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First post/topic on this forum to lemme know if ive missed anything.

Shining spears, are they worth it & how can they be viable if so.

Pros
- Str 6 pwr wep charge
- TL shruiken catapults BS 4
- MEQ sv
- Eldar jetbike mobility & added toughness


Cons
- expensive
- Really quite expensive
- Small squad size
- Expensive extras.

Also on the wider topic of aspects in general.. SS > HB due to the save, infiltrate, massed str4attacks and the useful str6 pwr wep against the termies and str 5-8 biting blade (walkers in mind here)

Oh & harlies well.. awesome. small teams to ferrie people like yuriel up close.. add in a troupe master and their generally win. Ignore terrain..ahh (Pure sqauds, ofc)

Discuss?

Shining spears are a great unit ,but not in all cases. Here is where they excell, if there is a lemon russ tank sitting in the back corner of the field out of Los of your ranged weapons and he's dropping pie plates everywhere. Then you pop out from behind cover and turboboost up field, then stop within 6" of target fire laser lances then assalt(if still alive). I usally carry an Exarch with a Star lance str 8 and hit and run rule . Remember that assalts on tanks count the back armor(easy kill). Wait that Deff Dread swicthed directions what do I do? Same thing. An Autarch on a jetbike can bolster the squad or a Farseer on a jetbike. 5 of them is better than 3 in my experiance. As far as aspects go, 10 SS in a serpent outflanking the shooties in the back is enough for any player to pull their hair out! Swooping Hawks with skyleap dropping g-packs every turn can be great also.

They are a great unit but it is very hard to hide them in 5e.

G

Yeah, they die pretty easy in 5th 'cause they're really easy to see. Have at least one other unit with similar threat and range to split enemy fire. If you Fortune them at the "starting line" (better yet have Eldrad Fortune two groups of them) and field in 4s/5s they will actually live to do something, but otherwise will be shot out of the sky against shooty lists or assaulted first by CC lists.

Don't get me wrong- I like and use them, including with my Exodites that field 2x5. Just be conscious that they are a "glass hammer" best used in fun lists, and lack the resilience for competitive lists.

I was always a fan of them in the past. But now with the new wound allocations and the terrain rules where as one person mentioned they can be difficult to hide, I think they are very risky to take. Even with fortune (which IMO you absolutely need with this unit) you stand the chance of losing your exarch to overwhelming fire power. If you lose that exarch because of bad rolling than that unit is more or less useless. The spears live and die based on withdrawl. Last thing you need is a very expensive one charge only unit.

Agreed, if you don't have ample cover then don't bring the s-spears. However with all the new battlefield/terrain I find it easy to hide 5 s-spears.

Green Blow Fly wrote:They are a great unit but it is very hard to hide them in 5e.

G

That's not the point.

Shining Spears are not a great unit. Expensive and small.
They can dish out some damage but the enemy usually can strike back thanks to the new counterstrike rule, and this can really hurt.

To make full effect of Shining Spears these days, take two fully equipped units supporting your troops.

Alrite.. pick one of the three.

2x Autuarch + laser lance + jetbike

5x SS + exarch + starlance + hit&run (skilled rider worth it?)
===

1x autuarch + gubbins

1x farseer + doom + stones + fortume

5 x SS + gubbins
===

1x autarch + gubbins

1x farseer + bits

5 x warlocks on bikes + enchance (Do you pay for that once per squad, one power per unit or p/model?)

All gubbins & bits include jetbikes.. point costs are roughly similar, a slight increase as you travel down the lists. Ofcourse assuming you Had to pick one.

Shining Spears should be taken in full squads, including withdraw and skilled rider. Both are worth the points.

An Autarch with laserlance and a Farseer with fortune are worth accompanying the Spears.

@Razerous: Each Warlock can (but need not) take one power.

Bit o mathhhammer here, assuming the laser lances count as power weapon on charge (as is described in the dex) and your using the autuarchs pistol & have bought him a Mandiblaster.. thats 6 str 6 ws6 power wep hits on a charge (and 4 str 3 hits otherwise :( ) + the squads 11 str 6 hits ws 4 (ish) .. its quite nasty.

You'd need multiple cc sqauds to tie up the enemy ,infiltrating SS squads perhaps, while these guys bounce around charging everything.


...lol.. 666

@ Wues: Ahhh, cheers

wuestenfux wrote:Shining Spears should be taken in full squads, including withdraw and skilled rider. Both are worth the points.

An Autarch with laserlance and a Farseer with fortune are worth accompanying the Spears.

@Razerous: Each Warlock can (but need not) take one power.

Agreed. You need the autarch to swing the difference on tough squads and the farseer for the obvious reasons. I wont even run a shinning spear squad without this combo. But like I said before, because of the wound rolls. If you exarch gets picked off you have just wasted alot of points. Thats why I dont take this squad unless I am playing non-tourney.

The problem with SS is the same problem with other glass cannons.. GW made the assault phase work backwards, you dont want to kill your opponent in the first round due to consolidation rules.. Hit and run seems pointless if you plan to just wipe people out (and then you flee the next round because you are S3 with 1 attack), and also the new kill zone rules sorta kill small squads like this

Rather just warlocks, can actually continue to fight in the 2nd round..

Tis a fair point.. could you elaborate on the kill zone point?

It works like this, and basically has crippled all the eldar CC units that rely on their high INT

In 4th you had say 10 marines in a typical formation with about 1-2" apart, so you charge one of their flanks knowing you'll prob kill 5 (8 SS attacks + 3 exarch = 3 wounds from SS and prob 2 from exarch = 5 kills).. Remember in 4th only guys within 2" of a friendly locked model could be killed AND only they could attack. In the above example if you charge the squad and only those 5 marines are in the kill zone then you dont allow ANY return hits, now the other 5 can hit you

The attack within 2" is still true in 5th but with 6" charge reaction AND you can take deaths from ANYWHERE in the unit this leads to units which rely on high Int to kill to be fairly ineffective because the enemy can always strike them back

This leaves harlequins, spears and banshees a lot less effective

Another detriment to SS is that if they fail leadership test due to shooting they fall back 3d6 which means there is a very good chance the unit will hit a table edge... especially if they are hugging the edge they came in on during deployment.

I agree that withdraw and skilled rider are well worth the additional points if you take them. I think they can also take a cannon as well.

G

but the massed attacks from larger numbers of troops that are a touch more surviable (i.e scorps)

But yea, cheers, im remmebering now. I made the transition to 5ed painfully and slowly, kicking and screaming. I felt Id just grasped the whole concept of 4th & then they changed it.

I wuv you GW

Although the autarch with mandiblasters, charging, using a pistol and the lance as a power weapon on that charge gives him 6 attacks. two of em adds up to 12, with 11 from the SS squad... But due to this post, ive decided I dont like em.

Kirasu wrote:It works like this, and basically has crippled all the eldar CC units that rely on their high INT

In 4th you had say 10 marines in a typical formation with about 1-2" apart, so you charge one of their flanks knowing you'll prob kill 5 (8 SS attacks + 3 exarch = 3 wounds from SS and prob 2 from exarch = 5 kills).. Remember in 4th only guys within 2" of a friendly locked model could be killed AND only they could attack. In the above example if you charge the squad and only those 5 marines are in the kill zone then you dont allow ANY return hits, now the other 5 can hit you

The attack within 2" is still true in 5th but with 6" charge reaction AND you can take deaths from ANYWHERE in the unit this leads to units which rely on high Int to kill to be fairly ineffective because the enemy can always strike them back

This leaves harlequins, spears and banshees a lot less effective

This is an important point making Eldar cc aspects and Harlies less effective in close combats.
Especially small units like Shining Spears don't cut it when they charge a larger MEQ unit.

I think the problem that shinning spears have is different that the one faced by the new CC rules. Personally I think the problem with the SS is all about the possiblity of losing the exarch because of shooting or some other reason which makes the unit useless.

I have found in my exprience that I am not having a problem with my Eldar in CC. The reason I think this is the case is because I am committed to close combat. Many Eldar players want to take some shooty stuff and some CC stuff and so when they get engaged in CC with their assualt units they find they are in trouble. Yeah I am talking in general terms but have seen an awful lot of Eldar armies that either only have 1 assualt unit not counting their HQ or if they have 2 than they attack in different areas pursing different goals. Either an attack to contest or a counter assualt unit. When I have seen many Eldar players attack typically one of the following things happen 1. they wiped out the unit they were engaged with and now have to face withering fire from the enemy unit right next to them. 2. They attacked more than they could handle.

I have found that when you commit your troops to assualt. Taking max assualt and some kind of HQ set up for assualt backed by a Farseer with powers to help an assualt, you rarely find yourself in the above positions. When you go for the kill bring it all and dont hold back and look to clearing out a space to give you troops a chance to prepare for the next phase. I have been running 2 units of Banshees backed by an Autarch and Farseer with Doom/Fortune. The new assualt rules have not hindered this combo much.

By having so many diverse units it can work just as much for as against you .

I originally posted this thread becuase I had never really looked at SS and I wanted people opinions & advice.. harlies are still very cool but only when coupled with a shadowseer..

I think im gonna come up with a list with 2 harlie squads, 2 mindwar/doom/fortune farseers to go with & a full scorp squad. Ill post it up in the lists bit - go have a critique.

Ranged firepower is needed to combat walkers as they will eat things in CC. Vechiles, still a threat while shooting but more manageable.

Cheers sabote

harlies are still very cool but only when coupled with a shadowseer..

No. If the Harlies ride in a Falcon they don't need a Shadowseer.
The points are (1) plasma grenades are superfluous since the Harlies charge with their normal initiative as they charge is not slowed down, and (2) veil of tears only works well if the Harlies are farther away from the enemy and not when they wipe out a squad, unless it was isolated.

Thier a little more expensive than the other aspect, base rending harlie but I reckon its pretty well worth it. If they ride in a falcon, the falcon gets shot at. Howling banshees can ride in falcons - or concils.

At about 18' with a farseer using mindwar on a target VoT will work quite nicely plus the shot is entirely wasted if you fail the roll.

Plasma grenades become useful when you loose the flip-belt rule when an IC is in the squad.

If they wipe a squad, unless somthing is right ontop of them then its not that much of a risk plus these guys should really be backed up by stayers like scorps or hordes of storm guardains with an avatar.

Im gonna be playing these guys lots more soon so I will let you know if the fail/win.

Just to throw a different opinion out there. I've run an all jet bike army for a long time, so for my list warlocks, autarchs and shining spears are my only hth options.

That said, shining spear are deadly in the right scenario.

The scenerio is charging MEQs not in cover that you can shoot and charge. There biggest issue is lack of grenades.

The problem is that the right scenario is hard to force.

I always put them in reserves because you want to have they enter the game a little bit late if possible. I actually chose not to use the +1 from my autarch on these guys pretty much anytime it makes a different.

That said one thing to remember if the target is already in hth you don't need grenades becasue they don;t get a terrain boost to initiative.

Finally, I strongly advice against the exarch and the upgrades.

5 naked shining spears are the best and most efficient configuration. IF they could be 10 strong it would be a different story.

The squad always dies by the end of the game, and the upgrades are expensive and really don't help much. You have better tank hunters, and character killers. Shining spears are for fast, hard hitting infantry clearing.

If you are looking for the withdraw skill I actually find the warp spiders to be a better option, also you shoudl be charging something you expect to survive.

Prolonged combat, even for a turn is a horrible idea for shining spears or laser lance autarchs.