A Phoenix Lord is the answer??….Guest tactica by Pascal R. on Baharoth! As always, check out the Tactics Corner for more great articles and videos.
A friend of mine plays Eldar and we were both pretty excited when the new codex came out. He used to play a very Wraith heavy list and surprised quite a few people with the sheer resiliency of Fortuned Wraith Guard, 3 Wraith Lords and Wraith Seer handing out 4+ feel no pain.
One of the best pieces of his army was Baron Sathonyx, bringing hit and run +1 to go first, stealth, defensive grenades, 12 inch move and 18 inch range guns increasing the kill range of the rather short range Wraith Canons.
His one issue was that he didn’t have Battle Focus and with the high speed glory which is Iyanden Spirit Seers being able to grant Battle Focus to wraith units as well possibly granting +3 to run moves it was quite a big loss.
Even with the far greater mobility that having 4 to 5 Spirit Seers granting movement buffs is, he was still having trouble with his gun Wraiths getting bogged down in combat. The Baron was still great for getting a unit out of that combat, but then the enemy could just stay 18 inches away and have no fear of the guns. Other units like Wraith Knights could go in and bail out a squad of guns but it was no guarantee and it forces you to bunch up your army. In a low model count army losing efficiency through babysitting and restrictive movement is pretty devastating.
One of the first ideas was to make a gun unit scary as hell in combat and try and make use out of all the spirit seer buffs. He had a Feugan he wanted to paint and his ability to tank wounds on a 2+ armour, 5+ feel no pain eternal warrior chassis was nice. His getting +1 strength and attack for each wound suffered and striking with and ap2 armour bane weapon was excellent especially coupled with the possibility of regaining wounds through a Seer’s psychic powers to amp up the crazy. Finally having splitfire and an 18inch range melta to extend kill range seemed like guy worth trying out.
Turns out for almost the price of a wraith knight…you should probably get a wraith knight 🙂 3 wounds was too risky to really go for too many soaked wounds and his Feel no Pain didn’t work that often as a lot of the firepower that would get through would be pretty high strength. In combat he just wasn’t that scary vs proper combat units and/or MC’s smashing him or the unit into pointlessness after a charge. and of course his gun was usually just worse than the unit’s basic weapons and you can’t always get a healing powers to help make him that scary guy in combat.
At that point it seemed like we just couldn’t get a big unit of gun wraithguard to work in an Iyanden Heavy list. As we took one last look through the codex, one special character that no one ever talks about finally made us sit up and have a giggle about how perfect he was for what we wanted. His name?? Baharoth.
That guy with the crappy gun and ap3 close combat weapon that adds pretty much nothing to the aspect he exemplifies? A swooping hawk Exarch can get a 3 shot, blinding, ap3 gun and hit and run and you really want swooping hawks in combat? and compared to a Farseer he doesn’t add a lot of buff to the army on killer units like Warpspiders or guardian blobs.
But in this one type of list for this unit he was everything you could ask for.
- He’s the cheapest phoenix lord, coming in at just under 2 Farseers price.
- He’s got hit and run (no more getting bogged down in combat)
- His crappy gun has 24inches range (increasing the kill range of the unit)
- His Warlord trait is +1inch run move (so great for combining with Battle Focus +any movement buffs from spirit seers)
- His ap3 sword is blinding (multiple blinding checks before your enemy strikes yes please)
- He has a 4+ invul
- He’s jump infantry so can increase potential charge range.
Scoring!
- It gives you a Ton of strength 10 ap2, instant death on a 6 guns which you can reroll ones to hit with using the spirit mark.
- Pretty good maneuverability in battle focus +1 or 4 or maybe 7 inches as well as Hit and run.
- A 2+ 4++ eternal warrior tanker on a majority toughness 6 unit that could well regain wounds due to Spirit Seers
- Any combat will usually involve the other unit getting blinded before they strike.
- the WS and Initiative seer power will help if cast as a malediction in that case.
- and the unit of wraiths will get to reroll 1’s to hit when charging using the seers mark striking at strength 6 with furious charge from the Primaris power.
- If the strength power power is cast on an enemy unit with strength 3 the wraith unit cannot be hurt in combat by them.
- Lowering a unit’s armour save will be extremely bad news if in combat.
- The seers could cast -3 leadership on a psyker/star.
- In this set up pretty much every power the seers generate isn’t a dud.
- +1/-1 armour, +3 run and regain a wound are probably the best but strength, leadership and WS+initiative all have useful places.
This unit has the ability to shoot and mess up an enemy unit turn one (with just a little luck) and after that it’ll be shooting assaulting and hit and running for the rest of the game… all while scoring.
We even found a nice place for the Baron, a unit of axe wraiths.
Two tough, scary, scoring, hit and run units in your face causing trouble from turn two at the latest onward, all for under a thousand points plus 4 to 5 seers to taste.
So what do you all think? Is there a place for Baharoth in a list as Pacal points out?-ed
This is a cool idea, but I feel like it has a pretty hard counter in form of high volume of S5-6 shooting or Poison attacks (venom spam, sternguard in pods) from range that could deal with the gimmicks in a list like this. And it wouldn’t take a specifically tailored list either, a lot of TAC lists can push out a ton of the requisite firepower to down a deathstar of wraithguard with a special character attached. It’s definitely worth some play testing though!
I don’t think anyone is arguing that Wraith lists are tier 1, I think the author was saying that Bahorth is a surprisingly good HQ for this type of list.
He definitely is a good fit for the play style this army would need. Finding ways to make a supposed weak unit better and coming up with cool combos is one of the best parts of this game for me. I would love to be able to use my wraithguard outside of beer and pretzels games.
If the point is to make footguard viable (where ‘viable’ = somewhat competitive), then this seems more than reasonable. For my part, I can’t justify putting wraithguard on the table unless or until they’re in range of a target. Even when I run a foot list, it’s really a hybrid foot/mech list.
I mean it sounds cool on paper but I have a feeling it wouldn’t hold up to high volume of fire (ignores cover fire makes it even worse) to foot slog across the board. It also feels easily counter deployed against. Even with battle focus and increased kill range from the special characters, its a unit with limited mobility.
If they get Fortune and Protect, they go crazy durable.
Yeah, fortune and protect make it untouchable, then it becomes a game of keep away and kill everything else.
Good point, that it does. However with BF, the unit has pretty decent reach.
It’s not just the battle focus, it’s also the +3/4 or even +6/7 run plus the jump pack extra 3 or 4 inches with coherency . the moment they get into your lines they can hit and run for tonnes of mobility.
Very few units can deal with even basic wraith guard in combat. It’s a safe warm place for that unit:). you basically get about one round to shoot it then it’s combat and shooting for the rest of the game.
Don’t forget too, that Baharoth can Skyleap turn 4, and auto come in on turn 5 to contest an objective, possibly winning the game for you!
Be aware of denial list. if I don’t engage you at all then the game is pretty one sided for me. The kind that i don’t care if you are in my face, in my space, and wanting to fight. i will just walk away that kind of denial list.
They are surprisingly quick with Battle Focus, though.
They have about the same effective threat range as a Centurion grav star without gate of infinity could be lethal depending on LoS blocking terrain.
Yeah, I know my Wraithguard mop the floor with most stuff if they can actually get close enough to do anything, lol! And, IRRC, Eldar can get Telekinesis, too.
it’s also not the only unit in the army, you can easily chuck in a couple of wraith knights, or serpents if you want. it’s hard to keep away from that many. also, the moment they get into combat, they can hit and run for heaps more mobility.
Some armies might be fast enough, but they are pretty big units that can cover a lot of ground.
Great article… I’ve been trying to figure out a unit to run Baharroth with and I think you may have found it. Really nice break down. I’ve got to give this a try some time. Thanks Pascal!
I played a list similar to this idea recently with my eldar and my 10 man dire avenger units, warp spiders and farseers with psychic shriek went through them like a knife through butter! (Turn 3 tabling). However Baharoth is a good idea but a a mobile list can still attack the deathstar from multiple angles, negating the bonus of his invunerable save or 2+, and reding or pseudo-rending weapons will still slaughter it…
similar and played well changes things a lot:). so does available terrain and LOS cover:P
It’s not just his invulnerable save, it’s also the unit of axes with the baron backing them up and the 4 or 5 seers with invuls as well. and theres still room for knights or other things in a list.
Awesome synergy and ideas here. Love it.
Although, at the risk of sounding like a noob – How would Baharoth (or anyone for that matter) increase the kill range of the 12″ Wraithcannons?
Surely they would still only be able to fire up to 12″. And then the only one in the group able to fire up to 24″ would be Baharoth, and he has, as you say, a crappy gun.
I’m just a little confused with that part. Apologies if it seems a stupid question.
Weapons in a unit, so long as they are in range of one model in the target unit, can kill as deep into the unit as far as the furthest ranged weapon in it can reach.
Ah right, awesome. Thanks 🙂
Just wondering about this rule, not arguing it but I have called up a few times to GW head office and they have told me both times that all models have to be within range of the unit for wounds to spread.
Just a question as this has sparked a debate between my gaming group 🙂
Thanks mate.
Yeah, that is correct. Only weapons in range to hit the target unit may actually fire, but, you can kill as far into the target unit as the range of your longest ranged weapon in the shooting unit. Does that help?
Love that you want to play a certain list, and are brainstorming ways to make it work. Finding new/weird combos is one of the best parts of the game. Knocked around a similar idea using grotesques/seers a while back. Would have been a tough as nails unit, but pretty easy to just ignore and walk away from.
The only issue w/ using Baharoth is that you’ve only got one HQ slot after the spirit seers. I always have a hard time justifying using an HQ slot for anything but a Farseer. Spear of Teuthlas would give him 18″ range for some extension as well as providing a force multiplier for the rest of the army. You lose hit and run, but with an average move of 15″ (6 move, 2 3+ run buffs, avg. run roll) you shouldn’t be in danger of charges you aren’t ok with.
I’m not saying going w/out hit and run isn’t a big deal, I just wouldn’t want to put even more eggs in this basket when you could have a toolbox farseer that could put the buffs where they’ll do the most good (including the WG).
Thanks:).
Farseers are great, but the purpose of trying to do this sort of stuff is to play units that don’t get much .. play:). two large units of fast deadly hit and run scoring units that don’t go down to basic arms fire can really run a lot of people into silly brain territory;P.
Sometimes in 40k you do have to put all your eggs in a basket, It’s like running demon princes, Either you pony up of the upgrades to make them survivable or don’t bother as they will just die.
the hit and run isn’t just about getting out of combats your opponent charges you with, it’s also about the combats you instigate to get out of the opponents firing for a turn and then getting more movement afterwards. dancing around in the open with the unit is super dangerous, combat is such a sweet warm place for them to be in:)
If you have a unit it needs to function, making it cheaper and failing at it’s function is kind of a waste, no?