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Billinator wrote:This thread is making my head spin. You've given some great examples on how to utilize the various upgrades (V-Eng excluded). On the contrary it makes sense to spend the upgrade points on more firepower aswell.

What i'm thinking is if this cooks down to the point limit of the list, or maybe the objective of the game?

Initially I want to say MOAR LAZORZ!...but really if 15-45 points is breaking the balance of your list than it's probably the overall design that's the problem, not the cost of Star Engines. I say get enough firepower first, than grab the upgrades. But keep in mind when enough is enough. It's not hard to skim a few guns off a list to find say 30pts that could let you do new things aside from just pewpewpew.

@Bad Sheep
Oh, i'll sure have a read on your BR!

@DNA
Haha... What just happened there?

Well, i wouldn't go that far and say that i think the +15 pts per tank would have everything fall apart. (I'm still trying to convert my mindset from having played the Tyranids for a long time, so i'm still a curious little sponge). I'm just very curious as to why.
- It's easy to just grab a cookie-list out there and play. But wrapping your mind around things takes some field experience. And therefore I also tend to ask WHY and HOW. Why upgrade? WHY field this or that? HOW does it blend together? HOW is it all played out etc.

One thing that seemed to slip my mind during my previous post was this:
- How do you move/shock/ram in proportion to the terrain on the table? I'm having my scepticism about moving flat-out into terrain and hence rolling that 1 to have my tank and crew go down in flames.

Billinator
I was actually saying the opposite. I think there's little reason a list can't find points for a couple tanks to have Star Engines. If adding a few of these drops the army's damage output to being below an acceptably ferocious level, then the army was probably on the verge of being weak anyway. I feel like Eldar really need to saturate the army with guns and in doing that I feel like I have enough that I could drop a few or maybe downgrade to shorter range ShuCans and pick up Star Engines if I were so inclined. Doing this wouldn't break balance because I'm already prepared with lots of shooting. If I weren't, I'd drop just below the bare minimum and my army would suffer rather than benefit from the swap.

I don't personally ram into terrain. If it looks like I can land if I don't destroy the target then I'll do it, but if I know I can't I don't want to risk a 1/6 chance to crash a healthy skimmer and crew. If the guns had all been shot off and the crew disembarked I might think about it. The answer to this question seems to really depend on what your board looks like though.

Something I just thought of, but haven't tried is moving flatout over an enemy tank or dread and then using Star Engines to ram back armor. Having the upgrade allows you to move along two separate vectors which is pretty hot considering ram moves must be in a straight line. Sorry if this use has already be pointed out.

Think about this for jetseer council
Farseer with RoWard, RoWitn, Stones, Fortune + powers of your choice.
1 Warlock, Enhance Spear,
1 Warlock, Enhance Sword,
1 Warlock, Embolden Spear
1 Warlock, Embolden Sword,
3 Warlock, Destructor Sword
1 Warlock Sword
1 Warlock Spear
1 Warlock, Destructor Spear. (not as useful as you can only shoot one weapon)

It's kinda like wound allocation with Ork Nobz, but nearly as effective. The point though is that you can selectively choose to lose which warlocks are not as helpful in the current mission scenario. Maybe there are no vehicles, so you don't need as many spears etc.

You def need fortune to keep your jetseers alive, and they will soak up a huge amount of firepower. Guide is not useful for the council themselves but you may be able to guide something else. Doom is not useful for the councils attacks, as they wound on 2+, but you could doom other units to bolster other attacks. Mindwar is great to take away instant death possibilities.





As for vehicles, I run my army with two prisms and two wave serpents. Everything get stones, having stones increases your greatest strength, mobility. Plus, if your important units get shaken/stunned you can always flat out to get away for safety for one turn.

Holo-fields are great, although pricey. But they keep my prism alive for much longer. Furthermore, some players neglect to to even shoot at my fire prisms thinking they will be wasting shots. I will say, that some games my prism is shaken for multiple turns which keeps its main purpose of shooting.

@DNA
And you're absolutely right. I've had a couple of games this weekend with a WS-Dual-Autarch reserve list, and it performs pretty well.
I'm not too sure, though, if it's legal to actually ram during shooting phase? It's one of those rules, that people keep arguing for and against. But as for the ram itself, you'd be looking at 9" tops, making it a s6+D6!

Personally, i'd consider the ramming, if there's nothing else i can do. As you said, it's not worth risking a healthy skimmer over. If they blow off our gun, and we've got a moving skimmer, then why the hell not. But in any other case, i'd rather use the S-eng's to better control the fight.

About the terrain part, i find it a big hassle to keep your army together. I like to flank my opponent, and eat away small chumps of his army. The Engines supports this strategy greatly. But if you play at a crowded table (we run a 4x4 with 25% of it covered by various types of terrain) it's tough to get a good placement. The 2nd game we had, i actually managed to roll a 1, which cost me the skimmer AND one of the FD units.

Yikes that stinks! I don't own more than 10 FD models anyway so I never run more than 2 units. I'd hate to lose half of them to something silly.

The last time ramming cost me a unit it was in a list that had only 2 Troops and yeah...I was basically playing for the draw after that. That was one time when I wished I'd had VEngines haha. Buuuut it was my own fault in the first place

severedblue wrote:Hello, I am planning a few Eldar purchases. I have been using the search function and reading intently, but still have two questions:


1- What vehicle modifications are good for wave serpents / fire prisms / falcons?

I take it holo-fields on Falcons are a great buy, and pair it with missile launcher.

For the serpent I will be magnetising the weapons but don't know what mods (star engines, vectored engines, holo-fields?). I am particularly concerned about star engines and vectored engines, as the kit sprus require the model to be fully assembled, so it will be difficult to swap in / swap out.

Fireprism I plan to run naked.



2 - What is the optimal configuration for a jetseer council?

I take it the farseer with runes or warding, guide and fortune

but the warlocks? 1 warlock with conceal, 1 warlock with embolden, then 2+ warlocks with destructor? Or should there be an enhance warlock, or some other configuration?

Star Engines and Stones. Mobility is key and due to cost you will have relatively few eldar vehicles.. The holofields will tend to keep it alive but not allow it to shoot.
Stones protect your mobility. Star engines are two fold, sometimes you really need to reposition your forces and that is the ticket. The other is using star engines can be used to allow things to fire. e.g. You have a squadron of vypers that unload on a squad of long fangs but it is going to be exposed to fire from your opponents other two long fangs. You star engine your dinged (unable to fire) falcon to position itself in front of the vypers to grant them a cover save.

Well if you are going to use a seer council - personnally I question its effectiveness nowadays - you probably want two enhance and two embolden in the squad. You don't want saturation fire to take out either one of those. So 5 or less 1 each embolden and enhance. 5 or more get two of each. Then the option is to leave them naked or add destructor.

well V-engines are there to make sure when you use your star engines or move real fast you dont lose everyone in the tank as well, because a immobile roll will cause it to kill all the passengers and the tank. its not NEEDED, but its there if you want to keep the guys inside alive and have the points left over.

maxpower3579 wrote:well V-engines are there to make sure when you use your star engines or move real fast you dont lose everyone in the tank as well, because a immobile roll will cause it to kill all the passengers and the tank. its not NEEDED, but its there if you want to keep the guys inside alive and have the points left over.

Generally, for a mech Eldar army, it should not be necessary to move flat out, only in specific situations, since you give up a turn of shooting.

It looks like you can no longer ram using Star Engines

FAQ:

Q: Can a vehicle with star engines perform a tank
shock or ram in the Shooting phase? (p44)
A: No.