I'd like to explain the plan I have for my Eldar Wraith army, and how I came to it, step-by-step. Because why not?
If you read my last Warhammer 40k post, you'll know how good Wave Serpents are now. They kill infantry, tanks, even flyers, and are extremely survivable with a 4+ cover save and a Serpent Shield. And they transport troops! So I worked out a few basic principles of good Eldar list building, based on the strengths of the new Codex.
1: Core of scoring units in Wave Serpents / Jetbike units
2: At least two close-combat units
3: Enough anti vehicle / anti horde
1: Our best advantage as Eldar is the mobility of our scoring units, and the effectiveness per cost of Wave Serpents. Windrider Jetbikes are incredibly cost effective when you compare their cost to Marines with the same stats. They cost around the same, have Eldar Jetbikes, toughness 4, a 3+ save, a 5+ cover save basically all the time, and twin-linked rending shots, plus shuriken cannons in each team. Wave Serpents are also unarguably the best Eldar tank (refer to my last post if you're unconvinced!), and deserve to be a part of basically any army list. Jetbikes are great, but their mobility can be covered by Wave Serpents, as they are fast skimmers. So it's nice to take both, but not necessary - Wave Serpents can fulfill all your mobile troop needs - AND your anti-tank, anti-infantry, and anti-flyer needs.
2: Our mobile troops and Wave Serpents are great - but they get owned in close combat. The solution to this is a close-combat unit to help counter-charge and save our Windriders or Wave Serpents. A mobile Eldar army without any close-combat is going to run into tough times when you roll a double 1 on your run or Jetbike movement! But why two close-combat units instead of just one? Simple answer, and why we want to take multiples of everything: redundancy. An assault army can kill one close-combat unit with a better close-combat unit, or shooting, and then still assault the rest of the Eldar army unmolested. We need to make sure that can't happen. So while one assault unit is nice, two is more than twice as good. It splits target priority, ensures we'll have a tool to break troops out of assault, and provides some nice threats and versatility in different situations.
3: Of course, number three is all about filling in the remaining weaknesses after fulfilling the first two criteria. This should be a no-brainer.
Knowing all of this, there are in my opinion two types of Eldar army that are the most optimal. That isn't to say other army types won't be good, or won't win, but these two armies will win the hardest.
The first is Saim-Hann. This is a Jetbike focused army based primarily on shooting and objective-taking. This list should play like Space Marines (toughness 4, 3+ armor), only WAY faster, and for about the same cost. Sounds pretty strong, right? You'll want several large units of Jetbikes, maybe some Warp Spiders or a Crimson Hunter, and hopefully some additional Wave Serpents - maybe even a Wraithknight to add fire support and assault! I'll cover this army in a future post.
The second army is Iyanden. This is the army focused on Wraith-constructs. Toughness six monstrous creature TROOPS with AP2 guns and close combat weapons. Again, these guys sound pretty strong! When I think of the best troop to have inside a Wave Serpent, as well as the best assault unit, and the most hardy objective-taker, I keep coming back to Wraithguard. They absolutely excel at what they do. Their only weakness is their short range, which is mitigated by the ever-useful Wave Serpents. And not only do we get strong anti-horde (and anti-elite infantry, too!) with D-Scythes, we also get very good anti-vehicle with Wraithcannons. AND, we get the best assault unit in the Codex, Wraithblades. All of these units become scoring troops with the simple addition of a 70 point Spiritseer. Oh, and did I mention these guys are Fearless and can take advantage of Spirit Marks to make re-rolls?
In my opinion, Wraithguard/blades and Windrider Jetbikes are the two best troop units Eldar possesses. They're very tough, have cool tricks, are versatile, and don't cost an extreme amount for it. Because Wraithguard synergize better with Wave Serpents, I've decided to focus primarily on the Iyanden army for being the toughest and most hard-hitting Eldar army, without sacrificing much mobility.
So, let's look at how I want to fulfill the three criteria with Iyanden.
1: At least 2 5-strong Wraithguard units in Wave Serpents.
Should be obvious at this point. We need troops in Wave Serpents. We want at least two, for redundancy, and because Wave Serpents are awesome. And, because we want to include both types of Wraithguard - D-Scythes, and Wraithcannons.
2: At least 2 IN TOTAL of 5-strong Wraithblade units in Wave Serpents OR Wraithlords.
Two assault units fulfill the second criteria. Wraithblades are tough, hard-hitting assault units that are also scoring, but synergize less well with the Wave Serpents. Wraithlords are also tough units that hit a little less hard (with only 4 attacks), but are a pain to kill, and have solid shooting and versatility to boot. As stated, we want at least two assault units, so we need two of these types, alone or in combination.
3: Additional anti-horde, anti-heavy-vehicle, anti-flyer. Candidates include: Fire Prisms, War Walkers, Falcons, Night Spinners, Warp Spiders, Wraithlords.
As shown in my last post, Fire Prisms and Falcons aren't fantastic in this role. They're worse than Wave Serpents most of the time. War Walkers, on the other hand, are amazing units that fulfill anti-horde AND anti-flyer fairly well with scatter lasers. These guys are so good, I believe they belong in basically every single army list. Warp Spiders are a decent option as well, fulfilling a similar role to War Walkers but being a bit more mobile, while taking a valuable Fast Attack slot for The Scouring missions. Finally, Wraithlords have weapon options to help deal with hordes and vehicles (2x flamer + brightlance configuration is cheap and versatile), while also being a strong assault creature. My plan is to focus on War Walkers and Wraithlords as the most versatile and cost-effective means of filling the third criteria.
So, using this logical application of the three criteria to the most effective units to perform the roles we need, let's construct a basic 1500 point army list.
1495 Points:
1x Spiritseer
5x Wraithguard+cannons
1x Wave Serpent+scatter+shuri+holo
5x Wraithguard+dscythe
1x Wave Serpent+scatter+shuri+holo
10x Wraithblades+axes
10x Guardians
1x Wraithlord+glaive+2xflamers+brightlance
3x War Walkers+2xscatters
The Spiritseer is obvious. We need our Wraith units to score, and he's a cheap, efficient Warlord for this point level.
Next, we take two units of Wraithguard in Wave Serpents, one of each type. This follows exactly from what we said before, and should make sense by now. Tough scoring troops inside mobile highly effective tank-transports. Very hard to kill, very hard-hitting. If we have points left over after fulfilling the rest of the criteria, we'll try to take more, but this is an expensive unit.
Next, the first assault unit: a full unit of Wraithblades with axes and shields. This is almost the same cost as a half-sized unit of Wraithblades with a Wave Serpent, and I could see an argument either way. But I've had success with a full-sized unit walking up the table. It's twice as effective in close-combat with twice the models. It's more able to respond to back-field threats like Drop Pods, since it can assault immediately and starts in the rear. It's a very difficult to kill threat with 4+ invulnerable saves, and can be marched directly to an objective or a dangerous enemy unit and expect to arrive safely. Finally, Wave Serpents don't allow you to assault while disembarking, making a half-sized unit more vulnerable for a turn when it unloads, and makes assaulting or threatening the unit you want more difficult. I think this unit could work either way, but this is how I chose to deploy it.
Next, 10 Guardians. These guys are a simple cheap unit to hold my back-field objective. They'll often go into reserve. While they don't directly fit any of the criteria listed previously, it follows from how my list is developing currently. I have 2 short-ranged, hard-hitting and hardy Wraithguard units in mobile transports. They want to be advancing up the field to take forward objectives. They also require counter-assault presence, so my Wraithblades also want to advance up the field. Nothing would be left at home to capture the back-field objective, so I need a 4th troop choice to accomplish this. You'll see this as a feature of many army lists, to have cheap back field troops.
Next up is my second assault unit, a Wraithlord. As stated earlier, the Wraithlord fills out several rolls in this army. It's a valuable secondary assault unit to assist the Wraithblades or any Wraithguard units in the field. It comes with 2 flamers and a Brightlance, letting it deal with hordes and heavy vehicles. It also has a Ghost Glaive, allowing it to re-roll one to-hit roll in close combat, which is a big help considering its average weapon skill. The Wraithlord, like the Wraithblades, also acts as a fire magnet, drawing attention away from my troops and Wave Serpents. This unit helps fulfill criteria 2 and 3.
Finally, a squadron of War Walkers decked out with Scatter Lasers. The War Walkers provide versatile fire support and outflanking to deal with infantry, medium to light vehicles, and flyers. It's simply an extremely effective unit. The reason I went with the Scatter Laser configuration, as opposed to scatter laser + shuriken cannon, or star cannons, is mostly based on math.
6 star cannons: 12 shots, 8 hits, 6 wounds, 6 dead infantry, 4 dead terminators
6 scatter lasers: 24 shots, 20 hits, 17 wounds, 12 dead geq, 6 dead marines, 3 dead terminators.
Double scatter lasers is by far the most effective vs infantry as a whole - star cannons might be slightly better against Terminators specifically, but having twice as many shots, half of them twin-linked, will still be very effective against Terminators and Marines, well also wrecking light infantry and vehicles (via glances). Having such a high number of twin-linked shots will also do a number on flyers. And while scatter lasers + shuriken cannons is a little better vs marines compared to double scatter lasers, it's a small difference, and I prefer the 36'' range of the scatter laser loadout to keep the War Walkers from being targeted too aggressively.
As you can see, this is a pretty simple army list, but it fulfills all of our criteria and matches 1500 points very closely. I think the only alterations that could be argued is to change the Wraithblade unit into a group of 5 and give them a Wave Serpent, which can also add a Bright Lance onto the Guardian squad for the points saved. Otherwise, this is pretty much the most logical way to construct the ideal Iyanden Wraith list, in my opinion. I can't imagine omitting anything already included.
After constructing this baseline army, it's a relatively easy matter to shift the point costs up or down, and add or subtract whatever you have to to fit into those points.
1000 Points:
1x Spiritseer
5x Wraithguard+cannons
1x Wave Serpent+scatter+shuri+holo
5x Wraithguard+dscythe
1x Wave Serpent+scatter+shuri+holo
1x Wraithlord+2xflamers+2xbrightlance
10x Guardians+brightlance/scatter/star
You can see that we removed the Wraithblades and War Walkers to fit these ideas into 1000 points. I only have one assault unit now, in the form of the Wraithlord, but I can rely in a pinch on my D-Scythe Wraithguard to not get charged, thanks to their devastating overwatch potential (5*D3 automatic hits at AP2!). Based on the points I needed to shave off, I had to keep what you see here as the most vital portions of my army. We still fulfill criteria 1 and 3, albeit weaker, and criteria 2 is half-met.
750 points:
1x Spiritseer
5x Wraithguard+dscythe
1x Wave Serpent+scatter+shuri+holo
10x Guardians+brightlance
3x War Walkers+2xscatter
To transition down to 750 points, I elected to remove the Wraithcannon unit, as I expect to see few heavy vehicles at this point limit. I also replaced the Wraithlord with the War Walker squadron, to better deal with hordes and the greater number of medium to light vehicles I expect to see compared to heavy vehicles. Once again, I rely on the overwatch of my D-Scythes to prevent or mitigate assaults, since they will be my forward objective-takers. D-Scythes can even deal with heavy vehicles, to an extent, since I get 5 automatic hits, and on any roll of 6 I penetrate the vehicle with AP2. I can expect about 1 penetration per attack based on this.
500 points:
1x Spiritseer
10x Guardians+brightlance
5x Dire Avengers
1x Wave Serpent+scatter+shuri
2x War Walker+2xshuri
My construction of the 500 point list may surprise you, but it's based on the easiest transition from the Battleforce (the old one, with a War Walker) to the 750 point list. I have only to add a War Walker and a Spiritseer on to the Battleforce to make this list, and from here I have only to add another War Walker and replace the Dire Avengers with Wraithguard to make 750 points. Each list is designed not only to be the most effective I can make them, but to transition from one to the next so that each is a logical next-step. Of course, the Eldar Battleforce can construct a decent 500 point list with only a Warlord purchase, but I think 2 War Walkers will be far stronger.
There you have it! I'll cover a Saim-Hann Jetbike army in a future post, using this same methodology.
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