Both of these armies are mech. However the second one has very little in the way of anti-tank, except for the wraithguard (short range and are one shot deals, since the turn they leave their tanks, they get starcannoned to death), and the pulse lasers (which both armies have), whereas the first list has 3 extra linked brightlances. Given the speed of the armies, Recon won't be an issue. Both armies can get anything that can survive to the enemy zone, since they're both fast.

The wraithlords can be downed easily by scorpions (space marines average losing 5 men in a tactical with a veteran seargeant with powerfist, when they get charged. Exarches have higher initiative and WS and would charge). Battle also last long enough that most threats to the scorpions would be cleared by the time they got out of cc and most of the time they get out after 4 cc rounds, anyway, so they can just jump back in a transport on the next movement phase.

Neither sets of warp spiders will survive for long, because of mobile starcannons

Vypers and warwalkers will probably spend more time surviving and less time shooting. However, once the wave serpents are down, they have easy ways to slaughter the enemy.

If the Beta farseer decides to use that spear, or go out into the opening, it'll get starcannoned to death by starcannons at point blank range, or simply charged.

In summary, what will probably survive for most of the battle:
Alpha:
2 wave serpents with their cargos (1 would die, probably given inferior firepower of Beta) (units inside are fairly expensive scoring units
2 falcons (190 points)

Beta
3 Falcons with their cargo (assuming they aren't used)

Almost everything else is either fragile, or 1 of a set of high priority targets. Also, if there's time, the falcons in Alpha can pick up wounded aspect squads and make them virtually imprevious to fire.

In general, given that fact that armor is really irrelevant in this battle, most of it will be spent in cc or in vehicles. Starcannons are only useful at taking advantage of the enemy's mistakes and short range weapons are too exposing (they allow mass starcannoning, so the falcons and wave serpents will be the major forces in the battle).

So I vote Alpha, but that would be a really wierd battle

EDIT: oh yeah, and the Beta player is wrong in his explanations. Wraithcannons don't autoglance on 2 and penetrate on 6. That's haywire grenades. Wraithcannons glance on 4 and penetrate on 5-6, though of course, those'd be converted to glances against this Alpha army.

EDIT:EDIT: Oh yeah, and I vote alpha for fluff, since beta seems to be tailored to beat marines, with all those survivable starcannons and falcons, whereas alpha has a much more balanced list, fragile gun platforms and mixed aggressive aspect warriors

 

i vote alpha
-very similar lists, but alpha has more anti-tank, cause of the BL's on the wave serpents.

 

The only effective weapon against Alphas Wave Serpents is the Singing Spear given to the Farseer. Therefore, the Alpha vehicles are unchecked, a very key point.

This is a hilarious battle, it's like a contest of Starcannon quantity. The Alpha list has more men, and it's Starcannons actually have targets (Wraithlord!). So while the Iyanden mope around, the Biel-tan are going to jump right on top of the Wraithguard, and Starcannon the Wraithlord to their knees. After that, the Beta vehicles will slowly die out, much like the dinosaurs.

What a clutter of dumb vehicles. I'd like to see a picture of all those things... dang.

Alpha list Eldar

 

The alplha eldar list can only put out about 1 wound on the wraithlord per turn.

The the bottom list has more tanks, and more guys with anti tank weapons.

basically 2 facones against 3 falcones.

scorains cant hurt wraithlords in CC. so they will probably just run around.... there isnt anything for them to assault really.

Beta eldar win.

The top list has 6 starcannons, and 2 pulse lasers, and 3 brightlances.

The bottom list has 7 starcannons and 3 pulse lasers, 1 sighing spear thing.

But the bottom list also has wriathlords, and wraithguard, wraithgaurd can get glances to tanks on 2+ Very good against enemy skimmers and such.

That makes them way more durable, so they will win.

 

But the bottom list also has wriathlords, and wraithguard, wraithgaurd can get glances to tanks on 2+ Very good against enemy skimmers and such.

We're not sure about this at the moment - someone pointed out to me that it should be glancing on 4+ and penetrate on 5+, but I can't seem to find a reference for it. Looking through the Eldar Codex hasn't revealed anything, but admittedly I haven't had it for long and am not familiar with it yet.

 

We're not sure about this at the moment - someone pointed out to me that it should be glancing on 4+ and penetrate on 5+, but I can't seem to find a reference for it. Looking through the Eldar Codex hasn't revealed anything, but admittedly I haven't had it for long and am not familiar with it yet.

The wargear section is right after all the explanation of units. I can't remember if it's before or after the pictures. Anyway, it's in the worse possible spot. But I cited the Interactive army list which is taken word for word from the Codex as far as I know. So unless it's been changed in an errata it's glance on 4, penetrate on 5+

 

The wargear section is right after all the explanation of units. I can't remember if it's before or after the pictures. Anyway, it's in the worse possible spot. But I cited the Interactive army list which is taken word for word from the Codex as far as I know. So unless it's been changed in an errata it's glance on 4, penetrate on 5+

Well, I make it a point to never trust the Interactive Army Builders - they have habits of making mistakes.

In the Codex I'm borrowing, it doesn't mention the Wraithcannon at all anywhere I can find. I was able to find it in the Wargear book however, and TheWamp is indeed correct - glance on a 4+, penetrate on 5 or 6.

 

Hope everyone can think carefully before treating bright lance as automatically superior to starcannon as anti-vehicle. In most cases, this is true. However, vehicles such as Falcon and Wave Serpent are a special case.

Let's assume that all skimmers will always move at least 12", and thus, get SMF (Penetrating hits downgrading to glancing). Thus, all we're concerned about is getting a penetration result that at least equals the armour value. Assuming some reasonable level of skill, or at least the foresight to use the table edge to block the rear armor, all shots will be at armour value of 12.

TL Bright Lance BS3
0.75 hits at 50% chance to damage (4-6)
0.375 glances

TL Starcannon BS3
2.25 hit at 16.7% chance to damage (6s)
0.3758 glances

Bright Lance BS3
0.5 hits at 50% chance to damage (4-6)
0.25 glances

Starcannon BS3
1.5 hit at 16.7% chance to damage (6s)
0.251 glances

As you can see, SC and BL have nearly identical results. If you want to be technical, SC has the advantage of marginally higher glance chance, as well as much lower variability (3 shots vs. 1 shot). The way to destroy skimmers is in high-volume medium-strength attacks, not in high strength attacks. The lance effect is useless here, as well. Someone please correct me if my math is wrong.

As mentioned by Forge:

The top list has 6 starcannons, and 2 pulse lasers, and 3 brightlances.

The bottom list has 7 starcannons and 3 pulse lasers, 1 sighing spear thing.

Since we've just demonstrated that starcannons ad brightlances are basically the same weapon versus skimmers, let's call that weapon a "Gun". A pulse laser is a brightlance with an extra 12" and D3 shots. Let's make it statistically equal, 2 shots - thus, it's two "Guns".

Alpha has 13 guns.

Beta has 13 guns and a singing spear. Note that of these "guns", 6 have an extra 12"s. The singing spear doesn't spell death for the bearer; remember the 6" assault move. Wait for the opportunity, and then use terrain to take "CTM" potshots.

Also, each unit of wraithguard that dismount will be likely to take down the target they're firing at, even if we consider glances on 4+, each shot has a 50% chance to glance; they're suicide squads, in any case, but they'll make their points back.

In any case, the important point of this post is that people saying that beta has no effective anti-vehicle... would have to say the exact same thing for alpha, seeing as BL and SC will have basically the same effect versus the vehicles.

Beta for the win; turtling and resiliency should win this close battle. Fluff for beta as well, strong placement of percentages in troops (Wraithguard and Wraithlords).

 

I vote for Beta

Simply because of the greater amount of anti tank firepower, and the wraithlords which are as tough as the falcons in their own sense.

 

I vote for list Beta.

Yes list alpha has better cc ability. But list Alpha does not have enough to down list betas tanks. Because of this, beta will win the recon mission by downing more tanks, and getting virtually all their guys into the enemies deployment zone by the end of the game, scoring more points and winning the game. If list alpha wants to get into cc, it will be in their own deployment zone, far away from the scoring zone.

Not excluding any possible discounted votes. I believe the curent mission standings are:

4-3 in favor of list Beta. Very close!