Good evening
As there is now a proliferation of DE information on the internet, I have really wanted to start my unit by unit analysis of Mr Kelly’s latest and possibly greatest.
Having given it some thought, I have decided to hold off for a bit rather than jumping on the bandwagon immediately. In the name of good ‘journalism’ I have decided to make it a priority to get a chunk of playtesting, both on a real table and also on vassal to allow me to try some crazy builds against a fairly bizarre variety of opponents. ok, so some days on vassal you just play against the dice
I’m hoping this will allow me to give you folks some solid feedback based on actual experience rather than theory hammer, which is mostly what you will be getting atm.
For this weeks retro we have moved into the fast attack section. The Vyper is an odd one, there are few vaguely sane and more than competent players that advocate the use of these in competitive play.
I cannot for the life of me work out why ?! Yeah you can dumbass, ‘Special snowflake syndrome’ Despite some fairly hard testing prelude to attempted self harm I cannot successfully get these things to do anything but die / serve kp’s hand over fist to my opponents.*weeps* Mmm, Yes your tears sustain me….
Not that these are the worst steaming heap of suckfail in the book, they even feel like they ‘should’ kinda support a Mechdar army fairly well.
Primary complaint for me is actually the cost, they are fairly over priced @ 50 points for the cheapest of cheap load outs , bearing in mind its fairly easy to kill these with even the most basic of weapons in the game due to being av10 open topped, I doubt you need me to spell out why this is a bad bad thing.
Also again for its cost and price and the fact all eldar weps are stupidly overpriced (apparently something to do with Meq cry babies )boo fucking hoo hoo, man up, get a real army the bs is a pretty significant failing on the Vyper as I feel being able to hit your opponent reliably and cause damage would actually help somewhat with the fragility issue, the base points would certainly be easier to swallow. I would even consider an EML loadout once in a while if it was bs 4.
As the bs is fairly pitiful and the weapons priced like a banking crisis I cannot honestly say you should ever consider any weapon load outs other than either duel Scannons or Scatlas + Scannon, two reasons really, one, the multishots help you to actually hit once in a while and two, they are ok points wise.
If I was going to run em the best load out has to be twin cannons for me , they are the same range and the cheapest option to get a good amount of shots, as I would also use them to generate cover for my tanks they are often forced to be up front anyway, the single extra shot @ 10 points from the Scatter and the unrequired extra range seem a bit Herp da Derp, Im not inclined to heap unnecessary extra points on something made of wet toilet paper. Eldrad says “wipe with Wraithpaper”
If you want scats just run it with a scat and sit outta range and possibly in cover, ping away.
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Bare bones cheap, for three runs you 180 points for 18 str 6 shots, its not bad on paper, however, being in a squadron makes em die even easier, any pene roll of a 3 or more sees one gone (these things vanish fast), it also means a single unit can kill multiples with one volley . you may or may not be seeing a fair few long fangs or dakka preds / hydras these days ?
Some people love str 6 spam, I’m not a big fan as by necessity and assuming your opponent is not a bit ‘special’ ideal you will often find yourself taking shots at front armour, as av12 is the new black glancing on 6’s can sometimes be a bit of a stretch. I hate relying on luck that much….. sure IF they live long enough AND you can get behind some targets s6 spam is pretty good.
Ok for me Vypers do have a use , if I have some spare points I would consider two Mc Cheapo specials for blocking and as a
IF you can get them to work, good for you , I strongly suggest you look to upgrade your opponents. Points are far to precious for 5th Eldar to be pissing around with something overpriced and stupidly fragile, 3 Vypers nearly pays for two Serpents your list WILL be better without them unless you are into comp…. Perverts
Oh yeah NO upgrades, none,jack shit, nadda, nil, zip, zero, bugger all Too much ?
I give you yet another stupid but somehow apt summary picture.
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5th Evoloution
The fix for 5th is pretty easy, drop the open topped and the price, give an option to either TL the guns or improve BS , assuming they Fix and sensibly re price the Eldar H weps (I have made suggestions for fix in previous rants)
It would be cool to have them able to outflank and/or deepstike.
I have also previously discussed a Holo fields ‘fix’ and think that priced appropriately they could be an excellent upgrade for vypers as I envisage them.
Assuming the vehicle upgrades get fixed they may also see some use , I’ll be discussing those when I get onto the Waveserpent as it seems more fitting to do so there.
Well thats it for now , I hope you enjoyed at least a little ;o)
Hopefully back in the week with some painted shizzle and getting my rant on with the Swooping Hawks
TTFN
I do get them to work in my Eldar army, but probably because my opponent usualy has much else to wory about (Avatar, Wrailthlord, Dark Reapers). I arm them (i use 2) with EML's and they usualy do just enough damage to earn their points or distract my opponent just enough to let my more important units survive long enough to do the real damage. Like all unit's in an Eldar armie thy are no good used on their own, but when combined with the rest of my army they actually work fine.RegardsSpekkiebig
Seems yours are doing ok in a foot-darish army , in a solid mechdar list they seem to have an issue with being the softest target in there, Im dubious about the EML as bs 3 has a tendency to be unreliable in my experience.I dont mind them in even hard casual games but for a tourney list they are just not good enough for the points IMO
I know my Foot-dar inside out and can usually achieve more with them than other people can. I finished 6th on last years Dutch GT with them. My new Mech-dar on the other hand are a pain in the ass i just can't get grip off, but i need to get my act together for this weekend's Dutch GT 2010.As for the point, everything in the army seems overpriced at the moment but somehow for me it all works out in the end.RegardsSpekkiebig
Took me a while to get used to my mechdar @1750 ironed out the kinks and v happy with the list now as it seems farly dependable vs most armies,what list are you running ?
#Yriel#7 Fire Dragons, Exarch, DBF, Crackshot#Wave Serpent, Tl shuriken canon, Shuiken canon, Spirit Stones#7 Fire Dragons, Exarch, DBF, Crackshot#Wave Serpent, Tl brightlance, Spirit Stones#9 Dire Avengers, Exarch, Add. shuriken catapult, Bladestorm#Wave Serpent, Tl brightlance, Spirit Stones#5 Dire Avengers#3 Jetbikes, Suriken canon#7 Warp Spiders, Exarch, POwerblades, Add. Deathspinner, Withdraw#Falcon, Scatter laser, Shuriken canon, Spirit stones, Holofields#Fire Prism#Fire Prism1700 points in total, wich is Dutch tournament standard at the moment. It performs pretty well at the moment, it's just my tiing that lets me down. In the future i will substitute Eldrad for Yriel and a Wave Serpent for the Falcon to make it more nasty.RegardsSpekkiebig
I find yriel , odd by himself , ho combos so well with a seer, I had never thought to run him by himself …..the 7 man squads of dragons are again a little odd , by the looks of things its so you can get them to do two jobs, which aint a bad thing in and of itself, maybe its my local meta but I find the flamer is wasted much of the time , I would recommend either running em as fives and tasking them as pure armour killers or get bigger squads, big squads love to be guided ;o)I ahve been running without spirit stones for a while , cant say it has ever cost me a game not having them, not wasted points imo but not spent as well as they could be either.The avanger setup is identical to mine so cant really fault it in any way, what I will say is that doom and possible addition of guide turn em in to rape machines, I think this army would be much better off with Eldrad over yriel or failing that maybe a guide,doom(fortune?) seer.The five avengers makes sense ,as I too have five in my current list , I would say you are kinda weak on scoring, I like to have at least 3 scorers over 1500 points.I see you have gone with the dakka falcon , not a bad choice, I must confess I just prefer the EML, its proved itself time after time in my army, 3 str 8 shots with guide works very nicely.Just one thing, I really feel the BL's are a horrible waste of points, your dragons can kill high av stuff, thats their job, you are better with an eml as it deals with transports etc exactly the same as a BL, its only av 13-14 where it might be useful , but I always use dragons or linked prisms. save yourself some points and get the eml ,also gives you more duality for dealing with hoard lists. the poins saved can get you some nice bs 4 shuriken cannons for your prisms, I'm often so grateful for these, 6 str 6 shots for 20 points is great value given the Eldar books costings, I wont leave home without them on these days.not feeling the spiders in a mech force , just gives your opponent something to shoot all the guns that cant hurt your tanks with.My Current 1750 list looks like thisEldrad 10 stormies with ,2xmelta plus destructorlock with spearSerpent with tl cannons and cannon10 stormies with ,2xmelta plus destructorlock with spearSerpent with tl cannons and cannon5 avengersFalcon, Eml, Scannon,Holo,stones 5 dragons + serpent with tl cannons + cannon5 dragons + serpent with tl cannons + cannon5 dragons + serpent with tl cannons + cannonPrism + cannonPrism + cannonOnce you work out how this all works together its one tough bastard, and works well even vs horde , if there were a few more points I would love to have man dragons with dbf and 2 EML's for the stormie serpents.Hope that is of use to you, I enjoy helping out :o)
what about eldrad in a wave serpent with star engines? keep them 6 inches apart. fortune and guide the vypers. then fortune the waveserpent. have the vypers move 12". move the wave serpent flat out 24". the vypers shoot while guided. then the wave serpent star engines back up to 12" in front of the vypers. now the wave serpent and the vypers both get a 4+ re-rollable cover save. just an idea to try. only drawback is you're using up all your psychic powers. but it should help them stay up as long as you want to keep doing this process. just an idea to playtest.
also during that wave serpent flat out movement you could tank shock with it to get a little more use out of the waveserpent. as long as the tank shock happens within 12" of the vypers so you can star engine back.