Topic: Craftwrold brigade for new codex

[Determinator]

Hi everyone,

So I’m reposting a version of the lists I posted last week now that the eldar codex has been officially released. I’ve made a few changes to the list after having gotten advice on the previous post.

I changed the weapons on the war walkers to bright lances to get some more anti-tank into the list. I also dropped one of the squads of shining spears and instead added a small unit of warp spiders. Finally, I reduced the size of the striking scorpion squad to upgrade a spiritseer to a farseer.

Asuryani brigade detachment:

Craftworld trait: Biel-tan

Avatar of Khaine - 250
Farseer (Doom, Mind War/Guide?), warlord - Natural leader - 100
Warlock (Quicken/Restrain), spirit stone of Anath’lan - 35
Warlock (Protect/Jinx) - 35

5 Rangers - 60
5 Rangers - 60
10 Dire avengers, with exarch, 2 avenger shruiken catapults - 124
10 Dire avengers, with exarch, 2 avenger shruiken catapults - 124
10 Dire avengers, with exarch, 2 avenger shruiken catapults - 124
10 Guardians, shruiken cannon weapon platform - 95

10 Howling banshees, with exarch, executioner -133
10 Howling banshees, with exarch, executioner -133
5 Striking scorpions, with exarch, scorpion's claw and scorpion chainsword - 87

5 Shining spears, with exarch, star lance - 137
5 Warp spiders, with exarch, 2 death spinners - 98
10 Swooping hawks, with exarch, hawk’s talon - 133

War walker, 2 bright lances - 90
War walker, 2 bright lances - 90
War walker, 2 bright lances - 90

Total: 1998

I will be using webway strike on the howling banshees and aim to essentially charge high-value targets and tie them up for a turn. Quicken and protect both go on the shining spears first turn who with M16 should almost always be getting a first turn charge. If the avatar is in range then court of the young king will go on the striking scorpions to increase the chances of them making that charge.

War walkers deploy in the backfield on the objectives, rangers will infiltrate forward and act as screening units for the avatar. The rest of the list advances forward as quickly as possible.

Because the farseer already had runes of the farseer I put the spirit stone of anath’lan on the warlock with quicken/restrain to guarantee that power going off.

Also, I’m wondering what the second power on the farseer should be. I was actually thinking mind war since it works quite well with the rangers to finish off the last few wounds on a character, but guide is always helpful and so versatile and mind war is a bit short ranged.

I was wondering if my list had sufficient anti-tank now, because if not I could change the guardian squad with the shruiken cannon to a storm guardian squad with double fusion gun.

And, finally, does natural leader work every turn or is it just once per game?

As per usual, thank you in advance for any advice!

[Fenris]

Awesome list, I'm a bit confused about the tactics though.

All I'm missing in this list is some Dark Reapers, which could be taken in favor of the 2nd warlock and by reducing the shining spears to 3.
That would shift some melee multiwound damage to long ranged multiwound damage.

Regarding the psychic powers I would probably not bother with guide, Mind War is nice but I think Executioner is better with no LD modifiers around.

As for the tactics, I would actually put the banshees just in front of the Avatar as a meatshield, then have the warlock herding them with quicken.

I would then probably outflank the shining spears, and shadowstrike the scorpions.
Then keep the rangers on home objectives and maybe do a webway strike with the guardians.

Dire Avengers, Swooping Hawks and Warp spiders I would use to fill in the gaps, Hawks and Spider should be more valuable against T3 armies, and Avengers more so towards T4 armies.

My quite similar list took a turn towards Ulthwé though, since I have an Autarch instead of an Avatar.

[Determinator]

You're right, I think executioner is probably a better bet for the farseer. I'll change that.

I think the second warlock is pretty valuable in protecting the bigger targets in this list so I'd rather not drop him...do u think it is worth dropping the third war walker to get in some dark reapers, or alternatively I could reduce the dire avenger squadrons down to make room?

Tactics wise...You are definitely right...my tactics didn't really leave any suitable meatshields for the avatar but I thought it would be worth it to get 3 or 4 first turn charges off.

Maybe I could make the guardians squad a 20 man squad and drop them in in front of the avatar first turn to act as a meathshield. With celestial shield they could be quite tough since they're inside the avatar's fearless bubble...

I just think that it's worth deploying and keeping quicken on the shining spears first turn, because they will deal such a damaging blow to the opponent first turn. They will almost wipe out a leman russ on average in a single turn!

I was planning to deep strike the scorpions, I was just saying court of the young king would help make their charges more reliable.

To be honest, this list might be better as ulthwe, but biel-tan are my favourite craftworld so... 

[SeekingOne]

Hi Determinator!

Of course it depends on what models you have available, but in general you should note that in the new codex 3 Dark Reapers with exarch are only 81 pts. I'd consider replacing all Walkers with 3x3 Reapers, which would give you a much deadlier long-range anti-tank.

[Fenris]

I think you should keep the war walkers, they are essential for your anti-tank, even more so than shining spears or Reapers.

With protect cast on the Avatar he might survive a turn of shooting, but I think it's a gamble, since casting the power is not guaranteed.

Having a Guardian blob in front off the Avatar is more reliable, but you'd have to drop the protect-lock to get all those guardians anyway, in addition to dropping 5 avengers from one of the units for example.

Do you really need quicken on the shining spears? If they can stay within the Avatars aura, a 25" charge is still quite achievable.

[DuckWake]

I think it's worth noting that all of the Runes of Battle boons only affect infantry and bikers. The Avatar doesn't get the infantry keyword, probably due to being a monster.

[Determinator]

Thanks for all the advice!

I hadn't realise you couldn't cast on the avatar. In that case the warlock with protect isn't nearly as necessary so I could probably drop him.

I think war walkers are vital in this list since I'm so lacking in anti-tank. However, if I drop the warlock, convert the dire avengers in to 5 5 man squads and drop the rangers I could get two min squads of dark reapers in, and increase the size of the guardians squad. I just don't think rangers will be very useful as I'm not taking them in significant enough numbers to be able to actually kill any characters.

I think now I keep quicken on the shining spears, deep strike the guardians in in front of the avatar, and don't aim for first turn charges with the banshees and charge them in second turn, and use them as meathshields/overwatch blockers for the avatar.

If I did that this would be the updated list:

Asuryani brigade detachment:

Craftworld trait: Biel-tan

Avatar of Khaine - 250
Farseer (Doom, Executioner), warlord - Natural leader - 100
Warlock (Quicken/Restrain), spirit stone of Anath’lan - 35
Warlock (Protect/Jinx) - 35

5 Dire avengers, with exarch, 2 avenger shruiken catapults - 64
5 Dire avengers, with exarch, 2 avenger shruiken catapults - 64
5 Dire avengers, with exarch, 2 avenger shruiken catapults - 64
5 Dire avengers, with exarch, 2 avenger shruiken catapults - 64
5 Dire avengers, with exarch - 60
20 Guardians, 2 shruiken cannon weapon platforms - 190

10 Howling banshees, with exarch, executioner -133
10 Howling banshees, with exarch, executioner -133
5 Striking scorpions, with exarch, scorpion's claw and scorpion chainsword - 87

5 Shining spears, with exarch, star lance - 137
5 Warp spiders, with exarch, 2 death spinners - 98
10 Swooping hawks, with exarch, hawk’s talon - 133

3 Dark reapers, with exarch - 81
2 War walkers, each with 2 bright lances - 180
War walker, 2 bright lances - 90

Total: 2000

Is this list better than the previous list?

[Fenris]

Good call about the Avatar, I guess most psychic buffs won't affect him.
I should have known that as it was the same in the index.

I think this second list looks slightly better, not sure if dropping the rangers was the right thing to do, but it's up to playtesting I think.

However I think it might be better to fill up that guardian unit rather than taking the 2nd unit of Reapers, since that would allow you to get a 2nd shuriken cannon platform, which will provide both some durability but makes a good choice for splitting the shooting to avoid overkill and the cannons should likely be able to shoot at a secondary target further away.

This option would then leave points to spare, so you could either get a 4th reaper, the 2nd warlock back or something entirely different like a skyrunner for the farseer?

Wether you go further down my route of suggestions or not, you could merge 1 or 2 walkers and make them a better target for your 3" pseudo guide power.

[SeekingOne]

Imho, Protect is a great power - probably better than Fortune. I don't know if this is intentional or will get FAQd later, but at least now per RAW it affects all saves, which includes invulnerables too. Therefore you still have at least one great target for it - Shining Spears. And even without them, Jinx would be a fantastic supporting debuff for Banshees and Spears, making them much better vs targets with good Inv saves.

Therefore I'd certainly keep that second Warlock.

[Determinator]

You're right there's no good candidate for natural leader atm.

And good call with the guardians, since I'd love to keep that second warlock.

Ok...so I've made the changes to the list above. I added a warlock with protrct/Jinx, added 5 Guardians and shruiken cannon platform to the guardians squad, and dropped the squad of 3 dark reapers, with the exarch with tempest launcher. I've also merged two of the war walkers into one squad.

I had to drop one of the avenger shruiken catapults on one of the dire avenger exarch to make room.

I really like this list now. Just shows how many different units in the codex are good now that you can take a really varied list and still be competitive!

[Determinator]

So I’ve played a battle against tau. It ended up being 2500 points so I added a second squad of shining spears and striking scorpions and 2 fire prisms both with spirit stones, although I had to drop one of the bright lance war walkers.

I tabled him on turn 4. This list is amazing. It is so unbelievably quick for an almost all foot list and the stratagems are really good, I ended up needing all 12 so I’m glad I took a brigade. Biel-tan is definitely the right craftworld. The spirit stone was needed almost every turn and natural leader is a ridiculously good warlord trait, and re-roll ones isn't a bad trait for this list.

MVPs were: warlocks-the runes of fate powers are just ridiculously good particularly quicken and they are only 35 points each! Shining spears were so deadly, and using webway strike and quicken they can get so many charges off. Howling banshees synergise really well with the rest of the list due to ignores overwatch and they are lightning fast. Fire prisms are amazing with linked fire, I think they killed over 650 points over the course of the game. Definitely better than bright lance war walkers in my opinion. Guardians I ended up using as a screen across my deployment zone. With protect and celestial shield they absolutely tanked firepower which is amazing considering they are guardians.

Meh units were: striking scorpions, I don’t think I used them well, but neither of them made their 9 inch charges on the turn they arrived and even once they made charges they didn’t seem to do much. Swooping hawks were all right, but I think next time I’ll use them in 5 man units rather than 10.