Tournament Report – Winter Tides 2019

Happy new year and welcome back to another exciting season of tournament goodness. After a month’s break since the AoC open, I’m back with a report on a good warm up for the 2019 season, this year’s first Tides of War at Bristol Independent Gaming. I haven’t done a preview for this one, because I spent last week frantically finishing some units for the event, so we’ll quickly rush through:

• The tournament format and style
• Details of my list
• Any exciting tricks or considerations for playing the army.

Before moving onto summaries of my games in the normal fashion covering:

• The Competition – Details of my opponent’s army
• The Mission – Details of mission and deployment
• The Plan – how I aimed to play out the game and target priorities.
• The Summary – how the game played out at a high level
• The Takeaways – points of interest and things I learnt from the game
• The Score – my score after the game.

I also have a preview to write for the Last Chance Open at some point this week, so some of this might be a bit briefer than normal. Hopefully it’s still a good read, and for those thirsting for the serious crunchy analysis there will be plenty of that over the next two weeks.

Tournament Format

BIG’s Tides of War events are 3 rounds of 1500 point Maelstrom games, with no named characters allowed. This time around we were trying some of the new missions from Chapter Approved (which in general worked really well). In general, the army lists people bring tend slightly more towards the “fluffy” end, and to help encourage this, several of the players who did well last year (the four events in the year are a series with an overall winner) are doing a “mono-codex challenge” i.e. no soup allowed. I decided to join in on this, which lead to…

The List

Army list - Click to Expand

Army List - 7CP - 1499pts
Battalion - +5CP - 1499pts - Craftworld Mara-Nai (Alaitoc Trait)
Specialist Detachment - Wraith Host -1CP

HQ1: Autarch Skyrunner Khios-Sal (95pts), Laser Lance (8pts), Twin Shuriken Catapult (3pts) [105pts]
WARLORD - An Eye on Distant Events

HQ2: Farseer Ilen-Dain (110pts), Witchblade (0pts) - [110pts]
POWERS - Executioner, Doom -  RELIC - Faolchu’s Wing

HQ3: Spiritseer Ana-Korei (65pts) [65pts] (Wraith Host)
POWERS - Protect/Jinx

Troop1: 5 Dire Avengers (40pts), Exarch (0pts), 5 Avenger Shuriken catapults (15pts), Additional Avenger Shuriken Catapult (Exarch) (3pts) - [58pts]

Troop2: 5 Dire Avengers (40pts), Exarch (0pts), 5 Avenger Shuriken catapults (15pts), Additional Avenger Shuriken Catapult (Exarch) (3pts) - [58pts]

Troop3: 5 Rangers (60pts) - [60pts]

Elite1: 5 Wraithguard (115pts), 5 Wraithcannons (75pts) - [190pts] (Wraith Host)
Elite2: 5 Wraithblades (145pts), 5 Ghostswords (30pts) - [175pts] (Wraith Host)

HS1: Wraithlord (85pts), Ghostglaive (10pts), 2 Shuriken Catapults (0pts) - [95pts] (Wraith Host)
HS2: Wraithlord (85pts), Ghostglaive (10pts), 2 Shuriken Catapults (0pts) - [95pts] (Wraith Host)

Flyer1: Hemlock Wraithfighter (200pts), Spirit Stones (10pts) - [210pts] (Wraith Host)
POWERS - Twilight Gloom

DT1: Wave Serpent (120pts), Twin Shuriken Cannon (17pts), Twin Shuriken Catapult (2pts) - [139pts]
DT2: Wave Serpent (120pts), Twin Shuriken Cannon (17pts), Twin Shuriken Catapult (2pts) - [139pts]

Tactics and Thoughts

I really wanted to try out the Vigilus Wraithhost detachment, especially as a bunch of Wraith stuff got a point cut in Chapter Approved. With this in mind, I decided to paint up some Wraithblades and a second Wraithlord to go properly “all-in” on the theme (the Hemlock counts as a “fluff unit” in this list, honest). I wasn’t too unhappy with what I came up with – it’s obviously nothing like as strong as the kind of lists I normally write about, but I rate it higher than the Wraithknight list I took to the last tides. Its main flaw is a lack of ability to reach out and blow things up, but it makes up for it with substantially higher staying power than you’d normally have in a 1500 point list.

It also has some neat tricks – the Hemlock being able to take the Wraith Host specific power and perpetually put itself in cover seemed too funny not to try (even though Jinx is probably better) and the idea of teleporting the Wraithguard in then immediately stacking a 4++ on them, casting protect on them to buff that further, murdering one thing and daring the opponent to ignore them before they kill another was very appealing. Finally, “An Eye on Distant Events” lets the Autarch suck up dangerous overwatch on behalf of the Wraithblades, which can catch an opponent out.

The glaring problems with the list is the lack of CP – Eldar are seriously CP hungry, and some of the tricks above need access to them to work. I was hoping to get a few back from the Autarch (spoilers – I didn’t, not a single one over 21 spent with him on the board) but was expecting it to be tough in places. Pure Eldar can only really do one Battalion “well” unless you have a lot of Rangers (and I only own one unit, which I should probably change), which puts a heavy limit on how many you can get while staying mono-codex, but even then you can normally do a bit better than this. However, there’s nothing I can really cut without losing the “theme” of the list, so I decided I’d just have to wear it.

That’s enough of an introduction – on to the games!

Round 1 – Space Wolves

The Competition

Army List - Click to expand

First off, shout out to my opponent here, who is a reader of these reports (and thus helpfully let me take the above shots of his army list to put in here) – it’s really nice to know these are being read and enjoyed, and I hope you enjoyed our game (and reading this one)!

The Mission

Disruptive Signals, one of the new Maelstrom missions. In this, you draw up to a hand size of four cards at the start of each of your turns. After that, your opponent can use a 1CP strategem to “turn off” one of your Maelstrom cards for the turn. I think this is a cool little mechanic – I generally enjoy Maelstrom, even in a tournament setting, but there are certainly times when someone draws a card and can just go “lol I guess I get a million points”, and being able to mitigate those swings helps a lot. It’s not that helpful to me because some idiot is running a list with 7CP, but even in that case I might pop it to stop a first turn “Priority orders” or something.

The Plan

This is potentially a really interesting game – both of our armies want to ruck in the centre of the board, and both of us have the tools to really hurt the other when we do via some key alpha units. The only glaring problem is that only the Long Fangs really threaten the Hemlock, and if I go first and it wastes half of them then it’s a tough sell for him to take the plane down. Conversely however, I have to be really careful of his Thunder Hammer equipped Characters and Wulfen, as they can make a horrible mess of my 3W wraiths, and the Wulfen will also tear a Wraithlord apart thanks to being base strength 5.

Because we were playing the new CA missions I knew I would (probably) be going first while deploying, so set up ready to move to take the centre of the board with one Serpent (with the blades) and put the other serpent on a flank loaded with Dire Avengers, planning to drop them off on objectives as needed. The idea in the centre (and this is a tactic I repeated in later games) is that I really want my alpha melee unit (the blades) to be the one charging when it comes down to it. He doesn’t really threaten to wrap my serpent, so if I put it in the middle just in melee range of some of his melee stuff there are two options:

1. The serpent dies, but only in the fight phase, meaning my stuff gets out and charges him in my turn.
2. The serpent doesn’t die, so as above but with bonus serpent.

Combine that with using the Hemlock in blocking tactics to channel stuff around and I should hopefully be able to control the flow of battle and take the win.

The Summary

Things started off relatively poorly, with the Hemlock completely screwing up its attempt to murder Long Fangs, only getting to make two shots even after a re-roll. The rest of my stuff moved up as planned, but the Shuriken Cannon shots I reached out at the fangs couldn’t take another one out, leaving them dangerously still alive and me without First Strike (which was another problem with my list that quickly became apparent).

Upset by the atomisation of two of their brethren, the remaining three Fangs fired at the Hemlock and got three wounds through thanks to their “ignore penalties” strategem. Luckily for me my opponent rolled a little low on the damage, and after all of the dust of the turn (including a smite and some plasma pistol shots) had cleared, the Hemlock lived on a single wound. That meant none of the rest of my stuff had really been shot. However, thanks to “Honour the Chapter” he just about managed to pull the Wave Serpent apart in the fight phase.

I duly disembarked the Wraithblades (none of whom died – my karma for my bad CP regen over the day was very good “emergency disembark” rolls) and in my turn unloaded a bunch of psychic into the Thunderwolves, but rolled very poorly for that, while the Hemlock again only managed to kill two more fangs, leaving one grim-faced Lascannon wielding survivor (I’d also spent two CP which healed the plane for a mighty 1 wound). I’d kept the wraithguard in reserve, lacking any great targets and being reasonably confident of taking all the Thunderwolves out, but once all was said and done that turned out to be optimistic, with one of them managing to limp through the turn. At least the news was better elsewhere, as Dire Avenger and Wave Serpent nonsense on the other flank swung it decisively in my favour, with one unit of Grey Hunters wiped out and another locked into combat by the Serpent.

My opponent could now launch a potent counterattack, however. No longer blocked by the Hemlock, the Wulfen howled down to engage my central Wraithlord, while the Battle Leaders swapped in for the remaining Thunderwolf to try and hammer some Wraithblades and my Autarch. They did a pretty good job of this, with the Autarch and Lord getting creamed and several blades dying, but not yet all of them. Elsewhere, the Hemlock finally died

In my turn, thanks to the cards I’d drawn, I really needed a character to die so set up a relatively risky gamble to try and make that happen, especially as i was getting dangerously behind on material. I put Doom into the wolf lord and a jinx from my spiritseer, needing some other shooting to go well in order to let a few things get their shots into him. Luckily for me, this went off just as planned, with me freeing him up just in time to take him out with Shurikens for a point and warlord. The “other shooting” also comprised the final collapse of the wolves on one flank, leaving my dire avengers in control of it. In addition to this, executioner and newly arrived Wraithguard did terrible things to the Wulfen, though the pack leader clung on (naturally I rolled 6 wounds on the penultimate wolf and 1 on the final). The remaining Wraithlord also wandered up to try and kill a wolf priest but kind of messed this up, only hitting once and the wound bouncing off the Rosarius. Still, after my opponent’s excellent second turn this had been a really good third for me, and it now looked like my opponent would struggle to get the Farseer and Wraithguard off the board, with which I should be able to mop up.

My opponent correctly identified that taking out my psykers was his key priority to stay in with a chance, so the wulfen leader raced past the guard to try and kill my farseer, while the battle leader went for the spiritseer. Unfortunately for him, the wulfen rolled high (but still not quite high enough to get 5 wounds past a 4++) and the battle leader rolled low, leaving both my psykers on 1W. In addition, this time the Wraithlord found his mark and chopped the wolf priest in half with a single swing as powerfist attacks rained harmlessly off it from the last blood claw unit. The only consolation was that the remaining long fang finally blew my second serpent off the field.

That turn basically sealed things – I was up on points and had better units left, and was able to roll up the board with my wraithguard and finish things off with a tabling on turn 6.

The Takeaways

I really enjoyed this game and it made me immediately glad I’d brought the list I had – the big interactive melee we had in the middle was very cool, and both sides got to how off what they can do. I certainly had some serious respect for Wraithblades after this game – they’re tough enough to not just die even to decent melee attacks, and throw a serious punch in response. A wraithlord tanking several characters and a unit for several turns till help could arrive was also cool.

I was, however, painfully aware that at no point in this game did I use any of the benefits of my Wraith detachment. Good job command point. Gooood job.

The Score

Win 16-10

Round 2 – Imperial Knights

The Competition

My opponent (another person who’s read these before, hi there!) had:

A Castellan (Ion Bulwark, Cawl’s Wrath)
A Crusader (First Knight, Rapid Fire Battle Cannon)
A Warden (Sanctuary)

All House Krast (reroll hits in the fight phase in the first round of combat).

…I’ve changed my mind can I have my planes back?

The Mission

Tactical Cascade. This one is interesting but sadly rather flawed. Basically, in your first turn you pick two objectives out of your deck. Then, on turn 2 onwards you draw two cards per card you scored in the last battle round, to a maximum of six per turn. This means that assuming you achieve both of your first turn 1s, then you have four on two, and if you achieve three of those, draw 6 on three, leaving both players with gigantic piles of cards after several turns. However, at the end of the mission, for every three cards you have left you lose a VP, meaning that if you achieve loads of objectives in one turn then have a bad round you can end up with loads of cards you can’t score and get a penalty.

Oh, and if one player achieves 25 cards the game immediately ends as the game system screams at you to stop this madness at once.

In theory there are some nice ideas here, but in practice:

a.) There are several cards that are…problematic to guarantee drawing first turn.

b.) The 1 point per three cards penalty isn’t really steep enough to discourage going hog wild on cards.

The Plan

I “won” the deployment roll so I knew my opponent would probably be going first. Once his knights were down I set up for my standard tactic of going hard on one flank – in particular, my plan was to run the Wraithlords towards the Castellan as fast as possible and force him to waste them or die, in order to protect my better stuff. The one modification to normal was to set up my Wraithguard in a serpent – he’d measured the exact threat range of my guard from the edge of my deployment zone, but hadn’t accounted for 3″ bump from getting out of a transport, so combining that with the max advance strategem would allow four of them to take pot shots on turn 1 if I seized. This was too good to turn down as a possibility and seemed minimally risky, so I set that up. My infantry largely squatted on objectives in both corners of the board.

The Summary

He went first and picked Overwhelming Firepower and Area Denial (the latter being a problem card in the mission, as it’s effectively D3 free points for…going first?). His castellan ran away from my stuff while the other two knights came rushing forward. Luckily for me, his shooting was a bit underwhelming – as is pretty much standard for the matchup, I blew “lightning fast” on the target of the Volcano Lance, and was rewarded by it completely missing. The other shots pattered a few wounds onto serpents, but I was largely unscathed, to the point that he didn’t actually score Overwhelming Firepower (though rolled a 3 for Area Denial).

On my turn, his Warden was now close enough to my Wraithguard in the serpent that 4/5 of them could get in range with a normal move out, so they went for that opportunity while everything else broke hard towards the Castellan. Unfortunately i made the terrible error of not getting my Farseer out of the Serpent before advancing it, which meant I didn’t have my full psychic arsenal to play with (even worse as I’d picked “Master the Warp”). I did manage to land Jinx on the Warden, and between the Wraithguard and some other shooting I stripped it down to 4 wounds (meaning with Doom and an extra Smite I would have trivially killed it – doh!). At least I scored both my cards (the other being Supremacy, but I naturally only rolled a 1 for it).

His Warden got to power up to full with the strategem and came in to crush most of the Wraithguard. I used Lightning Fast again in the shooting phase (leading to another game of literal no benefit from my detachment) so got away with relatively minimal losses again. Most of the Wraithguard died in the fight phase.

On my turn, unfortunately, I had a “psychic powers are not available, please try again” moment, as I missed several Smites, meaning I had to use Executioner to take down the damaged knight rather than getting to “doom” the next one. This lead to a relatively non-impactful turn, with a modest number of wounds coming off the next knight but not nearly as many as I needed. His turn consisted of the Wave Serpent holding the Wraithblades getting blown up and the passengers badly hammered, while the other serpent got charged and kicked around a bit.

On my turn, I think I missed doom again, but did at least land the Jinx, meaning that with smites and help from some great Hemlock rolls I took the Crusader low enough to be worth trying to gank it in the fight phase with my characters (thanks to always wounding on a 2+ witchblades/staffs can be potent once a knight is jinxed). Unfortunately, I missed the kill by (I think) 1 or 2 wounds, allowing the knight to fight back and stomp my spiritseer, then fall back and do things in his turn. This, combined with the Castellan’s shooting levelled pretty much everything I had left except my objective holding infantry in the corners, my Autarch, and my Hemlock clinging to a single wound (it did this in all three games, I love my beautiful, murderous, winged baby).

However, things were not all lost – those infantry in the corners had been quietly racking up points for me all game, as i’d drewn a couple of defends for objectives they had, meaning that I was actually somewhat ahead on points. Worse, my opponent had a turn where he couldn’t score anything thanks to not being able to consolidate in the direction he wanted, which is cripplingly bad news in this mission. With the non-Castellan on only a few wounds, if I could take it out I could actually still win on points (probably only if the game ended on 5). Naturally, my Hemlock missed the Smite case, but was able to finish the job with its guns, though it did mean my Autarch’s heroic charge into the Castellan was a bit pointless given he could nowhere near profile it (which would have been a relevant possibility after a round of Hemlock shooting). From there, the Autarch got creamed and the Dominus shot a few of my infantry up – but the game did in fact end on five, and even after subtracting points for me holding more cards, I’d squeaked a win.

The Takeaways

I really, really, really, badly need to not forget to disembark my Farseer, I did it in one of the playtesting games I’ve been doing for LCO as well. Being able to use his powers turn 1 is the whole point of his relic, and honestly if I had remembered him here the game would potentially have been a rout in my favour – given how unscathed my army was, killing the Paladin turn 1 would have left my Wraithguard as another alpha threat and target that needed to die, and given me a huge amount of momentum to potentially take quite a comfortable win.

As it happens, I’m actually glad we got to play the game we did instead – my opponent’s first turn shooting was truly abysmally unlucky even allowing for Alaitoc being a bit nonsense, so it would have been a bit sad for the game to consist of “he did nothing on turn 1, I killed a knight on turns 1, 2 and 3, game over”. The game we got was incredibly tense and closely fought all the way through, and I felt like both of us had to make some tricky, careful plays to try and stay ahead.

I did come away from it thinking that honestly, it would be nice if there was some way to scale the cost of some strategems for game size. Machine Spirit Resurgent makes knights so swingy in smaller games, because if you miss killing one by even a single wound you may as well have done nothing at all for a turn.

I did like the look of House Krast – First Knight seems pretty useful, and the extra melee punch messes up my maths for when I can and can’t use a wave serpent for blocking.

Not a fan of this mission for tournament purposes either – this is definitely at the “wacky fun” end of the Maelstrom spectrum that gives it a bad name, so I hope it doesn’t start turning up in ETC style packs. Also, it has a lot of moving parts, and a lot of discussions over lunch consisted of people from other tables realising they’d played some or all of it wrong (even I, rules nerd extraordinaire, got the rounding wrong in the end of game subtraction, but that applied equally so had no effect on the outcome).

The Score

Win 13-10 (technically it should have been 14-11 because of rounding as above).

Round 3 – Imperial Knights

The Competition

2 Crusaders (both with Thermal Cannons, one with “Endless Fury” and “First Knight”, the other with “Skyshield” (the relic top-mounted Icarus guns) and “Ion Bulwark”

1 Gallant (Sanctuary, Landstrider)

The loyal 32

All knights Krast, all guard Vostroyan.

…

…really…

…

Honestly, you bring a fluff list to one tournament…

The Mission

Desperate Gamble. You draw until you have three cards at the start of each of your turns. Then, you may choose to discard two of them to draw a single additional card. If you score that card this turn, it’s worth double points.

This one I really like – being able to burn 2 cards for 1 helps even out bad maelstrom draws significantly. The double points does add a bit of a risk of major swings (were I event packing this I’d probably fix it at one extra point) but I really like this in principle.

The Plan

Same again, pretty much. This time I was going to get to go first, which helps in some ways but means I can’t respond to their setup to pre-load the first turn swing. Him having back-line troops means that I want to have at least one unit of avengers in a serpent to go bully them.

The Summary

I went first and swung towards his “First Knight” crusader, leaving the wraithblade serpent in a position to bait his Gallant central (probably at the cost of the serpent but I was willing to pay that) to set up an alpha strike turn 2. My shooting did minimal things turn 1 – not doing much to the knight was to be expected, but I was a bit disappointed that the guard shrugged off a decent number of shuriken cannon shots – on normal averages enough should have died, combined with a smite, to take a serious bite out of the squad on morale.

His turn went as expected – his Gallant came and blew up my wave serpent, with the wraithblades disembarking towards the First Knight, while that got blocked by my serpent that it kicked a bit in melee.

On my turn 2, that meant I was set up to Jinx the Gallant and dump the Wraithguard and the Hemlock into it, followed by charging it with one Wraithlord, while Dooming the Crusader combined with some mortals, shurikens, grenades and then being charged by the Autarch, Blades and Wraithlord should comfortably trash it. I also dropped the 4++ transfer strategem on the Wraithguard – if they badly hurt the Gallant they could potentially then tank incoming for a turn. Unfortunately, this plan went badly wrong on two fronts.

Firstly, while the Wraithguard and Hemlock landed ten hits between them on the Gallant, I only got three wounds through even after a CP re-roll, so while the one cannon shot that went in took a chunk out of it it was relatively unscathed. The Wraithlord that charged it did some more damage, but not enough to kill it, and was crushed to death for its troubles. Secondly, while the kill went in on the other side of the board (after an interrupt to kill my Autarch), he used Noble Sacrifice to increase his chance of an explosion, which went off, and was absolutely spectacular. My Wave Serpent was nearby on six wounds, so naturally he rolled a six for that. It then blew up itself, catching my wraithblades in the blast, meaning that I lost two of them. A full 6 wounds also went into a squad of dire avengers, totally vaporising them, and four into my Wraithlord, taking it down a profile thanks to some other incidental damage it had suffered. I’d expected him to blow Noble Sacrifice, but hadn’t been prepared to lose quite that much stuff outright. Ouch.

Things now looked incredibly dire, but there were a few saving graces on his turn, notably that he didn’t manage to kill my Hemlock, and that one of the Wraithguard managed to tag the Gallant for a 6W hit on overwatch. That just put me back into the game – while the spiritseer died horribly, I could now no a layered last stand with what few units I had remaining. Thanks to their 4+ invuln, two guard survived the combat to shoot the next turn (they can fall back and shoot), and then tossed a massive slug of damage into the crusader after I killed the gallant with Psychic. My hero Hemlock continued to survive and also took a huge chunk out of it (he failed 4/5 4++ saves against it’s shooting) and suddenly, incredibly, if my two surviving wraithblades could survive overwatch and make a 6″ charge they might be able to murder it. Sadly, they rolled a five. Jerks.

My Avengers were thus forced to be the next in the queue to block the advance of the Crusader for a turn as it rumbled towards my Farseer, but the Hemlock, bless it, kept on dodging those shots (at least he was out of CP for Resurgent at this point). On my next turn, the Farseer finally took the thing down by tapping with Smite and Executioner, as my lone surviving Wraithblade casually strode into an entire guard squad and started butchering them. My Hemlock flew over to grab linebreaker and waste one of the CoCos. With Linebreaker, we would be even on points.

What the game thus came down to (assuming that it ended on five, which, spoilers, it did) was whether the heroic men and women of the Imperium (represented by one guard squad and a CoCo) could blow a 1W Hemlock out of the sky. He had cards that he would score if it died, so that plus removing Linebreaker would swing it to him. The guard squad picked up FRFSRF, but their lasguns couldn’t scratch it. The sergeant tried with his boltgun, but to no avail. Finally the last commander, his warlord, levelled his bolter and opened fire. Two hits. Rolled to wound. 1 Wound. A single save to draw the game. A 2. My opponent looked relived but I pointed out that I had a FNP. Could I get a 6 to save the game?

I could not. The dice came up a 5, the game over dice a 2, and that was it.

The Takeaways

I’m in two minds about whether I played this right or not. On the one hand, the plan I’d put together for turn 2 was definitely a very solid one – and I was horrendously unlucky that it went as badly as it did. Killing two knights in a turn would have made the rest of the game pretty trivial, and was a very real prospect.

However, there is a real question of whether I needed to do that, or could just have swung even harder onto the left flank than I did – I could almost certainly have left the Gallant with no viable charge targets, even with Landstrider, then Doomed and Jinxed the Crusader and killed it solely with Shooting (with just a single wraithlord lined up to charge and finish it if needed), heavily mitigating the risk of a bad explosion.

The argument against that is that it wasn’t a good use of my threats – Krast Gallants are so insanely deadly in melee that my melee units are borderline irrelevant – If I charge two wraithlords and the blades into the Gallant, I’ll get to attack with one lord, and it’ll then interrupt and kill the other lord and probably a couple of blades as well. In contrast, these units aren’t going to get too badly hurt by a crusader even if it interrupts. The interrupt strategem is another one that makes knights a huge challenge in small games, as it means charging them with anything less than overwhelming melee force isn’t going to help that much.

I think on balance, the strategy was correct, but once the shooting had drastically underperformed, I shouldn’t have charged the Gallant with the Wraithlord – it was extremely unlikely to finish him off, and I should have left it to block access to the guard for a turn and sacrifice it for that. The ultra deadly explosion…I mean I could have put my wave serpent a bit further away but really that was one of those shrug moments – these things happen.

This was another great game overall, and while i was a bit to lose a game that I felt I could have won if a few things had gone better, the ending was outrageously cinematic, and my opponent played a very good game all the way through, and definitely deserved his 3-0 result.

The Score

Loss, 10-13

Final Score

2-1, 10th/42

Wrap Up

I need this done tonight and so don’t have much time to go into a full review of my list, and honestly, it did pretty much what I expected. The units were a blast to use and very different to what I normally take, but the lack of CP was a complete nightmare the whole way through, and there’s really not that much you can do about that while keeping the “spirit” of a list like this. One of the things I was planning to send on my next FAQ/suggestion email was giving a CP bonus to Outrider/Vanguard/Spearhead detachments where all the mandatory unit slots are filled according to certain keywords – i.e. you get +3CP instead of +1 if you build a Vanguard or Spearhead where every unit is “Spirit Host” or an Outrider where every unit is “Ravenwing”. A lot of the “fluff driven” armies run into the same problem I did here, and that would be a nice way to mitigate it that probably isn’t too open to abuse.

I’ll almost certainly be using a bunch of these units in our local Vigilus campaign, as it’s a nice way to build an Eldar list that’s hopefully a lot more fun to play against as well as to play, which is much better suited to a club campaign than “all of the planes” is.

I hope all my readers (especially those featured) have enjoyed this wrapup, and tune back in later in the week for my preview of the LCO.

Spoilers – there are planes.