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This question has come to me recently. I haven't been seeing any Seer Councils around the club and haven't had much discussion about them recently. For a time, Seer Councils were the fear of the 40k universe, in my humble opinion. Is this still so? Do you still fear them? or have you never feared the Council at all? Why?

I'd love to hear some input!

The Seer Council on Jetbikes is still a thing to be feared. It's highly mobile and incredibly difficult to kill.

It's two big drawbacks are that 1) It's very very expensive (both in terms of the point costs and the $ costs) and 2) It isn't as killy as you'd like and can be stopped by getting stuck in CC with Termies.

I agree with Grakmar, Seer councils aren't as good as they once were but they are still a thing to be feared, on bike or foot.

They still aren't the kind of enemy you can ignore unless you have some impressive psychic protection; as such they are still a priority target and a fearsome one if used properly/not countered.

You don't see them as much anymore because of the above reasons, plus the most recent SM and SW codices.

SM is the main thing- assault terminators are great, and Seer Councils, while deadly, still get tied up against 2+ saves for a while. The ubiquity of cheap & useful Librarians is another big factor; when your whole army hinges on successfully casting Fortune every turn, it sucks to have near-half the armies you see packing Ld10 psychic hoods. The other major problem is Null Zone- if it goes off, suddenly those impregnable jetseers are merely mortal again.

SW add to it a little by having even more-ubiquitous psykers, who cancel powers on a 4+ (slightly better odds than a hood).

For most serious tournament players, it's just too big a chance of getting screwed by a bad matchup.

No.

Power blobs > jetbike council. Even when they have crappy luck and don't kill them straight away, you've just tarpitted a very expensive unit for basically the entire game.

Seer councils cut through guardsmen like a hot knife through butter.

Only if you're lucky.

Wound allocation rules also cost seers their important warlocks sometimes, another detriment.

They're good, but to expensive in 5th to build armies around.

It's the second-to-last thing I want to see on an enemy Eldar list (the first being a trio of Fire Prisms and more than one Wave Serpent), but I can deal with it.

Ailaros wrote:Only if you're lucky. Power blobs beat seer councils when dice roll statistically average.

Warlocks shoot with 18 shots (assume no Destructor awesomeness), hitting with 16, killing 10.7
Farseer shoots with 2 shots, hitting with 1.94, killing 1.29
Farseer gets 2 attacks (1 for base, 1 for charge, he probably has a Singing Spear): 2 attacks, 1.33 hits, 1.11 wound, 0.74 dead
9 Warlocks, 24 attacks (assume 3 have spears): 24 attack, 16 hits, 13.33 wounds, 8.89 dead
Total of 21.59 dead IG

IG return attacks: 1/2 hit, 1/2 wound, 1/3 failed save, 1/3 failed re-save, 0.027 inflicted wounds per guard attack.
Say you have a max squad of 50+Commissar. ~29 survive the incoming attacks (and all Sergeants and a Commissar), so 23 attacks from Guardsmen, 15 attacks from Sergeants, 3 from Commissar is a total of 41 attacks.
You'll kill a total of 1.14 warlocks.

During IG's combat phase will be much better on the blob squad. 5.56 dead Guardsmen (leaving 24), 1 dead Warlocks (leaving 7+Farseer)

2nd Eldar CC: 4.81 dead IG (leaving 19), 0.86 dead Warlocks (leaving 6+Farseer)

2nd IG CC: 4.07 dead IG (leaving 15), 0.75 dead Warlocks (leaving 5+Farseer)

3rd Eldar CC: 3.7 dead IG (leaving 11), 0.63 dead Warlocks (leaving 5+Farseer, the decimals added up to not killing one)

3rd IG CC: 3.7 dead IG (leaving 8), 0.55 dead Warlocks (leaving 4+Farseer)

4th Eldar CC: 2.96 dead IG (leaving 5, assume 4 Sergeants and Commissar), 0.41 dead Warlocks (leaving 4+Farseer)

4th IG CC: 2.96 dead IG (leaving Sergeant+Commissar), 0.16 dead Warlocks (leaving 3+Farseer)

5th Eldar CC: 2.22 dead IG (leaving nothing).

Eldar Win!!!

Obviously, there's been some simplifications. The Sergeants and Commissar didn't get any power weapon upgrades. Everything was assumed to kill the weakest models first (although I did kill quite a few Witchblade Warlocks). And the guard were assumed to pass all 8 moral checks.

But, even so, the huge blob squad was only able to kill 6 Warlocks.

Couple of things which tweak this:

First, they'll have cover saves when you shoot them. Either through actual cover or at least going to ground. So that cuts the shooting casualties by half or at least 1/6th.

Second, all the sgts and the commissar will have power weapons. No one runs a big blob squad like that without them.

Third, most players who run this use Straken, which means they'll normally be getting a charge bonus when you charge them.

The obvious problem with that exchange there is that that blob costs 285 points, whereas the warlocks sucks up more than 550.

Numerically speaking, the Eldar player has just been thoroughly clobbered.

Mannahnin wrote:Couple of things which tweak this:

First, they'll have cover saves when you shoot them. Either through actual cover or at least going to ground. So that cuts the shooting casualties by half or at least 1/6th.

Second, all the sgts and the commissar will have power weapons. No one runs a big blob squad like that without them.

Third, most players who run this use Straken, which means they'll normally be getting a charge bonus when you charge them.

1) I assume this is somewhat balanced out by me pretending the Warlocks didn't have any Destructor. Each template can hit and kill quite a few IG (maybe hit 6, kill 4 as a rough guess), and most Seer Councils run around 3 of those. So, that alone is going to get a dozen or so guard.

2) Yeah, the power weapon is a big deal. It's a 4++ re-roll invul rather than a 3+ re-roll armor, so you'll kill stuff about twice as often.

3) Damn! I forgot Straken.

This is getting to be a really complicated combat. Any statisticians in the audience that want to really break this down, including wound allocation?

But, bottom line, I'd say if you take everything into account, the Seer Council is going to win or it's going to be a close call. I don't think things are going to shift that significantly to give the Guard a definitive win.

Although, this combat will last long enough (as long as the Commissar is around) that both squads are effectively done for the remainder of the game. They just become a huge pile of slowly shrinking impassible terrain.

But the warlocks always bring a few Destructor templates. Some even bring a lot of Destructors. Since it's basically impossible to charge the Jetseers with a foot squad unless they intentionally let you, odds are basically guaranteed some of those Destructors land on target.

If the Destructors can't land on target due to spread out blob, there's no way in Hades that you're going to get many attacks after Pile In! moves. Short story is that Eldar win, slowly, 2 or 3 turns after they charge.

Jetseers fear IG, but not because of power blobs. It's because if IG go first, before Eldar can Fortune, that 600 point Jetseer squad is going to die to massed everything fire.

Right. In perfect circumstances against a crappy list, against a poor commander, and outspending the power blob by nearly 2:1, a jetbike council CAN, in fact, beat a power blob.

back to reality...

Nulipuli2 wrote:Seer councils cut through guardsmen like a hot knife through butter.

Not particularly. There aren't enough attacks there to wipe out a power blob even with a full size council. The unit will get bogged down for a couple turns and take losses fighting a unit cheaper than itself. Against a more conventional IG player he actually wants you to wipe out the squad so he can hose you down with lasfire in his own turn.

I'm not afraid mostly because of reasons I listed above

They are not really killy - I'll throw in some thunderwolves or whatever I have with a 3+ save at them and it will slow them down for awhile. This is if I don't have a rune priest btw.

Psyker defense, usually I have a rune priest around. If I don't, a lot of my HQ units get a wargear that gives them and their unit they are in a 5+ save to negated psyker effects targeting them. Are runepriests/wolftooth necklaces reliable? Kind of, not really, but the fact is I have some sort of psyker defense and it has a decent chance of negating seer council powers.

Ailaros wrote:Right. In perfect circumstances against a crappy list, against a poor commander, and outspending the power blob by nearly 2:1, a jetbike council CAN, in fact, beat a power blob.

back to reality...

Yeah?

Show me your 'non-perfect-circumstances uber Rommel commander' deployment where your power blob protects itself from templates while also getting a bunch of attacks.

I find it funny when people worry about how many of a power blob's models get into combat. You're going to lead with your PW Sergeants and Commissars. Therefore, even if half of your squad is out, a little less than 2/3rd of your attacks are still in, including all the power weapons. The teeth, as it were, are still there. All that's missing is ablative wounds that can still be removed when casualties are taken.

So yes, the power of the blob will be reduced if not everyone can get into combat, but not near as much as people tend to imply.


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And yes, I'm still afraid of Seer Council. I play mech guard, and I have zero answers for them. Heck, if anyone has suggestions, I'm open for it. (sans GH Psychic Hood, I don't want allies as a crutch)

sourclams wrote:Show me your 'non-perfect-circumstances uber Rommel commander' deployment where your power blob protects itself from templates while also getting a bunch of attacks.

Done.

In the above, the power blob ultimately lost, but it lost to twice its points in eldar while the eldar player's luck was extremely good (40 power weapon attacks (12 of which rerolled to hit) along with 10 power fist attacks, and he fails TWO invul saves?), and STILL managed to tar-pit the seer squad until it was too late to be useful.

If this is what power blobs to to a jetbike council when they have BAD luck...

Blobs don't need to charge, frfsrf would work just fine against eldar. They don't even need the close range tripple tap, the 24" double tap is plenty. A seer council list just is not going to outgun ig, so ig can sit still with blobs and make seer council come to them. That means they will have to eat at least 1 turn of frfsrf double taps, and very possibly from multiple platoons. Since it only takes 4 shots to wound a seer/6 shots on a bike the prospect of eating 72 shots from 2 platoons +heavy/special weps isn't good for seer council.

Ailaros wrote:

sourclams wrote:Show me your 'non-perfect-circumstances uber Rommel commander' deployment where your power blob protects itself from templates while also getting a bunch of attacks.

Done.

In the above, the power blob ultimately lost, but it lost to twice its points in eldar while the eldar player's luck was extremely good (40 power weapon attacks (12 of which rerolled to hit) along with 10 power fist attacks, and he fails TWO invul saves?), and STILL managed to tar-pit the seer squad until it was too late to be useful.

If this is what power blobs to to a jetbike council when they have BAD luck...

You're right in that blobs are much cheaper than JetCouncils and can effectively tarpit them for the entire game.

But, your opponent made 2 critical mistakes.

1) That Seer Council needs to be optimized. It should have a few more Warlocks and it needs Enhance.

2) The only reason you got the charge (which is quite the game changer) is because he gave it to you in exchange for the 3 Hydras. He should have gotten that Blob squad into the assault as well. Throwing 14 S9 attacks against 3 AV10 targets is a tad overkill. And, that way he could take advantage of shooting and soften that blob squad up quite a bit.


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schadenfreude wrote:Blobs don't need to charge, frfsrf would work just fine against eldar. They don't even need the close range tripple tap, the 24" double tap is plenty. A seer council list just is not going to outgun ig, so ig can sit still with blobs and make seer council come to them. That means they will have to eat at least 1 turn of frfsrf double taps, and very possibly from multiple platoons. Since it only takes 4 shots to wound a seer/6 shots on a bike the prospect of eating 72 shots from 2 platoons +heavy/special weps isn't good for seer council.

You're underestimating how many shots it takes to kill a seer council member.

72 shots, 36 hits, 12 wounds, 4 failed saves, 1.33 failed re-roll save.

Heavy/Special weapons aren't going to do much either, especially if they're AP4 or higher.

Seer Councils are amazingly survivable. They just aren't all that killy.

i don't fear Seer Councils because i play Space Marines, have Psychic Hoods, and Null Zone.

if i played a different army in a competitive field i would certaintly fear them more.

Grakmar wrote:2) The only reason you got the charge (which is quite the game changer) is because he gave it to you in exchange for the 3 Hydras.

Well, this is sort of my point. Avoiding the absolutely worst case scenario possible isn't actually that hard. In this case, I used a sacrificial unit. If my opponent would have done something else, I would have done something else to counter.

If the only way that the seer council wins is in the absolutely most perfect set of circumstances imaginable, well, that doesn't say much for the seer council.

As you mention, the only real cool thing is that they're super-survivable. Their killing power against hordes leaves a lot to be desired.

Sorry their aren't many eldar players where I play (mostly meq) and I don't have an eldar codex.

Could somebody tell me what's in a good seer council with their special rules please?

You could always, I don't know...Mind war the commissar. All things told though, when you combine shooting and close combat attacks from the council, I would think that by the time it got to swing, the platoon wouldn't have much left at the end of the first round of combat. As for the power weapons up front, nothing says that the council needs to hit a dispersed platoon from the "front". It's fast enough to move where the stuff that will kill it isn't, and as previously stated it is still inflicting it's full wounds on the platoon.

Cjc1223 wrote:Sorry their aren't many eldar players where I play (mostly meq) and I don't have an eldar codex.

Could somebody tell me what's in a good seer council with their special rules please?

5++ cover
4++ invo
3+ armor if on jetbikes

Farseer gives rerolls to armor/cover/invos with ba sucessful psychic test.

On that note ig should just pbs the seer council. Will probably take 2 pbs to get a single test past runes of warding, but once it goes off a farseer will have problems getting fortune off with a severly reduced leadership. Seer council dies quickly when fortune fails to go off.

No dice on the PBS, my friend. The Ld is only lowered for the remainder of the turn. Since they're casting powers in their turn, it won't be in effect.

I was thinking they would work since the group isn't fearless, but you have to actually be able to a) deal enough wounds to cause morale and then b) get past the runes. On 3d6 you have to roll less than a 9. It can happen, but by the time it does, how many psykers are you going to have left? Again, it's possible, but I'd have to rework my whole list to make points and elite slots available for two squads. Quite a hassle for one unit when success still isn't likely.

Ailaros wrote:As you mention, the only real cool thing is that they're super-survivable. Their killing power against hordes leaves a lot to be desired.

I'm with you on this one. Despite their excellent damage potential and nigh-invulnerability to massed fire, they're still not as scary as they used to be. Even if they do get that assault, being bogged by enemy troops is worse than death for a power-HQ like the jetcouncil.

Cool story bro