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I'm playing iyanden nowadays, and am currently running a pure wraith army. Which I love, and is a lot of fun. This probably won't affect the way I play, or force me to modify my list, but I thought it would make an interesting discussion.

As wraith anti tank, you can take 5 Wraithguard, with wraithcannons in the famous serpent with serpent upgrades that most take. For roughly the same points (give or take a few) you can instead take 2 wraith lords with BL/BL.

so what are people's thoughts on the more effective unit? In my situation, slots aren't an issue as I run dual FOC's. Bearing that in mind we are purely looking at weight of fire etc. obviously the guard have the serpent, making them much more mobile. But that will normally mean it takes them 1 turn of sitting inside and then getting out the second turn to shoot. Since if you move 12" you can't disembark. When they are out they do have 5 S10 ap2 shots (provided they're in the small 12" range) so quite a high chance of stripping HP or penetrating any value of armour. They are better at AV 13 and below than the BL, and on a par on AV14, but like I said, take a turn to get into position, and then possibly will have to embark after and move to a different target.

As for the lords, 2 of them equal the same points, so we are talkin 4 s8 ap 2 lance shots. The bonus is, they will likely be in range from turn one! So, over the course of the two turns it takes the guard to get in range and shoot, we are talking 8 BL shots. They are worse against most armour values compared to the cannons, but there is potentially more shots at a greater range. Similarly, if one wrecks the tank, you can point the second at another. This makes me things that their versatility makes them much better.

Taking into account turns, and the fact that the guard are 1 unit and the lords 2 units, it's obviously impossible to apply maths to this situation. I also realise a lot of people take farseers for things like guide, but for the purpose of this discussion we are ignoring this. I also realise fire dragons are nice AT, as are wraith knights. I don't want to use fragons, and I don't think the knight quite compares, as he has a lower rate of fire, and relies more on combat than shooting.

Let me know your thoughts?

Surely in a wraith list you would have both wraith guard and wraith lords?

That aside the wraith guard are more versatile than the lords for non vehicle targets especially t5 multi wound models like grotesques and (gasp) the new marine centurions that we going to see a lot of. Also chaos obliterators with or without the mark of nurgle.

They can also ID any target if they roll a 6 to wound which the bright lances can't do to monstrous creatures.

Understand and agree completely, and yes I have both, but I'm asking about anti tank, nothing else!

Scoring. WL cannot usually score (apart from the Big Guns mission).

For the AT option, a WL is better for taking out passengers after a transport kill.
But, WG are better able to weather the suicide-turn, after deployment.

So, for log range or transports, WL, for back-field attacks, take WG.

mathhammer says that even though WLs get 8 shots for 2 turns, in one turn the wraithgaurd do better agaisnt av 10,11,12,13 by allot, and only slightly worse vs av 14. because dont forget after serpent unloads, its scatter lasers still work

Ok I see.

So next question, if we reduce the points cost.

1 squad of guard are the exact points of 1 wraith lord with 2 x BL. Surely The Lord is more effective now?