Craftworld troops choices

[TrawlingCleaner]

I'm currently starting to work on my Craftworlders again, I haven't since about half way through 8th and even then it was quite fleeting.

One thing I'm starting to scratch my head over are Troops choices.

 

Normal Guardians seem a bit meh to me without the Celestial Shield(?) statagem. Rangers don't seem too bad to use to fill out troops slots but they are just there to fish for mortal wounds. I'm thinking of going heavy with Dire Avengers as I'll be running my Craftworld Iybraesil force as Biel-Tan (I really like Aspect Warriors), should I also be running Asurmen?

 

I don't play meta or anything but I do enjoy units to actually be able to do something. Does anyone have any experience with running plenty of Avengers or with any of the other troops choices?

 

 

[Karhedron]

I normally run a fairly large contingent of Avengers backed up by a squad or two of Rangers. Dire Avengers are not exactly amazing, they are simply our least-worst option in many cases. They worked quite well in 8th when loaded into Wave Serpents. My usual tactic was a kind of mobile castle with the Wave Serpents outermost. When/if the Serpents got charged, the Avengers would disembark to shred light units while the Serpents pulled back and continued to shoot. The idea was a moving shield with units like Fire Prisms and Dark Reapers at the centre to dish out the damage. It was pretty successful and gave me a fairly competitive army against most opponents without resorting to spamming too much.

 

9th looks like it will be a different kind of fight. Durable Troops units on Objectives are going to be a big feature. Units with FLY can no longer fall back and shoot. These changes will require a bit of a rethink to my usual approach but I haven't hit on a solid tactic yet.

 

Ever since the changes in 3rd edition, Guardians have been fragile and short ranged (a bit daft for a dying race IMHO). A Guradian bomb in the Webway is about the only effective way to run them but really needs to be either Iyanden or Alaitoc (with a Puritanical Leader Warlord) to prevent morale casualties from wiping them out. 2CPs for insane Bravery is an option but an expensive one.

 

Dire Avengers are a bit more durable and a bit longer ranged which is why I prefer them. The trouble is that they are still not tough enough to sit on an Objective the way Marines can and score for you. I think the best approach will still be Avengers in Wave Serpents. The Serpents move up quickly to take Objectives and use their shields to keep them alive as long as possible. Using either Alaitoc trait to mitigate incoming fire will help here a bit and save from the spend to spend CPs on Lightning Fast Reflexes. The Serpents won't last forever but they should survive long enough to score some points and then the Avengers bail out and score some more. In the meantime, your heavy firepower should be focussing on the enemy. If he tries to kill your scoring units, mow him down with shooting. If he targets your big guns, the odds of the scoring units surviving dramatically increases. Give your opponents difficult choices and they will be more likely to make mistakes.

 

A unit or two of Rangers can deploy flexibly and have long range while still being fairly cheap. Their guns are not great but GW seems to be boosting snipers so maybe they will get a buff in our next codex.

[TrawlingCleaner]

Which Exarch power do you usually go with? I was looking at Avenging Strikes but I feel like if there is a death in the unit it won't just be 1 model that dies? Bladestorm looks like it might be the way to go for me, especially as the ideal is that the whole unit has jumped out of a transport and is ready to blast something.

 

With Guardians, whether they're as a bomb from the Webway or just normally, do you use the Heavy weapons platforms and if you do, what weapon? They kind of seem like ablative wounds so you'd want it to be as cheap as possible

[Karhedron]

Which Exarch power do you usually go with? I was looking at Avenging Strikes but I feel like if there is a death in the unit it won't just be 1 model that dies? Bladestorm looks like it might be the way to go for me, especially as the ideal is that the whole unit has jumped out of a transport and is ready to blast something.

 

With Guardians, whether they're as a bomb from the Webway or just normally, do you use the Heavy weapons platforms and if you do, what weapon? They kind of seem like ablative wounds so you'd want it to be as cheap as possible

I haven't had a chance to play 9th yet so this is all just theory-crafting at the moment. I would probably stick with Bladestorm as my default Power since it is useful in all circumstances. Avenging strike is nice but as you say, it risks not kicking in until the squad is too degraded to contribute much to the battle. The combination of "Stand Firm" and Shimmershield could potentially make squads a bit more resilient for Objective holding but is a purely defensive combo.

 

A maximum sized squad of Guardians with 2 Shuricannon platforms would be my default choice. They do not degrade from moving and they synergise well with the shuricats carried by the Guardians. It also gets the maximum mileage out of the Biel Tan Craftworld trait if you decide to go that route. They are cheap too which helps.

[Captain Coolpants]

I was also just theory crafting with this earlier. I'm likely not going to play a game aaaany time soon. But still like to make lists and such.

 

But for Eldar. I've been really struggling with troops lately. Before it was just a case of grabbing whatever objective each turn and leaving. Now its far more static.

Leaving our squishy troops in a bad spot.

 

An idea I've been toying with. Is maybe a squad of rangers in a wave serpent? As strange as that sounds, they still have pistols, and the extra cover they get from cloaks might make them more survivable, and you keep the wave serpent nearby to baby sit/support, and maybe possibly a warlock also tagging along to cast protect or something to further support rangers or serpent.

 

Other than that weird combo, I feel that dire avengers are just the best option. Go with a big squad, with shimmershield and stand firm, and if you can afford have a warlock to support all in a serpent. But this is expensive. Especially if you have 2 or 3 of such configurations.

 

 

There's also the obvious choice of maximum guardian squads and using Iyanden trait, again with psychic support. But I feel that the custom traits are just better for almost every other unit in the army.

Edited September 5, 2020 by Captain Coolpants

[Dread]

I choose outrider detachment and take the hit on CP as well as vanguard same reason. I'm not big on our troop choices as of late. When they took the ability to take bikes away, being a Saim Hann player, wasnt cool. I also love my wraith army but being taxed with taking units I don't want really stinks. But if I'm taking a generic army Avengers and occasionally rangers. The main problem being most armies you play against will mow thru our troop choices like butter.

 

Now with the new craftworld traits taking all aspect armies are viable again so Avengers a must take.

[Marshal Wolfhart]

I'm running a 20 man Guardian blob alongside some Dire Avengers in Serpents (Ulthwé on most days). The former are the most resilient troops choice we got, 2 platforms to tank some and celestial shield to get a proper save. Webway strike in, delete an objective holder, fire and fade onto the objective and score. Look, i'm not saying it's super good, but it's the most resilient we got :P

Dire Avengers are okayish and can do the damage with bladestorm for example, but are just too squishy to hold anything past an enemy shooting phase. At the end it's 5-10 t3 wounds with a 4+ save.

With where points are at right now, our troops are an utter joke. I'm not saying we can't make them work or the world ends, because i feel the rest of the book is between solid and amazing, but the sheer investment of a 10 man Avenger squad compared to any marines troops, guardsmen or what have you really hurts. I anticipate an 8th style index to codex moment, where our points drop massively on these units (like 2 or 3 ppm on every troops choice) and everyone gets mad at op Eldar once more ^^

[Lord_Caerolion]

To be honest, I don't want to see Guardians get a points drop, they're not supposed to be a horde unit. I want them to actually be good. Give Defenders some defensive boosts, some sort of deployable energy shield, make their rifles have longer range to make them more than SMGs, something, anything to make it seem like the Craftworlds treat their precious, invaluable civilians better than the Imperium treats the utterly disposable Imperial Guard. I mean, they get longer-range guns and a special+heavy weapon, not just a single heavy and faster firing pistols.

The absolute last thing the Craftworlders should have are meatshield squads.