Hello brothers of Titan! I'm here from the front lines to tell you about "The Warhound GT at Game Grid in July". There were a TON of Eldar players there (50 players, 9 Eldar), and as fate would have it, I got matched into them four out of the five rounds - and I beat them twice. I learned a TON this weekend and I'm honestly a little battleshocked by Eldar right now. If nothing else, this writeup can help improve visibility on where improvements can be made to the game and how you can pilot your Grey Knights more effectively.

It's worth establishing a little street cred as a GK general - I'm not a top ITC player (yet) for the faction, but I've been playing the faction since Codex: Daemonhunters, and play at one or more RTT or GT every month. Those events feature some top 10 and top 3 best in faction players. More recently, I've played 15 games of 40k into 11 different factions and retained a 70% win rate. The majority of my opponents have been tenured tournament-goers. I'm nothing crazy, but I'm intimately familiar with tournament play and have pulled a few RTT wins and second place GT placements.

One note about this event, we did have some house rule FAQs that we played that were determined before the GW FAQ had come out. The GW stuff came out after rules cutoff, so we stuck with it. The key impacting rules were:

• Fate dice can only be used once per unit per phase ala Miracle Dice (e.g. can use two dice in the same phase, but can't be on the same unit).
• Dev Wounds is not activated with "anti" anything, and Fate Dice count as modified rolls for Dev Wounds.
• Indirect shooting grants the target 1 to their saving throw rolls.

There were a few others, but those mattered most.

The List

I ran the same list mentioned in my previous writeup, listed below:

• Draigo
• Voldus
• Librarian
• Librarian
• Librarian
• Terminators x5
• Terminators x5
• Terminators x5
• Terminators x5
• Terminators x5
• Strikes
• Strikes

Each terminator squad had a Narthecium, Ancient, and an Incinerator (one of which literally saved me a game). Standard stuff here - no enhancements, nothing crazy.

Game #1 - Custodes (100 - 71, Victory)

This first game was remarkably similar to the one I talked about previously, where there were a couple blocks of guardians with blade champ Trajann, and a couple small terminator units and a big knight souped in.

IMO, souping a knight makes Custodes substantially weaker into Grey Knights, ironically. Our game is focused on stealing objectives and playing secondaries very aggressively. With 5 objectives in most games, you want 3 fronts from which to fight, and a souped knight is a WAY worse defensive flank than if it was another brick of 7 guardians. I can focus down a knight, but I can't reliably kill a block of Custodes. With that, I deep striked Draigo near the big knight and piled on two other squads to knock out the big knight on T2. That cleared the mid board pretty substantially to allow me to direct things from there. The Custodes player then pivoted the Blade Champ squad into the middle to hassle my terminators in response. They dumpstered one unit, but the combined weight of 2 Librarians and Draigo's respective squads was too much for the unit of Custodes.

With only Trajann's brick and a couple terminator units left, my opponent struggled with tactical secondaries while I zoomed around the board picking up my remaining points. Mists of Deimos on my home objective that was bubble wrapped by Strikes ensured that I held my home, even when threatened by Allarus.

Overall, great game and great opponent.

Game #2 - The "Double Avatar" Ynnari (58 - 65, Loss)

Round 2 I got to play on Wargames Live! If you want to watch the whole replay of the game, you can watch it at this link.

This game was epic - I got to play against a team member and friend against whom we only have close games. We're both slightly neurotic players with no fear of going "full yolo" when needed.

What kept this game close was charging headfirst into Support Weapons as quickly as possible. Revives gave me enough move to close the gap on foot to get in there by T2 and start choking up the oppressive output of the support weapons. I stickied the midboard objectives with Strikes and went to work trying to log jam the Ynnari.

One major oversight was neglecting to sticky home - this mission didn't score primaries on home objectives, only ones in NML, so I prioritized sending strikes up the board. Secondaries still needed it, and it came up in this particular game.

I posted up a really promising lead early on in the game by aggressing intensely, and keeping him off primaries. His primary and secondary score were alarmingly low even into T3, but I ran out of steam quick. Ynnari do so much damage.

Phantasm was what undid the game for me. It's undoubtedly the best strategem in the game. I striked Draigo in to hunt the Avatar of Khaine, only for my opponent to Phantasm a sacrificial line of Guardians in front of Draigo. It ruined by ability to kill anything meaningful, and left my butt in the wind.

There were several fantastic and cinematic moments in the game, but the best has to be a Librarian surviving two rounds of combat with Karandras and then bonking him to death in return - after rolling a 1 on Vortex that turn!

A couple fun clips:

• Draigo being a gigachad and facing both Eldar gods at once (RIP Draigo)
• A single wounded Librarian tries to win me the game, bonks Karandras to death, and then runs back to Titan to tattle on the Eldar for their crimes against god and mankind.

Game #3 - The "Meta Adjacent" Eldar (82 - 81, Victory)

This list is why I firmly believe that GW has only done about 10% of the nerfs necessary to bring Eldar down a notch. My opponent didn't field any D Cannons, Wraithknights, or Avatars at all - their list was lots of Dark Reapers, Spiders, Specters, War Walkers, and Fire Prisms with some Guardians.

The clever thing this player did was stick all 15 Dark Reapers on the roof of a home building and rain down on me for 5 rounds. I couldn't realistically shoot or charge them, so they basically just did what they wanted. If they drew line to something, it usually died, and what they couldn't see my opponent put their indirect into.

This was by far the closest game of 40k I've ever played. Starting bottom of T4, I had a healthy ~20 point lead, and had plans to foil plenty of scoring for this opponent... that is, until everything went to hell. I drew Capture Enemy Outpost, so my plan was to Prognosticate on their home objective to deny their last 5 primary points, score 8 more for me, and call it a day. I even had units/plans to disrupt scoring on 2 other objectives for a total denial of 15 primaries and a pickup of 8 secondaries. They would have only had a chance to score secondaries, and I would win the game.

On arrival, a Fire Prism overwatched the Prognosticating terminators and decimated them. Between two successful cannon shots and 2 successful cannon wounds and ALL failed saves (with a reroll!), I lost 3 terminators, and my opponent Phantasmed onto the objective. I didn't score Capture Enemy Outpost, and they were going to score 5 more primary on top of 5. The other two objectives didn't go any better - I failed to kill enough models off both objectives, so my opponent held everything at the top of 5. That was a 23 point swing all at once!

Top of 5, we're tied up, so my opponent has to score secondaries to stay ahead. They draw Investigate Signals and Extend Battle Lines. They score Extend Battle lines without doing anything, and they needed serious scoring on Signals to stay ahead after I score at the end of the game. They zoom a Warp Spider to my deployment zone to investigate on my side of the board, then move guardians to their home corner for another. Their lone surviving Shadow Specter moves to do a corner near Voldus and his entourage, and I do something I hate doing: I overwatched. I landed 3 hits with the Incinerator, wounded all of them, and the unfortunate Specter failed the first save, preventing my opponent from scoring 2 points.

It turns out, those 2 points saved the game for me. I had Voldus's squad and 4 Strikes left - just enough to Prognosticate back on my home objective and advance onto another objective for a total of 10 primaries - bringing me to a victory by 1 point. It was such an awesome game.

My takeaway from this game is that Eldar's core rules need some evaluation - I had no way to kill anything in the army effectively, and EVERYTHING my opponent did was super reliable and highly lethal. I could write a whole article about how Eldar should be changed (and I likely will - on the comp Warhammer sub), so I'll just leave it at that for now.

Game #4 - The Meta-est Eldar (58 - 89, Loss)

This game felt pretty hopeless pretty quick. It turns out, Wraithguard are utterly broken and nobody is talking about them yet because they're not Support Weapons or Wraithknights. My inexperience got the better of me, and I tried to gum myself up with some Wraithguard in the midboard to hold down objectives from the "safety" of close combat. Turns out, when you swing on them, they just get to shoot you with their D-Guns. And those freaking HURT. And there's not a solitary chance I could kill that 10 man squad, probably not even with the whole army bearing down on it.

In case you aren't aware, Wraithguard are 31 points per model. Notably, they're T7, they have a 2 armor, and can be targeted by a Farseer for -1 to be wounded. Wounding them on 6's with Nemesis Weapons is dreadful. It gets worse - add a Spiritseer in for something like 65 points and he gives them 1 to hit, Lethal Hits, and can revive one in each command phase. It's something like ~370 points for what is probably the most durable unit in the game - and they feel bad to play against.

My concern about Wraithguard is that nobody is talking about them, and when you see their points cost (31 ppm... like for real??), it's IMMEDIATELY apparent that something HAS to be changed. You can run 3 Farseers, 30 Wraithguard, and 3 Spiritseers for 1,320 points to have 3 indestructible fighting fronts that wield guns that are good into anything and don't mind being tied up in combat. Their only drawback is 1 OC per model, but when you don't die and your opponent melts to your shooting, it doesn't matter. You also have 680 points left to play with other units for scoring points.

Similar to my Ynnari game, I did post up an early lead on points, but ran out of gas and was tabled bottom of 4. Between the D Cannons and Wraithknights, there was nothing I could do to NOT get tabled. I used as much trickery as I could, but my opponent was savvy and kept me from using trickeries. Ultimately, my most crushing defeat of the weekend, and a loss that has me at a loss for how the Eldar index could be published as it is.

Game #5 - Wraithknight Avatar Wraithguard (89 - 87, Victory)

Quick note, this opponent's army wasn't battle ready, so I would have lost this otherwise. That said, I played more safely knowing that I had the 10 points of wiggle room - my game plan shifts a little if I had to earn 8-9 more points to tie up or win. Regardless, great game, great opponent, and a really illuminating game.

We played Servo Skulls. If you haven't played it before, I absolutely recommend practicing it before going to an event. It's soooo backwards from traditional games that you have to play completely differently. This was my first time into it, so I wasn't quite ready to handle it.

If you don't know, Servo Skulls is a mission where your units can "punt" NML objectives around on the table (a logistical nightmare for neoprene mat enthusiasts). The closer they are to the opponents' DZ, the more points you score at the end of your turn.

This matchup was particularly challenging because my opponent had 3 offensive fronts that I couldn't chew through: a Wraithknight, the Avatar, and 10 Wraithguard with a Spiritseer. The Wraithknight was on the outside edge, so it was a good candidate for a Draigo charge, but there was one critical thing I hadn't learned: Wraithknights retained their -1 damage when all other Wraiths lost it. Had I known that, I wouldn't have gone for it. The Avatar was a better target with Draigo for the anti-daemon Titansword, but the Avatar was in a bad spot for me to end up. In the end, the Wraithknight took only a couple wounds and I lost Draigo and all his homies for nothing.

From there, I played SUPER cagey. I banked on rolling passable secondaries and harassing his home objective. There was a wide open spot behind a large obscuring ruin that I punted one objective into in his DZ, and I camped there the rest of the game. He had the other 3 NML objectived punted into my DZ and maxed primaries, but camping his one objective from safety and not getting tabled was what let me stay in the game.

It really did come down to the final turn where I lucked out and played big. I drew Capture Enemy Outpost right after I had just finished clearing out his DZ, and No Prisoners. He had a Wayleaper and Farseer that were left on their own, so I used my 2 surviving Strike marines to hold the Primary objective for 8 points, and then used my two surviving Librarians to Vortex the lone Wayleaper and Farseer to pick up 4 points on No Prisoners, resulting in a 2 point win. Another incredibly close game.

Final Thoughts

First of all, you can definitely have a good time into Eldar. Will you win? Probably not, honestly, and GW hasn't even done 10% of the nerfing needed on that index. All of my opponents had good attitudes and handled my incredulity gracefully.

Now, here's the thing: we can't change Eldar, but we can control what we do. Grey Knights don't give up - they're sent in when shit is at it's VERY worst. They're not sent when things are easy. They're not sent to ordinary threats. They're sent in as humanity's LAST HOPE against the darkness, and they snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. For that reason, I've never felt more like a true Grey Knight player than I do right now. There's immense satisfaction that comes from beating the odds.

For that reason, I urge you to embrace the carnage - 40k isn't about winning, it's about making incredible memories and telling great stories. The score has nothing to do with that. I'll never forget Draigo squaring off against both Aeldari gods at once, or a Librarian (we shall name him "Bonk") defeating Karandras in 1v1 combat. That shit is awesome, and it's what 40k is all about.

With that, cheers, have a great week, and I wish you all the luck in your games!