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i know this has been brought up before, but i haven't seen it run w/o any tanks.

I'm wondering how this would do in a competitive environment, i need to know what lists would give it trouble and how i could deal with them.

and of course feel fee to offer advice...


1 farseer w/fortune, doom, spirit stones, runes of warding, runes of witnessing, singing spear
6 warlock jetbikes 1 destructor, 1 embolden, 1 enhance, 4 singing spears

1 farseer w/fortune, doom, spirit stones, runes of witnessing, singing spear
6 warlock jetbikes 1 destructor, 1 embolden, 1 enhance, 4 singing spears

6 guardian jetbikes, 2 shruiken cannons
1 warlock jetbike, destructor, singing spear

6 guardian jetbikes, 2 shruiken cannons
1 warlock jetbike, destructor, singing spear

6 guardian jetbikes, 2 shruiken cannons
1 warlock jetbike, destructor, singing spear

6 guardian jetbikes, 2 shruiken cannons
1 warlock jetbike, destructor, singing spear

6 guardian jetbikes, 2 shruiken cannons
1 warlock jetbike, destructor, singing spear

exactly 2000 points, 9 kill points.

i think it's pretty well rounded offensively, it can deal with most anything. except for maybe 7 landraiders.

oops, I didn't read your post. Why don't you want tanks. 3 Fire Prisms give you a lot for pretty cheap. That, and you can keep more Witchblades for close combat.

I think it is fast, with good anti-infantry. Ignore tanks at first, get stuck in and kill everything. Then go after tanks. BAM-BAM-BAM. But if you go after tanks first you are going to get charged and cut down. Better to do the charging.

You might consider a 9+1 Squad with Embolden. LD8 makes Eldar cry. And die in close combat.

The other thing, use your Dooms. They don't help Witchblades much but they help Shuriken Catapults and S3 Guardians enormously. Doom, charge, kill. Make sure you use your charge attacks. And you don't want any Jump Pack Chaplains with their own Assault Squads charging you, instead. And watch out for things like Fearless Berzerkers. Bad news.

Psh... forget doom with Shurikan Catas, Destructor? haha 6 templates reroll wounds? Yes please!

1. Drop the singing spears. No offense, but Im betting you haven't played this list, or something like it yet. I used to be all about the spears, thinking how great they were, adding a few to my units, until I started playing and it is a handicap. You want to keep the unit high in number but cheap in points, and you want the highest output of attacks you can get, because you sure arent punching through armor (troop armor).

2. Runes of witnessing are a waste of points.

3. You dont need two Dooms, and frankly I run mine with just fortune. You are spending 80 points to reroll your 2+ to wound. Some people like it for the guardians but I dont use guardians offensively. In 2000 and less two units of 9 total councils can handle the enemy army on their own as long as you can get fortune off.

4. Each unit needs more bodies. 8-10 total is best.

5. With destructor and not embolden those guardian bikes are going to run away as fast as you put them down. The hitting power of guardians are those cannons. Take nine with three cannons (stelek takes ten for shooting casualty reasons) and a warlock with embolden. You pop out, make your nine st 6 shots and assault back. Its also a lot less kill points.

6. Nothing you drop out of this army is going to be better than three naked fire prisms. With this army most stuff is going to be in your HQs, and they are fast hitters, so you keep your prisms back and in cover, not moving and shooting at whatever is available. If they cant see anything combine fire. 345 points, you cant beat it. Dont take holo fields they arent worth it in this army.

Have fun buying them! I traded and bit shopped for most of mine.

i decided not to take tanks so i fit more bodies in the list, it's not that i don't think they would be good, i just thought i could give up less kp's this way and be better in objective missions.

GMM, i'll take your word regarding the spears. but i do have some questions, how do deal with tanks? i know you can assault them with witchblades now, but doesn't hitting on 6's make it ineffective to assault because so many tanks are moving over 6 inches. i thought a 12 inch lascannon for 3 pts was a good deal, but i can see where your coming from. does this army fare well against fully mech armies (ie razorback spam, 9 immolator, landraider spam)

as far as doom goes i was planning on using that to help the guardians, it does after all have a 24 inch range, i thought doom and mass tl catapults and flamers would make armies like orks, ig and some nids builds practically byes.

here's an updated list

1 farseer w/fortune, runes of warding
8 warlock jetbikes w/ 1 destructor, 1 embolden, 1 enhance

1 farseer w/fortune, runes of warding
8 warlock jetbikes w/ 1 destructor, 1 embolden, 1 enhance

9 guardian jetbikes w/ 3 shuriken cannons
1 warlock jetbike w/ embolden

9 guardian jetbikes w/ 3 shuriken cannons
1 warlock jetbike w/ embolden

3 guardian jetbikes w/ 1 shuriken cannon
1 warlock jetbike w/ embolden

fire prism
fire prism
fire prism

1992 points, 10 kill points

i didn't know what to do with the left over points so i bought 1 three man squad of jetbikes, if anyone else has a better idea on what to do with the left over points feel free to chime in.

I would put a destructor on the 4 man squad and keep it shooty/ in a support role. Other thing you can do, take 6 man Warlock Squads and an extra Spearlock squad.

I think taking one Doom is worthwhile at least. Assault Marines, Running Orks, whatever their shock infantry is. Kill it.

squall8187 wrote:
GMM, i'll take your word regarding the spears. but i do have some questions, how do deal with tanks? i know you can assault them with witchblades now, but doesn't hitting on 6's make it ineffective to assault because so many tanks are moving over 6 inches. i thought a 12 inch lascannon for 3 pts was a good deal, but i can see where your coming from. does this army fare well against fully mech armies (ie razorback spam, 9 immolator, landraider spam)

Dealing with tanks - you have three fire prisms. their tanks only have one turn really to fire at your councils, and if they are firing at the prisms instead they are sealing their own fate. Plus once you get in there its not hard to assault them.

Against fast tanks, they usually have lighter armor, and you have 18 st 6 shots at your disposal a turn as well as the prisms. same goes for assault, if they are slow tanks you are going to rip them apart with 30+ attacks. If they are fast, what I just said covers it again. You also have an 18 inch charge range. If skimmers try and outpace you they arent doing anything else.

As for the 3pt lascannon, yeah that sounds good, but then when you get into assault with whatever popped out of that tank you are looking at 1-2 attacks per model, thats not good.

Lets say you face landraider spam, 3-5 LRs. Sure that is a lot of armor, but you have three fire prisms, and if they take that many land raiders they arent taking much else. LRs dont really pose a threat to councils either offense wise. Hit me with two lascannons, I get two 4 ups that reroll...

And dont forget that councils have a big footprint. Its very easy to encircle most tanks. Thats not good for your opponent...

As for your list, I would drop the small 3 man, and make your councils bigger and make each guardian squad ten and add a doom. Thats basically steleks list. I take your list minus the small squad with lots of destructors.

You also want RoW with what most competitive lists having a psyker.

Just watch out for hoods. If they have a hood youve probably lost. If they dont, and arent deathwing on foot, youve probably won. Its one thing I dont like about this list, if you have those types of people at your club, its easy to tweak a list to shut this army down.

Its fun to play though!

Edit: One final point, in assault you are st 9 vs back armor....

totally forgot all assaults happen to the rear armor, thanks. i'm going to play this list (in like 10 mins)and let you guys know how it goes.

thanks for all the input

No problem and Id like to hear how it goes.

hard fought battle, but a victory for the pointy ears none the less.

not going to go into too much detail, but here are some facts that are important.

my opponent was a marine player, he was running cato sicarius, shrike and a command squad w/ company champ.

for troops he had a 10 man tac squad that infiltrated
10 man scout squad with snipers and a hb
2x 5 man scout squad with snipers, camo cloaks and a hb

2x drop podding dreads

3x 5 man dev. squads with various weapons in rhinos

we played an objective type mission with 4 objectives, with his deployment he had 3 right off the bat, i had only 1.

it went pretty smoothly after the first 2 turns, those were brutal for me.

basically i was thinking about what i was going to be doing in my turn during my opponents turn and didn't pay much attention to what he was doing...

bending the rules alot.

he moved rhinos 11.5", popped smoke AND fired 4 heavy weapons out of the rhinos (devs) (he was positive there were 2 fire points on a rhino, there arent')

he did this with all three rhinos on the first turn, i didn't realize this until after all the dust had settled, i then informed him about how illegal this was. but i let it pass and didn't put the models back on in the second turn (that's when i noticed, when he tried to do it again). this hurt the seer council because he seized the initiative and was able to do this before i could cast fortune. he also drop podded a dread and flamed the council. had i gone first the game would have ended that very turn, he infiltrated 18 in away, and scout moved 6 closer with 3 squads. those squads would have been eaten, along with his hopes for winning, but instead i had already lost 9 warlock jet bikes before i could do anything. so yeah it went very smooth, after the second turn.

some thoughts, a destructor would be nice for units that love cover (scouts w/camo cloaks)

you guys were right, tank killing isn't all that important, i was able to ignore his armor and go about my business.

i think 6 or a 4 man squad would be nice, just to play clean up when a squad has like 2 models left and need to be destroyed, but that squad doesn't require massive resources (seer council or 10 man jet bike squad)

overall it was a fun list to play, would have been more fun had my opponent not broken some rules (they were honest mistakes on his part, he saw me shooting meltaguns out of moving rhinos in previous games. he thought he could do the same with multi-meltas and rocket launchers.)

i ended up winning, i was the only person to control an objective. if it went to kill points i would have won there 11-3. he killed the three naked prisms if anyone was wondering.

p.s. it was awesome watching shrike assault a seer council, then get cut down immediately. only to watch that same seer council annihilate everything it could get close to.

Yeah that super high initiative is awesome. I can stand there and get assaulted and people just bounce. Right now I am working on an army of 20 wraithguard with Maugen Ra in one unit and Eldrad in the other, enhance on the two warlocks, its awesome.

Yeah the first turn is really the hardest to learn with the army. You have to learn how far to stick your neck out without it getting cut off (you get assaulted yourself). I always try and turbo first turn if i can anyway. 3+ reroll vs las and the like is awesome.

Try it again, focus on what you learned from deployment and how far to move them first turn and play another game. It will grow on you.