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Ok so I have been talking to my two friends who play eldar and they were explaining them to me. However they could not agree on what the most cost effective/best HS choice was (one runs 3 wraith lords other is still light on HS).

Eldar HS:
Wraithlord
Fire Prism
Falcon
War Walkers
Dark Reapers

Did I forget anything? I know it depends on what army list your running and are running against but what is the most in game cost effective eldar HS? Which is the most useful (consistantly)? Finally Which ones scare opponents the most?

By their nature, the Eldar Heavy choices depend on the rest of your build. They are each effective depending on the build.

1. Wraithlord... probably the best but the limitation of needing psychers nearby means having a number around to keep them in the fight sp this really can affect your other army choices.
2. Fire Prism... some claim easy kill points to the downside but effective all around mobile fire power platform.
3. War walkers... lots of fire power and with outflanking a nice way to get a lot of heavy fire in a pain position for your opponent.
4. Platforms... nothing says area denial like a battery of them but with 5th edition they suffer from lack of true cover.
5. Falcons... 4th edition... gold... 5th edition overpriced, small troop transport. Hard to get your point value back firing on the enemy but can still be useful to deliver a small CC unit or Fire Dragon unit to the desired spot on the field.
6. Dark Reapers... accurate, marine killers at range... great for a castle army but weak for AT work (excepting the exarch with an EML can do fine on medium armor) to the bad side, they are pricey and small. They tend to attract enemy fire so make their shots count or use them as a lesser of mulitiple evils for you opponent.... Do you want to shoot up the 3 reapers in the building wasting 5 marines a turn or try to cut down the 10 dire avengers bearing down on that objective?

I try to enhance the rest of my eldar army with my heavies not dictate an eldar army around the heavy choices.

Casper wrote:Ok so I have been talking to my two friends who play eldar and they were explaining them to me. However they could not agree on what the most cost effective/best HS choice was (one runs 3 wraith lords other is still light on HS).

Eldar HS:
Wraithlord
Fire Prism
Falcon
War Walkers
Dark Reapers

Did I forget anything? I know it depends on what army list your running and are running against but what is the most in game cost effective eldar HS? Which is the most useful (consistantly)? Finally Which ones scare opponents the most?

For me the choice comes down to war walkers or fire prisms. Both of which, I think, are better used en mass. So it really is one or the other.

Wraithlords are really hard to kill, especially for their points, but simply can't dish up enough fire power at a range to really compare to prisms or war walkers and in close combat they usually tie one unit down for the rest of the game at best. Good, but I think you can get more out of a heavy choice.

Reapers are just too pricey for what they can do. In my opinion they lack the efficiency that really makes a unit worth it.

The Falcon has the same problem as the wraithlord; nigh invincible but just can't dish out enough hurt. Watching an army with three wraithlords go at an army with three falcons would be like watching two sumo wrestlers going at each other in full plate.

I love how much fire power three war walkers can dish out, and with the out flank ability they can get the drop on your opponent.

Prisms are, in my opinion, the best although I have heard some very good arguments for war walkers. They have the same survivability as falcons with the fire power to back it up. With their optional methods of firing you can either drop down a large template for horde armies or a smaller one to crack tanks. Or you can always link two falcons to easily take out space marines. Now I know that sounds inefficient, but it's better than it seems. It can be done when one Falcon turbo boosted, or was shaken and wouldn't have been able to shoot anyway. And with three prisms out there you'll have plenty of opportunity.

Whocare : Fraid not. P43 of the eldar dex,

... may forfeit thier chance to fire...

You cannot forfeit somthing which your not able to do in the first place. I.e 'In lieu of shooting' star engines, turboboosting, shaken etc.

Prisms still kick ass & against marines specifically, all those combat squads running around mean focoused blast just got alot better at nueting those squads.

When they get defanged, they can be dedicated ramming/shocking units without having to worry about the possibility of loosing a transport.

Dark reaper exarch BS5 with fast shot with the krak EML is quite respectable anti-armour, even strong armour. Tempest launcher is great, esp with crack shot but its got such a crippingly shorterned range. Becomes in range of snipers, h.bolters, plasma cannons, etc.

Platforms - the description about vibrocannons in the FAQ is just classic.

Lords - good bs4 multi-weapon platforms. Frail vs AT wep which is a doubled egded sword, diverts fire but it dies easily.

Falcons? Serpents are just better. Basically. 2 falcons or 1 serpent and 1 prism. Choice really.

Warwalkers using outflanks can be tacticfully fun.

Well, indeed, it depends on the army type.
A mech army should include two or three Fire Prisms or Fire Dragons mounted in Falcons.
A hammer & anvil army benefits from a high frequency of shots. Here Warwalkers with scatter lasers and Wraithlords are the better buy.
Dark Reapers are nice but the enemy eventually benefits from a cover save reducing their usefulness.

3 Wraithlords only seems to work well with an Iyanden or guardian style list that has alot of spiritseers running around. If running a guardian horde and interlocking AOE's of spiritseers/warlocks, the Avatar becomes almost mandatory for keeping the guardians fearless.

So...

Avatar

4x10 Guardians with platform and warlock

5 Pathfinders

10 Harliquins with Shadowseer

3x Wraithlords

That should be a decent build for Elf-zilla.

That's not as true anymore. In 5th ed, halving two chunk is you list even at the loss of synergy is more optimized in 5th ed.

Really the only top eldar hvy support choices are wraithlords, fire prisms and falcons.

Wriathlords and fire prisms help with horde control, and objective contesting.

Falcons are best for 5 dire avengers. The unit basically does next to nothing all game and then tank shocks onto objectives. Seems coutner productive but you see a lot of top Eldar players moving to this format. Especially with a Farseer to fortune the tanks.

Pete

Razerous wrote:You cannot forfeit somthing which your not able to do in the first place.

For the record, this is factually incorrect.

I'll be happy to move this discussion to YMDC where I've had it fifty times before, but "in lieu of" does not require the ability to do the thing replaced. I can drive to the mall in lieu of flying there without actually having the ability to fly. In fact, I can even drive there in lieu of flying *because* I'm not able to fly.

Good to see you posting again Flav!

Capt K

whitedragon wrote:3 Wraithlords only seems to work well with an Iyanden or guardian style list that has alot of spiritseers running around.

Harelquin shadowseers are "eldar psykers" they shepherd wraithlords just fine.

eldrad gets one

first harlie unit takes another

second harlie unit takes the last one

In a shooting phase a fire prism may shoot. (if its just sitting there, unharmed, for sake of argument)

If it uses star engines, it may not shoot.

If it uses star engines, it may not link up.

If it uses star engines and may shoot

Then when it uses star engines it may link up.

Obviously the first comment it the correct one, methinks, and follows on from there.

Flavius Infernus wrote:

Razerous wrote:You cannot forfeit somthing which your not able to do in the first place.

For the record, this is factually incorrect.

I'll be happy to move this discussion to YMDC where I've had it fifty times before, but "in lieu of" does not require the ability to do the thing replaced. I can drive to the mall in lieu of flying there without actually having the ability to fly. In fact, I can even drive there in lieu of flying *because* I'm not able to fly.

Semantics can be argued all day long ("in lieu of" is significantly different from "forfeit") but regardless, GW FAQ'ed this at one point (and they said you had to acutally be able to shoot inorder to forfeit your shooting) so I don't know why this is still an argument.

Fire Prism

they blow everything to smitherines

and once you get 3...

mwa ha ha haaa

Granted, Phoenix, that IIRC the specific case of the fire prism was FAQd.

But Razerous was making a more general statement that is factually incorrect.

Getting back to the topic at hand, all the eldar heavy support choices are good. What is the best for your army depends on what you want your heavy support doing. So lets look at what each does and where it gets into trouble...

Wraithlord:
The dreadnaught is good at both shooting and hand to hand. It is the only place in the whole army list where you get variable heavy weapons at BS4 so this makes it well suited to low rate of fire (anti tank) weapons. It's hand to hand abilities and over all resilience (T8, W3, 3+ save, fearless) make it hard to kill without using anti tank weapons or power fists. Dreadnaughts are great units if you are looking to make use of their resilience and you are not too concerned about their lack of mobility.

Fire Prism:
Fire prisms are a great combination of fire power and mobility. Their weapons are both anti tank and anti infantry and they get to make use of the new and improved template rules. The down side of them is that they only get one shot per round but since it's a template, it never just misses. The down side is that a single weapon destroyed result effectively takes the unit out of the game. All in all though, prisms are great for providing mobile fire support to your units. With the upgrades they can get, it's possible to make them rather difficult to kill as well, if you are willing to pay for it.

Falcon:
The falcon fills a mixed role. It provides mobile fire support much like the fire prism (although not quite as powerful in most situations) but it has the added bonus of being able to function as a transport. This dual role give is a unique nitch in eldar lists. It also give it a purpose for turns when it gets shaken and can't fire it's weapons. The wide variety of viable weapon loadouts means that you can really alter the way you use a falcon in your army. If it is primarily used for transport, you can make it cheep and just give it a shuriken cannon (which you will rarely if ever use) and zoom around firing the puls laser whenever you move 12" or less. If you want anti tank power, you can have the falcon sit in cover and arm it with a bright lance. For anti heavy infantry work you can give it a star cannon to complement the ap2 fire power of the puls laser. For a general "take all comers" approach, you can give it a missile launcher (which can fire plasma as a defensive weapon) to ensure maximum use of your weapons while moving.

War Walkers:
War walkers pack more firepower into a single unit than just about any other unit in the game (6 variable heavy weapons). I've only seen two setups that really work in 5th edition. The first is all scatter lasers for anti infantry work. This gives you a huge volume of fire to direct at any target. The second is all missile launchers. This setup allows you to reduce the effects of the war walker's low BS by peppering a unit with plasma missiles. It also gives you a viable anti tank option. The down side is that it gets expensive. Due to the way wounds are assigned under 5th edition rules, its generally not a good idea to mix weapons. You have the option of outflanking with the war walkers, but I've never seen this option used to any great effect. It put the walkers way too close to the enemy where their light armor isn't able to properly protect them from the massive amount of fire power that can be directed to them. Having them hang back and make use of the long range of their weapons has worked much better for me. Your experience may differ.

Dark Reapers:
These guys are another high volume of fire unit that can cut though 3+ saves like butter. The real bonus of this unit is the exarch. When armed with a tempest launcher and crack shot, he gets 2 template shots at BS5 that don't require line if sight. They are S4, re-roll failed wounds, are AP3 and ignore cover saves. That's a recipe for death against anything in power armor. I've had mine wipe out 8 man MEQ squad by himself. The down side of the unit is that it's more or less immobile and has no hand to hand ability to speak of. Having a squad of reapers on your side will ensure that your enemy doesn't stick any valuable units into sight without cover saves (or 2+saves).

In the end, what works best is dependent on a lot of factors including (but not limited to) what you have in your army, what you want to accomplish with your heavy support units, what your opponent has in his army, what army your opponent is playing, how much terrain is on the board, and what mission you are playing. My army generally has a squad of reapers, a squad of war walkers with scatter lasers and a falcon with a missile launcher but that's just what works for my setup.

edit:
nm

Flavius Infernus wrote:

Razerous wrote:You cannot forfeit somthing which your not able to do in the first place.

For the record, this is factually incorrect.

I'll be happy to move this discussion to YMDC where I've had it fifty times before, but "in lieu of" does not require the ability to do the thing replaced. I can drive to the mall in lieu of flying there without actually having the ability to fly. In fact, I can even drive there in lieu of flying *because* I'm not able to fly.

I'd strongly disagree with that statement. But while arguing semantics can be fun, I don't think two people arguing on t'interweb are going to come to an agreement.

On the other hand, think about this (it is neither a semantic argument, nor an RaW interpretation, so it would be very easy to pick holes in - it is just an alternative interpretation from a logical perspective...)

If you have used your star engines to move extra, you've already done something else in lieu of shooting. Now, maybe you can do several things in ieu of shooting, but as I said, it is just another point-of-view.

Anyway, it is pointless arguing about, as apparently GW have ruled in an FAQ, and you seem to be happy enough with that.

Care to take it outside, Fifty? (To the YMDC forum). I have to warn you, I've had this argument before...

Back to the original post, I've recently been sold on the value of warwalkers. They used to be comparatively useless. I've had a pair of the old OOP metal models for years, but never bothered to assemble them. But I took them to a tournament this past weekend with all scatterlasers and was impressed with the amount of massed str6 firepower you can get out of 120 points worth of vehicles. With scouting, outflanking and running to contest objectives in late turns (if they survive) as a bonus.

Makes me sad I missed out on the 3-pack GW warwalker sale a couple of years ago. 6 or 9 warwalkers with all missile launchers would make an excellent HW foundation for any shooty Eldar army.

I just converted to Warwalkers too. In advancing foot armies I used to field 3x Wraithlords with BL/EML for anti-tank, but have recently found that 2x Wraithlords (BL/EML) and 3x Warwalkers (with scatterlasers) is a better setup, as the WarWalkers anti-infantry utility is just better tan any number of infantry-mounted weapons with all the cover out there these days and the new wound allocation rules.

Against vehicles, the Walkers can hose light armor even better while the Wraithlords fire on the heavy stuff.

Back to the OP, though: If you play mech, go for Prisms. If you're on the ground, 2 Wraithlords and a squad of 3 Warwalkers will do you best.

And I'm really surprised to find that you use Reapers, Phoenix. Their static nature is just too limiting for me, and I've rarely seen anyone make them work well in a generalist army, even as a fire-lane scare tactic. Which is disappointing, because I have 23 of the little blighters...

Sounds like you guys missed out on the really sick 3rd edition days of 3 war walkers with star cannons and a guide farseer. Nothing like obliterating a 10 man squad every turn (with average rolls). They are a bit less powerful these days but they cost less and still pack one heck of a punch. Again, look into keeping a guide farseer around and see even more of an uptick in damage.