Mechdar!! that's Mechanical Eldar to you..is it going to be a thing?

Ok so the secret is out..apparently those very expensive transports - Wave Serpents - might be kind of good. Now I don't know if its everyone's cup of tea, but I like bucking trends. 6th edition it seems had the vehicle fall out of favor. But could the wave serpent be part of that elastic band snaping it right back?

If you follow the etc and the home nations you may have noticed that a fair few armys (Grey Knight and Guard mainly) have started creeping back to their old "hulls" style of play. Ie, i'll put lots of vehicles in front of you as you cant get all of them. This I feel is because of the so shifty meta nowadays and the preponderance of taking as much anti infantry as you can. Guys in the open or cover just are not as safe as they once were and a box covering your troops is a good idea.  Now this is all well and good in a team format, where you can, to a degree, choose your match up. But could it win you a tournament? Well Paul Burke won the Gt with a fair few hulls, but with Tau now on the scene and able to pump out massed amounts of fire power round that S7 sweet spot that scares most vehicles AND infantry. Is it still viable?

Personally I think yes it is, and if I may humbly put forward my proposal....I think Eldar can do it best...maybe.

This is because Wave Serpents are a bit pimp. A 60 inch ignoring cover d6+1 shots autocannon, probably twin linked...carrying, and coming out of, your troops allowance. Plus they have other guns too... Yikes. (Also a question mark is currently a hot topic on the subject of the ignore cover save usr. Does it effect vehicles? As it states that the rule can only be used on "wounds" but yet when taking cover saves vs glances and pens , they can be saved against "like wounds". But their not wounds, its just a mechanic that works "like wounds", so raw....I'm hoping, that those pesky marker lights cant somehow suddenly pick up a fast moving target...)

So Eldar have basically a heavy support vehicle in their troops section making all your squishy stuff immune to hell drakes and the like, while also pumping out the fire power. Whats not to like!!

So what would a list look like?

Well I have 3, cos I cant decide what I like. All variations of a theme and all tailored (kinda) to deal with Chaos Marines, Crons and Tau (so s8 ap 2 stuff for broadsides, oblits and wraiths with Destroyer lords, lots of rerolls to help hit flyers, lots of shots to hose infantry, lots of troops as blade storming battle focusing infantry are great when your fighting over objectives....you get the picture).

So firstly. We have this. The min max version with a bastion thrown in as Tau actually realy dont like av14 that much:

List 1

Farseer, bike (almost obligatory for the save, toughness boost and lets you jet round the back lines dishing out re rolls to hit (usually war walkers)

3 bikes (farseer bodyguard)

5 Dire Avengers in wave serpent, scatter laser and holo fields (so the basic build for a serpent with reroll dakka goodness and resilience)

5 Dire Avengers in wave serpent as above
5 Dire Avengers in wave serpent as above
5 Dire Avengers in wave serpent as above

10 guardians in Wave sepent with holo fields, scatter laser and star engines (  Ive thrown in a star engine for late game deployment zone boost. Its on the guardian unit as my sence of symatry doesnt allow it to go any where else)

3 warwalkers with 6 bright lance (lots of high stength ap 2 for popping t4 multi wound models be it paladins or broadsides - usually gets a reroll of the farseer)
3 warwalkers with 6 bright lance

Bastion with Icarus las cannon

3 dark reapers with exarch, fast shot (so basically there for a 2 shot, no jinks, b5 icarus lascannon...not bad AA. Small unit though, will probably say in the bastion and not on top of it untill turn 2 when the flyers actually start to turn up.

So that's the basic all comers list. As said I think it covers all the bases. Yes the scoring is a squishy but there is a lot of it, and with blade storm they are no slouches in a pinch. The first turn of shooting from this list is phenomenal. With Scout moves, battle focus and fast vehicles nothing should stay my wrath if I get turn one.  Return volleys are being ignored 50% of the time due to the jink and holo combo. If i go second then use cover and debate putting the war walkers on outflank.


List 2:

Where Gary worry's that the scoring is still a bit too light and see's how far he can push it. Also a sneaky plan as I also worry the bike/farseer unit with get punished by hell turkeys.

Farseer, bike

3 bikes
10 guardians in stc wave serpent (Scatter laser, holo fields)
10 guardians in stc wave serpent
10 guardians in stc wave serpent
10 guardians in stc wave serpent
5 Dire avengers in stc wave serpent

3 bright lance war walkers
3 bright lance war walkers


I then have 164 points. Now I have a few further options:

• A fire prism with holos and a shuri cannon and the bikes get a cannon too. Solid dakka all round

• Spend obscene amounts on a Night Spinner - holo fields, star engines and a crystal target matrix - this would allow me to go 36 inches turn one, get a 3+ cover save and torrent a S7 (s8 vs most tau or crons) , better than rending, flame template. Sounds pretty good to me!! Plus it should be one hell of a distraction to take the heat off of the serpents. If I can get a good angle it could also mean frying a lot of marker drones or other choice targets that thought they were safe or had an 2+ armored character tanking the front of the unit. The lovely thing about this tank too is that it has a barrage mode too, so it could just as easily hide at the back and try and snipe out that Ethereal and put some solid pie plate action in for a few turns and then redeploy 36 inches....and still shoot as its doing it.

• A Falcon with pulsar, scatter laser, shuri cannon and holos. Again yet more solid dakka but also with the option of putting some dire avengers in here. This leaves an empty wave serpent...which can carry 12 models....or 4 "very bulky" ones...yep!!! if i'm really worried about hell drakes I can just bung my seer and jet bikes in the back of an Eldar Transit van. I don't know why but this really pleases me, even though falcons are only ok rather than good. It just means I can be fully meched up.

• Take an Aegis with quad gun to shore up the AA a bit and then put Shuri Cannons on pretty much everything. More dakka!!! I haven't taken the cannon as standard as usually you'll want to move 12 inches to make the most of the mobility and that third gun will only snap fire. But its always a nice option to move 6 and then lead with the scatter laser and follow up with an absolute fuck load of medium strength shots. I'm not sure but I also think the serpents get a cover save from the wall if i'm forced to go second.

I worry a little about Flyers with this list as i'm really just relying on the copious amounts of re rolls I can generate (unless I go the Aegis option). But I think it should be enough.

List 3: 

Whereby Gary wants to try a Crutch and try and abuse the warlord trait.

Ok so one thing I haven't mentioned is that personally I think that the Eldar Warlord traits are just ok, not great.  Ambush of blades is pretty good, fates messenger is kinda handy but eye on distant events is amazing in a mech list such as this. Basically its giving all your skimmers in range a 3+ cover save if they moved normally or a 2+ cover save if they boosted (and remember those Tau markerlights cant get rid of it) by giving stealth which stacks on to the holos and the jink save. So being able to get this warlord trait is very useful... so who has this as standard? Eldrad!!

Eldrad

10 guardians in stc wave serpent
10 guardians in stc wave serpent
10 guardians in stc wave serpent
5 Dire avengers in stc wave serpent
5 Dire avengers in stc wave serpent

3 bright lance war walkers
3 bright lance war walkers

Then I have 150 points, so its either a Fire prim with all the trimmings or shuri cannons on everything as usual and then it leaves 90 points. I'm debating here 3 Shadow weavers for the barrage s7 (s8 vs Tau and Crons) sniping. It also gives me a place to put Eldrad turn one before he dives in a Serpent to give his stealth buff turn one probably (as I need to be outside a transport to cast divination and guide to the war walkers turn one). It gives me a few options as other wise I may not be getting the most out of Eldrads powers. His redeploy is very useful too as its stops being out deployed. With careful deployment too it should help mitigate not going first as the warlord power is done in the enemy shooting phase, so I should be getting some nice cover saves even if I haven't moved turn one.


So anyway these are my ideas.

Whattdya think?

G