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I really like the new Avengers rules. They are now 11 points.

With custom traits you can get their weapon to 22" (+4 inches to shooting with shurikens) with 7" move and a d6 advance. Looking like a 33" threat range putting that up to 37 out of a serpent. That is pretty brutal. For your second trait you can take the Ap-1 always for Shurikens or ignore cover to increase your damage. Plus the bladestorm ability (6's for additional auto hits). Really liking this. Plus it also synergizes with the serpents themselves.

Dire avengers also have another aspect power which is kind of nice too. It allows you to get +1 to hit and wound if you lose a model. That can be pretty hard to pull off - however - when transports die there is a good chance of losing a model and then you'd have 2+ to hit shurikens that wound t7 on 4's....not bad. Maybe throw them in with a firedragons unit to make them actually attack the serpant and then out pops +1 to wound dires when the tank popps.

Any other ideas?

They are okay. Bladestorm is nice. They are pretty soft though, in comparison to other troop choices, being T3 4+ troops. If you go for an offensive trait they are only a pip of save tougher than guardsmen, at nearly three times the cost. So they are a way for you to lose points quick.

The avenging trait is nice for wave serpent riders - ride around shooting your shields out, causing trouble, until the serpent gets shot, and an avenger probably dies from the explosion, triggering +1 to hit and wound.

If Asurmen wasn't insanely expensive, they'd have a bit more game to them. As it is, they die so easy to guard, marines, CC, dakka, etc, that their best use is still going to be, imo, 5-man squads playing a super-cagey game, tanking the insane amount of rend in the meta now on the exarch, hiding and popping out to fire when the threat is diminished.

Marines, stock, are a 24" range weapon. Lower movement, but twice the durability. You can give Dire Avengers AP-1, but Marines can have AP-1 starting turn 2 with just the doctrine.

As for the lose-1, you probably don't want to do the FD/DA serpent "trick". That limits you to a smaller squad (at most 7), and forces you to couple them with Fire Dragons, while also paying for a Serpent. You're not that much cheaper than pure Fire Dragons, and don't have that much more firepower than full Dire Avengers. And have to choose between optimal DA placement and optimal FD placement.

I think it might be a good case for a 10-man squad, maybe even with ShimmerShield. The opponent can't really ignore the squad (they can try, but there's some nasty things you can do if they're fully ignored), and 11 T3 5++ wounds in cover outside RF requires a reasonable amount of dakka to remove for the points. Nothing staggering, but it's not nothing.

Also, you can pair this well with LQR - often, the opponet needs to declare a target to draw that out. Now, while he won't waste firepower on the LQR squad, you should lose 1-2 guys from it. Even if you lose 2 guys, that's still 7 doods shooting with +1 hit/wound.

Before PA, I found Asurmen more helpful to non-DA aspects, because (a) DAs tend to attract AP0 weapons fire, (b) other aspects are more likely to attract the deadlier firepower, and (c) 2/3rds of the DA squad already had a 4++. Now that small arms for half the armies in the game are going to be AP-1 or better most of the time, DAs have some killier powers now, and DAs won't always have that 4++, that may have changed.

Still, regardless, Asurmen is a ton of fun. Maybe not the effective choice, but still worth playing.

The thing is, 5 Intercessors firing with assault bolters with standard reroll 1s will kill 4.5 DAs. That's not a specialised squad, cooked up to kill them or anything, just a bog-standard, 5-man team, that you're going to run into quite a lot, and be expecting your troops to do something about.

That's also 85 points shooting 58, and nearly one-banging them. Asurmen does nothing for them against dakka, neither does a 4++ exarch. They just evaporate under light fire.

Stepping it up to the gold standard, a squad of Chain Havocs with Vets and endless and a CL for rerolls kills 27.6 DAs, unless they have an Asurmen shield up, in which case it drops to 20.7.

They are wafty. I like em, and I have 30 sitting on my shelf, but they are.

I run 25 dire avengers in almost every eldar force I run, 5 x 5 man with an exarch with 2 catapults. Yeah they die quickly but they also can put out a surprising amount of firepower when given half a chance.

Having said that, the ap-1 trait isn't worth it as you have to be at 12" to trigger it, meaning the extra 4" isn't really of use. Either one is ok, but together.... eh?

So the question becomes what your running to determine which one is better. If your running lots of guardians then the ap-1 is fine because that's your range anyways. Avengers? Probably the 4" but honestly I prefer Beil Tan overall. Rerolling 1's is probably better.

Totally agree, I think cover trait is more useful for them, as it makes them tougher vs 0ap dakka. Mine tend to cower and then pop up to spike damage on a doomed target.

I like them in casual games riding in Falcons, but in more competitive games, MSU Rangers & Guardian blobs far outrank DAs IMO

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All good points being made here. Do you think you are undervaluing their new threat range while doing a ton more damage? 37" threat range coming out of a serpant is quite literally anywhere on the table turn 1. That is a lotta dakka for your doom. Plus starting in serpants they are pretty safe from alpha. It's pretty much automatic alpha strike.

Just worked out a really nice 2000 point list
Custom army with +4" to shurikens and always ap-1 on shurikens.
Farseer on bike (fourtune doom)
Autarch on bike (laserlance, ASC)
2x Spiritseer (Quicken, Protect)
4x 6 mans with 2x ASC exarch
2x 5 mans with 2x ASC exarch
(all with bladestorm)

3x Serpents with 2x TLSC and stones

9x spears (3++ save)(or 6 is pile in)

Then Aloitoc air wing
3x CHE with starcannons (ignore move penalties on all)
(or could do fireprisms it's the same cost)



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Galef wrote:
I like them in casual games riding in Falcons, but in more competitive games, MSU Rangers & Guardian blobs far outrank DAs IMO

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Custom Gardians with +4 range are also pretty boss. I think the +3 points is worth it for the DA at this point though.

At that point, aren't you just glass-cannon Iron Rain?

Sure, you get reasonable number of small-arms shots, and some of them have decent AP. But not all that much firepower, and on glass cannons.

You can make DAs work for ambushing/explosive rounds. But they can't trade shots with most troops. With that setup, you might marginally outperform basic Tac Marines. But that's questionable, and a even a PA horde will rip them apart.

Awe yeah dude. That is how I play eldar.
80 exploding 6's
18 str 6 shurikens
56 standard shurikens
3x d3 mortal wounds
6 bright lance and 6 starcannons
plus the spears laser lances and charge if we get lucky with quicken.

That is brutal.

For me getting turn 1 firepower out of eldar troops is a game changer. Plus basically an armywide +1 AP and +4 range...Pretty huge.

Is this at the level of space marines? IDK but It does pretty well against a 3 executioner Ironhands list in my head.

I don't find my avengers to be a hindrance in competitive games. Someone has a knight or a t8 vehicle and my avengers squeal with glee. Doom+jinx= wounding on 6's rerolling failed wounds and all wounds are at AP-3 and at -1 to their save.... I have killed repulsers and severely wounded knights with this trick. Doom and jinx knight 1, have some de around for agents of vect to stop rotate ion shields, then unload with 70 shuriken guns. That's on average like 14 wounds with the opponent getting a 6+ save or worse no saves. What other base line infantry can do that kind of damage to a knight with their basic weapons?

Granted I take banshees on foot and use them as a distraction. 3x5 banshees standing in the open will get anyone's attention.

Azuza001 wrote:
I don't find my avengers to be a hindrance in competitive games. Someone has a knight or a t8 vehicle and my avengers squeal with glee. Doom+jinx= wounding on 6's rerolling failed wounds and all wounds are at AP-3 and at -1 to their save.... I have killed repulsers and severely wounded knights with this trick. Doom and jinx knight 1, have some de around for agents of vect to stop rotate ion shields, then unload with 70 shuriken guns. That's on average like 14 wounds with the opponent getting a 6+ save or worse no saves. What other base line infantry can do that kind of damage to a knight with their basic weapons?

Granted I take banshees on foot and use them as a distraction. 3x5 banshees standing in the open will get anyone's attention.

Wouldn't scorpions work better for this job?

Ignore Cover is pretty fantastic. HOWEVER it wouldn't really benefit other Aspect Warriors as much if that was the focus of the list.

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Galef wrote:
I like them in casual games riding in Falcons, but in more competitive games, MSU Rangers & Guardian blobs far outrank DAs IMO

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Custom Gardians with +4 range are also pretty boss. I think the +3 points is worth it for the DA at this point though.

For me it really depends. I either want a unit that is cheap and somewhat non-threatening or up close to hold objectives (so Rangers) or I'll spend the points and CP to buff a big unit (Gaurdians)
20 Webway Guardians dropping in don't need +4 range, can get a 4++ (bumped to 3++ with Protect) and mulch and Doomed unit, even better with AP-1

And equivalent amount of DAs can't really get that "shock & aw" effect, but at the same time, ARE killy enough with these buffs to be noticed and deleted.

Don't get me wrong, DAs are my favorite Troop and I like these changes, but they are too...."middle ground" for what I need competitively

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I think I have to be the negatve nancy here.

DAs are good when paired with jinx and doom - ten DAs lay 2.99 damage on a knight for example. That's okay, I guess?

But literally any gun within range is okay when it's shooting at a doomed/jinxed target. Another way of saying this is: D/J is doing the heavy lifting, not the DAs. Guardsmen shooting frfsrf lasguns at a D/J target would massively outdamage DAs, for example. Or staying within the codex, a similar amount of points spent on guardians do 4 damage in the same situation, a 33% increase in damage output.

Finally, the +4" to range is okay I guess, but the -1ap rend is only within 12", the two don't stack very well together. If I was building around an extra 4" on my shurikens, for some weird reason, I'd probably go for cover over 12" as my second choice, just to try and leverage the range increase, and give my wimpy T3 elves more of a chance of surviving.

Maybe MSU dual cat DA with the -3 power and hope your exarch survives the rest of his squad. I could see that for a cheap battalion.. Maybe. At which point I guess youd want the 4" trait but not conviced its worth it just to make luckluster troop choice slightly less rubbish? Biel tan seems better anyway.

I took DA a couple times and tanking on the 4++ can be frustrating your opponent. But whenever I turned up against marines (even before buffs) they just died.. and died horribly.. to intercessors.

Would I take a WS to put DA inside? Nahh seems like a waste.. More valuable stuff to protect - Reapers, dragons psykers characters or wraiths go inside my WS.

So slogging DA is very very very meh. Guardians are just offer more utility. Ulthwe guardians with discipline of the balck guardians are savage. Have an autarch nearby and you don't even need guide. Celestial shield to frustrate your opponent next turn. Heavy platforms to tank wounds etc.

DA need a point drop and max squad increase to make shimmer shield/ asurmen worth it.

 grouchoben wrote:
I think I have to be the negatve nancy here.

DAs are good when paired with jinx and doom - ten DAs lay 2.99 damage on a knight for example. That's okay, I guess?

But literally any gun within range is okay when it's shooting at a doomed/jinxed target. Another way of saying this is: D/J is doing the heavy lifting, not the DAs. Guardsmen shooting frfsrf lasguns at a D/J target would massively outdamage DAs, for example. Or staying within the codex, a similar amount of points spent on guardians do 4 damage in the same situation, a 33% increase in damage output.

Finally, the +4" to range is okay I guess, but the -1ap rend is only within 12", the two don't stack very well together. If I was building around an extra 4" on my shurikens, for some weird reason, I'd probably go for cover over 12" as my second choice, just to try and leverage the range increase, and give my wimpy T3 elves more of a chance of surviving.

Good catch - I didn't realize there was a range limitation of the -1 ap.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Argive wrote:
Maybe MSU dual cat DA with the -3 power and hope your exarch survives the rest of his squad. I could see that for a cheap battalion.. Maybe. At which point I guess youd want the 4" trait but not conviced its worth it just to make luckluster troop choice slightly less rubbish? Biel tan seems better anyway.

I took DA a couple times and tanking on the 4++ can be frustrating your opponent. But whenever I turned up against marines (even before buffs) they just died.. and died horribly.. to intercessors.

Would I take a WS to put DA inside? Nahh seems like a waste.. More valuable stuff to protect - Reapers, dragons psykers characters or wraiths go inside my WS.

So slogging DA is very very very meh. Guardians are just offer more utility. Ulthwe guardians with discipline of the balck guardians are savage. Have an autarch nearby and you don't even need guide. Celestial shield to frustrate your opponent next turn. Heavy platforms to tank wounds etc.

DA need a point drop and max squad increase to make shimmer shield/ asurmen worth it.

Asurman point drop would be fantastic.

I think the exarch with the auto -3 ap shots dual wielding is the best way to run avengers at the moment.
I'm running a double battalion in my next game with six five man squads, 24 shots at -3 should add up, I hope!
With the -1 ap trait and the always in cover trait, loaded into three vectored serpents that should add up to a good screen clearing force.

Big blobs of Dire Avengers doesn't really work unfortunately, even with the buffs, but you could invest in Asurmen for a footdar list and that would be pretty cool to see.

MSU Dire Avengers are the way to go imo, give the Exarch his -3AP catapult shots and have them hide in tanks the whole game or screen your more important units.

I personally think the Biel-Tan trait is still decent for them, but something can be said for +4" range and ignore cover, which makes them pretty decent should you decide to use them as an expensive guardian bomb.

 Tyranid Horde wrote:
Big blobs of Dire Avengers doesn't really work unfortunately, even with the buffs, but you could invest in Asurmen for a footdar list and that would be pretty cool to see.

MSU Dire Avengers are the way to go imo, give the Exarch his -3AP catapult shots and have them hide in tanks the whole game or screen your more important units.

I personally think the Biel-Tan trait is still decent for them, but something can be said for +4" range and ignore cover, which makes them pretty decent should you decide to use them as an expensive guardian bomb.

Asurman is so damn expensive through. And bladestorm can be useful vs something like daemons where AP means nothing.
But since SM are so popular the -3AP look to good.

Marin wrote:

 Tyranid Horde wrote:
Big blobs of Dire Avengers doesn't really work unfortunately, even with the buffs, but you could invest in Asurmen for a footdar list and that would be pretty cool to see.

MSU Dire Avengers are the way to go imo, give the Exarch his -3AP catapult shots and have them hide in tanks the whole game or screen your more important units.

I personally think the Biel-Tan trait is still decent for them, but something can be said for +4" range and ignore cover, which makes them pretty decent should you decide to use them as an expensive guardian bomb.

Asurman is so damn expensive through. And bladestorm can be useful vs something like daemons where AP means nothing.
But since SM are so popular the -3AP look to good.

100% agree with you. -3AP is the best option for a marine dominated meta.

 Tyranid Horde wrote:

Marin wrote:

 Tyranid Horde wrote:
Big blobs of Dire Avengers doesn't really work unfortunately, even with the buffs, but you could invest in Asurmen for a footdar list and that would be pretty cool to see.

MSU Dire Avengers are the way to go imo, give the Exarch his -3AP catapult shots and have them hide in tanks the whole game or screen your more important units.

I personally think the Biel-Tan trait is still decent for them, but something can be said for +4" range and ignore cover, which makes them pretty decent should you decide to use them as an expensive guardian bomb.

Asurman is so damn expensive through. And bladestorm can be useful vs something like daemons where AP means nothing.
But since SM are so popular the -3AP look to good.

100% agree with you. -3AP is the best option for a marine dominated meta.

That option did appeal to me but it is just 4 shots which doesn't even average 2 wounds and 1/3 of those exarch wounds would have been ap-3 anyways. Blades storm seems to be much more effective. Often you are shooting at the doomed target (with high toughness) with your avengers too - so your chance of wounding is even lower and your 5/6 to wound is 50% of your wounds being ap -3 anyways. Blade storm seems much better. It increases your potential damage - functions best with doom - improves your overwatch drastically (not that this matters much lol).

Really I don't think Asurman needs to go down in points - I think he just needs a reroll 1's aura for all aspect warriors in addition to his invo aura.

For 175pts? Reroll *all* for DAs, 1s for others, an invuln save and an extra attack or two might be worth it.

175pts is damn high.

 grouchoben wrote:
The thing is, 5 Intercessors firing with assault bolters with standard reroll 1s will kill 4.5 DAs. That's not a specialised squad, cooked up to kill them or anything, just a bog-standard, 5-man team, that you're going to run into quite a lot, and be expecting your troops to do something about.

That's also 85 points shooting 58, and nearly one-banging them. Asurmen does nothing for them against dakka, neither does a 4++ exarch. They just evaporate under light fire.

Going back quite a bit in the thread - but having thrown some dire avengers on a table, I think this is the problem. At 58 points for 6 wounds, you are paying just under 40% more than Tau Fire Warriors - and I don't think anyone would pretend they are especially hard to kill. Bladestorm is nice, but it doesn't stop the fact a stiff breeze will kill Dire Avengers, and they are not cheap enough that this is inconsequential.

I therefore think you need to take Masters of Concealment for always getting the cover save - which then has a sort of weird anti-synergy with Hail of Doom. (Or it doesn't really, since you can be in 12" of some stuff and out of 12" with other stuff - but people tend to blob up their army, unless they are fast in which case they will just run inside 12" of you as required). Honestly whether you are taking Dire Avengers or not I feel you should be taking this trait if you are not going Alaitoc or Ulthwe.

I realise there is a lot of stuff which ignores cover - and meta wise this may increase as this trait spreads throughout the codexes - but I feel a 3+ save is a considerable upgrade over a 4+.
If you want to go down this road you can then pair that with your 22" range shots - and therefore, in theory at least, out-range most troops with say a 12-15" rapid fire.

Tyel wrote:

 grouchoben wrote:
The thing is, 5 Intercessors firing with assault bolters with standard reroll 1s will kill 4.5 DAs. That's not a specialised squad, cooked up to kill them or anything, just a bog-standard, 5-man team, that you're going to run into quite a lot, and be expecting your troops to do something about.

That's also 85 points shooting 58, and nearly one-banging them. Asurmen does nothing for them against dakka, neither does a 4++ exarch. They just evaporate under light fire.

Going back quite a bit in the thread - but having thrown some dire avengers on a table, I think this is the problem. At 58 points for 6 wounds, you are paying just under 40% more than Tau Fire Warriors - and I don't think anyone would pretend they are especially hard to kill. Bladestorm is nice, but it doesn't stop the fact a stiff breeze will kill Dire Avengers, and they are not cheap enough that this is inconsequential.

I therefore think you need to take Masters of Concealment for always getting the cover save - which then has a sort of weird anti-synergy with Hail of Doom. (Or it doesn't really, since you can be in 12" of some stuff and out of 12" with other stuff - but people tend to blob up their army, unless they are fast in which case they will just run inside 12" of you as required). Honestly whether you are taking Dire Avengers or not I feel you should be taking this trait if you are not going Alaitoc or Ulthwe.

I realise there is a lot of stuff which ignores cover - and meta wise this may increase as this trait spreads throughout the codexes - but I feel a 3+ save is a considerable upgrade over a 4+.
If you want to go down this road you can then pair that with your 22" range shots - and therefore, in theory at least, out-range most troops with say a 12-15" rapid fire.

I think you are expecting to much from your avengers. They were always middle ground unit that have more dakka than rangers and less than guardians, but allowed very small points units.
The new rules just make their dakka a little better, but not something amassing. You have to build your army around them to get real value, probably Biel-Tan is their best trait, since the native reroll of ones is really good with bladestorm. For small unit i will still take -3 AP on exarch since i don`t really like to depend on trolling sixes and sometimes is better to do 2 wounds than to count that the opponent will not make more 3+ saves.

 grouchoben wrote:
For 175pts? Reroll *all* for DAs, 1s for others, an invuln save and an extra attack or two might be worth it.

175pts is damn high.

All the phoenix lords are overcosted. Hopefully they all get updated not just Jainzar.

Marin wrote:
I think you are expecting to much from your avengers. They were always middle ground unit that have more dakka than rangers and less than guardians, but allowed very small points units.
The new rules just make their dakka a little better, but not something amassing. You have to build your army around them to get real value, probably Biel-Tan is their best trait, since the native reroll of ones is really good with bladestorm. For small unit i will still take -3 AP on exarch since i don`t really like to depend on trolling sixes and sometimes is better to do 2 wounds than to count that the opponent will not make more 3+ saves.

I think you are probably right - but I guess its a question of what "legit" means.

I mean fwiw, I think they were okay (not great) before if you just wanted 3 MSU units with dual avenger exarch for filling out a battalion. I don't think rangers, or guardians are dramatically better in themselves. Guardians bring more shots - but only at range 12", and have a worse save and potentially morale issues (generally not an issue though).
As an obsec unit that say sits a Wave Serpent and jumps out say mid/late game to pressure/claim objectives, I feel both do fine.

I guess for me "legit" would be sometthing that is not merely okay, but is good in itself. Something where you can go "I'm going to spend 400-500 points or something on this, and that would be a useful part of my list". This is probably towards the extreme end.

Dire Avengers still aren't good line troops. We really need to find ways to pull of an "ambush" style engagement to make them worth their points.