40k: Eldar Wraithknight – Yay or Nay?
The Wraithknight is certainly an impressive and imposing Eldar model – but is it worth the cost?
For quite some time I (Mercer from Imperius Dominatus) have been thinking about getting a Wraithknight; two in fact. I think this is because I think they are cool models and because I am using Iyanden the fluff bunny inside me says I should get them. I am still not sold on them though.
The Bigger They Are…
The Wraithknight is a huge model and it comes with a huge profile; S10, T8, W6 and a 3+ save. It also costs a whooping 240 points and that is before you throw on any extras. The Wraithknight is a jump monstrous creature so it can quickly get into the action.
The big guy comes with two heavy wraithcannons (36″ S10 AP2), which when factored in with the jump infantry type have a threat range of 48″! Unfortunately the Wraithknight is only BS4 and it stands a good chance that one of those wraithcannons will miss.
You can take a ghostglaive and shimmershield or a suncannon and shimmershield (these both replace the wraithcannons); the ghostglaive is pointless as gives +1 strength and the Wraithknight is already S10. The suncannon is 48″ S6 AP2 heavy 3 blast, which for 40 points including the shimmershield I do not think is worth it. The shimmershield by the way gives a 5+ invulnerable save, this is useful if you want the Wraithknight in close combat, however the Wraithknight is only WS4 and has 4 attacks, so it’s hardly a god of close combat. The shimmershield is more useful for absorbing fire power, though as models need 25% covered in order to get cover saves, then this shouldn’t be a problem. You also can stand the Wraithknight in area terrain and he can kick up some dust and get a 5+ cover save 🙂
You can throw on more fire power with shuriken cannon, scatter laser and starcannon. At first glance you think “oh yeah, scatter laser!”, but remember a monstrous creature can only fire two weapons, so fire that scatter laser and you are only firing a single heavy wraithcannon. You can take two of these weapons in any combo, but I wouldn’t, a simple scatter laser costs 20 points!
“Bring It On, Losers!”
The Wraithknight is one tough cookie with T8 and W6 and can soak up a lot of firepower that would otherwise be coming in at other areas of your army.
For a start the Wraithknight is immune to S4 or below, so small arms fire or basic grunts in close combat stand no chance. That immediately removes a large percentage of most armies from being able to harm it.
S5 and S6 need a 6+ to cause any damage while S7 will wound on a 5+ and S8 on 4+. S8 isn’t all that common these days as missile launcher spam has died down thanks to the introduction of hull points in vehicles. The metagame is all about rate of fire power which can quickly rob hull points off the vehicles, these weapons tend to be S6 or S7 such as plasma guns, autocannons etc. Lets see how the Wraithknight stands up to mass plasma salvos.
45 x plasma shots at BS4 – hit 29.7 – wound 9.8 – 3.23 pass cover save – 6.56 failed saves
I factored in cover because only a doofus wouldn’t bother trying to get cover for their big expensive monster.
As you can see it is going to take 45 plasma shots to bring down a single Wraithknight.
It would take 80 BS4 autocannon shots to bring down a Wraithknight.
If anyone decided to use missile launchers against it would take 30 x krak missiles at BS4 – hit 19.8 – wound 9.9 – 3.26 pass cover saves – 6.63 failed saves.
Stompy, Stomp, STOMP!!!
What the Wraithknight is good for is using those S10 cannons to mash up transport vehicles, anything at AS12 would be easily damaged. Up to T5 models also need to fear the heavy wraithcannons and anything without an invulnerable save as the AP2 will just smash through armour. You also have the distort rule which if a 6+ is rolled to wound then it causes instant death, though only firing two weapons means there is slim chances of this happening. It does tend to come up once or twice in a normal game though.
The one problem I have with this though is the lack of fire power, the less shots fired then less chances to hit and chances increase of passing cover saves.
The big dead daddy is also S10 and this means up to T5 multi wound models can still be mashed in close combat and majority of vehicles will be auto penetrated. The only thing the Wraithknight won’t breeze his way through is AV14:
The Wraithknight gets 5 attacks on the charge – hit 3.3 – 1.65 chances of doing damage (0.26 glance and 1.39 pen) to AV14 – still not too bad.
* I haven’t forgot hammer of wrath, as it has 50% chance to do some damage I left it out as it is either here or there.
Just a Distraction
I get the feeling that the Wraithknight is nothing more than a huge expensive distraction. An opponent is going to pile everything into it in order to take it down, this will leave a good bulky of your army untouched. In some other cases the Eldar force will be taking damage as things like bolters cannot hurt the Wraithknight but can easily mangle Eldar normal infantry. Of course having something stomp around which is virtually unstoppable is nice, but what it offers just isn’t enough in return.
Is 240 points worth it for a fire magnet?
Final Thoughts
Looking at the Wraithknight I feel they bring very little to the table for the points cost. The fire power they offer isn’t that awesome and really need a Farseer by to increase damage output – this is another points investment if not already using a Farseer. In order for me to pick up a Wraithknight I will have to ditch two units of War Walkers! That is a massive amount of fire power in exchange for a single model which brings little fire power in replacement.
I get the impression that the Wraithknight is nothing more than a cool model and excellent centerpiece for an army.
I am going to try and resist the urge to pick one up and listen to the game inside me.
Wraithknights, love them or loathe them? Spill the beans!
