1850 Wraith Army

[SON OF ROMULOUS]

Oh i'm sorry i didn't mean to make you think i was talking msu i despise msu unless you playing under 1000 points maybe 1250 at max. but for your list what i mean was moving towards unit sizes closer to 7-8. You're at most losing 2-3 guys from your list but those points can be spent on additional bodies elsewhere or even another unit of bikes. that was where i was leaning towards. while i understand the bike squad at 3 i just don't know how effective they will be unless you can almost guarantee you're going 2nd and even then i just worry that your opponents will squish them well before that turn.

And ya playing nids won't really help you tell what your list needs tweak wise. would say one of the best armies i think to try your luck against would be dark eldar. my reason is this. Dark eldar are the perect spoiler army in 6th edition. their abilities and play style are just not duplicated via any other army. i believe if you make a list that can deal with dark eldar and still beat nids then you should easily have a list that can compete with everythign from GK to orks to other eldar and flavors of sm.

[Deathboon]

Honestly against nids a 10 wraith objective holder with the wraith flamer thing would be just brutal, put a model with fortune and one with conceal in the mix and force them to assault you, the overwatch will be staggeringly effective.

[Garradh]

Got in a game, again against a Draigoball-style GK army. Two objectives, long table deployment. The GKs had no speed except a jump-packing Dreadknight. I was able to engage and destroy his two Psyfledreads early - outflanking WWs tagged one and the other was killed by a bit of lucky glancing from a Wave Serpent.

The game played against the GK player from the start, almost entirely because of Wave Serpent fear/propaganda. He was so concerned with killing the two Wave Serpents that he was afraid to move his power-armored troops forward, and tried to throw his Dreadknight at the Serpents while ignoring the 10-man Wraithguard that walked up to it and delivered a painless coup-de-grace.

I credit this game entirely to Wave Serpent fear. I think i popped a shield to fire once, the rest of the time I just hid them in cover and let my opponent expend his psyfledreads trying to kill them with a 4+ cover save. After two Eldar shooting turns I asked him if he wished to concede and he did.

Next week I'm playing against a more traditional Aspect Eldar list with a lot of the goodies I wish I had in my list but don't (Wraithknight, Solitaire Autarch, Warp Spiders, and Fire Prisms, oh my!), really looking forward to a change of pace!

[Garradh]

I have made one tactical change - instead of rolling twice on the Runes of Fate and taking Primaris from Divination for my Farseer I am routinely rolling twice on Divination and taking the Runes primaris power. Since half the Eldar powers require two force points, I really can't use them. Two Divination powers and Guide is more routinely useful.

[Angelofblades]

Typically, I roll once and see if I got anything good, Ie really Doom. If I get Doom, then I'll get guide and prescience. If I didn't get doom on the first roll, I'll roll twice on Divination. But I will admit that I've been rolling twice on divination more often.

[Defenestratus]

Has anyone been able to use Wraithblades effectively? I am painting up a unit of 10 right now and I really want them to work but I just haven't been able to yet in the few games I've played. They just are too slow to get into combat - units run away from them.

[Dave Mcturk]

loving my wraithblades, spiritseer gets them conceal so they are pretty survivable unless you are on a billiard table... with luck you can enhance their save with another power... but if not they still soak up some damage and scare enemy units off your position, finding superwraith a bit pricy at 42pts ! dont forget to spirit mark and reroll those 1's.

thinkyou have to use them pretty aggressively so try and set up terrain to give them a 'path' ... bit harder if you are on pre-gen terrain

and they look awesome !

[Garradh]

I see their potential but I shy away from them because of their lack of ranged power and their overall small number of attacks. On paper they're awesome - a S6+ T6 assault model with a 3+(+) save that can be enhanced by a variety of psychic abilities. You can always run them except on the turn you are assaulting, so they have some hustle across the board, but they are also going to draw a lot of firepower. With the axe/shield option I find their single attack debilitating unless they are fighting a monstrous creature. With the swords option they aren't a bad unit.

It honestly depends on their psychic support. A Farseer giving them Fortune or Prescience, a Spiritseer giving them, honestly, just about any buff, makes them a lot better.

I've thought about squeezing five axe/shield Wraiths into my list to act as a Farseer bodyguard or to stick in a Wave Serpent, but pound for pound there's not much that can compete with S10 AP2 Distort shooting. And with Guide/Prescience, it's amazing how many combats you win in Overwatch with these big guys against the units that are best at killing them.

[Garradh]

Woohoo first loss! Iyanden vs Iyanden throwdown!

Opponent's list was (roughly)

Spiritseer
Solitaire Autarch

5 Avengers in SL Serpent
10 Guardians w/SC in SL Serpent
10 Storm Guardians w/flamer and fustion in SL Serpent
2x Fire Prisms
3x Jetbikes
6x Warp Spiders
Crimson Hunter
Wraithknight with Suncannon/Shield (warlord)

Game was long table for Kill Points. Terrain was odd in that before we rolled anything the table was very laterally hard to move across due to terrain setup. At the edge of my deployment zone was a steep hill and a large woods so I started in good cover but also in difficult terrain. That was fine as I was going second. War walkers were kept in outflanking reserve.

His first turn of shooting was heavy as expected, but rolling proved to be one-sided. I hate blaming the dice, so I won't. Suffice it to say I wasn't as well-protected as I imagined and lost 3/4 of my Wraithguard, as well as my Farseer and a Spiritseer, to shooting. Knowing the going would be very rough without the bulk of my infantry, I advanced the remaining Wraithguard as quickly as I could, slowed by the difficult terrain. My opponent had cockily put his Solitaire out in charge range, so I charged with my larger unit of Wraithguard and killed him. My empty Serpent sat back and fired on a Prism, getting a hull point. The rest of my ranged shooting attempted, vainly, to get the third hull point on a Wave Serpent after my other Serpent knocked two hull points off of it. Oh holofields!

His Crimson Hunter came in from reserve on T2 but ineffectively shot at a Serpent, and he forgot about his Warp Spiders completely so we designated them "in reserve". The rest of his army knocked me down to a pair of Wraithguards accompanied by my surviving Spiritseer. I brought in the war walkers who destroyed a Wave Serpent, and killed his damaged Serpent with one of my own as it advanced with Dire Avengers in its belly - I was going to need every shot I could get, and soon.

Turn 3 continued the steady degradation of my army. Without the big block of Wraithguard to absorb his shooting, it was imply an attrition game I couldn't win. His Warp Spiders annihilated my walkers (how hard is it to make a 5+ save?), my Serpents took some more hits, a Wraithlord was wounded and one of my bikes was killed despite a ridiculous cover save. However by that point I was up and running, destroying the last of his Serpents and nearly wiping out the Avengers on it, while my own Avengers cut up his Storm Guardians and his Spiritseer. In Turn 4 my Avengers got shot down to a single model, and we had a great Avenger-vs-Avenger fight that saw my charging model win after failing to hit in shooting. My Wraithguard finally managed to roll a saving throw against his Warp Spiders, whom they then charged, broke, and annihilated. As the game wrapped up my counterattack petered out for lack of models, while his Knight killed both my Wraithlords (I5!) and my last biker beat a hasty retreat after losing his battle-buddy. My remaining serpents were wrecked and his surviving Guardians shot my last four infantry models off the board.

In all it was a fun game that started disastrously but proved the tenacity of Eldar (on both sides of the board). I walked away realizing I forgot "Look Out Sir" which could have kept my Farseer alive and might have helped keep the score a bit more even, since First Blood and Slay the Warlord both got chalked up with his death. It showed how reliant my army is on the Wraithguard Phalanx and now I'm checking options to make it more resilient. In truth there was no way to avoid rolling 1s, and I rolled a lot of 1s.

I am considering some very small changes, dropping a Wraithguard and a Dire Avenger saves me 45 points which I can spend on holofields for my Wave Serpents (who haven't "needed" them, even in this game my Serpents survived an amazing amount of shooting for their points). That gives me fifteen points to play with, maybe the helmet that allows automatic Look Out Sir rolls and lets a Wraithguard fight as a champion in melee.

I am also starting to wonder if I have too much psychic support. Dropping a spiritseer and the farseer would free up 185 points of killing power . . . decisions decisions!

One final decision - I am switching one of my Wraithlords to double bright lance (the other is already modeled with a scatter laser). The added antitank power keeps coming up as a need in the games I am playing.

[Garradh]

Farseer w/Helm of Xinthillion and Singing Spear
Spiritseer x2

10x Wraithguard
9x Wraithguard with a Wave Serpent with TL Scatter Lasers, ShuriCannon and Holofields
7x Dire Avengers in a Wave Serpent with TL Scatter Lasers, ShuriCannon and Holofields
3x Guardian Jetbikes w/ShuriCannon

3x War Walkers with 2 Scatter Lasers each
Wraithlord with Scatter/Lance, Sword and 2 flamers
Wraithlord with 2 Bright Lances, Sword and 2 flamers

New list