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So, what's the deal with them? They look cool enough, but what role are they trying to fill?

While their flaunt their mobility despite using heavy weapons, Warp Spiders are cheaper, more heavily armored, faster, just as mobile, have more shots at the same strength, and are more capable in close combat due to the Exarch's power weapons.

Am I just trying to find meaning in white noise? Maybe there is some merit in 3 man squads using the Ghostlight with an Exarch's Cynosure and Prism Lance, but is a single 88% accuracy S10 AP2 lance worth 142 points.

They look good on paper.
But as soon as the enemy starts targeting them, they will be gone.
I'd stay away from them in competitive play.

200 points gets you a strength 10 twin-linked 60" lance. If you want long ranged accurate anti tank, I don't think there's anything better. Of course, long range anti tank isn't generally regarded all that highly

The Haywire grenades are the only saving grace for me seeing as they are the old template with 33% chance to pen along with being 36" range is decent.

Worth giving up my other heavy support options for... no. But it really is the only thing thats going to make a monolith sweat

Not that its a role that needed a whole aspect to fill...

alspal8me wrote:The Haywire grenades are the only saving grace for me seeing as they are the old template with 33% chance to pen along with being 36" range is decent.

Worth giving up my other heavy support options for... no. But it really is the only thing thats going to make a monolith sweat

Not that its a role that needed a whole aspect to fill...

Huh? Scratches head at the Haywire grenade comment.

They are aweful. If they had put them into the fast or elite slot.. maybe. Full squad of 5 decked out? Cool that's gonna hurt. Start taking losses? Congrats now they suck. They suffer from Dark Reaper syndrome to a lesser extent in that they are a fragile backfield heavy that you have to design around not getting hit by DS stuff.

On a good note, that aren't as crap as the wet paper sack jump assault walker.

Irdiumstern wrote:200 points gets you a strength 10 twin-linked 60" lance. If you want long ranged accurate anti tank, I don't think there's anything better. Of course, long range anti tank isn't generally regarded all that highly

If you're willing to take the range loss (and other factors e.g. the linked shot degrades worse with losses, one less S6 AP2 weapon to shoot at close range) for anti tank you're better off with a S9 ghostlight shot and the haywire weapon.

Also worth noting:

- Relentless and Deep Strike helps you to keep them in reserve to avoid getting taken out early on, e.g. from turn 1 drop podding sternguard etc. You can in principle shoot on the turn they enter the board
- If they deep strike they can use their jetpack move to put some distance between the models to be less vulnerable to template/blast attacks on the following turn

They are pretty terrible tbh, they are ridiculously overpriced for a unit with S6 shooting and even more so if you planned on using them for the single long ranged lance shot. For the price you are far better off taking a couple of Prisms, which won't die the second someone looks at them funny and can get more shots at S9 or combine for AP1.

Personally I would rate them as the third best of the recent Forgeworld Eldar releases. The Hornet is pretty ridiculous as long as you don't overdo the options, the War Walker is actually not too bad as you can push the S6 spam to even higher levels, Eldar don't often max out their troops slots anyway. However they all look amazing compared to the Warp Hunter, which as an anti tank vehicle is a joke.

They're an interesting idea (I quite like the buildup of power) but they're not good enough to justify the cost. I'd wonder how a points drop would do for them. Ten less per model?

The trick is to make them better at dealing with vehicles without making them better than Reapers for dealing with MEQ (although I expect Reapers to get EML in the next codex), and have them clearly in the long range category to stop them overlapping with Dragons. This means you can't increase the number of shots they have too much and they need a range boost to their standard weapons.

Make them base S7 AP2 24" range (with JSJ remember) and the ability to combine the Ghostlight (still +1S, -1AP and +12" range per contributor) with different number of shots. That would let you take 2 x S8 AP1 Twin Linked BS4 Lance shots (more if you allow the squad sizes to increase further) + the S8/9 BS5 Lance shot from the Exarch (his weapon obviously would get a similar buff to put it above the standard Prism Rifles), which is pretty reliable long ranged anti tank. There are also a few other cosmetic change like making all their weaponry assault and removing relentless + making the Exarch Powers a bit more useful. They still fall over (or at least become far less effective) the second someone shoots them though so they shouldn't be too broken.

Depending on what kind or terrain you play with they can avoid most shooting attacks.


I would take a squad of 3 with Exarch, Prism Lance, and Cynosure. 142 pts, and you get a TL S 10 lance weapon with a 36"

It is a small squad so it is easy to hide behind a building or vehicle with eh 6" assault move.

Overall, it suffers from being overprices and very vulnerable. If you are facing a lot of High AV targets, they would work great, but most people just spam the AV 12 or less. In this situation they are much less good.

Also, Fire Dragons are cheep and tackle the same targets better so...yeah. If fire Dragons were not good, then these guys MIGHT be a reasonable option.

Heavy Support has a lot of good stuff you might want to take. My personal favorite is War Walkers, but there is something there for everyone.

There are better units in their FOC and better units for taking out their primary targets.

These might actually be better if they were in an FA slot. They ARE jump infantry, after all.

crazypsyko666 wrote:These might actually be better if they were in an FA slot. They ARE jump infantry, after all.

In fact, this would be an interesting improvement.
They wouldn't compete with HS units - competitive Eldar armies generally need to fill as much elite and HS slots as possible.

You know, I think I see what they're trying to do. They're trying to give you ridiculously long-range anti-tank units, which would be a nifty idea if it wasn't almost the same price as a Godhammer pattern landraider, or a Fire Prism. Granted, it may be worth it just to have anti tank in your FA slot, but 197 points for a fully loaded unit is waay too much. If you were to reduce the price of admission by ten points per model, it becomes a much more competitive squad, coming in at 147 for a 60" S10 AP1 anything killer barring a basilisk that may be 300" away.

One problem of long-range anti-tank is that the enemy tank eventually gets a cover save.