Are Melee Wraigthknights Dead?

[Master Antaeus]

I bought and painted an Aeldari army at the end of 9th so I could play them in 10 as a fresh start.  I even picked up some 5 Star Stories mechs in Japan to use as wraithknights.  Enter 10th and even playing the most pillow-fisted version of my list, the army felt preposterously overtuned.  Angry at GW for being so bad at game design, I left my Aeldari and concentrated on my CSM.  Now I feel it's the time to come back, and I looked at the points cost for a WK and IT HAD GONE UP 140 POINTS!  I don't run them with heavy wraithcannons, so why do I have to pay for the sins of those who do?

 

TL;DR - Are melee wraithknights dead?

 

Pics of the models I use as my wraithknights for emphasis:

[Karhedron]

Sadly 10th seems to be an edition that favours shooting over melee. The melee WK has the advantage of the 4++ from the shield but that is about all it has got going for it.

[TrawlingCleaner]

Competitively Melee Wraithknights are definitely struggling/dead. As Karhedron points out, melee in general is in a tough spot with a few exceptions.

 

Casually and games for fun, I think they'd definitely do well, arguably this is the case for all units that have been canned by the competitive scene.

The Rule of Cool trumps all

[Kallas]

On 10/9/2023 at 10:19 PM, Karhedron said:

Sadly 10th seems to be an edition that favours shooting over melee.

While I agree this is true, the problem with the melee WK is GW's 10th Edition Wargear policy, which is just insanely stupid. They've increased the cost of the WK multiple times based on its highest performing loadout (2x HWC) which has left every other option in the dirt as they pay for the sins of the HWCs while not receiving any kind of buffs to compensate for being substantially worse - and with DevWounds being nerfed to being reasonable, the WK overall is just a shining example of GW's failure in 10th.

[Evil Eye]

I mean I'm pretty sure all Wraith constructs are dead, that's kinda their deal! 

 

But yeah, this sounds like a prime example of why removing wargear points values just does not work. You either end up with drastically undercosted units or weapon options with no reason to ever choose them.

 

Side note, amazing taste in substitute model.

[Magos Takatus]

That last Wraithknight substitute looks familiar... Is that from the Knights & Magic anime series? They look like pretty cool proxies.

These fixed points costs really are the worst. It also makes fitting army lists together as more difficult since you can no longer shave points off models. It was a dreadful idea that should never have been considered, never mind implemented. 

 

Considering how I usually put rule of cool ahead of in-game efficiency when deciding which models to paint this is so bad that my Wraithknight will be lucky to get taken out of the box and assembled at all. Saying that though, I bought the model on release, it's just been in my pile of shame all this time. :p