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Ok, so i recently tried a combo i have been curious about for quite some time.

10 wraithguard with a conceal seer w witchblade
Farseer with 5 powers and witnessing runes
Eldrad
2 wraith lords.

The goal, depending on the opponent, will be to either roll the foreboading power, or the invisibility power.

I tried this in a game and it was un believable. With the rest of my army supporting it, it was unstoppable. I have tried this unit in three seperate games and its nigh unstoppable. If im playing against a melee death star, i shoot it and then overwatch at full bs. Of course you could say that its dependent on dice, but the way psychic powers work i have to keep rolling until i get different powers, so 5/6 of the powers in a lore are mine, i have a great chance of getting what i need.

The unit spends the 1st turn or two moving and running into position with defensive buffs up while my support units ping down the enemy ( 2x5 pathfinders, and 13 guardians w eml, 2 wraithlords w dual flamers, bright lance and eml @ 1500) once in position it goes into roman phalanx mode and marches into the enemy while spearing it with guided wriathcannon fire.

If i fight hordes, i will go more towards a buff debuff style where i aim for the fearless removing power and pound a single unit with ranged fire while removing its fearless etc. I am quite excited by the results but this is NOT FOR FRIENDLY GAMES!!! This single unit ruined my opponent 3 games back to back, he was quite frustrated by my "eldar cheesy bs" haha. Anyways, comments criticisms and suggestions?

And how many points does this unit cost?

Also, are you including the Wraithlords in the unit to share the buffs, or are they just standing around nearby?

*cue pic of Willy Wonka*
So your 766+pt unit is incredibly powerful? Tell me more.

In all seriousness though, yes it is a very powerful unit however it has a glaring weakness of CC, speed + weapon range, or failing your cast of Invisibility. For that point cost I'd much rather take a Seercouncil + Divinationseer + fortune/doomseer.

The Wraith-Council as I like to call it is good, but not the way you have built it. You have spent so many extra points on redundant abilties, i.e. the Farseer. With Eldrad alone they have a re-rollable 3+ save, with a re-rollable cover save in the open at T6, which is enough to keep them alive most of the time, and those other powers like Doom and Guide really make them a menace to anything they shoot. For a little added umph ally in the Baron for Stealth and Hit and Run.

Well it was built for a 1500 point tourny, and the unit was designed to be a swiss army knife. The second farseer is NOT for redundancy, and runes of witnessing means I have little to no chance of failing to cast what I need.

The second farseer is there to let me deal with multiple threats, be they CC, Range, horde, or elite. And a rerollable 3+ save is useless against weapons that will threaten my wraithguard, namely plasma, melta, thunderhammers and the like. Hence the second farseer. If I do get bogged down in close combat, I have the two wraithlords nearby to wade in for counter charge.

Also, I dont HAVE jetseer models so suggesting I use them is less that useless XD

So what if you play someone who has heavy weapons that ignore cover? Like noise marines?

thakabalpuphorsefishguy wrote:
Well it was built for a 1500 point tourny, and the unit was designed to be a swiss army knife. The second farseer is NOT for redundancy, and runes of witnessing means I have little to no chance of failing to cast what I need.

And here's the fatal problem with your plan. At 1500 points your death star is almost your entire army, and it can still only deal with one target a turn. End result: I throw three 75-point squads of guardsmen at it over the few turns it spends in assault range, wipe out the rest of your army with the other 1200+ points of mine, and easily win the game on objectives. End result: your death star utterly annihilates the speed bump units, but is unable to do anything that a much cheaper unit couldn't do just as easily.

(Of course this is the problem with death stars in general, it's way too easy to feed them expendable units and then ignore them.)

Peregrin, yours is the only style of list I truly fear tbh. BUT, with psychic powers enhancing my shooting i.e making units lose fearless, take lots of extra wounds etc, I feel rather confident that I could deal with it utilizing careful target priority, suppression, positioning and other such tactics (But I still fear the swarm XD) Such is the fact of every list. Its always going to have a weakness. However, I feel I can overcome that weakness and play to my strengths.


If I played against a noise marine heavy list, I would simply roll everything on the divination table. I can bank on getting a 4++ from it rather reliably.

thakabalpuphorsefishguy wrote:
Peregrin, yours is the only style of list I truly fear tbh. BUT, with psychic powers enhancing my shooting i.e making units lose fearless, take lots of extra wounds etc, I feel rather confident that I could deal with it utilizing careful target priority, suppression, positioning and other such tactics (But I still fear the swarm XD)

Ok, so you enhance shooting, inflict lots of extra wounds, etc. Great, now you just overkilled my 75 point 10-man squad by an even bigger margin.

And if you mean you're going to apply those things to the non-deathstar part of your army, it's just not going to be good enough. No amount of clever tactics can change the fact that you're outnumbered 2:1 (or worse), the MSU list can just focus overwhelming firepower on your supporting units and wipe them from the table. Giving your Rangers re-rolls to hit is just going to make them take a couple more models down with them when they get slaughtered.

Such is the fact of every list. Its always going to have a weakness. However, I feel I can overcome that weakness and play to my strengths.

But the important question is what exactly you're getting out of adding this weakness to your list? A death star that takes up more than half your army's points is going to be massive overkill against anything you're ever going to encounter at that point level. In every scenario you can imagine you'll be better of bringing, if not a MSU list, at least a list with 2-3 smaller "death star" units that each get the job done just as well as your single monster unit.

thakabalpuphorsefishguy wrote:
Well it was built for a 1500 point tourny, and the unit was designed to be a swiss army knife. The second farseer is NOT for redundancy, and runes of witnessing means I have little to no chance of failing to cast what I need.

The second farseer is there to let me deal with multiple threats, be they CC, Range, horde, or elite. And a rerollable 3+ save is useless against weapons that will threaten my wraithguard, namely plasma, melta, thunderhammers and the like. Hence the second farseer. If I do get bogged down in close combat, I have the two wraithlords nearby to wade in for counter charge.

Also, I dont HAVE jetseer models so suggesting I use them is less that useless XD

I never said the second Farseer was for redundancy, I said he was redundant. There's a huge difference. You are taking him and then buying all the powers just the roll up some more powers that the unit doesn't need in most situations. That's points inefficiently spent. Especially since he is still ML1, so for all his 5 powers, he can only cast one a turn.

Where you are getting the idea that having a second Farseer protects you from Thunder Hammers I don't know; that makes no sense.

And as for Jetseers; I never said anything about them.

The general rule of thumb when it comes to the tactics forum is that if a member feels the need to open a brand new thread for a single combo with a title telling the world how awesome the combo is, it generally isn't that good.

If you have ever faced a tricked out wraith list then you would know the strengths of the list.
Yes, you can bog it down with cheap units, yes multiple other deathstars can do damage, yes its expensive.
But you know what? I have played a similar list like this for about a dozen games and I don't have people "feeding" my wraith unit anything. You know why? Because my other units in my army keep it from getting "speed bumped"
So far my wraith list has about a 80% win record, the rest are near losses or draws. So saying that I'll just do this or I'll do that is funny, because I just don't see it happening lols.

The real question is then what amys are you playing against?I can see it being goodagainst marines, Tau and a few others. I can't see how it would stand up to Nids. Between SitW, tons of psykers, being outnumbered 10 to 1, toxin sacs on almost everything, and things like Deathleaper I just don't see how it would work.
Just wondering if you have tried it against Nids and what they had?

Have you played against cron wraithwing? I know offhand that would wreck this. Also demons or the new CSM dragons will give it fits. Poor wraithguard need about a 10 pt decrease, 6" range increase, or FNP.

 BlueDagger wrote:
Have you played against cron wraithwing? I know offhand that would wreck this. Also demons or the new CSM dragons will give it fits. Poor wraithguard need about a 10 pt decrease, 6" range increase, or FNP.

Hey blue... WraithLords (with swords) vs the cron wraithwing seems to work.

Faced off 3 times already (2 in 5th, 1 in 6th).

I'd REALLY cringe on the rending rolls... but, evidently my lords scares the dice even more...

EDIT: Demons and that dragon would wreck them tho.

Nologik wrote:
You know why? Because my other units in my army keep it from getting "speed bumped"

HOW do they prevent it? You're talking about a unit that needs to assault (or at least get within close range to shoot) to be effective. The only way to keep it from getting speed bumped is to have the rest of your list kill the speed bump first and that just isn't going to happen when you've spent over half your points on a single unit.

And of course if you're fighting a MSU opponent then every unit is a speed bump and even if the death star kills a unit every turn it still won't accomplish enough to justify its price.

So far my wraith list has about a 80% win record, the rest are near losses or draws.

At what point level, and against what opposing lists?

 whembly wrote:

 BlueDagger wrote:
Have you played against cron wraithwing? I know offhand that would wreck this. Also demons or the new CSM dragons will give it fits. Poor wraithguard need about a 10 pt decrease, 6" range increase, or FNP.

Hey blue... WraithLords (with swords) vs the cron wraithwing seems to work.

Faced off 3 times already (2 in 5th, 1 in 6th).

I'd REALLY cringe on the rending rolls... but, evidently my lords scares the dice even more...

EDIT: Demons and that dragon would wreck them tho.

You opponents must have some SERIOUSLY terrible rolls. Not getting 3 6s on the piles of attacks wraith can put out is rather insane. In return your attacks may kill 1, maybe 2?

 BlueDagger wrote:

 whembly wrote:

 BlueDagger wrote:
Have you played against cron wraithwing? I know offhand that would wreck this. Also demons or the new CSM dragons will give it fits. Poor wraithguard need about a 10 pt decrease, 6" range increase, or FNP.

Hey blue... WraithLords (with swords) vs the cron wraithwing seems to work.

Faced off 3 times already (2 in 5th, 1 in 6th).

I'd REALLY cringe on the rending rolls... but, evidently my lords scares the dice even more...

EDIT: Demons and that dragon would wreck them tho.

You opponents must have some SERIOUSLY terrible rolls. Not getting 3 6s on the piles of attacks wraith can put out is rather insane. In return your attacks may kill 1, maybe 2?

Yup... its gotta be epic. When I first saw what's going to happen, I was like...

Then failing to roll sixes? Simply epic. Won't be expecting that to happen anytime soon.

But the problem is, if i drop the unit down to a smaller size, it loses what offensive output it has. As well as its vital troop status.

And to it, i will not save enough points to really add much of value anyway.

Ive seen the unit perform against swarm assault marines like a dream. I know it can handle small elite armies, and i know its suprisingly versitile givin the secondary farseer.

All that, and there is not a single unit in codex eldar that can do even half of what that unit of wraithguard can do. Namely, take a beating while advancing implacably into my opponents grill. No other unit has fearless, toughness 6 and ap2 shooting goodness that can bring ID. I grant you its expensive, and very much of an all eggs in one basket, but its an iron clad, quantom sheilded basket

So in an objective game ( which is 5/6 games) what do you do? Also, why cant your enemy just avoid your unit that is moving 6" a turn? Yea those wraithguard are troops but they have to 1. get to the objective and 2. they can only hold a single objective.

So they might be a 700+ point wrecking ball... But while that 700+ points is moving 6" a turn towards me, my 1500 points of shooting will be killing any other troop you have. And then kill everything else that isnt part of the deathstar.

Now saying all of this... I run a wraithguard deathstar. Mine is 10 guard, spiritseer, eldrad, and baron. They dont like dedicated CC termies with fists or hammers But can usually get a round of shooting off beforehand. I also run a 10 man harlequin unit right next to it benefiting from eldrad's fortune as well. This helps keep unwanted things away.

But it still all suffers from the things listed above.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

thakabalpuphorsefishguy wrote:
But the problem is, if i drop the unit down to a smaller size, it loses what offensive output it has. As well as its vital troop status.

And to it, i will not save enough points to really add much of value anyway.

Ive seen the unit perform against swarm assault marines like a dream. I know it can handle small elite armies, and i know its suprisingly versitile givin the secondary farseer.

All that, and there is not a single unit in codex eldar that can do even half of what that unit of wraithguard can do. Namely, take a beating while advancing implacably into my opponents grill. No other unit has fearless, toughness 6 and ap2 shooting goodness that can bring ID. I grant you its expensive, and very much of an all eggs in one basket, but its an iron clad, quantom sheilded basket

Point being, the eldar codex isnt meant to BASH peoples face in. If you want to do that then you are playing the wrong army. Eldar are meant to use finesse. And that bit about not having anyhting in the codex that are as good bang for your buck as wraithgurd? Thats a lie. Enter stage: war walkers with scatter lasers. 540 pts = 3X3 war walkers (9 total) all taking scatter lasers. 72 S6 shots is stupid. This is all besides the point thought. I was just trying to show that 500-600 points can be spent just as well else where.

I run my wraiths because I love their fluff and the look. I am slowly building up an all wraith army including the Forgeworld wraithseer to make a fluffy list.

Could you describe how this is a "combo"? I've got a combo too, it's 20 hammernators.

 Peregrine wrote:

Nologik wrote:
You know why? Because my other units in my army keep it from getting "speed bumped"

HOW do they prevent it? You're talking about a unit that needs to assault (or at least get within close range to shoot) to be effective. The only way to keep it from getting speed bumped is to have the rest of your list kill the speed bump first and that just isn't going to happen when you've spent over half your points on a single unit.

And of course if you're fighting a MSU opponent then every unit is a speed bump and even if the death star kills a unit every turn it still won't accomplish enough to justify its price.

So far my wraith list has about a 80% win record, the rest are near losses or draws.

At what point level, and against what opposing lists?

I've actually played quite a few games ranging from 1750-2k. I just haven't had the chance to really play it at 1500 so I don't know the viability of it at that point level. But I would assume that it would do ok.
I have played Nids, and wrecked them. I have played Tau and did the same. I have played Ultra Marines/blood angels/grey knights and did a number on them. Iv'e played against Space Wolves many times and seem to tie them alot or barely win/lose, they have lots lots lots of long range fire power namely Long fangs. I haven't really gotten to play a game against IG or Chaos or Necrons namely because of their isn't many of them around here.
So I do have quite a few wins under my belt with playing wraithzilla. I've got experience with them and so far I haven't played many armies that can kick my butt, its always they barely squeak one out on me.
I hope you get to try it out sometimes. It's its very funny watching peoples expressions when you tell them they are all t6 with AP2 weps lols.

Thanks
Cheers

Nologik wrote:
I've actually played quite a few games ranging from 1750-2k.

My point exactly. In a larger game the death star takes up a smaller percentage of your points so you have the ability to bring better supporting units. At 1500 once you have the death star and a token scoring unit or two you have very few points left to buy anything else. You end up with one-dimensional army that's extremely vulnerable to having your single real unit fed a meatshield every turn until the game ends while the fragile leftovers of your army aren't enough to stop 1000+ points of focused attack.

...I hate to break it to you after all this interesting discussion, but this is technically illegal. Farseers can only have four powers.

Factoring in the fact that the whole thing is horribly slow, short-ranged, can't fight in CC worth a damn, and goes down in a blink if hit by a Vindicator or a battle cannon? It's powerful, but extremely situational, I wouldn't use this unless I was absolutely sure the enemy was going to come to me with mostly infantry.

 ph34r wrote:
Could you describe how this is a "combo"? I've got a combo too, it's 20 hammernators.

Because its the combination of Eldrad throwing out codex eldar powers for rerolling saves and accuracy, a farseer (who has spirit stones so ml2 sorry for not mentioning it earlier) who has divination and or telepathy powers (rolling 5 times for powers with a HIGH probability of getting the powers I need depending on my opponent) and the 10 man unit of toughness 6 guys with wounds on 2+ with ap2 ID on 6s, that combine into a nigh unchargeable ( getting 1 on divination is a 1/6 chance, I have 5 chances to get it XD) unit that is near impossible to kill with shooting.

The combination of eldrad and farseer means that I can adapt which powers I take depending on which opponent and list style im playing against, to best handle that particular game. And dont discount what 10 guided pathfinders can do to a misfortuned opponent. Any roll to hit of six means I get to allocate an ap1 shot to any model in the unit I can see, poof sargeant

All in all, I hear the criticism that speed bump units might be a problem, but I feel that I can effectively deal with them with properly applied force and well executed movement. And objectives games are no problem seeing as how I have 4 troop choices in my army, one of them being among the toughest in the game

thakabalpuphorsefishguy wrote:

Because its the combination of Eldrad throwing out codex eldar powers for rerolling saves and accuracy, a farseer (who has spirit stones so ml2 sorry for not mentioning it earlier) who has divination and or telepathy powers (rolling 5 times for powers with a HIGH probability of getting the powers I need depending on my opponent) and the 10 man unit of toughness 6 guys with wounds on 2+ with ap2 ID on 6s, that combine into a nigh unchargeable ( getting 1 on divination is a 1/6 chance, I have 5 chances to get it XD) unit that is near impossible to kill with shooting.

The combination of eldrad and farseer means that I can adapt which powers I take depending on which opponent and list style im playing against, to best handle that particular game. And dont discount what 10 guided pathfinders can do to a misfortuned opponent. Any roll to hit of six means I get to allocate an ap1 shot to any model in the unit I can see, poof sargeant

All in all, I hear the criticism that speed bump units might be a problem, but I feel that I can effectively deal with them with properly applied force and well executed movement. And objectives games are no problem seeing as how I have 4 troop choices in my army, one of them being among the toughest in the game

See that is at least something to go on to start a good tactical discussion.

Not sure why the unit is nigh unchargable. I understand that you get to fire Overwatch at full BS if you get the right power, but you can only shoot once. The first unit to go in will probably loose @5-10 guys on the charge, but a second unit will make it in to combat without issue. It is harder to do, but as a Nid player I have to do this anyway (same tactic must be used when charging Burner Boys).

You are also counting on your 2 psykers pretty hard. That is fine for the buffs unless you are facing Nids or SW (oh how I hate Rune Priests). However you are running a risk with not getting Witchfire and Maladictionsoff as some units will have a 5+ DtW save, so it won't work about 1/3rd of the time.

Pathfinders are nice in 6th. 5 of them is a little small but they can pin and you can allocate wounds on 6's. Not quite "poof Sgt" becasue of LOS!, but bye bye melta guy. They are also vulnerable to OM so you might want to keep that in mind. I assume that they are just going to objective camp as that is what they do best.

But as a player that has T6 MC's in units with psykers I can see some flaws. Poison attacks suck and some armies like DE and Nids have tons of them. Force weapons (and Boneswords) are also going to be problematic as they can ID. Things that ignore cover are also a problem (Hive Guard and Thunderfire cannons for example).
I don't think that tarpitting is going to be an option that most armies are going to have becasue you can do a real amount of Overwatch damage. That means they would need lots of tough bodies (orks), huge blocks of troops (IG Blob), or an nearly infinite supply of fodder (NIds).

Tacticly it is interesting. I can see how it could work.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
...I hate to break it to you after all this interesting discussion, but this is technically illegal. Farseers can only have four powers.

Factoring in the fact that the whole thing is horribly slow, short-ranged, can't fight in CC worth a damn, and goes down in a blink if hit by a Vindicator or a battle cannon? It's powerful, but extremely situational, I wouldn't use this unless I was absolutely sure the enemy was going to come to me with mostly infantry.

By jove i cant believe i overlooked that! I guess that frees up 30 points. But as to cant fight in cc worth a damn, it will steam roll anything that isnt a swarm of 30 orks or gaunts, it might take it a bit to do it, but its quite gross with eldrad fortuning, and the other farseer casting some hefty powers from divination or telepathy. Ws 1 gene stealers? No more fearless ork mob, have fun being pinned! The options are limitles, and even a vindicator is going to fair poorly when two wraith lords are brightlancing it every turn.

thakabalpuphorsefishguy wrote:

 ph34r wrote:
Could you describe how this is a "combo"? I've got a combo too, it's 20 hammernators.

And dont discount what 10 guided pathfinders can do to a misfortuned opponent. Any roll to hit of six means I get to allocate an ap1 shot to any model in the unit I can see, poof sergeant

Precision shots are better used on the special weapon guys at range. No melta or plasma gun means one less Armor denying save.


Oh and fixed the word Sergeant for you, Staff Sergeant

Aside from freeing up 30 points it also some what changes the results you've had in your games as your slightly less (granted not by much) likely to get the powers you want...

A Vindicator may perhaps hit as many as a dozen models in the unit (probably less as you'd try to space out).. Assuming 5+ cover and Fortune then it'd cause 4 casualties, which is nasty.

But if you could run a good fairy/evil faerie ally list then not only would you get in my opinion better troops (5 man warriors in night-shielded venoms at 120 per unit, 135 with a blaster thrown in are very mobile and very good at killing infantry), but you could add Sathonyx to the wraiths to give them Stealth (reducing vindcator casualties in the above example to 2-3) and also Hit and Run, which helps a lot with avoiding tarpitting. he also brings a 2+ invun and (although I've seen it argued otherwise), to me it would seem that RAW if he's in an Eldar unit upon which Fortune has been cast, that would be re-rollable 2++ . . .

Adding Sathonyx was mentioned higher up, but while his inclusion is probably hard to do at 1500, I'd say he was well worth it at 1750 and above

Thanks for providing tactical analysis gloomfang. But with mastery level two, and mastery level 3 its gonna be rare that a unit is gonna have a 5+ dtw.

I figure that against paper plane deldar with venom spam, i should be able to handely shoot them down with the units i have. Dont forget that i am never pidgeon holed into running into my opponents guns. I can still determine if i need to make them come to me, while guided fire picks them off. The real threat to this, would be fliers, but can be mitigated by rushing forward to minimize the damage a flier can do before they fly over. And at 1500 its a rare if not nonexistent chance of meeting an army that can provide both a solid gunline, a couple of fliers AND a good tarpit due to needing to be able to TAC. Im not sure why boneswords are especially scary, ID is kinda irrelavant to a unit of 1 wound models. As to the tfire and hive guard, i would still get a rerollable armour save and am toughness 6. So im glad and very appreciative for your contribution, and the chance to plan out tactical options for dealing with these problems :-)