The rules for the nightspinner have now been out for quite a while and I was wondering what you guys´opinion is of them.

Are they worth the loss of the anti tank of the fire prism (which is quite meh anyway...)? Also I´d be very interested in your opponents reactions to the monofilament web terrain test. Do they keep moving or do they stop?

Well, I used it twice in fun games. It never did impress me and so it will not enter my competitive mech army.

Their main purpose is against horde armies because the large blast which is ordanance (or barrage i can't remember which one) at S6 is enough to kill wuite a few under it. Plus it's 72" range covers most boards you'll play at a FLGS and the Monofilament web special rule i think is genius.

The monofilament rule actually should have loads of potential, but for some reason it just doesn´t cut it...

Kinda sad, because I really like the tank fluff wise and slowing your opponent would be awesome, if not anyone and their dog played mech nowadays....

Here are my thoughts on the night spinner.

Plan Disruption
A spinneris great at disrupting opponents plans, much like playing blue in magic the gathering.
* A mob of 30 orks is disrupted when they lose 6 to dangerous terrain tests in addition to the units killed under the blast.
* A squad of 10 fleeting shrike terminators or a wolfstar will be forced to slow down and move only 1 model to minimize expensive causalities. Losing a turn of movement with a death star in a 5-7 turn game is a large hindrance.
* Reducing the speed of a wolfstar is highly valueable -- in addition to causing wounds on them that they cannot save.
* Hitting transports and vehicles that need to move is also an excellent use of hindering plans. A LC has an extremely low chance of destroying a AV 14 crusader full of termies, but a night spinner has a 1/6 chance of immobolizing it, making the vehicle nigh-useless.

Anti-Horde
Lets face it, a large STR 6 pie plate is just good against hordes. Be it gaunts, IG foot soldiers, or orks. A well rounded army should have a solution to handle hordes, and the spinner helps to fill that role. When combined with the ability to slow down the horde, the nighspinner is a great tool for the job.

Accurate
It puts a twin-linked large pie plate with BS 3 at about a ~85% accuracy ratio to hit a vehicle. There is a 55% of getting a 'hit' under the scatter dice, and you have two chances to stay on target with your scatter dice. This means that against infantry its possible to scatter around an inch or three, but you should be in the same ballpark.
This is a nice change for otherwise lack-luster BS 3 guardians/vehicles.

labmouse42 wrote:
* Hitting transports and vehicles that need to move is also an excellent use of hindering plans. A LC has an extremely low chance of destroying a AV 14 crusader full of termies, but a night spinner has a 1/6 chance of immobolizing it, making the vehicle nigh-useless.

Also let´s not forget that it has rending. So the nightspinner actually can even penetrate AV14. Obviously I wouldn´t make that its role, but if you shoot that deathstar carrying land raider anyway, you might even kill it^^

I use 2, that;s right 2 in my competative lists and always finishing at the top of my circuit.

They are good against Hordes, true, but ork players know they have lots orks so while useful against them, they don't scare orks.

It's against the Power armor types that you really gain psychological edge. They lose a terminator/marine or two to rending and dangerous and they start to value moving, where they normally woulnd't think twice.

I am an advocate of them, but I like the fluff as much as the rules, so I'm biased.

I really like their fluff and I really WANT to like their rules aswell...

I proxied one in a game against a friends guard army. It killed 1 heavy weapons team about 8 or 9 guardsman and a basilisk(lucky shot/scatter...) with the blast and like 3 guardsmen and a powerfist sergeant with the monofilament rule. It actually got its points back that game due to me killing that basilisk, but without that I´m not sure weather I would want to pay the points for it.

Keep in mind, that my guard opponent hates movement. He literally doesn´t move unless he has to...

yeap, even against blob squads, if they don't need to move to be effective, you likely won't get as much out of them. They are better than scatter lasers vs front AV 12, since they hit on the side, for things like chimeras.

The model looks really awesome though. So I´ll probably end up buying one anyway...

don't be sad! I bought two the week they came out! IMHO they are the best looking Eldar tanks!!!

I'm sorry, but for hordes you are still better off the the Fire Prism. The Nightspinner uses the SMALL blast, whereas the fireprism has a STR5, AP4 LARGE BLAST for those hordes, and an anti-terminator or tank at str9, ap2. Fire Prisms are still very good especially when there are 3 of them on the field.

Night spinners use the large blast...

http://www.games-workshop.com/MEDIA_CustomProductCatalog/m1640390a_NightSpinner_Rules.pdf

Fire Prisms are better as far as direct damage is concerned, but the TL argument, to me is moot, since you have to fire both of them at 1 target. Each Night Spinner is TL.


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I will give a nod to the Fire Sprism in one reguard. I have found that there are times that the Night Spinner is less useful, typically late in the game after I've destroy most of the enemy troops, especially when faced with AV 12(side) and up vehicles. Walkers, LR, Storm Ravens, LRBT, etc.

I also run 2 of them. I find they give you an edge over the opponent since it makes them question movement with what ever unit(s) have been hit.

They're accurate and S6 rending means that it can wound/damage most things it hits. To counteract the AT missing from prisms just take SL or EML on your WS

I´m not a fan of linking my prisms anyway... It´s like paying at least 230 points for ONE s10 ap1 or s6 ap3 blast/template. Who would buy something like taht for 230 points... Without upgrades... Imperial Guard gets a nicely upgrades LRBT and some infantry for that cost. SM almost get a landraider...

I like them if you know you are going against a horde army. But when I have to build an allround army list I rather prefer Fire Prisms and Falcons since both give you options: the fire prism can help with horde as well as anti tank, a falcon with EML will at least allow you to shoot plasma missiles against a horde and still have krak and the pulse laser.

Murenius wrote:I like them if you know you are going against a horde army. But when I have to build an allround army list I rather prefer Fire Prisms and Falcons since both give you options: the fire prism can help with horde as well as anti tank, a falcon with EML will at least allow you to shoot plasma missiles against a horde and still have krak and the pulse laser.

Thats exactly how I feel about them

Is there anything else in the Eldar codex that can fulfill their role? As far as I can see, no. So, they are valuable, at least in specific cases where what they bring is useful.

Another dimension to think about is how they synergize with the rest of the army. Are they a force multiplier, a strategic asset? I'd say yes. Sure, other things may be more killy or more aligned with your style of play, but that does not diminish the value of the spinners per se.
Btw, they were called doomweavers in the Epic Space Marines. I think doomweavers sounds better than night spinners. If it has to be spinners, why not deathspinners? They are spinning shiny strings of monofilament. Where is the night/darkness there?

Necrontyr40k wrote:Is there anything else in the Eldar codex that can fulfill their role? As far as I can see, no. So, they are valuable, at least in specific cases where what they bring is useful.

Another dimension to think about is how they synergize with the rest of the army. Are they a force multiplier, a strategic asset? I'd say yes. Sure, other things may be more killy or more aligned with your style of play, but that does not diminish the value of the spinners per se.
Btw, they were called doomweavers in the Epic Space Marines. I think doomweavers sounds better than night spinners. If it has to be spinners, why not deathspinners? They are spinning shiny strings of monofilament. Where is the night/darkness there?

Only the tank is called nightspinner. The weapon itself is actually called doomweaver. I think it´s called nightspinner, because you can´t see whats killing you...as if it were night.

Anyway I really think the monofilament rule should also slow down vehicles... Imagine that, who wouldn´t field 3 of them then?

Master Melta wrote:Night spinners use the large blast...

http://www.games-workshop.com/MEDIA_CustomProductCatalog/m1640390a_NightSpinner_Rules.pdf

Actually the pdf linked here says "blast," which means small blast. If it were the large blast it would need to say "large blast." Unless I'm missing something?

When the nightspinner rules first came out, I saw opponents play a couple of them and saw how it was the small blast. I was pretty unimpressed. Then, as now, I was thinking this would be worth it if it were the large blast. But one small str6 blast from a tank that costs as much as a fire prism just isn't worth it IMO, in spite of the mostly ineffective movement effect.

Flavius Infernus wrote:

Master Melta wrote:Night spinners use the large blast...

http://www.games-workshop.com/MEDIA_CustomProductCatalog/m1640390a_NightSpinner_Rules.pdf

Actually the pdf linked here says "blast," which means small blast. If it were the large blast it would need to say "large blast." Unless I'm missing something?

When the nightspinner rules first came out, I saw opponents play a couple of them and saw how it was the small blast. I was pretty unimpressed. Then, as now, I was thinking this would be worth it if it were the large blast. But one small str6 blast from a tank that costs as much as a fire prism just isn't worth it IMO, in spite of the mostly ineffective movement effect.

Actually nightspinner really use the 5" big blast. Otherwise they would be pretty useless... I have the official GW ruleset printed out right before my eyes, where it says 5" template. At least in the german version...

Also BolS says its a large blast so it has to be right!

http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2010/05/40k-news-eldar-night-spinner.html

The PDG has Large waaaaaay over on the left of the line with blast.

it's funky they way it's constructed but it's there.

Chiggity check it out.

It's a large pie in the white dwarf also, that link appears to have a typo.

Well the PDF uses just a small blast, thats why I said Fire Prisms are infinitely greater for the same cost. FYI You don't need to ALWAYS TL them. Besides IMO a large str6 ap3 blast is worth it, plus the mobility and 60" range. You can stick a fire prism in each corner provided they can see each other and can cover the whole map. Str5 Ap4 is a Tau/IG/Ork/NID killer, compared to your str 6 ap- SMALL blast.

Oh, it's a formatting issue.

The word "Large" floated off to the left margin (I finally spotted by using the cursor moving through the text) but it's definitely there.

Well then it is somewhat more worthwhile, though I'm still unimpressed by the movement effects and disappointed that otherwise good anti-vehicle capability is nerfed by AP-.

AP- also disappointingly means that it always allows armor saves, which does not synergize well with the fact that barrage weapons are great for bypassing cover.

But the fact that the vehicle is fast synergizes well with the minimum range--nothing can ever get inside the range because the tank can always back up 12" and still shoot.

The more I think about it, the more I want a nightspinner.

I mostly play jetbike eldar. So slowing the opponent down while being incredibly fast at the same time seems like a nice combo. Never again shall enemys escape my seer council^^

The PDF does not use a small blast... see my post above.


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Heavy 1, Barrage,
Large Blast, Rending,
Monofilament Web


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that's a copy paste from the PDF.

Ok i guess its now clarified that its indeed a LARGE blast´. A small blast wouldn´t be worth it, but sine its a large blast it gets very considerable, as its actually quite easy to hit multiple units at one time due to the twinlinked

Necrontyr40k wrote:Is there anything else in the Eldar codex that can fulfill their role? As far as I can see, no. So, they are valuable, at least in specific cases where what they bring is useful.

A dark reaper exarch with tempest launcher and fast shot lays down 3 small blast markers with STR 4 AP 3, which cuts down gaunts, guards and the likes pretty well. But a night spinner is harder to take down and a lot more mobile. 3 War walkers with EML are not bad at all since they give 6 STR4 AP 4 blast markers with pinning. And they come for 150 pts, which is exactly the cost of a night spinner with holo field.

Still AP- means very little. The Fire Prism sacrifices one point for STR for AP4 which imo is way better. Also the Fire Prism is BS4 whereas the Spinner is BS3. The Nightspinner isn't very versatile and it can ONLY take on gaunts and orks.

AchillesFTW wrote:Still AP- means very little. The Fire Prism sacrifices one point for STR for AP4 which imo is way better. Also the Fire Prism is BS4 whereas the Spinner is BS3. The Nightspinner isn't very versatile and it can ONLY take on gaunts and orks.

You´re forgetting that it has rending. Also its a barrage weapon, so you can get arround cover saves easier which equals out the ap4 thing imo. The spinner is only bs3, but its main turret is twin linked, so that equals out aswell. The chin cannon would suffer from bs3 but idk if you really wanted one on a nightspinner.

It can take on anything on foot. The more goons the merrier, but it can still threaten anything. Difficult and Dangerous, plus rending, and pinning.

Yes please.

No need for upgrades, holofields IF you have the points and NEED to spend them on something.

Khe-Loc wrote:You´re forgetting that it has rending. Also its a barrage weapon, so you can get arround cover saves easier which equals out the ap4 thing imo.

True, 4+ cover saves will render high AP ineffective.

Murenius wrote:

Necrontyr40k wrote:Is there anything else in the Eldar codex that can fulfill their role? As far as I can see, no. So, they are valuable, at least in specific cases where what they bring is useful.

A dark reaper exarch with tempest launcher and fast shot lays down 3 small blast markers with STR 4 AP 3, which cuts down gaunts, guards and the likes pretty well. But a night spinner is harder to take down and a lot more mobile. 3 War walkers with EML are not bad at all since they give 6 STR4 AP 4 blast markers with pinning. And they come for 150 pts, which is exactly the cost of a night spinner with holo field.

I was thinking more in line of the immobilization effect. That is hard to replicate. Besides, dark reapers have other problems, which make them undesirable.

Walkers are a great unit but need LOS, and while pinning, do not scare people from moving. In a list of fast vehicles with crappy AV, firing indirect is more attractive than usual.

In this edition, there is a ton of 4+ cover saves, so AP matters only if better than 4.

If I´m correct, the monofilament rule is something that has never been there before.

Also its the only option for indirect fire in the eldar codex. Very usefull for keeping the fragile AV 12 of the eldar tanks out of the way. Twin linked help greatly for accuracy even if firing indirect.

Your point nullifies itself. Its a barrage weapon therefore it ignores cover saves, but its AP- so they would get their NORMAL saves anyway. Besides you only are AP1 on a roll of 6. Str 5 Ap4 is still better. Like I said, its mostly and only effective against large groups of gaunts and orks, anything else will be better off being hit by the fire prism.

AchillesFTW wrote:Your point nullifies itself. Its a barrage weapon therefore it ignores cover saves, but its AP- so they would get their NORMAL saves anyway. Besides you only are AP1 on a roll of 6. Str 5 Ap4 is still better. Like I said, its mostly and only effective against large groups of gaunts and orks, anything else will be better off being hit by the fire prism.

But yours doesn´t?

In the case of the prism there is a 4+ cover save. In case of the nightspinner there is an armour save that could be anything from 6+ to 2+ which might be ignored due to rendiing.

Whatever tho... It´s ok if you like the prism better. I have to agree that the prism is a good vehicle, but he nightspinner is not bad eighter. Just a matter of opinions and the point of this thread is to get as many of these opinions as possible.

AchillesFTW wrote:Your point nullifies itself. Its a barrage weapon therefore it ignores cover saves, but its AP- so they would get their NORMAL saves anyway. Besides you only are AP1 on a roll of 6. Str 5 Ap4 is still better. Like I said, its mostly and only effective against large groups of gaunts and orks, anything else will be better off being hit by the fire prism.

Barrages ignore cover only if the cover is from intervening terrain, because the shrapnel comes from the center of the blast. But area cover still provides protection.

So, with walker missiles AP4, both types of cover are effective, and so they get 4+ cover saves. Against spinners, the intervening cover is not effective but spinners have AP-, so non-MEQ get their 4+ or 5+ armor, while area cover get 4+. So, for any non-MEQ spinners are equal or better. For MEQ, they will take armor saves anyway, so AP4 still does not matter. Like I said, AP4 is largely useless in 5th ed. due to cover rules.

Necrontyr40k wrote:

AchillesFTW wrote:Your point nullifies itself. Its a barrage weapon therefore it ignores cover saves, but its AP- so they would get their NORMAL saves anyway. Besides you only are AP1 on a roll of 6. Str 5 Ap4 is still better. Like I said, its mostly and only effective against large groups of gaunts and orks, anything else will be better off being hit by the fire prism.

Barrages ignore cover only if the cover is from intervening terrain, because the shrapnel comes from the center of the blast. But area cover still provides protection.

So, with walker missiles AP4, both types of cover are effective, and so they get 4+ cover saves. Against spinners, the intervening cover is not effective but spinners have AP-, so non-MEQ get their 4+ or 5+ armor, while area cover get 4+. So, for any non-MEQ spinners are equal or better. For MEQ, they will take armor saves anyway, so AP4 still does not matter. Like I said, AP4 is largely useless in 5th ed. due to cover rules.

And with rending you´re still ignoring at least some of those 3+ armor saves that the prism wouldn´t even scratch...

Rending shot weapons are AP2 on a to-wound roll of 6. Not AP1, but still better than AP- versus vehicles if you can manage to turn up the 6s on your penetration rolls.

Still, it could be such a good counterbattery weapon if it were just str7 or 8 and AP6 or better. That's what the Eldar list needs--something that can fire back at psyfleman dreads, IG mobile artillery and vendettas. Not yet another str6 anti-horde weapon.

Unfortunarly the rend does not count as AP2 for armor penetration. Unless they changed something of course.

All those "what ifs" won´t help us eldar players sadly... But at least the nightspinner is something unique isn´t it?

I never leave home without a Night Spinner and would have 2 if GW didn't make you sever an arm to buy one. I could go on and on about it but I'll post that much

Great for slicing and dicing anything except non AV10-11 side vehicles.

Eh, Fire Prisms can TL to get a Str6 Ap3 Blast. Still It's lacking on Anti-Tank and if those firedragons ever get shot down and your kinda screwed over.

Besides I've been saying the whole time that Night Spinners are good against Gaunts and Orks anyway.

AchillesFTW wrote:Eh, Fire Prisms can TL to get a Str6 Ap3 Blast. Still It's lacking on Anti-Tank and if those firedragons ever get shot down and your kinda screwed over.

Besides I've been saying the whole time that Night Spinners are good against Gaunts and Orks anyway.

I feel like they are not only effective against hordes. I mean if I hit 5 terminators with the spinner, chances are I get a rending of and actually might take one down. In addition to that the opponent will think about moving that terminator squad, because chances are he will roll a one and loose another 40p model to the monofilament rule.

If you were playing a DoA Blood Angels army, you could hit 2 or maybe even 3 assault squads( lucky case I know). You might not kill that many with the atual blast(maybe 2 or 3) but your opponent will think about moving his marines, because he WILL loose more and with 20 - 30 guys moving, 5 or 6 are going down for sure.

After all its this psychological edge it gives you, that makes the nightpinner so attractive imho.

BTW would those jump pack guys have to test twice due to their jumppacks or are they only in diff/dang terrain at the start of their movement?

Hm. Pity that those who have some actuall game experience with/against Nightspinner posts less than our mighty theoreticians.

I am a marine player and one of our local eldars, who is also a decent player, fields one frequently along with 2 falcons and three wave serpents (+/- other toys depending on point level) in his pure mech.

Few things which I saw here posted which I think are really not true at all:

Psychological weapon -
If you get intimidated by Nightspinner and play accordingly to that, youre doing something wrong and Eldar player profits. There are things in Eldar list which you should take into consideration and deploy + play to counter them more effectively - Fire dragons, Warwalkers, Any Eldrad mini deathstar... Nightspinner is very mobile and his rules give him freedom to cover pretty much any spot on the table. He will hit you, you cant change that and if you will try to evade it instead of real damage dealers you are helping your oponnent. Also there is nothing to consider about movement, it is not for one turn - it lasts unil you actually move - so there is no much of a point for cc infantry to consider whether move or not.

NOT effective against mech
Ever played against static gunline? Or razor spam? Typical deployment usually looks like two lines of razorbacks, Leman russes each near other, dreadnoughts/speeders/rhinos/predators covering behind each other...Large blasts in these situations usually hits something from 2 - 4 vehicles and twin-linked actually helps more when you try it to be "less" acurate and scatter from the centre of vehicle to give better chance at covering 4 vehicles - this gives you about 50/50 chance to imobilise one vehicle (in most cases) which could potentionaly ruin next movement phase for hundred of points of other stuff - this is way more scary then some extra 5 dead orks. Even static tanks sitting near each other will need to move when you spread your grav tanks because they wont be able to pivot on the spot. Star engines can be real pain here.

Effective only against hordes
Casualties by point value are often pretty similiar when you hit spreaded tacticals squad, boyz or non SS terminators - one elite infantry with failed dangerous terrain test is worthy of several orks and even on squads form 5 - 10 one or two rending wounds usually shows up.

When playing against Nightspinner there are few things you should take into consideration to diminish its effects at minimum, so you could keep on ignoring it, which is IMHO best tactics:

Pivoting vehicles at one spot makes your vehicle count as moving, but is NOT described as moving in BRB at all, so it odes not trigger terrain test.

Embarking OR disembarking again makes yor infantry count like if they moved, but does NOT count as actuall moving. So if your disembarked squad gets hit by web, you can embark safely, ride somewhere, disembark and blast stuff and embark again - all without triggering dangerous terrain test - unless you get assaulted or tankshocked (what is exactly what should decent eldar do unless its melta squad ).

Invunerable saves can be taken against wounds from dangerous terrain tests - people seem to forget about this one sometimes.

Independent characters on bikes have skilled rider - so they can all reroll failed dangerous terrain tests.

Jolrael wrote:Hm. Pity that those who have some actuall game experience with/against Nightspinner posts less than our mighty theoreticians.

I am a marine player and one of our local eldars, who is also a decent player, fields one frequently along with 2 falcons and three wave serpents (+/- other toys depending on point level) in his pure mech.

Few things which I saw here posted which I think are really not true at all:

Psychological weapon -
If you get intimidated by Nightspinner and play accordingly to that, youre doing something wrong and Eldar player profits. There are things in Eldar list which you should take into consideration and deploy + play to counter them more effectively - Fire dragons, Warwalkers, Any Eldrad mini deathstar... Nightspinner is very mobile and his rules give him freedom to cover pretty much any spot on the table. He will hit you, you cant change that and if you will try to evade it instead of real damage dealers you are helping your oponnent. Also there is nothing to consider about movement, it is not for one turn - it lasts unil you actually move - so there is no much of a point for cc infantry to consider whether move or not.

I have to agree with everything other than the psychological point. It´s true, that there is not much point in trying to avoid the spinner, but who wouldn´t be stressed if his guys he wants to move are in dangerous terrain.

If you have to take your tests, and you loose something like a powerfist sergeant or your meltergunner, it´s going to piss you of and you WILL think about killing the nightspinner because you are afraid it might happen again.

Khe-Loc wrote:
I have to agree with everything other than the psychological point. It´s true, that there is not much point in trying to avoid the spinner, but who wouldn´t be stressed if his guys he wants to move are in dangerous terrain.

If you have to take your tests, and you loose something like a powerfist sergeant or your meltergunner, it´s going to piss you of and you WILL think about killing the nightspinner because you are afraid it might happen again.

Then this is one of those moments when powerful eldar witch entered mind war with you and you have failed your leadership test. This is a war soldier! And while I will be sending in the next wave to their deaths be a good sergeant and bring me cooled beer.

Jolrael wrote:

Khe-Loc wrote:
I have to agree with everything other than the psychological point. It´s true, that there is not much point in trying to avoid the spinner, but who wouldn´t be stressed if his guys he wants to move are in dangerous terrain.

If you have to take your tests, and you loose something like a powerfist sergeant or your meltergunner, it´s going to piss you of and you WILL think about killing the nightspinner because you are afraid it might happen again.

Then this is one of those moments when powerful eldar witch entered mind war with you and you have failed your leadership test. This is a war soldier! And while I will be sending in the next wave to their deaths be a good sergeant and bring me cooled beer.

Thats what Ursakar Creed said, before my seer counil chopped down his command squad last game^^

Jolrael wrote:
Thats what Ursakar Creed said, before my seer counil chopped down his command squad last game^^

Damn those pesky eldar scattering with psychic powers off-board on players again. But I wont be fooled by your trickery witch. It was your council which did resolute blow, not a nighspinner. Besides mighty Creed obviously lacked "Send in the next wave!" so he could "For the honour of the Cadia!" your council into the Slaaneshs palace of infinite eldar entertainment.

But hey, the proxied spinner didn´t do bad that game. I posted the results in this thread. Even a basilisk got torn apart by the webs^^ Anyway you still haven´t said weather you like spinner or prisms more... or in your case, which one you dislike to play against since you´re marines.

AchillesFTW wrote:Still AP- means very little. The Fire Prism sacrifices one point for STR for AP4 which imo is way better. Also the Fire Prism is BS4 whereas the Spinner is BS3. The Nightspinner isn't very versatile and it can ONLY take on gaunts and orks.

Respectfully, you are incorrect. Not on your first comment -- your opinion is always your own. On the other 2 points though, you are off base.

BS Difference
The BS difference between the prism and spinner is minimal -- as both use the scatter dice. Since the spinner is naturally twin-linked, its much more accurate. There is a 55% the spinner will get a 'HIT' value under 2 rolls of the dice. The spinner has 2 chances to roll low enough to stay on target, which gives a better chance of hitting than one dice with a BS of 4. If your target is a land raider, for example, the spinner has a ~85% of getting the center of the template on the raider, where the prism has a much lower chance.

Spinner Uses
The problem with an absolute statement like the one you made is they are easy to refute -- as any debater will tell you. Let me give you some other examples of what a spinner can 'take on'.
* Slowing down thunderwolf calvary
* Immobilizing a stormraven before it deploys its cargo
* Slowing down Shrike's infiltrating terminators
* Slowing down BA assault marines
* Slowing down/killing MM attack bikes
* Slowing down seer squads/ork nob squads
All of those uses can be very critical to stop an enemy from getting where they want to be.
As Jolrael mentioned, its not a tool to use against gunline armies -- but not all mech armies are gunline armies.

Summary
The value of a unit cannot always be defined as 'how much it kills' or 'if it gets it points back'. It should instead be measured on its overall effect to the game, and in this sense one spinner is great for the eldar game.

The Night spinner is probably more reliable than the Fire Prism overall. that's how I feel anyway because my prisms never manage to hit or damage anything. the TL on the nightspinner changes that.

And as labmouse said above, BS is irrelevant when using blast weapons.

Because I am afraid of neither.

It really comes to the point of how much terrain you do use and which terrain it is. We play most often on table with ruins from imperial sector, that means that brutalities like battle canon or earthstaker can be easily avoided by splitting infantry squads in 2 - 3 floors and therefore making even humble combat squads highly resistant to those "instasquadrape" large blasts. That means I have little fear for anti-infantry capabilities of Fire Prism, since I can handle their better equivalents fairly well.

And as far anti-tank goes, those 2 squads of fire dragons is what gives me creeps, not single blast from fire prism/s. On current damage table quantity often beats quality, so I have much more respect from 3 guided str 8 shots from falcon for wrecking my transports (altought that sucks too for the points).

My list contains Librarian riding with assault termies in LR covered by shooty dreads, speeders and predators with some troops hanging around and providing any support which they can.

So to sum things I dont like in eldar army up :

Outlflanking Warwalkers taking out my firesupport.

Runes of warding.

Fire dragons.

Holofields - since I rely more on kraks, lascanons and autocanons for anti-tank and obviously lack in melta department.


But if I have to choose between fire prism and nightspinner, then I say I am more afraid of a nightspinner, because if even one of my marines gets hit - all get the web (which isnt great, but its still much better than hitting 1-2 marines with prism in cover) usually along with rhino and something riding/flying behind it with cover. Because 1/6 chance of immobilising land raider suck along with small chance for sucsessfull rend (and yes I like to ride with rhinos / speeders behind the landraider) and also because my standart deployment consists of speeders gaining cover behind rhinos or dreadnoughts allowing easy multihits with web.

Main problem of a nighspinner is that it usually works something around 50/50 and althought its not that expensive point wise, meaning you can afford it without problems in larger point games, I think I could quote you while trying to say that eldar does not actually need something which works in 50% cases that much...

Jolrael wrote:Main problem of a nighspinner is that it usually works something around 50/50 and althought its not that expensive point wise, meaning you can afford it without problems in larger point games, I think I could quote you while trying to say that eldar does not actually need something which works in 50% cases that much...

Those two statements are why it finds a home in my 1750 and greater point lists. I don't give it a holo-field and keep it out of as much LOS as possible. For just over 100 points its cheap for what it does.

In tourneys like 'ard boys, not bringing one would be foolish IMHO.

labmouse42 wrote:

Jolrael wrote:Main problem of a nighspinner is that it usually works something around 50/50 and althought its not that expensive point wise, meaning you can afford it without problems in larger point games, I think I could quote you while trying to say that eldar does not actually need something which works in 50% cases that much...

Those two statements are why it finds a home in my 1750 and greater point lists. I don't give it a holo-field and keep it out of as much LOS as possible. For just over 100 points its cheap for what it does.

In tourneys like 'ard boys, not bringing one would be foolish IMHO.

Yes I must admit that even if it is only heavy support slot choice without holofield I still prefer to shoot at holo-falcons / serpents carrying dragons / eldrad + something, so its a nice cheap toy to play with.

Id still would not call it foolish to not take one...

I feel like a nightspinner would be a nice addiion to my warhost. So I decided to get one. Or two?

What do you guys think? One or two? Which is better?

I field 2 falcons and 1 spinner. I find that gives me the best bang for my buck.

* Edit, sorry I ment to say prisms. I did not get much sleep last night

labmouse42 wrote:I field 2 falcons and 1 spinner. I find that gives me the best bang for my buck.

Not a huge fan of falcons. They are very very expensive.

Master Melta wrote:The PDG has Large waaaaaay over on the left of the line with blast.

it's funky they way it's constructed but it's there.

Chiggity check it out.

In fact, the term 'Large' is found on the left - its just a formating error.

Khe-Loc wrote:I feel like a nightspinner would be a nice addiion to my warhost. So I decided to get one. Or two?

What do you guys think? One or two? Which is better?

I would take two and magnetise the weapons, that way you could always take them as 2 Fire Prisms if the situation suggests it or if you find out that one spinner is enough

Murenius wrote:

Khe-Loc wrote:I feel like a nightspinner would be a nice addiion to my warhost. So I decided to get one. Or two?

What do you guys think? One or two? Which is better?

I would take two and magnetise the weapons, that way you could always take them as 2 Fire Prisms if the situation suggests it or if you find out that one spinner is enough

Hmm... never done any magnetising, so that would be something new... Is it possible for someone withoout expirience like me to do that without ruining the model?

Khe-Loc wrote:Hmm... never done any magnetising, so that would be something new... Is it possible for someone withoout expirience like me to do that without ruining the model?

Definitely. For my fire prism I didn't even have to drill. Order some disc shaped magnets, you can order them for few money in the net. I used 6x1 mm for the fire prism. Then decide where to cut in two halves. I (super)glued the magnets to the parts and painted them in the same color as the surrounding plastic parts. You can't tell the difference if you don't look very closely and now I can turn from fire prism to night spinner in 2 seconds

Edit: if you need more instructions just PM me, I could try to take some photos.

Murenius wrote:

Khe-Loc wrote:Hmm... never done any magnetising, so that would be something new... Is it possible for someone withoout expirience like me to do that without ruining the model?

Definitely. For my fire prism I didn't even have to drill. Order some disc shaped magnets, you can order them for few money in the net. I used 6x1 mm for the fire prism. Then decide where to cut in two halves. I (super)glued the magnets to the parts and painted them in the same color as the surrounding plastic parts. You can't tell the difference if you don't look very closely and now I can turn from fire prism to night spinner in 2 seconds

Edit: if you need more instructions just PM me, I could try to take some photos.

Ok if I don´t even have to drill, I might actually be able to pull it of. I´ll try at least... If I die, don´t be sad... I died an honourable death, cutting my throat while magnetising a prism^^

Khe-Loc, PM sent about magnets.

Khe-Loc wrote:

AchillesFTW wrote:Eh, Fire Prisms can TL to get a Str6 Ap3 Blast. Still It's lacking on Anti-Tank and if those firedragons ever get shot down and your kinda screwed over.

Besides I've been saying the whole time that Night Spinners are good against Gaunts and Orks anyway.

I feel like they are not only effective against hordes. I mean if I hit 5 terminators with the spinner, chances are I get a rending of and actually might take one down. In addition to that the opponent will think about moving that terminator squad, because chances are he will roll a one and loose another 40p model to the monofilament rule.

If you were playing a DoA Blood Angels army, you could hit 2 or maybe even 3 assault squads( lucky case I know). You might not kill that many with the atual blast(maybe 2 or 3) but your opponent will think about moving his marines, because he WILL loose more and with 20 - 30 guys moving, 5 or 6 are going down for sure.

After all its this psychological edge it gives you, that makes the nightpinner so attractive imho.

BTW would those jump pack guys have to test twice due to their jumppacks or are they only in diff/dang terrain at the start of their movement?

It is a real edge, not a psychological one. A DoA list for example can not choose to remain still as that would lead to certain doom. Also with doa it is all about the priests. If the priests squad is hit the actual priest has a 1/6 chance of going pop. Leaving the priest in place is not an option because the fnp bubble needs to move with the troops.

Nightspinners murder mech, as long as that mech, as long as the mech is ig or de. Against ig a wrecked result will send 10 melta vets out 1 chimera acess hatch in a very clustered ball behind the chimera wreck. A night spinner can hit them all, wound on a 2+, and no cover save from the wreck. Against de s6=no fnp. Blasterborne have a nasty habit of jumping out of a venom after it moves, so targvet the venom, hit it withs6, and catch all the blasterborn while you are at it.

schadenfreude wrote: Against de s6=no fnp. Blasterborne have a nasty habit of jumping out of a venom after it moves, so targvet the venom, hit it withs6, and catch all the blasterborn while you are at it.

Thats right! I´ve not thought about the Instant death/fnp canceling advantage of s6 so far... noobish me

Khe-Loc wrote:

schadenfreude wrote: Against de s6=no fnp. Blasterborne have a nasty habit of jumping out of a venom after it moves, so targvet the venom, hit it withs6, and catch all the blasterborn while you are at it.

Thats right! I´ve not thought about the Instant death/fnp canceling advantage of s6 so far... noobish me

Also good against multi-wound IG. Most do not have eternal warrior, so S6=ID. Same goes for HWTs.

Going to point out 1 more thing.

If a fast vehicle is destroyed in it's own movement phase all passengers are removed from play. A fast skimmer that goes flat out is destroyed if it is immobolized by a difficult terrain test. Normally I view shooting a vehicle to get a 1/6 change of immobolizing it as poor target priority, but I make a definate exception for a fully loaded storm raven.

After making some rules mistakes and getting yelled at--which I freely admit were my fault--I was going to walk away from this thread and just say YMMV. But I can't believe that many posters whose posts I always respect are still going on about how wonderful the nightspinnner. is.

It's a str6 long-range shooting weapon in an army full of str6 long-range shooting weapons. The last thing Eldar need is another str6 shooting weapon, even if it is barrage.

Back before May 2009 and the release of the current IG codex, Str6 shooting could handle every common army that you saw in a tournament environment. But since then, we have chimeras, vendettas, hydras, storm ravens, and dual-AC dreads, all of which are exceedingly dangerous to Eldar skimmers. All of these vehicles have front and/or side armor 12, which is nearly immune to str6 shooting.

(Oh, but you say, the barrage hits the side armor. You know what else hits the side armor? A shuriken cannon or scatterlaser that has moved around to shoot at the side.)

You really need str 8-9 shooting to have any chance of suppressing AR 12 units at range. Nightspinners replace two of the best options for this type of shooting in a mechanized list--falcons and fire prisms. So you trade your few opportunities for high-strength shots in exchange for more str6.

The dangerous terrain test is a gimmick. It's easily countered by an opponent who actually understands the mathhammer behind rolling 1s and plays an affected unit smart. A "tactic" that depends on your opponent being clueless is not a tactic at all, because it never works against a veteran player who knows better.

A better way to kill 1 out of 6 of your opponent's models is to shoot them to death with your regular str6 weapons that you bought with the points you didn't spend on a nightspinner.

Flavius Infernus wrote:After making some rules mistakes and getting yelled at--which I freely admit were my fault--I was going to walk away from this thread and just say YMMV. But I can't believe that many posters whose posts I always respect are still going on about how wonderful the nightspinnner. is.

It's a str6 long-range shooting weapon in an army full of str6 long-range shooting weapons. The last thing Eldar need is another str6 shooting weapon, even if it is barrage.

Back before May 2009 and the release of the current IG codex, Str6 shooting could handle every common army that you saw in a tournament environment. But since then, we have chimeras, vendettas, hydras, storm ravens, and dual-AC dreads, all of which are exceedingly dangerous to Eldar skimmers. All of these vehicles have front and/or side armor 12, which is nearly immune to str6 shooting.

(Oh, but you say, the barrage hits the side armor. You know what else hits the side armor? A shuriken cannon or scatterlaser that has moved around to shoot at the side.)

You really need str 8-9 shooting to have any chance of suppressing AR 12 units at range. Nightspinners replace two of the best options for this type of shooting in a mechanized list--falcons and fire prisms. So you trade your few opportunities for high-strength shots in exchange for more str6.

The dangerous terrain test is a gimmick. It's easily countered by an opponent who actually understands the mathhammer behind rolling 1s and plays an affected unit smart. A "tactic" that depends on your opponent being clueless is not a tactic at all, because it never works against a veteran player who knows better.

A better way to kill 1 out of 6 of your opponent's models is to shoot them to death with your regular str6 weapons that you bought with the points you didn't spend on a nightspinner.

It´s ok if you don´t like it, but I feel like with fire dragons, eldar missile launchers on vypers/serpents you can have some decent anti tank anyway.

You are right tho, that another s6 shooty is not what the eldar needed. However I think it has some nice advantages over the other s6 stuff we already have.

And lastly, I don´t think, that you would want to field 3 spinners anyway so there would still be enough room for another 1-2 falcons/fire prisms.

Flavius Infernus wrote:But I can't believe that many posters whose posts I always respect are still going on about how wonderful the nightspinnner is.

The dangerous terrain test is a gimmick. It's easily countered by an opponent who actually understands the mathhammer behind rolling 1s and plays an affected unit smart. A "tactic" that depends on your opponent being clueless is not a tactic at all, because it never works against a veteran player who knows better.

A better way to kill 1 out of 6 of your opponent's models is to shoot them to death with your regular str6 weapons that you bought with the points you didn't spend on a nightspinner.

Aside from a few people, I believe most suggest 1 spinner to 2 prisms. If the spinner was the 'bomb-diggity' then people would suggest bringing 3. What you describe as a gimmick is still valueable in specific situations, and in an all-corners list, I think its a great tool to add to the Eldar toolbag.

Let me give you an example. Nob bikes. 1 spinner can slow down a squad of nob bikes from moving 12" to 24" a turn to moving just 1 model 2" (to maintain cohesion)
In the case of the nob bikes, they could still move the full 12", as bikes still move full speed through difficult terrrain, but they cannot turbo boost.
Sure, the ork player can move just one bike to minimize the number of wounds he has to take, but the goal has been accomplished. For a 115 point model, you are trying up a 500 point deathstar.

The goal of the spinner is not to kill the enemy, but hinder them.

Hmmm, you know what else can stop nob bikers from moving forward? Parking a grav tank in front of them.

Nob bikers have two wounds--and sometimes a cybork body--so moving forward is a lot more important to them than a tiny chance of taking a wound by rolling a 1. The nightspinner shot is only a hindrance if the ork player makes the wrong decision about how to play his unit.

Parking a grav tank in front of the unit is much a more effective hindrance because it works 100% of the time, and rather than depending on the ork player to make a mistake, it gives him the choice of two bad options: (1) lose movement by driving around the tank (if you can force him to drive through terrain, you get the effects of the nightspinner shot anyway) or (2) spend a turn moving hardly at all in order to assault and kill a grav tank.

This, I think, is my major issue overall with the nightspinner. Yes, barrage is fun and it's a cool model. But it doesn't do anything that an already-existing unit in the Eldar list already does at least as well or better.

Or, the Orks attack the tank and blow it up.

Parking a grav tank in front of Nob Bikers in no way approximates the effectiveness of denying them a turbo move. It's not even close. The Bikers can still move 24" around the tank and more importantly they get a 3+ cover save in doing so. Getting hit with a Nightspinner does 2 things. It doesn't waste a grav tank and more importantly it denies the 3+ cover save from turbo boosting the Nob bikers. Without that cover save, maybe some other elements of the Eldar list can take down more of the Bikers than they could otherwise.

Skinnereal wrote:Or, the Orks attack the tank and blow it up.

Right, which stops their forward movement for a turn, because they have to stay in place during the movement phase, then assault it during the assault phase, and they don't get any consolidation move afterward.

You've sacrificed one grav tank (maybe--or it might survive) to save everything behind it for an additional turn.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

DarthDiggler wrote:Parking a grav tank in front of Nob Bikers in no way approximates the effectiveness of denying them a turbo move. It's not even close. The Bikers can still move 24" around the tank and more importantly they get a 3+ cover save in doing so. Getting hit with a Nightspinner does 2 things. It doesn't waste a grav tank and more importantly it denies the 3+ cover save from turbo boosting the Nob bikers. Without that cover save, maybe some other elements of the Eldar list can take down more of the Bikers than they could otherwise.

Yeah, it's not exact, because a lot depends on terrain and the angle at which you park the tank, and whether or not you're willing to sacrifice a second tank (or maybe you have a squadron of vypers that could interdict them even more effectively) and whether or not there's a handy gap available between two pieces of terrain, which would force them to either turn back altogether or go through the terrain, thus not boosting and making those dangerous terrain tests anyway. So it's hard to quantify, but even on a moonscape table with no terrain at all, you're costing them probably 8 or 9 inches movement minimum, and possibly as much as 12" or 18" if you get favorable terrain or use vypers.

And you don't deny them the boosting save unless you can force them to go through terrain, agreed. But if you can reduce their forward movement by at least 12", then you're doing as good a job at interdicting total forward movement as you would be with the nightspinner shot.

But interdicting with skimmers *is* exact in that there's no chance that your interdicting skimmers will scatter off the target and not do the job you need them to do at the critical moment. And it is exact in that there's no chance that your opponent will decide to go for it, not roll any 1's on his dangerous terrain test, and get his full 12" move directly toward you--which is really what you should expect a competent ork player to do when hit by a nightspinner template.

(Do they get FNP on failed dangerous terrain tests?)

I wouldn't call it a "waste" of a grav tank. If the ork player decides to stand there for a turn and kill the tank, then I consider that a tactical error on his part. There's a small chance that he won't even kill it, and will have to spend another turn pounding it, and whether he kills it or not, his movement for the turn has been effectively reduced to 1" and he's got no boosting cover save during my turn--and a wreck or crater he'll have to drive around or through to continue his forward advance. That's much more effective interdiction than a nightpinner shot.

The tank that moves alone *toward* a fast assaulty unit like nob bikers or bike councils is actually the tank that has a greater chance of survival, because the smart opponent won't want to slow his advance to spend a turn dealing with it.

I can't believe that you are suggesting an effective way of slowing down Nob bikers is to park your tank in front of them LOLOLOL. A novel idea is to... just move away from them and shoot the piss outta them.

K to explain a bit further...

The nightspinner:
- Does not rely on another tank to become accurate (nor eat another tank's shot or Farseer's Guide)
- Does not require LoS
- Wounds marines on a 2+ with it's large blast
- Ignores armor on a Rend
- Ignores FNP on a Rend
- Can be combined with Doom to have a whole pile of chances to rend
- Has a 1/6 chance to make the enemy kill themselves except an invuln save
- Slows down a lot of enemies/makes them think twice
- Can place it's special effect on multiple units with a single shot.

The Night Spinner can essentially be tucked behind whatever huge cover it can find and threaten the entire damn board with as much death as the s5 ap4 large blast of a prism, without the downside of losing the shot of another prism/use guide to become accurate. If it is Armor 12, 13, 14 then use your ML, BL, or FD to knock it out. If it is armor 10, 11 (most stuff) then use your scatter lasers to knock it out.

Do I advocate replacing all your Prisms with Nightspinners? No. Nightspinners special rule becomes redundant once that golden target has been hit by one already.
Would I be running two if I had 2? Most likely, but GW's prices can kiss may arse.

BlueDagger wrote:I can't believe that you are suggesting an effective way of slowing down Nob bikers is to park your tank in front of them LOLOLOL. A novel idea is to... just move away from them and shoot the piss outta them.

You never interdicted movement with a skimmer, BlueDagger? You realize that you can only move 12" away if you want to shoot, and bikers can chase you 18" to assault. Sooner or later you run out of table--which is how orks or whatever eventually catch you unless you interdict them.

BlueDagger wrote:

The nightspinner:
- Does not rely on another tank to become accurate (nor eat another tank's shot or Farseer's Guide)
- Does not require LoS
- Wounds marines on a 2+ with it's large blast
- Ignores armor on a Rend
- Ignores FNP on a Rend
- Can be combined with Doom to have a whole pile of chances to rend
- Has a 1/6 chance to make the enemy kill themselves except an invuln save
- Slows down a lot of enemies/makes them think twice
- Can place it's special effect on multiple units with a single shot.

-Hmm, you know what else doesn't depend on another tank to become accurate? A wave serpent turret, or warwalker/vyper with twice the shots (not more accurate, but the same number of hits).
-What else doesn't require line of sight? A grav tank that has moved far enough in the movement phase that it can see its target (barrage weapons are for static armies).
-What else wounds marines on a 2+? Every single str6 weapon in the Eldar arsenal.
-What else ignores armor on a rend? Well nothing really as far as ranged weapons, but unlike the nightspinner, other str6 guns do ignore 5+ or 6+ armor (or 2+) with every single wound, and not just the rends.
-What else ignores FNP? Uh, fire dragons--and on every single wound, not just the one or two where you manage to roll a 6. Unless you're talking about T3 or less (i.e. Dark Eldar), in which case every other str6 weapon in the Eldar arsenal ignores FNP on every wound, not just rending ones.
-What else can be combined with doom to increase the odds of ignoring armor/FNP? Every single weapon in the Eldar arsenal that otherwise bypasses armor and/or FNP
-Hmmm, what else kills 1 in 6 enemies? Anything that shoots them dead.
-What else slows down enemies? Movement interdiction with your many skimmers.
-What else can place its effect on multiple units? Multiple guns.

BlueDagger wrote:
The Night Spinner can essentially be tucked behind whatever huge cover it can find and threaten the entire damn board with as much death as the s5 ap4 large blast of a prism, without the downside of losing the shot of another prism/use guide to become accurate. If it is Armor 12, 13, 14 then use your ML, BL, or FD to knock it out. If it is armor 10, 11 (most stuff) then use your scatter lasers to knock it out.

So I should tuck my nightspinner behind cover, and then shoot at AR 10, 11, 12, 13, and 14 vehicles with other stuff? Why did I bring a nightspinner then?

I don't use prisms either because personally I find that they are too inaccurate--so we agree on that. But if you're saying that a nightspinner is just for hitting infantry, then massed scatterlasers are a better all-around weapon, because they don't depend on the vagaries of that template managing to cover enough models to make it worthwhile.

Two scatterlaser warwalkers will score 8 hits, on average, on an infantry unit for only 5 points more. How many times do you even get 8 models under the large template? And--as we already agree--scatterlasers are also useful against AR10-11, unlike the nightspinner.

(I'm not taking myself at all that seriously here, you should know--except about interdicting with skimmers, which I actually do all the time. I mean, if people want to use nightspinners, it's fine by me. It's just I'm so surprised that so many posters seem to think nightspinners have these indispensable, unique capabilities when I have somehow been able to do fine without one by using other stuff already in the Eldar army list. It seems bizarre to me.)

Flavius Infernus wrote:

BlueDagger wrote:I can't believe that you are suggesting an effective way of slowing down Nob bikers is to park your tank in front of them LOLOLOL. A novel idea is to... just move away from them and shoot the piss outta them.

You never interdicted movement with a skimmer, BlueDagger? You realize that you can only move 12" away if you want to shoot, and bikers can chase you 18" to assault. Sooner or later you run out of table--which is how orks or whatever eventually catch you unless you interdict them.

BlueDagger wrote:

The nightspinner:
- Does not rely on another tank to become accurate (nor eat another tank's shot or Farseer's Guide)
- Does not require LoS
- Wounds marines on a 2+ with it's large blast
- Ignores armor on a Rend
- Ignores FNP on a Rend
- Can be combined with Doom to have a whole pile of chances to rend
- Has a 1/6 chance to make the enemy kill themselves except an invuln save
- Slows down a lot of enemies/makes them think twice
- Can place it's special effect on multiple units with a single shot.

-Hmm, you know what else doesn't depend on another tank to become accurate? A wave serpent turret, or warwalker/vyper with twice the shots (not more accurate, but the same number of hits).
-What else doesn't require line of sight? A grav tank that has moved far enough in the movement phase that it can see its target (barrage weapons are for static armies).
-What else wounds marines on a 2+? Every single str6 weapon in the Eldar arsenal.
-What else ignores armor on a rend? Well nothing really as far as ranged weapons, but unlike the nightspinner, other str6 guns do ignore 5+ or 6+ armor (or 2+) with every single wound, and not just the rends.
-What else ignores FNP? Uh, fire dragons--and on every single wound, not just the one or two where you manage to roll a 6. Unless you're talking about T3 or less (i.e. Dark Eldar), in which case every other str6 weapon in the Eldar arsenal ignores FNP on every wound, not just rending ones.
-What else can be combined with doom to increase the odds of ignoring armor/FNP? Every single weapon in the Eldar arsenal that otherwise bypasses armor and/or FNP
-Hmmm, what else kills 1 in 6 enemies? Anything that shoots them dead.
-What else slows down enemies? Movement interdiction with your many skimmers.
-What else can place its effect on multiple units? Multiple guns.

BlueDagger wrote:
The Night Spinner can essentially be tucked behind whatever huge cover it can find and threaten the entire damn board with as much death as the s5 ap4 large blast of a prism, without the downside of losing the shot of another prism/use guide to become accurate. If it is Armor 12, 13, 14 then use your ML, BL, or FD to knock it out. If it is armor 10, 11 (most stuff) then use your scatter lasers to knock it out.

So I should tuck my nightspinner behind cover, and then shoot at AR 10, 11, 12, 13, and 14 vehicles with other stuff? Why did I bring a nightspinner then?

I don't use prisms either because personally I find that they are too inaccurate--so we agree on that. But if you're saying that a nightspinner is just for hitting infantry, then massed scatterlasers are a better all-around weapon, because they don't depend on the vagaries of that template managing to cover enough models to make it worthwhile.

Two scatterlaser warwalkers will score 8 hits, on average, on an infantry unit for only 5 points more. How many times do you even get 8 models under the large template? And--as we already agree--scatterlasers are also useful against AR10-11, unlike the nightspinner.

(I'm not taking myself at all that seriously here, you should know--except about interdicting with skimmers, which I actually do all the time. I mean, if people want to use nightspinners, it's fine by me. It's just I'm so surprised that so many posters seem to think nightspinners have these indispensable, unique capabilities when I have somehow been able to do fine without one by using other stuff already in the Eldar army list. It seems bizarre to me.)

I have to agree with the fact, that massed scatter lasers are better vs mass infantry than the nightspinner is. However for getting the critical mass of scatter lasers, war walkers are required. In my jetbike like army, there is just no place for them. They will get left behind and isolated. For the same reason I don´t take rangers/pathfinders in my army even though I like the models and their rules.

The Nightspinner however will fit into my army´s scheme and will also fulfill a different role than just killing infantry. It will not only help me exploit my speed trough slowing my opponents infantry down, but also help dealing with deathstars and parking lots. It will maybe deny my opponent a charge or two trough difficult terrain, and it will even be able o contest an objective at the end of the game.

In addition to that we have the enormous LULZ factor when someone like Calgar, Logan Grimnar, Draigo or any other big HQ dies due to dangerous terrain.

I use war walkers with my mech army and they don't have any trouble keeping up because they can outflank. That puts them in the side arcs of parking lots, gives me the first shot, and often forces my opponent to slow his advance by sending something to deal with them (people love to assault war walkers for some reason).

I still think you're overestimating nightspinners' ability to slow enemy movement, but maybe I'm wrong.

And I understand that you want to try out nightspinners, so please go ahead and see what you think.

K so at this point you are taking about complete army makeup not just the Night Spinner.

Warwalkers IMO are laughable, since a light breeze will wreck them and they are too slow to keep up nowadays. Wraithlords were a fun option, but sadly codex creep has trumped them. Artillery and Dark Reapers are out of the picture, so now that leaves the Fire Prism, Falcon, and Night Spinner left as the sole choices for competitive mech eldar.

Falcons suffer from their price tag and 6" move so they are for specialty builds with eldrad.

Fire Prisms fill either an anti-horde or anti-vehicle role, but they do not do well with anti-FNP unless they use their small beam. Yes, I understand DE lose it to a Str6 if it a T3 model, but that isn't what we are talking about since they never give us trouble with all our S6. No I'm talking about power armored/terminator armored blood angel, DA, and Grey Knights. DE we have enough advantages over that they aren't a huge threat as much as the T4 FNP that is given out like candy as of late to things with deep armor saves and typically an invul save. S5 Ap4 or Even S6 AP3 won't do much to them since with cover and FNP they laugh off your wounds. As anti vehicle they are pricey without a Eldrad double Guide to allow for TL Lascannon blasts

Thus why the Nightspinner was described above. I commonly run 5-6 Wave Serpents with at least 4 with Scatter Lasers, it's not enough for anti-SM. Suggesting Fire Dragons for Anti-FNP makes me facepalm. I'm not sure if you are trolling at this point or just have no clue about Eldar, but suggesting to people that might be reading this that placing your 120pt+ Wave Serpent as a Road block to Massed S8 powerfists as a viable option... yeah. Here is an Idea: don't bunch up and just turbo boost away. You move 24", they move 18" if they are lucky and have clear ground and didn't get nightspinnered (you can't turbo boost through difficult terrain). Next turn your wave serpent and it's contents are still alive.

BlueDagger wrote:Warwalkers IMO are laughable, since a light breeze will wreck them and they are too slow to keep up nowadays. Wraithlords were a fun option, but sadly codex creep has trumped them. Artillery and Dark Reapers are out of the picture, so now that leaves the Fire Prism, Falcon, and Night Spinner left as the sole choices for competitive mech eldar.

While normally I agree with you BlueDagger, this is one area where I'm dont.

War walkers are not laughable, they are just a fire-and-forget weapon.
Due to squadron rules, AV 10, and open-topped, they die to any reasonable long range fire. Sure, 2 years ago when everyone was bringing Vulcan lists, these guys could stand 30" back and get a few shots in, but now with Las/Plas becoming popular, long fangs, and other long range support -- the fragility of walkers is really brought to light.

So with walkers your paying points for 1...maybe 2 rounds of shooting. Your targets are light side armor, including chimeras, and (maybe rhinos). So your paying 45 points for 8 shots at BS 4. On AV 10, that's a decent chance of destroying the vehicle, for a low entry cost. Against AV 11 or greater there is a big point of diminishing returns.

Given the cost and how easy they are to destory, I could see someone using 3 of them to fill their heavy support slots and just use them for vehicle poping. You give up 3 VP by doing so, but in the 2/3 objective missions they can be a nice little trick.

The main drawback with that tactic is that you lose 2 more AV12 skimmers in your army (as 3 walkers costs ~1 prism, meaning you can buy 1 more serpent)

Warwalkers aren't open topped, or they would be total garbage lol.

Heavy slots are our hardest hitters, so picking an option that will survive 1-2 rounds to shoot in a 5-6 round battle? If you outflank they are dead, period and if you keep them on your side you have to hope there is good enough cover for them, or park a serpent in the way that could be angling better.

In my eye is really comes down to:
- 3 AV 10 walkers that can move 6"+D6 (gamble with reserves and die the round after)

or

- 1 AV 12 Fast Skimmer Tank that can move 24" that has Holofields to shrug off incoming damage

Which of these can kill as well as do last minute object contesting, ramming, and tank shocking?

Personally I´m not a fan of war walkers.

To me, they seem like they die after they hit the table. You most likely will have one (maybe two) turns of shooting with them. Imo I like vypers better, because they can keep up with the army and can collect a cover save very easily.
However thats offtopic. We´re supposed to be discussing the nightspinner here.

Maybe Flavius Infernus is right and I´m overestimating the slowing capability of the spinner, but I still feel like that thats one of it´s main advantages.

Having played it so many times it's slowing capability should be viewed inconjunction with it's ability to inflict dangerous terrain tests. Some times you slow stuff way down, sometimes not at all.

It's main point is reaching out and touching that clump of guys on the other side of the board behind a wall that mass majority of your army doesn't have LoS to.

BlueDagger wrote:Having played it so many times it's slowing capability should be viewed inconjunction with it's ability to inflict dangerous terrain tests. Some times you slow stuff way down, sometimes not at all.

It's main point is reaching out and touching that clump of guys on the other side of the board behind a wall that mass majority of your army doesn't have LoS to.

Yeah. I think that will be rather good, since it´s the only thing in the eldar codex capable of that.

Maybe BlueDagger's view of the nightspinner is due to different experience using war walkers.

A squadron of 2 dual-SL warwalkers at 120 points is optimal (three is overkil and overpricedl). They can deploy wide and scout for side shots, or outflank depending on what the rest of the army is doing. Effective range 42" means they pretty much always have a target even in a fast mech army, and can cover nearly 2/3 of the table when outflanking. So that's what I use instead of a nightspinner for "reaching out and touching that clump of guys."

The other advantage of having a squadron of 2 is that you put one in cover, and they both get cover saves (with 3, you'd have to get 2 in cover). I'm not sure how it is with the new plastic models, but my old metal warwalkers easily get more than 50% cover by standing behind a grav tank, and their weapons can still draw LoS over/around the tank's hull.

Then you use hit allocation to keep at least one walker firing, and they're much more survivable than it looks like they'd be on paper. I'm glancing over my notes on my last dozen or so tournament matches, and I see only one battle where one or both war walker squadrons (sometimes I use two) didn't survive the entire game. They routinely get many more than the 2-3 volleys you guys are supposing. Usually they have no problem surviving shooting--they can outrange a lot of the stuff people take that's dangerous to AR10 squadrons, like assault cannons and psycannons--and tend to die mainly when I deliberately sacrifice them to pull or bog an assault unit, or in a game that I'm already losing anyway.

But then I also use falcons (without any specialized farseer build) and I also actually use skimmers to interdict movement. Depending on what's charging it, a skimmer that moved over 6" will nearly always survive a charge from things that need 6's to pen, and even do pretty well against, for example, 5 thunderhammer terminators, as long as they're not vulcan terminators.

And of course the surest way to contribute to their survival is to put the skimmer in a place where the opponent won't assault it because it would slow down the unit. Then you get the interdiction benefit *and* the skimmer is fine. But even if it doesn't survive, the sacrifice is worth it in terms of winning the game--or else I wouldn't have sacrificed the skimmer in the first place.

But I'm the only regular mech Eldar player in my area--was the only Eldar player at all at the last GT I went to--so I guess what I thought was an obvious and widespread tactic is actually not that common.

At least not for Eldar, I guess. It's a bread-and-butter tactic for Tau.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

BlueDagger wrote:
Suggesting Fire Dragons for Anti-FNP makes me facepalm. I'm not sure if you are trolling at this point or just have no clue about Eldar, but suggesting to people that might be reading this that placing your 120pt+ Wave Serpent as a Road block to Massed S8 powerfists as a viable option... yeah.

Again, it's a Tau tactic adapted for Eldar:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/User:Flavius%20Infernus

I tabled a whole BA DoA assault army in a tournament a couple of months ago using fire dragons to bypass their FNP. This is also the way I prefer to deal with nob bikers, when I have to kill them. You isolate the unit you want to kill by interdicting their follow-up units with some of your skimmers, then you toast your target unit with a fish of fury. Rinse, and repeat.

BlueDagger wrote:
Here is an Idea: don't bunch up and just turbo boost away. You move 24", they move 18" if they are lucky and have clear ground and didn't get nightspinnered (you can't turbo boost through difficult terrain). Next turn your wave serpent and it's contents are still alive.

Uhhh, sometimes in 5th edition you need to be able to hold a position on the table, even if you're Eldar. Or sometimes, like with the DoA army above, you're already backed up against your table edge and flat-outing past the guys near you will just put you in the middle of a forest of melta that can jump into your rear arc.

You have skimmers, they move fast, they block movement. Why not use that?

Flavius Infernus wrote:Maybe BlueDagger's view of the nightspinner is due to different experience using war walkers.

A squadron of 2 dual-SL warwalkers at 120 points is optimal (three is overkil and overpricedl). They can deploy wide and scout for side shots, or outflank depending on what the rest of the army is doing. Effective range 42" means they pretty much always have a target even in a fast mech army, and can cover nearly 2/3 of the table when outflanking. So that's what I use instead of a nightspinner for "reaching out and touching that clump of guys."

The other advantage of having a squadron of 2 is that you put one in cover, and they both get cover saves (with 3, you'd have to get 2 in cover). I'm not sure how it is with the new plastic models, but my old metal warwalkers easily get more than 50% cover by standing behind a grav tank, and their weapons can still draw LoS over/around the tank's hull.

Then you use hit allocation to keep at least one walker firing, and they're much more survivable than it looks like they'd be on paper. I'm glancing over my notes on my last dozen or so tournament matches, and I see only one battle where one or both war walker squadrons (sometimes I use two) didn't survive the entire game. They routinely get many more than the 2-3 volleys you guys are supposing. Usually they have no problem surviving shooting--they can outrange a lot of the stuff people take that's dangerous to AR10 squadrons, like assault cannons and psycannons--and tend to die mainly when I deliberately sacrifice them to pull or bog an assault unit, or in a game that I'm already losing anyway.

But then I also use falcons (without any specialized farseer build) and I also actually use skimmers to interdict movement. Depending on what's charging it, a skimmer that moved over 6" will nearly always survive a charge from things that need 6's to pen, and even do pretty well against, for example, 5 thunderhammer terminators, as long as they're not vulcan terminators.

And of course the surest way to contribute to their survival is to put the skimmer in a place where the opponent won't assault it because it would slow down the unit. Then you get the interdiction benefit *and* the skimmer is fine. But even if it doesn't survive, the sacrifice is worth it in terms of winning the game--or else I wouldn't have sacrificed the skimmer in the first place.

But I'm the only regular mech Eldar player in my area--was the only Eldar player at all at the last GT I went to--so I guess what I thought was an obvious and widespread tactic is actually not that common.

At least not for Eldar, I guess. It's a bread-and-butter tactic for Tau.

Personally I haven´t had any good experiences with war walkers. But I don´t even like their models...

I think they could be good, if used correctly, and since so many other eldar players love them, I suppose the can´t be as bad as I think they are.

The tactic of putting skimmers into the way of deathstars is something I´ve never heard of, and also something I´d never do.

Let´s get that nob biker example back up, shall we?

Say you moved your serpent 12" into their way. The Ork player would just charge your tank, and dispite only hitting you on 6`s he would probably get at least 3-4 powerfist hits since nobs have a whole bunch of atacks. On the charge with the claw nobs are s9 so they are auto glancing and penetrating your rear on a 2+. and 4 rolls on the damage table usually means a dead vehicle...

I just don´t see how that would be viable.

Yes, a unit of nob bikers would almost certainly kill a grav tank, regardless of how fast or slow it moved. Even a tank with a holofield wouldn't have very good odds. Unless something unusual happens, it's a suicide run.

But stop thinking about losing units (or killing enemy units) and think about winning games instead. If all games were won or lost by tallying up the number of enemy units killed versus the units that you lost, then sacrificing a unit for no kill gain would be a bad move.

However, most games are won not by killing enemy units, but rather by maneuver. Especially tournament games, which tend to have scenarios that minimize the importance of kill points, the game is won in the movement phase, not the shooting phase.

Think about a pure objective game for a second. If you can hold or lure your opponent's units out of position such that you hold one objective (and contest all others) at the end of the last turn, you win. You can burn every single unit in your entire army except that one troop unit and the 1-4 contesting units, and still win.

With both my mech Eldar and mech marine armies, it's not unusual for my entire army to be gutted and crippled at the end of the round, and maybe my opponent hasn't lost anything at all, but I'm the one standing on the objectives, so I win. A couple of months ago I placed first in a tournament with 3 undefeated rounds with my mech marines, and in one of the rounds I scored 1KP, and in another round I scored 0 KPs. (In the Annihilation round I think I scored about 5 and lost 3).

Example off the top of my head: at the most recent Boston Brawl the vet player who eventually won, Ben (sorry, Ben, can't remember your last name) defeated huge ork army that outnumbered and outgunned him by a huge margin. He saw that he was never going to be able to beat the ork army by engaging them, so he used his mobility to hide his units behind terrain for most of the game, then in the last turn made a rush for the objectives and won. The ork army was essentially intact at the end of the game, and Ben had lost a lot of units, but the game wasn't about killing units, it was about maneuvering.

So, many times, it's worth sacrificing a grav tank to hold up a nob biker unit.

But as I have already said twice, a good ork player knows you're trying to interdict him and knows that if he sticks around for a turn to kill that tank, he's lost the game. So he'll usually just drive around and leave it alone (so you've slowed him down with 100% success *and* not lost your tank). If the ork player is clueless enough to actually stick around and attack the tank, then he's made a mistake that you should be able to capitalize on to win the match.

I'm kinda confused here are we talking about sacrificing a take the last turn of the game or round 2-3? Sacing your tanks last turn of the game is a common practice so of course you'd put your (empty) serpent in the way of any bikers that are still alive and going for a last minute rush. From your post though it sounds like you were talking about sacrificing one in like round 2-3 where the orks are turbo boosting a key objective or something.

If anyone is a mecheldar player and they don't know to objective rush the last turn of the game, they need to reanalyze their list. Yet another perk of the nightspinner, its always away from danger and trying to avoid any LoS leading to it's survival and use on objective rushes.

Yep, I'm talking about sacrificing a tank in turn 2 (or your first or second turn on the table if you started in reserve) --preferably empty, unless you're doing a fish of fury with fire dragons.

And then, if necessary, sacrificing another tank and another tank, as many as necessary until the ork player realizes that killing these tanks, fun though it is, is costing him the game.


I haven't played chess since 8th grade, but even I understand the concept of sacrificing units for a positional advantage.

Yeah, I would not advise this tactic. Feeding someone Wave Serpents to assault to "slow them down" is not a smart tactic. It may be effective for you, but there is a whole hell of a lot better/more effective ways to play.

BlueDagger wrote:Yeah, I would not advise this tactic. Feeding someone Wave Serpents to assault to "slow them down" is not a smart tactic. It may be effective for you, but there is a whole hell of a lot better/more effective ways to play.

Such as?

Let's try the chess puzzle on this nob biker vs. nightspinner topic.

Say you're playing a capture & control with your regular 1750-1850 army (so about 4-6 wave serpents, a couple of small bike units, a nightspinner and a couple of prisms, and an HQ right?). You got a wave serpent with troops in it on your home objective. Your opponent deploys his nob bikers at the leading edge of his deployment zone, about 30-36" away (it can't be more than 36" on a 4' wide table). He's got a big mob of 30 boyz on his objective, a second big mob, and a bunch of kannons or lootas. He has first turn, you fail to seize, he turbos toward your objective and also runs his second boyz unit behind them.

How will you win that game? Is the nightspinner indispensable in your victory?

Assume for the purposes of this puzzle that the ork player is competent and therefore has good spacing on his units--so more than 5" between the boyz and the bikes--and that he will not slow to avoid dangerous terrain tests as a result of being hit by a nightspinner blast. He'll just take the casualties.

Anybody following this thread, feel free to respond to the puzzle. I know what I would do, but I'm interested to hear what other players would do.

Flavius Infernus wrote:

BlueDagger wrote:Yeah, I would not advise this tactic. Feeding someone Wave Serpents to assault to "slow them down" is not a smart tactic. It may be effective for you, but there is a whole hell of a lot better/more effective ways to play.

Such as?

Let's try the chess puzzle on this nob biker vs. nightspinner topic.

Say you're playing a capture & control with your regular 1750-1850 army (so about 4-6 wave serpents, a couple of small bike units, a nightspinner and a couple of prisms, and an HQ right?). You got a wave serpent with troops in it on your home objective. Your opponent deploys his nob bikers at the leading edge of his deployment zone, about 30-36" away (it can't be more than 36" on a 4' wide table). He's got a big mob of 30 boyz on his objective, a second big mob, and a bunch of kannons or lootas. He has first turn, you fail to seize, he turbos toward your objective and also runs his second boyz unit behind them.

How will you win that game? Is the nightspinner indispensable in your victory?

Assume for the purposes of this puzzle that the ork player is competent and therefore has good spacing on his units and will not slow to avoid difficult terrain tests as a result of being hit by a nightspinner blast.

K he is going first, has nobs lined up directly across from my objective (in the furthest back corner), 30 boyz on his objective, Loots in the middle of the table.

#1. Why the hell would you try to seize? You WANT 2nd
#2. If you see nobs pointed at your home objective like a heat seeking missile at the minimum distance... you don't deploy on your home objective You will no be able to kill them off before they go ahold of you. You let them ride their pretty heads onto it as you pound them from a distance. Then you trot over ther an land you wave serpent on the dead bodies.

From a deployment standpoint in this situation if there is no hiding from the lootas you either A) go all reserves if there is too many packs of them, or B put your least need unit out as bait and pray for the best, but you try to out range/LoS at least 2 of the packs.

To take down the pack of boyz/nobz I personally would hit them with my dragons squads, but that is because I run a TL Heavy flamer Exarch which makes short work of them, as well as the melta shots. That combined with the rest of the arsenal would probably end them in one round of shooting depending on how clustered up they are.

In the typical scenario of units you listed out, you try to tag both units with the nightspinner blast if possible, if not you hit the nobz with as many being covered as possible and poof, no turboboosting next round and a few wounds. If you started on the board you fortune a dragon serpent, and guide both prisms. Run the Fire Serpent right at the lootas and hope your Fortune + Full out holds. Proceed to drop your S5 ap4 TL Large blasts from the prisms on the Lootas. Scatter lasers take priority lootas as well as EML from serpent. You rbikes should be in reserve.

I feel like nob bikers are a unit that is supposed to kill stuff... So if I feed them a grav tank, they get to do what they want to do anyway, which is kill stuff.

But I´ve never actually played in a tournament, so maybe in a tournament nob bikers don´t want to kill anything but just boost arround the entire game.^^

Also I feel like eldar with their 4th edition points costs don´t get enough units on the table to start with... so why sacrefice one???

If I want to stop thoose nob bikers, I will shoot them and when they are widdeled down a little ( insert night spiiner here ), I will charge them with my seer council to take them out.

Good call starting in reserve. I actually forgot to mention you can go back in time and start in reserve if you want to.

So part of your army enters turn 2, with the nob bikers already on your objective--having boosted last turn for a 3+ cover, and the forward boyz (having run twice) an average of 30" into the table from their own edge.

Also I agree that the priority target for str6 shooting is lootas or kannons (I'm seeing kannons more often recently, and small units of lootas). They may score a tank or two, but won't last long against TL scatterlasers and prism blasts.

Good call not shooting the nightspinner at the boyz. That's what the ork player wants, because it won't really slow him down or cause significant casualties.

But I don't agree with the math on your fire dragons. We're talking a competent ork player here who knows how to spread out with big-base models, so 2-3 models under the template, tops. You wound on 4s with a reroll, but they still get FNP, and even if a wound gets through it's only 1 wound, which won't remove a model. So if we're generous and say the exarch scores 2 wounds that get past FNP, he kills no models. Four (?) fusion guns from dragons, say 3 hits/wounds (rounding) they get cover saves. The ork player puts one fusion gun wound on his T5 warboss, so that if he fails his cover save he just takes a wound, and the other two wounds average one dead model (slightly less if they're taking the 3+ save).

So two fire dragon squads like this kill about two, maybe three models, and score a couple of stray wounds. Unless they have cybork bodies, which work against the flamer in addition to FNP, losing probably only 1-2 models, or less if they're taking 3+ cover.

Then next turn, the remaining nobs and warboss* eat the fire dragons and the serpent(s) they rode in on.

*The nob biker units I most commonly see have 5-6 nobs in addition to the warboss.

I´d still say that a seer council could deal with the nob bikers, while the rest of the army would concentrate on the rest of the opponents army.

First shoot them a little, put your destructor templates onto them and then charge...

Khe-Loc wrote:I´d still say that a seer council could deal with the nob bikers, while the rest of the army would concentrate on the rest of the opponents army.

Maybe an ork player can back me up here, but I think nob bikers can grind away a bike council in a couple of turns. The bikes would bog the nobs, but nob bikes would take minimal casualties (they take more wounds than usual, but still get their 4+ save *and* FNP against your blades/spears, and they're only single wounds, so he won't lose models for several phases). Our theoretical competent ork player would shuffle all his str6+ claws in base contact with the farseer if possible and try to insta-gib him. One failed rerolled save for the farseer, fortune is gone, and warlocks with only 4+ saves would go down pretty quick after that.

I think it would be better to send your bike council against the advancing mob of boyz. Throw down some destructors and wade in, make sure the PK nob is in base with a warlock so he can't allocate on the farseer, and grind through their crappy saves until they all die or break. It's not a sure thing, but if those boyz get on your objective, you're not getting them off before the game ends--especially if they have cover.

K now you are talking about around 600 point unit if you are talking 5-6 nobs with bikes, pks, and cyborg bodies with a biker boss. At that point he has 1250 points for everything else in his army leading to a "eggs in one basket" syndrone. Just avoid it and shoot it at range, after you have killed his objective campers.

Yep, a 600+ point deathstar unit. I've seen one like it in both my two most recent tournaments (in different cities run by different ork players, and both players did well in the rankings).

Orks are cheap. 1250 will easily buy you two maxed units of boys (less than 500 points) and 3 units of 5 lootas (225 points) or three batteries of three kannons (180 points). You'd even have points left over for another smaller mob of boyz or some kommandoes or something.

I think the nob biker unit is tough enough that you can shoot your entire army's long-range guns at it for an entire game and not kill them all--not to mention that all those lootas or kannons are shooting at you the whole time unless you deal with them. You have to get past the FNP and wound allocation to kill them.

As long as they're on your objective, you can't do better than a draw even if you can clear the other objective. You can't ignore them if you want to win the game.

This is what I meant about how there are some things you can't fly away from. Sometimes you need to clear or hold a position to win a game.

Hint? If only there were some way to get *two* turns of shooting out of my fire dragons...

k, I can see having that much of an issue with Thundercav deathstar (because we have NO effective answer to that), but really nobbiker deathstart is not that scary. You have a Nightspinner giving them dangerous terrain tests and preventing their turboboosting while you whittle away their backfield. They can't be everywhere.

Also, why in the world would you worry about Kannons? You shoot a scatter laser into them and they become a pack of gretchin.

They don't need to be everywhere--they only need to be on your home objective (which they can reach by turn 3 at the latest, even without turboboosting). If you're entering from reserve, they won't need to turboboost to camp your objective, they'll already be there. They don't even need to move at that point, not that dangerous terrain tests are a threat to units with FNP and 2 wounds per model (and skilled rider on the warboss).

Of course Eldar have an answer to Wolfstar armies. It involves, oh let's see, interdicting their movement with skimmers to render them nearly useless?

If the bikers are already there they aren't moving, so no turbo boost save, making them more vulnerable.

Dangerous terrain tests negate FNP and since the nob play has no control over who takes the wound it negate wound magic.

Skilled Rider is lost by the Warbiker when he joins the squad, just move through cover on foot ICs.

Wolfstar has a maximum assault range of 6"+ D6"+ 12" and with 40mm bases can easily stretch out half way across the board with 2W T5 (not t4/5) and storm shields and thunder hammers.

At this point we'll have to agree to disagree though, since I'm apparently getting nowhere with explanations.

Man, my nurgle opponents have been cheating me by taking FNP on dangerous terrain :(

But ICs keep skilled rider when they join a unit. They lose move through cover, but that doesn't apply to a biker.

A Wolfstar unit with a grav tank parked in front of it has a maximum assault range of 1"--unless they want to walk around. I really don't see the sense of insisting that Eldar have no counter to something because the counter involves sacrificing grav tanks. Who cares how many grav tanks you lose as long as you win the game?

Flavius Infernus wrote:

Khe-Loc wrote:I´d still say that a seer council could deal with the nob bikers, while the rest of the army would concentrate on the rest of the opponents army.

Maybe an ork player can back me up here, but I think nob bikers can grind away a bike council in a couple of turns. The bikes would bog the nobs, but nob bikes would take minimal casualties (they take more wounds than usual, but still get their 4+ save *and* FNP against your blades/spears, and they're only single wounds, so he won't lose models for several phases). Our theoretical competent ork player would shuffle all his str6+ claws in base contact with the farseer if possible and try to insta-gib him. One failed rerolled save for the farseer, fortune is gone, and warlocks with only 4+ saves would go down pretty quick after that.

I think it would be better to send your bike council against the advancing mob of boyz. Throw down some destructors and wade in, make sure the PK nob is in base with a warlock so he can't allocate on the farseer, and grind through their crappy saves until they all die or break. It's not a sure thing, but if those boyz get on your objective, you're not getting them off before the game ends--especially if they have cover.

Last game I played against nob bikers, I shot them 3 wounds from range, closed up my council, destructord the hell out of them, which wounded two more and killed one. Then I charged, and killed like 2 with the council, autarch inlicted some more wounds and killed one.

I was lucky with my saves, and the farseer lived, one warlock went down, and a wound on the autarch was inflicted.

The next turn, I proceeded wounding the warboss twice, and took out the last biker...

So imo it's doable. Sure, I had the charge, and got quite lucky with my saves, but yeah...

Dont know if this has already been mentioned, but if you doom a unit with a high save then you get to reroll to wound, even if it doe wound in order to get a rending 6.
This will get you an one in three chance to ignore the as

Flavius Infernus wrote:

Master Melta wrote:Night spinners use the large blast...

http://www.games-workshop.com/MEDIA_CustomProductCatalog/m1640390a_NightSpinner_Rules.pdf

Actually the pdf linked here says "blast," which means small blast. If it were the large blast it would need to say "large blast." Unless I'm missing something?

When the nightspinner rules first came out, I saw opponents play a couple of them and saw how it was the small blast. I was pretty unimpressed. Then, as now, I was thinking this would be worth it if it were the large blast. But one small str6 blast from a tank that costs as much as a fire prism just isn't worth it IMO, in spite of the mostly ineffective movement effect.

If you read it again i think you'll find a "Large" before the word blast. albeit a coule of space bar pushes away from it.

MrMerlin wrote:Dont know if this has already been mentioned, but if you doom a unit with a high save then you get to reroll to wound, even if it doe wound in order to get a rending 6.
This will get you an one in three chance to ignore the as

Really? The sucsessfull ones too? Never heard of this before, but might actuallly be worth it against things like terminators and so on...

Khe-Loc wrote:

MrMerlin wrote:Dont know if this has already been mentioned, but if you doom a unit with a high save then you get to reroll to wound, even if it doe wound in order to get a rending 6.
This will get you an one in three chance to ignore the as

Really? The sucsessfull ones too? Never heard of this before, but might actuallly be worth it against things like terminators and so on...

sure you get to reroll to wound in every case, even if your own template scatters onto your models, you get to reroll the succesive ones

MrMerlin wrote:

Khe-Loc wrote:

MrMerlin wrote:Dont know if this has already been mentioned, but if you doom a unit with a high save then you get to reroll to wound, even if it doe wound in order to get a rending 6.
This will get you an one in three chance to ignore the as

Really? The sucsessfull ones too? Never heard of this before, but might actuallly be worth it against things like terminators and so on...

sure you get to reroll to wound in every case, even if your own template scatters onto your models, you get to reroll the succesive ones

Nope, thats not possible, sine I don´t doom my own squad, nor the nightspinner, I doom the opponents squad!

Khe-Loc wrote:

MrMerlin wrote:

Khe-Loc wrote:

MrMerlin wrote:Dont know if this has already been mentioned, but if you doom a unit with a high save then you get to reroll to wound, even if it doe wound in order to get a rending 6.
This will get you an one in three chance to ignore the as

Really? The sucsessfull ones too? Never heard of this before, but might actuallly be worth it against things like terminators and so on...

sure you get to reroll to wound in every case, even if your own template scatters onto your models, you get to reroll the succesive ones

Nope, thats not possible, sine I don´t doom my own squad, nor the nightspinner, I doom the opponents squad!

No, I mean as the opponent you get to reroll wouds caused by your own templates that catter on a doomed unit

Sorry, didn't phrase that properly

MrMerlin wrote:

Khe-Loc wrote:

MrMerlin wrote:

Khe-Loc wrote:

MrMerlin wrote:Dont know if this has already been mentioned, but if you doom a unit with a high save then you get to reroll to wound, even if it doe wound in order to get a rending 6.
This will get you an one in three chance to ignore the as

Really? The sucsessfull ones too? Never heard of this before, but might actuallly be worth it against things like terminators and so on...

sure you get to reroll to wound in every case, even if your own template scatters onto your models, you get to reroll the succesive ones

Nope, thats not possible, sine I don´t doom my own squad, nor the nightspinner, I doom the opponents squad!

No, I mean as the opponent you get to reroll wouds caused by your own templates that catter on a doomed unit

Sorry, didn't phrase that properly

Never mind, I got it now =)