Well since I've been playing with my Eldar for about a year and a half now and still failing to complete my conversions on my Jetbikes to finally get my act together and start painting I decided it might be time for a different goal. So after I got my first ever 2de placing in a tournament I said to myself maybe it's time I build an army and went to a GT.
But I wanted to take a different army from my normal one since I won't be able to finish my Jetbikes in time. So I sat down and looked at my army book and noticed I couldn't stop looking at the grav tanks. They where the thing I fell in love with and what drew me to the Eldar when I picked up 40K. So I went to see how many I could put into a list and still have my bases covered. I figured with the still very much alive melta craze the energy shield rules of the wave serpents would be a great think to take advantage of. But it needs to be backed up with some long range Fire support. Now before the release of the Nightspinner I would have had no question about what to take for this role. But with the new rules I can see great potential for the Nightspinner in the list I was considering to take.
Being mostly gravtanks one of the main worries is to keep your stuff alive once the step out their ride to take some action, especially the fire dragons need this. So to keep them alive I want to use the Night spinner to cover their retreat and to help them to reach beneficial positions to do their job. Also being barrage when the fire dragons pop a transport and the cargo decides to hide behind the wreckage I can still shoot at them.
So I present you my first take on my GT list for the Dutch GT 2010:
HQ:178
Farseer, Doom, runes of warding, Spear (Psychic Defence& LD10)
Autarch, fusion gun (Reserve & LD10)
Troops:860
7 DA's, waveserpent (scatterlaser,ss) Farseer
7 DA's, waveserpent (scatterlaser,ss) Autarch
8 DA's, waveserpent (scatterlaser,ss)
8 DA's, waveserpent (scatterlaser,ss)
Elite:410
5 FD's, waveserpent (scatterlaser,ss)
5 FD's, waveserpent (scatterlaser,ss)
Heavy: 250
Nightspinner (ss)
Nightspinner (ss)
Totaal 1698 pts.
you al will notice the lack of Bright Lances in favor of the cheaper Scatterlasers. This because I feel that with 2 units of Fire Dragons for the really hard tanks I have enough S 6 shooting and maneuverability to take out the rest. Same thing is for the spirit stones I want to make sure I can keep moving. This keeps the Nightspinners free to keep moving back and away should the enemy come to close.
Also this list will hopefully make my opponent shudder with the fact that there are 8 gravtanks across him with an Autarch to support my usual reserve tactics. The Farseer should help me keep from falling to Psychic powers like living lightning and the likes. While the occasional Doom support would be help full with getting some more chance on rending and general wounding with my S6.
So what do you all think of this list and playstyle?
comments are more than welcome
I would suggest Fire Prisms instead of the Nightspinners. With the number of tanks you will likely be facing (10+ in an IG or Space Marine army) the two squads of Fire Dragons won't be enough. Also, I'd drop the Dire Avengers down to 5 in each squad. They won't want to get out and a couple more per squad isn't going to help.
ReplyDeleteThen put either Missile Launchers or Bright Lances on the Dire Avenger Serpents. Again, you just don't have enough tank stopping power.
Finally, I would suggest running the Autarch with one of the Dragon squads. That way he can actually provide some extra damage, rather than babysitting a squad of Avengers that will be in their tank all day.
Overall, it has the beginnings of a very good list, but just needs a little tweaking.
Hey Rkik,
ReplyDeleteI actually dropped the Fire Prism in favour of the Nightspinners to have more controll. I win my games not by just killing models but by forcing my opponents hand to make the move I want him to make. And a 1/6 chance on immobilze with just a hit can't be beat by a fire Prism which has to actually hit it with it's small blast and not scatter off. A nightspinner will have a lot more effect on a 10+ vehcile IG list then a Fire Prism ever would,also 10 plus vehicles are usually not all AV 13+ so S6 should do fine against those right?
Further more Brightlances are 20 Points a piece more. I know they have better odds but they first need to hit. Plus once all tanks are gone or let's say I face a Deamon player (lot's of those out here) they become useless and overpriced. Don't you think that S6 all over the board will result in side or even rear armour shots?
The Autarch will be with the fire dragons depending on the opponent. against a tank heavy opponent I need to keep my autarch alive so he would be with the hang back DA for the first turns to keep my +1 reserve going while the fire dragons gun forwards and start doing damage. If I put him in the front he might shot prematurely and I lose my reserve advantage.
So it kinda depends on the opponent and having some back-up AT running around is never a bad thing right?
hope you do well.
ReplyDeleteHey andrew thanks mate.
ReplyDeleteAnymore indepth comments on the list as a fellow Eldar player?
looks preaty ligit I wont leave the house without spirit stones.you should do a bat rep
ReplyDeleteI will as soon as I get all the models in and get a trail game going.
ReplyDeleteI guess dutch GT means "official" GW Tournament, thus no restrictions on named characters. I further assume, that a dutch GT don't differ that much from the one in Germany. Some casual players, running themed lists, some guys copying the latest Internet trend and some guys, who play hard and do their own thing.
ReplyDeleteRight or wrong?
If I'm right the tournament should be mech-heavy, so the large DA squads are somehow over the top. I don't know how your army stock looks like, but I don't think the seer is mandatory. With that many S6 shots (esp. if you add chin-SC to the DAVU tanks) you can perma-shake/stun rhinos without breaking a sweat. I played last tournament without a single seer and never really missed him.
So I would swap the HQ for yriel. Same reserve bonus, keeps a unit from getting stomped by a single wound trygon and can nuke a tac squad from a objective. I would (if you have it) turn one DA squad into a DAVU-Falcon, because the holofield keeps it more durable on a objective esp. against CC attacks, if the game has random turns.
Hey Karnstein,
ReplyDeletewell I'm not to sure about the restrictions on special characters, but from what I've been told by veterans it's usually allowed. I use my seer to provide me with some much needed anti Psycher protection Spacewolf and BA librarians and lash still make regular appearances. Funny you should mention Yriel i did look at him but decided not to take him in favour of some psycher protection (I'm converting him into my regular Autarch)
well I'm going to be honest I've upped the DA from 5 to +/- 8 to 1. not be a complete Cheese ball and 2. so that when i leave them on an objective to go contest another they have a chance. I also still love a lot of DA spraying some elite stuff making them roll enough saves will kill stuff :)
I'm personally not a big fan of the chin cannons because I always move to fast or I'm to far away to use them. Same goes for Falcons I like to move a lot and Waveserpents are loads cheaper and with the melta spam a lot better I believe point for point. I also don't own any Falcons (6 Serpents and 2FirePrism/ Nightspinner )
You make some valid points mate but not a lot I can chance out atm I guess. butt do you aggree with my supporting arguments or do you really believe 5 DA's is good enough?
Well, I think in a pure skimmer list the seer is overrated. Or more kind of him being a "force of habit" choice.
ReplyDeleteI may be wrong but a fellow eldar player fielded a yriel led force at the german TOS this year (1500 points) w/o taking a single seer and scored rather well (+best eldar). Lash won't work if you're pure mech and you should have enough firepower to get rid of those 1-2 lash princes anyway. Lightning is annoying, but as long he uses the "rhino castle" tactic, you can deny the power through shaking/stunning the rhino. Bloodlance sounds annoying but if he rides in a rhino... if not: shoot him dead!
The main reason why I prefer Yriel nowadays is, that if you field large squads of FD (like I do) he keeps them save from getting charged by the survivors. He also beats the vanilla autarch in terms of cost vs benefit.
If you don't own any falcons, then stick with the basic concept.
@chin-SC: I never took them in the past, but 10 points is a steal and you don't want to ram your Avenger-Serpents into tanks after loosing the turret weapon. Against a shooty SM list, you also don't need the 6+ to hit modifier that much, and 7 S6 shots work wonder against rhinos, chimera side armor or speeders.
@DA size: if you don't own enough good models (like more DA) to make use of the freed up points (-DA, swap autarch+seer for yriel) just keep them. They don't fit my style and in my book doom won't go off that often like it did in the past, thanks to each and every SM/SW/BA guy taking at least one psyker, but you could do worse things with your points.
But if you have the time to test: try dropping them down, add yriel and DBF/SS-exarchs for the dragons and chin-cannons for the troop serpents and compare the two lists.
I'll certainly try playing my list before the GT if it turns out I can drop the Psycher support in favour of Yriel and maybe use the other points to bump op the DA's a bit.
ReplyDeleteI never use exarch on my fire dragons any more mostly because I usually don't see their points back in my games. The 5 Fusion shots usually do the trick just fine :).
I might be tempted to try out Yriel and see how he preforms in this kind of Full mech list. I have to say it's new for me since I'm a Jetbike player normally. But like you mentioned Psychic hoods are very common now a days.
But I would most likely use Yriel to use one unit of DA's more offensively (giving them the proper upgrades is points permit) And use them as an aggressor. Fire Dragons should be save since I will cover them with the Night spinners the guy trying to assault them then will have to take dangerous terrain test be slowed or even pinned.
He..I started my 5ed 40k career with small FD squads too. Heck, the first time I played a tournament in ed5 I only used a single squad of dragons, a large unit of shees, some large DA squads, a doom-seer and some spiders+autarch with a fusion gun, Pweapon and a WJG. After playing against 2 dual raider lists out of 5 games, I dropped the shees&spiders and most of the DA+exarchs for double-dragons and a jetlock council. 2 tournaments later and after giving the jetlock council and a serpentcouncil with yriel a try, I increased the size of my FD squads. There are some deathstar units and monstrous creatures around, who don't go away after getting shot from 5 melta guns and I failed to kill a tank with dragons twice, after only hitting with 2 dragons and then botching the 2d6 pen roll. So nowadays I rather explode a raider/pred/ven-dread twice or get rid of a trygon with a single squad, then see me first failing the "to hit" rolls and then loosing the squad w/o getting the job done.
ReplyDeleteSo your first GT lists sure beats my first ed5 tournament list. ^^
Little anecdote: last tournament I played at was unrestricted except for the ban of special characters and my first game (KP) was against a SW list with 3 (!!) lords riding on TWs with a 2+ armor and a shield each, attached to a squad of 3 TWC guys with another shield. 6 Models/wound gropus, 15 T5 wounds and 4 shields in a single unit. You can guess how happy I was fielding 2x10+1x9 Dragons for a total amount of 28 melta guns.
But back to the list& your idea: if you stick with the DA or even want to increase one squad, I would keep the seer. I guess that the dutch GT is 1700 points, right?
How about that variation
Yriel
Doomseer with RoW
2x6 FD with a DBF-exarch + serpent with SL&ss
1x10 DA incl. a shield/defend exarch (Yriel attached) with SL&ss serpent
2x5 DA with SL&ss serpent
1x3 jetbikes with a SC
Spinner with ss
Spinner with ss
1699 points
you loose one tank (7 should be still enough), but keep 4 mobile scoring units, which should be enough if the dutch GT uses the rulebook missions like the german one does. (german one this year had 2xKillpoints, 1xthe draw mission with 2 objectives and two games of seized ground with 1x3 and 1x5 objectives).
Your large DA unit is your main objective holder, with yriel shielding it off from getting wiped by 2 surviving SM, a single terminator or a deamon prince with one wound left. The two FD exarchs give your list more oomph against infantery, esp. if you master tankshocking enemy units into thight formation before disembarking your dragons.
Nice list Only thing that really ugs me is taht 3 Jetbikes are the easiest kill point in the game :P.
ReplyDeleteAlso how does a Dragon Vreath Flamer help with killing more tanks? I would rather take an extra bland Fire Dragon in that case (more chance on vehcile kills ;))
also to just keep the DA's with Yriel as an objective holder is a bit weak seeing as I would be able to see his bigger point cost most of the game if he is in the can and out in the open they would get shot down pretty quicly. Not having an assault vehicle really hurts the Eldar
Sure, bikes are easy to kill but that doesn't matter in 3/5 missions , esp. if you go the reserve denial route. I didn't find any decent information on the web, since the dutch version of GWs homepage is somehow lacking. But if it is a official gw hosted grand tournament, chances are high that GW netherlands sticks to the UK TOS rules. At least here in germany the german division has the order to copy the UK system 1:1. So anything I write now is under the assumption, that dutch GT 2010 = german TOS 2010 except for the army size.
ReplyDeleteSure, the two exarchs won't help you against tanks. I included them because a) you should own those and b) you seemed to be satisfied with the 5 guys squads performance. They do however -as I said before- work wonder against infantry units. A good tankshock can lead to ~10-20 guys sitting right under the template (http://awakeningynnead.blogspot.com/2010/04/how-many-models-fit-under-blast-marker.html). Against nids and orks that surely beats the damage a squad of DA can do, if we assume that you shoot underneath your serpent (screening the DA from getting assaulted) or your target is sitting in cover.
Let's do a quick mathhammer: 15 guys doomed with S5 ap4 flamer leads to 13 dead orks. If we want to get the same results with DA, we need something between 39(5+cover) and 52 (4+ cover) shots for the orks.
So unless you own more vanilla dragons, I would give those Exarchs a try. Even against SM you beat the damage potential of a fusion gun quite easily.
@DA: You keep him with the DA squad..if needed he disembarks, runs off and does something else (like rescuing FD, nuking a single squad). I also would forget about the idea of assaulting DA. You don't have grenades, so you rather separate yriel and only use him for the charge. Yriel+defend/shield exarch only gives your DA squad a slightly better chance to stay alive on a objective. Still, units like TWC will wipe them off anyway! Basicaly the Yriel+Defend Avengers isn't a overly competitive tactic, it just increases the chance of the DAs not to get killed, when some survivors of their salvos make it into close combat.
If you really want pure "power over style" reduce the DA squads to DAVU size (5 guys to make the serpent scoring) and invest the points into units or upgrades, which can hurt tanks.
yes I believe that would be about the same with the Dutch and German GT except for the point cost (what's the point limit over there then?).
ReplyDeleteWell let's state first and for most I'm not a power over style player I love to outplay my opponent with a list that seems to lack real strength better to be a great general then a copy cat.
I see a lot of lists around here running the "eldar" list farseer on jetbike with 3 normal jebtikes 2 full units DA (bs dual cats)and one or 2 unit Fire dragons and unit warwalkers and one or 2 Wraithlords. I walked away from that with my Jetbike list which was a lot of fun to play but with the massive increase in hoods not viable for a GT.
Do you really believe my list as stated is to weak to be a contender in the top half of the player field?
The assault Dire Avengers were just a brain spin since I've never looked at yriel before my lack of experience with him is what sparked the Idea ;).
I also don't see a lot of large enough squads or people that will move there tank shocked models in a fashion where I can get that many models under a single flamer template. Also I have to ask don't you take crack shot on your DBF exarchs? if you run with out a seer that is 5 points for a free doom on you flamer hits.
It's what I used in a game not to long ago a unit of 8 FD's plus exarch with DBF an CS they whiped entire units of SM's and Termies a turn.
@ Jetbikes I know they can be very resilient especially when kept in reserve but they are still fragile compared to a tank I guess also I wanted to try my hand at a full mech list.