood Knights and other killy things to get into combat without soaking up huge numbers of casualties.

I watched them wreck an empire army the other night. The empire player only had one magic missile and it kept getting dispelled. The wraiths were able to basically take out the canon, mortar, and chunk of the hand gunners, before he had to pull his knights completely out of place and charge them to win through combat res. I think they do shine more versus certain armies than others.