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Hello there I have started eldar and was wondering what to get next that will work well with my wraithlords..
The units I have are:
1 avatar of Khain
26 guardians and 1 platform
3 wraithlords

A Farseer to Fortune the Avatar and provide other buffs would be helpful. You definitely need to pick up a couple more platforms for the Guardians, since you buy them for the heavy weapon. Otherwise you have a solid core to a Foot based list a lower point levels, you can add more Guardians and some Elites like Harlies as points allow.

Hazard908 wrote:Hello there I have started eldar and was wondering what to get next that will work well with my wraithlords..
The units I have are:
1 avatar of Khain
26 guardians and 1 platform
3 wraithlords

Wraithguard can actually provide cover saves for your wraithlords as can EJB. EJB also offer the advantage of being able to uncover the wraithlords for their shot and then move in front to provide the cover saves.

DAaddict wrote:
Wraithguard can actually provide cover saves for your wraithlords as can EJB. EJB also offer the advantage of being able to uncover the wraithlords for their shot and then move in front to provide the cover saves.

Unless there's some type of elevated terrain for Wraithguard or Jetbikes to be on in front of the Wraithlord, they will never conceal 50% of it.

As to what compliments them? Nothing, they're terrible. Wraithlords are exceedingly easy to kill in today's meta. Combined with stupidity (wraithsight), they're just a bad investment.

I actually started playing Eldar after playing DoW and loving the Wraith Lord. It is still my favorite unit in the game.

They are not an optimized choice for sure. But then you dont make a thread looking on how to compliment a unit you like if you are a competitive player or looking for tournament play.

I always run Wraith Lords in my casual lists and the usually look something like this.

HQ
Avatar
Eldrad

Elites
8 Harlequins- Kisses, Shadowseer

Troops
10 Guardians- Scatter Laser
10 Guardians- Scatter Laser
10 Dire Avengers- Exarch , Defend, Shimershield

Heavy Support
Wraith Lord- BL, EML
Wraith Lord- BL, EML
3 War Walkers- Scatter Lasers

Come out to just under 1500 points.

I really enjoy the list and it looks impressive on the table as the Wraith Lord is my favorite model GW makes.

In the list they act as a durable heavy weapons platform and a counter assault / road block. When you deploy look for places your Wraith Lords can get cover. I like to deploy as a single large castle then advance a fortuned avatar out in front.

Are Wraith Lords good against WAAC lists? No. I would not take them if you are seeing leafblower guard, Long Fang spam wolves, or venom spam DE. But in casual play I really have a blast using them.

Why hasn't anyone even mentioned Spiritseers? A Spiritseer in a Jetbike squad would help plenty in the first couple turns. You should already be taking Warlocks to give your weapon platforms BS4, I'd say 6 points is worth ignoring Wraithsight.

I don't really see the use for spiritsseers. If you watch your positioning, the shadowseer for your harlequin squad can stop wraith sight, and you have Eldrad floating around too.

Also on pg 39 of the eldar codex it says only the crew members can fire the weapon platform and that 2 guardians count as "crew"

For that reason I don't take warlock with my guardians. It also keeps their cost down since Warlocks can't shoot the platform and for the first 2 or so turns I have the harlequins or Eldrad close to the Lords to minimize the chances for Wraith sight. I haven't found Wraith sight to be a debilitation weakness though. You just have to be aware it can happen and plan accordingly. Do I wish it wasn't there...yes, but if moving out of 6" of a psycher will be advantageous I always go for it.

Not that spirit seer's are bad its just with deliberate thought durring deployment I've found they are not necessary.

If the BS4 thing worked then yes I'd be taking warlocks but with only guardians shooting I don't think the unit needs leadership buffer/ 5+ cover save (Avatar makes them Fearless) or a poor CC babysitter.

Farseer with Doom helps out Wraithlords plenty, mostly because they can drop 2 Flamer templates on their way to combat, and Doom makes flamer templates awesome.

Wraithlords are hardly terrible. I run three in my tourney list and they always make their points back if not more. Fortune helps their survivability tremendously. It depends on the list you run they usually live quite a bit with T8. I will get them into cover or use a shuffle advance. My tourney list consist of harley's, Pathfinders,jetbikes,wraithlords,with eldrad, and Maugan RA. My best advice is to understand their weakness's and just know that they will be targeted by every AT weapon your opponent has. They must be supported , like everything eldar.

DarknessEternal wrote:Unless there's some type of elevated terrain for Wraithguard or Jetbikes to be on in front of the Wraithlord, they will never conceal 50% of it.

They don't have to. The 50% rule counts for terrain, not for intervening units. Demon princes have been hiding behind berzerkers for quite some time now.

And I actually agree on the wraithguard, and with big, scoring units of them. A foot list with 2 farseers, 3 wraithlord and 3 10-bot units of wraithguard only presents really high toughness targets to your opponents. When your opponent's heavy bolters wound on 5's and 6's, and their autocannons wound on 3's and 6's, and everything still gets an armor save, well, you can see where this is going. Basically, only your opponent's few, high-power anti-tank weapons are really going to do much, and for the rest they just have to rely on weight of fire, which not all armies do well, and NO army does well against fortune, much less fortuned high-toughness units.

Plus, between witch blades and fortune and conceal and mind war and wraithlords with good weapons and their DCCW's, and basic infantry that suck things into the warp, you've already got yourself a pretty solid core...

alspal8me wrote:Also on pg 39 of the eldar codex it says only the crew members can fire the weapon platform and that 2 guardians count as "crew"

You're right. I remember reading ages ago that you could do that. How odd.

DarkHound wrote:

alspal8me wrote:Also on pg 39 of the eldar codex it says only the crew members can fire the weapon platform and that 2 guardians count as "crew"

You're right. I remember reading ages ago that you could do that. How odd.

I'm pretty sure that you can do it with the Heavy Weapon Platforms (i.e the ones in Heavy Support) but not the standard Guardian ones.

Ailaros I have no idea what you are talking about with intervening units. MCs follow different rules for cover and require 50% concealment, the same as vehicles and the point was that even Wraithguard (easily the tallest Eldar infantry) can't give a (new) Wraithlord cover (the old Wraithlords sure). You can't give a Wraithlord or indeed any MC cover by standing behind any old infantry unit.

Tbh if you were taking a large unit of Wraithguard you can only really afford one, two is just too many points sunk in incredibly slow short ranged models that you leave yourself short on ranged firepower. A single unit provides a nice rock to push forward without crippling your entire army, no matter what you are still vulnerable to missiles which do show up in numbers which will take apart a purely Wraithguard army without even thinking about it (3 squads of Long Fangs is going to kill a Fortuned squad in 3-4 turns). Ideally you want Eldrad rather than 2 Seers (since he can help fight them out of combat) and for your second HQ you take either an Avatar, a Wraithseer (if you are allowed them) or Karandras (Stealth and a heap of Power Fist attacks) to give people second thoughts about closing in.

Powerguy wrote: you leave yourself short on ranged firepower.

Which is what the wraithlord are for.

Powerguy wrote: you are still vulnerable to missiles (3 squads of Long Fangs is going to kill a Fortuned squad in 3-4 turns).

How much do three squads of ML long fangs cost? How long does it take you to get in range with the wraith guns? Three models BS4 krak missiles are putting down one fortuned wraithguard a turn. Hardly staggering.

Ailaros wrote:

DarknessEternal wrote:Unless there's some type of elevated terrain for Wraithguard or Jetbikes to be on in front of the Wraithlord, they will never conceal 50% of it.

They don't have to. The 50% rule counts for terrain, not for intervening units. Demon princes have been hiding behind berzerkers for quite some time now.

Ailaros, I'm pretty sure you're wrong in this.

BRB pg 51
"In addition, for a monstrous creature to be in cover, at least 50% of its body (as defined on page 16) has to be in cover from the point of view of the majority of the firing models. Also, standing in area terrain does not automatically confer a cover save to monstrous creatures - the 50% rule takes precedence. Cover for them works exactly as for vehicles (see page 62)."

BRB pg 62
"At least 50% of the facing of the vehicle that is being targeted (i.e. its front, side or rear) needs to be hidden by intervening terrain or models from the point of view of the firer for the vehicle to claim to be in cover."

So no, those Berzerkers will not give cover for Daemon Prince, unless they cover 50% of it's body. Same goes for Wraithlords.

edit: fixed typo

DarkHound wrote:

alspal8me wrote:Also on pg 39 of the eldar codex it says only the crew members can fire the weapon platform and that 2 guardians count as "crew"

You're right. I remember reading ages ago that you could do that. How odd.

For artillery any model which can be bought by the unit as a unit upgrade also counts as crew, this is explicit in the rules regarding artillery. For Guardian platforms the rules are entirely in the codex, and they are more limiting

DarknessEternal wrote:

DAaddict wrote:
Wraithguard can actually provide cover saves for your wraithlords as can EJB. EJB also offer the advantage of being able to uncover the wraithlords for their shot and then move in front to provide the cover saves.

Unless there's some type of elevated terrain for Wraithguard or Jetbikes to be on in front of the Wraithlord, they will never conceal 50% of it.

As to what compliments them? Nothing, they're terrible. Wraithlords are exceedingly easy to kill in today's meta. Combined with stupidity (wraithsight), they're just a bad investment.

Just to illustrate on the cover thing, I'll borrow an image from this site's gallery.
http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/274563-.html?m=2

Since a Wraithlord has such an immense portion of their surface area above the thorax, it's difficult to provide cover for them, but it is as always a matter of perspective. Wraithguard are relatively large models, so if they don't hug the Wraithlord, but stand clearly in front, some smaller models (maybe even as large as Space Marines) may still not be able to shoot at the 'lord without being punished by cover saves. For tanks, however, this is almost never the case.

As for the tactical side of the matter, Wraithlords were punished in 4th for their greatness in 3rd, and in 5th... well, they weren't updated. They can be made to function quite well, they aren't as dire as Hawks or the Eldar Melee meta.

Ailaros wrote:

Powerguy wrote: you leave yourself short on ranged firepower.

Which is what the wraithlord are for.

3 Wraithlords give you 6 long ranged BS4 anti tank shots per turn, which is ok since they fire until they die (unlike vehicles which get shaken) and will help your real heavy hitters close up. However if its the only long range shooting in your army then its pretty pathetic, in particular you can't do much to infantry at all (i.e the Long Fangs I mentioned) and mobile armies will shut down the Lords first and then chip away at your remaining units freely. Even cheap Guardian units with Scatters help in this regard, sure its not much but it gives you a way of influencing the battle aside from just crossing your fingers, running at people with slow short range units and hoping you make it.

Ailaros wrote:

Powerguy wrote: you are still vulnerable to missiles (3 squads of Long Fangs is going to kill a Fortuned squad in 3-4 turns).

How much do three squads of ML long fangs cost? How long does it take you to get in range with the wraith guns? Three models BS4 krak missiles are putting down one fortuned wraithguard a turn. Hardly staggering.

Sadly enough 3 squads of ML Long Fangs is only about 30pts more than a single full squad of Wraithguard, if you factor in Fortune they come out ahead. 15 shots per turn is going to drop 5 Wraithguard per turn with Conceal, 4 if you are actually in cover and 2 in your best case, in cover with Fortune up (which is unlikely for the entire game since you have to break cover at some point). As for range, Wraithguard are 12" range, Missiles are 48". The Long Fangs deploy on the board edge (since they can shoot you wherever you are) and assuming the Wraithguard deploy as far up as they can it takes them 3-4 turns (depending on run rolls) of uninterrupted movement to get into range, by which time on average more than half the Wraithguard are dead so they probably kill a single vehicle/unit then die to the final missile volley + countercharge next turn. Sure this is looking at units in a vacuum, which isn't really that helpful, but when you factor in that many SW lists with 3 Long Fangs back it up with Razorbacks and Typhoons the Wraithguards chances aren't so good.

DarknessEternal wrote:

DAaddict wrote:
Wraithguard can actually provide cover saves for your wraithlords as can EJB. EJB also offer the advantage of being able to uncover the wraithlords for their shot and then move in front to provide the cover saves.

Unless there's some type of elevated terrain for Wraithguard or Jetbikes to be on in front of the Wraithlord, they will never conceal 50% of it.

As to what compliments them? Nothing, they're terrible. Wraithlords are exceedingly easy to kill in today's meta. Combined with stupidity (wraithsight), they're just a bad investment.

Maybe the wrong section and I apologize for taking this a tad off topic. Wraithlords are not vehicles so the 50% covered to provide concealment is not really part of the equation. However I don't have the rules in front of me so I am not sure. Also thanks for the post on the perspective view.

Wraithlords are monstrous creatures, so by that virtue they still need 50% cover.

Ailaros wrote:
How much do three squads of ML long fangs cost? How long does it take you to get in range with the wraith guns? Three models BS4 krak missiles are putting down one fortuned wraithguard a turn. Hardly staggering.

18 Long Fangs with 15 Missiles are 420.

10 Wraithguard, Spiritseer, Farseer, and Fortune are 466.

With conceal and fortune they can still work. It will take a SW 3 turns of shooting to get through a squad of 10. While that may not sound too good, remember that that is 3 turns of long fangs firing solely at your wraithguard. That is at least a break even for the eldar since that is the long ranged firepower of a SW meanwhile the rest of your army can be doing damage to either his long fangs or the rest of his army.

You can tier your army too with a line of guardians with conceal protecting the wraithguard that cover the wraithlords. Altogether, you can be pulling 5++ cover saves on the front rank with 4++ cover saves on everything else. Place a Fortune on either the wraithguard or wraith lords and you can reduce his effective fire on you to 1 in 4 wounding missile launcher shots or in otherwords 1 wound on a wraithlord for every 8 shots. At that rate, you should be able to get either your wraithguard intact and still have two wraithlords or all your wraithlords and about half of your wraithguard into the fray.

Now this is direct fire only so templates (vindicators) can still ruin your day but if he takes 3 long fangs, you aren't going to see vindis anyways.

With conceal and fortune they can still work. It will take a SW 3 turns of shooting to get through a squad of 10. While that may not sound too good, remember that that is 3 turns of long fangs firing solely at your wraithguard. That is at least a break even for the eldar since that is the long ranged firepower of a SW meanwhile the rest of your army can be doing damage to either his long fangs or the rest of his army.

The Problem with this line of thought is that someone who has played against the Wraithwall a few times understands that the Wraithguard are impotent until they get into range... so 3 three turns that they don't have to worry about a 500+ unit. What a SW player will do instead is focus fire on the Wraithlords and drop them in 2 turns or less. And then template all the weaker eldar units on the board like rangers, guardians, DA's etc. Instead the player will wait for you to come into range of hit HTH units... TCav come to mind.... or anything with a PF, and kill you slowly.

Remember, Wraithguard are wonderful tarpit units... but inturn are very easy to tarpit.

SaganGree wrote:
The Problem with this line of thought is that someone who has played against the Wraithwall a few times understands that the Wraithguard are impotent until they get into range... so 3 three turns that they don't have to worry about a 500+ unit. What a SW player will do instead is focus fire on the Wraithlords and drop them in 2 turns or less. And then template all the weaker eldar units on the board like rangers, guardians, DA's etc. Instead the player will wait for you to come into range of hit HTH units... TCav come to mind.... or anything with a PF, and kill you slowly.

Remember, Wraithguard are wonderful tarpit units... but inturn are very easy to tarpit.

Yep, they'd never even need to get shot at by anything. One minimum sized squad of Grey Hunters+WG will handle them sufficiently in Assault.

DarknessEternal wrote:

DAaddict wrote:
Wraithguard can actually provide cover saves for your wraithlords as can EJB. EJB also offer the advantage of being able to uncover the wraithlords for their shot and then move in front to provide the cover saves.

Unless there's some type of elevated terrain for Wraithguard or Jetbikes to be on in front of the Wraithlord, they will never conceal 50% of it.

As to what compliments them? Nothing, they're terrible. Wraithlords are exceedingly easy to kill in today's meta. Combined with stupidity (wraithsight), they're just a bad investment.

That's the truth. I've nothing to add. They are quite fluffy in an Iyanden army. In a competitive setting, stay away from them.

Hazard908 wrote:Hello there I have started eldar and was wondering what to get next that will work well with my wraithlords..
The units I have are:
1 avatar of Khain
26 guardians and 1 platform
3 wraithlords

Eldrad. He's a great force multiplier for any army. Fortune can make your wraithlords more durable, and also is a great addition to your avatar. If I remember correctly, he also prevents your wraithlords from standing around being stupid.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

DarknessEternal wrote:As to what compliments them? Nothing, they're terrible. Wraithlords are exceedingly easy to kill in today's meta. Combined with stupidity (wraithsight), they're just a bad investment.

This is a prime example of the standard knee-jerk response that gives online advise a bad reputation.

Instead of reading his post, and realizing that this person just started the game with a small army, advise is given that the 3 wraithlord models that the poster purchased are garbage and he should throw them away.
Perhaps Hazard908 does not have $90 dollars to throw away, not even counting the time it took for Hazard908 to assemble and paint the models. As Hazard908 has only 42 posts, its likely he just started the hobby and these are some of his first models ever painted. Suggesting that their garbage is more likely to drive him from playing the game at all -- thus shrinking the overall 40k community.

Secondly, this post assumes that the Hazard908 is playing in competitive events. If Hazard908 just started, odds are he is not likely to be entering any GT's soon. It's much more likely that Hazard908 will be playing with his friends, and will not need to be uber-competitive. Later, if Hazard908 asks how to beat his friends, we can suggest he looks into mech'dar or expands his foot'dar list.

Why don't we all save the knee-jerk 'wraithlords are bad' answer for the person asking about competitive play, and help the new player with his actual question?

SaganGree wrote:

With conceal and fortune they can still work. It will take a SW 3 turns of shooting to get through a squad of 10. While that may not sound too good, remember that that is 3 turns of long fangs firing solely at your wraithguard. That is at least a break even for the eldar since that is the long ranged firepower of a SW meanwhile the rest of your army can be doing damage to either his long fangs or the rest of his army.

The Problem with this line of thought is that someone who has played against the Wraithwall a few times understands that the Wraithguard are impotent until they get into range... so 3 three turns that they don't have to worry about a 500+ unit. What a SW player will do instead is focus fire on the Wraithlords and drop them in 2 turns or less. And then template all the weaker eldar units on the board like rangers, guardians, DA's etc. Instead the player will wait for you to come into range of hit HTH units... TCav come to mind.... or anything with a PF, and kill you slowly.

Remember, Wraithguard are wonderful tarpit units... but inturn are very easy to tarpit.

I will remind everyone we are talking what works with Wraithlords. I would agree that to be competitive, I would stay away from wraithguard but then so too I wouldn't be fielding wraithlords.

labmouse42 wrote:

Instead of reading his post, and realizing that this person just started the game with a small army, advise is given that the 3 wraithlord models that the poster purchased are garbage and he should throw them away.

No one said that except you.

Edit : No reason to beat a dead horse.

Please move along

labmouse42 wrote:

Hazard908 wrote:Hello there I have started eldar and was wondering what to get next that will work well with my wraithlords..
The units I have are:
1 avatar of Khain
26 guardians and 1 platform
3 wraithlords

Eldrad. He's a great force multiplier for any army. Fortune can make your wraithlords more durable, and also is a great addition to your avatar. If I remember correctly, he also prevents your wraithlords from standing around being stupid.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

DarknessEternal wrote:As to what compliments them? Nothing, they're terrible. Wraithlords are exceedingly easy to kill in today's meta. Combined with stupidity (wraithsight), they're just a bad investment.

This is a prime example of the standard knee-jerk response that gives online advise a bad reputation.

Instead of reading his post, and realizing that this person just started the game with a small army, advise is given that the 3 wraithlord models that the poster purchased are garbage and he should throw them away.
Perhaps Hazard908 does not have $90 dollars to throw away, not even counting the time it took for Hazard908 to assemble and paint the models. As Hazard908 has only 42 posts, its likely he just started the hobby and these are some of his first models ever painted. Suggesting that their garbage is more likely to drive him from playing the game at all -- thus shrinking the overall 40k community.

Secondly, this post assumes that the Hazard908 is playing in competitive events. If Hazard908 just started, odds are he is not likely to be entering any GT's soon. It's much more likely that Hazard908 will be playing with his friends, and will not need to be uber-competitive. Later, if Hazard908 asks how to beat his friends, we can suggest he looks into mech'dar or expands his foot'dar list.

Why don't we all save the knee-jerk 'wraithlords are bad' answer for the person asking about competitive play, and help the new player with his actual question?

This post times 1000. This should be stickied and the first thing anyone sees when logging into Dakka.