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Hey everyone. Ive been playing a mec eldar for quite some time now. Ive tried to make countless Jetbike lists but fail in doing so.
Here are some Questions !
How should i play a Saim Hann force? (jetbikes)
What units should i use?
should i use reseves?
How can i use a Seer Council Wisely?
Shining spears advice?

Unfortunately the Jetbike list really isn't all that good in 5th edition.

In 4th edition I had a Space Elf Jedi jetbike list which I really liked but now I'm playing Space Wolves.

Jetbike force really lost much of its effectiveness in 5th edition with the true line of sight making it impossible to hide your small jetbike units where in 4th you could jump shoot jump behind terrain. You can take larger jetbike groups but these are expensive and hard to hide so they just get shot.

Jetbike seer council also took a huge hit as you can't fortune when you aren't on the board so if you reserve or in dawn of war your really expensive seer council does not get fortune which is huge. Also people tend to take more psyker defense now because all the newer codexes have psykers with good powers.

You can take a seer council in a serpent but this becomes target #1 for the opponent to shoot down that serpent and they are not as durable and suffer from the block the serpent door or run away issues.

Shining spears are not good. They are too expensive and if they kill what they charge they out in the open to get shot.

this is theory advice; a veteren has to back this up:

1. turbo-boost jetpikes into position and use as mobile cover to screen other units behind

2. seer council makes an excellent bullet magnet that is nigh unkillable due to "fortune" and re-rolling saves. Everyone shoots at it.

3. consider running an autarch on jetbike as well

4. vypers are mediocre, they need the cover from 1.

5. bikes are a "finish them off" unit, not an alpha strike unit... you will need heavy support (e.g. prisms) to soften targets up

6. ditch shining spears, too expensive for what the do.

Well from what I've been seeing on battle reports, theres a guy named Crazytalk who's Saim-Hann battle reports tend to have a very nice and fluffy list. It also seems to be very solid in combat as his games are pretty good too. As a matter of fact I lurked before and saw him post his battle reports in DakkaDakka, though I cannot seem to find them anymore. But from what I've gathered Saim-Hann forces seem to comprimise of Jetbikes in larger number. The Farseers and Autarches on Jetbikes and same for the Warlocks that are with the Guardians and Farseers. As Fast attack there is Vypers that were designed by Saim-Hann in fluff and are larger and heavier jetbikes. For Heavy I would think of anything that can keep up with the bikes, such as Falcons or Prisms. And Elites are really your personal choice, as Saim-Hann still uses Harlequins and Aspect Warriors. Hope that helps.

Edit: And it seems I was too late, sorry.

Jetbike lists are also very very expensive points wise. If you were to run max troops jetbikes, and two seer councils, you would easily chew 3500 points

Fritz used to give away his tactics, but now, alas, he only sells them:

http://saimhann.blogspot.com/2008/01/way-of-saim-hann-pdf.html

Back before he started charging, I learned a lot from his videos and blog. If you decide it's worth ten bucks.

I remember reading that when it was free- that was my basis of Point 1.

Shame the OP didn't get to see it while it still was free, it was quite funny how Fritz would reserve his entire army then use the jetbikes as mobile screens for his heavy armour

I ran into the same frustration a year or two ago after the IG codex came out and my brother started tabling me with the leafblower list. I'm slowly picking the Saim Hann back up between fantasy games but here's what I'm thinking:

1.) As stated before, shining spears are too expensive for what they do. The unit either destroys their target in one round of combat and gets lit up during your opponents turn, or they get locked in combat and they are going to hurt next combat phase. Plus if most of your list has an AV like most mechdar lists, the spears will be targetted by every anti-infantry weapon your opponent has since they won't be doing much else.

2.) YMMV, but I've been using reserves every game I can. Let your opponent go first and he'll lose a round or two of shooting since you won't be on the board. I take dual autarchs so my reserves come in on a 2+ on turn 2. Makes quite a reliable alpha strike. Additionally, your opponent might be encouraged by the open board to spread out in objective based games. This'll allow you to isolate and concentrate on pockets of force. Divide and conquer.

3.) I'm finding that jetbikes take up a lot of space, making it hard to hide them. I used to take packs of 6 with shuriken cannons, but they never caused much damage and were shot to pieces by anything under Str7. I'm experimenting with small groups of 3 (might add an embolden warlock) that stay off the board as long as possible and generally fly under the radar. With 6-7 skimmers flying around, they do tend to get overlooked. A liability in killpoint missions, but work well in objective missions. You can use the larger units as mobile cover, but I'm squeemish about sacrificing a troop choice to shield hard-to-kill armor.

I used to run a jetbike vyper force with a seer council on bikes. As stated the biggest downside is the jetcouncil has taken a major hit due to the preponderance of anti-psycher now being played.

Otherwise I used the vypers to get the guide and then shoot up the opponents with 21 S6 shots then use the jetbike assault move to provide them some cover. It works rather well except it suffers versus heavy armor. That is where the jet warlocks used to come into play. Perhaps
3 units of 6 with jet lock and 2 squadrons of vypers. The key here is mobility and avoiding HTH. It works but just barely.

Lots of great advice everyone thanks for the great feed back.
This is my biggest and playable army i have,
So i have to work with the Mysterous Saim hann Warhost
Dont get me wrong i love the speed and craziness of em.

But one qick Q, We like to play Cities of Death
With lots of terain.
Any words of advice for the Warhost?

Drev wrote:
But one qick Q, We like to play Cities of Death
With lots of terain.
Any words of advice for the Warhost?

Don't take jetbikes? :p