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Hey Dakka,

I'm planning on starting an eldar army, and want to avoid completely draining my pockets. My question today was, what's your personal distraction carnifex (D.C. Meaning a Unit that takes attention away from your entire army). I'm looking for one that's as cheap as possible (money-wise), while still provides enough toughness to withstand lots of tanks and such.

Only thing that comes to mind is a Wraithlord, but that only works at lower point levels. Higher up, you need a Wraithknight for such a role.

Wave Serpent. All 5 of them.

Joking aside, apart from a Wraithknight, Warp Spiders could also fit this role rather well.

Used wraithlords are fairly affordable on ebay. If you want to go super cheap, one of the really old metal ones will run you less than 10 bucks, shipping included.

They do serve as decent fire magnets, and you can just rush them at the enemy, but they will die. I don't really use the distraction carnifex strategy with my eldar. I use hawks and spiders to drop in and split fire, but they don't take near the abuse a lord can.

Wraithlords are great because they're pretty much immune to non poison S4-.

I've also gotten some great use out of Striking Scorpions and Shining Spears for similar tactics. Units that can hit hard if they live to get there but can be kept on the cheap side.

The typical distraction I often find myself up against is an aultarch on a bike with the mantle of the laughing god and a meltagun-thing. 2+ rerollable cover will thwart almost anything the opponent fires at him, and as long as you keep him far enough from assault, his threat level will be enough to draw some firepower. if you can pop a non-transport on turn 2 he'll suddenly seem a threat. if you crack open something like a battlewagon full of orks, prepare to deal with the orks or lose your distraction to assault. He's also very good at 'turning off' a vengeance weapon, as he can sit closest to it and shrug off the shots with ease.

 some bloke wrote:
The typical distraction I often find myself up against is an aultarch on a bike with the mantle of the laughing god and a meltagun-thing. 2+ rerollable cover will thwart almost anything the opponent fires at him, and as long as you keep him far enough from assault, his threat level will be enough to draw some firepower. if you can pop a non-transport on turn 2 he'll suddenly seem a threat. if you crack open something like a battlewagon full of orks, prepare to deal with the orks or lose your distraction to assault. He's also very good at 'turning off' a vengeance weapon, as he can sit closest to it and shrug off the shots with ease.

Solid choice until you face Tau or Guard.

Wraithknight. He's so big, people feel obligated to shoot him.

He'll eat up all those shots that would otherwise go into your tanks. Shrugs off plasma like nobodies business.

6 Wounds means he can take an entire armies worth of Anti-tank shooting for a turn, before going down. He's fast, so he's a turn 2 threat for combat, which means he will eat all that shooting if you want him to.

I didn't intentionally design my army to include something like this. I prefer every unit be a terrifying threat so nothing can be prioritized.

However, in practice, this goes to my 10 man Warp Spider squad. They can kill nearly every unit in the game. They are up close to the enemy (or at least closer than other things). And they tend to annoy the opponent with their move-move-shoot-move/move-shoot-move-move. It really seems to get to people when you've got a unit that can blow any of theirs off the board while also running rings around their army.

They aren't tough as nails, but they are substantially tougher than something like a Wraithlord/knight. Those guys will die on turn 1, no exceptions.

 ductvader wrote:

 some bloke wrote:
The typical distraction I often find myself up against is an aultarch on a bike with the mantle of the laughing god and a meltagun-thing. 2+ rerollable cover will thwart almost anything the opponent fires at him, and as long as you keep him far enough from assault, his threat level will be enough to draw some firepower. if you can pop a non-transport on turn 2 he'll suddenly seem a threat. if you crack open something like a battlewagon full of orks, prepare to deal with the orks or lose your distraction to assault. He's also very good at 'turning off' a vengeance weapon, as he can sit closest to it and shrug off the shots with ease.

Solid choice until you face Tau or Guard.

in a sense, but against tau, if he can draw a round of markerlights and a volley of shots off the rest of your army, I still think he's doing good. not so sure what guard can do now though.

 some bloke wrote:

 ductvader wrote:

 some bloke wrote:
The typical distraction I often find myself up against is an aultarch on a bike with the mantle of the laughing god and a meltagun-thing. 2+ rerollable cover will thwart almost anything the opponent fires at him, and as long as you keep him far enough from assault, his threat level will be enough to draw some firepower. if you can pop a non-transport on turn 2 he'll suddenly seem a threat. if you crack open something like a battlewagon full of orks, prepare to deal with the orks or lose your distraction to assault. He's also very good at 'turning off' a vengeance weapon, as he can sit closest to it and shrug off the shots with ease.

Solid choice until you face Tau or Guard.

in a sense, but against tau, if he can draw a round of markerlights and a volley of shots off the rest of your army, I still think he's doing good. not so sure what guard can do now though.

Same effect...it would take one order away from guard...they can ignore cover with an order.



I use the solitaire in every game...he's good. But Tau and Guard are tough matchups for him to make points back.