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Are Dire Avengers worth it to take in groups of 5? or are they almost always better in 10's
I am running a Wraith Based eldar army but at the risk of being a little cheesy i wanted to
try and squeeze two more wave serpents into my list (already have 4) but i didnt want the
units i put into the transports to be a waste of points. Advice and thought appreciated.

I imagine a lot of the reason tournament lists favor Dire Avengers in MSU is so you have the points to take more wave serpents.

Pop them out at the end of the game to take objectives; you don't need more than 5 dudes for that.

 Truth118 wrote:
I imagine a lot of the reason tournament lists favor Dire Avengers in MSU is so you have the points to take more wave serpents.

Pop them out at the end of the game to take objectives; you don't need more than 5 dudes for that.

I like it, Great answer. Short sweet and to the point. Thank you.

If you actually want to kill things with your DA, you want 10 of them.

Martel732 wrote:
If you actually want to kill things with your DA, you want 10 of them.

well i only plan on taking two units of 5 for the extra wave serpents, my wraithgaurd/blades will be doing the heavy lifting for the most part (also in waveserpents)

Honestly you should try fork out the point to get Guardians, they are cheaper then a 10 Man DA squad and put out the same damage, as you are in a transport that little bit of range lost matters less. They also have more bodies for scoring and access to support weapons if you see the need.

Take a 5 man squad if you want a scoring upgrade for the Wave Serpents, take a 10 man Guardian squad if you want them to accomplish anything.

Well, its a tradeoff. Either you want MSU units with small DA units which have little impact or larger units with larger impact.

My experience from RTTs is that the latter is the better choice. The Serpents are the work horses in a mech Eldar list, but in some game you need the extra impact given by the DA or Guardians.

The choice of Guardians over Dire Avengers depends on how fluff driven you want your army to be tho. The mainstay of an Eldar army (fluff-wise) is always Dire Avengers, Guardians are only deployed as a last resort.

Purely thinking in game tactics there is nothing wrong with 5 Avengers in a Wave Serpent, they're cost effective, fluffy and useful all at once as long as all you want them to do is take objectives late game and have other units in your list to do actual killing, which is why you'll be wanting the extra Wave Serpents.

konort ranger wrote:
The choice of Guardians over Dire Avengers depends on how fluff driven you want your army to be tho. The mainstay of an Eldar army (fluff-wise) is always Dire Avengers, Guardians are only deployed as a last resort.

Purely thinking in game tactics there is nothing wrong with 5 Avengers in a Wave Serpent, they're cost effective, fluffy and useful all at once as long as all you want them to do is take objectives late game and have other units in your list to do actual killing, which is why you'll be wanting the extra Wave Serpents.

Well, sometimes you will need take down a unit and there will be a few guys left. Then Dire Avengers or Guardians could be used to get the job done. Here five Avengers might be too les..

I prefer Dire Avengers in order to stay out of rapid fire range. To me, increased numbers that the Guardians provide dont mean much if you are taking twice the amount of return fire, especially with them having LD 8 and 5+ saves.

I've posted this before, but my Avenger squads have a few different setups depending on my list, and what role I want them to fulfil.

If you want a cheap Serpent, take 5. Jump them out on turn 5-6, and keep them hidden if their serpent bites it. Sit back and hold home objectives. Don't jump them out earlier than turn 5, unless there is something they can definitely kill, and will be safe from retaliation.

If I want them to actually accomplish something, a naked unit of 8 seems to be a good number. Still cheap, and they can actually put the hurt on things with their shooting. 8 is a good number for a few reasons. It costs the same as 10 Guardians+HWP, but has better armour and Ld9. Getting a save from bolters, and not running away as easily means that you can actually pit them against troops units from other codex, and have them win. I roll this many in a Serpent, and set them the task of taking midfield objectives, and vulnerable troops on my opponents flanks. Use battlefocus well with this number.

I take a full unit of 10, with a Shimmershield Exarch. This is usually for friendly games, when I want a nice fluffy place to put my farseer (or a phoenix lord). Having a ++ is fantastic, and with someone like Asurmen, they can do some work in CC. Between having guide/prescience overwatch, high init and counter-attack, they can be a scary unit for your opponent to charge. A big unit with psychic support gets really scary.