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Ok, a few notes on the units you are using and what to do and not to do with them.

1) Farseer: Doom is a great option for the farseer if he's going to be running with or around dire avengers, harlequins, or banshees. Fortune is decent if he's running with banshees. Eldrich storm would only be useful if he's going to be with the dire avengers (the banshees will be running every turn they get the chance so you won't be able to use the storm if you are with them). Guide could be useful if you're planning on hanging out in a falcon for most of the game. In either case, figure out where your farseer is going to be all game and then give him powers to match. The singing spear is only useful if you want the entire squad he's in to shoot at a vehicle. Remember that if they shoot a vehicle, they have to also charge that vehicle if they want to charge anything at all. The spear also means the farseer loses an attack in hand to hand (since its two handed an he can't use his pistol with it)

2) Banshees are good. They go up to being great if you have a doom farseer with/near them. Larger squads are better though. A 5 (wo)man squad is going to be a one shot wonder and they had better be attacking a target that's already wounded. I, myself, personally, never field less than 8 in a squad. An exarch with executioner is very helpful as well. You can skip the exarch powers. Banshees almost require a transport to be good.

3) Fire dragons: these guys are your best tank busters. They require a transport to be used at all, so if you don't have something to put them in, leave them at home. Since you have plenty of falcons, this shouldn't be a problem. Squads of 6 tend to work just fine. They have a very good chance of busting just about any tank in one round of shooting. I think exarchs are a waste, but if you are going to take one, you can either leave him with a fusion gun or give him the flamer for some duel role work (something I dispise in an eldar army because it wastes their specalties). In either case, crack shot is good and tank hunter is worthless to a squad full of melta guns. Over all, I would just save the points and stick with 6 normal dragons.

4) Harlequins: These guys are about on par with banshees in terms of hand to hand ability. Always arm the whole squad with kisses. The only reason not to is if you are expecting to take casualties on the way in and you want to bank on taking those guys out first (although with new wounding rules, that's a craps shoot). Quins are one of the only hand to hand units in the game that really work well as a foot slogging unit. If you give them a shadow seer, it becomes very difficult to shoot them from anywhere but super short range. So unless your opponent zooms up a transport to deal with them, they will make it to their target. Alternately, you can put them in a transport, in which case, it is possible to run the unit without a shadow seer (since the transport will protect them for most of the time) but it is risky since you’ll die if you ever get caught out in the open on the enemy’s turn. Either way, they will probably be running for most of the game so fusion pistols and death jesters are generally a waste of points. If you want to make an expensive squad more expensive, you can add the troupe master, but I never do. Doom really really helps quins since rending is on the “to wound” roll these days.

5) Flacons: Flacons are good main battle tanks and they double up as transports too. The 2 units you'll generally want to put in them are fire dragons and quins. Fire dragons (snakes on a plane) being the premiere choice there. In either case, you will want to think carefully about weapon options for the falcon. The main good options are the star cannon, the bright lance, and the missile launcher. The star cannon complements the puls laser at being a multi shot, ap 2 weapon. It allows you to have a dedicated anti heavy infantry killer. Very helpful against mega armor nob squads and terminators. No so useful against anything with a 4+ cover save. Using this option effectively means you have to move 6" or less every turn so you are probably not transporting a unit. The bright lance turns the falcon into an anti tank unit. The one lance shot and the 2 S8 puls laser shots give you enough fire power to have a decent chance at doing damage to just about any tank out there. The down side to this is that you really star to feel the pain of BS3 and you can't move more than 6" a turn, so you can't really use the tank as a transport. The missile launcher provides the most attractive option for the flacon. The krak shot gives you a total of 3 shots at strength 8 for tank busting when you are moving 6" or less. The beauty of the weapon is that if you move in the 6-12 range, you can still fire all your weapons if you shoot the missile launcher in frag (plasma) mode since it becomes a defensive weapon at that point. This means you can fully use both the fire power and the mobility of the falcon. Any falcon being used as a transport should have a missile launcher on it. Falcons should always have holofields (it make them ~40% harder to kill) particularly if they are being used as transports. If you are going to be a transport, you should also always have spirit stones. If you are going to be a sit back and shoot tank, you can leave the stones off if you need to save points. Vectored engines only help you when you get immobilized while moving over 12" in a turn (so on a turn where you didn't shoot anything). How often do you thing that's going to happen? Probably not much but you'll have to make that call for yourself. I never take them anymore these days. Star engines are also a questionable buy since any time you use them, you skip using the guns you paid for.

6) Wave Serpents: These are great transports. One should always be taken for banshees and for any fire dragons that are not in a falcon. They are an excellent platform for bright lances since they are twin linked. Alternately, if you give them missile launchers and upgrade the under slung weapon to a cannon, it can move 12 and fire all its weapons (assuming you go frag with the missile launcher). Alternately, you can just leave it with shuriken cannons to keep it cheap. Spirit stones are required and most other upgrades are unnecessary. Star engines can be fun on cheapy serpents since you are not likely to do much with the guns anyway. If you paid for gun upgrades though, you should probably use them and thus skip the star engines. Its fairly easy to model a wave serpent. All you have to do is take a flacon and make sure the same guns are on both sides of the turret. Adding in something extra for the field generator is also nice but hardly required.

7) Dire avengers: This is another unit that more or less requires a transport. Large squad sizes are also a requirement as is an exarch with blade storm. Defend and the shimmer shield are good if you expect your avengers to end up in hand to hand AND you also plan to have backup around to save them. The hand to hand upgrades only make the squad more likely to survive hand to hand; they do not make the squad do any more damage in hand to hand. So if they are going to lose, the upgrades only make them lose slower. You will have to put something like the qunis around to bail them out if they do end up in hand to hand. For the most part, I would skip the hand to hand upgrades and just stick with the shooting powers and equipment.

8) Swooping hawks: These guys really suck. They don’t do anything well, they die easily, particularly if you are in short range, (aka trying to use haywire grenades on anything). Their guns are weak and don’t have enough range to keep them out of trouble. To top it all off, hawks are expensive. Leave them at home and spend the points on just about anything else, you’ll be better off.

9) Scout: Always pay for the pathfinder upgrade, it’s so worth it. Otherwise, leave these guys in your back field holding an objective and shoot away. Never use infiltrate to deploy outside of your deployment zone.

That about covers my advice for you now. Hope it helps.

yep thx a lot. Id already gotten rid of some of the the things you said like hawks. you reinforced them from being in my army list. I think my final list is about done, just a couple more changes its on pg. 1 close to the bottom

wuestenfux wrote:

Dude, charging enemy in cover your init is lowered to a 1. Yes, you have to move through it too. I mean, if the enemy is on the very edge of the cover you might get away with it, but who would set up like that?

If the unit is not slowed down, it charges with normal initiative. Dude.

Wow- I stand corrected, and had not noticed the exact wording vs. the Halies special rule. Thanks for pointing that out!

In that case, for close-range bailout the Shadowseer becomes useless, but if you are starting the Harlies along a flank to minimize return fire after they wipe out their victims, the Shadowseer remains useful (ie they might actually survive a round of bolter fire from one unit rather than 2 or 3). But if it's a choice of 3 more kisses and some more bling elsewhere vs. the shadowseer, I now agree with you wuestenfux. Good argument.

Rarely do I disagree with you Pheonix, but there's a couple points:

Phoenix wrote:Falcons should always have holofields (it make them ~40% harder to kill) particularly if they are being used as transports. If you are going to be a transport, you should also always have spirit stones. If you are going to be a sit back and shoot tank, you can leave the stones off if you need to save points.

Not being able to retreat into cover when you're shaken (not shooting anyways, but a great focus for enemy antitank weapons if they have nothing better to shoot) always sucks. I would never leave spirit stones off unless that last 10 points was make-or-break. And how often does one use a Falcon as just a gun platform? Prisms, warwalkers etc. do that better for cheaper. If you're not using the Falcon's transport capacity, you're wasting serious points in the first place.

As for holos, they do make the Falcons more survivable. However in a non-annihilation game with a mech army, the survival of a single Falcon is often less useful than the two infantry models, 3 spirit stones, or extra Farseer power that the points spent on a holofield can buy. I still use holos too when I can afford them, but when things get tight I usually dump them early in the cutting-down process.

Vectored engines only help you when you get immobilized while moving over 12" in a turn (so on a turn where you didn't shoot anything). How often do you thing that's going to happen? Probably not much but you'll have to make that call for yourself. I never take them anymore these days. Star engines are also a questionable buy since any time you use them, you skip using the guns you paid for.

Most folks only take Falcons as transports or dual-role. The units being transported (Dragons, Harlies) are quite short-ranged or CC oriented. Especially if they're your only resource for their role, you will often need to move them more than 12", especially against highly mobile enemies. Delivering those troops is usually more important than the Falcon's lukewarm shooting. Being able to utilize that 24" movement without fear of crashing is vital. Being able to move even more than 24" is not quite as vital, but can come in handy, especially if you're faking your opponent out by deploying on the other side of the table to draw their strength, then dumping your troops at the their undefended resources.

Just differing opinions. YMMV, karlfranz. Any games with that revised list yet?

nope havent got models yet. Should get grav tanks and 2 units of dire avengers by this week or next. Then i will start playteting with different thins

In that case, for close-range bailout the Shadowseer becomes useless, but if you are starting the Harlies along a flank to minimize return fire after they wipe out their victims, the Shadowseer remains useful (ie they might actually survive a round of bolter fire from one unit rather than 2 or 3). But if it's a choice of 3 more kisses and some more bling elsewhere vs. the shadowseer, I now agree with you wuestenfux. Good argument.

Thank you, Savnok.

Savnock wrote:Rarely do I disagree with you Pheonix, but there's a couple points:

Phoenix wrote:Falcons should always have holofields (it make them ~40% harder to kill) particularly if they are being used as transports. If you are going to be a transport, you should also always have spirit stones. If you are going to be a sit back and shoot tank, you can leave the stones off if you need to save points.

Not being able to retreat into cover when you're shaken (not shooting anyways, but a great focus for enemy antitank weapons if they have nothing better to shoot) always sucks. I would never leave spirit stones off unless that last 10 points was make-or-break. And how often does one use a Falcon as just a gun platform? Prisms, warwalkers etc. do that better for cheaper. If you're not using the Falcon's transport capacity, you're wasting serious points in the first place.

As for holos, they do make the Falcons more survivable. However in a non-annihilation game with a mech army, the survival of a single Falcon is often less useful than the two infantry models, 3 spirit stones, or extra Farseer power that the points spent on a holofield can buy. I still use holos too when I can afford them, but when things get tight I usually dump them early in the cutting-down process.

Certainly valid arguemnts. On spirit stones: if your falcon is going forward (aka using its transport capacity) then it should always have spirit stones since movemt is critical to it fulfilling its role. If it is sitting in your back field being a gun turret then the spirit stones are not so useful. Retreating into cover shouldn't be an issue because if you are being a back field gun turret, you are already in cover. If you are not, you are doing something wrong. However, you are correct in saying that there are better units for that role.

As far as holofields go, there are a couple of ways to look at things. Yes you could do something with those other points, but what are the gains or losses of doing so. If a falcon goes down, there is now more anti tank fire being directed at the other vehicles in the army and that is never a good thing. I find that the value of continuing to suck fire power out of the opponent is well worth the points but that is simply my opinion.

Vectored engines only help you when you get immobilized while moving over 12" in a turn (so on a turn where you didn't shoot anything). How often do you thing that's going to happen? Probably not much but you'll have to make that call for yourself. I never take them anymore these days. Star engines are also a questionable buy since any time you use them, you skip using the guns you paid for.

Most folks only take Falcons as transports or dual-role. The units being transported (Dragons, Harlies) are quite short-ranged or CC oriented. Especially if they're your only resource for their role, you will often need to move them more than 12", especially against highly mobile enemies. Delivering those troops is usually more important than the Falcon's lukewarm shooting. Being able to utilize that 24" movement without fear of crashing is vital. Being able to move even more than 24" is not quite as vital, but can come in handy, especially if you're faking your opponent out by deploying on the other side of the table to draw their strength, then dumping your troops at the their undefended resources.

I suppose the crux of my point there was that you pay for weapons to put on the falcon. I don't see the point of paying more for things that make it so you can't use your weapons. Sure you may need to zoom 24" every so often, but doing so gives you a cover save. Do you feel that you need additional protection beyond that? I do not, but again you may find that you do. If you do find that you move over 12" on most turns, then perhaps it is worth it. If you are doing that, you may want to strip off as many weapons as you can since you are not really using them.

how about

Eldrad
5 fire dragons w/ brightlance waveserpent
9 banshees w/ exarch w/ shuriken cannon waveserpent
10 dire avengers w/ bladestorm exarch w/ brightlance wave serpent
10 storm guardians 2x flamers with warlock with destructor in a brightlance waveserpent
5 rangers
3 x naked fireprism

just a thought

Eldrad
5 fire dragons w/ brightlance waveserpent
9 banshees w/ exarch w/ shuriken cannon waveserpent
10 dire avengers w/ bladestorm exarch w/ brightlance wave serpent
10 storm guardians 2x flamers with warlock with destructor in a brightlance waveserpent
5 rangers
3 x naked fireprism

Looks quite good. The only 'safe place' for Eldrad is the Ranger squad.

pretty good. Only reason i wont use it is that i HATE guardians