(1500 pts) Ynnari/CE Seer Council Bomb List

Hi folks,

Long-time lurker, first time poster here! I've collected DE with a smattering of Craftworlders and Harlequins for a long time, but just got back into the hobby a few months ago. Needless to say, I'm super excited about the new Eldar faction. I feel like it leaves us in a great position to become a superb beta-strike army (or maybe even alpha-strike, if the Ulthwe Strikeforce shenanigans tickle your fancy).

Anyway, here's the newest list that I've been tinkering with:


REBORN WARHOST (1312pts)
**********************

HQ
--------
Succubus (145pts)
- Armour of Misery
- Archite Glaive
- Webway Portal

Archon (110pts)
- Blaster
- Webway Portal

Troops
--------
3 Wind Riders w/ Scatter Lasers (81pts)

3 Wind Riders w/ Scatter Lasers (81pts)

Elites
-------------
5 Wraithguard (160pts)
- Stock, no D-Scythes

Shadowseer (100pts)
- ML2
- Mask of Secrets

Solitaire (145pts)

Formations
----------
SEER COUNCIL (490pts)

Eldrad (195pts)

Farseer (105pts) (Warlord?)
- Singing Spear

Warlock (40pts)
- Singing Spear

Warlock (40pts)
- Singing Spear

Warlock (40pts)
- Singing Spear

Warlock (35pts)

Warlock (35pts)


ELDAR ALLIED DETACHMENT (186pts)
******************************
HQ
-----
Autarch (105pts)
-Banshee Mask
-Firesabre

Troops
-------
3 Wind Riders w/ Scatter Lasers (81pts)

*********************************

The strategy is pretty straightforward. Deploy jetbikes and solitaire behind cover or LoS-blocking terrain, reserve everything else. On turn 2, use the autarch reserve-roll buff to try to make these two units come in:

Unit 1: Succubus w/ WWP, Seer Council, Autarch, Shadowseer
Unit 2: Archon w/ WWP, Wraithguard

Unit 1 psychic-shrieks the bejeesus out of whatever scary unit is nearby (aided by a minimum -4 ld debuff thanks to stacking Armor of Misery and Mask of Secrets), and then pivots to throw a bunch of spears into the back armor of a vehicle (ideally). Add other psychic buffs and blasts to taste. In addition to being a psychic deathstar, the unit is fearless (Shadowseer MoS), ignores overwatch (Autarch Banshee Mask), denies the witch on a 4+ re-rollable (Eldrad) and packs a decent punch in close combat (Succubus, Autarch, Eldrad, decent number of fleshbane attacks, psychic buffs).

Unit 2, on the other hand, ideally drops between two other scary units with impressive toughness/armor and blasts one off the table (perhaps with the aid of some scatbike fire), soulbursts, and then does the same to another nearby unit.

At this point, the Wraithguard might be in trouble, but the seer council star will probably be rocking some kind of defense between casts of invisibility, fortune, sanctuary, veil of tears, and/or shrouding/conceal (augmented by possible soulburst-move into cover). If it's legal, I was thinking of nominating the vanilla farseer as the warlord just on the off-chance I roll the Ynnari warlord trait that lets me pick his powers.

From turn 3 onward, I imagine using the mobile units (scatbikes, solitaire) to grab objectives, while the seer council takes a more central board position and tries to blast units with psychic nonsense, handing out soulbursts should a character go down.

I think the biggest weakness of the list is that I run the risk of being tabled before everything can deep-strike in. At any rate, would be very interested in hearing feedback, suggestions, and thoughts as to what might best augment the list for a 1850 pt game.

This looks like a really really well thought through strategy and I will be potentially using a similar wraithguard unit (see the thread I started titled "soulburst potential").

One problem could be with your theory of deepstriking with WWP and blasting something and then soulburst and blasting something else. Problem with that is: your soulburst is only 7" and the WWP only lets you 9" from the enemy.

Vlad wrote:

One problem could be with your theory of deepstriking with WWP and blasting something and then soulburst and blasting something else. Problem with that is: your soulburst is only 7" and the WWP only lets you 9" from the enemy.

Is that right? I don't see that in the DE codex. You sure you aren't thinking of the Ulthwe Strikeforce?

Oh, you may be right. My apologies!!!

You're thinking of the Webway Assault special rule.

Yep I am, apologies, ignore my previous comment.

As I said, this is pretty much exactly the kind of list I've been thinking of!

Right, so this thread: http://www.thedarkcity.net/t15046-detaching-ics-to-make-use-of-multiple-psychic-shrieks?nid=5#177480

is forcing me to re-think this list, given that APPARENTLY I can't just have 3 characters in the seer council bomb all casting psychic shriek (THANKS A LOT, FAQ).

The best solution I can come up with off the top of my head is to have Eldrad go full telepathy (or at least roll on telepathy until he picks up invisibility), the shadowseer in unit 1 go full phantasmy (hoping for Laugh of Sorrows or, at worst, Mirror of Minds), and replace the solitaire with a second, full telepathy shadowseer that deepstrikes in with the wraithguard. Since both units have WWPs, I feel like I should be able to deepstrike them closely enough that the telepathy shadowseer can shriek the same LD-debuffed unit as Eldrad. The only issue is that this makes the forces on the board starting turn 1 even weaker, which I feel leaves me open to getting tabled

Maybe I should scrap the wraithguard or something and just go full psychic...?

Yeah I like the phantasmy ld attacks, there is a lot of potential damage in them!

Alright, I tweaked it:

REBORN WARHOST (1172pts)
******************************

HQ
--------
Succubus (145pts)
- Armour of Misery
- Archite Glaive
- Webway Portal

Archon (110pts)
- Blaster
- Webway Portal

Troops
--------
3 Wind Riders w/ Scatter Lasers (81pts)

3 Wind Riders w/ Scatter Lasers (81pts)

Elites
-------------
Shadowseer (100pts) (rolls on phantasmancy)
- ML2
- Mask of Secrets

Shadowseer (85pts) (rolls on telepathy)
- ML2

Shadowseer (85pts) (rolls on phantasmancy)
- ML2

Formations
----------
SEER COUNCIL (485pts)

Eldrad (195pts) (rolls on telepathy until invis, then another table)

Farseer (105pts) (Warlord?) (rolls on runes of fates)
- Singing Spear

Warlock (40pts)
- Singing Spear

Warlock (40pts)
- Singing Spear

Warlock (35pts)

Warlock (35pts)

Warlock (35pts)


ELDAR ALLIED DETACHMENT (326pts)
******************************
HQ
-----
Autarch (85pts)
-Banshee Mask
-Fusion Gun

Troops
-------
3 Wind Riders w/ Scatter Lasers (81pts)

Elites
-------
5 Wraithguard (160pts)
- Stock, no D-Scythes

****************************************

Dropped the solitaire and moved some points around to get two more shadowseers. I think I'd have one roll on telepathy, and then the others roll on phantasmancy in the hopes of snagging Laugh of Sorrows or Mirror of Minds. Telepathy shadowseer goes in Unit 2, the Mask of Secrets phantasmancy shadowseer goes in Unit 1, and then the third is placed in either Unit 1 or 2 depending on the powers that I roll.

The only problem, of course, is that I'll only have 3 min squads of scatbikes standing between me and being tabled on either turn 1 or the top of turn 2 :/

You only lose at the end of a game turn so if you lose turn 2 you weren't ever going to win. Turn 1 will be considerably more survivable if those are rangers rather than scatbikes. I am able to quasi null deploy every game, but I also have almost no qualms about keeping everything but my dscythe bomb on the table.

Also: you really want d-scythes.

amorrowlyday wrote:

You only lose at the end of a game turn so if you lose turn 2 you weren't ever going to win. Turn 1 will be considerably more survivable if those are rangers rather than scatbikes. I am able to quasi null deploy every game, but I also have almost no qualms about keeping everything but my dscythe bomb on the table.

Oh yeah!! Thanks for the reminder. And interesting idea, using rangers! I imagine they'd be less effective in subsequent game turns, but maybe more survivable turn 1. (On the subject of cover saves -- I also considered trying to put warlock windriders in each of the units to cast conceal for a 2+ jink, but so far I can't find the points)

Can you post/link/pm me the list you use with rangers and d-scythes? Sounds interesting.

amorrowlyday wrote:

Also: you really want d-scythes.

The reason I stayed away from d-scythes was because of how (I assume?) they work in a unit that deepstrikes. Namely: You place the wraithguard down in a tiny circular formation, which makes it so only about half the unit can hit their target without inadvertently flaming the other half of the unit. If the unit is stock, though, I think everyone can fire every time, right?

Please someone correct me if I'm wrong on that, though. Because if that's not how it works then, yes, I really DO want d-scythes

I label all my lists in an extremely utilitarian fashion. If you search my name as author in this subforum you should find some examples, I think I have 2 deep strike wraithguard lists up.

As for your secondary observation: You are basically 100% correct. It isn't going to be half though. It's going to be precisely 3 unless your target is as wide as a 45* isometric on a baneblade or the long face on a knight/gmc base, in which case it will be 4. What's important is those are auto-hits. So when you do the math on your 5 shots will average 3.333 hits. In ITC and other common comp formats as a hold over from the beginning of 7th the 6+d6 result (a roll of 6 on the D-table) on ranged attacks is nerfed, so in these formats the d-scythe is a straight upgrade. In casual play it's a tradeoff as even with only 3 shots you should still average significantly more than 3.33 hits but you'll be failing on 2's as well.

So to extrapolate:
RAW
3xN autohits with a 33% chance to not wound vs 5 shots with a 66% chance to hit, a 16% chance to not wound, and a 16% chance to totally and utterly destroy something

As soon as your playing in an environment where that last 16% chance disappears the scale brokenly swings towards D-scythes solely because against multiple model units you'll generate far more than 5 [d and therefore single d3 wound-causing] wounds, and against a single big model on the right axis you'll get 4 hits (more than average for guns) though with a 16% increased chance to not wound. That environment can either be endemic to the format your playing (ITC, NOVA) or the opponent (MSU lists, Parking lots, death stars, Thunder wolves, seerstars).

In short: If you're playing in a comp event it should definitely be d-scythes, if they have less than 2 super heavy vehicles or GMC's it should probably be d-scythes, and if they have more you should probably have 1 of each or 2 units of d-scythes.

As a side note remember no soul-burst actions if the Autarch is in a unit, and the wraith don't get soul-burst because they are in an allied detachment. None of the units in an allied detachment are Yannari.

@amorrowlyday Thanks for that detailed explanation! You've convinced me.

Dalamar wrote:

As a side note remember no soul-burst actions if the Autarch is in a unit, and the wraith don't get soul-burst because they are in an allied detachment. None of the units in an allied detachment are Yannari.

Good catch. I was thinking of swapping the Autarch's toys for a jetbike and having him join a windrider unit, anyway. I figure the more models I can put on the table turn 1, the better.

(Also I've read that the autarch's reserve-roll-manipulation ability continues to function even if the autarch himself is slain. Can anyone confirm this?)

Sadly, I suppose I'll have to drop the 3rd shadowseer in order to put the wraithguard back into the warhost. Will edit the revised list accordingly once I work out the points...

I have been looking at a similar idea but considering a raider for the wraithguard. With the 6 inch movement when the raider deep strikes you can set up the wraithguard in a good position and in a line so all 5 get to use flamers. Also the next turn you can have the raider if it lives there to pick them up and move to next target depending on what happens during game. I know you risk the scatter but the disembark helps still get in position and this way gives potential maneuverability.

Oh, cool! I forgot that you could disembark the same turn that you deepstrike. Might be the best option.

I guess the only potential drawback is that you risk missing out on soulbursting and shooting a second unit once you gun down the first if the scatter is too high (or the shot is blocked by your raider).

Autarch: correct rule explicitly says in the army which ic measured pregame.

@amorrowlyday Excellent! That's what I thought

Okay, so I had a series of thoughts:

(1) Why not drop the wraithguard entirely and try for multiple deepstriking psychic bombs?

(2) What unit is the best (per point) for psychic leadership shenanigans? Well, probably shadowseers. Guaranteed access to shriek plus possible Ld-related phantasmancy powers plus free hallucinogen grenades launchers is sexy.    

(3) How do you get multiple shadowseers into psychic shriek range? Well, you could give them transports... but those are either flimsy or closed-top, and with so many points tied up in reserve, likely to get shot off the board. You could also try to find more sources of webway portals... but given the need for an autarch and a separate source of WWP for the council, those HQ slots are already pretty full.

(4) How about deepstriking transports? These are cheaper than WWP archons, don't take up precious HQ slots, and are open-topped, meaning you can fire witchfires out of them.

(5) But deepstriking transports cost more points, which means you have next to nothing on the board, which means high odds of a Turn 1 loss.

(6) Well, what if we null-deploy?

So that led to this list:

REBORN WARHOST (1500pts)
**********************
HQ
--------
Archon (125pts)
- Blaster
- Webway Portal
- Armour of Misery
Autarch (70pts)

Troops
--------
5 Kabalite Warriors (40pts)
5 Kabalite Warriors (40pts)

Elites
--------
Shadowseer (100pts)
- ML2
- Mask of Secrets
Shadowseer (85pts)
- ML2
Shadowseer (85pts)
- ML2

Fast Attack
---------
Raider (55pts)
Raider (55pts)

Formations
----------
SEER COUNCIL (485pts)

Eldrad (195pts)
Farseer (105pts) (Warlord?)
- Singing Spear
Warlock (40pts)
- Singing Spear
Warlock (40pts)
- Singing Spear
Warlock (35pts)
Warlock (35pts)
Warlock (35pts)

ULTHWE STRIKE FORCE (360pts)

3 Black Guardian Scatbikes (90pts)
3 Black Guardian Scatbikes (90pts)
3 Black Guardian Scatbikes (90pts)
3 Black Guardian Scatbikes (90pts)

*******************************

Strategy:

Hold everything in reserve turn 1, trying your darnedest to go second.

Deploy black guardian scatbikes turn 1, either on objectives or in range of easy targets (if going second), or wherever they seem least likely to get murdered (if going first).

Turn 2, these three squads try to come in:

(1) Seer Council Bomb: Archon, Autarch, Shadowseer w/ Mask, Seer Council. These are positioned so that they get as many enemy units within the -4 Ld bubble as possible. Psychic whammies ensue. Autarch is basically ablative wounds at this point, as he has no real gear.

(2) and (3) Both shadowseer strike forces: Shadowseer and 5 Kabalite Warriors deep-strike from the heavens in each raider, lending an additional two psychic shrieks, hallucinogenic grenade attacks, and some miscellaneous poison/dissie fire.

Turn 3 onwards: Seer Council moves towards the center of the board laying down psychic death. Everyone else jumps on objectives or provides supporting fire.

This list is pretty bare-bones at 1500pts, but I think it's workable. It might get even better at 1850.

Thoughts?

@amorrowlyday @JimSolo @BetrayTheWorld

I don't normally comment on specific lists these days because it's so time consuming, but since you issued the invite, I'll answer the call:

"Freakshow" lists that have tried to maximize the number of shrieks have always historically had 2 major obstacles to contend with:

1. Low model count due to expensive ICs.

and

2. A lack of anti-vehicle options.

This list, sadly, suffers from those classic obstacles. The scatbikes are helpful, but they also are your only table presence on turn 1, so if you don't manage to go second, then it's difficult to want to play aggressive with them to go for vehicle rear armours on the turn that they arrive. And since you won't be able to go for rear armours on the turn they arrive, you're either going to have to settle for front/side armour shots, or turbo boost for better positioning on turn 2, and not get a good shot till turn 3, which leads to your turn 2 drop troops being innefectual for a turn as well(except singing spears).

I think this list would have more potential at 1850, but at 1500, it's trying to do way too much with the shadowseers and Eldrad(and I LOVE Eldrad). Personally, I'd be hesitant to run a seer council at all in a 1500 list just because they're so expensive. But if you were going to, I'd probably drop both the extra shadow seers, knock eldrad down to a normal farseer w/singing spear, and swap 2 units of scatbikes for war walkers with dual bright lances.

This will free up 290 points.

Then use that 290 points for the following things:

2 units of 5 Fire Dragons(to ride in the raiders - let the kabalites come on on foot) 220
Add 2 more singing spears to your warlock conclave 10
Give your autarch a banshee mask, jetbike, and shard of anaris 60

This will give you a way to crack transports on the turn you arrive with 3 different units all capable of easily taking out a vehicle in a single volley(both dragons and council's 6 singing spears). All of these units will also benefit from the strength from death rule, allowing them to shoot twice if they manage to kill a vehicle with their first shot. So with carful positioning against lists like the space marine parking lots, you can easily kill 6-8 vehicles with the list in a single turn.

Then, suddenly with everyone on foot, your shriek is far more terrifying.

Also, rather than just ablative wounds, this autarch is capable of splitting off from the council on the turn after they arrive and assaulting a unit on his own without being overwatched. He is impressive enough to win against many units in combat, and great for issuing challenges to big bads with his shard. And if you pit him against something that he's unlikely to win against, but keep your council nearby, they can soulburst and shoot whatever kills him(hopefully during the opponent's turn).

I'd probably also swap the archon's blaster for a spirit stone of anath'lan on one of the farseers. Being able to reliably get all your psychic powers off is more important than that blaster shot, and it allows you to use the archon for ablative wounds instead.

As an alternative to taking a shard of anaris on the autarch, you could take a laser lance instead, and upgrade each unit of fire dragons to have an exarch with a dragon's breath flamer so that they're more flexible against infantry heavy lists. That also gives you another 10 free points, 5 of which you could use to get a 7th singing spear in the council.

Anyhow, I hope that gives you some ideas. Let me know if you have any other questions, and good luck!

I love Freakshows, but I'm not generally a huge fan of multiple Shriek lists myself.

One of the ways I like to do it is to split my Ld debuffs between different squads, that way I can maximize the area of table where debuffs exist, while splitting my opponent's target focus.

Betray's counsel about Fire Dragons is good advice, and I'll go one further: I like bringing them in via Deep Strike. I've often done so (with great success) with an Archon. As Mushkilla pointed out in one of his tactical articles, this is a great way to deal with Knights, since you can bring the Raider in across their armor arcs and be guaranteed to bypass their stupid Ion Shield.

At 1500, I think I might be tempted to drop Eldrad, too. He's pretty expensive and isn't doing a whole lot for you. And 3 Shadowseers is putting way too many points in too few baskets, I think.

Yeah, I was already suggesting he bring them in by deep strike too. His list is a null deploy list.

Yeah, I got that; I was just lobbying for splitting the Archon off from the Shadowseer to bring one of the Fire Dragon teams in, which eliminates scatter as a factor (allowing for reliable melta range) and also splits the LD debuffs across multiple units.

Thanks, both of you! Really solid advice all around. Much appreciated.

I'll just post quick responses to select parts:

BetrayTheWorld wrote:

"Freakshow" lists that have tried to maximize the number of shrieks have always historically had 2 major obstacles to contend with:

1. Low model count due to expensive ICs.

and

2. A lack of anti-vehicle options.

This list, sadly, suffers from those classic obstacles. The scatbikes are helpful, but they also are your only table presence on turn 1, so if you don't manage to go second, then it's difficult to want to play aggressive with them to go for vehicle rear armours on the turn that they arrive. And since you won't be able to go for rear armours on the turn they arrive, you're either going to have to settle for front/side armour shots, or turbo boost for better positioning on turn 2, and not get a good shot till turn 3, which leads to your turn 2 drop troops being innefectual for a turn as well(except singing spears).

Yeah, excellent analysis. I knew it was a low model count list, obviously, but you're absolutely right about the list lacking anti-vehicle options. My local meta is (oddly) very Tau and Tyranid heavy, with a few Necrons and spehss mahrines, so I'll admit that when I was making the list I had those factions in mind. (Mostly I was just fantasizing about all those juicy, juicy psychic shrieks hitting a riptide wing... ohhh-hhh-hhh baby.... )

BetrayTheWorld wrote:

I think this list would have more potential at 1850, but at 1500, it's trying to do way too much with the shadowseers and Eldrad(and I LOVE Eldrad). Personally, I'd be hesitant to run a seer council at all in a 1500 list just because they're so expensive. But if you were going to, I'd probably drop both the extra shadow seers, knock eldrad down to a normal farseer w/singing spear, and swap 2 units of scatbikes for war walkers with dual bright lances.

Jimsolo wrote:

At 1500, I think I might be tempted to drop Eldrad, too. He's pretty expensive and isn't doing a whole lot for you. And 3 Shadowseers is putting way too many points in too few baskets, I think

Fair point about Eldrad. Eldar psykers were what drew me to the faction in the first place, so I love the idea of finding a list that might make them viable in a competitive environment. I also love Eldrad for the obnoxiousness he brings to the psychic phase, and I thought he might be more viable now that it's easier to pair him with deepstrike options to compensate for his limited mobility. But I completely see your point about him perhaps being too many points for a 1500 pt list. I LOVE the idea of swapping 2 squads of scatbikes for war walkers, though, mainly because I think the models are cooler and it takes the list further away from being just another scatbike-spam army.

As far as the other suggestions:

(1) I think including at least one unit of fire dragons is a great idea! I'm tempted to keep it at one unit simply because of my local meta (plus one unit of FDs means I could still fit an extra shadowseer in their raider and put my 10 kabalites into the other, perhaps also buying it splinter racks). If I head out to larger tourneys, though, I have no doubt that two units would be the correct life choice. Would you keep them in raiders, though, or use venoms instead?

(2) I love the suggested changes to the autarch. I never considered deep-striking in a model on a jetbike as part of a unit on foot, but the idea of splitting him off from the unit to hunt monsters and ICs sounds very smart and also a ton of fun

(3) Swapping the seer council's and fire dragons' modes of deepstriking is an interesting idea... I'll have to playtest it a bit. I assume you can disembark a unit from a raider on the turn it deepstrikes, right? I suppose if that's the case I could always put the seer council and shadowseer in the raider and move the autarch on a bike to the archon+fire dragon squad. Might even try to see if I can find the points to give Mr. Autarch a fusion gun if I do go that route...

Anyway, lots of great food for thought. Thank you both for sharing your expertise

You can absolutely disembark from a Raider the turn you DS, although if you're trying to play the firing arc shell game it would behoove you to stay inside. (Knights have to declare their Ion Shield placement before you declare which point of the Raider you shoot from, allowing you to bypass it in a way that Fire Dragons on foot cannot.)