DE ally. Eldrad and his death stars.

For games at 2000pts I've been toying with the idea of one of these units. I like the idea of running Eldrad for all his buffs. He makes these two death star units incredibly powerful and they in turn allow him a retinue to wander around the board with. Effectively a mobile 24" circle of doom. In tactical terms it denies an opponent that area of the board. He also acts as effective psychic denial with his Runes of Warding.

Aside from this Eldrad can allow you to reposition 2-4 units before your turn if you got to go first. This means you can redeploy this unit to be the biggest nuisance and or your Ravagers/Reavers/Hellion mob for first turn damage. Onto the two death stars:

Wraithstar:
Eldrad Uthran
10 x Wraithguard
Warlock w/Conceal

= 600pts

This unit is the boss of death stars! Lets look at all its pros and cons:

Pros:
- Majority T6. That means most small arms fire would be wasted on it, mid strength weapons would only hurt it half the time and anything S7 or higher should be firing at our flyers. If they're firing at this unit, they're doing their job.
- 3+ armour save/5+ cover save (4+ if the Baron is in the unit) which is re-rollable with fortune. They are going to last a long long time. If the Baron is at the front you debatably have a 2++ (something like a 2.4% chance of failing that)
- Their guns kill anything they look at within 12". Assault 1 so a threat range of 18". AP2 and 2+ to wound everything. Glance all vehicles on a 3+, Pen on a 5+, with guide this is a viable threat to flyers as well!
- They're scoring as they count as troops (also this one unit fills the FOC criteria for allies, 1HQ, 1Troops)
- They're fearless
- If running with the Baron they actually become a viable assault unit. He gives them assault grenades and they'll get 20 S5 attacks. With a doomed target that's as powerful as many assault squads. They also have hit and run so can leave if they get assaulted. An overwatch volley from them can be lethal and the Baron gives them defensive grenades. Also T6 will be a real problem for most things in assault.

Cons:
- No transport.
- Low mobility.
- Short range weaponry.
- Vulnerable to powerful CC units. (If this is of major concern before the battle you can swap out Eldrads powers for ones from the divination table in a hope to get the 4++ and or/OW at ballistic skill. This makes them less durable without their re-rollable saves from fortune but makes it hard for them to be assaulted. I'm assuming the army your facing has sacrificed firepower for such scary CC units).
- High points cost but I feel you get what you're paying for.

Summary:
Essentially I think the are a denial unit. Sit on an objective and they're going to be hard to budge. Or they deny anything to take a space 18" around them because they'll be killed. If they're not ignored they absorb an absurd amount of fire and allow the rest of your army to do their thing which makes DE lethal.

Harlie Bomb:
Eldrad Uthran
10 x Harlequins w/Kisses, Shadowseer.

= 460pts

Pros:
- 40 rending attacks on the charge with W5, I6, FC and assault grenades. Combined with Doom this will eat anything in assault.
- Hit and run
- Ignore terrain
- 4+ cover save in the open which is 2+ in any type of cover. Re-rollable thanks to fortune and a 5++ for anything that ignores cover. Only T3 so no where near as durable as the wraithstar but they should absorb a lot of damage before dying.

Cons:
- T3 so they are more vulnerable than the wraithguard as stated.
- Not much shooting potential.
- Far less threat to armour.
- No transport
- Eldrad removes their bonus from fleet. Perhaps a cheaper more effective option would be a Fortune/Doom farseer at 148pts but loses Eldrads special rules.
- Not scoring.

Summary:
Ultimately a cheaper option, this is one of the ultimate CC units in the game but there is a potential problem of getting them there. They can survive a lot of fire especially if moving through cover although you need Eldrad on the outskirts of terrain to keep him from holding the unit back. This could draw fires so you'll have to rely on LoS rolls and not failing the re-rollable 3++. I view them as a slighty more mobile way to infiltrate the enemy ranks casting doom on everything. It think with target saturation this unit will get to what it wants to and kill it efficiently.

Overall I like the idea of the wraithstar unit as a lethal attachment to a competitive 1400point DE force for 2k games. I think Eldrad is made as a match for them although their bonuses may well get 'modified' in the hopefully imminent Eldar Codex.

Well if you want the Harly unit drop one, so it is 9+Eldrad. Take a cheap with access to dedicated transport. turn one disembark unit embark Halrybomb. Removes one of their downsides. Over all I think the wraiths are a better option.

Harliestar is also a good place to stick an Archon (tho wether he benefits from Fortune is debatable), providing him with some protection while making his way to melee and being decent in assault as well. Taking the Troupe Master for an extra character (he can take challenges from sargeants and the like to let the Archon attack the unit and to keep the Shadoweseer and Farseer from being targeted) might be a good idea, maybe a Death Jester as well if you have the points (since now you can't fleet and assualt in the same turn, you'll get more use of his shuriken cannon, and he's a character as well).

While the wraithguard unit is interesting, I feel it suffers from the same issues most deathstars have: ignorability. Its only moving 6' a turn with 12" assault 1 guns. Sure its T6 with a rerollable 3+/5+ cover. It is, however, 600 points. Thats 25 warriors with splinter rifles and 5 venoms with 50 points left over. It would be fun to field and see peoples reaction, but the DE army dosent lend itself to the deathstar type of playstyle. Also, the Baron dosent give hit and run to anyone, he only allows the unit of hellions hes joined to re-roll the initiative test and the distance.

The harliestar however, would be very interesting. 8 harlies with shadowseer, death jester, archon with PGL, venom blade and huskblade and shadow field + farseer with doom and fortune isnt cheap coming in at 516, then add 65 points for a raider with aethersails you can jack on the firs turn and thats 581. Very close to the wraithguard but a lot nastier in CC with a much larger threatrange because of the raider.

jb7090 wrote:

While the wraithguard unit is interesting, I feel it suffers from the same issues most deathstars have: ignorability. Its only moving 6' a turn with 12" assault 1 guns.

You could trim the unit down to 5 and give them a Wave Serpent but that removes scoring status and dilutes the strength of the unit.

harliestar is better imho. Unless you stick a decent combat unit in there (for AP2) they are going to get assaulted and stuck in there for a long time. Had a friend run wraithstar for awhile, and that was their biggest flaw (would be charged by something fearless and stuck there the entire game)

I think the ignorability of the wraithstar is an advantage as a scoring unit. That's a free objective if the opponent ignores you.

My girlfriend ran an Eldar Wraith list at the last Ard Boyz. The Wraithlords under performed, but with Eldrad and a second farseer throwing fortune across 3 Wraithguard units they were close to unkillable. They only got really bogged down in an assault once, strictly because the unit had fleet. 6" charge moves made it very easy for the wraithguard to take out anything preparing for a charge. Of course that was 5th ed.

So applying the observations to 6th. Charge range is random, but still within the 12" range of the guns, which means they are almost always going to get a chance to shoot. Re-rolls from psychic powers mean that you should see probably 3 hits from a 10 man unit, pretty assured of 3 dead. Then there is always the chance that they will fail the charge, so potentially 1 more round of shooting, and another overwatch.

One thing that we had toyed with, and only ended up using on one unit, was having the warlock take enhance instead of conceal. The biggest counter arguement at the time was that everything had furious charge, so the +1 iniative wasn't worth as much. Now however, +1 WS and +1 Initiative mean that they will likely go first, hit on 3's, wound on 3s vs most things. Either way, each of the powers will be useless in certain situations.

xzandrate wrote:

One thing that we had toyed with, and only ended up using on one unit, was having the warlock take enhance instead of conceal.

In the circumstances we are talking about Conceal would be pretty much useless anyway as the unit would be behind an ADL.

Count Adhemar wrote:

xzandrate wrote:

One thing that we had toyed with, and only ended up using on one unit, was having the warlock take enhance instead of conceal.

In the circumstances we are talking about Conceal would be pretty much useless anyway as the unit would be behind an ADL.

So that means you really only have 2 power choices, destructor or enhance. Heavy flamer, or +1 WS +1I.

I always forget the ADL when building lists. Maybe that Wraithguard list needs to be re-examined.

I don't think I'd stick a 600 point unit with poor shooting range behind an ADL. Enhance is a very interesting ability to have on the unit though. I hadn't really thought about that tactic. When this unit is run in an Eldar list you can add another farseer for the doom and fortune and then have Eldrad roll on Divination and he's got a good chance of getting the 4++ option and/or the OW at full BS which make this unit absurd.

jb7090 wrote:

Also, the Baron dosent give hit and run to anyone, he only allows the unit of hellions hes joined to re-roll the initiative test and the distance.

Sorry where are you getting this from? He has the hit and run USR, unless i am mistaken that means any unit he joins gets it too.

Anyone confirm?

Mud

Run another farseer in that same unit with Fortune and you have a rerollable 4++! (of course you would have to be playing eldar to take 2 farseers)

And yes, Baron gives any unit he joins hit and run, not from his own abilities but from the change in how the hit and run rule works in the new rule book

Mudpuppet wrote:

jb7090 wrote:

Also, the Baron dosent give hit and run to anyone, he only allows the unit of hellions hes joined to re-roll the initiative test and the distance.

Sorry where are you getting this from? He has the hit and run USR, unless i am mistaken that means any unit he joins gets it too.

Anyone confirm?

Mud

That is true in 6th only one person in the unit needs to have hit and run for the whole unit to use it.

Yeah, Hit & Run for the whole unit but only Hellions get to use the reroll on the I test and distance.

I stand corrected on the Baron issue. That's pretty interesting....

jb7090 wrote:

I stand corrected on the Baron issue. That's pretty interesting....

It's even more interesting these days when you use the highest Initiative value in the unit to test against.