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Can a unit of canoptek wraiths function well without a destroyer lord.

Why would they need a Destroyer Lord to function?

Just the fact he gives the preferred enemy, with a two up and 3 wounds at toughness 6 he can help against those instant death weapons and with a warscyther he offers an extra punc and even better with MSS, but he makes them much better, but would a squad of 6 be just as good on their own?

Your lord will be T4 if there are more wraiths than him. Majority toughness and whatnot.

Not for figuring out Instant Death.

OP, the DL adds so much to the unit of wraiths, if you're going to use them you really have no reason not to invest in a DL.

Unless for some reason you want a pair of command barges, but I'd still recommend the DL for the wraiths.

 Traceoftoxin wrote:
Not for figuring out Instant Death.

OP, the DL adds so much to the unit of wraiths, if you're going to use them you really have no reason not to invest in a DL.

Unless for some reason you want a pair of command barges, but I'd still recommend the DL for the wraiths.

He does add alot to the unit, but i dont like command barges, they are just not that good IMO and i never see them getting played.

They wouldn't be as effective, but they are still Wraiths, really fast, tough, killy and underpriced Wraiths.

I don't see how you would question wraiths being an effective unit without a D-Lord. the D-Lord is a force multiplier to an already very effective unit.

I run 6 wraiths in a unit, and they simply mow through everything I've run into so far without a D-Lord. I usually lose one or two, but big deal, they are right up there with my scarabs in my top Necron unit picks

Without a D-Lord they are pretty unimpressive. Any decent army will just torrent the gak out of them until they are gone, which won't take very long.

Thud wrote:
Without a D-Lord they are pretty unimpressive. Any decent army will just torrent the gak out of them until they are gone, which won't take very long.

I'm going to have to disagree with you on this.
18" threat range on any given turn, Fearless, Ignore Difficult Terrain, Deep Strike, 3+ Invul, Hammer of Wraith, Make Enemies fight at Initiative 1, and Rending for very reasonable points.... how is that unimpressive? Unimpressive is a unit of Tau fire warriors or IG charging into close combat.

The D-Lord adds are great, re-rolling 1's is always a bonus, but to say their unimpressive is really a disservice to all the abilities the Wraiths have.

Really, if you're only measure of how impressive a unit is, is how well they can take a torrent of gak... well that's a meaningless measure as any unit will die when faced with a torrent of fire. You have a 66% chance to make any one save, which is still way better than most other units out there. There is always going to be a better unit, one that has better saves, one that has better WS, or more attacks, toughness, etc... but really if you have a choice between shooting a unit of 6 Canoptek Wraiths, 6 Necron Warriors, 6 Necron Immortals, 6 Canoptek Scarabs, 6 Lychguard, or 6 Overlords, and your unit was made up of a 3 heavy bolters, a missile launcher and a melta gun, can you tell me which of those Necron units has the best odds of surviving the attack? I'll take the 3+ Invul every time over all the armour ignoring AP.... just saying. Wraiths are not unimpressive, and out of all the necron units may potentially be the most impressive per point.

PE from D-Lords is nice, but not relevant.

D-Lords bring two things that matter. First one is MSS on a character. That's pretty great in itself. The most important thing is the 2+ save on an IC.

And seriously, "3 heavy bolters, a missile launcher and a meltagun"? What? I don't know what kind of guys you are playing against, but my army can reliably take out 18 Wraiths in one turn if they have no one to tank for them.

I'm not even talking about their close combat prowess, which is pretty decent, because it's irrelevant if they're dead.

Thud wrote:
PE from D-Lords is nice, but not relevant.

D-Lords bring two things that matter. First one is MSS on a character. That's pretty great in itself. The most important thing is the 2+ save on an IC.

And seriously, "3 heavy bolters, a missile launcher and a meltagun"? What? I don't know what kind of guys you are playing against, but my army can reliably take out 18 Wraiths in one turn if they have no one to tank for them.

I'm not even talking about their close combat prowess, which is pretty decent, because it's irrelevant if they're dead.

I'd love to know what units your using if you can take out 18 wraiths in one turn??

It takes approximately 6 wounds to kill a wraith (Assuming average rolling) and its sad to say this simply isn't that hard anymore. Tau can pile on that many wounds its not even funny, simply fire warriors with Markerlight/prescience support are astoundingly good at pumping out wounds onto T4 units, which is exactly what wraiths hate. Not to mention large blast strength 8+ like Ion accelerates, demo charges and battle cannons can potentially put a massive dent in this unit. I am assuming he is talking at least 2k pts, because any lower and it would be very hard to have a balanced army that can put out 108 wounds (The amount to kill 18 wraiths).

Back on Topic, yes wraiths can be played without a D-Lord, but I have simply no idea why you wouldn't. He adds so much to the unit, and is such a pain to get rid off (Check out JY2's BRs). Its like saying are Eldar viable without a Farseer, of course they are, but they lose a lot by not taking him.

yeah, I don't see you taking out 18 wraiths in one turn with Tau. I've had my wraiths full out blasted at less than 12" range with the tau double fire from two full fire warriors with all amounts of crazy tau weaponry.... I still only lost 1 wraith in the whole fire storm.

Anecdotal evidence is anecdotal. I've provided the fact of how many wounds it takes to statistically down 18 wraiths, and you tell me its not possible to put out that many wounds in one turn. Tau could do it quite easy, 2 full fire warrior squads with an ethereal and markerlight support/divination support (so lets imagine BS 5, its not like that never happens) causes 40 wounds (3 shots each, 72 shots, Hit on 2's, 60 hits, wound on 3's, 40 wounds) and kill 6 wraiths (13. something wounds). Boom! You just got MathHammer'd!

Just because something can be focussed down by Tau fire doesn't make it bad, otherwise basically everything in the game that isn't a Screamerstar/seer council is bad.

Wraiths were the bee's knees when most armies relied upon the plasma/melta weapons to do the majority of their killing. The invuln save was extremely useful as it made them immune to a lot of that damage.

Now armies have tools that let them throw lots of wounds out that give normal saves -- lowering the value of that invuln save. Wraiths have a hard time dealing with a serpent spam army that can throw out upwards of 90 wounds in one turn.

That means that most eldar armies you run across will be auto-lose for the wraithwing. Its hard to go to a tourney knowing that.

 PrinceRaven wrote:
Just because something can be focussed down by Tau fire doesn't make it bad, otherwise basically everything in the game that isn't a Screamerstar/seer council is bad.

Yeah, pretty much this.

Wraiths don't like volume of fire, but it still takes a lot of volume of fire to down them

I've provided the fact of how many wounds it takes to statistically down 18 wraiths, and you tell me its not possible to put out that many wounds in one turn. Tau could do it quite easy, 2 full fire warrior squads with an ethereal and markerlight support/divination support (so lets imagine BS 5, its not like that never happens) causes 40 wounds (3 shots each, 72 shots, Hit on 2's, 60 hits, wound on 3's, 40 wounds) and kill 6 wraiths (13. something wounds). Boom! You just got MathHammer'd!

I think you are assuming a lot in your favor here, but I think it's pretty clear that it is not easy to wipe away 3 full squads of 18 wraiths in one turn, much less two. Just because something is possible, doesn't mean it is a likely scenario, and downing that many wraiths is just not likely.


Anyway, on topic. Wraiths function well with out a Destroyer Lord, but I'm not quite sure why you would not want to take them. They do A LOT for the squad, and are our best generic HQ.

Is there a Reason you don't wish to take Dlords?

That means that most eldar armies you run across will be auto-lose for the wraithwing. Its hard to go to a tourney knowing that.

While I don't play full on Wraithwing, I tend to struggle more with 2+ save MCs, than Wave Serpent spam with my Necrons.

 Sasori wrote:
I think you are assuming a lot in your favor here, but I think it's pretty clear that it is not easy to wipe away 3 full squads of 18 wraiths in one turn, much less two. Just because something is possible, doesn't mean it is a likely scenario, and downing that many wraiths is just not likely..

I wish I could agree, but I see a lot of armies today that have the tools needed to address this issue.

An eldar player with 6 wave serpents and two wraithknights can deliver a ton of damage. Each wave serpent can deal ~10 wounds, and then the guardians/avengers inside can hop out and throw their shuriken cats at the target. Any wraiths left can be tied up by wraithknights.

Pure Tau are not as dangerous, and I think that wraiths could swarm them. However, tau/dar is a different story -- and the difference is twin linking combined with 'doom'. Those force multipliers really can change the scope of the outcome. A lot also depends on the Tau/Dars gear. Missile broadsides can deliver a ton of wounds.

Marines can provide some challenging builds. The centurian deathstar with grav amp cents can produce a lot of wounds when combined with psyker buffs. 5 of those guys will clear one squad of wraiths per turn on average. Flyer heavy lists "Vanilla Sky" lists can prove a big problem.

I'm not saying you can't make wraiths work -- I just see them as more mid-tier than high-end tier. The torrent of fire stats reflect this.

 labmouse42 wrote:

 Sasori wrote:
I think you are assuming a lot in your favor here, but I think it's pretty clear that it is not easy to wipe away 3 full squads of 18 wraiths in one turn, much less two. Just because something is possible, doesn't mean it is a likely scenario, and downing that many wraiths is just not likely..

I wish I could agree, but I see a lot of armies today that have the tools needed to address this issue.

An eldar player with 6 wave serpents and two wraithknights can deliver a ton of damage. Each wave serpent can deal ~10 wounds, and then the guardians/avengers inside can hop out and throw their shuriken cats at the target. Any wraiths left can be tied up by wraithknights.

Pure Tau are not as dangerous, and I think that wraiths could swarm them. However, tau/dar is a different story -- and the difference is twin linking combined with 'doom'. Those force multipliers really can change the scope of the outcome. A lot also depends on the Tau/Dars gear. Missile broadsides can deliver a ton of wounds.

Marines can provide some challenging builds. The centurian deathstar with grav amp cents can produce a lot of wounds when combined with psyker buffs. 5 of those guys will clear one squad of wraiths per turn on average. Flyer heavy lists "Vanilla Sky" lists can prove a big problem.

I'm not saying you can't make wraiths work -- I just see them as more mid-tier than high-end tier. The torrent of fire stats reflect this.

I get what you are saying, but I've found in practice this very rarely happens in actual play. I do take a lot of wounds, but I have yet to have them wipe out all of my Wraiths in a single turn. I just find between LOS blocking Terrain, the losses they sustain from firepower, and average rolling, that It just doesn't tend to happen.

That being said, it is a possibility, but it really depends on a lot of things going the Eldar/ Tau players way.

My caveat being I haven't faced a lot of TauDar.

This may be a good time to start throwing in more Ancanthrites now, instead of Wraiths. They are a bit more expensive, but they have T5, and 3W, str 6 Melta guns, and Voidblades. They just lack the invul save, but as you have stated, Plasma isn't really much of an issue anymore.

The reason to field wraiths without a DLord is because you want two Veilmark squads, for example.

I always thought Wraiths were a little overrated, but they do fill a great role no other Necron unit really does - they kill MCs fairly reliably. Tesla Destructors I'm finding to be less and less useful as of late; they're incredible at taking out vehicles and tough infantry, but are just insufficient against high T things. In a game where Tyranids, Eldar, Tau and Grey Knights all get MCs that give my AV13 wall list fits (turns out that you can't really kill fusion toting Riptides heading towards you with S4 gauss and S7 tesla) Wraiths are practically needed. Now, scarabs can do a great job tying up Riptides and a big enough group with support can tie up stuff like a Tervigon, but not for very long. With that in mind, it's really pointless wondering how good Wraiths are - you need them anyway. People can dispute this all they want, but I've no idea what else can be done in 6th and I've never seen a Necron list do well without at least one unit. You just need something durable which can rush the enemy and contest objectives - every army in the game has these units now.

Now, if you play with FW, you have an alternative - Acanthrites. T5 W3 3+ stealth means that a unit of 5-6 takes a stunning amount of shooting to kill. Still jump, still rending, less attacks, less strength. These guys are insanely good VS small arms - you're looking at 130 BS5 S5 shots to kill the unit. Sure, they're tarpited easier - but they're also jump, so you can avoid most tarpits. That extra durability WILL get your D Lord through. Barring your opponent bringing mass S10 AP3 ignores cover shooting (at which point frankly you have bigger issues) they will hit something. So where's their advantage over Wraiths? Entropic Strike+durability. One rend from one of them means the enemy loses their save for the rest of the game. The things that used to do well against them like TEQ are weak in the current meta. They also munch vehicles - 6 weak melta shots followed by entropic strike and a warscythe is the doom of any vehicle in the game. All the S8 and S9 blasts from Riptides will maybe kill 2 Acanthrites if they all huddle together, less if they don't ignore cover (but they almost always will). They're super potent and it still bugs me to see people say they are bad - this is a unit that's almost as durable as a Riptide point for point. So what if you don't kill everything? If you're in assault on top of an enemy objective, that's an objective they can neither shoot you off nor hold. 9 of them with a D Lord is pretty much unkillable. Certainly worth consideration.

 Sasori wrote:
I get what you are saying, but I've found in practice this very rarely happens in actual play. I do take a lot of wounds, but I have yet to have them wipe out all of my Wraiths in a single turn. I just find between LOS blocking Terrain, the losses they sustain from firepower, and average rolling, that It just doesn't tend to happen.

I've not played any wraithWing lists since this past Adepticon. They have just fallen off the east coast meta.

These are the most popular armies today according to ToF. How do you think your 'crons handle this list?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Army Allies Players Percent Win Percent ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Eldar -none- 371 8.08% 59.84% Chaos Daemons -none- 351 7.64% 58.40% Necrons -none- 276 6.01% 52.17% Tau Empire -none- 253 5.51% 58.10% Chaos Daemons CSM 230 5.01% 63.48% Tau Empire Tau Empire 200 4.35% 63.00% Eldar Tau Empire 191 4.16% 71.20% Tyranids -none- 188 4.09% 48.94% Grey Knights -none- 172 3.74% 42.44% Space Marines -none- 165 3.59% 43.03%

 Sasori wrote:
This may be a good time to start throwing in more Ancanthrites now, instead of Wraiths. They are a bit more expensive, but they have T5, and 3W, str 6 Melta guns, and Voidblades. They just lack the invul save, but as you have stated, Plasma isn't really much of an issue anymore.

Is that forgeworld? They sound pretty sweet. Are they 3+ save models and still move 12"?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Eyjio wrote:
it's really pointless wondering how good Wraiths are - you need them anyway. People can dispute this all they want, but I've no idea what else can be done in 6th and I've never seen a Necron list do well without at least one unit. You just need something durable which can rush the enemy and contest objectives - every army in the game has these units now.

The question is "How many wraiths do you need". 6, 12, 18?

That list is quite telling, and honestly isn't too suprsing.

I think Necrons stack up well enough against Solo Eldar and Solo Tau. I think, depnding on the build, Solo Daemons are an issue.

TauDar, however is a really diffrent story for Necrons. The Average TauDar list is a really hard counter though.


Necrons will just have to adapt, I think one of the issues is, that a lot of the old Netlists just don't work anymore, and it's going to take some tinkering to figure out the solution. I know I had been tinkering with a lot more of my lists before I left, and no giant solution has appeared.

JY2 is a good example of playing Necrons still, and winning.

Ancanthrites help a lot though. Volume of fire doesn't work near as well against them, and with stealth they can take some high AP shots too. Gauss Pylons also help a lot, as they have the range, Strength and AP to deal with things like Riptides and Wraithknights at range.

http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Downloads/Product/PDF/a/acanthrite.pdf These are the rules before they became offical. Statwise, they are the exact same as in IA12. They only went up on points.

However, Forgeworld is not a solution available to everyone.

I'd rather face ancanthrites than wraiths.

Rad Grenade + Auspex + plasma talons + Typhoon support squadron donating 8-10 missiles.

 Sasori wrote:
That list is quite telling, and honestly isn't too suprsing.

This is the list that's winning "most often". What's really crazy is the differences between the lists. Its the subject of my next "SimHammer" segement which should be released in the few days on the 11th company podcast.
--------------------------------------------------------- Army Allies Players Win Percent --------------------------------------------------------- Eldar Tau Empire 191 71.20% Tau Empire Eldar 160 68.13% Eldar Dark Eldar 140 63.57% Chaos Daemons CSM 230 63.48% Tau Empire Tau Empire 200 63.00% Necrons Tau Empire 52 61.54% Eldar -none- 371 59.84% Tau Empire Space Marines 67 59.70% Grey Knights Tau Empire 44 59.09% Chaos Daemons -none- 351 58.40%
Edit : Allies are the key. Notice how many of the winning armies have allies. Notice how many of the most popular armies have allies. If 'crons want the tools to fill in their missing gaps, they should look to allies.

Thud wrote:
Without a D-Lord they are pretty unimpressive. Any decent army will just torrent the gak out of them until they are gone, which won't take very long.

Never before as such foolishness been posted on dakka.

Implying that a torrent of fire won't kill the squad if it has a lord. Hersey.

Well I don't play wraith wing, I just have one unit of 6, and wondered if i should play them with a destroyer lord and if it will make a difference.

 necronspurs2012 wrote:
Well I don't play wraith wing, I just have one unit of 6, and wondered if i should play them with a destroyer lord and if it will make a difference.

It will make a difference, they benefit greatly from a geared out Dlord.

I've found a solid combination to be Nemesor Z, and then the D Lord attached to the Wraiths so that the Nemesor can buff them accordingly (giving the D Lord and Wraiths Furious Charge is hilarious).