1850 Wraith Army

[Garradh]

I've always wanted to play an Iyanden list and proxied a few games in 5th using the 4th rules, so I'm super dee duper excited for this new Codex.

My initial list was:

Yriel
Spiritseer with Firesaber

10x Wraithguard
10x Wraithguard
5x Wraithguard/Scythes
8x Dire Avengers including Exarch with PW/SS, in a Wave Serpent with TL Scatter Lasers, ShuriCannon and Crystal Targetting Matrix
3x Guardian Jetbikes w/ShuriCannon

3x War Walkers with 2 Scatter Lasers each
2x Wraithlords, Scatter/Lance, Sword and 2 flamers each

My opponent for my first game was Tyranids, which allowed me to play the game to my list's strong points - relatively unconstested ranged firepower while advancing a phalanx of Wraithguard backed by the Spiritseer and Wraithlords. The opponent played a Swarmlord/Alpha/Tyrant Guard deathstar, three Tervigons w/corresponding Termagants, two five-man groups of Ymgarl 'stealers, and a Spitterfex. He also deep-striked a brood of deathspitter Termagants and the Doom of Mal'anti in mycetic spores.

With the amount of poisoned attacks his Termagants would deliver, I was concerned for the survival of my high-toughness units. Concentrating my firepower initially on the Tervigons reduced but did not kill any of them, and I had to switch to destroying the Swarmlord and friends as they threatened the Wraith phalanx. At that same time his reserves arrived, and the Tervigons were given a one-round respite to pump out more broods. I made some key mistakes to try to neutralize the deathstar, which saw my Yriel/DA team get whomped by the Carnifex.

Fortunately I was able to stop the deathstar and finish off the Tervigons late in the game, emasculating the Termagants and letting my beleagured Wraithguard rout the smaller bugs.

Lessons learned were that I missed having a Farseer and that Wraithguard are only tougher than they used to be with their S10. I also understand that the game went very much in my favor due to the Nid shooting weakness.

Eldrad
Spiritseer

10x Wraithguard
10x Wraithguard
8x Dire Avengers inc. Exarch with PW/SS in a Wave Serpent w/TL Scatter Lasers
3x Jetbikes
5x Rangers

3x War Walkers with 2 Scatter Lasers each
2x Wraithlords, Scatter/Lance, Sword and 2 flamers each


I think this will be my second test. I found myself missing psychic powers and thought I had plenty of power in the Wraith phalanx but could use a unit to sit in the backfield and camp objectives.

Thoughts?

[G00dySmiley]

I might change a weapon on war walkers, the scatter lasers have to fire together, star cannons for 6 tl str 6 ap2 shots would ruin a terminator squads day

[Garradh]

My biggest concern is with aircraft. My other armies (Guard, BA, CSM) are all very combined-arms including air, AAA, armor, usually artillery, etc. I'm relying on War Walkers for antiair which draws their fire from killing infantry, and honestly S6 BS1, even with TL, Guide, etc. isn't the best for many flyers on the board. The Wraith phalanx should be close enough to the enemy to limit or eliminate many airstrikes, but my Walkers and Rangers will be sitting relatively unprotected.

[Garradh]

star cannons for 6 tl str 6 ap2 shots would ruin a terminator squads day

That they would! I am mentally preferring Scatter Lasers just for the weight of fire, but if the meta at my store was more Sv2+ heavy that's a very good idea.

[G00dySmiley]

ani air is rough, the scatters can help by tl other shots on wraithlors, you could try to cut 100 points to get a guad gun,

i question the point sspent on crystal targeting matrix on wave serpant for example as will it ever be worth 25 points to fire a scatter laser once on flat out move on first list, the new one though.. maybe cut one war walker and one wraithguard

edit-

or cut 2 wraithguard from one group and 1 from another aong with 1 dire avenger that is enough points for aegis and quadgun, then set the dire avengers behind it near an objective

[Garradh]

I agree that 25 pts was too much for CTM, so I dropped it for the second list. I'm not a big fan of Aegis lines when I can scrape up 25 more points and get a Bastion.

Now with the Iyanden supplement coming out, I'll have to see the changes there. Two spiritseers are better than one, and I think it would be easy to dump some wargear to squeeze a second SS in. Dropping the Rangers and the Firesaber would give me 90 points to buy a 70-pt Spiritseer and 20 points of extra fun laying around (Shuriken Cannons on the Bikes and Wave Serpent come to mind).

[Garradh]

I was able to get a game in this weekend:

Eldrad
Spiritseerx2 (Iyanden Shadow Council)

10x Wraithguard
10x Wraithguard
8x Dire Avengers inc. Exarch with PW/SS in a Wave Serpent w/TL Scatter Lasers and ShuriCannon
3x Jetbikes, one with ShuriCannon

3x War Walkers with 2 Scatter Lasers each
2x Wraithlords, Scatter/Lance, Sword and 2 flamers each

Fighting against a Draigoball, I was more than a bit nervous. It was a bit of a grudge match against the GK player who had gotten sick of losing Justicars every time he wanted to cast Hammerhand, and without the Eldar psychic defense I expected my Wraithguard to go down rather quickly.

Opponent's list was (approx):
Draigo
5 Paladins w/Halberds and 2 Psycannons

2x 10 man Power Armor squads, with Psycannons
2x Razorbacks with TL H Bolters

2x Psyfleman Dreads

1 Dreadknight, bare bones

1 Stormraven, TL AssCannons and Typhoon ML

Everything that could take Psy ammo had it. We played The Relic mission.

Turn 1 went well for me, destroying both Razorbacks even though he had hid most of his army in cover. A Psyfledread damaged one of my war walkers, otherwise he remained mostly in cover.

Turn 2 I advanced a phalanx of the psykers, Wraithguard, and Wraithlords toward the objective. Shooting was largely ineffective, but I put Prescience/Guide on my two Wraithguard squads in anticipation of him swooping the Pally-filled Stormraven up to the phalanx. He promptly did, while his psyfledreads killed two War Walkers and a few Wraithguard. It should be noted that I got the runes of battle power which could give one of my Wraith squads +1 to their armor, since that made a tough unit much, much tougher. The other unit was badly cut up by Psyfle, infantry, and Stormraven fire.

Oddly he was keeping his distance, when the Grey Knights could have done quite well against my Wraithguard in close combat. He even kept his Dreadknight back in fear of losing it quickly to Wraithguard fire.

On the top of 3 I spent both Wraithguard units shooting at his front-and-center Stormraven, destroying it with rerollable snap fire. Two Paladins were killed and Draigo was wounded in the crash, and I spent most of the rest of my firepower attempting to cut up the Paladins who were dangerously close to charge range of my larger, Eldrad-backed Wraith unit. I pulled my damaged Wraith unit back and surged a Wraithlord forward in case he did get a charge off on the large Wraith unit. At this time I also realized he was ignoring my Wave Serpent completely, so I dropped the shields and went for full offensive fire with it, starting to take a toll on his Strike squads.

Inexplicably, he didn't advance the Paladin ball. All of his firepower went at my advancing Wraithlord, killing it, and then switched to the weakened Wraithguard unit, knocking it down to two Guard and a wounded Spiritseer.

With that opportunity missed, the game started turning against him. Turn 4 saw the rest of the Paladins killed by wraithcannons and a charging Wraithlord, whom I hoped to use as bait to keep him away from the objective. With the loss of the Draigoball it was clear the breeze had slipped from my opponent's sails. To make matters worse, while he did kill the second wraithlord handily with his dreadknight, none of his other shooting proved to be effective. Still, he had one and a half Strike squads and two fully effective Dreadknights on the board, and I knew I had to switch to winning the game or risk a large turnaround.

On Turn 5 I rushed my Jetbikes forward to grab the objective, doubting they could hold it but knowing it would keep him from claiming it in the bottom of 5. The remaining Wraithguard and Spiritseer from the shot-up squad, accompanied by the War Walker, charged his depleted squad to hopefully deny their shooting being added to the pain my Bikes would feel, while the stronger Wraithguard squad advanced to pick up the relic when my bikes lost it. It would prove unnecessary - while my bikes were easily dispatched in a charge, his squad couldn't pick up the relic until his next movement phase, and with a roll of 2 the game ended at the bottom of 5. Final score was 2-0 (Slay the Warlord and First Blood).

The game was my second with Eldar and I forgot a few rules, especially marking targets with my Spiritseers. That was offset by him doing nothing with Draigo for a round. Eldrad did an outstanding job for me, keeping my Wraith units twin-linked when necessary with the Prescience/Guide combo, and getting off two successful Mind Wars that killed a paladin and the Dreadknight. My Dire Avengers successfull fulfilled their job of sampling various snack cakes in the back of the Wave Serpent, as they seemed to do throughout 5th Edition.

I was expecting a brutal HtH slug-fest against one of the few armies that can fight Wraith units well and take a beating in return. Instead my opponent played the long range game, one I felt unravelled as he threw his best close combat units in piecemeal so my shooting could deal with them individually. I never had to make target priority choices throughout the game - every turn I knew exactly what I needed to shoot at. Turn 1 was "the only things in LoS" as was Turn 2. Turn 3 was the Stormraven, Turn 4 was the Draigoball, and Turn 5 would have been the Dreadknight had it not been for Eldrad's lucky Mind War kill. I fear my next match-up against this player after he has had a chance to think through his mistakes!

[Angelofblades]

Enjoying the test games and the list evolution. Keep it up!

[rle68]

your anti air is staring you in the face.. twin scatter laser war walkers... 3 of them pump out 24 shots a turn cast guide on them and voila you will shoot down a flyer per turn... i have tried it and shot down 3 flyers so far... it also works not quite as effective with scatter bright lance combo.. its a big hammer and nails effect...

now for some other ideas on this list.. your wasting your wraith guards ability. 5 man squads instead of 10 get a "wraithserpent" to carry them around in.. since the new dex makes "wraithserpents" really bad ***.. you get them where you need them faster and get to kill other stuff

my partial list

3 wraith guard with wave serpents bright lances hollo field
spirit seer

2 wind rider squads with each upgrade to shuriken cannon

far seer on jet bike singing spear

3 war walkers 2 scatter lasers but im testing scatter/ bright lance

1fire dragon squad with wave serpent scatter lasers under slung shuriken cannon
exarch fire pike fast shot

the list this is for is for a 1776 event i have a few points left over not sure maybe another war walker

[Garradh]

A very well-rounded list, rle68. This game my Wraithguard ended up playing Guide-backed AAA!

Next evolution is "to Eldrad or not to Eldrad." I feel guilty for playing him, even if he's a counts-as Bonesinger.