Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

This is a revision of my previous list, and the main difference is losing a squad of banshees, the autarch, and the falcon to add a third prism, a serpant for expanded fire dragons, and a fourth Avenger squad. The goal of the list is pretty simple: stay at range, pick my targets, and only unload when I have an excellent chance of wiping out enemy squads. The Jetbike council acts as a swiss army knife, holding up tough combat units, popping monoliths and BT landraiders as well as Dreadnoughts. Here is the revised list:

Farseer w/ jetbike, stones, both runes, Doom & Fortune
6x Jetbike Warlocks, 2x Enhance, 2x Embolden, 2x Destructor

10x Fire Dragons
Waveserpent w/ Shrurican cannon and stones

10x Dire Avengers w/ Bladestorm and twin Shuricats
Serpent w/ Bright Lance and stones

10x Dire Avengers w/ Bladestorm and twin Shuricats
Serpent w/ Bright Lance and stones

10x Dire Avengers w/ Bladestorm and twin Shuricats
Serpent w/ Bright Lance and stones

10x Dire Avengers w/ Bladestorm and twin Shuricats
Serpent w/ Bright Lance and stones

3x Fireprism fully loaded

Even at hard boys, 8 Eldar grav tanks should be a mouthful for any opponent, while I have the anti-tank to whittle down nearly any enemy tank list barring a rival eldar list. The prisms are good against large vehicles and killer against infantry. Four squads of avengers provide some serious anti-infantry punch while enabling me to claim multiple objectives. One of my difficulties is going to be resisting the urge to go toe to toe and slug it out with my opponent, when I should be able to ignore most enemy units while staying in range of claiming objectives.

Any thoughts? Am I playing too risky in not having any dedicated assault units? Will the lack of autarch hurt me? Is the snakes on a plane too much? Should I try to scape the points togehter to upgun the snakes serpent from Shuircannons to Scatterlasers?

This is a very well thoughtout list, with a good battle plan in mind. I would say you are risking alot without any dedicated squads and the only real assault power is coming from the farseer and his warlocks but they are mobile and capable, i would play test this list before going to town on it, but remember to keep to your battle plan.

beware that your if you start losing alot of tanks, how would you react?

I was thinking something similar, but I was going to have the Farseer and warlocks mount up in another wave serpent, to give you another grav tank.

Since you are relying on your Dire Avengers to score as well, I'm thinking Shimmershield + Defend is necessary.

I dunno about SS& Defend. To me, it seems that my DA's will simply lose combat by less, and are now less likely to run away. There are times when you want them to hold, but most of the time I'd rather have them bolt and let me shoot whatever assaulted them.

If you can find a way to fit additional shuriken cannons on the Avenger wave serpents, it's particularly nasty firebase indeed, and can comfortably back up the avengers when they miss that too-long round of fire.

I just mean that you perhaps don't need all of those brightlances when you have three very flexible prisms. Two is enough to pin down a moderately mechnised army.

I just mean that you perhaps don't need all of those brightlances when you have three very flexible prisms. Two is enough to pin down a moderately mechnised army.

I playtested with two Fire Prisms for the GT final with a 2000 pts army. They hardly hitted any target, killing about 6 Marines in 4 games. So I took them out...

wuestenfux wrote:

I just mean that you perhaps don't need all of those brightlances when you have three very flexible prisms. Two is enough to pin down a moderately mechnised army.

I playtested with two Fire Prisms for the GT final with a 2000 pts army. They hardly hitted any target, killing about 6 Marines in 4 games. So I took them out...

What the were you doing with them? If you need to take out a squad of marines put a combined pie-plate on them for AP3. BS 4, they're all hit, and they all die on a 2+. What's the problem? Individual prisms aren't really for thinning out marines though.

Arctik_Firangi wrote:

wuestenfux wrote:

I just mean that you perhaps don't need all of those brightlances when you have three very flexible prisms. Two is enough to pin down a moderately mechnised army.

I playtested with two Fire Prisms for the GT final with a 2000 pts army. They hardly hitted any target, killing about 6 Marines in 4 games. So I took them out...

What the were you doing with them? If you need to take out a squad of marines put a combined pie-plate on them for AP3. BS 4, they're all hit, and they all die on a 2+. What's the problem? Individual prisms aren't really for thinning out marines though.

Seconded. some many people think that a single prism is like god and can deal with anything in one shot

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/217203.page

Something to review for Bike Seer Councils, specifically Fortune and Turbo Boosting. This can have huge implications on this unit.

Fire Prisms aren't hard to shake/stun/weapon destroy. Plus, the shots can and do scatter, even twin linked. With cover saves all over the place, AP3 doesn't mean a whole lot these days. Any person that has a basic understanding of 40K isn't going to allow you to get a shot at a MEQ unit in the open against a combined Fire Prism shot. This is why I'll only take 1 and possibly 0 Fire Prisms in my mech eldar list. Despite all the complaints about nerfing, I prefer my Falcon with EML. Each tank puts out 3 S8 shots at 48" and it has been working out reasonably well. However, you may see different styled armies locally and the Fire Prism works out better for you.

Overall, I like the list, but it is one you need to be very careful with. Your scoring units also double up as your anti light infantry. You'll be very tempted to unload them, but they are fragile and can/will get crushed by shooting/assault.

Hmmm, that is an interesting implication for turboboosting. I mean, there are basically two reasons to turboboost: gain the cover save and mover faster. As eldar jetbikes they can move 18" anyway, and with rune armor they have built in 4++. It's a hit, but I don't think it's a fatal one to the unit.

As for prisms, maybe I've just been having good luck with mine. For me, they've been cheap, they're still fairly tough to destroy, making them effective in both KP and objective missions. They are there for a couple of reasons: terminators, monoliths, and large squads of infantry. In unfocused mode, each fire prism is like a more accurate Whirlwind, able to take big bites out of any tightly packed squad.

A list like this relies on target saturation. Sure, the prisms might not be shooting, but that means my serpents and council are unmolested. I switched to Prisms mainly because I was having less and less luck with anything I carted around in the Falcon. If I had the models, I'd experiment with dropping the three prisms and picking up two more DA squads in serpents.

Max out the Jetbike Seer Council at 10 Warlocks. It is 2500 points so should be maximizing the squads potential instead of saving points.

10 Fire Dragons is too many most I have run is 8. The Exarch with dragon's breath flamer and crack shot is good if you have to shoot at infantry.

Fire Prisms have difficulty hitting smaller vehicles like Rhinos. The shots tend to just bounce off if they scatter. Fire Prisms are better at hitting large vehicles like Land Raiders and Monoliths but seem worse then last edition with BS4 instead of scatter. Fire Prisms still are good against hordes like Orcs or Tyranids so depending on your meta might be worth it.

All right, so this list got a tryout against armored company last night. My roomate is judging our local qualifier, and apparently likes the idea of scoring tanks, and wanted to try it out. I'm not sure how, or if, that's been resolved, but it's his rodeo, so I'm rolling with it. He ran two lists, but the fist one was essentially:
Command vanquisher
Tank Ace LRBT w/ tank hunter rounds
4x LRBTS
3x Demolishers
2x 15 Sisters with double melta and eviserator
2x 5 Stormtroopers with double melta and Chimera

The second list bought more toys, dropped the Stormtroopers, and added:
6 Dominions with 4 meltas in an immolator

Our first game was Kill points, I was able to stay at distance, pop a tank a turn, and wipe out the stormtroopers and luckily broke a sister squad. He wiped out a fortuned Council on turn 1, and dropped a few tanks to keep it close, but I won pretty handily. In game two it was the home base mission, and he never challenged my objectives, while I was able to swarm his. I got another win off of it.

Some thoughts:

- I got first turn both games. I'm not sure how much losing my alpha strike would hurt, but I imagine it's somewhere to the left of "a lot"
- I don't know if we're playing it wrong, but in a tank battle cover seems far less relevant. I seldom had an obstructed shot, and while I tried harder to grab cover, it's not easy to hide a grav tank.
- Bad luck is a brutal evener. I lost my councils both games, including at one point a stretch where I failed 4 out of 5 Invulnerable saves with fortune!
- Once the council hit his tanks, it was brutal. Plenty of S9 attacks at AV10 just get ugly fast.
- Fireprisms really don't get to shoot that much, but once they do, they're really good. Additioanlly, any Prism that can't shoot can both ram and grab a 4++ for the next turn.
- Serpents are alarmingly durable. Shrugging off meltas and ordanance (he twice rolled a 1 on his single die with a demolisher) makes them, if not effective tanks, damn fine transports.
- snakes on a plane is more fun than should be allowed. Boosting the serpent the full 24", and then smoking any tank withing 20" of that position is just brutal.

Tanks can't score. Ard boyz rule packet uses 5th edition rules explicitly. 5th Edition says tanks can't score.

End of debate. See the relavent super long argument thread in the other forums.

But, since you can take WH and DH allies, its not much of an issue with the ability to have 4 scoring troop choices.

Next:

Nice bat rep, I plan on doing AC, and yours is definitley not a list i'd like to draw with it, esp. if I lost first turn both games and you got your BL's firing.

One consideration for him is taking the relevant "No Lance rule" upgrade on some of his tanks. However, it gets pricey and is situational at best.

Nice work on the games

targetawg wrote:
One consideration for him is taking the relevant "No Lance rule" upgrade on some of his tanks. However, it gets pricey and is situational at best.

I've found that, in tournaments, you can't afford to go without those upgrades, if available. You waste say 100-200 points against some armies, but you also eliminate the trouble of the two trouble armies.

Squig_herder wrote:

Arctik_Firangi wrote:

wuestenfux wrote:

I just mean that you perhaps don't need all of those brightlances when you have three very flexible prisms. Two is enough to pin down a moderately mechnised army.

I playtested with two Fire Prisms for the GT final with a 2000 pts army. They hardly hitted any target, killing about 6 Marines in 4 games. So I took them out...

What the were you doing with them? If you need to take out a squad of marines put a combined pie-plate on them for AP3. BS 4, they're all hit, and they all die on a 2+. What's the problem? Individual prisms aren't really for thinning out marines though.

Seconded. some many people think that a single prism is like god and can deal with anything in one shot

I understand that templates scatter, but so what? You put it in the centre of their unit, and on the 33% chance that it scatters it still has a good chance of killing a lot of them. Anything other than a dedicated marine list will be utterly outmaneuvered by most Eldar armies. Again I say, PRISMS AREN'T IDEAL FOR THINNING OUT MARINES. But Eldar waveserpent brigades are all good since 5th. Starcannon armies sure don't work like they used to. Marine tanks are mostly easy to kill, except for LR which is just one of those things you have to deal with. Fire prisms undeniably have an anti-horde capability against anything with 4+ armour, and two is arguably more than twice as good. They're also MOBILE.

Tri-falcon is easily superior for tank-killing, even with BS 3, but then it's more expensive to get the holo fields on. This list is scraping for points as it is, I'd say

Squig_herder wrote:

Arctik_Firangi wrote:

wuestenfux wrote:

I just mean that you perhaps don't need all of those brightlances when you have three very flexible prisms. Two is enough to pin down a moderately mechnised army.

I playtested with two Fire Prisms for the GT final with a 2000 pts army. They hardly hitted any target, killing about 6 Marines in 4 games. So I took them out...

What the were you doing with them? If you need to take out a squad of marines put a combined pie-plate on them for AP3. BS 4, they're all hit, and they all die on a 2+. What's the problem? Individual prisms aren't really for thinning out marines though.

Seconded. some many people think that a single prism is like god and can deal with anything in one shot

Lol, even the combined shots bounced off too often.

Squig_herder wrote:

Arctik_Firangi wrote:

wuestenfux wrote:

I just mean that you perhaps don't need all of those brightlances when you have three very flexible prisms. Two is enough to pin down a moderately mechnised army.

I playtested with two Fire Prisms for the GT final with a 2000 pts army. They hardly hitted any target, killing about 6 Marines in 4 games. So I took them out...

What the were you doing with them? If you need to take out a squad of marines put a combined pie-plate on them for AP3. BS 4, they're all hit, and they all die on a 2+. What's the problem? Individual prisms aren't really for thinning out marines though.

Seconded. some many people think that a single prism is like god and can deal with anything in one shot

Lol, even the combined shots bounced off too often.

Okay, so sometimes really good weapons just don't work perfectly. Is this surprising? I'm a skaven player so I'm happy with anything that doesn't blow up 16% of the time. If Fire Prisms were BS 3 it would be another story.

ive allways used a squad that have high str. large blasts, they are great if working together, as most of the time 2 of them do the job and the 3rd can start on a fresh target.

3 dakka fex's with barbed S's work great, and the fire prism is stronger, and cheaper on points, so they will do well at taking chunks out of an army.
(pray you play a horde army)

you have nice unit sizes, so you have a solid fire line from the DA's, and the FD's will work great in a unit of 10.


arctik, i know that feeling
watching my doomwheel blow up on 1st or 2nd turn is never amusing, but it will allways happen

How are you losing Seer Councils to that are fortuned to ordnance blasts?

I'm assuming you don't know to turn your bikes sideways and sit at max coherency from front of one bike to rear of another, so you can only get hit (no matter what) on 2 bikes at a time IF it scatters properly.

Well, now you know.

Knowing is half the battle.

I posted how to deal with fortune + speed on the seer councils in the thread quoted above, but here it is again:

Fortune Council 1.
Speed Council 1 18-24".
Fortune Council 2.
Move Council 2 12".
Attach both Farseers to Council 2.
Move Council 2 6" in assault phase.

Both councils will be fortuned, the rear will not have speedy cover but will have cover from the front council and can pin itself to gain a 3+ cover save.

The rear will be 12 strong (requiring 4 warlocks to die and/or 6 wounds to be failed for a morale test).

In addition, you can still fortune both squads on the next turn.

In short, it's pretty meaningless.

This is why I run two full strength seer councils.

I been testing a Mech eldar with seer council list similar to yours as well.

I would:
Drop runes of witnessing it actually makes you get more double 1s.
Drop 2 Fire Dragons don't really need 10
Drop Holofields and Shuriken cannons from Fire Prisms you might not get to shoot shuriken cannons much if your hanging back in cover and holofields help you stay alive yes but prisms aren't scoring anymore.
Use the points gained above to add 4 Warlocks to your Seer Council to max out at 10.

The Seer Council works great as an assault unit but they can get bogged down in tough units large units of plaguemarines or nobs.

Autarach is useful if you start your units in reserves which is a good strategy against certain armies like Demons.

The fire dragon serpent is moving 24 to get into position and then droping the dragons and if its still alive and not shaken you get to shoot and at that point you are close anyway so scatter laser is not really worth the points.

I think there has to be a compromise between quality and quantity. If you get bladestorm and defend and shimmer shields the you have to lose a unit somewhere.

Fire Prisms are pretty bad anti tank boo scatter but they are nasty against horde lists. I'm keeping mine for now because of hordes. Although they might get dropped.

Stelek's idea of two councils sounds pretty good except how many troops can you afford with so much spent on two seer councils? The D3+2 objective mission might be difficult to win without more troops.

I agree that dropping the holos on the Prisms and 2 Fire Dragons is a good idea... but I would use those points to add Defend and PW/SS on 2 Avenger units. These more durable units become "anvils" for an investment of relatively few points. Although simply allowing enemy that reach your DA units to chew through the unit and then get shot, this tactic falls down when faced with enough enemy CC units that there isn't much left to shoot back (horde Orks).

Overall, I like the list. My one major qualm is that having all one's CC countercharge power in one unit at 2500 points gives me the heebie-jeebies, but if you have confidence that you can keep that unit both alive and free of tarpits, more power to ya. If I were a Marine facing that unit, I'd grab that council with an assault or fearless unit and tie them up for turns 3 and 4 while everything else in the army gets mugged.

Dropping the holo fields on the fire prisms just seems silly, especially if it's focused around the point of them not being scoring anymore.

A)They can still contest
B)A dead prism is about as useful as an empty FoC slot, why not pay a little extra to keep them alive?

But yes, the shuricannon is not needed.

Kirika wrote:

Drop Holofields and Shuriken cannons from Fire Prisms you might not get to shoot shuriken cannons much if your hanging back in cover and holofields help you stay alive yes but prisms aren't scoring anymore.

Prisms are scoring in KP games if they get killed.
Large blasts scare troops who want to move tactically.
Grav-tanks are great for last-turn tank-shocks in objective games.
They also can't do anything if they've been destroyed.

Kirika wrote:

The Seer Council works great as an assault unit but they can get bogged down in tough units large units of plaguemarines or nobs.

The solution to both of these problems involves the application of your meat tenderiser of Doom (Avengers, Scatter Lasers, Fusion Guns on doomed Nobs/PMs), followed by using the Seer Council as executors. If they can put in 2 or more destructor templates on the way in, even better.

Eldar don't fear T5, they fear their T3.

Three holos at 35 points apiece can almost buy you another Serpent, or make your DAs (which _are_ scoring) much tougher. You will have plenty of tanks left for last turn tank-shocks and contest even without a Prism or two, most likely. Things is, with a low-numbers army like mech Eldar, your points should be focussed on increasing your offensive output, not the defensive resilience of non-scoring units. Sure, they may be frustrating and stick around... not shooting much... while the troops get run down.

I just think maxxing your firepower, upping the number of countercharge options available should something unfortunate befall the council, and keeping your Troops alive to score trump defensive bling on vehicles.

There is no way I'm dropping the holofields. AV12 is too easy to penetrate to keep on the table without it. If I had the models, I might strip all the prisms down to a cannon and spirit stones, and use the points to plus up the council, but as it stands I like how durable they are. They can contest, they don't die for KP, and even when shaken they can ram.

I dont' want to sink any points into the DA's combat staying power simply because I don't have anything to come rescue them. They will eventually lose combat against pretty much anything, and eventually they'll break. I want to encourage that to be earlier. They're I5, giving them a good chance to get away clean, and they can shoot even if they can't regroup. If I had 3 squads and some banshees, it might be worth considered. Don't forget, they're only getting out if theyhave to. I'd rather they sit in their serpent, making it a scoring unit.

As for the council conga line, I had forgotten that when I played, but thanks for the reminder. I might switch to double council for the regionals, but without using Spears as proxies there's no way I can field enough warlocks right now.

Well, I'd keep the holofields as well.
DA have no combat staying power unless they are fortuned and have defense and shimmershield. I would never spend so many points for DA squad.