6th edition and WWP

xzandrate wrote:

I think the allied rangers/pathfinders could be a great way to move your portal forward without the vehicle.
The scout rule will let you redeploy within 6". This means you could start behind impassible terrain at the edge of you deployment zone(thank you random terrain placement), then scout forward 6" because it is no longer considered a movement, then move forward 6" in the movement phase and drop the portal. I'm thinking haemy with a hex rifle + 5 pathfinders. Then I get a farseer for psychic defense and buffs.

This is definitely good for ensuring your WWP makes it to placement, and does not lose any distance compared to using a transport. But it does seem rather points-inefficient - you're choosing not to use the pathfinders' Infiltrate and missing out on one turn of their shooting.

On the other hand, with the ability to place terrain after determining deployment zones, you can very easily ensure that the pathfinders make it to their destination even if your opponent gets the first turn. Their Scout redeployment can put them in a carefully-placed ruin, giving them a 2+ cover save against your opponent's first round of shooting.

Not totally missing out, only the Haemie can't shoot, everyone could snapfire, which means only AP1 hits, just no precision shots. Haemie shares Night Vision, so the half of those nightfight games just became duck hunt. Given that you will have the portal close, you should be left alone by most assault units, or have backup close by to help focus them down.

It's still a sniper squad, which generally underperform, but a few of those games they will be stars, and opponents will have to deal with them because of the potential to dominate.

Truly makes me wish that Mandrakes had scout. Actually, I think this is a really solid idea for an allied list, and works great towards the vehicle-denial I've been trying to work with (no raiders, venoms, or ravagers in an 1850 list).

If anyone does try it out, please let me know.

Nice concept - I like it but feel that the Haemie's pain token would be lost by doing this - hence my preference for mandrake experimentation at the moment...

I've just read the thread on Fortifications (found HERE and wondered about how these could best be combined with WWPs.

I think that having a forward sitting unit to 'house' the WWP carrier (I prefer Haemie's - who in my lists in the past often died very early on and did not taken any equipment other than the WWP) is a solid strategy and could be combined with the pain token bonus (again, hence my preference at the moment for Mandrakes) as well as selecting good cover for units arriving via the WWP:

- having a long thin line of Aegis defences so that shooting unit arriving from reserve have a location to immediately take up and fire from whilst gaining a solid cover save
- a bastion to 'house' the WWP carrier and babysitting unit: if the WWP can be setup whilst the Haemie is ensconced (great word!) within the confines of the building then assault units arrive can take from respite from enemy fire by using the bastion as cover
- not sure how or why, but there is something niggling in my mind that screams using a skyshield pad in combo with a WWP for a combination of assault/shooting reserve deployment - espcially in a Duke list...

That's a very interesting discussion on fortifications.

As I was preparing a list for a game, we ran across another rule issue involving WWPs/Deployment, etc.

Would Lady Malys' Precognisant rule allow an extra handful of units to be placed in reserve? As the redeployment happens after the "preparing the reserves" phase of deployment, I think there's an argument to be had both ways.

This might just make her with her points. Maybe. Well... maybe.

After about a week's worth of analysis, unit-by-unit breakdowns of both C:E and C:DE, and a lot of roster compilation, I have a rough draft up!

It also contains a number of my thoughts on WWP lists, as well as unit combinations that I think will be of benefit in WWP lists (Baron/Grotes, Baron/RJB, Pathfinders/WWP Carriers, etc.) and I'd love to hear concerns or comments (I'm sure there will be a lot of concerns, it's not your average list!)

http://www.thedarkcity.net/t3571-1850-point-webway-portal-force#39826

I am really enjoying the thoughts and brain power going into to WWP's, perhaps I will move it soon to "Tactics" since the thread is moving from interpreting the changes to 6th to strategies - keep it up!

I know I was first attracted to the Autarch for his strategic special rule but at a closer look, there are times when I do not want something to come out. Wether it be a lack of targets, the presence of a waiting enemy unit or just wanting to preserve your troop choice for later in the game - you can't delay that with the Autarch, everything comes out on a 2+.

Now, the item that can help with reserves (and I do remember many DE players wishing we had something in the codex to alter resreves) is the Comm Relay that can be taken with the ADL or the Bastion (I think). Those rules I am a little more fond of since it allows you to re-roll your reserve rolls. At first this sounded almost as good as the Autarch but the one thing the Comm Relay does is allows us to re-roll units that failed to come out on a 3+ OR allow us to re-roll a unit that made the 3+ in an attempt to put them back into reserve.

This would be interesting in some situations where you want another chance to, let's say, try to get that 2nd portal deeper or closer to where you want those reserves to appear. I wouldn't believe I would be missing much compared to the Autarch as far as reserve roll manipulation and you could still get a Farseer instead, use your psychic abilities on your pathfinders to dig in and snipe around.

Another note on snipers, they work pretty decently in taking flyers down. With the number of Pathfinder AP1 shots and using the Farseer to bolster their shooting abilities I really do believe they can take a flyer down in one round.

And I suppose the reverse is true too, skip the Comm Relay and use the Autarch on a quad gun and enjoy his elevated BS.

Just thinking out loud. I am not one that likes the idea of "Allies" to begin with (I think its lame) but if the meta screams you need them to be competitve then Pathfinders w/Farseer in an ADL w/comm relay is looking mighty fine for a portal junkie like me.

I believe the Comm relay is actually more reliable a 3+ re-rollable is 88% whereas a 2+ is 83%. It' definitely gives you more control.

Another important distinction is the fact that you need someone next to the comms to get the benefit. This means two things:

1) You will need a static element in your army.
2) Your opponent can deny the benefit by killing the models/unit closest to it so that you don't have anything close enough on the start of your turn to get the benefit.

On the other hand the Autarch is slightly less reliable and gives you less control. However, the advantage of the Autarch is his mobility, he can fit into any element of your army (transports, bikes, jump infantry etc).

I think both are valid options and its important to consider how they will affect your army.

I really am enjoying the WWP breakdown, its such an interesting mechanism that it would be disappointing to see it fall by the wayside.

That being said, the Autarch v. the comms relay is a question I've debated many times over before deciding to take both (be honest, how often does that happen to all of us in a grocery store?). But it really depends on what you want to be doing with your army list.

You want to be assured everything comes in turn two? An autarch and comms relay combined is the best bet. Autarch: 83%, Comms: 88%, Combined: 97.3%.

You want the most flexibility? Both combined are the best choice. For the Autarch, you can choose whether or not to add +1 to the roll. If you want something to come in, 97.3% chance it's in, if you want something to stay out, 55% chance it stays out. That's solid.

Looking for pure reserve-modification efficiency? Comms relay plays at 70 points and comes with an ADL (if you can place it to support an objective capture- great!), and is slightly better than the autarch at bringing things in, and definitely better than the autarch at keeping things out. Only problem is, something will need to stay behind to man the dang thing. And if you want to give it a gun, that's 120 points.

Looking for versatility? Looking to alter your reserve rolls and not having to build a force around the inclusion of an ADL? Autarch is probably your man. Not as good at bringing things in (83%), but brings some CC prowess, the ability to be mobile, another IC for wound allocation games, the ability to shoot, jump pack, jet pack, strike at I 10, grenades, a 4++ save, extra wounds and can even be helpful if he is in reserves! The only other major thing is that he is an ally. If you weren't planning on bringing Eldar troops to begin with, the Autarch probably was not your guy.

Also, @Grumpy, why do snipers would be great at handling fliers? As I understand it, they wound need a 6 to hit, a 6 to rend, and then a 3-4 to glance or a 5-6 to pen (str. 3 rending). Even with fortune or something, it would seem difficult to damage a flyer. I'm sure I've missed something, just can't figure out what.

Roc wrote:

I Only problem is, something will need to stay behind to man the dang thing. And if you want to give it a gun, that's 120 points.

You can't have Comms and a Quad Gun unfortunately it's one or the other.

Roc wrote:

Also, @Grumpy, why do snipers would be great at handling fliers? As I understand it, they wound need a 6 to hit, a 6 to rend, and then a 3-4 to glance or a 5-6 to pen (str. 3 rending). Even with fortune or something, it would seem difficult to damage a flyer. I'm sure I've missed something, just can't figure out what.

I believe he meant if the snipers were manning a quad gun, 6's to hit become ap 1, quite sneaky actually.

Ah yes. Good catch on the ADL single upgrade. Not looking at the codex right now, but isn't the sniper special rule attached to the rifle, not the pathfinder?

Roc wrote:

Not looking at the codex right now, but isn't the sniper special rule attached to the rifle, not the pathfinder?

You're right it is attached to the rifle, so that wouldn't work. I guess that's not was Kwi was talking about then.

Sorry, left out of town for a wedding and a 10k run near Santa Cruz and Capitola (near where ESE lives).

You guys can help me out here as my friend was showing me some play testing on snipers on flyers. I am totally unfamiliar with the Eldar codex and psychic powers so correct me if I am wrong. My friend was using snipers in a marine codex with a librarian with some psychic spell that helped him shoot down flyers and when talking about Pathfinders and a Farseer we did some dice rolling to see how these sniper did.

First, he had 10 Pathfinders - more than I would run, I was thinking more like 5 but oh well, he was trying to prove a point.

I believe the Farseer would cast "Guide" to help re-roll the "to hit" against flyers. In his demonstration he never rolled a failed leadership check for the psychic powers so it had always went off while I watched him cast.

The Pathfinders Long Rifle gun gives it an AP1 on a "to hit" on a "6" die roll.

As for the penetration, strength 3 rifle + 6 for the rend and the minimum of a 10 to 12 (same as a razorwing flock) means a decent chance to glance or pen. Of course Stormravens and Vendettas would be a pain.

Just using 6 dice, with re-roll and I am either stripping away a hull point or rolling on the pen chart - I would suppose rolling 10 dice would be better but not sure I want 10 Pathfinders.

If you had the Quad gun instead of the Comm Relay then couldn't the Farseer operate the Quad gun? BS5 with a re-roll to hit sounds pretty reliable to me. Even the Autarch could operate it for a BS6 shot, no?

I got no problem dropping the idea - I might be doing something wrong but the dice are showing decent results in my playtesting.

Again, not an allies fan but this sounds like my "go to" if everyone is getting allies crazy.

Farseer + 10 Pathfinders vs a flier is 10 shots needing 6 to hit but with Guide for a reroll is 3 hits per turn which then need 6 to rend in order to stand a chance of doing anything to a vehicle. So 0.5 rends/turn and a minimum of 2 on the D3 required to even glance an AV11 flier. Statistically, not much chance of doing anything and I'd much rather be pumping those shots into elite infantry as those same 10 shots with Doom from the Farseer give 8.88 hits, 6.66 wounds, 4 of which will be AP1 and/or Rending (AP2)*


*There's a bit of a conflict in the rules here as Pathfinders get AP1 on 5+ to hit but sniper rules say they Rend (AP2) on wound rolls of 6.

Quote :

Just using 6 dice, with re-roll and I am either stripping away a hull point or rolling on the pen chart - I would suppose rolling 10 dice would be better but not sure I want 10 Pathfinders.

Not much chance, as was said. 2-3 hits with guide, then you are needing to roll 6 for armor pen.
Possibility is there, but reliability is not.

If you want to take Eldar answer for Flyers take Vibro-Cannon battery. Its auto-glance on flyers (and anything else) and has much improved from 5th edition. IF you want to take Fortification with Quad Gun that is definately the way to go -
3 Vibro-Cannons and Warlock to man Quad-Gun.

Vibrocannons don't stack against vehicles tho. More cannons increase the chanse of hitting (only one in the battery has to hit), and the damage they do to non-vehicle models (one cannon does D6 s4 hits, with every extra cannon adding +1s, against vehicles however you do one glance regardless of the number of cannons). Still, for 50 points a 36'' line of automatic hullpoint loss is pretty good.

Yeah, especially for one you can place behind LOS block and still fire with same effectiveness even inside ongoing close-combat.

Pathfinders are really a lot of points for only reliably damaging a flier 50% of the time. Of course, I think there's about a 25% chance of blowing the thing out of the sky (or at least inflicting some significant damage due to the AP1

Count Adhemar wrote:

*There's a bit of a conflict in the rules here as Pathfinders get AP1 on 5+ to hit but sniper rules say they Rend (AP2) on wound rolls of 6.

I think this is a codex > rulebook issue. Sniper rule gives AP2, Rend, but eldar sniper rifles give AP1 on a 5+ with the pathfinders. It's a direct conflict, so the codex would be the answer in that regard.

As far as allied anti-flier. After a bit of discussion with a few others, it was decided that some of the most cost effective AT would be a sizeable allied detachment of 3 war walkers with scatter lasers, an ADL w/quad gun, a farseer and 2x Vibro-cannon. Farseer casts guide on the walkers and mans the QG. I think it comes out to something like 450 points-ish, so would really only be there if you absolutely had to deal with fliers.

However, over the course of four turns, against A11 fliers, you're looking at 19-20 HP off per turn (of course assuming everything lives). Alternatively, that can do the same number on the ground transports as well (and against A12 vehicles). Though it's also a static force. Nonetheless, you're talking about 5 HP per turn against A11 fliers and A12 ground transports. Against doom scythes? the selections kill 3 in two turns if they remain at full strength. That's well over 500 points of fliers. And that's assuming you never get a penetrating hit (which you should be getting about 2-3 per turn), and the vibros only hit 1 flier/turn (with 9on the board, it'd be entirely feasible to hit 2 at once at some point).

In 1850, I personally think 450 is a bit too much to spend on allies/fortifications. However, if I was regularly facing flyer-spam, I think this is quite the cost-effective way to go after them. The DE new battle-brothers truly have far superior options for taking out fliers than our current list.

The other suggestion that was made to me as an ADL with dark reapers, and an exarch with crack-shot. Now, I haven't verified this, but it was suggested to run the exarch without his crazy gun, give him the QG, and stop the fliers from evading.

And with a WWP list, wanting to put an ADL up as far as possible, using the first turn (or two if you go first) to get into position wouldn't be that big of deal, because his fliers wouldn't come on until the next player turn anyway (and someone will be there to "intercept" as well). As such, this whole combination would function fairly smoothly, and w/out a lot of adjustment in a WWP-driven Dark Eldar force. All things to consider.

Here is an interesting thing to consider for WWP: the bastion with comms.

For 95 points you get a large piece of line of sight blocking terrain that you can place in your table half to protect your portal carrier so he is guaranteed to deploy the portal 12+6+6+3= 27" into the board and be safe on his first turn an in addition it lets you re-roll reserve rolls.

Thoughts?

Mushkilla wrote:

Here is an interesting thing to consider for WWP: the bastion with comms.

For 95 points you get a large piece of line of sight blocking terrain that you can place in your table half to protect your portal carrier so he is guaranteed to deploy the portal 12+6+6+3= 27" into the board and be safe on his first turn an in addition it lets you re-roll reserve rolls.

Thoughts?

How would that work?

Step 1: Place bastion so it is just outside your deployment zone.

Step 2: Deploy a venom right behind the bastion (WWP carrier).

Step 3: Place a unit near the bastion to occupy it,.

Step 4: Move your venom 6" disembark 6" and drop the portal 3".

Step 5: Occupy the bastion and man the comms.

Actually, I had been considering a fortress of redemption for almost that same reason, but to hide multiple vehicles. Of course, I decided to drop that idea due to expense very quickly.

The bastion, however, does seem reasonable, though it would require a static element to be used in the army. Of course, that could be a post-pain token haemie...

I'd like the hear how it works out a bit more, as it could also give you an advantage of sorts in placing terrain (allowing you to drop more mid-board LOS blocking terrain, and depending on the bastion). Additionally, due to the height of the model, it could avoid some of the issues one might have with an ADL (for example, a wily opponent putting the biggest piece of terrain they can find right in front of the ADL and rendering it useless as a firebase).

Given that consideration, it may be worth the extra points. I'd have to give the building rules a big once over consider deploying it up the board as well (I'm assuming we can't deploy the WWP within a fortification. How great would that be).

It's not a strategy I'm going to use personally, but it's another option available to us, so I thought I would put it out there.

Roc wrote:

l (I'm assuming we can't deploy the WWP within a fortification. How great would that be).

Don't you mean deploy buildings out of WWP?

"A six! My fortress of redemption comes in from reserve!"

Is it possible to hold a unit with a dedicated transport in reserve, but start the dedicated transport on the board? Assuming you count the unit toward the maximum held in reserve, is that legal?

cymera wrote:

Is it possible to hold a unit with a dedicated transport in reserve, but start the dedicated transport on the board? Assuming you count the unit toward the maximum held in reserve, is that legal?

For me, the first sentence on pg 121 under heading "Deploying Transport Vehicles" answers your question