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What do you think?

I been playing 2 Falcon 1 Fire Prism lately because my boy friend told me falcons were better and less likely to be destroyed or suffer a single weapon destroyed and having more elites troops to drop off and double the threats was better. However I am finding that I miss the combine beams AP 3 large template of the dual fire prisms playing against Marines or their equivalents quite often. I used to play with 1 Falcon and 2 Fire Prisms.

This is really a case of what fits better into your style of play. If the rest of your army includes 6 man squads that need help getting to where they will be useful (fire dragons, harlequins, or the like) then 2 falcons would be the way to go. If you don’t have squads like that and you are lacking in long range offence, then fire prisms are the way to go. Both are very good choices that serve different purposes in the eldar army and neither one is intrinsically a superior choice over the other. What we need to figure out is which would be best for your army and without more information on what you are playing, that can’t be done.

So throw up a brief list of the things you tend to use in your army (and your general battle plan) and I’ll see if I can’t direct you towards the option that best fits your army and play style.

I think I like 2 fire prisms better with a large portion of opponents being marines the linked ap3 blast is a nice thing to have.

although it is a good point that fire prisms get their big gun kocked out on a weapon destroyed roll while a falcon has a few weapons.

my current list is here
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/208140.page#249491

I personally am not a fan of Prisms, but if you like them then they definitely have a better chance in pairs.

Your boyfriend is half right that Falcons are better than Prisms. The primary problem with the Prism is that they can only shoot. While a Falcon can put up a similar amount of firepower, transport a squad, and usually be in excellent positions to threaten 36" tank shocks. So its never a dead unit. (figurativ..ok actually) Falcons also enable the other powerful unit type for Eldar, elites. Without Falcons your forced to buy up expensive Wave Serpents to move your Aspects around.

On top of that, we can further assume that a Prism will only get to fire 3 times in the standard 6 turn game. (it gets shaken and runs into cover for a turn) Even worse, BS4 means that it will miss 1 of those 3 times. So you should assume that a single Prism will only get 2 hits during an entire game. But a pair of prisms is a slightly different story. The obvious thing about a pair is that it gives the Eldar increased versatility. A large AP3 template in a MEQ dominated world is nothing to sneeze at. Its also Eldar's best shot at cracking a Monolith. But for me, the big selling point is the twin-linked. It pushes you back up to 3 shot, 3 hit range. Something it desperately needs to do if it wants to compete with a Falcon for a heavy slot.

If you want to run triple grav tank, your probably best with either three Falcons, or two Prisms, one Falcon.

Ok, after a look at your army, its all extreamly mobile. The only things you have in it that can't move 12 every turn are the fire dragons and the harlequins. The fire dragons must have a trasnport to be useful, end of story. The harlequins can live without one against non mech / drop pod enemies. However, with your super mobile setup of nearly all jetbikes, they are going to get left in the dust without a transport. This wouldn't be a bad thing if you had back field units for them to defend (which is how I make use of them usually) but you don't. So with that, I would recommend that you take the additional falcon to provide them with a way to keep up with the rest of your army. You can't have them lagging behind.

Prisms should always be taken in pairs to give you the option of linking the beams if you feel the need.

Thank you for the replies.

Current list I added the Harlequins as I added the Falcon. I'll put up my old list with the 2 fire prisms as well for a comparison.

I really like mobility. I feel that movement and ability to strike when and where you want is a big part of the game.

Having the template of the fire prism is really sweet against orcs and nid swarms too.

The single Prism also functions well to draw fire away from the Falcons- so keeping that single Prism is a good idea, rather than switching it out for anything else (more bikes, for instance). It's good horde insurance too, as you mention.

Looking at your "old list" it looks decent as well. My only critisim is that your HQ squad is huge and I'm not sure that it's really worth it. Sure it's tough as nails, but it just seems excessive. Regardless, the focus here is on falcons vs fire prisms. In the "old list", where the transport capabilities of a second falcon are not being used, it's more of a personal preference issue. The fire prism drops pie plates and allows you to do the "Voltron Shot" with your original prism. The falcon allows for more multi shot fire power and is less prone to being a tank shock boat if it gets a weapon destoryed. The falcon also costs more. So, in the end, if you are using the "old list" I don't see a need to alter it to fit in a falcon in place of a prism. In the "new list", the falcon is the better choice to ensure both the quins and the fire dragons get where they need to be.

One thing you may want to consider however is having both (sort of). If you want to have the best of both worlds, you can attempt to trim out ~100 points from your "new list" and give your fire dragons a wave serpent. This would allow you to take 2 fire prisms and a falcon in your heavy support slots while still giving all your troops a transport to be in. Just a thought.

I also secind the fact that it mostly has to do whith what your overall list looks like and what roles you need your HS choices to do.

Prisms got a serious bump in the new dex because nobody was taking them. the falcon on the otherhand is notorious for surviving and for getting stuff there(mostly fire dragons). while the wave serpent can carry more, fire less and lacks the holo field, it is still very survivable as an eldar transport unit for less points.

The downside of the falcon of course is if your focused on the "transport" role. it becomes less of a gun platform(something often suffered by land raiders used as transports) and it has BS 3

I would be remis if i didn't toss in a little monkey wrench-
our group uses forge world variant units in our games, as such the eldar "firestorm pattern" AA variant of the falcon is probably hands down the best falcon shooting platform the eldar have. it can still carry troops like a normal falcon but replaces its 2 main guns with 1 strength 6(good for infantry and light vehicle killing) extremely long ranged twin linked gun with 7 shots.

Two Falcons are almost an auto win button. It would depend on your build. I think I would take two prisms or none because even if one is stunned you can pop out and still combine on one shot. The other problem with a prism is it only takes one armament destroyed and it just becomes an objective grabber.

I don't think you can combine if you can't shoot, doesn't the prism give up it's shooting to do so?

I use 2 falcons + 1 prism myself.

The prism deals with termies and with hordes of troops, both difficult to deal with.

hmm well I just use 2 falcons and 2 wave serpents(soon itll be 5 serpents *crosses fingers*)

I find the fire prism to only be useful in certain situations whereas falcons/wave serpents are a little more all around especially if you make weapons changable

another thing was if marines are your problem try out the dark reapers all those ap 3 shot wreak havoc on the marines

Well the way I look at it coming from Fantasy is Fire Prisms are like mobile artillery they hang back and shoot nasty templates. You tend to have pairs of warmachines.

I am impressed by the effectiveness of falcon harlequins though.

I'm not to sure about the Wave Serpent idea. I have a hard enough time hiding my army given sparse terrain another vulnerable tank if I do not get first turn sounds like a liability. Sounds like it might be worth a try as then I can have mounted fire dragons and harlequins and have 2 fire prisms. What cuts to make to fit it though? I'm thinking the difference in costs of the Falcon and the Fire Prism and droping the Jetbike Warlock in the Guardian squad would net 93 points. not quite enough though.

I think you have to be not stunned or shaken to combine beams. I tend to hang back with my fire prisms to keep them shooting though.

Well yeah it is a liability but if they live through first turn it is awesome to watch them drop off their cargo and wreak havoc (my eldar have no battleline they raid anything that can destroy the tanks)

Avariel wrote:I'm not to sure about the Wave Serpent idea. I have a hard enough time hiding my army given sparse terrain another vulnerable tank if I do not get first turn sounds like a liability. Sounds like it might be worth a try as then I can have mounted fire dragons and harlequins and have 2 fire prisms. What cuts to make to fit it though? I'm thinking the difference in costs of the Falcon and the Fire Prism and droping the Jetbike Warlock in the Guardian squad would net 93 points. not quite enough though.

I would sugest dropping the fire dragons exarch (just leave that guy as a regular dragon). The addition of the flamer and the minimal hand to hand bump you get for the dragon exarch is rarely worth the points paid for it. That should give you enough points to get your wave serpent.

As far as the whole first turn thing goes, you'll just have to take some calcluated risks. Figure out which vehicle is the most expendable (probably the serpent) and if you can't hide all your tanks, leave that one exposed on a flank or something somewhere. Just make sure that very few enemy heavy weapons will be able to get in range and line of sight on the first turn. If you are only looking down the barrel of one las cannon or missile launcher, your chances of living though it are rather good. In this case, I would sugest deploying the dragons outside of the transport. No sence in allowing them to be entangled / hurt if the serpent does get blown up on the first turn. Remember, in order to hurt you, enemy weapons have to be in line of sight and in range so don't be afraid to stand in front of enemy guns if they are too far away from you to hurt you.