Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Just a kind of in theory list of how I could build an Eldar army to aboslutely rule the skies of any game and rain down death from above. It's an ITC build to play for competitive purposes. And yes I know all that needs to happen is come across a tau list with a decent amount of interceptor skyfire and I lose turn two, but I mean he probably doesn't have 9 units of it, right?

CAD

Autarch
-Bike
-Reaper Launcher
-Laser Lance
-Banshee Mask

2 units of 3 Scatter Bikes

3 Nightwing Interceptors

3 Phoenix Bombers
-2 Shuriken Cannons
-2 Nightfire Missile Launchers
-Twin Linked Starcannon

Crimson Death Formation
-3 Crimson Hunters

So I have 9 flyers and 7 bikes, shooting totals are;

12 S8 AP1 Lances
6 S8 AP1
6 S6 AP2 Twin-Linked
36 S6 AP5 Bladestorm
24 S6 AP6
2 S5 AP3
9 S4 AP5 Ignores Cover, Small Blast, Pinning

I think it's enough to really shoot anything out of the sky, and then spend the rest of the game pounding anything on the ground.

I'm not a cutthroat tournament player, but that looks pretty darn good on paper. I would have huge trouble dealing with it personally.

If your opponent has an Alphastrike none of your flyers ever see the table. Also why no Wraithfighters? D is so much fun.

No wraith fighters because all you need to do is hide on cover and I'll never really hurt you since you can't actually roll a 6. General plan is to hide like a fiend, stay out of LoS as best I can and pray to the gods of probability. Other option is dropping a bomber and bringing in a bunch more bikes.

So remind me how Crimson Hunters ignore cover exactly? Just because you can't roll a 6 doesn't mean the Wraithfighter isn't very strong. You've also got Psychic Shriek to help against Invisistars.

Hiding out of LoS only works if your opponent doesn't have ignores LoS weapons, does have Drop pods, doesn't have the mobility required to get around the terrain AND that there is even such terrain available in your deployment zone. That is a lot of situations you need going your way. Particularly when 2 Squads of Wyverns probably tables you turn 1 about 9 times out of 10...

Eldar flyer lists are VERY strong but you need more ground presence.

I'm thinking about dropping one of each of the Forge world flyers, this will save me nearly 500 points for more ground and turn one stuff.perhaps a couple units of DA in wave serpents would do me well here.

Yeah a DA Aspect Host all in Serpents would give you a solid foundation to ride out turn 1. Serpents are still pretty tough and it gives you 8 different units for the opponent to try to kill.

 FlingitNow wrote:
You've also got Psychic Shriek to help against Invisistars.

This doesn't work in my Gaming group. There is a unanimous consensus here that Psychic Shriek must roll to hit as it is a Witchfire. Obviously other areas play it differently, but it is important to find out what the consensus is before making list changes.

I would drop 1 flyer (take your pick) to add 2 more bike units. You need more objective grabbers.

 Galef wrote:

 FlingitNow wrote:
You've also got Psychic Shriek to help against Invisistars.

This doesn't work in my Gaming group. There is a unanimous consensus here that Psychic Shriek must roll to hit as it is a Witchfire. Obviously other areas play it differently, but it is important to find out what the consensus is before making list changes.

I would drop 1 flyer (take your pick) to add 2 more bike units. You need more objective grabbers.

How many dice do you roll To Hit? Do you treat other Witchfires the same (as in not resolving the power if you don't hit with your made up number of dice)? Are you consistent in how you deal with missing profiles (so you treat any missing profile the same as you have for PS, so for instance if you make PS roll 2 dice to hit and it hits a vehicle do you then treat the vehicle as Ld2 and having 2 wounds)?

All of those questions were what I asked when I moved to my current group. Basically, everyone expects you to roll 1 dice to hit after successfully manifesting the power. Didn't make any sense to me since there is no "profile", but I could not find a good argument since it is abundantly clear that "Witchfires require a roll to Hit"

It has yet to be an argument worth getting into since everyone here expects the roll to Hit.

I would be most concerned with getting tabled turn one. 7 jetbikes are not that hard to take down when theyre all you have to shoot at with nothing else to distract you. Also, since you're using a lot of flyers, it seems likely it will be difficult to keep them all on the board and some will end up flying off into reserves. Be careful with this as any games left in reserve at the end of the game are counted as destroyed. Bad movement could end up giving your opponent points if you're not careful.

Agreed. Maybe drop 1 Nightwing and 1 Phoenix to add 2 more Scatter bike units and 1 Ranger unit. This allows you to Reserve everything but the Rangers (who will infiltrate).

As long as your opponent has no Barrage weapons (or Drop pods), you can give your opponent 1st turn. He deploys first, then you infiltrate the Rangers out of LOS. This effectively denies your opponent's first 2 turns as he just moves around with nothing else to do.

Then most of you units come and alpha strike the crap out of the enemy.

However this list will struggle against Drop pod lists that can just obliterate any units you deploy on the board before the Flyers ever see the board. Same thing if they have Barrage weapons.

Love the flyer heavy theme. Actually very fluffy for corsairs maybe think of them? I might drop a flyer and add in a wraithknight w/a shield. Toe in 4+ cover and unless they have ignores cover grav it'd be a tough cookie to crack.

Now, I like @flingitnow's suggestions of the serpents. Keep in cover to not have to jink and remember your serpent shield! Lower those pens to glances on that 2+. EPIC!

Love the theme you just need a little shuffling around to make it a little more survivable for that first turn.

I think in theory you have a great deal of hard to hit firepower that could be extremely powerful. But in reality, I don't think 7 Jetbikes can live through turn 1 in most games.

danny1995 wrote:
No wraith fighters because all you need to do is hide on cover and I'll never really hurt you since you can't actually roll a 6. General plan is to hide like a fiend, stay out of LoS as best I can and pray to the gods of probability. Other option is dropping a bomber and bringing in a bunch more bikes.

Shriek from the Wraithfighters ignores cover.

 Galef wrote:
All of those questions were what I asked when I moved to my current group. Basically, everyone expects you to roll 1 dice to hit after successfully manifesting the power. Didn't make any sense to me since there is no "profile", but I could not find a good argument since it is abundantly clear that "Witchfires require a roll to Hit"

It has yet to be an argument worth getting into since everyone here expects the roll to Hit.

Wow 1 dice to hit? PS is broken all to hell if you use that logic. Auto killing any vehicle on a hit is insanely good. That just makes Telepathy such a dumb discipline as you've massively boosted both the Primaris and Invisibility.

@flingit I'm pretty sure vehicles don't have a leadership value, so shriek doesn't work against them.

 Castellan Alaric wrote:
@flingit I'm pretty sure vehicles don't have a leadership value, so shriek doesn't work against them.

Yes but they are rolling 1 dice to hit. So we know that when there is a missing profile you assign the value 1. So the vehicle takes 3d6-1 wounds from a hit from Psychic Shriek and as vehicles don't have a wounds characteristic they have 1 wound. Thus your vehicle auto dies unless it has an invun and even if it does it needs to pass every single one. Suddenly a few psykers in a drop pod are taking Warlord Titans off the table left right and centre.

PS does not have ANY effect on vehicles for 2 reasons. 1) Vehicles don't have LD, thus rules that interact with LD do not interact with vehicles, 2) Vehicles have hull points, not wounds, thus rules that do wounds do not interact with Vehicles.

So PS is not even close to broken. Having to pass the Psychic test, not be denied, then roll to hit, then averaging only 1-2 wounds that can be saved by Invuls = a VERY unreliable ability and waste of Warp Charge.

 Galef wrote:
PS does not have ANY effect on vehicles for 2 reasons. 1) Vehicles don't have LD, thus rules that interact with LD do not interact with vehicles, 2) Vehicles have hull points, not wounds, thus rules that do wounds do not interact with Vehicles.

So PS is not even close to broken. Having to pass the Psychic test, not be denied, then roll to hit, then averaging only 1-2 wounds that can be saved by Invuls = a VERY unreliable ability and waste of Warp Charge.

Rules is correct, not sure i agree on assessment though.1 Psychic Shriek, assuming they blew all their deny dice on invis, is much more reliable at hurting heavy toughness targets like wraithknights, even with their high leadership, than most shooting is. And you can nuke a low leadership, no invul unit (tauanything) right off the board without affecting charges or shooting. It's also WC 1. There are worse powers you could throw 1 dice at.

I have never managed to do more than 1 wound with PS, so I am grumpy at my bad luck. I choose to never rely on PS because of this.

 Galef wrote:
PS does not have ANY effect on vehicles for 2 reasons. 1) Vehicles don't have LD, thus rules that interact with LD do not interact with vehicles, 2) Vehicles have hull points, not wounds, thus rules that do wounds do not interact with Vehicles.

So PS is not even close to broken. Having to pass the Psychic test, not be denied, then roll to hit, then averaging only 1-2 wounds that can be saved by Invuls = a VERY unreliable ability and waste of Warp Charge.

Why are you treating the roll to hit differently to the 3D6-Ld? If you play that PS must roll a single dice to hit to have an effect then PS is broken against vehicles. If you play PS as written and intended (you know without making up a whole raft of rules) then it is fine and a mice tool against invisibility and FMCs.

Sorry, this isn't YMDC, and it's irrelevant. For ITC (where this list is built for) requires a roll to hit for Psychic Shriek, and anyone who plays this game with a little bit of common sense treats it as doing nothing to a vehicle. So please stop the debate as it makes no difference.

Anyone playing the game with common sense isn't rolling to hit. Anyone playing by rules where you set missing profiles to 1 and then make up other rules to make those profiles meaningful (in other words anyone that does require a successful To Hit roll for PS to resolve) clearly doesn't have any common sense and can use it to kill any vehicle they like.

Regardless of wetter or not it requires a roll to hit, you can not snap fire it because of the BRB statement that attacks that do not require a roll to hit can not be snap fired.

Nope that is attacks that hit automatically. Psychic Shriek in essence misses automatically, then has an effect on the target unit. That effect is not related to hits in any way. That effect is 3d6-Ld wounds with you ignores cover...

I started a YMDC thread to continue this:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/677931.page

Back on topic:
I agree that a Wraith fighter might give you additional tools for different situation, but this list is clearly focused. It would be hard to face for lots of armies.

Indeed, to YMDC with this argument and when you get there leave the petty rudeness at the door.

I ran a similar army with marines a while ago and found it a very hard army to play. At the end, it just was not worth it, as it was to hard to score objectives.

I think it can be easier with Eldar flyers compared to many others just because of the access to vector dancer which drastically changes the way you can play the game

Better hope you don't come across any Drop Pods.