Eldar Vs. Tryanids - First game of 6th Ed.

[Saulus]

Not going to be a typical BatRep., perhaps more of a first impression, but here's the army list just for perspective.

Eldar:

Farseer: Spirit Stones, Both runes, Fortune and Doom
Farseer: Spirit Stones, Guide Doom

Guardians: 14 -Scatter laser with Warlock and embolden
Guardians: 10 -Eldar missile launcher with Warlock and embolden. (in TL-missile waveserpent)
Jetbikes: 6 with 2 cannons
Dire Avengers: 10 with Exarch shimmershield, bladestorm, and defend. (In TL-Shuricannon turret, with Shuricannon, also has farseer 1).
Dire Avengers: 5 with Exarch, DualCats, and bladestorm.
Pathfinders: 5

Vypers: 2 with 2x Shuricannon

Falcon: with missile launcher (houses smaller DA squad and Farseer 2)
Nightspinner
Fire Prism

Tyranids (some numbers may be off slightly, his list he claimed was not well thought out. I would tend to agree)

Hive tyrant: HVC toxins, adrenals, regen.

The Deathleaper
Zoanthrope in a pod

Termagaunts: 20- toxins, fleshborers
Hormagaunts: 16- toxins, adrenals
Warriors: 3 - rending and ScyTals
Warriors: 3 - Scytals, deathspitters and VC.
Genestealers (8) with broodlord, with scytals, toxins.

Carnifex. 2x Scytal, Stranglethorn, regen, bioplasma.
Trygon Prime, adrenals, regen.

We picked a random mission from the back, Slay the warlord, 3 mysterious objectives, linebreaker, and first blood. Our respective commander traits had no influence on the battle, can't even remember what they were. Mine was that he had to use his lower leadership when near a character etc. but he was fearless anyway under synapse, sooo yep. His Tyrant got counter attack (never was assaulted). As far as commander abilities, I don't even know how much I like it. I would prefer maybe a point cost for a reroll maybe? or a default one for each tree that you can fall back on if you roll something basically useless.

The Deathleaper reduced my my good seer leadership to 9, which was not nearly as bad as it could have been. Maybe I'll just run through the unit's effectiveness in the battle

Farseer 1+2: The runes were an absolute life saver. With the reduced leadership and shadow in the warp, having that countermeasure there saved me from some terrifying perils. Speaking of which, the Zoanthrope was completely nullified by the runes (can't recall which are which). Periled twice and died, doing no damage. In the end, did farseer like things, but ultimately died to the deathleaper. Farseer 2 is quite standard, helped its squad just like last edition, nothing crazy, killed the deathleaper on the last turn.

Guardians: Sure they are overcosted, sure they are outdated, but I have an unnatural affection for them. They did as expected. They held an objective, and when hormagaunts came by, embolden kept them from running away until the job was done. The others just fired at whatever was doomed.

Jetbikes: I was foolish and forgot about the assault move they have, so they basically just shot overwatch and died.

Dire Avengers: I've never used to many (just painted the squad of ten). With fortune they took a lot more punishment than I thought. But as far as offense, in close combat they really are not great, even with doomed enemies, the deathleaper tore them to bits. But I knew that already.

Pathfinders: These guys are always a good time, rending and AP1 against monstrous creatures is just great. They took down a carnifex and scarred then Tyrant, before the Deathleaper had his way with them. Against another army though, while they may be able to take out a special weapons guy, or sarge, is it worth the price? I'm not sure.

Vypers: Veq (I think) was talking about 2x shuricannon vypers in lieu of war walkers. They are fast, pretty cheap overall, and get that cover save for moving. They did a nice amount of damage! Ripping up warrior squads, and helping to take down the trygon. Since they are quick they can nullify cover saves in some cases (like the warriors). I am really glad I took them. But again, against marines for example, there is no cover save to remove really, and bolters alone should kill em easy. so yea, not sure.

Tanks: Against nids is again a somewhat special scenario. There really was limited shooting, but many of them were felled in CC. Offense-wise, my tanks are unchanged really, but I really do like the fast skimmers combined with snapshot. Makes them a tad more offensive, and with guide (or twinlinked) its even better.

Overall, I wiped his army out, but took a large amount of casualties (with the deathleaper killing over a third of my points, Oh my, so scary). I really thought my army was going to be a huge failure, but having a large amount of infantry really paid off. I think I may scrap the Fire Prism in favour of a wraithlord in order to counter charge. And I just might break down and get an avatar, seeing how I have so many guardians.

I'll definitely need to try a game against Marines, or Guard. And although I have literally 0 flyer defense, none of my friends are going to get any, so that should be ok.

The Tyranid opponent did have a 'bad' list. Giving out upgrades all over to get up to the point value I had. No doubt a more optimized list would perform much better. I also think I am going to be using the Deathleaper in my next game (I already have one, just never thought he was useful, DAMN, so wrong).

[Chicop76]

I glad the deathleaper did soo well. Not to many nid players use him and I'm glad he is being used. Eldar is the reason why I don't run 9 zonathorpes.

Thinking about it Eldar should do well in 6th thanks to the heavy amount of psykers in the game. I forgot about the Eldar anti-psyker gear. You reminded me with New Daemons I have to kill the Farseer or Eldrad as quickly as possible.

Dire Avengers and Guadians must be loving overwatch in 6th. Hmmm I wonder how I would do against Eldar. Already liking how they nerved hoods. I am curious if they gonna nerf the 15 blow up a bunch of psyker gear.

[BigToof]

Neat write-up Saulus!

I do want to see more as your Eldar list is evolving into something that will be interesting to see...

Tyranids was an interesting first choice, and I agree, Fire Prisms just don't have what it takes nowadays.  The Wraithlord is kind of iffy though, I'd try it and then, please let us know how it goes!

Best,
-BT

P.S.  Karma'd!

[Saulus]

Chicop: I did specifically take runes because of your thoughts on increased psyker presence. While I may not have considered it before, it really did pay off (literally) in that last game. Not to mention that his Tyrant was terrified to cast, although it never really had a good opportunity to. I would not be surprised (or really that angry) if they nerfed it, it really is a bit unfair.

As far as overwatch, what with Bladestorm depleting shots, it almost asks the opponent to assault. Guardians, yes its alright. Scatter lasers are a good overwatchy weapon, Eldar missile launchers, maybe not so much. I mean in the assault with the hormagaunts I took 3 out on the way in with overwatch, that cost him 9 attacks, which against guardians is no small feat!

Toof: I'll try and get a better report concurrent with a better list and game. I feel like a stalker lurking veq non-stop, but his lists seem so very nice. He is a bit more wraith focussed while I am mech, something I can change as I do have wraiths already built and painted. I just want to use the Serpents that I worked so hard to complete for 5th, and now modify for 6th. The avatar from Forgeworld is damn nice, and with the rising cost of finecast its hard to justify NOT getting the Forgeworld one.

My buddy only had nids, I offered him any number of my nids to complement his forces but he decided just to run with what he had. We still had a good game, but it was really like a 5.5 ed game using such aged lists. The Nightspinner I predict will be better simply because of the infantry shift. The wraithlord I have built is Brightlance and Sword (was 2x brightlance for looks, but I just CANT pay ~180 points for a single brightlance shot a turn). So cashing in  a squad of guardians maybe, along with squad size reduction of the other guardian squad, and fire prism swapout may allow for inclusion of a wraithlord and wraithguard. Then to get the avatar lose some DAs... maybe... Yea, I'll be pondering this over a lot.

Thanks for the cookie, will post next game as it happens.

[Arguleon-veq]

Thanks for the recap Saulus. My mate used the Vypers the other day [using a random list he rolled for in the general 40K board] and they put out some damaging fire but died pretty easily. I think the best use of them is to make sure whatever they are shooting at is so reduced [usually with the use of supporting fire from another unit] to not be a threat when they return fire.

The Avatar is always a good call if your going to be running a lot of models on foot if they arent fearless. That fearless bubble is huge. I agree that the Night Spinner has potential, especially as you can hide it. If you do opt for a Wraithlord he is nice with the Avatar as the Avatar can just walk around in front of him giving him a mobile coversave.

As far the Nids, Deathleaper is pretty nice now, drops the LD of big enemy psykers and if your careful with him he is almost always going to get you linebreaker.