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.

Autarch - Mandiblasters, Power Weapon & Fusion Gun

10 Dire Avengers - 120

5 Howling Banshees - 80

3 Dark Reapers - 105

Leaves me with 95 points.

Now, some advice please. Should I take

a) some exarchs and abilities

b) a unit of rangers for more troops

and should I put my Avengers in 1 or 2 units?

An exarch each for two setsof 5 avengers and the banshees give me two lots of troops. If I go for rangers I'd have two troop choices but I'd probably need to keep the avengers together to give them some strength.

Are Reapers worth it at this points level?

I am planning for my first game of W40K in 15 years, so need to get it right!!

First off, in order to field a legal army, you must have 1 HQ and 2 Troop units. Right now you have 1 HQ, 1 Elite, and 1 Heavy Support, so your army isn't legal unless you split up the dire avengers and that's not a very good idea. To make it legal, you will need to add in another troop unit. Fortunately you have the points to do it. For 95 points, you can get a 10 man guardian squad with a scatter laser. This will bolster your model count by a fair margin which should help you out a fair bit. The other option would be to get some jetbikes. I would recommend getting 3 bikes (one with a shuriken cannon) for 76 points and then spending your remaining points to buy a dire avenger exarch with blade storm. This will allow you to keep the avengers together as one large squad so that they entire unit can benefit from the exarch.

As for the dark reapers, it kind of depends on your opponent(s). If you are up against MEQ armies, the reapers are invaluable. Stick them in cover in your back field and open up at long range on guys in power armor. Their range seriously limits the options you opponent has for striking back at them and their ap means that your opponent will have to stick to cover (and thus slow his advance) or risk taking serious damage. The down side comes if you opponent starts to take tanks. Reapers can't really do much (if anything) to vehicles so you'll have to pop the armor with other units before your reapers will be useful.

In other advice, I think you would find that you get a lot more mileage out of a farseer than you will out of an autarch. The autarch has some hand to hand punch, but the farseer is a force multiplier. Fortune goes a long way to making sure your short ranged units are still alive after crossing the board. Doom can ensure that whatever unit you are focusing your fire on is dead. Either one could be had for ~80 points or you can put both on the same farseer for ~130 (if you take 2 powers, you must take spirit stones so you can use both in the same turn).