Favorite Eldar unit part V, HEAVY

[Lost Vyper]

At last my favorite slot for Eldar!

Heavy as Black Sabbath in the 70´s, this is where the choices are PLENTY...as many of you might know/remember, i am the "War Walker Fanatic", so the number uno is pretty clear, but let´s tackle that later on.

First, let´s review the choices i use not so often/never.

The Vauls Wrath Support battery doesn´t get play, cos i don´t own them and not planning on owning either. Reason? Well, maybe when using Unbound i might be able to squeeze them in, but already this is the most crowded slot for me.

Night spinner, hmm, i don´t have the model, but the Fire Prism -model could stand in, but again, i don´t see the potential in this one.

Falcon gets (altough can´t remember the last time) play as a ride for the Fire Dragons, but now days the Wave Serpent does the transporting a LOT better.

Wraithlord used to be the shiznit, but along came the bigger brother and benched the lil bro. Now, when he can score in every mission, i might be using him as a backfield object holder, when facing drop pod armies. Dual Bright Lance, Ghostglaive and dual Flamers are the weapons of my choice.

Dark Reapers are great, when facing Marines, but they are stationary, so the 3+ armor save only carries so far. I mean the fact, that everything will be targeting them, if they are sitting on an objective. I use them sometimes, but they are mediocre in my games so far.

Fire Prism is great, but it´s effectiveness dropped in the 7th --> Jink (again). It´s also just a single model, so the chances of surviving fe. Long Fangs lascannon volley is slim...

And we have reached the runner up...

Wraithknight, which i have two. Other was (before any play, it looked so cool) built with CC in mind and the other one is stock (which is the best option IMHO). I use at least one, in almost every single game, and if i play Iyanden, he´ll be the Warlord. Last game, i threw FNP as a Warlord trait! There´s no better one! He gathered fire like a MOFO and got killed in turn four. You got to remember, that i was facing IG and they have the "Ignore cover" -order, so i had the FNP at least to use as a saving grace...Mephiston used to Insta-Gibb these in the 6th edition, but now, he has to turn on the Force in his weapon in the Psychic Phase --> EVERY.SINGLE.DICE.TO.DENY.THAT :), so the Wraithknights chance to survive the CC just went up like 200%! I love the model and the opponents complaints when i tell about the toughness eight and the six wounds...gotta love that...

And the winner is the War Walkers...


There´s so many variants you can built here. Anti-Air or horde control? Double Scatterlasers...

Terminators coming your way? Double Starcannons...

Loads of vehicles (in the 7th, h*** yeah!) Double Bright Lances...

Outflanking? Always...

Tougher now with the new vehicle damage chart? Yep!

Price/Value? A-WE-SOME! 210p and they´ll dust anything in the house or the garden...

How many do you own? Nine and it´s a great day, when i get to use all of them in my list!


What´s your favorite sledge hammer and why?

- Lost Vyper

[Anggul]

I like my Dark Reapers. They are mobile now that they're slow and purposeful, which importantly means if you're going second you can start them out of sight then walk out and open fire in your turn. The rangefinders also make them great at killing bikers of all kinds.

My favourite is the Fire Prism. The look and idea of the giant crystal laser is awesome. They did get nerfed rather pointlessly with the changes to jink and damage chart though, so I'm not sure how well they'll do now and haven't tried them yet, but in 6th they blew up many many things.

[Mr Mystery]

Very much agree the Wraithlord has been upstaged by it's big cousin.

I'd like to see Wraithlords come in Squadrons, give them a little extra clout as a list slot.

[Deadlift]

To look at, build, paint and fluff wise I love the Wraithknight. It's just a great model. The War walker comes a close 2nd.

[Cap'nSmurfs]

Wraithknight. Need to base mine. Love that thing.

[Lost Vyper]

I'd like to see Wraithlords come in Squadrons, give them a little extra clout as a list slot.

That would be awesome! Maybe not from the opponents view, but, hey... :)

[Mr Mystery]

Pre-Unbound, it's what they needed. Wraithknight may be more expensive, but definitely punches it's weight.

Wraithlords in themselves, didn't get worse. They just aren't as 'ard as a Wraithknight!

[Charon]

They did get "worse" because they did get more expensive.

Dark Reapers all the way... sadly they are very vulnerable. On the other hand I tried them with my DE in a Venom... pretty scary.

[Deadlift]

What I like about the Lords is their ability to have two of the same weapon now and not be twin linked. Mine always went with x 2 bright lances, x 2 flamers and the sword. I had 2 and whilst they weren't the best they were pretty effective when I had a Knight running around as a fire magnet.

But my bias is obvious, I just love all the Wraith models.

[Houghten]

*mutters darkly under his breath about the parentage of the forum software*

I made you a post about Wraithlords and Wraithknights, but the forum eated it.

I'm leaving this here as a reminder to myself to re-create it after something approximating a good night's sleep.

[Houghten]

So, Crusade Armour.*

I can't entirely agree that the Wraithlord is overshadowed / outclassed by its bigger little brother.

They have the same Toughness but the Wraithknight has double the Wounds for double the base points; point for point, they're equal in durability (at least until the Knight buys an invulnerable save), except for the possibility of overkill (shooting at two Wraithlords, unless you only have one heavy weapon per squad, some of your shots are going to be inefficiently wasted. Deal four unsaved wounds to a Wraithlord and the Eldar player has only lost three wounds; the other happily sits around unharmed, where a Wraithknight would have lost all four wounds. Admittedly this is a bit swings-and-roundabouts, as the Wraithlords have just lost half their combat effectiveness in preventing that one wound, whereas the Wraithknight will keep going at full power until its last wound is gone).

The Wraithknight definitely has the edge in shooting as it can take the absolutely fantastic suncannon and twin-link it 98.7% of the time with a scatter laser (though doing so will cost you an additional 60 pts, some of that cost is the 5+ invulnerable save). The Wraithlord can't do much shooting-wise that a War Walker can't do cheaper. Even in a ghost warrior army, Wraithlords' heavy weapons are a thing you only buy with your leftover points; when you've got less than 120 points remaining, and you've got all the spiritseers you want, then you can fill up the remaining points with bright lances or whatever else you wanted, because when they're the only thing you can afford, they're not a waste of points.

However, the Wraithlord has the edge in close combat, where being able to afford two Wraithlords for the price of one Wraithknight is very telling. The Wounds might scale with points, but the Attacks don't: the two Wraithlords will have 8 S8 attacks between them where the Wraithknight only has 6, even if they're S10. The Wraithlords get an extra two on the charge instead of one, too, because there are two of them, not to mention two Hammer of Wrath attacks and two chances for at least one of them to succeed on their charge roll in the first place - and up to two re-rolls to-hit if you buy the dead cheap ghostglaive, which you will, because it boosts their non-HoW attacks to S9. Plus there's the overkill thing again; when any army might contain an Imperial Knight, its inability to chainsword more than one of them to death (well, more death) in a turn means they have a better chance at murdering it back.

All that being said, to paraphrase TFA Blitzwing's third face: "OOH, I KNOW! WHY NOT RUN BOTH?"
My preferred setup with my ghost warriors is a suncannon Wraithknight and a pair of ghostglaive Wraithlords. I do have three Heavy Support slots in a Combined Arms detachment, after all.


What I like about the Lords is their ability to have two of the same weapon now and not be twin linked.

That, and they now don't have to sacrifice one of the weapon slots for the ghostglaive.





*Mk. II

[Arkhan Land]

While reapers are probably my favorite in terms of usefellnes/good-fullness I agree with other people here that wraithlord would be better in squadrons (or in my opinion as a counts as elites unit) ever since 2nd edition Ive kind of felt like theyre one of my favorite models in all of 40k tall sleek and dangerous, just like I like my women err I mean mixed drinks

[Finnegan]

1. Wraithknight is a must. Durable fire magnet with great punch in both shooting and cc. Thanks to its mobility he's able to bring combat in a midst of enemy lines or stay away from his powerfists and poisonous attacks.
2. Void Dragon Bomber from Forge World is my second favourite choice, unless enemy brings some AA with "no cover save". Yes, Void Dragon is only AV 10 but he got shrouded that gives him 2+ cover behind ruins or when he jinks. Vector Dancer and Strafing Run + two shuricannons and two phoenix missiles pods makes him both agile and effective against MEQ, FMC and light-medium flyers and his pulse laser gives him a chance to deal with heavy armor and 2+ save
3.Warwalkers are great (firepower + battle focus, outflank/scout and inv save), I used to put 1-3 in a previous codex lists but they are not as mobile as previous two candidates. I still use one or two of them occasionally to outflank the enemy with my Hornets.
4.Nightspinners are quite nice against Orks, Nids and IG. Fire Prisms have great range and punch, in 6ed I've destroyed a bunch of Leman Russ tanks and two Monoliths with mine.
And there is also Warp Hunter from Forge World. Slightly nerfed (AP3 now), he is now MEQ killer. Barrage 3 small blasts with with Instant Death" on 6 to wound are quite nice and his Warp Rift rule (Torrent without 6 extra inches) is great against Drop Poding/Deep Striking infantry with 3+ save. Just keep him in reserves, wait for enemy drop and when he shows up, invite them for trip to the Warp with no armor and cover saves. One way ticket to oblivion for them.
5.Wraithlord - now when he is scoring, he might be useful to hold some backfield objective and counter some deep striking units. Mandatory in Iyanden armies that do not want to spam Wraithknights.
6.Dark Reapers - Great against MEQ, bikes and light armour, but tend to die from helldrakes and Venomspam pretty easily. Nice against Necrons and Nids. Adding spritseer with Conceal greatly increases survivability.
7.The Poor Falcon - surprisingly it's quite effective in their "gatling lite" configuration (shuricannon, scatter laser and pulse laser) but we definitely can fill that slot better. I still run one falcon for fun occasionally.
8.Vaul's Wrath Battery are quite nice in smaller points battles, but we can probably find something more fitting to Heavy Support role.

[direhippo]

VWSB has done serious work in my games, especially against necrons, IG, tau , tyranids, marines, etc. 3 Str 6/7 sniping monofilament LOS-ignoring and cover-mitigating small blasts at 48". Each platform has effectively 4 wounds at T7 with 3+ armour. For 30pts/platform (90pts/unit), I'll take a unit of these workbeasts any day of the week.

[Ang56]

Love warwalkers, Battle focus / 5++ on a mobile heavy weapons platform is hard to beat at their point cost. I never leave home without em (not literally, I field them in games a lot. I don't take them grocery shopping).

My number 2 would probably be Fire Prisms, you need to be careful with them. But they are fairly cheap for what they can do. The 3 firing modes on the prism mean they can shoot well at any target really. AP3 large blast / AP2 small blast / Lance kind of make it a take all comers. I like that I can have it help out by attacking whatever unit type it looks like is going to be a problem late game because I don't have enough Anti-(whatever it is they've spammed). Jink change hurt and making them live past the first few turns is harder, but I still think they are pretty good.

I would love to use the Support Battery, just I don't own any for some reason. My group doesn't really allow proxy or unassembled / painted. Not a rule against it, we just generally don't unless a codex just came out and we want to try some stuff before buying.



My brother and I have talked about the wraithlord vs wraithknight a bit. 2 WL are very similar to 1 WK, same armor, toughness, wounds and points. WK can be made a little tougher, WL's are 2 models, so less vulnerable to instant death also way easier to hide behind LoS blocks, WK moves faster. WK's do have an edge in shooting capability. 2x WL's have an edge in close combat. The extra slot is the biggest deal, after that it comes down to do you want them for to be a little better at melee or shooting. They are both a little bit better than the other at surviving different kinds of attacks. Is more about available slots and preference to me then WK being the clear cut choice.

I tend to run wraithlords over my knight except in really big games. Our boards have a lot of LoS blocks and cross table shooting is pretty restricted. My WK does pretty good when I take him, but his height gives some units a target to shoot that would otherwise have no target and be forced to move or do nothing that turn. I also run a lot of mid range shooting so 2 WL's to shoot and backup my troops when they get into combat just seems to do better then my WK esp since 2 WL are a fair bit better then 1 WK in HtH. My brother swears by the WK though. I think they are comparable, just a little different.