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willydstyle wrote:Unless your unit is 6.1-12" away during the shooting phase, which is a lot more likely than <6" away, then the choice is between running to get 2 (3 with a blade) attacks on rear armor, or shooting a spear for one attack at the armor facing you.

Witchblades are better 90% of the time.

1.) Situations where a Singing Spear is better:

You are unlikely to make it to the vehicle by running, but are still within 18".
You have disembarked from a wave serpent that turn.
The target vehicle moved >6".

2.) Situations where the Witchblade is better:

You are in combat with a walker.
You are likely to make it to the vehicle by running, and the vehicle didn't move >6".
You are in a combat where one extra warlock attack will make a difference.


In my experience, the first set of situations happens far more often than the second set of situations, but of the second set of situations, the Singing Spear can do everything the Witchblade can, it just does it less well. The Witchblade, however, can do nothing in the first set of situations except hope to get lucky on a run roll.

If you have disembarked from the wave serpent in a storm guardian squad, you had best be firing that Destructor along with your 2x flamers and not your singing spear.

If you had disembarked from a wave serpent with a seer council, it had better be on your own turn so you can assault, so you won't be needing to throw anything. (Unless you hope to get lucky popping a transport to assault the contents, but that's a big gamble for your seer council.)

Singing Spears work really good for jetlocks though.

whitedragon wrote:If you have disembarked from the wave serpent in a storm guardian squad, you had best be firing that Destructor along with your 2x flamers and not your singing spear.

If you had disembarked from a wave serpent with a seer council, it had better be on your own turn so you can assault, so you won't be needing to throw anything. (Unless you hope to get lucky popping a transport to assault the contents, but that's a big gamble for your seer council.)

Singing Spears work really good for jetlocks though.

I've never used the seer council, so I can't speak regarding that. As far as storm guardians are concerned, in a perfect world, you are correct, but if I need to kill a tank instead of troops, the spear gives me the option outlined above. But like I said, the spear can do everything the blade can, just not quite as well, but it also gives you options that are impossible for the blade. If it were a 10 point upgrade, I'd perhaps balk, but I'll happily pay 3 points for versatility on a unit in an army that is sorely lacking in versatility.

willydstyle wrote:Without a singing spear they're more of an anti-tank threat because if you're in spear range... you're probably also in range to run and assault the tank, with 3 str 9 hits instead of just 1 for throwing it.

Yes, but you can't charge out of a moving vehicle.

Exarch_Nektel wrote:

willydstyle wrote:Without a singing spear they're more of an anti-tank threat because if you're in spear range... you're probably also in range to run and assault the tank, with 3 str 9 hits instead of just 1 for throwing it.

Yes, but you can't charge out of a moving vehicle.

You can charge out of one that hasn't moved though. Seriously folks, you drive up and stay inside. Then in your next turn, you jump out and charge (Not with storm guardians though, they should never be charging, but a seer council, banshees, or scorps can). You shouldn't ever be disembarking your guardians unless it's to flame something. If you really are hinging on that one Singing Spear shot to take something out, you built your army wrong, not to mention the fact that you are leaving your guardians out to get nailed in the next turn. Mech Eldar works because your troops don't get out of their rides until the most opportune moment, and then they lay 3 templates down on something.

In this case, the spear is useless because you'll either be flying around the whole game or baking something instead of using the spear. You should have plenty of other weapons in your army (Fire Prisms, Fire Dragons, Bright Lances, etc) for taking out enemy armor that you won't need a single hail mary from a spear. Also, if you fire the spear, you are wasting the guardian's flamers, which are the real money makers.

whitedragon wrote:

Exarch_Nektel wrote:

willydstyle wrote:Without a singing spear they're more of an anti-tank threat because if you're in spear range... you're probably also in range to run and assault the tank, with 3 str 9 hits instead of just 1 for throwing it.

Yes, but you can't charge out of a moving vehicle.

You can charge out of one that hasn't moved though. Seriously folks, you drive up and stay inside. Then in your next turn, you jump out and charge (Not with storm guardians though, they should never be charging, but a seer council, banshees, or scorps can). You shouldn't ever be disembarking your guardians unless it's to flame something. If you really are hinging on that one Singing Spear shot to take something out, you built your army wrong, not to mention the fact that you are leaving your guardians out to get nailed in the next turn. Mech Eldar works because your troops don't get out of their rides until the most opportune moment, and then they lay 3 templates down on something.

In this case, the spear is useless because you'll either be flying around the whole game or baking something instead of using the spear. You should have plenty of other weapons in your army (Fire Prisms, Fire Dragons, Bright Lances, etc) for taking out enemy armor that you won't need a single hail mary from a spear. Also, if you fire the spear, you are wasting the guardian's flamers, which are the real money makers.

Again, I'll agree with you that if everything works out right, it's never worth bringing a spear, but seriously, how many games do you play where every unit you have is always in the right place? Eldar anti-tank is just plain bad. Fire Dragons are good, but everything else is pretty much crap for the points you have to pay for it. I will happily pay three points to get some AT versatility in a squad. You can't make blanket statements about what a particular unit in an army should be doing when that army only has a handful of squads. It's not like I use the spear a lot, but it's practically free, and still does the job of a witchblade.

I've never tried this, but what about attaching a Farseer to the Guardians with Doom and Fortune? I'm not very familiar with the Eldar list, but if you can do that in conjuction with a Warlock with Enhance, it'll buff the Farseer, too, and give the squad the extra LD to avoid running, I think. The dedicated Farseer would be a serious buff to a squad like this.

GeneralRetreat wrote:I've never tried this, but what about attaching a Farseer to the Guardians with Doom and Fortune? I'm not very familiar with the Eldar list, but if you can do that in conjuction with a Warlock with Enhance, it'll buff the Farseer, too, and give the squad the extra LD to avoid running, I think. The dedicated Farseer would be a serious buff to a squad like this.

This works better in a seer council than a storm guardian squad. Even with doom, storm guardians are struggling to wound T4 and allowing saves, suffering from combat resolution that offsets the benefit of high Ld. With this situation you're putting an expensive HQ character with a weak CC squad--it's like dressing up a Ford Focus with a Rolls-Royce grill. Expensive and pretty, but not going to help you in a crash.

I agree, it's a ~120 grill on a ~112-212 point jalopy. But hey, at least they look stylish!