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The roars of  regarding the eldar Falcons has got me wondering.

The differences between the Falcon and Fire Prism:

Falcon:
BS3
1 48" str 8 ap2 heavy2  pulse laser (lance) weapon
1 optional sidearm of your choice *coughscatterlasercough*
transports up to 6 models

Fire Prism:
BS4
1 60" str9 ap2 heavy1 blast Focused Prism
or
1 60" str5 ap4 heavy1 large blast Dispersed Prism
(both functions may be enhanced by other prisms)
No transport capacity

All other options and stats both vehicles share.

Is the falcon really the better of the two options in regards to all comers lists?

To me, the flexibility of the Fire Prism seems to be superior, even when lacking transport capacity. Perhaps I dont place as much stock into the transport capacity as others seem to do, but then again, I find harlequins and fire dragons overrated.

Any thoughts?

I like my Fire Prisms, but this is the gist of it: 3 Falcons mean 6 very hard to kill scoring units can go all over the place. And overrated or not, throw 6 Fire Dragons or Harlies at a single enemy target, and that target is going to suffer. And while the 6 man (cheap) squad will likely die in the aftermath, the expensive (scoring unit) Falcon gets away more often than not.

Right-O. It's the delivery capability of the Falcon that makes it so devestating, although the firepower it can deal out on turns the Falcon isn't shaken is a nice bonus too.

Yes, its like Digiorno and Domino's had an amazingly beautiful baby... You get the quality and the delivery :-p
One really fun thing to do is give the Falcon a "barebones" kit (i.e. scat laser or shuricannon and TL catapults) and add a HoloField. Its really fun b/c it is a fairly cheap annoyance unit of which your opponent will say "Hey, Look! A Falcon! It must cost a lot and be really tough so lets try to throw a lot of shots at it first!". This will more times than not save all of your other units from being shot at too much. You can do the same thing with a Fire Prism w/ Holofield but its kinda risky since its much more expensive. But if its a FP then it gets that new-fangled crystal cannon that we eldar are so good at using... :-)


(BTW i prefer the falcon tactic... If your opponent leaves it alone make sure they don't cry when it uses its pulse laser to go tank hunting! :-D )

Simple.. if you've got a squad of 6 troops you want to deposit then the falcon rocks.. If you are playing without the need to drop troops then fire prism is where it's at.

Exscuse me but the Pulse Laser isn't a Lance weapon, instead it got two shots, which considering the bs of 3 is kind of useful. . .

I personally like to use star-cannons, I know it costs a little more but considering the odds of running into MEQ or Terminator lists it kind of makes sense.

I don't think I am going to be able to tolerate any eldar lists without Starcannons, I just had a 750 tourney last week and had one of my worst showings, pretty much because of a lack of firepower to take out marines.

As a wiseman said after the tourney, 2 shuriken cannons do not make a star cannon. (2 wave serpents with 2 shuriken cannons each, and 1 in a squad of GJB, Wave Serpents were designed cheaply with spirit stones, and shuriken cannons with 10 DA inside) Tourney had 3 Eldar lists, 1 Black Templar, 2 Dark Angels, 1 Iron Warriors, 1 Tau.

Remember its relatively easy to shake an Eldar grav tank, its 'only' armour 12 and all its add ons wont prevent it from being shaken.

People have stopped trying to kill Eldar grav tanks around here, just shake it and move on. With a laden Falcon its still very[i/] dangerous a Fire Prism is now a paperweight.

Furthermore, the most likely actual damage you will cause on a Falcon is a weapon destroyed result. Its less crippling for a Falcon. Fire Prisms are nasty but Falcons are nastier.

Fire prisms have a 60" range, so they can hug the board edges and still be effective. Falcons need to get close to deliver their cargo, and thus are much easier to shoot at.

Fire prisms also have the problem that once they suffere a weapon destroyed they are next to uselsess (just under 1 in 4 glancing hits does this)
The falcon still has 2 more weapons and the guys inside to deal with oponents.

I took two Falcons in my list, but I haven't finished painting it yet, so I haven't played it.

My logic is that Falcons are much more flexible, even though that's not the conclusion you reached. My thinking here is that you can put anything you want inside them, and you can't get much more flexible than that. Fire Dragons will kill pretty much any tank you drop them on. Banshees or Scorpions will assault. Etc. They're also non-dedicated transports, which is much more flexible than dedicated.

I also think the Falcons are more flexible in terms of firepower. The Fire Prism has an edge against heavy armor, while the Falcon will do better against skimmers and light armor squadrons (Kans, etc). With any one loadout it's a tie, perhaps the Fire Prism is even better... But with the Falcon you can swap out a weapon. Give it a Bright Lance, and it's going to be much more dangerous to heavy armor (not sure on the numbers, but I'd think at least comparable to a Prism). Give it a Starcannon and it will take out MEqs well (and not give up too much in the way of light vehicle killing).

Bottom line, I think you need a reason to take Prisms, but you never need a reason to take Falcons.

Both are good choices. The falcon always has more shots (depending on set up) and the prism has template. As for statistics the falcon wins do to more dice rolls compared to one quality dice roll.

I must also jump on the falcon band wagon. My most common load out is the puls laser, star cannon, and shuriken cannon. It provides me with plenty of ap 2 shooting power (plus a little bonus from the cannon) as well as lots of light vehicle killing power. In these days of objective taking priority, its great to be able to pile a squad inside and then zoom up to an objective in order to have 2 scoring units there.

The prism generally is a better heavy vehicle killer (the falcon can?t fire both the puls laser and a bright lance if it moves over 6?) than the falcon. In most cases, its ability to kill medium and light infantry is about on par with the falcon. The prism?s ability to kill heavy infantry is significantly less than that of the falcon (4 ap 2 shots from the falcon at bs 3 is much better than 1 ap 2 small blast template fired at bs 4 from the prism).

It really comes down to the transport capability. As has been mentioned, both tanks often spend an inordinate amount of the game shaken and thus will not be shooting. The transport capability means that, even shaken, a loaded falcon can still deliver the pain and really can't be ignored whether it be delivering fire dragons within range of a land raider or dropping harlequins off close enough to charge.