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Loved my footdar in 3rd, 4th, 5th, played once in 6th, and now we're back with some updates!
Not the purest of footies anymore

155 Farseer w/ jetbike & mantle of the Laughing God
105 Farseer w/ singing spear

220 Guardians (20), 2 BLs
120 Wave Serpent w/ TL lasers

51 Jetbikes (3)
51 Jetbikes (3)

96 Swooping Hawks (6) >> would be spiders, just want to try these guys out

240 Wraithknight *Warlord
210 War Walkers (3) Scatter Lasers

1248

Anybody been playing Footdar in the new edition? Would be curious to hear thoughts on how to adapt to new edition and meta out there.

Cheers
Ibushi

I would replace the guardians with dire avengers. The Dire Avengers are pretty much better all-around. They have a better save, longer range, and can even get a squad-wide 5+ invuln.

You also might want to think about dropping one of the farseers to get 2 spiritseers with any points you have left over from dropping the guardians. Also holo-fields on the wave serpent are a must.

Dire avengers are hands down worse than guardian defenders point for point in every way. This discussion has been done to death. The 0.3 wounds you get for the invul do not equate to the extra dmg output and extra wounds than guardians give.

That is an aside: footdar is posibly the hardest list in 40k yet it can be made to work. The issue is close combat is bound to be after 1 turn assault shooting and you die in close combat unless its tau fire warriors..
..

So how is it done? Harlequins inc death jester inc shadowseer plus maugan ra (veil of tears) and 10 wraithblades infiltrating with karandras. Also mantarch is good as is farseer with mantle
..
also shining spears are actually quite good.

But 2 wraithlords and 1wraithknight are essential

The last issue is this: warp.spiders in squads of 10 no upgrades are the best infantry unit point for point in the entrie game.. a 1250 list might be

2x3 guardian jetbikes (102)
Karandras (230) + 9 wraithblades ( with swords NOT AXES 288)
2x10 warp spiders (380)
Wraithknight (240)
==
1240



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also there is a guy playing footdar.. he is on youtube... his name is fritz40k .. he famously plays a harlequin foot list in tornaments.. not same as footdar but simliar deficiencies to overcome

ConanMan, I don't think that that trick with Karandras works anymore (if it ever did in 7th), due to the new Errata. Units without Infiltrate can't join ICs with it, it looks like.

As for the main topic, I had been playing more of a combined arms force - though at 1500 or higher. Lately, I've switched to more of a mechanized Wraith-theme list. This was because I found my Rangers getting too easily killed off, and the Swooping Hawks not making enough of an impact (I guess there aren't as many Orks and AM in my meta as I'd like).

Though, having Guardians sitting in my backfield, sitting on an objective and plinking away with a Bright Lance platform was always useful, especially when I put the Farseer with them to give them Shrouding or Invisibility.

I can't give much in the way of advice towards improving it, as I don't play Footdar much. But why have one big blob of Guardians? I'd personally split it into two squads of 10, so that they could capture more than one objective, and possibly fire their Lance at a different target, in case the first does a good enough job.

I've never heard of infiltrate not being conferred on the entire unit, only that the opposite is true. (i.e. a unit with infiltrate does not confer it to an IC)

As of last year these tournaments were absolutely allowing it.. so i don't know where your rumour as to it being "illegal" come from

http://www.adepticon.org/14rules/40KAddendumv2014.pdf

http://www.frontlinegaming.org/community/40k-faq/

Edit: apparently in the BRB it absolutely specifically says any unit can be in reserve and have outflank with Karandras in it. And while it does not explicitly rule out (one way or another) an IC conferring infiltrate too, the general consensus is it does allow infiltrate.

Either way this list is a powerful one. Start with the jetbikes hidden on the board and deep strike 3 units and then reserve outflank (if you cry about infiltrate) the wraithblades.. it has 32 str5/8 attacks on charge and at shooting is 2+ sv at toughness 6

The Errata only came out at the end of this January.

http://www.games-workshop.com/en-US/Rules-Errata

Now, you can't join ICs w/ infiltrate to units without, in the deployment phase. It seems that the only units Karandras and Ilic Nightspear can join during deployment are Rangers and Striking Scorpions.

Which is a little bit of a blow to Footdar, as I've also used Ilic before. Admittedly, it was almost always when he was joined to a unit of Rangers to benefit from Stealth, but it would be nice if he could join some Dark Reapers.

ConanMan wrote:
Dire avengers are hands down worse than guardian defenders point for point in every way. This discussion has been done to death. The 0.3 wounds you get for the invul do not equate to the extra dmg output and extra wounds than guardians give.

That is an aside: footdar is posibly the hardest list in 40k yet it can be made to work. The issue is close combat is bound to be after 1 turn assault shooting and you die in close combat unless its tau fire warriors..
..

So how is it done? Harlequins inc death jester inc shadowseer plus maugan ra (veil of tears) and 10 wraithblades infiltrating with karandras. Also mantarch is good as is farseer with mantle
..
also shining spears are actually quite good.

But 2 wraithlords and 1wraithknight are essential

The last issue is this: warp.spiders in squads of 10 no upgrades are the best infantry unit point for point in the entrie game.. a 1250 list might be

2x3 guardian jetbikes (102)
Karandras (230) + 9 wraithblades ( with swords NOT AXES 288)
2x10 warp spiders (380)
Wraithknight (240)
==
1240



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also there is a guy playing footdar.. he is on youtube... his name is fritz40k .. he famously plays a harlequin foot list in tornaments.. not same as footdar but simliar deficiencies to overcome

This has a lot of bad information.

Dire Avengers better in most cases than Guardians. Their problem is 12" range and 5+ saves. Against MEQ, for example, you need to be within 12" to shoot them. That puts you inside their rapid fire range. So, you will be taking twice as many shots, and you wont be getting a save because bolters are AP5. So for 90 points, you get 10 Guardians or ~7 Dire Avengers. Lets say 5 marines fire 10 shots at a guardian squad within 12". They hit with 6 shots and the guardians take 4 wounds. Thats 4 dead Guardians and a check on LD8. Against the DIre Avengers, who are sitting calmly at 18" the marines will get only 5 shots. 3 hit, and 2 wound. 1 Dire avenger makes his 4+ and one dies. No morale check. We lost 36 points worth of Guardians and only 13 points worth of Dire Avenegers. Even if we assume that the Eldar player shoots first, the 6 extra shots from the Guardians do not even average one dead Marine. Dire avengers are also LD 9 so, if they ever require a test, they will rarely fail it. In short, don't listen to this guy, Dire Avengers are awesome.

Guardians can be good too though. In my experience they are best used in 20 man squads moving forward behind an Avatar so that they gain fearless and don't have to worry about LD 8 so much. I prefer Brightlances for the platforms in this set-up, that way you can plink heavy armour while they make their long march across the board to get in 12" range. Warlocks are also a must here. A good amount of the game's weapons ignore 5+ armour saves, so having a warlock in each squad for conceal is a must. Don't forget conceal will give your fearless 20 man blob a 2+ cover save while in ruins!

Wraithlords are too slow and have underwhelming firepower for their points. There is no situation where 2 Wraithlords will ever be better than 1 Wraithknight. S10 shooting, S10 in combat, 5 attacks on the chrage at I5, Moves 12". Wraithlords are garbage in comparison.

Warpspiders are great. I prefer them in units of 7-8. Gets just about as much done as 10, and saves some points in the process. 10 can be overkill in many cases, especially against MSU armies.

Karandras can not infiltrate with Wraithblades. New FAQ for the infiltrate rule in the BRB is up on the GW site. Even if they could, that unit is still bad. Costs way too many points, is slow, and has no way of tanking AP2 wounds.

Interesting discussion, thanks for the feedback.

The big blob of guardians is much more resilient and useful compared to DAs or smaller guardian squads when combined with psychic powers, such as Foreboding, Forewarning, Prescience etc. So that's why I'm playing them that way, paired with a Farseer for buffs and Ld.

It's too bad the Karadras+Wraithguard infiltration is no longer viable, that does sound fun.

Anyway, I am tweaking in this direction, and will put up a report hopefully next week once some games happen:

115 Farseer on jetbike

220 Guardians (20) 2x BL
135 Wave Serpent: holo-fields, scatter lasers

153 Jetbikes 3x3

95 Warp Spiders (5)
95 Warp Spiders (5) or Swooping Hawks (6)

240 Wraithknight
125 Wraithlord: Ghostglaive, 2 flamers (runs as fast as can alongside Gs)
70 War Walker: 2xSL or 2xBL

1248

For small points levels, Wraithlords are actually pretty good, charge them straight into someone's objectives and force them to deal with him -- so we'll see how this works out.

The army as a whole needs to get quite close, so might as well commit to that goal with as many tough threats as possible...

Cheers guys
Ibushi

Ok well though 1 month ago it appears that infiltrate (wrongly in my view) has been nerfed it still confers outflank and reserve and that is in the brb so you can still bring them on from reserve.. rememember this unit is basically toughness 6 armour 2+ and can still "run" (tho it is not fleet) so do not underestimate it nor write it off.. still it's a stupid faq if everI saw one...

Anyway your ascertion that it was never allowed is definately wrong.

As to the dire avengers/guardians thing it is off topic but it has been demonstrated time and again that dire avengers ONLY ever become "better" because you only need to take 5 to get a troops cheese wave serpent. In every other way guardians are better.. if you actually think 12" range is the be all and end all you are utterly underestimating going to ground in cover. In which case guardians with a warlock win exponentially hands down. Anyway it's wildly off topic.

Lastly wraithlords are MUCH better than you imagine. They almost always can complete what a wraithknight would complete with less points. Are they "better". no. But they (and this is experience talking) attract far less attention usually get to grips with something in close combat by turn 3 and invariabley obliterate it. I have used both in tourneys (one in a 1500 list swapped for a wraithknight in the 1850 version) and wraithlords were underestimated by every opponent I have faced wraithknights definately not so. The bigger the model the more they pew pew it. Don't ask why.

Interesting to hear viz. the Wraithlord -- i will definitely try out my WK/WL combo and see how it goes.

I haven't found the 12" range to be a huge issue with the Guardians, especially with how objective-based games are -- if you have OK board positioning and area control you will get to shoot something, especially with Battle Focus. The BLs are just gravy on top for taking potshots really.

Might consider adding a warlock, but going to do some test games first.

Also I think if I had 2 walkers, I would do SL/BL combo, but for just one loner 2 SL seems like a better use, for Outflanking and taking out small units, or side armour.

Cheers
Ibushi

Ibushi, that's a good plan. Let us know if you can how it goes. I've only used a WK and WL in the same list once.

ConanMan, note that Karandras does not have the special rule Outflank. He does have the special rule Infiltrate. So, AFAIK, you can't even use him to outflank the wraithblades, as that would still require joining them during Deployment, which is a no-go now.

However, on a slightly different note, I think that a large group of Wraithguard with Axes and Shields would be more effective than the Wraithblades. Their 3+ armor save is bolstered by a 4+ invulnerable, and the increased strength lets them take on a wide variety of targets. I read a battle report here on Dakka where they were used well.

Though I don't have the funds to experiment with it now, it'd be fun to try it one day. Running Iyanden, with a few Spiritseers to provide support, would make that unit great.

Well, making wraith blades work now pretty much comes down to your spiritseer rolls, if you can get shrouded (RoB or telepathy) protect/jinx, +3" to run, and even +1 Ws and +1I (though with axes the +1I is wasted).

With those powers your blades can start up 12" move 6" run a max of 9" and maybe charge something? It sucks that without infiltrate or a open topped transport that carries 20 dudes these awesome models don't do anything.

OK so feedback on WK/WL combo:

Basically the WL can be really useful in a Maelstrom or Relic style game, where he can hold down an area of objectives quite well -- but you have to force your opponent to come to you somehow.

Then in this ruleset, concentrated poison or high S firepower can take down 3 wounds in one turn really easily, so watch out for that.

Overall, the WK is easily worth more than twice a WL, and I am going to drop the WL for a 2nd serpent with just lasers: this tank has more survivability, more mobility, more threat range, and can be used to tank shock/block/provide cover, so is just more useful.

Also on the Guardian blob, it was fun to run, but I think 10 is enough at 1250, especially with 3 units of jetbikes. The extra points let me upgrade my War Walker into a unit of Dark Reapers, which with Night Vision, ignore Jink, and s8 or s5 AP3 shots can really pull their weight in this level of game.

Thanks for the feedback, I will keep mulling over my experiences as they develop!

Cheers
Ibushi