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Recently I posted my Eldar list up and someone made an interesting comment about making heavy support choices scoring.

Is replacing a Fire Prism with a Falcon a viable choice? If you place a six man Dire Avenger Squad inside of them they become scoring.

I am unsure about giving up the anti-swarm ability of a Prism for a Falcon, when I can just place a larger unit in a Wave Serpent.

I guess my question is: does anyone use Falcons? Or are the days of the falcon (and the flying circus gone)?

I don't play my Eldar much lately, but I don't see why the Falcon isn't still a fantastic tank. Fire Dragons in a Falcon is still a great option. Troops in a Falcon can grab objectives.

Falcons are simply over priced for what they do. They can be successful at delivering small units to the frontline, but only if that unit is in itself effective.

to many people like the idea of putting a cheap unit into the falcon to make it capturing. But its not a battle tank, not in fifth edition. In fourth it had great survivability thanks to being fast, but in this edition being fast no longer makes pens count as glances. BS3 makes them mediocre at killing and there are better capturing units out there now, for cheapter.

Falcons main strengths have been reduced in fifth edition and yet their costs have not been reduced. Also unlike the Wave Serpent Falcons weaponry is not twinlinked.

Falcons main strengths have been reduced in fifth edition and yet their costs have not been reduced.

Yeah, but in 4e they were broken. Nearly unkillable, plus transport, plus a reasonable amount of firepower. If you take a broken unit and nerf it slightly, is it not still a good unit?

This is one thing that's always bothered me about the metagame... People tend to ignore the magnitude of a change, and only pay attention to the direction.

If something got better, it's THE BEST! If something got worse, it's TRASH.

For example, Lascannons are not as good in 5e and Multi-Meltas are better. Ok... But that doesn't mean the Lascannon is now totally useless and not worth taking, and the Multi-Melta is instant win.

In the end, what really matters is the list around the HS choices. Does it more need the services of a Fire Prism or a Falcon?

Phryxis wrote:

Falcons main strengths have been reduced in fifth edition and yet their costs have not been reduced.

Yeah, but in 4e they were broken. Nearly unkillable, plus transport, plus a reasonable amount of firepower. If you take a broken unit and nerf it slightly, is it not still a good unit?

This is one thing that's always bothered me about the metagame... People tend to ignore the magnitude of a change, and only pay attention to the direction.

If something got better, it's THE BEST! If something got worse, it's TRASH.

For example, Lascannons are not as good in 5e and Multi-Meltas are better. Ok... But that doesn't mean the Lascannon is now totally useless and not worth taking, and the Multi-Melta is instant win.

In the end, what really matters is the list around the HS choices. Does it more need the services of a Fire Prism or a Falcon?

wow ... but this isn't really a fight between Fire Prisms and Falcons because a Prism wins hands down. It has better weapons and BS but can't transport. Why did i want my main battle tank transport people near the enemy?

Now if you want a transport why not take the Wave Serpent. It comes with space for 12, a Twin Linked main gun (which can be any thing your army needs) and under slung TL Catapult (or Cannon if you want). Best of all its sporting the Energy Field rule in its base price.

Which is the problem for the falcon it does nothing well enough to deserve the Heavy support slot it takes up. Now if it came as a fast attack choice then I and many others would think twice about it (since we could still use the Heavy slots for things that deserve a place)

wow ... but this isn't really a fight between Fire Prisms and Falcons because a Prism wins hands down. It has better weapons and BS but can't transport. Why did i want my main battle tank transport people near the enemy?

Again... In 4e, people just couldn't stop singing the praises of the Falcon. It was the core of a whole top-end list, it was totally unkillable, it was broken, it was the best ever, ever.

Now, suddenly, it's weak.

So, whatever, maybe you're right, maybe it's not good anymore. But either you're wrong, or the people who ranted over it in 4e are wrong, cause it hasn't changed that much. It's still BS3. It still costs the same. It's still got the same weapons.

You're making me sound like Jervis Johnson over here...

Falcons are simply over priced for what they do

What are you smoking? It must be good though, if you think a falcon is overpriced.

In 4th ed, falcons were stupidly over powered, now they are still amazing but not the crutch that they were.

Falcons are awesome, and no, Prisms are not clearly better. Prisms are good, most definitely, but not a hands down winner. There is a place for a Falcon in almost any Eldar list.

The falcon is still incredibly tough and it can deliver a payload of fire dragons. The only difference is that now you can't simply drive around with impunity laughing as every weapon fired at it just bounced off of it. That was incredibly stupid. They still are, however, amazing tanks for their points and work very, very well.

A mech Eldar list will still go toe to toe with any army in the game and have a very good chance of winning, it just isn't the auto win that it was, and frankly, that is a good thing.

As for the OP, throwing some cheap Avengers in there is not a bad idea at all, as you can sit back shooting the Falcon at armor, then move, potentially, 36" at games end and snag an objective with very high odds of survival. Or, you use the age old tactic of packing them with dragons, zip forward and destroy an enemy tank or elite unit. In order to use that tactic effectively though, you need to overwhelm your opponent with targets. If you simply zip one falcon forward alone, your enemy can focus fire on it until it's dead. If you have say, 4 wave serpents and 2 falcons all bum rushing, full of aspect warriors and halries, you overload him with targets and diffuse his fire and the next turn you hit his lines with a sledge hammer. Combine that with the fact that you will most likely not be entangled if the transport gets destroyed and you have one of th emost reliable methods of getting assault and short ranged shooty units to the enemy.

Im well aware something can be reduced and still good, and I highlighted what the strengths of the falcon still are.

You have taken your example the other way, you've assumed that since it was overpowered in fourth edition and was rightly nerfed, then now it is at a good but not over powered level.

theory aside on a realist level the Falcon is a niche unit, it is good for delivering units but its hardly a battle tank that it used to be. And its costed as though it was a battle tank, rather than as a glorified transport

Allot of reason they were so good in 4th Edition. The Biggest in 4th was Strength 6 was classed as a Defensive weapon ... So basically 90% builds could shoot all weapons while moving 12". Now it can shoot 1 weapon (or 3 if you go for TL-SC, EML).

Reecius wrote:

Falcons are simply over priced for what they do

What are you smoking? It must be good though, if you think a falcon is overpriced.

In 4th ed, falcons were stupidly over powered, now they are still amazing but not the crutch that they were.

Falcons are awesome, and no, Prisms are not clearly better. Prisms are good, most definitely, but not a hands down winner. There is a place for a Falcon in almost any Eldar list.

The falcon is still incredibly tough and it can deliver a payload of fire dragons. The only difference is that now you can't simply drive around with impunity laughing as every weapon fired at it just bounced off of it. That was incredibly stupid. They still are, however, amazing tanks for their points and work very, very well.

A mech Eldar list will still go toe to toe with any army in the game and have a very good chance of winning, it just isn't the auto win that it was, and frankly, that is a good thing.

As for the OP, throwing some cheap Avengers in there is not a bad idea at all, as you can sit back shooting the Falcon at armor, then move, potentially, 36" at games end and snag an objective with very high odds of survival. Or, you use the age old tactic of packing them with dragons, zip forward and destroy an enemy tank or elite unit. In order to use that tactic effectively though, you need to overwhelm your opponent with targets. If you simply zip one falcon forward alone, your enemy can focus fire on it until it's dead. If you have say, 4 wave serpents and 2 falcons all bum rushing, full of aspect warriors and halries, you overload him with targets and diffuse his fire and the next turn you hit his lines with a sledge hammer. Combine that with the fact that you will most likely not be entangled if the transport gets destroyed and you have one of th emost reliable methods of getting assault and short ranged shooty units to the enemy.

I run a falcon in my list, im not claiming it doesnt have its uses, It can be a fantastic troop delivery system, however its firepower is strength eight at bs3. That basically means against vehicles it will be equivelent to getting hit by a missile launcher as both shots wont probably hit.

I dont think that it is better than Fire prisms, I run two fire prisms and a falcon, mainly because a holofielded transport is better than a wave serpent.

I do think that they are over priced though.

There is something wrong with the falcon when I would much rather have access to the IG’s vendetta (a fast attack vehicle) than the falcon.

Sure the falcon is more survivable if you take holofields, but I would much rather have the abilities to transport 12 models, move 24” and deep strike in some fire dragons, or shoot 3 TL lascannons at a the reasonable cost of 130 pts.

Yes, I know it is not fair to compare a single unit from one codex to another but it does help to illustrate how the pinnacle eldar skimmer feels lacking

Also, amongst your choices of transport gunships, the Serpent simply gives more value for the points. Given that high-strength shooting is limited to one weapon on the move, given that TL hits more, given that the Serpent field cuts melta (spam) efficacy in the close quarters where transported troops are often dropped, the Serpent just does better. Finally, if you want most Eldar units to hit hard and/or survive outside the transport, units of 10-12 is usually _more_ than twice as good as 6 (diffusing wounds for specific models, leadership tests, etc.). Thus capacity is also important.

When you factor competition for HS slots with the Prism in, the Falcon really loses.

I play mechdar, and hung on to my Falcons doggedly after 5th kicked in. Through trial and error, I was convinced to switch to Serpents and Prisms. Your mileage may vary.

Allot of reason they were so good in 4th Edition. The Biggest in 4th was Strength 6 was classed as a Defensive weapon

Valid point. This, along with the improvements in AP1, is the only reason I can see that a Fire Prism would improve relative to the Falcon. The Skimmer nerfs apply equally.

Considering that you have to combine shots to get AP1 out of a Fire Prism, I don't think that's a major distinction.

That basically means against vehicles it will be equivelent to getting hit by a missile launcher as both shots wont probably hit.

Unchanged since 4e.

There is something wrong with the falcon when I would much rather have access to the IG’s vendetta (a fast attack vehicle) than the falcon.

No... There's something wrong with the IG Codex, when it has a handfull of units that everybody else in the game would trade any unit in their list for. Hydras, Vendettas, Griffons, etc.

To repeat what several posters have said here, it's not a matter of "OMGooses, it was nerfed, now it's completely worthless"

It's a matter of:

"All skimmers were nerfed, so now some other units do the same job, but better, than the Falcon, which still costs the same number of points, and still takes up a HS slot."

Wave serpents are better (and cheaper) for transporting fire dragons, have similar firepower (thanks to twin-linking), and are more durable against melta weaponry.

If you need a stand-off firepower tank, fire prisms do it better, again for cheaper (due to the fact you don't have to buy a second weapon).

I think if you transport a farseer with Guide in the Falcon, it becomes a bit scarier, but then you're just dedicating an important unit (your farseer) to make a mediocre unit (the falcon) better, when your farseer can be making your good units better instead.

I didnt play in fourth edition, maybe this allows me to view the falcon without remembering how overpowered it was. For this reason I can objectively look at the falcon, I'm not comparing it to what it used to be im comparing it to the current game.


The falcon has mediocre transport only really able to deliver units of fire dragons effectively, any other unit will be to small to be effective.

It has mediocre Fire power, the Pulse Laser is only strength eight on ballistic skill 3, sure that may be the same in 4th edition, but 4th edition was a different game, in 5th edition the Falcon underperforms.

Its survivability isnt as great as people think, it has to come close to deploy its troops, meaning that survivability that might be great for a long range fire platform such as the Fire Prism is not great for a close range delivery vehicle.

Phryxis wrote: This, along with the improvements in AP1, is the only reason I can see that a Fire Prism would improve relative to the Falcon. The Skimmer nerfs apply equally.

It is also easier to take advantage of the cover save rule using the prisim since you don't have to worry about trying to get a transported unit into position.

No... There's something wrong with the IG Codex, when it has a handfull of units that everybody else in the game would trade any unit in their list for. Hydras, Vendettas, Griffons, etc.

I have to disagree. There is not universal love for Hydras and Griffons.

Everyone does seems to agree that the Vendetta is good, but I think it is fairly costed.

You can still take a BL and the main gun and fire 3 str 8 (one of which being a lance) weapons moving 6 inches a turn, then grab on objective late game, or go fully mech and bum rush into the enemy back lines and maul them turn 2. Plus, you can guide it with a faseer inside, who can be attached to a unit of warlocks for one of the most useful HtH units in the game.)

The falcon is not overpriced, at all.

Vendettas rock, but they are so much easier to destroy than a wave serpent of a falcon, plus they never get cover as they are so big and sit so high up in the air. I agree though, that the Hydra, Griffon and Vendetta are all at least a bit under priced.

you move at six inches per turn and you'll get blown of the table.

A farseer and warlocks would be better used on a jetbikes, that way they dont have to wait a turn after getting out there falcon before they can attack, and they'll still have the same mobility.

You can go fully mech with a wave serpent, fully mech doesnt have to include a Falcon.

The Falcon has a niche job now, deploying fire dragons.

Reecius wrote:You can still take a BL and the main gun and fire 3 str 8 (one of which being a lance) weapons moving 6 inches a turn, then grab on objective late game, or go fully mech and bum rush into the enemy back lines and maul them turn 2. Plus, you can guide it with a faseer inside, who can be attached to a unit of warlocks for one of the most useful HtH units in the game.)

The falcon is not overpriced, at all.

Vendettas rock, but they are so much easier to destroy than a wave serpent of a falcon, plus they never get cover as they are so big and sit so high up in the air. I agree though, that the Hydra, Griffon and Vendetta are all at least a bit under priced.

Again, why spend so much effort making one mediocre unit good, when you can be making your good units good?

Ok lets get me this right you want to take 5 or 6 DA and stuff them in to a falcon to make it scoring? You'll then spend the next 5+ turns hiding to jump forward and capture an objective ... ok math time (using min costs)

DAx5 60pts + falcon 120pts = 180pts
DAx5 60 + wave serpent 100pts = 160pts

ok this only comes with a TL S.Cannon and TL S.Catapult but the point is simple. It's 20pts cheaper it doesn't take up a heavy support slot and it comes with the energy field rule. Hell throwing on a TL Brightlance and its only 5pts more then the falcon combo.

Is it worth it for 2 shots of strength 8 AP at 48"?

@Tri

I think the idea was to give the falcon holofields and add the five man dire avenger unit to make it a difficult to kill scoring unit

I agree with the majority that falcons are over priced and wave searpants are a much better deal for the price, when you look at the cost to make a falcon viable it is going to run you around 200 points, you need nothing with a wave searpant for a cost of around 100 points, and it is just as survivable against alot of weapons, but suffers if someone spams lower strength weapons at it, but you can get 2 serpants for one falcon, to me its simple math. The few changes in the 5th ed rule book took falcons from amazing to not so good, you may think just a few changes may not make that big of a difference but in reality it makes huge differences, look at how good the black templars got just with just a few changes to the 5th ed rules. serpants can carry 10 fire dragons, one falcon with 6 naked dragons will run you around 310 to 320 points 1 wave serpant with 10 fire dragons will cost around 260 points, that comes to a cheaper more effective unit, 10 melta shots vs 6 melta shots. so you pay 780 points for 30 fire dragons in wave serpants, vs 945 points for 18 fire dragons, you do the math it adds up quick, now you have alot more killing power cheaper with points to spear for a dark reaper squad on top of that.

Manimal wrote:@Tri

I think the idea was to give the falcon holofields and add the five man dire avenger unit to make it a difficult to kill scoring unit

My point still stands its cheaper to do it with wave serpents. Every thing added to the falcon make the wave serpent better value.
Add holo field its becomes 35pts more over priced +20 that it started that 55pts you could be spending on something more useful.

The problem with comparing falcons to prisms is that it always winds up comparing them as long-range firepower tanks, and the prism will always clearly win that contest.

The problem comparing falcons to serpents is that it always winds up comparing them as transports for fire dragons, and the serpent will always clearly win that contest.

I think we can pretty much write off the falcon as a long-range gunboat or as a transport for firedragons--it's mediocre at the one and crap at the other--and maybe ask the question if there's anything that a falcon still does better?

Well it transports a 5-man DA unit better than a prism, since the prism can't transport. So it totally beats the prism in the contest of which can be a scoring fast skimmer.

True that you can put DAs into a wave serpent and have a scoring fast skimmer for much less, but serpents can't have holofields. Serpents survive melta hits better, while holofalcons survive everything else (including HtH assaults) better. So the falcon is marginally better than a serpent at surviving at long ranges (outside of melta range) and also if it's assaulted, since the holofield works against HtH attacks too.

So although it costs almost double, a falcon IMO is better than a wave serpent at the job of spending the whole game hanging back at standoff ranges, then zooming in during the late game to control (not contest) objectives. If that's what you want to do.

My feeling also is that, if you have an extra non-bike farseer hanging around--or Eldrad who can't ride a bike anyway--he can greatly enhance the performance of a falcon with guide and/or fortune from inside, while the falcon gives him excellent standoff protection.

But yeah, the days of zooming fire dragons up in a falcon are over.

but a jetbiker unit is better than a falcon at hanging back of the edges then zooming in during the late game to control objectives.

Therefore a fire prism is a better gunboat, a wave serpent is a better general transport, and jetbikes are a better late game controller.

As for the Farseer or eldrad improving it to a much better unit, a Farseer can improve a bladestorm from 11 wounds versus MEQs to 22 wounds. All in all thats a much better improvement than a guided Pulse Laser. I know what i'd rather put my Farseer in with.

combo wrote:but a jetbiker unit is better than a falcon at hanging back of the edges then zooming in during the late game to control objectives.

We must have different metagames. Where I play, nothing that can be hurt by a str5 or less gun (like a bike) can safely hang back for the whole game. It'll get nuked* by a whirlwind or colossus or something else that drops indirect fire templates that will just bounce off a falcon.

In fact, I stopped using bikes in mech eldar armies a long time ago because of that. It just gives the other guy a target for the str4-5 guns that would be useless against a wall of AR12 skimmers.

(edit) *...or have a couple of models sniped, fail its leadership test(s) and zoom off the board, or get lashed up into assault range, or have weaken resolve cast on it, or any of the other things that transported units are immune to.

Oh yeah, and if I'm shooting at a nob biker, a plague marine/oblit, or monstrous creature, I'd rather have a pulse laser and be 48" away than have a bladestorm and be 18" away.

There is not universal love for Hydras and Griffons.

Then people should probably read the rules for Hydras and Griffons.

But yeah, the days of zooming fire dragons up in a falcon are over.

Why is that?

Phryxis wrote:

But yeah, the days of zooming fire dragons up in a falcon are over.

Why is that?

Penetrating hits still kill falcons dead. Even with holofields. That was always their weakness, even in the days when skimmers moving fast were always glancing.

The transports that are ferrying FDs to their targets wind up being really close to the enemy a lot. Where all the newly-popular melta weapons are that get a lot of penetrating hits. And the krak grenades that penetrate your falcon's back armor.

Wave serpents are better at surviving up-close melta fire and cheap enough that you can get an extra one and ferry up two units of FDs.

Phryxis wrote:

Then people should probably read the rules for Hydras and Griffons.

Good point, I am sure that is the reason.

Penetrating hits still kill falcons dead. Even with holofields.

I'm not sure what that means... By my math it's 25% chance to kill a Falcon on a Pen.

Also, if you're dropping FDs on something, you're pretty much going to kill it. If it's a Land Raider, hey, I'll trade a 180 point Falcon for a Land Raider, right?

Plus, if you're attacking at the right point in the enemy line, you could easily be hiding your Falcon behind a dead Land Raider, making it obscured, and thus a Pen kills 1 time in 8. I'm not sure what the numbers were like in 4e, but that's pretty solid by 5e standards.

I guess I'm not sure how anything is fundamentally changed. I didn't drive Falcons into the middle of the pain in 4e, no matter how tough they were on paper. I still tried to protect them as much as possible by rapidly relocating to destroy an opponent's flanking force, etc.