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 BlaxicanX wrote:
I still think it's a MASSIVE fallacy to still even be considering the canoptek harvest.

Why bother taking the formation when you can just get 18 coil-wraiths for <800 points? Wraiths are insanely durable even without the 4+ RP and 18 of them is a threat-level that no army can handle.

The harvest formation is an expensive honey-trap, and for the purposes of this thread its nothing more than a red herring for the skeptics to latch onto.

Exactly. My strategy for wraiths is to use MSU and ignore them, I would be WAY more excited to see someone wasting points to increase their druability since they won't use it.

I am happier now either way however since overall, wraith spam lost the fire support it once had. Or at least until some other option is discovered thats been missed. NS and AB combined with the new 10 warrior min makes a big impact after you add up multiple units.


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Bharring wrote:
Assault an msu t3
And t4
And t5
On average, and t6

258/4 = 64.5

Most codexes have something in that price range, but building an entire army out of them?

And you can't counter by just throwing in a few of them. Wraiths have a wide threatrange to pick their targets from.


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(This thread reminds me of ones from when the Serpent Shield rules leaked...)

Well considering marines can choose to combat squad between games it's not like it is a hard design choice. Look at most of the current tyranid lists in their thread if you don't believe me. It's all ripper swarms, mutalids and min genestealers/lictors. Orks and IG have obvious answers. DE almost exclusively does MSU...

You also don't throw anything at the wraiths to counter them, you simple play the objectives. I don't get why it's hard to understand. I passively let you do your thing while I do mine. Your high cost unit can only attack me in small bites, in a game with very finite turns you won't cover your price tag. It's the whole principle of MSU and why it's been used for editions now.

 Red Corsair wrote:

Pdogg614 wrote:
The issue is that wraiths are just so damn effecient for what they bring to the army. The opponent having a durable unit that can get into your boardside and pick off anything it wants and you cant do anything about it is insane.

Greatly blown out of proportion.

They hardly kill anything in one go unless its something like a combat squad.

Combat Squad= MSU

MSU > Then 258 pt units that can only assault one well positioned target at a time.

Red, I feel your pain.
Every single reply is; oh no, they are so tough.... I need 1bazillion grot blasta shots to wipe those 18 wraiths....
It has already been realised they are durable, hence why tactical discussion has moved away from 'can I kill them in turn 1 shooting' (which by the way the answer appears to be no, thank you to the 1gazillion posts with mathematics pointing out how many shots every gun in the game takes to kill X number of wraiths, I have memorised it all and never fear it shall be put to good use.)

It has been stated that more than likely we will have to deal with them another way. Maybe thats tarpit, maybe its ignore them, maybe its a combination of shooting and tarpitting, maybe its a combination of all three? who knows, we haven't had enough posts or time thinking about anything other than how durable they are....

With my orks I plan on feeding a nice large blob; with a painboy possibly, into the wraiths. If I can I will attempt to charge and only get a few into initial combat, as even if I lose the BP in general barring poor luck (which I can ignore considering this is MATHEMATICS! and AVERAGES!! cos every game is statistically average right??). That way with pile ins i'll get a few extra turns tarpitting. I can also screen with grots, by keeping them close enough to prevent wraithflight; but thats easier said than done.

With my DE/CWE I plan on sitting backfield and screaming as they get closer and closer until my head explodes cos I couldn't shoot them off the board.....

Solar Shock wrote:

With my DE/CWE I plan on sitting backfield and screaming as they get closer and closer until my head explodes cos I couldn't shoot them off the board.....

cunnin' plan!

Even Combat Squadded in a naked rhino or pod, most combat squadded Tac squad loadouts are still too expensive to lose four of in a game to a 258 point unit.

And with Wraith mobility, practically your entire army needs to average less than 64.5 pts/squad.

Games don't always follow the numbers, but some rules just push some options off the charts.

I'm glad Wraiths arent easily all shot off the table in one round, but when the most OP gunboat in the game takes more than 6 rounds of shooting to kill fewer points of wraiths -despite using the right kind of weaponry (mid-S, high-AP, high-ROF) - I think its a bit off.

(Assuming no RP, of course)

Bharring wrote:
Even Combat Squadded in a naked rhino or pod, most combat squadded Tac squad loadouts are still too expensive to lose four of in a game to a 258 point unit.

And with Wraith mobility, practically your entire army needs to average less than 64.5 pts/squad.

I forgot, wraiths are all in combat by t2 latest and they blender every target in 1-2 combats. They also somehow do this while multi assaulting every charge. Btw every charge is always a doughy 5-7 inches and never fails either....

Wraith spam armies weren't overly difficult for my marine army before the update, and I just ignored them. The toughest part were the spammed NS and AB's actually. So now they are T5...great I still wont shoot them. Now tell me whats changed to make them able to cause more damage then before?
All I see are less tesla weapons.

Most rhino heavy marine lists are white scars or raven guard since you can get massed scout/ or hit and run/scout with Khan. The ability to outflank and be all over the table makes it a seriously tough task for 3 units of wraiths to achieve. I guess you could go for my Tfire canons lol, because thats totally worth using a wraith unit against, or maybe my storm talons... oh wait, that's right. I guess that leaves my cent unit, oh wait it has a tanking chapter master with hit and run, nope. Best unit you could disable would be the IK paladin a take on occasion, but you don't need three units for that.

I think 1-2 wraith units from a CAD really is the sweet spot. It just doesn't suffer from as many bad match ups.

@Solar Shock, yea definitely man. Don't worry are DE love running MSU, the biggest issue for them will be when we take elite formations that also cost ~300 points. Just need to use aether sails to avoid them for a few turns and drag them back into their own deployment zone.

 BlaxicanX wrote:
I still think it's a MASSIVE fallacy to still even be considering the canoptek harvest.

Why bother taking the formation when you can just get 18 coil-wraiths for <800 points? Wraiths are insanely durable even without the 4+ RP and 18 of them is a threat-level that no army can handle.

The harvest formation is an expensive honey-trap, and for the purposes of this thread its nothing more than a red herring for the skeptics to latch onto.

Exactly what I thought. And you also dont need 18 of them. Even two units will put a lot of pressure on your enemy, while you can max out on your big guns.

The problem with all the "solutions" presented here is that people think of an optimal situation with a stupid necron player on the other side.

I mean, most tarpits can be avoided by a unit, that moves 12" and ignores every terrain. Normally they pick their targets. I also think, that you can get enough firepower to kill a cheap 50 guys tarpit (Tesla, some blasts) for 1000 Points (suggesting you take 18 wraith without the decurion ).

MSU? Someone stated, they have to assault a 35 Point Transport, for 1 round, to get the 70 point passangers in the next turn... yeah seems like agood plan... but what if he opens the transport with a big gun or alot of gauss and gets the passangers already in the first run? 3 charges to get his points almost back ...

And also dont forget, this game is about objectives. He dont need the wraith to get their points back. He can just place them on three objectives and let the rest of the army care for the other ones(As Long as the enemy has not to much objective secure Units).

To sum it up: I havent seen any solution that really convinced me. I am very interested how Necrons will do on tournaments and what solution the real competitive guys will find.

Those numbers were for units of 6 wraiths, with them not getting an assault until turn 3...

I haven't run the numbers, but the odds of a 5-man Tac squad holding a 6-man Wraith squad for more than 2 rounds seems... slim.

And the idea that Marines just have to concede their backfield, use airpower to stay in the game, and hope outflankers stay in Reserves long enough to survive just seems wrong...

Bharring wrote:
Those numbers were for units of 6 wraiths, with them not getting an assault until turn 3...

I haven't run the numbers, but the odds of a 5-man Tac squad holding a 6-man Wraith squad for more than 2 rounds seems... slim.

And the idea that Marines just have to concede their backfield, use airpower to stay in the game, and hope outflankers stay in Reserves long enough to survive just seems wrong...

I agree, this seems like a battle you are going to eventually loose if you have a unit(s) in your backfield t2 chewing up tac squads you have to feed them. There is still going to be a whole lot more nectrons shooting your other stuff while caping objectives.

Bharring wrote:
Even Combat Squadded in a naked rhino or pod, most combat squadded Tac squad loadouts are still too expensive to lose four of in a game to a 258 point unit.

And with Wraith mobility, practically your entire army needs to average less than 64.5 pts/squad.

Games don't always follow the numbers, but some rules just push some options off the charts.

I'm glad Wraiths arent easily all shot off the table in one round, but when the most OP gunboat in the game takes more than 6 rounds of shooting to kill fewer points of wraiths -despite using the right kind of weaponry (mid-S, high-AP, high-ROF) - I think its a bit off.

(Assuming no RP, of course)

You're also assuming they get 4 assaults. Most armies aren't evenly spread accross the board. If an army splits up the wraiths might mulch half of it then find themselves 24" away from their next target. They might run into a unit that they can't kill in one round, and then all the surrounding targets are gone. Rhinos cost 35 points, and if you want a spyder to keep up with them, moving 12" then charging is going to leave the spyder behind sooner or later, doubly so if you try to keep the spyder in cover.

The wraiths themselves get 24 attacks on the charge, 12 hits vs. WS4, so two rends, 8 normal wounds vs. MEQ. That's just shy of 10 marines across two rounds. If you charge a full 10 man squad, there's a chance you'll be tied up for a second turn. If that squad charges you, you will be locked up on your next assault phase allowing nearby units to run.


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I don't generally field the Uriah Jacobus + 20 Sisters Blob, but it seems like they'd hard counter wraiths too. Toss in a guy who can make the priest buffs guaranteed each turn, and the initial charge gets 16 hits = 2.66 rends, 10.66 wounds = about 2.33 dead sisters of battle. Subsequent turns get you under 2.

Also, a 22 model unit could form a line stretching across the whole table. I don't really get how you say wraiths can avoid tarpits. (Well, maybe tarpits that are small tough units like crusaders.)

A 50 man conscript squad can fill over 4 square feet at max spread. Two of those wrapped around your other units and it's literally impossible for the enemy to land anywhere next to any other squad. (Or more realistically, a platoon + its conscript squad. 400 pts)

But your 258pt unit is killing 8/10ths of the 140+ pt unit in a single game turn. If it takes you two, you've still recovered most of your points.

Rhinos were factored in at 35pts. They definitely help, but only if you can actually force the Wraiths to attack them.

If you're not running the formation, do you really need the spider in range?

Average consolidate is 3.5 inches in any direction. Average fleet charge is 9". So, on average, you just need anything within 24.5" to charge. Seems like a huge zone of board control.

Ya know at the same time knowing that you are only going against a rhino and tac marines, you could always keep your spider back and not worry about the 4+++ even though its nice considering the chances of just getting through t5 3++ is difficult as it is already. then you now have extra bodies to do objective things or prep a charge some where else or any number of other options.

 Red Corsair wrote:

 DarthOvious wrote:

 Desubot wrote:
Double that in that silly formation spider duran duran thing ><

Yep, I'm starting to see how ridiculous the new wraiths are going to be. It's worse that I initially thought. Time to start crying.

Wow... Is MSU really that foreign to you?

Go ahead spend 3 turns getting a charge onto my transport that costs 13% what your unit costs. Then spend another turn charging a combat squad thats 26% your unit cost, then after that you can try for the other combat squad. Good job it's taken you 5 turns to earn back 2/3rds your price piont, oh btw my units also only take up one slot and have super scoring.

Or the necron player could just use his very durable wraiths, which you yourself admit are durable to go and claim objectives.

Formation wraiths have a tax of 2 units with the exact same issues making that cost ratio worse.

why waste shots and time shooting the wraiths, ignore them.

So you missed the part where I wasn't even talking about the formation Wraiths. I was talking about the normal Wraiths as in codex WITHOUT reanimation protocols.

No, stop making ignorant remarks at other posters. People aren't saying they are not insanely durable, people are saying they lack the tools and price efficiency to win games on objectives.

So you admit they are durable and very hard to kill but think they are unable to claim those objectives for themselves.

Please tell me your master plan when those 3 units of wraiths costing 810pts chase objectives and kill whats on them while the rest of his 2000 point army blows you to smithereens?


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 Red Corsair wrote:
1. This is a tactics thread and while humor is welcome, single line posts that contribute nothing but your sarcasm are not OK. They are considered spam.


2. Its a tax because it isn't cheap and still lacks obsec all while not being as mobile as you suggest. Seriously how do you figure 3 t3 scarab bases are tough? Even with 4+ RP people will use ID on them meaning they have a 5++ to save whats effectively 3 wounds, 4 after the spyder makes a base if they go first. EVERY TAC army I own has a way to snipe such units. Either DPods, thunderfires, scalpel squadrons or other wise. That's giving me FB. If your too busy hiding them AND that spyder then yes they are a tax because they are doing little to nothing and costing you 110 points minimum. The spyder will hide at deployment if possible, then he very much needs to just play chase, if you want to farm scarabs they need to play chase as well, that's hardly a flexible/tactical group.

I also refer to it as a tax because a smart player isn't going to shoot at even CAD wraiths which are already too durable to be worth it, so the idea of necron players paying to make an already ignored unit MORE ignorable is just pointless to me. Consider this:

Necron decurion: 479

canoptek Harvest: 368

That's 847 and the necron troops have no transports and its a naked overlord, oh and the tomb blades are naked as well. Looking at nearly half of a tournament level list and it has almost no shooting lol.

In my calcs there was no tax. It takes on average 194 Lascannon shots to kill 18 Wraiths WITHOUT reanimation protocols. Are you getting the picture yet? Let me show you.

194 shots - 129.22 hits - 107.78 wounds - 35.93 unsaved wounds.

Now that is a ridiculous amount of firepower needed in order to take care of 810 points worth of an army.


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 BlaxicanX wrote:
I still think it's a MASSIVE fallacy to still even be considering the canoptek harvest.

Why bother taking the formation when you can just get 18 coil-wraiths for <800 points? Wraiths are insanely durable even without the 4+ RP and 18 of them is a threat-level that no army can handle.

The harvest formation is an expensive honey-trap, and for the purposes of this thread its nothing more than a red herring for the skeptics to latch onto.

Exactly, and that's what my calcs were based on and for some reason Red Corsair hasn't noticed that. It's 810 points worth of models that will seek out 3 objectives and claim them while the rest of the necron army does it's thing.

Trust me, necrons will be top tier by the looks of it. I can see them winning tournaments now in a good amount.

I can only talk for a Tau army but how would this fare against the wraiths.

First off this is very dependent on terrain and deployment of units. Get a unit of tetra put at least 2 marker token on the spyder. Have 2 skyrays each use 1 marker and nuke the spyder, the skyray themselves could use their own markers if the situation presents itself. 12 S8 and AP3 at BS5 should be enough to kill it out right. Then have the rest of your army just blast the wraiths with volume of fire.

Wraiths without RP are really not much different then they were before the new codex.
Furthermore why shoot las cannons at a wraiths when str7/str8 spam is just as effective. A basic lascannon shot isn't the greatest weapon anymore, unless your trying to take hill points off av14 tanks. Most armies spam autocannons (or in tau case misssle spam) for a reason. Not that I would fight wraith spam with a shooting match unless I was playing Mek guard(which isn't super competitve), but I surely wouldn't spam lascannons regardless.

As I said before good luck trying to pound your wraithspam through my greentide. If you think shooting through them is the answer before your wraiths assault good luck you have to contend with t4,4+, 5++, 5+++ fnp fearless models that are worth a whooping 6 points. It's an attrition game I'm prepared to win. You need every wraith to kill over 7 Orc boyz just to make its own point cost back.

And as I said before you play wraith spam because your trying to win at all costs it's not a beer and pretzel list. It's spamming your best unit over and over. The harvest detachment is pricey and has hard counters and it's not likely to win any tourneys. Which leads you back to what others were saying wraiths by themselves are great and do the same exact job outside the harvest detschment for significantly less points. Leaving more points for support. Necrons are a top tier codex, but harvest detschment spam is only going to beat your local clubs fluff lists. As I said before LVO is a over a week away and I fully expect a wraith spam list there and I fully expect it won't get very far. Wraiths are still overpowered but they are not unbeatable.

I still like lascannons because of their ranged power against 2+ armor. However, wraiths are a terrible target for them.

Personally, I'm liking naked Sternguard more and more.

 Red Corsair wrote:

Bharring wrote:
Even Combat Squadded in a naked rhino or pod, most combat squadded Tac squad loadouts are still too expensive to lose four of in a game to a 258 point unit.

And with Wraith mobility, practically your entire army needs to average less than 64.5 pts/squad.

I forgot, wraiths are all in combat by t2 latest and they blender every target in 1-2 combats. They also somehow do this while multi assaulting every charge. Btw every charge is always a doughy 5-7 inches and never fails either....

Wraith spam armies weren't overly difficult for my marine army before the update, and I just ignored them. The toughest part were the spammed NS and AB's actually. So now they are T5...great I still wont shoot them. Now tell me whats changed to make them able to cause more damage then before?
All I see are less tesla weapons.

Most rhino heavy marine lists are white scars or raven guard since you can get massed scout/ or hit and run/scout with Khan. The ability to outflank and be all over the table makes it a seriously tough task for 3 units of wraiths to achieve. I guess you could go for my Tfire canons lol, because thats totally worth using a wraith unit against, or maybe my storm talons... oh wait, that's right. I guess that leaves my cent unit, oh wait it has a tanking chapter master with hit and run, nope. Best unit you could disable would be the IK paladin a take on occasion, but you don't need three units for that.

I think 1-2 wraith units from a CAD really is the sweet spot. It just doesn't suffer from as many bad match ups.

@Solar Shock, yea definitely man. Don't worry are DE love running MSU, the biggest issue for them will be when we take elite formations that also cost ~300 points. Just need to use aether sails to avoid them for a few turns and drag them back into their own deployment zone.

These are my thoughts exactly. Wraiths are amazing, a fast, durable, good damage Assault unit. Almost everything an Assault focused unit can ask for. But, they're a dedicated assault unit in a game that's (at the moment) about map control and shooting. So yeah, in dream game, they'll survive across the board, charge turn 2, win before their turn 3, and repeat ad infinitum. But that's really not the case. Either they'll get caught in a combat, or the enemy will maneuver around them, or they'll miss a charge (yes, happens even with fleet), etc etc.

I like having an assault unit for jumping on juicy targets. But I'm way more partial to shooting squads, since we're Necrons and not Daemons.

Martel732 wrote:
I still like lascannons because of their ranged power against 2+ armor. However, wraiths are a terrible target for them.

Personally, I'm liking naked Sternguard more and more.

I see your point. I tend to play horde armies hence Orks and guard so I iust rely on weight of fire/atks to kill units like terminators. Nothing like watching a marine player drop a pod filled with terminators into my deployment zone and seeing a 30+ man combined platoon squad frf srf in rapid fire range wipe them off the board. That really shouldn't happen but there is probably some happy medium between a 40 point terminator and a 40 point wraith were both of these units should be.

Bharring wrote:
But your 258pt unit is killing 8/10ths of the 140+ pt unit in a single game turn. If it takes you two, you've still recovered most of your points.

Rhinos were factored in at 35pts. They definitely help, but only if you can actually force the Wraiths to attack them.

If you're not running the formation, do you really need the spider in range?

Average consolidate is 3.5 inches in any direction. Average fleet charge is 9". So, on average, you just need anything within 24.5" to charge. Seems like a huge zone of board control.

And on average you fail your charge half the time

Tautastic wrote:
I can only talk for a Tau army but how would this fare against the wraiths.

First off this is very dependent on terrain and deployment of units. Get a unit of tetra put at least 2 marker token on the spyder. Have 2 skyrays each use 1 marker and nuke the spyder, the skyray themselves could use their own markers if the situation presents itself. 12 S8 and AP3 at BS5 should be enough to kill it out right. Then have the rest of your army just blast the wraiths with volume of fire.

Buying the Spyders is unnecessary though. What we worked out is that it takes a ridiculous amount of firepower to kill them. Here let me show you:

With BS5, i.e. Meaning you have had 2 markerlights per turn on the wraiths.

High Yield Missile Pods - 133 shots - 129.31 hits (inc re-rolls to hit) - 107.75 wounds - 35.92 failed saves & wounds.
Smart Missile System - 222 shots - 215.83 hits (inc re-rols to hit) - 107.92 wounds - 35.97 failed saves & wounds.

So I guess the question is how many Broadsides are you taking? Cause one unit gives you 12 HYMP shots a turn and 12 SMS shots a turn. So 3 units of Broadsides will give you 36 HYMP shots a turn and 36 SMS shots a turn. So two turns of shooting will cause 31.11 wounds overall with those Broadsides providing they have BS5. The Broadsides cost 65pts each and then you have the Pathfinders on top to aid you hitting on 2's. You'll come out at a cost roundabout the same as the wraiths.

Of course in theory here you need to count on a few things for this to all work. Firstly you get BS5 and you get it against all 3 units of wraiths. Secondly you don't lose any Broadside models in the process over the two turns or your pathfinders for that matter as well and lastly that the Necron player doesn't have anything he can throw backfield quickly to distract you or take out the Broadsides.

6 in a unit, 3 attacks each, S6 rending, right?

I'm thinking walkers are the way to go.

vs AV12 WS4:

9 hits, 1.5 penetrating hits that can't explode you.

in return, charging ork deff dread with 4CCW dishes out 7 attacks, 4 hits, ~3 insta killing wounds, 1 dead wraith.

wraiths being 43 points each and deffdreads equipped like this being 100 points each, a unit of 6 wraiths (258 points) gets you 2 and-a-half deff dreads equipped like this.


Onto maulerfiends, AV12 WS3, but with -2 attacks to base contact models (assuming 3 wraiths out of 6 reduced to 1) and a 5++.

12 attacks, 8 hits, ~1 pen with a 5++ to stop it that can't blow the maulerfiend up.
maulerfiend has 4 attacks on the charge, 2 hit, 2 wound, possibly one dead wraith. but next turn, the wraiths get 1 attack each. they're stuck.

Next thought is the tzeenchian souldgrinder, which I personally hate.

AV13, 5++ rerolling 1's, 5 attacks I think?

so 18 attacks, 12 hit, 2 rend, of which 0.6 glance and 1.4 pen, one a model with 4 HP. so again, it doesn't die.

then he attacks back and kills one.


Personally I favour the maulerfiend. it's fast enough to catch them, will almost certainly survive them, and drops their attacks to negligible. same effect on any character who tries to charge in with a warscythe to save the wraiths and whoops, he missed with his one attack, stomp stomp.

They are Necrons IIRC they have that entropic strike that auto glances on 6 IIRC even though at ST6 they should be able to rend out HP anyway. and without a save its gona be hard.

I guess a Invisibile Ironclad or one with a power field/forewarning could work well.

Wraiths don't have ES, Scarabs do.

That being said, Str 6 rending will Pen AV12 walkers for a chance to remove their close combat weapon (typically denying their IDing strength or Immobilize them (typically making it way easier to hurt them).

AV12 Walkers are not your best bet. Even the AV 13 Ironclad will eventually get glanced to death in a round or two of combat.

Do Tau have a way to lower T?

I think in my theory craft exercises the best results have come from applying Rad Grenades or Enfeeble. This brings down their ID threshold and helps lower S weapons which have high RoF not suck.


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Pretty much every wound is the same vs. 3++, but one that IDs is 2.5x as effective. 2 wounds with 4+++ -> 1 wound with 5+++.

-1 T makes S4 50% more effective (-33% of shots required)

My solution to wraiths is the same as my solution to riptides and serpents; make people feel like they're TFG for running more than a smidgen of them.

As BA that's probably my only gameplan against a balanced decurion that runs a harvest or two as vanguard units. :(

I still lol at people who are suggesting multiple wk's an entire GREEN TIDE, and other such silliness to combat 1/8 of the enemy army. Like the rest of their army is just standing there cheering them on, I guess?

So... like how would you kill a Wraith unit that required you to shoot Snap Shots at it for a turn.

Hollismason wrote:
So... like how would you kill a Wraith unit that required you to shoot Snap Shots at it for a turn.

Charge it with your own wraiths!

That's seriously all I can come up with at an even point value.

niv-mizzet wrote:


I still lol at people who are suggesting multiple wk's an entire GREEN TIDE, and other such silliness to combat 1/8 of the enemy army. Like the rest of their army is just standing there cheering them on, I guess?

I LOL at people that think three 258 point units = 1/8 of an army.

 Red Corsair wrote:

niv-mizzet wrote:


I still lol at people who are suggesting multiple wk's an entire GREEN TIDE, and other such silliness to combat 1/8 of the enemy army. Like the rest of their army is just standing there cheering them on, I guess?

I LOL at people that think three 258 point units = 1/8 of an army.

I play 2k games. What fraction would YOU round it to?


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OT
It's not the wraiths or wraith spam that really scare me.

It's a necron tac list that uses a cheap harvest or two to screen/counter-assault/vanguard played by a halfway competent player. (Seriously, not all necron players are bad generals guys.)

With the new resilience of super feel no pain, I think my army's only realistic shot is sweeping advances, and to do that I need to get guys past the canoptek shield units in high enough numbers.

The entire purpose of the greentide is to charge into and to grind down everything it can charge with weight of attacks. There is litterally no single unit that costs equivalent or has as many models. You multicharge as many threats as you can reach with it, kill it, or consolidate then kill it next turn and move on. The greentide is not unbeatable but wraiths do not have the number of attacks needed to even dent the list. You need lots of shooting and/or blast weapons or an assault unit that actually has a significant number of attacks that can chip away at a tide and the 18 str 6 atks from a max wraith unit is nothing. To t4, 4+, 5++, 5+++fnp unit with 103 models.

To put it into perspective to you since you seem to lack it. The harvest detschment costs more then a knight paladin, which is a significantly bigger threat to the tide. A knight paladin with its battle cannon, stomps, destroyer atks and subsequent apocalyptic blast does more damage to the tide for less points then the harvest detachment. Btw the tide as I been mentioning it with all its support is about 1k points so half a 2k list. 6 non RP nondecorian formation wraiths are 258 points and will die from weight of attacks in a single game turn. If you want to spam 3 units of them for 774points feel Free those 18 wraiths might live for over two game turns then.

We aren't going gaga over the wraiths offensive potential, we're going gaga over their defensive potential.

In general, in 40K, offense trumps defense. Their defense is so good that they're an exception.

Now bear in mind, I'm not TOTALLY sure of the rules behind green tide, but from what I gather, it's a big unit of 100 orks with 10 or so nobs, and usually has a boss and painboy as well as a ws5 banner.

In your given situation, say I back the wraiths (and spyder) up near my other units, who proceed to open fire on the tide of orks. I quickly run out of back step room in one or two turns. So on this next one, with nowhere to run, I move the canopteks as close as possible to the tide with the spyder a bit behind. Then step into rapid fire range with my vulnerable backfield and open fire more. Then I charge the tide with 6 wraiths.

Even if the entire tide was still alive AND close enough to attack magically, it's STILL against the odds to kill all 6 wraiths. (Assuming a warboss pk, a bunch of pk nobs, a waaagh banner etc.) Including overwatch, you'll fall just short, which means that on your turn, you'll finish off a wraith of two, and then be available as targets on the necron turn again. That's four turns of shooting due to the snackrifice of a 250 point unit backed up by a 50 point unit.

I'll keep saying it til someone on the internet listens. Wraiths aren't amazing hammers that kill anything. They are stupendously good support units that can counter charge, tarpit, and disrupt the enemy while having unbelievable resilience. They do better in tac lists as support, not in a wraith spam list.

That same strategy wouldn't work if you just had a bunch of seperate ork units instead of one green tide though.