I'd say no in my experience.  The Warlock is wicked damage on wheels.  Getting it into the classic Eldar "rolling assault" tactic means it gets to use its massive FF twice in a turn.


Not quite accurate.  You do get the 5+RA save after the holofield is bypassed.  That means to do damage you actually need ~4.5 hits, better than 4+RA.  For MW you need 3 hits to bypass the holofield, but only 2 to average damage against 4+RA.  It's obviously 3 times as tough against TK, where 4+RA gets no save at all.


In my experience they either die or they dominate.  If an opponent gains the strategic initiative or gets lucky a Warlock can die fast and silent.  If the Eldar succeed in controlling the progress of the battle a Warlock will crush their enemies, see them driven before them and hear the lamentations of their women.


Maybe. Yes, they break on 6 BMs, but that usually means 3-4 formations firing at them because they shrug off so much fire, more if you are a low-firepower force.  That's a lot to commit to breaking them.  Assuming you do break them, they can rally back to 2BMs, requiring that you commit another 2-3 to break them again.

Factor in the fact that you are unlikely to accomplish that in a single action/retain and the Eldar can front-load their activations and you end up losing on activations.  The Eldar are attacking to reduce your activations while you are burning activations on that titan.

Of course, there is always a chance for lucky results.  It only takes a couple failed saves on the part of the Warlock titan for it to be in trouble and a critical is doom.  If those come early, that's awesome for the opponent.  If not, you may waste your entire army on it while it dances circles around you.

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Oh, and to answer the question that started the thread... I'm okay with it as-is.

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Neal

i think the warlock is good as it is, just because the last three times i've used it in the first turn it has been shot at, i've failed all the saves and taken a critical, doesn't mean it's crap      and i'm not joking BTW that happened in all three games.

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"Dyslexia is a Privilege, not a right"

I love the Warlock but never considered it undercosted, I think because 850 points is a lot in the game of Epic, even in a 5000 point army list.  IMO it tends to lose some of its efficacy as the games go up in size simply because it becomes more vulnerable to crossfire, massed fire, and a wider range of specialized weapons (Death Strikes, Shadowswords, and so on).  Lower games like 3000 points I believe it has a greater role despite lowering the activation count because of the reasons stated above.

I played it in a tournament many years ago (six?) and it crushed Black Legion, was vaporized by IG (shadowswords turned it into swiss chees), and held its ground against Necrons.  I won two games, lost one, and placed third in the tournament.  

I've also faced one against my Necron Abbatoir and pummel it into shards of living metal. But then again I've had plain ol' Space Marines use cross fire to break it and keep it broken for an entire game.  All in all, I'd say it is fine where it is.

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author of Syncing Forward and other stories...

It's a dog-eat-dog world, and I've got my Milkbone underwear on.

I've only faced it once, so can't speak from experience.

Playing as Marines I managed to marginalise it, picking on Falcons, Void Spinners, etc  to reduce the activation advantage and keeping out of the Warlocks way...

..until my Drop Pod landings landed nearby to it. I ambitiously (naively) used this big Tactical formation to support an Air Assault on the Warlock with another big Tactical formation.
It was then I was informed of the sheer number of dice it gets in Firefight and Close Combat.
Looking back on it my earlier successes in destroying Eldar formations had made me overconfident and I figured I could take a 6 DC war engine (with what I later worked out was statistically rubbish attacks- something like 12ish 4+ attacks).
My formation was decimated, the supporting fire formation (my BTS) was it's next victim and the game fell apart from there.

So hmm, it was my fault for feeding the Warlock my formations. If it can be avoided (a big ask if it's sat on objectives admittedly) it should be.

I'm not sure it it's 'overpowered' or not, it does seem to be the best Titan I've encountered, putting a lumbering Warlord to shame.

There's the void shields to factor in too though.  4 hits on a Warlock titan has the potential to do 4 x damage.  4 hits on a Reaver or a Warlord does nothing garaunteed and the Imperial titan has the option to Marshall to bring those shields back on line.



Hahahaha, nice quote.  Can the same not be said about most large war engines though, if used right?  Yesterday in both games, both things happened.  The Warlock (With supporting fire from about 600 pts worth of aspect warriors and Avatar) did cause come major damage to the enemy (Roughly the equivelent points worth of enemy was destroyed as was commited to engagements which had been carefully set up for the turn before) and then it died.  



I'm not saying it's not good.  For 850 pts it should be hard to break.  However I'm comparing it to 850 pts worth of titan from other armies.  6 BMs is less than a Warlord by 2 - and with the Warlock there's a higher chance of getting BMs because of the void shields and it's prime role as an engagement titan (The enemy gets to fight back, in your activation, unlike with shooting) and it's half the no of BMs required by a Great Gargant.  In effect it's easier to break than a rever titan which is 200 pts cheaper.  That's a paper tiger IMO.



Surely it's the same with all titans though?  Doubling a Reaver into the midst of an opposing army and smashing a fm with it's massive no of high powered shots and then adding supporting fire to engagements is a very valid and brutal tactic.  Does this mean the reaver is overpowered?  The reaver, while it has less FF ability has nearly the same speed, greater range and firepower, is harder to break and to kill and costs 200 less points.  What I'm saying basically is that the Warlock is a great titan but IMO is not overpowered when compared with equivelent points worth of war engines from other lists.  It is better in some areas and worse in others.



Yay!  

Aye, it took you by surprise.  Next time you play though, you know not to make that mistake again.

Were you to have had the knowledge beforehand I would expect you to continue to marginalise the titan, pick on the weaker fms and then when you have the activation advantage simply land a Thawk or march some speeders onto the onbjective the Titan was holding after all the Eldar have activated.

Daz cried about it last night but then he moved a retinue and intermingled death wheel into engagement range, within sight of some lurking Falcons - which was a gamble.  He likely did that in the hope of going first, summoning daemons and doing the exact same thing to the Warlock with his doom wheel supporting the retinue engagement.  It was a gamble on both our parts and I got the roll for turn 2 and took the opportunity.

It's just easier to blame a unit as being broken than to admit you gambled and lost, especially in the heat of a hard fought game.  I'm sure everyone has done the same thing from time to time, I know I certainly have.  Had Chaos won the roll for turn 2, I'm sure nothing would have been said and I'd have had a dead Warlock and likely been grumbling about Daemons and death wheels.

Um... no.  The single most devastating army I've faced, from any force, was Eldar with a Warlock and 3 Stormserpents.  It was something like...

Warlock Titan
Guardians
Aspect Host
3 Storm Serpents
Falcon Troupe with Firestorms
2 Bike Troupes
Nightwings

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Neal

Surely thats illegal though - 1150pts of air+titans

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www.epic-uk.co.uk
NetEA NetERC Human Lists Chair
NetEA Chaos + Black Legion Champion

Assumptive of a 3000 point game.  All it takes is a 3500 point game or higher to make air + Warlock a possibility.  

My 3000 point list had
Storm Serpent #1 250
Storm Serpent #2 250
Warlock 850
Aspect #1 (Warp Spiders)350
Aspect #2 (Shining Spears)400
Falcons #1 250
Falcons #2 250
Guardians with something attached (I can't remember, support weapons?) 200
War Walkers 200
Rangers 100
Wraithgate 50

It was a strong list where the Warlock -when it wasn't being destroyed from a distance- corralled formations into the Aspects leaving brown streaks behind them.

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author of Syncing Forward and other stories...

It's a dog-eat-dog world, and I've got my Milkbone underwear on.

I'm not saying they are as tough as a Warlord Titan or Great Gargant, just substantially tougher than you indicated.


One thing you're not counting in your comparison is how it works on the battlefield.  Yes, all the examples you used would seem to indicate the Warlock titan is a lot weaker.  However, Gargants and Imperial titans are much easier to set up against.  They are slower.  You can plan out the attacks so you strip shields and then maximize MW/TK fire.  Say you take 3 actions that line up ~8 AT hits and a TKd3 on a Warlord titan.  That's guaranteed substantial damage.

Against a Warlock, that actually does roughly the same amount of damage on average, just 2-3 points.  Yes, that's a bigger hit against its 6DC but it's harder for the enemy to set up because the Warlock is so mobile.  Also, even though the average is in the same range, there's a good chance the Warlock will avoid all the TK with a single roll.  That's hit or miss, but when it hits that leaves the Warlock in a lot better shape than the Warlord.


I don't think they are overpowered, but they are tougher than you are giving them credit for, even with their built in weaknesses.

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Neal

It was a 4K army.  Now that I think about it, I think it had another Guardian Host, Falcon Troupe, Bike Troupe and a Wraithgate.

But in any case, even at 3K, sub in something like Fire Prisms for the Nightwings' AA.  The point is you can do a Warlock and lots of gates or other deepstrike options.

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Neal

And the 5+ on the reroll becomes a 6+?

That changes the save failure chance goes from 22.2`% (8/36) to 41.6`% (15/36).

That's a huge impact. And given that the Warlock is going to want/need to be in close, it's achievable by most armies.

Morgan Vening
- And here I was, thinking of fielding one next time...

The bonus is that the warlock is likely to take part in 2 or 3 activations (support an assault, use it's activation to assault then support a third engagement) which the other titans can do, but not quite as easily.

I don't think its over the top either, but it is a great piece of kit!