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How have the new rules affected Falcons? Are they still hard to kill? Does the change from glancing hits only to a save help or hurt them?

Any new ideas or tactics for their use in 5E?

Hurts them a whole bunch tbh. With the Glancing only rule they had a 2/6 Chance of being killed on a glance and/or penetrate (since it got downgraded), now with the penetrating hits its turned into 3/6, with the irony being that they only have a 1/6 of being popped on a Glancing hit now (but lets face it, it's wafer thin, when will you NOT get a Penetrating hit on it.

rerollable cover saves aren't helping to keep them alive?

It always makes me sad to see Eldar players who still waste their heavy slots on Falcons when the waveserpent is a lot more reliable for the points as a transport, and the fire prism offers better firepower against most targets.

Holofields.

4th edition Falcon with std loadout and holofields:

8/9 survivable roll.
Move 12" fire pulse laser, scatter laser. shuriken cannon.

5th edition Falcon


If a glance: 35/36 survivable roll
If a pen: 3/4 survivable roll
Move 6" to fire all.

It got nerfed on survivability, mobility and firepower. yet it costs more than a fireprism and a guard player can now field 3 instead of two chimera for about the same price. A marine 5 rhinos instead of 3. It is all around a bad buy.

Mind you, you may have a tactical need for it in your build but tell me why you would rather have 2 holo-falcons instead of 3 fireprisms? Why would you rather have 2 falcons with BS3 or 3 wave serpents with a TL weapon system? Survivability was the old reason to take one but that went up in smoke.

35 points.

The nerf to skimmers moving fast along with the nerf to defensive weapons being strength 4 hurt the Falcon alot in 5th edition since you can't move 12 get the skimmer moving fast only glancing and fire your weapons.

Falcons can still be pretty survivable if you move more then 12 each turn you get a 4+ cover save and then holo fields. However you are not firing if you move fast to get a cover save. You can put 5 dire avengers in a Falcon to have a tough to kill scoring unit. However this is pretty expensive points wise. Add a farseer inside for fortune for a rerollable coversave but that gets really expensive.

The new Imperial Guard Hydras put a damper on this combo however because they ignore the skimmer cover save for moving fast.

You have to commit to them to make them worth it. 5 dire avengers in a falcon with spirit stones, holo field and Eldrad is a hard core start to a mech army.

Just keep the tank out of hth and the falcon is neigh unkillable. The only thing that goes wrong occasionally is being immobilized.

I think any mech eldar list should run this unit...

It doesn't need to kill anything. I just supports the army and scores at the end.

deFl0 wrote:You have to commit to them to make them worth it. 5 dire avengers in a falcon with spirit stones, holo field and Eldrad is a hard core start to a mech army.

Just keep the tank out of hth and the falcon is neigh unkillable. The only thing that goes wrong occasionally is being immobilized.

I think any mech eldar list should run this unit...

It doesn't need to kill anything. I just supports the army and scores at the end.

So you're saying that every Eldar player should have to contribute one HQ slot, one heavy slot, a troops slot, and 400+ points to have ONE survivable scoring unit? BS.

For a decent points discount, and without using good-as-gold HQ or Heavy slots, you can have two min-size Dire Avenger squads in Wave Serpents, and use your HS slots for things that are going to wreck your opponent's army if he doesn't shoot at them (Fire Prisms do this well).

Yup.

Try playing all mech and see how it goes...

Guardains or Dire avnegers are great in wave serpents until the game goes into extra innings

What you find is that you win if the game ends short but if it lasts another two turns, the waveserpents tend to get knocked down in hth and dire avengers largely fold in one turn of combat.

Falcon on the other hand is considerably more survivable in hth due to the hold field.

Plus the unit has great synergy with the rest of any mech list.

Fortune the waveserpent for the frie dragosn the turn it star engines away to kill that land raider. Or guide the two fire prisms you will no doubt be taking.

Or doom a unit and blade storm the crap out of them.

Or keep the eldar close to a unit of warlocks in hth and keep them fortuned with out getting out of your ride.

Plus the re deployement can be especially useful with mechdar.

Seems expensive but the modifiers way out perform the negatives. Plus, most people won't shoot it because the falcon isn't doing damage to you...

Your opponent is tied up dealing with fire prisms and fire dragons int their back field.

Try it out. You will quickly see this unit is superior to the two small dire avenger squads in waveserpents...

Pete

A single Falcon with a 60-point "scoring upgrade" (ie 5 DA) is worthwhile. It can hide in the back of your DZ near objectives, fire long-range, and rely on cover. Holofields are ok but not needed. Eldrad/Fortune is good but also not needed. These are all points that can go elsewhere in a list. A Serpent can do a similar trick, without taking the heavy support slot but also without holofields. Still, holofields are not what they once were.

tzeentchling wrote:A single Falcon with a 60-point "scoring upgrade" (ie 5 DA) is worthwhile. It can hide in the back of your DZ near objectives, fire long-range, and rely on cover. Holofields are ok but not needed. Eldrad/Fortune is good but also not needed. These are all points that can go elsewhere in a list. A Serpent can do a similar trick, without taking the heavy support slot but also without holofields. Still, holofields are not what they once were.

Eh, if you're not even going to give it a holofield, take a serpent for cheaper. A falcon without a holofield is just waiting for a krack missile, autocannon or lascannon to open it right up.