Aeldari Wraithblades Better Than Deathwing Knights?!-"These Wraiths Are Ghosting the Competition!"

First....

Its definitely a case of choosing every model for axes/shields or swords. That dichotomy is evident in Voidreavers (all) vs Voidscarred (any) in terms of the whole unit vs per model.

Swords are also better against other 3W enemies because they're 1w/att so you aren't dropping every 4th wound against like Chosen

As cool as Ghostswords are, I'd probably take D-Scythes over them every time. You get a ranged threat range while standing on an objective, you get a usable overwatch and fight phase (especially with Guide) and if you fall back, you can Feigned Retreat for 1CP, blast em, and charge back in.

As for their competitors, the Einhyr Hearthguard are at 160pts for 5, and come with a plasma gun, a grenade launcher, a power weapon, 2+ armor save, Deep Strike, and 2 wounds. They have several leaders too, each giving a few buffs, making them more useful than Wraiths without having to specialize. Then again, Votann haven't been winning tournaments lately so I'll let them have their busted little unit 😅

I run 5 of them with 2x5 wraithguard 😅 i love Wraith units so much, and my created craftworld is an offshoot of both Biel Tan & Iyanden. Lots of Aspects & the 2x5 WG/5WB (also run a spiritseer with both WG units)

the video looks great. and good skill Adapting to the new paradigm!

It is inconvenient to pool large ammounts of points into a slow brick in this edition. To score they need to be on top of the objective. To prevent scoring they need to be on top of the enemy. Pro players sometimes use this together with some character to create a block or zone in the middle of the board or another important place but generally spending a lot on scoring little is a terrible choice, you need a nearly broken synergy to make this large pool of points worth it. The more you sink it the more they'd need to score to carry their weight. It is my firm belief that this is NOT an effective use of points but I love them so much that I will always bring a fat wraithbrick and a wraithknight regardless of what anyone tells me. They are bad and cost a lot but damn they are cool. Coolhammer and beerhammer beer is better than sweathammer & mathhammer to me. And in those to game types wraiths work great.

axe and shield for me - I play mainly against Tyranids, and that invulv makes it more likely to keep Wraiths from getting shredded by Exocrines. (since my brother is collecting 'nids, it is the army I play against the most :D)

Fate's messenger on spiritseer, worth it?

For the d cannons, do you generally recommend setting them up on one side of the board or is it specific to supporting wraith blades?

You can't have it both ways. They can't be better than deathwing knights AND overcosted despite being 65 points cheaper than the deathwing. Salty boys like you are never going to be happy

Kinda silly how these have almost same statline as heavy intercessors. Extra toughness is most of the time moot because weapons engaging boft squads are generally S8+ and damage 3/3+ or with damage 1 weapons it goes to S4-5. Heavy intercessors are 100points and wraiths are 170 suffering from not having their own datasheets/costs for each weapon loadout (and almost mandatory spiritseer).

lately been enjoying playing lot of gravis units on marines and there are moments when i feel like they cant be stopped or killed. But man those moments when something wounds on 3+, does 3 damage and has enough AP to make me contemplate doing armor of contempt or smoke, they really do feel sad. But such is life, for every 2 squads of little bugs they shrug, there is big stompy bug just salivating at sight of those chonkmarines.

Wraithblades look neat for eldar because tough units are hard to come by. They cost bit too much and require lots of additional support to work properly. Need -1to wound to survive, need +1 to hit or reroll hits to kill things. Even if you have the support they are mediocre for points and effort needed. Without 4++ Things can get nasty against things like macro plasmas, meltas and some CCWs on big stompy models.

I like the axes, there really aren't that many profiles that the swords are much better against, but there are a ton where the axes are miles ahead.

I used Wraithblades for the first time last week against a Kroot force, and they did really well (armed with axes), even without a spiritseer. They got their transport shot out from under them, but they took out Rampagers with ease and then mulched some carnivore squads.

Last game I played with them my 3 Wraithlords held the left field easily, the 2 blobs of 10 Wraithguard marched up the right and slowly mowed down that flank only losing about 7 models total. Wraithguard marched into the mid field objective and tied up 4 units, killing 1 of marines from turn 2 and I had 6 left in the squad turn 4.

I think you underestimate the Deathwing Knight's ability to get lance (gladius) and reduce damage by 1 (unit rule) for themselves and any attached character, also Ap2 going into terminators with armour of contempt is rough.
The Wraithblades are OK but I don't think they beat other terminators head on

No.

FYI: The WH40k app lets you mix and match weapons for Wraithblades without giving an error! It does, however, give an error for mixing and matching weapons on Wraithguard, which have the exact same wording for wargear options. Strange!

I've run a handful of games with wraithblades now and honestly I do not think they're worth taking over the wraithguard (I was running them as well as WG, just fooling around with the triple brick archetype, and even then I think I would've preferred to have a second brick of WG instead, and I definitely would've preffered to have the Harlequin brick as a melee threat and I hate that unit). I've used wraithguard to wipe out a bunch of shit in CQB because people massively underestimate the weight of dice they throw at you, and then you factor in the lethals from a spiritseer and that can help lift some of the weight off the anchor around your neck that the low strength of CCWs can be.
In a casual setting I think they're fine, but even then I think the quin brick is just so much more effective at shoring up the triple brick weaknesses.
Mind you even with that said I'm still going to persevere with them because I'm not a very smart man. Same reason why I'm seriously considering pairing two bricks of Wraithguard (one dscythe and one wraithcannon) with a bunch of lone ops as bait to draw stuff into the wraith firing zones.

I’ve been trying Wraithblades for a while and they feel good, which is a change of pace. With the format going pretty melee centric in Pariah, I feel like lists with Wraithblades, Striking Scorpions, and maybe even Howling Banshees alongside The Avatar of Khaine have some viability. Is that top table viability? Probably not, but we’ll look cool while doing it, which is half the battle anyways.

Can’t pick and choose accès and swords according to the app.

If you are playing semi-competitive/causal (and even hardcore comp depending on your local meta) this unit is insanely good ESPECIALLY if you are running a Farseer+storm guardians nearby and you buff the wraiths with -1 to wound.

So far I’ve played 8 games with them and haven’t lost with them yet. I had a game where my blades were charged by Lord Invo, leading a squad of exalted eightbound, a five brick of khorne berserkers with Kharn leading them, then another 10 brick of khorne berserkers with a master of executions all in the SAME turn and my unit of wraithblades straight up lived with three models left and ALL of the models that did die fought on death. My opponent legit couldnt believe it and it immediately ruined his 12 competitive win streak because it won me the game

I confirm that 10 wraithblades are not best at fighting for the central objective against most other armies. Side play should be the way

Would it ever be worth running two 5-model units, each with a spiritseer? Get back twice the models every turn?

Sword variant should get twinlinked.

id love to run a wraith focused army, but sadly hitting on 4s just ruins it for me