New Eldars, Playtesting and further thoughts…….

Now then peeps,

I promised a report on how it went yesterday with the tourney list I posted earlier in the week, and here it is!

I managed to get two games in on Thursday, both against Paul's speed freek style list, the first was 'The Emperors Will' with standard deployment and the second was kill points, again with standard deployment.

He was rocking:

Ghazhkull
Warboss on Bike
5 Nob Bikerz, Painboy, 2 Power Klaws
10 Nobz, painboy, 3 Power Klaws
2x 11 Boyz, Nob with Power Klaw, Trukk
2x 5 Lootaz
Battlewagon.

With scoring units of nobz and nob bikers, feel no pain pretty much everywhere and at least T4 it was looking like a tough list used properly.

Game 1 was a tabling for the orks, even after a decidedly crap turn 1 where only 1 wound was caused by all of my firepower (the wave serpent rolling five 1's to wound on the nob bikers summed it up really)  and that wound was caused by the crack shot rangers.  The scorpions were a fantastic distraction and couldn't have done better, they lost a combat against the nob bikers and then rallied to kill lootaz and tip the balance in the games pivotal battle, wraithblades vs 22 ork boyz.

Game 2 was completely the other way, Paul gunned straight forwards turn 1 and stormed into combat turn 2, despite my evasive manoeuvring.  It ended 10 - 6 on kill points at the end of turn 5, but really I had my crimson hunter and wave serpent left alive so it was quite a comprehensive victory for the orks.

I am still not convinced by the wraith constructs.  The wraithlord did exceptionally well in game one, but as soon as paul worked him out he died very easily in game 2, one of the first of my models to die.  My concern is that at a tournament, everybody will have played wraithlords before and be prepared to kill them turn 1/2 (and they do die relatively easily, especially as they can't get an invulnerable save! grrrr) and that 145 points is a lot of currency to waste on a bullet magnet.
The wraithblades are a different problem.  Very tough, especially when buffed by a spiritseer to a 2+ save, but they just can't kill anything reliably.  Even with 4 buffs/debuffs active, they averaged 2 ork boyz dead per turn.  When I put them up against an elite-ish unit of nobz they fell apart, and again only killed 2 nobz.  I'm finding that S8 is easy to find for most armies in combat, so that T6 just isn't good enough to tarpit anything decent.  On the other hand, a T6 scoring unit with a 4+ save can't be dismissed out of hand, and against a comparable points unit (10 tactical muhreens for example) I would definitely back them.  They just need more oomph in attack, and a spiritseer is not the answer.

I didn't really test the holo-fields out, as my vehicles were either ignored entirely or concentrated on  so much that the only outcome was going to be a dead grav tank.  I'm not convinced it's 15 points worth spending as yet.

On the positive front, the crimson hunter was again excellent.  Despite my opponent having no flyers, it's insane manoeuvrability allowed me to target the rear armour of the battlewagon and take out vehicles at it's leisure, a trait particularly useful f you can explode a transport and take some wounds off the occupants.

I was pleased with my decision to drop the exarchs.  I found no noticeable drop in performance whilst saving a bucketload of points, especially now the old exarch powers come as standard with the aspect units.  The only exarch I would have liked to have around was the scorpion exarch with a claw, but at 40 points extra it's hard to justify. Still, S6/8 attacks are always nice.

Also, a turn 2 alpha strike seems to work a lot better than a turn 1 strike, as the limited range of some units (and the presence of others coming in from reserve) stops being an issue.

I really liked the movement and interaction between units, you can set up different combinations in different areas of the battlefield every turn, even with a limited range of units.

My real concern is coming up against an ork army like this, or Dark Eldar.  My army just doesn't seem able to cope with ultra fast, hyper-aggressive armies that swarm your deployment zone turn 2.  I feel the need for a solid combat unit to take on the enemy, but as good as the autarch looks on paper he isn't going to stand up to an Archon, or Dante, or any serious opposition HQ.

I play the blood angels next week in another playtest, I'm sure whether to tinker just yet, but I shall let you know what happens.

Adios

Neil