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the title says it all

Depends on army composition. Broadly speaking, they're a little expensive for what they do, but they will mess up an army without the firepower to take them out at range. Still, probably the best of the Eldar Fast Attack for close-range fire support.

I love them but they have never really been useful for me. I love their fluff and the jump packs, but like he said they are too expensive.

I personally take them most of the time. The S6 shots are great for downing some pesky high T units and the mobility and the exarch has the ability to take 2 power weapon to clean up what left.

My experience was that if they were AP6 instead of AP- I'd take them. That AP- is just a kick in the nuts in the mechanized world of today.

Also, the range is a bit short for doing what needs to get done; too many fast things tend to catch, then kill, them.

To me it was one of those, almost good units. I don't think it was poor rolling on my part, I think they just need a little more to be useful.

I dropped the big unit in favor of Shining Spears, who were surprisingly awesome (fortune supplied by farseer).
8 S6 power weapon attacks, and 3 S8 power weapon attacks was pretty good at finishing off most things. 4S6 and 1 S8 shot helps too.

If the opponent deployed well out of charge range when I popped a transport, I'd use the 6" assault move to back away. Really, shining spears played how I wanted spiders to be, only better.


-Matt

Spiders can be incredibly good. Essentially they can do almost anything.

Vs. infantry.
The amount of high S shots you can put down mean you have some anti-infantry fire that doesn't need doom. You can soften up a unit before another unit charges or attempt to take out small, isolated units. If you need to, they can do ok in assault, relying on their 3+save and Exarch power weapon to do some damage (and you can hit and run with them so they are not tied down in assaut) just don't charge anything you'd consider a combat unit. Their S6 weapons are also great against guard and DE due to their T3, spiders can attempt to assasinate the HQ's of these armies, with the amount of shots going out, at least one should be put onto the desired target. Of course there is alot of S6 shooting in the Eldar army, but good luck getting it at BS4/5 elsewhere.

Vs. vehicles.
With the ability to get round to rear armour, warp spiders can excell at stalling vehicles, they are not good at destroying them, but sometimes, you dont need to destroy a vehicle, simply immobilising it, blowing off the main gun, or even stunning/shaking it will be enough to ensure victory.

Bait.
With the ability to hamper vehicles as well as causing alot of wounds, spiders make great bait, often pulling a unit away in order to kill them. Once the unit is away from the main army it can be swarmed by the Eldar and dispatched with ease.

YAY YAY YAY! Worth the points imo, simply because you can use them for so many things. As said above by dayve, they're good against infantry, can do some good damage against vehicles by hitting rear armour, then charging in to plant grenades before disappearing again (useful against basilisks). Bait as mentioned above, but also as a speed bump. Charge into a unit (this is better with an Autarch), do a bit of damage then use withdraw to escape.

You can also take the spinnaret rifle on the exarch if you want higher strenght and AP

Thanks for the replies. I think I will invest in them. Are two smaller squads better than one big one? Too much? Or is one small squad enough?

One small squad is often enough. In a game against Necrons yesterday, my 5 man spider squad managed to survive 20 gauss shots, 15 of which wounded .

Spiders are there as a support choice most of the time, they are not your main fighting force. I wouldn't recommend taking more than one squad unless your doing a themed army.

If you have an autarch with jump pack, then maybe you could invest in a full squad. Give them Withdraw and use them as shock troops. Much in the same way as Harlequins in your other thread.

I used them several times.
Once, in a game vs. Nids, the small bugs had already reached my front ranks,
the Spiders moved 12'' into the swarm (actually needs a fearless unit to achieve this, lol),
shot the Warriors, and then moved 7'' into a building behind the swarm.
My opponent got nuts.

One can do crazy things with them.

first aspect that i bought two of, says it all really. spiders are a really under estimatec aspect.

very solid and underplayed unit.... One of the locals her plays with 2 max size units and they're really good!!

In my experience warp spiders usually perform better than they look on paper.

...I own 30 of them... need I say more?

Mind you, I've yet to put all 30 of them on the table (I haven't played since I acquired the last 20 of them), but I was very handily impressed by their better than expected (stellar, in fact) performance during their first couple outings.

My favored unit build is a full size squad, exarch w/ extra weapon, powerblades, and hit & run ability. The unit has no trouble gunning down any sort of squad that you can imagine, as well as wrecking vehicles from the rear (first game they claimed 2 blood angels razorbacks and 1 pred, and they all bought destroyed a 2nd pred (immobilized and destroyed all weapons except for 1 sponson)). They are also superb as a "tarpit." With repeated hit&runs you can tie up any squad indefinitely w/ minimal losses to the squad.