Hello all,
New poster, but have played sporadically for 6 or so years as the Lost and the Damned. Recently have been playing a lot more because I have gotten one of my fellow grad students completely and utterly hooked on it. Unfortunately for me, he has put together a rather mean Eldar list as you will see. Scenario is 3k, standard tourney rules.

Legion of the Twisting Path - Tzeentch (Used previous LATD list with free daemonic pacts, which I like)
1st Cohort - Arch Heretic, 8 Mutants/Cultists, 3 Big Mutants, 2 Demolishers, Chaos Altar, Icon

2nd Cohort - Demagogue, 9 Mutant/Cultists, 2 Big Mutants, Demolisher, 2 Hellhounds, Icon

3rd Cohort - Demagogue, 11 Mutant/Cultists, Demolisher, Hydra, Icon

4th Cohort - Demagogue, 11 Cultists, Icon, Hydra

Daemon Pool - 1 GD, 5 LD

Hellfire Cannons, Artilery Battery, Silver Towers

Greater Winged Horror (Warp Palace from TS rules, DC4, 400 points) Not strictly from the list, but seems to help out a Tzeentch themed force well. Normally I use 2 Firelords instead but Brian and I thought it would be cool to use it.


Brian brought a webway assault themed list that goes like:
Avatar - Free
Wraithgate - 50
Phantom titan(2 Titan Pulsars) - 750
Nightwings - 300
Falcons (+2 Firestorms) - 250
Void Spinner - 250
Storm Serpent(1) - 250
Storm Serpent(2) - 250
Aspects (6 Shining spears + 1 Swooping hawks with autarch + swooping hawks) - 375
Guardians(1) (+Wraithguard and Wraithlords) - 475
Guardians(2) (+Wraithguard) - 300


More to follow ...

I count 3250 points for the Eldar, not 3k.

(Edited due to an embarrassing mistake)

I made an error above, this is actually a 3250 pt battle. We normally play 3k, which is why I got mixed up.

Deployment: The LatD objectives were placed in the center of the board close apart while devious Eldar placed theirs at each extreme of the board. The Hellfire Cannons, and 4th Cohort garrisoned both T&H objectives while the Rangers garrisoned the Eldar blitz. Unfortunately, the Phantom deployed within 75cm of the hellfires and used that to destroy them. Both Guardian formations awaited in the webway for the opportune time to strike.




Turn 1: This turn saw a lot of failed initiative rolls on both sides. The Void Spinner started by putting a BM on the bassies, then the Phantom retained to destroy the Hellfire cannons. True to form the Bassies then faild their check and chose to marshall. The Eldar airsupport was incorrectly called in and had to stand down.
At this point the Silver Towers doubled forward to engage the Storm Serpent on my left causing a point of damage. The key to shutting this kind of assault is to break the Storm Serpents. The Storm Serpent then marshalled to take the BM's off but had to use the reroll to do so.
The 3rd cohort made ready to engage the enemy but disagreements caused a failure to move. The Aspect warriors marched to the extreme right in cover of the confusion. At this point I got a bit aggressive in an attempt to do damage and doubled 2nd Cohort to put damage on the Aspects, however, they intermingled themselves with 3rd Cohort. This will lead to a VERY BAD THING.
The 1st Cohort, stunned by the speed of the eldar advance, failed to do anything of worth. This lead to the Storm Serpent on the right to double and get in range of the 2nd and 3rd Cohorts. Guardian 1 emerges from the Storm Serpent and gets ready for the next turn engagement. The Winged Terror doubles over to put a BM on the Guardians but it will probably not be enough.

Turn 2: The Eldar summon the Avatar and promptly win the strategy roll. Not good. They proceed to do a combined assault with the Avatar and Guardian fm into Cohorts 2 and 3. The resulting carnage saw the complete destruction of the 2nd Cohort, and reduced the 3rd Cohort to a Demolisher and Hydra which both promptly fled to the center of the board. The only casualties suffered by the Eldar was a point of damage to the Avatar and a single wraithlord. The spirit warriors have proven to be an almost insurmountable problem in every game I have played against Eldar. Not wanting to let up, the Falcons opened fire on the Winged Terror and did 2 DC to it.
Eager for revenge, the Winged Terror swooped towards the victorious Guardians and doused them in TK fire. The resultant casualties caused the hated formation to break and retreat to the far right objective. The Basilisks then sustained on the Aspects in vain hope of causing significant damage but Brian’s ability to make 4+ saves continues to confound me. A mere 2 BM were placed on them.
The Nightwings finally broke through and destroyed the Winged Terror. A small amount of revenge was had as the Silver Towers Eliminated the other Storm Serpent. The Void Spinner failed its reroll and had to regroup. The 1st Cohort finally got moving. After summoning the Lord of Change (hereafter known as the "Death Chicken"), the unit proceeded to move quickly and rout the Falcons, leaving only a Firestorm surviving. The Phantom attempted to kill the Death Chicken, but cover and invulnrable saves prevent this. The 4th cohort, being uncontested on the left of the field, summoned deamons and marched into the Eldar backfield.

Turn 3: The Guardians fail to rally previously, as well as the remnants of 3rd Cohort. Unsurprisingly, the Eldar win the strategy roll again, and do their thing. The Nightwings enter the board and destroy a Basilisk, nearly breaking them. The Phantom retains to nearly destroy the Chaos Altar, and wrecks one of the demolishers. The 4th Cohort then summons 4 daemons in order to reach the Void Spinner, which is successfully engaged for no losses.
After the remaining Storm Serpent holds, the 1st Cohort doubles in order to suppress the Aspect Warriors. After a probably ill-advised march move deep into enemy territory, the Silver Towers double back to kill another singing spear, leaving the formation one away from breaking. The Basilisks successfully marshal, and the lone unit available to shoot breaks the aspects.
The turn finishes by with a webway assault from the wraithgate against Cohort 4. They are unfortunately strung out by the assault against the Void Spinner and are reduced to a single stand of cultists. The last stand retreats to the Eldar blitz, and amazingly rallies.

Turn 4: The traitors amazingly win the strategy roll, and use the opportunity to break the aspects with artillery fire. The lone member of the 4th cohort summons 4 flamers, and conducts an ill advised assault on the Phantom. The results are predictable, and the unit is wiped out. I should have shot and broke the lone firestorm, and let him go after me instead, but I was in Hail Mary mode at this point.
The phantom finally finished off the Demolishers and Altar of 1st Cohort and left them stranded far away from everything. The Silver Towers attempt to shake the Guardians from the Wraith gate objective, but only kill two guardians. The nightwings fail to do any damage to the Silver Towers due to amazing saves, while the 1st Cohort fails its rerolls and cannot do anything useful.
Neither of us have enough win conditions so it goes to Victory Points. Eldar get the victory by 350ish points.

Thoughts: Well, Eldar are really, really mean. I am limited on what I can do with my LATD as I only have enough models for 4 cohorts. This game really drives home the need for me to have Land Transporters with at least one of the cohorts. I am currently working on that. I am also way too aggressive against Eldar, as I can remember feeling the need to do damage to them at all costs. This lead to my fateful mistake of intermingling two formations.
This game saw me becoming a believer in the Silver Towers. I had replaced a Leman Russ detachment with them in a previous game, but wasn't impressed. The skimmer ability really gives me a capability to concentrate fire on the Eldar forces, and my better use of them has convinced me to run them more often.
I did enjoy using the Winged Terror/Warp Palace. At 4 DC, I don't think it is overpowering at all, and fills in a noticeable hole in the Tzeentch portion of the list.
Brian definitely improved from his first game with the Eldar. In that game, he was too aggressive, and I punished him severely for it. He learned his lesson well, and now it appears I will be struggling with how to stop the Eldar. The lack of mobility is really hurting me, and clipping assaults are seemingly impossible to avoid.

Let me know what you all think.

I think armoured vehicles would have been creamed by the Spears, unless you had several formations of them, particularly with so many gates to choose when and where to come out. I think you were undone simply by the number of WEs he had. Eldar flyers are good, but if you take a bigger titan than means no flyers at 3k. Eldar can field better armies at 4k and 5k points, the restrictions can really limit their WE choices at 3k.

Ginger has some good Eldar advice on how their lists need to be skewed if using certain types of titan, gate heavy etc.

I'm not familiar with the Tzeentch list, what do you have that can feasibly target the war engines apart from the Winged Horror?

Engines of Vaul are limited by Troupe slots, not war engine points?

In fact you may be right sir, now where's the facepalm emote ...

It is one of the things that make the Eldar so mean and possibly a bad matchup. Lost and the Damned is very inflexible as far as lists go, and can be at a great disadvantage against Eldar. The disparity in speed makes it a reactionary game for me vs them. I cannot overextend myself, or he will rush in and engage me at short range and wipe out my units. LaTD is also very light on TK weapons. I have come to the conclusion that the only way to really beat these guys is to do a slow, methodical advance.
The Greater Winged Terror (Warp Palace) is not part of the LaTD list. Neither Brian nor I thought it would unbalance things if I used it. We got the stats from the old Thousand Sons list. It is basically a 20cm skimming WE, with 2xMW5+ 60cm Beams of Power, 4xAT/AP4+ 45cm Arcane Cannons, and a 3BP 30cm TK(d3) weapon called the Fires of Tzeentch. With 4DC, 4+ RA, Inv, and fearless it clocks in at 400 points. There is a 6DC version from Thousand Sons 5.0 list that is 550 points, but I don't think my model is really big enough for that (it is from Man'o'war). The model seemed to fit in pretty well with the list as it gives another option for a large WE for the traitors. Does anybody thing that is overpowered in respects to the list?

Eldar can be really nasty, but they can also fall to pieces very easily.

First off, you need more activations - 8 just isn't enough, particularly with such a slow moving list as yours. You only have to fail 1 or 2 activations and any opponent will have a free reign
Second, take out those stormserpents and avoid the wraithgate (or camp right on top of it on OW ). Even a BM on each of the stormserpents will make it highly likely that one will fail its activation (as you saw).
Third, ignore the Phantom, other than laying a BM on it a turn. You don't have enough units to break it by shooting and, although it'll do some damage, it isn't going to win the game for your opponent. Focus your firepower on the other units.
Fourth, try and avoid leaving attackable units near objectives - guardians are really slow once they're deployed by 'gate, so if the end up somewhere random they'll effectively be out of the game, even if they did some damage coming out. That also applies to placing your objectives way away from cover, so Guardians can't use it.
I'd also go for the mass advance in layers - make sure the cohorts get to fire at something (doesn't matter too much what) every turn as they move and keep them covering each other. That way you can either cover them with OW or counterattack a suddenly vulnerable Eldar unit with another cohort.
I agree about the wraith constructs, they're awesome, which is why I use them so often

Thanks for the advice. A lot of it is what I am (slowly) coming to realize. I need to maneuver my formations so they are more compact so clipping is less of an issue. I only have 4 cohorts available, and am not likely to make any more (I am working on my Krieg army). I am getting models to upgrade 1-2 of the cohorts with Land Transporters, which both Brian and I agree that is the missing bit of my force. That will help speed me up and make up for the low activation count. Killing Storm Serpents is easier said than done (barring death strike missiles), but it certainly doesn't stop me from trying
I'll have to do more of the batreps and see if I get any better at this.

Have a read of Jaldon's excellent advice on how to build armies and use them here.

MM has a lot of good advice, but essentially the LatD is a slow moving army that has to grind forward. So you need to ensure that your formations are working in support of each other to minimise the potential for Eldar 'clipping'. setting up formations on OW can significantly reduce Eldar assaults.

On the Eldar side, because the LatD is so slow, you need to pick on a point for assaulting and make sure that you can concentrate several formations to ensure each attack is successfull, thereby making best use of the consolidation move (either to support the next attack, or to escape)

One of the more important elements of the tournament game is the placing of Objectives. Their location inevitably determines where the armies will move and where combats will occur; most armies will struggle to win if they are poorly placed.

I have read Jaldon's article, and it is excellent. That one of the issues with a legacy army, it is really hard to change the direction that you have built up over the years. I am getting some land transporters, which should be enough for 2 cohorts to become mounted. This should hopefully make the activations deficit a little less painful. It hasn't been too bad up to this point because I have only really had to fight Orks and Space Marines over the years that I have been playing sporadically. This latest challenge is good, because it is forcing me to evolve my playstyle.

How about Plague Zombies for a cheap activation? There are some excellent Edenite zombies over at Exodus Wars. That way, you don't have to change too much, just add things. If you want a Tzeentch version of zombies, just use the Carrion Swarms instead.

/Fredmans