Fire Prism Vs. Night Spinner, any thoughts?

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**Ailaros**

... yeah, and you still have to hit (twin-linked, but still), and then you need to roll a 6 for damage, a 5 or 6 for rending, and a 6 on the damage table. That's roughly a 1 in 56 chance per hit that you blow up a raider. I seriously wouldn't count on it.

As labmouse notes, there are a couple of units that you're going to want to slow down in certain circumstances, but the meta is still awful. Given that it doesn't hurt vehicles practically at all, and that things like hordes just won't care, you're talking about a pretty thin slice of stuff that the nightspinner is decidedly good at (indeed, labmouse only gave two examples, and both of those units are very similar to each other). Outside of the wound-wrap-shenanigans, multiwound deathstar, they're really nothing all that special.

Meanwhile, the fire prism has the heavy hitting power to threaten any vehicle in the game, as well as heavier stuff like MCs (poorly, but still), and termies, and anything you would use a plasma cannon against. It's just the better option all around.

**evildrspock**

I can still see the advantage of encouraging an enemy unit to stay still, or risk the consequences. It could be used in conjunction with one's grand strategy to win for sure; the more aspects of your opponent's turn you can control (or sway/encourage), the better.

**Ailaros**

You can encourage your opponent to sit still, but you can't force him. If you hit a unit with a nightspinner and he just moves it anyways every time, it's the same as if those two sets of casualties were rolled into a single attack. That single attack is damaging, but nothing all that particularly special.

Once your opponent realises this, they won't be effected by this special ability. Either they'll just take the damage when they should still move anyways, or they'll not take the damage when moving isn't required anyways, and the night spinner will be doing less damage.

It seems like this is only going to be really disruptive against new players, and like the first time a more experienced player has it used against them. That's the problem with psychological weapons - they require your opponent to be lacking in resolve for them to work properly.

**Actinium**

I don't see how an accurate rending large blast isn't working properly without the dangerous tests, those are just an added bonus. It's a flat out better large blast than the prism's large blast and it fires from safety. The argument for the prism vs the spinner is purely on the small blast and it's not a very good small blast if you can't find a way to twin link it or always be shooting something with a big footprint, so pretty much just tanks. Against a ton of mechanized units the one 115pt st9 shot doesn't really make a huge difference as you should just be running a bunch of emls and dragons in the rest of your list, better to have an accurate rending indirect large blast waiting for when stuff falls out of the transport i think. The sole exception would be guard lists as leman russ front av 14 demands the prism or the overpriced unpopular bright lance, you can't really get at them with any of the close range anti tank options.

**evildrspock**

It certainly fits with the Eldar arrogance to allow their opponents the choice of risking further harm to their units during the opponent's next turn, though. The difficult terrain part is progressively better against meq armies too, as it avoids that pesky armorsave. I can see how the nightspinner would definitely be a "fun" unit to play, like my Space marine Whirlwind (which honestly, for 30 more points, the Nightspinner blows out of the water!).

You both bring good points. The difficulty is judging the meta, vs the anti tank, anti infantry needs. It also depends if the player prefers an Aspect Warrior playstyle (specialization), or one with units that can fulfill multiple roles. Although, then again it has been pointed out both units can effect both tanks and infantry.

**Master Melta**

I haven't read all the posts, but I want to chime in about why I like to use Night Spinners.

First I want to say that Labmouse42 is speaking the good word and I agree with that post!

Second, The models are killer and the fluff behind them even more so!

Third, the rules.

Twined Link, LOS NOT required.. Necron Night Fight??? OK, next?

S6 Wounds just about everything on 2's, denies FNP from DE units, instagibs scarabs and I believe is 2 bases per wound since they are swarm and the NS fires a template, but that may be flamer templates only(wouldn't mind clarification), either way 1 base per wound is great since the large blast can cover multiple!

Slowing down armies is great. Sometimes people wont move at all. 30 orks not moving is just as good as 30 orks taking dangerous terrain checks.

Plus is causes pinning.

This is in addition to the casualties it causes.....(don't forget the rending)

It has range enough to stay on the board edge in cover and fire away. Most folks ignore them. And even when they don't, they are shooting at something other than wave serpents full of troops...

You don't need to two to make them effective. (That being said I always run two so I can saturate the enemy with gianormous template death.

They aren't game breakers, they are simply game changers, and allow you to drop like 6 effects onto units all at once.

Think also about the current power meta. I

G are a big problem, but Night Spinners and Fire Prisms are 1 shot deals that really don't scare IG. AV 12 is a battle for other eldar units.

Space Wolves: Long fangs hurt(as thy do with all eldar tanks), but anything with a 3+ save hates these things. If you choose to take out the long fangs(or insert other MSU here), the Night Spinner better than a SINGLE fire prism. Single Fire Prism small blast has the most power, but is small, covers less people, isn't twin linked and when it scatters just a little it can cause hit reductions or outright misses. The large FP blast is only S5 and AP 4, so it wounds MEQ on 3's and the AP is effectively dash. The Night Spinner is large blasts, rending, twin linked, doesn't require line of site(no retaliation from said squad if terrain plays nicely), wounds on 2's vs the Fire Prism's 3's, rends and.... Pins!!! Plus it makes moving them risky.

Grey Knights: It's all about rending and movement restrictions. Terminators are a bit tougher to kill but don't forget GK have PA and sometimes measly guardsmen as well. Also, they typically are short ranged vs you and slow moving.

Necrons: As said above, no LOS means Night Fight doesn't hurt the Night Spinner like it does the Fire Prism. Sure the rest of the army can't see, might as well zoom around and get cover saves while the NS pounds the Necron troop blobs. Good vs Scarabs. Good vs T5.

Hmmm, maybe I should get a third.

MM

**labmouse42**

Master Melta wrote:Space Wolves: Long fangs hurt(as thy do with all eldar tanks), but anything with a 3+ save hates these things. If you choose to take out the long fangs(or insert other MSU here), the Night Spinner better than a SINGLE fire prism. Single Fire Prism small blast has the most power, but is small, covers less people, isn't twin linked and when it scatters just a little it can cause hit reductions or outright misses. The large FP blast is only S5 and AP 4, so it wounds MEQ on 3's and the AP is effectively dash. The Night Spinner is large blasts, rending, twin linked, doesn't require line of site(no retaliation from said squad if terrain plays nicely), wounds on 2's vs the Fire Prism's 3's, rends and.... Pins!!! Plus it makes moving them risky.

Long fangs are probably going to be in cover, and that changes the scale even more to the favor the spinner.

Without having 2 of them, a prism just is not that scary. Its best threat is against stormravens, due to the large blast.
In pairs, prisms work a lot better. If they were not ~230 points for two, they would be better.
The eldar fire prisms need a 'buy one, get one half price' to really make them good..

**Smitty0305**

Both are good choices.

Fire Prisms are always better in groups of 2, for the anti tank and anti marine blasts.

Nightspinners are more of a support unit. Difficult terrain, TL, Rends make it an "ok" choice.

The reason I like fire prisms, Is eldar Lack anti Meq weapons and they lack str8+ longrange weapons platforms. Fire Prisms are able to kill Marine Squads, and Stormravens. I cant tell you how many games my fire prisms have done amazing things.

**racta**

I love the night spinner. Twin linkage helps so much for blasts, and the amount of random stuff the night spinner can do is worth it for the chaos factor.

Nothing better than having the enemies planned assault fail due to a bad difficult terrain move.
Or watching him remove his special weapon member of a squad.
Or immobilizing a rhino and forcing the guys to get out to get to an objective.

The only downside is that it tends to get people complaining that the "odds" beat them when something bad happens. But if you think about it; make enough models take a 1/6th chance to die, and it's no longer luck when some do die.

**evildrspock**

Warhammer's a game of chance; get over it right? Strategy is a big part of it, but we all know some games one player rolls all successes, and the other all failures. You kinda do feel both good and bad when that happens.

**Billinator**

labmouse42 wrote:

Spoiler:

Overall Usage
The nightspinner is aking to a blue card in 'Magic: The Gathering". It's there to cause annoyances and hindrances to your opponents plans. While it can kill, its main goal is to slow down or immobilize enemy forces.

The nightspinner does not do one thing so well it makes it an auto-take. Instead it does a number of small things so well that I suggest it as auto-take for today's mech'dar lists. This counts even moreso with scarab farms and draigowing growing in popularity.

Some meta's do not help a nightspinner well, as Avatar 720 explains. If you play on bare boards your mileage may not be as good. Also, if you are able to run apoc units like Warp Hunters in your meta, run those and hornets for gods sake!
Now lets talk about what the nightspinner does.

Accurate Indirect Fire
The nightspinner comes base as twin-linked. This means that there is a 55% of you getting a HIT on the scatter dice, and it has a BS 4 to scatter back on target. When shooting at a large target, such as a squad of scarabs or a land raider, this gives you an estimated 90% of hitting.
(to determine this I wrote a simulator program that would run weapon strikes on targets)

This is an excellent tool to take down scarab farms. The indirect fire means that the scarbs are not getting cover unless they are in area terrain, and the STR 6 instant kills them. You can fire indirectly during night fight, but roll and extra d6 for scatter. As you have a 55% of getting a HIT, that's a perfectly acceptable way to keep the scarabs under control.

The real key here is that the nightspinner cannot be shot back at unless your opponent has indirect fire as well. You can use this tool to your hearts content without having to worry about pesky psy-dreads tearing it apart. Not that its a big deal anyway, as the psy-dreads will be focusing on the dragon's fortuned serpents barreling at them.

Difficult Terrain
Another benefit of the nightspinner is the ability to put a difficult terrain check on whatever is hit by the template. This means that every model that moves after being hit takes non-savable wound on a 1 when they move. This means that the cryptek can die when they move, as you can't just allocate it off. It can also pick off the PK nob, the melta gun in a grey hunter squad, etc...

One common argument is to say 'well, just move one of the models and then you just have to make one test'. Thats true, and that means the unit in question has effectively lost 6" of movement that turn (as they can still run/fleet). This by itself is tremendously useful when your shooting at scarabs or twolves. I would gladly have them lower their movement by over 50%!

You can also use this to slow down draigowing movement. That death star is not quite so effective when its barely moving, and the rest of your army can just move to whereever its needs to be.

In a similar effect, it has a double dip whammy on scarab farms. 2 spinners can keep a scarab farm under control by insta-killing scarabs coming out, and slowing the entire farm down so they can't get far onto the board. And when they try to move, the scarabs take more wounds....

Finally, as its an accurate 5" template, its very feasible to hit 2 vehicles (3 if they are really clustered) in a parking lot. Since each one of those vehicles gets immobilized on a 1, it can be a nice thing to throw on some rhinos/chimeras, etc... Basically by immobilizing the tank, the troops inside will have to get out of it in order to score if they are not sitting on an objective.

If there are no other targets, hit the deathstar of the enemy. 1/6 chance that the LR/stormchicken will become useless for the delivery of DCA/termies. Given that a LC has a 4.66% of destroying that same LR, the 16.66% of immobolization is not all together bad. Its sure as hell not a squad of fire dragons good, but it has an indirect range of 72" Don't forget it rends to, so if your roll a 6 to damage your hitting AV 13-15. (albeit at AP -)

Pinning
Don't forget that its also pinning. When your shooting at targets like draigowing, you have a chance (a small one, but a chance nonetheless) to cause them to be pinned for a turn. When your talking about a 600+ point deathstar unit, its a huge negative blow when it happens.

Rending for Fun and Profit
The final benifit of the nightspinner is that its rending. If you drop the accurate template on 6 MEQ, one of them will rend. Unless they are in area terrain, they will lose at least one person.
This then kicks off the pinning test. As mentioned, DOOM allows you to reroll any wounds, not just failed ones. This increases the number of rends significantly, which is worth doing if your going to be wounding on 2+ anyway. Even on targets in cover, it lowers the save from 3+ to 4+ for MEQ.

Summary
I hope that this post gives you a little understanding for the often-overviewed tank known as the nightspinner. Its one of those things that just does not look good on paper until you start playing with them.

Wow, Labmouse - I am pretty amazed by how you analyse the Nightspinner. I've always been fond of it, but you add some thing in there, that I haven't though about - Like for example the non-allocated wounds on the dangerous terrain test.

Personally, I'd prefer the cookie-cutter build with 2 Prisms and 1 Spinner - all with Holofields, as I feel very comfortable with dual-prisms. But you managed to shed light on the NS in a way that made me doubt the 2xPrism build.

But again - impressive analysis there, and keep up the good work

**resipsa**

Labmouse should write a full eldar tactical.

**The Cry of the Wind**

First of all, thank you for all your contributions, they were very helpful. Second, extra thanks to Labmouse for your detailed analysis, it really helped me seal the deal and I'm going with the Night Spinner. Here's a few reasons why:

1: Any tank can blow something up, the Night Spinner introduces some new tactics that can not only cause casualties, but can really rain (monofiliment wire, zing!) on your opponents plans. It adds some more fun to the game.

2: I only have one kit to build right now, and while I don't run Fire Dragons, I think per what I usually face that the heavy weapons and Wraithcannons should be able to handle it. I would lean towards a Prism if I had two kits to build, but I think, again, the Night Spinner will be fun.

3: It's a new model(relatively). While a couple years old, I've never owned one and have owned a couple Prisms over my years playing (unfortunately no longer).

I hope this thread has helped others see the benefits of trying new units and not just playing the same ol', same ol' just because it works.

Thanks!

**Lucre**

I just hate leaning on blast weapons to shoot at vehicles. You have decent anti av 10/11 already and set ups to deal with higher AV tanks, or at least you should.

Before the original poster purchases himself a gun that is there to control/reinforce battlefield advantages, or one that is there to put dents in wandering marine squads out in the open, he or she may want to purchase a wave serpent and some fire dragons. It's money well spent.

**The Cry of the Wind**

I would love to field some Dragons in a Wave Serpent, unfortunately life dictates I spend my money on other necessities at the moment, so I'll have to make due with my twin linked Bright Lance, Wraithcannons and Witchblades for the time being. Oh! Or maybe my "useless" Swooping Hawks can haywire grenade it into next week.

Thanks!

**labmouse42**

Billinator wrote:But again - impressive analysis there, and keep up the good work

resipsa wrote:Labmouse should write a full eldar tactical.

Trogdor the Burninator wrote:Second, extra thanks to Labmouse for your detailed analysis, it really helped me seal the deal and I'm going with the Night Spinner.

Thanks guys! Appreciate the feedback!