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Right, so.
I've got this friend that we introduced to the game at the start of this year...I think. Anyway he plays Eldar and he's convinced that Mind War is useless against special characters. His argument for this is that it's a waste considering both combatants have Ld 10, and so the enemy has a 50/50 chance of not taking a wound. For some reason he doesn't want to listen to someone with 10 years of experience with Eldar, so could someone PLEASE comment on this, and clarify that the whole point of mind war is to kill leaders such as special characters.
All comments in the affirmative of negative are welcome =)

To clarify:
Let's take an example such as Dante vs Eldrad.
Now there are 3 ways in which Eldrad can attempt to kill Dante.

1.) Shoot him with his pistol
Quite frankly this is just stupid and the only reason I wrote it is because it's an option.

2.) Assault
With Dante's death mask, Eldrad now only has 2 wounds, reduced WS, reduced I and is brought down to 1 measly attack.
Dante hits first, hits harder and hits more. He will win.

3.) Mind War
Another psychic power you could use is Eldritch Storm...but that's pointless because it wounds on 5s and Dante has a 2+ save, it is actually less effective than his pistol would be. Mind War on the other hand inflicts one wound for every point you beat Dante on a roll off by. This ignores his 2+ armour save, leaving him with only his 4+ invulnerable. Not only that, Eldrad's staff lets him do this twice.
So out of these 3 options.........which one is the most logical and by far the most effective?

Howl-lo!
Welcome to Dakka Dakka. I don't play Eldar much anymore but I will say that Mind War is a good power. But there are other useful powers as well. Particularly Doom and Guide. It really depends on his list and how he using his Farseers.

Welcome to Dakka Dakka.

Unfortunately I have to agree with his opinion on the power. Although the idea of Mind War is cool, but it's not a good way to snipe enemy champions (they get their invul save against it and usually it's enough to be a complete waste of time) as it places the Farseer into danger, unless it's a Seer Council or Seer Council on Jetbikes (but they don't need it anyway ).

However it is not entirely useless, I think it would actually be best to use it to snipe stuff like special weapons. Say the Farseer is babysitting a Wraithlord, marine squad advances and the Sergeant has a Powerfist ready to give the Wraithlord a bad day. Mind war would be able to help remove the fist and save the Wraithlord. This example is pretty situational, but merely an example of the type of situation it would probably be best suited for.

It is a very situational power that will either be just what you need or entirely useless.


The answer to the Eldrad question is that it would not be Eldrad killing Dante. Guide a nearby unit, Doom him and if he is still alive Fortune an assault unit and charge him. Eldrad relaxes off to the side somewhere safe.

Yes, I agree that Mind War has its faults, but out of the arsenal available to the Farseer, it is by far the best. Also bear in mind that this is purely from a Farseer vs. Champion point of view. If we're bringing in a Wraithlord, I'm bringing a Devastator squad to take it down.

Absolutely it works better for bringing down sergeants and heavy weapons carriers too I never said it didn't =)

Your solution to Dante is pretty sound, but (no offence) you're missing the point.

Mind War, especially with Eldrad being able to do it twice, is one of the most effective ways of quickly getting rid of enemy special characters. Lots of them like Dante or even the Hawk PL have the ability to Deep Strike.
If they suddenly appear next to you, and of course a good player will have co-ordinated that deep strike with some withering fire or an assault to take out threats to that deep striking unit, your best bet of taking care of the Character is through a mind war.
They do get their invul saves, but it's a sure lot better than letting them use their 2+ armour save

Also, let's consider a lascannon hitting a Rhino. Anyone who even vaguely knows anything about warhammer can tell you that the Rhino is totally screwed. But really when you consider it, there's only a 33% chance that Rhino is going to die (5 or 6). Now a 33% chance of taking off 50 points from your enemy is ok.
Now you have a farseer mind warring Dante. That right there is a 50/50 chance of you taking off 220 points, with nothing to show for it. Granted, you may not score 4 wounds off the roll, and yes he has an invulnerable. But the likelyhood of the Farseer rolling a one and Dante rolling a 6 is exaclty the same as Farseer rolling 6 and Dante copping 5 wounds. Now do that again. Now assault him with fortune. He's pretty screwed.

I'll agree with that it is by far much better than Eldrich Storm (although it seems like it's more for the vehicle repositioning rather than damage giving perhaps a lucky shot to the rear armor), but a majority of the time the Farseer is more suited to a supporting role.

One on one the Farseer would likely lose to pretty much every other HQ in the game, but placed correctly with the rest of the army could easily stomp the enemy into the ground.

The problem I mostly see with it is that they still get their invulnerable save. Unlike 4th edition where this seemed to be decent, there are a surprisingly large amount of 2+ and 3+ invulnerable saves making Mind War almost entirely useless.

It's a cool power (my favorite of all the Farseer powers), but I'm kind of disappointed that it is largely invalidated by the increasing amount of low Invulnerable Saves. Against marines you can pretty much forget about it, then the Necrons, but after those it's actually alright.

Yes that's true...it has seen better days.

Yet when you consider it, every power has it's role.
Fortune = surviveability
Doom = taking out priority target
etc etc
then we get to Mind War = A power that lets you pick out one person from a whole squad and crush their mind. Such as heavy weapon holder, sergeant, or a commander from the midst of his command squad. As I've said before, it's not flawless, there are ways to survive it, but it is definitely one of the best.

Also, I totally agree that the Farseer is a supporting unit, and not an assassin, but there are times where he/she has to be a hero and take on the HQ unit of the enemy army. I personally (Blood Angels) send Dante after the enemy commander, so he can definitely expect Dante to be hot on his tail, under the watchful fire of my devastators. So that Wraithlord will be down, and my assault squads will be tying up the dire avengers or whatever else could come to Eldrad's aid...and unless he's on a jetbike, he's gonna have to stand and fight cuz he can't outpace me.

Hello and welcome to Dakka!

Welcome to dak dak! I also dont know much about Eldar but have had Doom used against me more than any other power.

Welcome to dakka.

Welcome to dakka!

Welcome to dakka