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So after seeing this post on the army list forum I wanted to swing the idea by you tacticians to see what y'all thought of its viability.
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/551075.page

He has 10 wraithblades (with axes) with eldrad and 5 spiritseers with the Iyanden wargear upgrades (Helm and Wraithforge stone)

On paper this seems like a beast of a unit, 4++ all around, rerollable, battlefocus, and most likely an extra 3' when running and all the other benefits 5 ml2 psykers + eldrad can bring. Its tough, its relatively fast and between psychic shrieks and s7 ap2 in melee should deal some pain if it can reach the enemy.

My question is whether or not for 920 points its worth it? Is there a way to do more or less the same thing but better? And if it does seem like a good idea what would probably be the best units to support such a set up?

10 models with T6 and 2+/4++ is one of the scariest things I can imagine walking across the board. (With 5 Spiritseers you can propably count on +1 armor power).

However, it's not invincible (for example Dev squad with 4 Plasma cannons). Might suprise some armies but if they know you're playing Iyanden, you're screwed.

A good unit and if even half of them will make it on the assault, that should be enough to bring the pain... But 920 points? Too risky.

Finally! My Medusas have something to shoot at!

What a good use of 900pts (!). It won't even be fun because it wont make combat with anything that matters and people simply won't bother shooting at the star when you have weak objective holding eldarz to eat.

There are better deathstars in either the seer council or an allied beastpack (Less survivable, but the highest damage output of any deathstar Pt for Pt) who are both much faster and leaves pts for the rest of the army.

The Wraith-star is actually viable--just use Wraithguard and not Wraithblades. Quicken stacks, so the unit has quite a bit of range (when coupled with the Iyanden primaris power).

You'd have to add the Baron for hit'n'run which adds even more points into the unit, defensive grenades and stealth. But if quicken stacks then they might be a reasonable threat, but the amount of shots really outs a dampener on the unit.

I agree its expensive (the point of the post being whether its prohibitively or not) but I think some of the finer points are potentially being missed. For one its faster than you'd think, at 6+d6+3 and charging ahead its going to be in the enemies face relatively quickly, I dont know if quicken stacks but that makes it even more dangerous. Also I fail to see how a medusa, and the like is really all that dangerous, theyre still getting 4++ saves and now you're dropping heavy ordinance on them. While its definitely expensive at 1850 you still have over 900 points to spend on dakka and other units. Finally theres something to be said about psychic scream/destructor and the other witchfire powers, clearly if youre taking them you're losing out on some of the defensive spells, but 3-4 psychic screams is still going to cause some damage, the point being its got a bit more kill in it than I think people are giving it credit for. Again this is all speculation and I'm still just trying to get opinions on the unit.

How would you run something similar (wraiths+seers) to maximize potential, and what other things need to be in the list to counter its weaknesses? Thanks for all the responses so far.

If you wanted to run a wraithstar, you should use it as you should every eldar assault unit bar scorpions. As a counter assault unit. Take a unit of 5 wraithblades with ghost weapon of choice, although axes don't always have the attacks to bail a unit out. And a beat stick DE HQ along the lines of either an Archon with a Djin blade for amount of attacks the unit lacks, a cheap succubus with an Agoniser, or the Baron for utility and +1 t go first.

They stay with your main force and counter assault anything that gets close. This unit will have just enough power to carve through a full assault squad but not enough to kill a horde, so use it for its perpose and don't go charging forward on your own unless you have fortune on a shadowfield (Majority T6 with a 2++ re-rollable, yes please!). This leaves you HQ choices for farseers to either buff your guns, or buff the wraiths before an assault.

No one unit should be able to walk up to an army and kill it. The big issue being they spend at least 2 turns walking, meaning they can only tops kill 4 units. While all your guns can cut down several units, and the enemy has to second guess if his assault unit can withstand a charge from this unit.

I think you overestimate that 4+ Inv.
As being said, they're not invincible. That save will help to keep them alive but if the enemy has sense, he'll either avoid this unit (therefore making it a 900p area denier), or shoot it down (therefore making it a 900p distraction).

You asked if it's worth the points and I say (again) that it's not.

Thanks for the replies. I guess at this point the question is at what point if any it becomes worth the cost? The 920 unit is full with all the whistles (including a wraithforge stone for a presumed wk/wl that isnt factored in). Is there a potential sweet spot you could hit if you started dropping seers? Drop two seers and the stone and you're at 720, dropping eldrad (not sure its a great idea) for a standard farseer puts you down another 100. Considering the bulk of the units strength is fortune/battle focus/quicken and all the others are merely gravy (although protect is huge), how many seers do you really need? And at that point would it be worth it?

Colgado wrote:
Thanks for the replies. I guess at this point the question is at what point if any it becomes worth the cost? The 920 unit is full with all the whistles (including a wraithforge stone for a presumed wk/wl that isnt factored in). Is there a potential sweet spot you could hit if you started dropping seers? Drop two seers and the stone and you're at 720, dropping eldrad (not sure its a great idea) for a standard farseer puts you down another 100. Considering the bulk of the units strength is fortune/battle focus/quicken and all the others are merely gravy (although protect is huge), how many seers do you really need? And at that point would it be worth it?

I'd drop at least two seers to get to down into the 700 point range to make this unit a little more paletable. It is still slow (going to take at least two turns with decent run rolls to cover the gap) and vulnerable to being isolated by mechanized or mobile opponents. It is also highly vulnerable to the new grav weapons (grav amp centurions will average between 9-10 wounds before saves) and for the points, every wraith you lose is a big hit. It's not a terrible death star, but it lacks the mobility + range to really influence the game.

I would go towards weight of wounds rather than trying to make a *star out of wraithguard.

For 900 points you can buy near 30 wraithguard. Instead of spending so much to try to make 10 wraithguard invincible, spend a little more to make 30 wraithguard threatening.

3x9 wraithguard + 4 spiritseers is about 1100 points. They cover a massive portion of the table, can all get VoT, and may have one or more of the helpful powers such as protect or quickening. Add in a few rolls on the telepathy table for psychic shriek, and you can even do OK with hordes.

This is before filling the army out with WK, WL, or more wraithguard or support units, and its 27 T6 wounds. They're going to have to kill each of those units to the last model, and with the large bases of WG, it isn't that easy to do, even with low-AP blasts.

It is more advisable to take more wraithguard, rather than try to make one squad invincible, because if something fails, the army falls apart around a broken lynchpin.

Bury your opponent under weight of wounds. It is the Iyanden way.