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Ok, this sounds like a weird question from an Eldar player, but I've always had a hard time seeing anything more out of an Avatar than just being a useful Fearless bubble for foot infantry. I'll admit I've not got or used one yet (next buy hopefully), but when I see Wraithwall lists with Avatars, all I can think is 'but they're already Fearless anyway'...

I guess I'm asking;

1- Does a Fortuned T6 4++ 4w survive long enough to get into combat?
2- Does it wreck face once it is there?

Common Dakka, convince me!

Ok - It's 155pts for a montrous creature and all that entails.

Completely immune to heat based weaponry.

I6 + WS10.

Going first in cc most of the time and unless you're ws5 or above, you're only hitting on 5+6's in cc.
I used mine against a heresy army - I managed to tie up horus with one for 5 rounds of combat.

For its cost it wrecks face -- especially when fortuned.

I've had mine stomp Ork warbosses, daemon princes, marine captains, etc into the ground. Ive had it grind up MEQ squads and enemy walkers.
What it will not grind up are heavy hitters. Abbadon or Ghaz will put it down.

Thanks for the replies guys, I'm used to playing Fuegan who has a better save (even if not invunerable) and a bodyguard of harlequins or warlocks to LoS any ap2 or lower.

Compared to that I just imagine the Avatar being a lascannon magnet for two turns then dying before getting to CC (though the mathhammer says he should take 30 shots before going down, which i guess would be 155pts well spent!).

Any advice on how best to make sure he gets into assault?

 Farseer_Kaiser wrote:
Compared to that I just imagine the Avatar being a lascannon magnet for two turns then dying before getting to CC (though the mathhammer says he should take 30 shots before going down, which i guess would be 155pts well spent!).

Any advice on how best to make sure he gets into assault?

That's 30 shots that your war walkers/wraithlords are not taking.

Simple. Put him 24" from your enemy lines. Run him every turn. It will take him a few turns to get there, but he will. If your opponent runs, hes giving you board control.

Or have multiple monstrous creatures.

In 2000pts+ I have him with 3 wraithlords and a wraithseer. He tends to avoid firepower as he advances with that lot as the T8 models with the big guns take target priority away from him.

Other than that, it's fortune him and hug cover time. The trick is target saturation - give your opponant something else to worry about first.

To answer your second question - with Fortune up he can basically take on anything in the game in assault. He probably loses to Abbadon but at least lasts for a round or two before he dies (which is more than can be said for most other combat characters). Ghaz hardly puts him down either, he gets ~2 wounds on the Avatar per round, which is less than a wound per turn after Fortune, and in return the Avatar is going to get a wound back (at a higher I step). Ghaz has the edge if he Waaagh's for the 2++, but he is hardly demolishing the Avatar and could easily lose if he gets charged without his Waaagh to fall back on. I suspect the Swarmlord would beat him actually, their stats are very similar but the Swarmlord has an extra wound. He matches up well to plenty of combat characters/MCs/Dreads even without Fortune up because the ones that hit hard enough to wound him reliably (i.e Lysander) don't have the volume of attacks to get past the WS10 4++. Also the ability to smash is very nice with characters running around without invulnerable saves or EW now.

Imo the Avatar isn't a great choice in a Wraithguard heavy list, he is a nice combat threat which will make people think twice before charging straight at you, but in a Wraithguard list he stands out even more. Generally in those lists you want to hide the combat punch inside the Wraithguard units rather than running them alongside.

I run mine in a list with 2-3 Wraithlords as an assault deterrent for my mobile gunline. He sucks up quite a bit of firepower and ensures that people don't waste shots on your fragile Eldar scoring units early on. Your first question is kinda hard to answer though. Against an aggressive army (close range shooting or assault heavy) he almost certainly will get into combat, such lists rarely have the kind of fire support needed to crush him from range through Fortune (usually they bring enough shooting to open up transports and take out weak fire support units so the rest of the army can do their thing once they get up close). The trick against these lists is to make sure he doesn't end up taking on too much, keep him away from massed poison attacks and Fearless blobs where he can get stuck (Ork Mobs and Guardsmen blobs can wound him and he won't be breaking them). Against more shooty/highly mobile armies there is no guarantee he will hit combat, but that doesn't make him useless. The thing is that against these kinds of lists he is an even bigger threat, since once he hits their lines he can roll up half an army. Essentially you just have to run at people quickly and force them to deal with him. When I played Tau he died about turn 4 without having assaulted anything, but he had absorbed so much that the 3 Wraithlords following along just behind him were completely untouched. It also meant that the Tau player had ended up boxed against his edge trying to avoid me, which meant I easily held my backfield objectives and got the win. My last game against Guard was much the same, the Avatar died turn 3, but the Wraithlords behind him then got stuck in and I won because I managed to walk the Relic almost back to the complete opposite corner since he didn't want to advance past the Avatar. The best way to get him to combat against these lists would be to get a nice piece of LOS blocking terrain near the center of the board which would let the Avatar get at least halfway across the board completely untouched, but obviously you can't rely on that.

Powerguy wrote:
Ghaz hardly puts him down either, he gets ~2 wounds on the Avatar per round, which is less than a wound per turn after Fortune, and in return the Avatar is going to get a wound back (at a higher I step). Ghaz has the edge if he Waaagh's for the 2++, but he is hardly demolishing the Avatar and could easily lose if he gets charged without his Waaagh to fall back on. I.

Lets mathhammer it out!

Ghaz on Avatar
50% × 83.33% × 50.00% × 25% × 7 attacks = 0.73 wounds to avatar on round one.
50% × 83.33% × 50.00% × 25% × 5 attacks = 0.52 wounds to avatar on subsequent rounds
That means if Ghaz charges, the avatar will die in ~7.27 rounds.

Avatar on Ghaz
66.66% × 66.66% × 50.00% × 16.66% × 4 attacks = 0.29 wounds to avatar on round one and two (waagh lasts 2 rounds)
66.66% × 66.66% × 50.00% × 25% × 4 attacks = 1.18 wounds to avatar on subsequent rounds
That means if Ghaz charges, the avatar will die in ~4.87 rounds.

I stand corrected. The avatar will eat Ghaz. If Ghaz has 30 boys to gives him 6 rerolls a turn, he might be able to pull it off, but alone Ghaz will get eaten.

 Farseer_Kaiser wrote:
Ok, this sounds like a weird question from an Eldar player, but I've always had a hard time seeing anything more out of an Avatar than just being a useful Fearless bubble for foot infantry. I'll admit I've not got or used one yet (next buy hopefully), but when I see Wraithwall lists with Avatars, all I can think is 'but they're already Fearless anyway'...

I guess I'm asking;

1- Does a Fortuned T6 4++ 4w survive long enough to get into combat?
2- Does it wreck face once it is there?

Common Dakka, convince me!

Well, he wrecks face once he's there. Think about an Assault squad who will be eaten by him. (I'm too lazy to do the math).
However, he may have a hard way to get there. Think about sniper rifles. He needs to be fortuned all the time if there is a chance that he can be shot. But then you need effectively need Eldrad to fortune him.

Without fortune, the avatar goes down pretty easily. He is an absolute beast in CC, and a good way to tear open tanks and cut down models.

Hordes will kill him, as well as a lot of AT fire. If he eats a ton of shots, he did his job. Killing things in CC is just gravy.

Just yesterday (and day before yesterday) some friends of mine experienced the wrath of Khaine.

He ate 6 Tyranid Warriors with Lashwhip/Boneswords while being charged by them. Just smashed his way out.
He charged a group of 30 Termagaunts and after 2 turns, when i finally took care of Tervigon on the other flank, he could Sweeping Advance all of them.
He was also eating Land Raider's with a little help from Fire Dragons.
In 4 games that I played with him he died only once and that was to a group of Long Fangs (they caused 2 wounds but my enemy had the first turn so he didn't have his Fortune yet) and the other 2 wounds were caused by a group of 5 Thunderwolf Cavalry with a Wolf Lord.

I usually run him with a nearby unit of 10 Harlequins and an Eldrad. While fortuned he can easily kill things like Mephiston and many other. Just try not to charge huge units of guys with fearless or units with lots pf poison attacks. He's probably not the best Monstrous Creature you've got out there in this universe but when you look at his cost he is a total beast.

He's a bargain for the points. But if he's the only big target you have then he's not going to last past turn 2. In a list with wraithlords or wraithguard or some other tough units he should do fine. Not to mention his high initiative means he can give most other mc's in the game a good run even though he is often almost half the points.

CrowSplat wrote:
He's a bargain for the points. But if he's the only big target you have then he's not going to last past turn 2. In a list with wraithlords or wraithguard or some other tough units he should do fine. Not to mention his high initiative means he can give most other mc's in the game a good run even though he is often almost half the points.

Ditto there... the Avatar needs something scary along side it to stay on the table... basically, the Avatar is great in a footdar list... but, not so great in a mech'ed up list.

 labmouse42 wrote:

Powerguy wrote:
Ghaz hardly puts him down either, he gets ~2 wounds on the Avatar per round, which is less than a wound per turn after Fortune, and in return the Avatar is going to get a wound back (at a higher I step). Ghaz has the edge if he Waaagh's for the 2++, but he is hardly demolishing the Avatar and could easily lose if he gets charged without his Waaagh to fall back on. I.

Lets mathhammer it out!

Ghaz on Avatar
50% × 83.33% × 50.00% × 25% × 7 attacks = 0.73 wounds to avatar on round one.
50% × 83.33% × 50.00% × 25% × 5 attacks = 0.52 wounds to avatar on subsequent rounds
That means if Ghaz charges, the avatar will die in ~7.27 rounds.

Avatar on Ghaz
66.66% × 66.66% × 50.00% × 16.66% × 4 attacks = 0.29 wounds to avatar on round one and two (waagh lasts 2 rounds)
66.66% × 66.66% × 50.00% × 25% × 4 attacks = 1.18 wounds to avatar on subsequent rounds
That means if Ghaz charges, the avatar will die in ~4.87 rounds.

I stand corrected. The avatar will eat Ghaz. If Ghaz has 30 boys to gives him 6 rerolls a turn, he might be able to pull it off, but alone Ghaz will get eaten.

How does Ghaz have 7 attacks btw? He has 5 on profile and a specialist weapon.

Powerguy wrote:
How does Ghaz have 7 attacks btw? He has 5 on profile and a specialist weapon.

IIRC +2 when he charges due to his skull

It's not outstanding as far as stats go, although it is really good, there are better MC's but it's price is what makes it exceptional.

i run the avatar next to eldrad who has joined a full unit of striking scorpions. That holds one flank while the rest of my army takes the other. works rather well and a fortuned 4++ is just awesome