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Alright so I may have acquired some leave days and decided last minute to try and attend an already sold out event. I have been talking about attending one of the ITC events ran by the FLG crew for a while and I finally had my block leave line up with an actual event. In this case it is the Bay Area Open in San Jose, CA. Sadly the event is currently full! I'm coming to the event on the wait list hoping for a no show. However, this is not my first wait list rodeo. Back in 2013 I attended my first Adepticon and managed to make it in to the event and then somehow made the top 16 with my IG in my first ever major GT. Hopefully this weekend I carry the same luck and not only make the event but also have a good showing. Well that is enough of the back story. Here is the list I plan on running:


Combined Arms Eldar:

Skyrunner Farseer with spirit stones


3 Windrider jetbikes
3 Windrider jetbikes
5 Scatbikes
4 Scatbikes
4 Shuriken bikes

Hemlock Wraithfighter
8 Warp Spiders W/ Exarch

Wraithknight (Scat Laser; 2x wraith cannons)


Firebase Support Cadre:

Riptide (Ion Accelerator; EWO)

3x Broadsides (High Yield Missiles; SMS; EWO)
3x Broadsides (High Yield Missiles; SMS; EWO)


1850 PTS!

That the list! I brought the bikes for mobile firepower and OBSEC! The Firebase support cadre became an almost auto include for me thanks to the new space marine formations. They give me ignores cover and preferred enemy vs all them space marines. I dont plan on letting the skyhammer assault force wrecking my day. In the same bound I am hoping to kill off some of dark angel bikes that are now more resilient then necrons. I had to modify my list alot with the nerf to strength D in the ITC format. The wraithknight was originally dropped from the list until i remembered that I dont really use him for his strength D. Sure a D to the face is nice an all but I use him for the survivability and his ability to lock up things I dont feel like fighting for a little bit. He is an expensive bullet magnet that can kill stuff in the process. IMO the list needs something that can take a hit and stay on its feet. Just about everything in the army is mobile but squishy... I needed something to take the heat off as everything else kills off the opposing army. See my battle report on the Bugeater GT for how effective the wraithknight can be at drawing fire.

I really don't like the Firebase Support Cadre. The concept of bringing this to any army is terrifying.

Why are the Imperium of Men Desperate Allies with Tau, but Chaos are Allies of Convenience? Has there been any Chaos world accepting the Greater Good without retaliation from the Chaos Space Marine rulers?

Looks like a brutal list to me!

You mentioned the hit to D weapons under ITC, but you also have a Hemlock -- can you tell us a bit more about choosing to take this mysterious psychic flyer?

I like everything in the list, but I also wonder why the Hemlock is there. If you need AA, I think the Crimson Hunter is nastier.

 Homeskillet wrote:
I like everything in the list, but I also wonder why the Hemlock is there. If you need AA, I think the Crimson Hunter is nastier.

The hit to dscythe isn't as bad as the hit to str d in itc.
Str d doesn't get insta death from str 10 which is kinda odd in the itc
Dscythe is still only str 4 so no biggy
6 on str d is heavily nerfed from 6+d6 which is ridiculous to d3 wounds which is massive reduction
Dscythe can never get a 6 result
In fact the only real nerf to d scythe is d2 wounds instead of d3 on a 3-6 result.
But it still ignores fnp and reanim protocols which is massive vs the many necrons you will expect to see at future events.
The hemlock is not an anti air unit but a tank and monsterous creature killer with its ability to strip off multi wounds regardless of toughness or av. It's also not bad for more psychic dice. And the small itc nerf doesn't change it to much.

Yeah thats a pretty fair summary -- the psychic powers can actually be really handy as you'll see in my next few batreps soon.

Psychic Shriek and Conceal/Reveal anyone?

Saying that, the big kicker for me is that up here in Canuckistan I can shoot FMCs with the Hemlock blasts, but the ITC FAQ does not allow any blast weapons to be fired at FMCs, same as flyers, even with Skyfire, so that is a big nerf in my books.

Even so, coming on and nuking vehicles and FMCs has been extremely effective at my end, I agree.

Good luck TK! See you there.


BTW, I voted 4-1 because I will be your 1.

gungo wrote:

6 on str d is heavily nerfed from 6+d6 which is ridiculous to d3 wounds which is massive reduction

On a 6, it is only 2W with no saves of any kind.

 Tomb King wrote:
The wraithknight was originally dropped from the list until i remembered that I dont really use him for his strength D. Sure a D to the face is nice an all but I use him for the survivability and his ability to lock up things I dont feel like fighting for a little bit.

BTW, just fyi, but only ranged D is nerfed. Assault D remains unchanged.

I actually have a couple of Hemlock wraithfighters but I decided to only run one of them. They are actually pretty awesome.

Mindshock Pod: Enemy models within 12" of a model equipped with a mindshock pod subtract 2 from their Leadership when taking Morale, Pinning and Fear tests. (Codex: Craftworld Eldar (2015))
Psychic Pilot (Mastery Level 2): (Warhammer 40K Rulebook p40)
Psychic Power: Daemonolody (Santic), Runes of Battle, Telepathy
Spirit Stones: A vehicle with this upgrade ignores Crew Shaken results on a roll of 2+ and Crew Stunned results on a roll of 4+. Roll immediately when the result is suffered. (Codex: Craftworld Eldar (2015))

A lot of people don't realize how much utility the hemlocks have in both the psychic and shooting phase. I can even go crazy and try to get vortex S from Sanctic!

See you there. I'll also be taking Eldar. Good luck.

 Julnlecs wrote:
See you there. I'll also be taking Eldar. Good luck.

Likewise... should be a pretty fun event. Kind of excited to match-up against all of these west coast gamers.

So are we all taking eldar or what? Lol

Eldar aren't that good. They haven't won a GT yet.

-Trolls

 Julnlecs wrote:
Eldar aren't that good. They haven't won a GT yet.

-Trolls

But IMO they are the easiest to play

 Mojo1jojo wrote:

 Julnlecs wrote:
Eldar aren't that good. They haven't won a GT yet.

-Trolls

But IMO they are the easiest to play

Strongly disagee with this comment... they are still a finesse army. I would say the new space marines companies are probably th easiest army to play atm. Eldar can still take a hard turn of shooting and wipe out most of their firepower.

 Tomb King wrote:

 Mojo1jojo wrote:

 Julnlecs wrote:
Eldar aren't that good. They haven't won a GT yet.

-Trolls

But IMO they are the easiest to play

Strongly disagee with this comment... they are still a finesse army. I would say the new space marines companies are probably th easiest army to play atm. Eldar can still take a hard turn of shooting and wipe out most of their firepower.

Strongly disagree with your disagree. Eldar are durable. 12 transports with practically no pens. Infantry that auto run 6 and can shoot gives them better range. T8 mcs. Infantry that can jump back to avoid getting shot or rapid fire.

Forgot bikes with jink that have 36in range guns and assault jumps and board control movement for obj grabbing. Id rather face marines anyday.

Eldar are a crutch army made to allow a tournament goer not have to think hard so they can make it through a gruelling tournament.

T3 doesnt make Eldar weak.

The hemlock can get cleansing flame? why the heck are people spamming them? You think a hive tyrant is nasty? This things got str d blasts and access to the two best physic shooting attacks in the game....WTh

 Xenomancers wrote:
The hemlock can get cleansing flame? why the heck are people spamming them? You think a hive tyrant is nasty? This things got str d blasts and access to the two best physic shooting attacks in the game....WTh

Because it perils on any doubles. It also can't use 2 of the powers in Sanctic, with 2 more (Purge soul and sanctuary) being almost useless and Vortex being redundant. Telepathy at least guarantees you psychic shriek.

Eldar have some very good units to spam but if you are playing someone that has a good idea of the army they know.. kill the bikes and then tie up the Monstrous creature.... Marines... Eldar... Necrons... all have tough lists. Yet eldar have yet to win a big tourney. So new players can run Eldar and may win some games but it takes more than some cheese to win a tourney! Demons won our tourney this weekend. Eldar was second and third with two COMPLETELY different lists.

I think eldar have a big stigma to get over with the ranged D. A lot of people I know sold their armies.

 Xenomancers wrote:
The hemlock can get cleansing flame? why the heck are people spamming them? You think a hive tyrant is nasty? This things got str d blasts and access to the two best physic shooting attacks in the game....WTh

Well it has to come in from reserves. Interceptor is a thing. Any turn it jinks it does bascially nothing.

 Dozer Blades wrote:
I think eldar have a big stigma to get over with the ranged D. A lot of people I know sold their armies.

Sold their armies because of Eldar? Seems a little extreme to me. Space Marines and Adaptus Mech you can choke up 300-400 extra points a game... New marines formation is absolutely devastating... and really.. 5 hive tyrants was not enough to make you quit but... some Eldar with D weapons broke the camels back?????? Eldar had the distortion rule before...

And Demons won BAO ... again.. so Demons are the most over powered army ever.. I quit!

Just telling it like it is . I am not a fan of five flyrants because it is not fluffy but what are you gonna do - a lot of players in my area have stopped attending RTTs because they don't want to play against d spam and flyrant spam... can't really blame them.

Daemons are broke imo in many ways.

Tomb King, care to run through how you felt your list preformed? I run a very similar list and curious about our differences.

1) Scatbikes, I run more units with smaller number. Did you fine the higher model count per unit to preform better?

2)WriathKnight, I have almost completely given up on the Ranged D for the H2H Knight. You feel the shooting makes that much of a difference?

3) Naked bikes, How did the 2 units of naked bikes preform?

4) Cannon Bikes, Again these vs the Scatbikes.

Thanks for the insight.

Even with that 5 up Invul he is very killable. Especially when you move within that 24" range. Grav guns, plasma talons... they all add up quickly. But 36" back you can kill those pesky vehicles and also deal with other LOW's.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Dozer Blades wrote:
Just telling it like it is . I am not a fan of five flyrants because it is not fluffy but what are you gonna do - a lot of players in my area have stopped attending RTTs because they don't want to play against d spam and flyrant spam... can't really blame them.

Daemons are broke imo in many ways.

So then, in your opinion Dozer what would fix this, Highlander tourney? Seems there are plenty of broken armies. Our 40k scene has dried up as well and its not going to get better as we saw with Fantasy here recently.

To be honest I believe the only restriction should be Battle Forged - play the game straight out of the rule book. I will take the fight to the D spam and Flyrant spam - however here I am in the minority and it just seems like the game is getting more and more casual now for the majority.

That is how we play here. I believe Lords of War are more than the casual player needs to deal with. I love the high volume of books that have come out and if you make each army have a couple of good builds then a good player can play and not spam. Who really loves to destroy their opponent? Not when you are playing with friends having a good time, that win on the last roll is always more satisfying...

Agreed !

I'm still curious to hear how the Hemlock performed at the BAO -- any batreps in the pipeline?

 Dozer Blades wrote:
To be honest I believe the only restriction should be Battle Forged - play the game straight out of the rule book. I will take the fight to the D spam and Flyrant spam - however here I am in the minority and it just seems like the game is getting more and more casual now for the majority.

My thoughts were pretty much the same until the Eldar book.

I've been practicing against 4-5 WK lists as prep for ATC (the only mainstream tournament where something like that is ever likely to be legal), and I assure you, the game no longer works at that point. If WK-spam was legal at major tournaments, the game would devolve into nothing except WK-spam and tailored Grav counters to WK-spam, because nothing else has a prayer.

I'm about as cutthroat as you can be in regard to tournaments, so I tend to stay away from the "X is bad because it's not fun to play against" argument, but 4/5 WKs are different. It's not "unfun." It's actively discouraging. They counteract virtually any tactics you can throw at them.

For me personally, the breaking point was when I attempted to tarpit one with a summoned unit, and Stomp led to it killing two other units nearby. On my turn. In the face of an attempted tarpit. And when I say "nearby," I mean one of them was 15" away--we're not talking about some idiocy of clustered models right next to an incoming Stomp.

It's so bad that it's pretty much forced every tournaments' hand in regard to pushing out list-building restrictions. Even if a tournament previously wanted to be "unrestricted," it's now essentially a non-option, because nobody would show up to an event like that.

I believe you - and I'm glad you brought it up. I'll keep it in mind too. I occasionally will run a tournament from time to time.