It's been a busy couple of weeks for me, with a lot of tweaking, a lot of fine-tuning of my Eldar warhost to get things moving for the upcoming Gaelcon Event in October. My list is slowly coming together. Banshees are out, even Farseers on the shelf for now. It's fast, it's furious and it's totally Eldar, and zooming up the tabletop alongside those sleek Waveserpents are squadrons of Vypers.
What???
Vypers? AV 10, open-topped? Iggy, are you fucking mad?
Well yes, yes I am, but when I'm not standing on street corners in my loincloth proclaiming the inevitable Apocalypse, I'm usually kicking ass with my Vypers, the skimmer everyone loves to hate. It's funny really, there seems to be a lot of hatred out there for these unsung heroes. I've even had someone approach my table in a recent test game, telling me that Vypers 'suck', that they're a waste of points. That I 'should have used War Walkers instead'. Well sir, to you, and anyone else likeminded, my response can be one of only three possibilities:
1, you're wrong
2, you're still wrong
3, nope, you're still fucking wrong.
Needless to say, during this test game, my Vypers proceeded to take out two squads of long fangs, a Rhino, and a host of Grey Hunters. Not bad for something that sucks, eh? Equipped with Scatter Lasers and underslug Shuriken Cannons, you'll be forcing so many armor saves on your opponent's marines, you'll be sure to bag plenty of wounds. What's more, unlike Warwalkers, you can get into an optimal firing position with ease, hitting that side armor of light transports to stop them in their tracks.
"But strength 6 is terrible vs AV 11/10". Haven't you heard? Strength 6 is the new strength 10. Force enough strength 6 shots in the right areas, and you'll never need those overcosted Brightlances again.
Not that I want this to turn into a Warwalker vs Vyper debate, but it's relatively easy to get cover saves for an entire unit of Vypers, whereas this is often difficult to achieve with Warwalkers - and when you are successful, it usually means the Walkers are staying put.
Vypers can be positioned with ease to abuse the 24-36" range of their weaponry, so you never have to worry about rapid fire taking them out. A simple unit of 2 can be very effective at drawing the enemy's attention away from your Waveserpents and isolating units from their core so you can get to work like a true Autarch should.
So now, in the buildup to Gaelcon, I'm trying to fit even more Vypers in my list. Yup. I've been bitten by the Vyper for sure.
7 comments:
I thought my comments about using Warwalkers instead of Vypers was a fair remark! I shall see you on Monday to settle this. I say good day to you sir.. GOOD DAY!
You're lucky that wasn't you buddy, real lucky... *prepares TANKSHOCK!
I always feared vypers. Anything in 4th ED. that could mince entire squads with starcannons carries weight even into 5th. You still gotta respect how quick they are at becoming legitimate threats.
As much as I dislike eldar, I must approve of this post! (shocking, I know) - Too many people in games worry too much about a stat line and not about the actual uses of the unit. People need to remember that while X may look better on paper, it cannot do Y! etc.etc.
I have to agree with Iggy. My Saim-Hann army has 6 vypers armed with Starcannons which absolutely murder marines.
I thought of using lots of cannons and scatter lasers but thought I needed the AP2 more than the number of shots.
I have never used War Walkers but they can outflank with twice as many guns but they are heavy support. So there is no reason to not have both.......
Simply put Xenos, it's the points.
I'd love to be able to afford the 180 points for 3 Scatter Walkers, but then, what do I take out? Fire Dragons and the accompanying Waveserpent? Eldar in 5th are self limiting enough with useless troops, and then there's the fact that the codex is full of overcosted units that don't 'do' 5th very well.
At the moment, it's taking a look at any kind of exploit the codex has to offer, and there's some neat tricks in there too ;)
great post Iggy! i wonder if my list inspired you at all...
i've gotten my first handful of games in with my 1000pt saim hann list so far...and it's tough! the eldar got slaughtered last night by some vanilla marines and chaos demons...
hopefully i will grow as a general soon by keeping up on your blog!
so how about some specific vyper tactics? with maps of the board to see how you do it? just a thought...
stever
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