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So I just had my first experience of the wraithknight against my salamanders and to be honest its left a slightly bitter taste. It ate 4 las cannon shots, 5 melta shots, 12 avenger Gatling cannon shots, and 3 storm spear missiles and took a single wound for my troubles. It then went on to blow my knight up turn 1 while the rest of his army had free reign to dismantle my force.

For me the unit is just to damn tough for its points. My biggest gripe was that my opponent simply had to stand it on a ruin base and gain a 4+ cover save negating all my low ap weapons.

I'd suggest making them require 25% obscured in the same manner as a vehicle would be a start in making them more manageable.

Anyone got any other thoughts/ suggestions?

That wouldn't be a bad tweak for MC/GC in general, actually. I might consider an exception for certain "sneaky" creatures like some 'nids, but otherwise make vehicles and MC/GC use the same cover rules.

For the Wraithknight specifically, the closest thing to consensus is that it's way too cheap: specifically, 100 points too cheap on the nose. That said, the amount of firepower you dumped into it should have caused more than 1 wound, even with the 4+ cover and FNP. Sounds like your opponent was rolling pretty hot, or your dice were kinda cold. Killing the knight on turn 1 was unlucky too. Did he manage a 6 with the D weapons, or something like that?

The WK is nasty, but just one generally isn't overpoweringly so, even at its current too-low price point. The real stinker comes in when someone brings 5 of the bloody things at 2000 points :/

Welcome to the Wraithknight.

It really is one of the most OP units in the game. There's a reason why some tournament-level Eldar lists try to pack in as many of them as possible. Note, there is a Space Marine secret weapon for beating them! It's called the Grav Gun and the Grav Cannon. This little puppy puts out a LOT of shots, and those shots all have a great chance at wounding the Wraithknight, and are AP2! If you're just facing a single Wraithknight, peppering a few of these guns around should vastly help you out.

After that, the best suggestion is just coming to agreements with your opponents regarding what is and isn't kosher. The game's, unfortunately, leaning more and more towards just playing the big toys, with all the little fun guys being nothing more than destructible scenery pieces. Maybe this'll change in the future, but I'm not holding my breath. Until then, discussions with opponents ahead of time is almost mandatory.

Get a hammer. That will fix it.

Martel732 wrote:
Get a hammer. That will fix it.

They are just too tough. The number of times I have shot a full IG gunline at a WK and just absorb it all is so many I have lost track. Doesn't help that you can't even tarpit them anymore.

 FatBoyNoSlim wrote:
They are just too tough. The number of times I have shot a full IG gunline at a WK and just absorb it all is so many I have lost track. Doesn't help that you can't even tarpit them anymore.

The toughness isn't necessarily the issue, it's the toughness for it's point cost. The Wraithknight, by all means, should be a GC and should be that tough. It should also be limited to how many you can bring, and be roughly 400+ points.

 krodarklorr wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Get a hammer. That will fix it.

While I wouldn't ever advocate smashing anyone's toy soldiers, it would be most unfortunate if you were to pick up this hammer I misplaced at your house and took out your frustrations on the wraithknight....

Selfish response: Remove it from the game, hateful thing.

Response considerate of people who dropped their cash on Wraithknights: Up it by 100 points, maybe 150 to force the point.

At 400 points, IMHO, it's reasonably balanced modulo the cover shenanigans mentioned by the OP, which is not unique to the Wraithknight (or to Eldar at all). Trying to kill a Riptide, a Transcendent C'Tan, a Nemesis Dreadknight or even a Trygon sitting in a ruin is damnably frustrating without Ignores Cover AP2 weapons. Which are in damnably short supply unless you're playing Tau.

Remember that the WK can have strength D guns XOR strength D melee. It does not get both. Yes, it still has Stomp, but Stomp is considerably less nasty in the general case than Destroyer.

Cheers for replys guys think il propose changing the cover rules for gmc/mc at our next game night. Not fair to do it just for one unit. I agree they should be limited to one per army, hell I only played one and it was damn near unstoppable.

To be fair it was probs a bad match up for my fluffy salamanders list and dice were definately not on my side.
I'm not sure about increasing the points as there are plenty of poorly costed units in the game so where do you draw the line.

I think generally treating them like vehicles with cover and maybe giving them a facing for weapons might tone them down a little.

jade_angel wrote:

Remember that the WK can have strength D guns XOR strength D melee. It does not get both. Yes, it still has Stomp, but Stomp is considerably less nasty in the general case than Destroyer.

I disagree. Stomp can remove an entire unit/deathstar. It's 2 D shots can't do nearly as much damage against most targets.

I didn't used to mind the wraithknight, but the new D weapons and stomp make it almost impossible to stop by my army. Used to be you could take 40 conscripts and a commisar and just run at it. Either you tarpitted it or it had to move away, which meant either way the opponent to apply a modicum of thought to how he used the model tactically speaking. Now it's just point a couple of wraithknight down a flank and steam roll.

I was about to disagree, then I re-read Stomp... I forgot it doesn't roll to damage per model. Good point. It's really swingy, then. A few models eating S6 AP4 hits is somewhat scary, but yeah, "just baleet the whole thing" is a really evil result.

The D shots are scarier against titans and other superheavies, but otherwise, good point.

Maybe the "6" result on Stomp should instead be "each model under the blast marker takes a Strength D AP2 hit".

 FatBoyNoSlim wrote:
Now it's just point a couple of ___________ down a flank and steam roll.

Fixed it.

This is 40k in a nutshell.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

jade_angel wrote:
I was about to disagree, then I re-read Stomp... I forgot it doesn't roll to damage per model. Good point. It's really swingy, then. A few models eating S6 AP4 hits is somewhat scary, but yeah, "just baleet the whole thing" is a really evil result.

The D shots are scarier against titans and other superheavies, but otherwise, good point.

Maybe the "6" result on Stomp should instead be "each model under the blast marker takes a Strength D AP2 hit".

Eh, I feel like people would still complain because you're rolling for how many stomps, then rolling for what each one does, then rolling damage, then rolling saves, and then if you get a 6, then you're rolling again on the D table. Just seems unnecessary.

Now that is a stinker, right there. Some armies can deal with it, and some can't...

Makes me give serious thought to Zagman's rebalance codices, or trying to cook up some of my own along the same lines.

I really don't think the Wraithknight is so OP, huh. Yeah, it's a cool stoper/stomper and can make some noise with D-cannon.

And... Space Marines player with an gravcannons whining about "unkillable WC"... Huh.

Hm, point. Maybe "one stomp, always does damage, 1-5 is S6 AP4, 6 is S10 AP2". That'd be a lot less rolling, anyway, and less likely to just X out a deathstar. Not that S10 isn't nasty, but some things at least can usefully stand up to that - one near-guaranteed wound on your Bloodthirster that you might still save is a lot better than "just kill it."

Oh great another WKs are OP threads.

Add 100 points to make it 395. Done.

It's what I do with mine, not a single complaint at that point.

(Note: I also have gc's get no bonus against sniper and poison and require them to have 25% cover for the save. Superheavies take damage from the table, ignoring crew shaken and stunned. And immobilized causes them to move half speed.)

It lets basic units get something done and returns some of the feel from older editions to the big guys.

Wraithknight is not a problem in my opinion. There are plenty of counters to it. Grav being one. Anything Strength 8 or higher another.

If people are running multiples of them? Problem isn't the unit, it's the player.

The *REAL* Problem with WK? Stomp. Remove stomp from the game, the WK becomes a tough, mobile guy, but he's not invincible, and he's still vunerable to a single-turn kill.

deathmagiks wrote:
Wraithknight is not a problem in my opinion. There are plenty of counters to it. Grav being one. Anything Strength 8 or higher another.

If people are running multiples of them? Problem isn't the unit, it's the player.

The *REAL* Problem with WK? Stomp. Remove stomp from the game, the WK becomes a tough, mobile guy, but he's not invincible, and he's still vunerable to a single-turn kill.

Grav is the only reliable counter to it. Some armies have no effective counter to it. Sure, S8 low AP weapons can hurt it, but is that really a counter? Gauss can kill vehicles, but it's not like we rely on Warriors and Immortals to kill Knight Titans.

 krodarklorr wrote:

deathmagiks wrote:
Wraithknight is not a problem in my opinion. There are plenty of counters to it. Grav being one. Anything Strength 8 or higher another.

If people are running multiples of them? Problem isn't the unit, it's the player.

The *REAL* Problem with WK? Stomp. Remove stomp from the game, the WK becomes a tough, mobile guy, but he's not invincible, and he's still vunerable to a single-turn kill.

Grav is the only reliable counter to it. Some armies have no effective counter to it. Sure, S8 low AP weapons can hurt it, but is that really a counter? Gauss can kill vehicles, but it's not like we rely on Warriors and Immortals to kill Knight Titans.

True, but if you remove stomp, you have... what exactly?

Let's assume the WK is fully decked out with 2 additional weapons.

At most? 2 Strength D shots, of which at least 1 will usually miss and neither ignore cover (you could go sun cannon with 3 strength 6 AP2 blasts but cover from that is too easily taken and this loadout is counter to the "big game hunger" type of build the WK is based on). On top of this, 8 strength 6 shots, with no AP, of which you'll get about 5 wounds out of statistically. War walkers are more frightening. Albeit they die easier, but they're also less expensive. You can almost get 6 War Walkers for the price of a wraithknight. that's 48 scatter laser shots. That'll hurt more imo.

Now in Close combat? 6 attacks on the charge + hammer of wrath. With a WS of 4, Statistically 3 of those miss and 2 wound. Even at strength D (which means you're giving up those 2 D shots in the shooting phase), that's still 2 models gone. And it cannot challenge, so there go two mooks. 3 if we assume HoW wrecks something.

Now comes the Stomp. With Stomp, this gets really dumb, really fast. Without Stomp? You're not going anywhere anytime soon.

deathmagiks wrote:

 krodarklorr wrote:

deathmagiks wrote:
Wraithknight is not a problem in my opinion. There are plenty of counters to it. Grav being one. Anything Strength 8 or higher another.

If people are running multiples of them? Problem isn't the unit, it's the player.

The *REAL* Problem with WK? Stomp. Remove stomp from the game, the WK becomes a tough, mobile guy, but he's not invincible, and he's still vunerable to a single-turn kill.

Grav is the only reliable counter to it. Some armies have no effective counter to it. Sure, S8 low AP weapons can hurt it, but is that really a counter? Gauss can kill vehicles, but it's not like we rely on Warriors and Immortals to kill Knight Titans.

True, but if you remove stomp, you have... what exactly?

Let's assume the WK is fully decked out with 2 additional weapons.

At most? 2 Strength D shots, of which at least 1 will usually miss and neither ignore cover (you could go sun cannon with 3 strength 6 AP2 blasts but cover from that is too easily taken and this loadout is counter to the "big game hunger" type of build the WK is based on). On top of this, 8 strength 6 shots, with no AP, of which you'll get about 5 wounds out of statistically. War walkers are more frightening. Albeit they die easier, but they're also less expensive. You can almost get 6 War Walkers for the price of a wraithknight. that's 48 scatter laser shots. That'll hurt more imo.

Now in Close combat? 6 attacks on the charge + hammer of wrath. With a WS of 4, Statistically 3 of those miss and 2 wound. Even at strength D (which means you're giving up those 2 D shots in the shooting phase), that's still 2 models gone. And it cannot challenge, so there go two mooks. 3 if we assume HoW wrecks something.

Now comes the Stomp. With Stomp, this gets really dumb, really fast. Without Stomp? You're not going anywhere anytime soon.

Yeah, the 2 D shots aren't game breaking in practice, and if you take those, you have no invuln. There are balancing factors, if you can call them that. Though I still think it's too cheap for what it does. And yeah, Stomp on top of everything is slowed.

Blood-for-the-blood-god wrote:
Cheers for replys guys think il propose changing the cover rules for gmc/mc at our next game night. Not fair to do it just for one unit. I agree they should be limited to one per army, hell I only played one and it was damn near unstoppable.

To be fair it was probs a bad match up for my fluffy salamanders list and dice were definately not on my side.
I'm not sure about increasing the points as there are plenty of poorly costed units in the game so where do you draw the line.

I think generally treating them like vehicles with cover and maybe giving them a facing for weapons might tone them down a little.

Uh, you draw the line at the absolute most underpriced unit in the entire game aside from the Titan of the same faction? It is not even a question at this point. It's banned from tournaments for a reason. People hate it for a reason. It's an amazing unit that should cost at LEAST 100 more points, and the only people who disagree with that are the as*holes who like using their OP unit.

Personally, I think the WK has two problems. One problem is the MC cover rule, and the other problem is even if you changed that rule; WKs are still at least 100 points too cheap.

I bet everyone would be upset if the cost of Imperial Knights dropped by 100 points each. That is basically what the WK is by comparison. An IK 100 points too cheap. (Using IK as a comparison because that is what I most often hear it compared to).

IMO the Wraithknight is undercosted, but 100 is asking too much. It should go up some, around 80, bringing it inline with the Imperial Knight. True it would be better then the Knight, but only at either shooting or CC, so like most Eldar stuff it would be really good or the best at its chosen specialty, but normal otherwise.

Of course what I really think is the problem are the gmc rules and stomp, but those aren't changing anytime soon.

 McNinja wrote:

Blood-for-the-blood-god wrote:
Cheers for replys guys think il propose changing the cover rules for gmc/mc at our next game night. Not fair to do it just for one unit. I agree they should be limited to one per army, hell I only played one and it was damn near unstoppable.

To be fair it was probs a bad match up for my fluffy salamanders list and dice were definately not on my side.
I'm not sure about increasing the points as there are plenty of poorly costed units in the game so where do you draw the line.

I think generally treating them like vehicles with cover and maybe giving them a facing for weapons might tone them down a little.

Uh, you draw the line at the absolute most underpriced unit in the entire game aside from the Titan of the same faction? It is not even a question at this point. It's banned from tournaments for a reason. People hate it for a reason. It's an amazing unit that should cost at LEAST 100 more points, and the only people who disagree with that are the as*holes who like using their OP unit.

Khm.
It's just a two D-strength shots per turn. Yeah, it can kill a deathstar with just one stomp. But, holy hell, if you let your deathstar apear in the close combat with a WK, you've done something wrong.
At last, centurions in drop-pod + Hunter's Eye == no WK at all in just one shooting phase.

And yeah, why do you think you really need to kill him, huh? Some count of cheap guys can hold him for a while - as long, as there is no any 6 on stomp table, huh.

A revenant titan is actually less out of whack than the revenant, and the revenant is 100 points too cheap. It may be a specialist unit, but the mobility provided by the "jump" classification is why it needs to be the full 100 points.

Compare it with the exactly 400 point knight lancer and you'll see that a sword and board wraithknight with twin starcannons (425) will still beat the lancer in most situations even though it's guns are useless against the knight's front armor.

As an aside for the revenant, the current rendition from the escalation supplement is about 50 points too cheap, it is just very synergistic and most other superheavy level units are too expensive when compared to newer tanks in the game. The revenant that has been leaked from doom of mymeara is a travesty and should almost warrant a legitimate protest in front of warhammer world.

Personally im fine with the rules and gear the WK has, but not at its current cost like many have said.

Its killable, just not in a single turn outside D weapon spam. But its insanely cheap for what it brings to the table. If all they did was make Wraithcannons Str D and didnt make a GMC i probably still wouldnt be that upset about it because it can be ID'd and Poisoned and doesnt have FNP.
Gotta face it though, its size makes no sense to not be a GMC. Anything larger than a Riptide should be a GMC imo. But it really should have gotten a huge price hyke for those rules.
Shouldnt be able to field several of them in a 2k game without sacrificing pretty much your entire army to do it. When i see a sizable eldar army AND 2-3 WKs...thats when i start calling bs.

Put it back to Monstrous Creature.

Fixed!