Starting to understand 7th edition - Eldar still set the standard

So I started this blog about 10 days before 7th edition came out planning to write a bunch of tactics stuff (and a few hobby articles tracking my own army - The Emperor's Ghosts). That had to be put on hold for a while because of the new rules. I've also got university exams at the moment which got in the way. So today only a brief post.

7th edition (a full commentary forthcoming once my exams finish around the 19th of June) has a lot of subtle and not so subtle changes that nerf deathstar based armies. The new psychic phase make getting a huge number of powers off unlikely. Those jetseers councils will be spending all their energy trying to get off fortune and invisibility with not a lot left over for anything else, and if you get a good roll on the deny dice you even have a chance of saying No! This situation effects the beast star as well, the Coteaz-based stars and the Centurion mini-death stars. I also suspect we won't be seeing many librarian based bike stars either because there are now better uses for those points, like more minimum sized units of troops in objective secured transports. Which brings me to the more subtle reason why death stars are unlikely to be quite so brutal anymore - splitting up a death star on the final turn to zoom some characters away to contest objectives doesn't work. A shitty 35 point Rhino says No! to that jetbike turbo-boosting farseer. Deathstars are still nigh on indestructible, but I think are only really worth it if they are heaps killy az well. Spending 800 points on a unit that soaks up fire and kills a couple of shitty tanks isn't really worth it because you still lose on objectives to someone who jump spams out Rhinos.

The Baron trolls you from the front of his Seer Council

With that in mind, let me propose the new 'to beat' Eldar list. Eldar are still the best codex and still set a good standard for what you need to be able to handle. If you don't stand a chance against this list there's a good chance you don't stand a chance against anything else either.

Farseer w/Jetbike, runes of witnessing, singing spear
Farseer w/Jetbike, runes of witnessing, singing spear

Dire Avengers x8
Wave Serpent with holo fields and scatter laser
Dire Avengers x5
Wave Serpent with holo fields and scatter laser
Guardians x10
Wave Serpent with holo fields and scatter laser
Guardians x12
Wave Serpent with holo fields and scatter laser

Wrathknight with heavy wraith cannons
Wraithknight with heavy wraith cannons

Warp Spiders x10

= 1847 points

Going to be tough to beat that, and its going to score full comp at most tournaments :(
Man the Eldar codex is brutal...

You should be daaaaancing....yeah!

You have 8 (!) objective secured scoring units, half of which are very fast and resilient. Some people have pointed out that you can kill wave serpents pretty easily in assault. Sure, and then the 10 guardians get out and pump 20 rending shots at BS 4 into your unit, then maybe charge and swing first at WS4. If they hang back and whatever survived the shooting decides to assault those guardians they'll take another 20 overwatch rending shots to the face on the way in. The only armies that I can see feasibly assaulting wave serpents are those with a lot of assault vehicles (walkers) that laugh at shuriken weapons. The only army really capable of spamming that much speedy assault tank is Chaos Space Marines. Kevin Rogers tried it and he doesn't feel too confident. Another possibility is cheap assault troops with tank popping potential, so maybe Orks will provide a solution...I'm not optimistic after the Morka/Gorkanauts, which couldn't catch an old lady down the street, let alone a wave serpent.

Expecting someone to field Wraithlords is a bit optimistic

The Wraithknights laugh at Objective Secured (OS) land raiders, and any big nasty things they can't kill the farseers can have a go at with their spears. Chances are the wraithknights dominate one-on-one against whatever your opponent is bringing for anti-tank purposes. The rest of the time those farseers just move into range (24 a lot of the time), buff a unit in the psychic phase and then turbo boost miles away from any threat in the shooting phase. Blurgh. Meanwhile you get d6+6 deny dice. Warp spiders run around trying to kill annoying infantry units like bike squads with grav guns. If your opponent is Tau, get those shuriken catapults locked & loaded and laugh maniacally (to make Slaneesh hungry) as his 2+ armour saves and high toughness are shredded. For everything else theres masterca... wave serpents. Enemy transports, enemy heavy weapons squads, enemy infantry blobs, enemy flyers...if a wraithcannon is wasted on it there's a good chance the wave serpent is great at killing it.

I want to hate you, but your paint job is too awesome

Not a fun army to play against. In my next article, I'll have a look at what I'd be bringing to an 1850 point full competitive tournament to beat this list and other comers. I play marines. Bikes are still awesome.