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So as I mentioned in an earlier post, I just aquired a new Fire Prism kit and sorta forgot you get the parts for a Night Spinner too haha. Are there any of you that can offer some feedback on both types of tanks? I was going for the Fire Prism initially because the prism cannon will add some serious high strength, non-wraith cannon tank popping action to the army, but does the Night Spinner offer anything that maybe isn't as obvious as the prism cannon?
Thanks!

Depends on what other things you're bringing...

If you bringing the standard FD+WS combo and a health dose of EML... then, the Nightspinner is the way to go as it serves an awesome anti-infantry pie plate (plus, it's barrage and RENDS!).

Just my 2 cents...

They both work, if your list needs more anti tank/monstrous creature get a prism as it's higher strength and you're less likely to scatter off big targets. If you need more anti infantry the spinner comes twin linked by itself and rending+dangerous terrain combo racks up more kills than a prism and since you can hide it behind terrain for indirect fire it doesn't need holo-fields like a prism does.

Don't take that to mean that either are bad for the other job, but they are clearly focused on one style more than the other.

I play Night Spinners. Used to play Fire Prisms, but just grew tired of the scattering off target.

Night Spinners are twin linked barrage and cause hit units to be in dangerous and difficult terrain. Look on opponent's face when models die to terrain test is great.

Well now I'm not sure what the heck to do haha
Here's what ill be running:
Farseer and warlocks in a falcon
Wraithguard and warlock in a BL wave serpent
10 Guardians with SC
10 Guardians with EML
10 DAs
5 Rangers
5 Swooping Hawks
7 Warp Spiders
2 SL War Walkers

I think that's it. Any further thoughts?

Thanks!

Probably the spinner. There's enough volume of fire from scatter lasers to combine with the st8 stuff to stop low av transports and the real high av vehicles all like to get close where the wraithcannons and witchblades can get at them, so take the cheaper and more infantry killy spinner.

Although in general I find dire avengers on foot, a seer council which is a cc unit in a falcon which is a long range tank, and any amount of swooping hawks questionable.
My advice would be to cut the dire avengers to 5 or 6 and put them in the falcon so it becomes a scoring objective squatter, cut the warlocks from everything and put the farseer in the serpent with the wraithguard to act as their wraithsight protection and he can hangout backfield hitting the war walkers or falcon with guide. Put an embolden warlock on each guardian squad. You can trade the hawks and maybe the rangers for a serpent full of dragons or a cc unit like scorpions or harleys to run interference. A third slaser walker would also be helpful to maximize guide potential.

Thanks for the feedback, unfortunately the list of stuff I posted is what I have, I don't actually have Dragons, Harlies or another War Walker. That's why the Wraithguard are on tank hunter duty.
Don't be so harsh on Swooping Hawks, they're better than the majority opinion, and also, not everyone wants to run the same ol' same ol' cookie cutter lists by fielding the same units as everyone else.
I have, however been considering a 10 girl squad of Banshees to tear things up....

The Night Spinner seems really interesting, but it's hard to ignore the sheer blastiness of the Prism, its a hard choice for sure

Thanks!

I've never used either, but I've had night spinners used against my horde army and was really unimpressed. Yeah, they cause dangerous terrain, but that didn't cause me to lose any more models than if he would have spent those points on scatter laser war walkers instead (which is what he actually switched to after seeing how little he did against my horde), plus, I always had the option to just sit still. Any time you give your opponent the chance to do no damage is going to be situational. In theory it causes your opponent to have to make "tough calls" in the movement phase much more than in practice.

I could see them being useful against heavier armies, what with the rending, but against hordes... I've seen worse stuff used against me before.

I'd probably still stick with the prism between those two choices, but, of course, you always have options other than gluing the guns down which you could exercise so that you don't have to make the choice before you've play-tested them both first.

I'd take war walkers over most any other eldar heavy choice as well but when it's prism vs spinner for anti infantry the spinner just does the same wounds more accurately without needing los and afterwards it either does more wounds if they move or forces them to stand still, which isn't important against another stand and shoot army but overall is very useful.

Doomed units being hit with the nightspinner sound like they are in for a lot of rends. If you manage to hit.

Being twin linked means you won't have to use guide on it (or waste points buying guide, or waste points firing prisms together)

Barrage makes your rends a lot more effective against everything but area cover.

Trogdor the Burninator wrote:Thanks for the feedback, unfortunately the list of stuff I posted is what I have, I don't actually have Dragons, Harlies or another War Walker. That's why the Wraithguard are on tank hunter duty.
Don't be so harsh on Swooping Hawks, they're better than the majority opinion, and also, not everyone wants to run the same ol' same ol' cookie cutter lists by fielding the same units as everyone else.
I have, however been considering a 10 girl squad of Banshees to tear things up....

The Night Spinner seems really interesting, but it's hard to ignore the sheer blastiness of the Prism, its a hard choice for sure

Thanks!

I admire using the lesser used units (I myself use 3 EML/SC Vipers for that reason), but in my experience Swooping Hawks are difficult to use effectively. I had fun running an Autarch with them with a Fusion Gun, but if they didn't constantly skyleap or stay way backfield, mostly they just annoyed me an my opponent.

If you take only one ... Night Spinner might be more useful. Still, you need some anti-tank, but a single Fire prism isn't extremely killey ... see Lascannons. Nice, but great enough.

I personally am not interested in the night spinner ... I Figure I'd rather run 2 Fire Prisms and 3 Scatter Laser War Walkers over the Spinner, although It can definitely fulfill a role.

Fire Prisms kind of suck, because they're kind of really bad, like the people who use them.

If you use spinners though, you are what some people like to call pro, mostly because you aren't bad and demonstrate funky stuff called skillz.


Fire Prisms were good at one point and I'd wager making one now might pay off down the road. But for the time being, a Spinner is a more dynamic choice that will compliment most lists you build going forward better.

BeefCakeSoup wrote:Fire Prisms kind of suck, because they're kind of really bad, like the people who use them.

This man's powers of perception are second to none; not only did he manage to state that something sucks, but also that people who use them are bad, and all this without any kind of evidence whatsoever. He deserves a medal.

Or a dreadsocking.

I dislike spinners; they aren't good in my local meta, their overall impact in the games in which I have used them over Prisms has been negligible, they have performed less than poorly in every circumstance, and every opponent has agreed that Fire Prisms would have been better. It's starting to become like the Tau Warfish for me; I used it because people recommended it, and every game in which I used that set-up, I found it harder and harder to justify it being there. It's the same with my spinners, i'm finding it difficult to justify taking them over the dual Prisms which have served me exceedingly well in the past.

Perhaps it's my meta; perhaps it's the boards I play on; perhaps i'm just having absolutely terrible luck with them; but I miss having my Prisms in every game where I use Spinners.

Does that make me a bad person? Perhaps to you, but I don't doubt that you'd be in the absolute minority.

My contribution to the thread is simple: Test them both and see what works for you. Prism kits are easy to switch weapons with if you haven't already glued them; all you need is a little blu tack (or country-specific equivilant). Your lack of ranged AV leads me to say Prisms, since if you face a Land Raider then you're going to have a hard time unless, by some miracle, you manage to assault it with your Swooping Hawks and haywire it; the Serpent Brightlance isn't reliable enough on its own. You also don't have much in the way of anti-terminator fire, which two Prisms can bring by dropping a S9 AP2 template each, or a S10 AP1 if you find yourself facing multi-wound T5 like Thunderwolves (although to be honest, dropping them with massed S6 is easier, especially since they're likely to have a 3+ invul).

But really, try them both and see what works; Spinners don't work for me, but they might for you.

Avatar 720 wrote:

This man's powers of perception are second to none; not only did he manage to state that something sucks, but also that people who use them are bad, and all this without any kind of evidence whatsoever. He deserves a medal.

Or a dreadsocking.

I dislike spinners; they aren't good in my local meta, their overall impact in the games in which I have used them over Prisms has been negligible, they have performed less than poorly in every circumstance, and every opponent has agreed that Fire Prisms would have been better. It's starting to become like the Tau Warfish for me; I used it because people recommended it, and every game in which I used that set-up, I found it harder and harder to justify it being there. It's the same with my spinners, i'm finding it difficult to justify taking them over the dual Prisms which have served me exceedingly well in the past.

Perhaps it's my meta; perhaps it's the boards I play on; perhaps i'm just having absolutely terrible luck with them; but I miss having my Prisms in every game where I use Spinners.

Does that make me a bad person? Perhaps to you, but I don't doubt that you'd be in the absolute minority.

My contribution to the thread is simple: Test them both and see what works for you. Prism kits are easy to switch weapons with if you haven't already glued them; all you need is a little blu tack (or country-specific equivilant). Your lack of ranged AV leads me to say Prisms, since if you face a Land Raider then you're going to have a hard time unless, by some miracle, you manage to assault it with your Swooping Hawks and haywire it; the Serpent Brightlance isn't reliable enough on its own. You also don't have much in the way of anti-terminator fire, which two Prisms can bring by dropping a S9 AP2 template each, or a S10 AP1 if you find yourself facing multi-wound T5 like Thunderwolves (although to be honest, dropping them with massed S6 is easier, especially since they're likely to have a 3+ invul).

But really, try them both and see what works; Spinners don't work for me, but they might for you.

Could you elaborate more on your experiences with both choices of heavy support selection and these metagame situations that define the difference. If you would also be particularly careful about comparing two tanks to one tank directly. I'd like to know more about the difference in your experience between having 2 or 1 prisms and how they are doing a better job, point per point, than something that costs half what they do. I'd just like to understand a little better.

Also, it might be just what I'm used to, but using blast weapons for anti tank was something I learned not to do very quickly. It doesn't seem fair comparing a drifting shot at bs3 that you paid something like 250 points for, to the sturdy bright lance. I understand where you are coming from, and bright lances really cost way too much these days, but they have a very similar chance of hurting the vehicle, but one option does not scatter and is about half the investment of firing platforms.

Avatar 720 wrote:

BeefCakeSoup wrote:Fire Prisms kind of suck, because they're kind of really bad, like the people who use them.

This man's powers of perception are second to none; not only did he manage to state that something sucks, but also that people who use them are bad, and all this without any kind of evidence whatsoever. He deserves a medal.

Or a dreadsocking.

I dislike spinners; they aren't good in my local meta, their overall impact in the games in which I have used them over Prisms has been negligible, they have performed less than poorly in every circumstance, and every opponent has agreed that Fire Prisms would have been better. It's starting to become like the Tau Warfish for me; I used it because people recommended it, and every game in which I used that set-up, I found it harder and harder to justify it being there. It's the same with my spinners, i'm finding it difficult to justify taking them over the dual Prisms which have served me exceedingly well in the past.

Perhaps it's my meta; perhaps it's the boards I play on; perhaps i'm just having absolutely terrible luck with them; but I miss having my Prisms in every game where I use Spinners.

Does that make me a bad person? Perhaps to you, but I don't doubt that you'd be in the absolute minority.

My contribution to the thread is simple: Test them both and see what works for you. Prism kits are easy to switch weapons with if you haven't already glued them; all you need is a little blu tack (or country-specific equivilant). Your lack of ranged AV leads me to say Prisms, since if you face a Land Raider then you're going to have a hard time unless, by some miracle, you manage to assault it with your Swooping Hawks and haywire it; the Serpent Brightlance isn't reliable enough on its own. You also don't have much in the way of anti-terminator fire, which two Prisms can bring by dropping a S9 AP2 template each, or a S10 AP1 if you find yourself facing multi-wound T5 like Thunderwolves (although to be honest, dropping them with massed S6 is easier, especially since they're likely to have a 3+ invul).

But really, try them both and see what works; Spinners don't work for me, but they might for you.

I'll go with the medal.

That being said, META dictates all. In my experience Fire Prisms are trash against just about every semi-decent list out there. Spinners tend to compliment lists that already have S8 AT on lock - aka lists that tend to win or at least try to compete against the ever beardy dexes of fifth.

I'll be fair though it is a matter of preference, well that and whether or not you are good or bad.

The main problem with spinners is that they vie against guided slaser walkers for a heavy slotted anti infantry role which they are outperformed by, but if you're taking an avatar for an hq or a jetbike council that isn't going to sit in back field to guide than the spinner becomes a big value.

Fire prisms scatter off stuff with the small blast more often than bs3 shots straight hit things which means if you aren't shooting something large like a tank where you have a good chance of landing on target even with 3" of scatter it can be very unreliable. BS4 was a bigger deal in 4th edition where you just rolled to hit with blasts and only scattered when you missed, now it almost demands to be guided or twin-linked with another prism. That said, it's pretty much the only place in the eldar codex to get strength 9 and its large blast is only a little less useful at killing infantry than the spinner. It's like the biggest baddest missile launcher in 40k, and those are hot in the meta right now for a reason.

Also on a personal note, advice on dakka tactics may be about getting as close to mathematically efficient as possible but you should absolutely take what you like or what you find useful. A few higher percentages here and there will not make a huge impact on the outcome of the game, rocking swooping hawks when you have a good idea of how and where to use them certainly will.

Lucre wrote:Could you elaborate more on your experiences with both choices of heavy support selection and these metagame situations that define the difference. If you would also be particularly careful about comparing two tanks to one tank directly. I'd like to know more about the difference in your experience between having 2 or 1 prisms and how they are doing a better job, point per point, than something that costs half what they do. I'd just like to understand a little better.

Also, it might be just what I'm used to, but using blast weapons for anti tank was something I learned not to do very quickly. It doesn't seem fair comparing a drifting shot at bs3 that you paid something like 250 points for, to the sturdy bright lance. I understand where you are coming from, and bright lances really cost way too much these days, but they have a very similar chance of hurting the vehicle, but one option does not scatter and is about half the investment of firing platforms.

The main difference is that the boards I play on have exceedingly little terrain capable of blocking LoS. Ruins have myriad windows and other terrain pieces are too small. They also have an overabundance of area terrain, thereby negating the strength of rending significantly. As well as these, the armies I face tend to have some form of strong firepower, whether it be massed psycannons and psyriflemen, or long fangs, or razorbacks; coupled with the fact that I have nowhere to hide my skimmers, it means I usually have to fully reserve my army in order to have a chance of surviving the first turn, which allows enemies to position themselves in area terrain and on objectives or inside buildings without hassle. As I just mentioned, buildings are used a lot, mainly AV14 bunkers, which the Night Spinner is useless against, leaving only units that don't need to move, like Long Fangs or Psyriflmen or units on objectives, which are almost always inside area terrain, or have the unit conga-lining to retain a cover save.

The main strengths of the Night Spinner are Difficult and Dangerous terrain, Rending, and Barrage; Barrage being comparatively usless when the enemy gets cover anyway or the spinner can't hide anywhere, rending being significantly less powerful when everything gets at least a 4+ save against it, and D'n'D terrain not mattering when the unit doesn't have to move.

I prefer the flexibility of the Fire Prism (only two, mind, I don't field single prisms), and when coupled with a Warp Hunter, it makes for a fearsome Heavy Support block; last game I played (against GK, using the Warp Hunter and two Spinners) the spinners claimed a single casualty (rending an interceptor) and the GKs were largely static; the psyriflemen didn't need to move, the terminators didn't need to move, the vindicare didn't need to move, the interceptors were in a building till my Fragons blew it up, and the Strike Squad was also in a building, with the Callidus making sure it was too close to the spinner she immobilised after jumping out of for the other spinner to hit her.

I'd have preferred the Prisms here a lot more; the bunkers were large enough to mean scattering shots would still hit and Fragons wouldn't have to be relied on to nuke them; the terminators would've been threatened even after the Warp Hunter was taken out; if a building was fried by Fragons or another units, a S6 AP3 template on the bunched up PAGK inside would've made short work of them, and they'd be no less safe than a night spinner.

Other armies I could face are Tau (largely static, and with no LoS blocking terrain, easy to spot for the Prisms), IG (also static), SW with TWC (2W cavalry with storm shields makes dangerous terrain and rends a lot less scary), Necrons (RP makes it less of a risk for Necron units, and Prism large blasts also threaten warriors and the small blasts can threaten the AV13 hulls that are impervious to S6-spam; spinners can eat scarab swarms alive, but only if they fail a 3+ cover save or even 5+ armour save), CSM (only saving grace of the spinner is that it could immobilise the land raider or defilers, but I have Fire Dragons for the raider and outflanking hornets for the defilers; the Prisms can eat the terminators inside the Raider and S6 blast the static HW CSM), SM (a largely static force relying on drop-podding Terminators with Lysander, support vindicators, podding dreadnoughts, TFCs and static marines for objective-keeping, definately prefer Prisms here, since at least they can force 3+ saves instead of 2+s on the Terminators, and I already have Hornets for sweeping in to hit Vindicator side-armour and dreadnought rear) and others which I don't know in-depth enough; i'm not even sure that the Necron force uses Scarabs.

To make things better, these aren't 12-year old kids either, they know their armies and they know other people's, some have even played Eldar previously, so know the tricks, or can just counter what's on the field. The use of buildings effectively means spinners have fewer targets to hit, whereas Prisms can still have a crack at pulling the building down, or at least stop the inhabitants shooting.

As for what you say about the brightlances... you do know that was to the OP, right? His list lacks Fire Dragons, his Tank Hunters are Wraithguard, and his only weaponry stronger than S6 is a solitary Birghtlance and EML in squads not known for their ability to take damage, and a Brightlance on a Serpent that says "Shoot me to remove the largest AV threat on the board". I am in no way saying that blasts should be used for all anti-tank, but in a list that lacks ranged firepower, where he wants to add Prisms or Spinners, he'll need something that can potentially crack harder vehicles, like Cron vehicles with Quantum Shielding, Leman Russes, or Land Raiders, and short of getting lucky with a BS3 BL, two BS4 S9 blast, or 1 TL BS4 S10 AP1 blast is better than nothing; what sort of capacity would two spinners fill? He already has good S6 damage, he does not have ranged anti-tank, and spinners are not strong enough or reliable enough to work at cracking vehicles.

Good sirs! let us examine, prism good vs elite units and light transports (termies with the small blast) decent vs hordes with the large blast. vs marines rhinos get popped fairly easily by the str9 .

The Nightspinner on the other hand does do alot of useful things, slows enemies down, causes wounds after shooting and is str 6 with rending. good vs marines, good vs orks in my experience.

In my 1850 list i run a spinner and a prism, and both are effective. If i had to pick one i say the prism is better as it can be used for more things ( even ramming if the turret gets ripped off!) but both are useful and id take both in my army if i can.

But since you must pick one i say prism because it meshes better with your lack of anti armor. even if its just popping a rhino from 60" something the nightspinner would struggle with (though could potentially do with rending).

You guys are making it increasingly difficult to decide haha
I'm mostly going to be fighting a static Guard army that has the usual HQ plus Master of Ordnance and Troops, plasma/lascannon Vets, no real elites or fast, he also runs a LR Battle Tank and a LR Demolisher. Also an Ork army that runs a suped up Warboss/Nob squad w/Painboy, Burnas, lots of boyz, bikes and koptas, a dread and 3 kans.

I can see where the Night Spinner would be beneficial against both types of armies, but because I don't have any Dragons I hate to leave the tank hunting to just the Wraithguard and in so the Fire Prism would be beneficial.
Also, please leave your Swooping Hawk hate at the log-in screen, haha. They're in the list to stay and are awesome, and I challenge anyone who says they suck to rethink their tactics before they totally throw them under the bus. You can say any unit is better than another, but all the units do different things and have different roles. You can say Dire Avengers are better than Swooping Hawks, but you're looking at different FOC roles. Yeah maybe DA's cost less, but they don't have the mobility of the SH's unless you give them a Serpent to ride in, which jacks their points up a lot, their gun's have a higher STR, but less range. Also, DA's don't have any anti-tank, SH's have haywires. They are different styles of units entirely, so you really can't say they're comparable.

Anyways, sorry about the
Any more input?

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.

Yeah, that assessment was awesomely well done, thank you for that!
The question I have is: would you still recommend the Night Spinner over a Fire Prism based on the army list I posted a little farther up and against the armies I listed Id be more than likely fighting in my last reply? As I said before, you guys are making it hard to pick haha
For all my love of Swooping Hawks, I can appreciate giving a unit that doesn't get a lot of good press a chance!
Thanks!

Your list against those armies it really is a toss up.

Two front av14 vehicles in the form of the russes wants the prism but really the demolisher needs to get in wraithcannon or haywire charge range to be a threat so you only need long range shooting to stop 1 LRBT, which arguably a twin-linked bright lance, a pulse laser, and several missile launchers should. The slew of troop hidden lascannons makes indirect a great option as a prism may just roll low armor pen the first shot then get lascannoned anyway.
The ork is predominantly a foot list with the walkers so difficult terrain checks become worth their weight in gold but if he does take 2 or 3 battle wagons to keep up with the bikes you'll probably wish you had the prism to get some nice side angle shots and the prism's large blast is nothing to sneeze at for anti infantry either.

As is most often the case in life, the one that looks cooler is best.

Or, like said before, make the weapons swappable (I think you can do that on this kit). Then you can try both and field either depending on your mood.

I'm in the same boat. I'll mostly be playing against Black Templars, so I find it hard to choose between the area effect of the Night Spinner to stop SM squads from advancing, or the tank-killing of the Fire Prism for taking care of SM tanks, especially Land Raiders. Luckily, I can field EML and BL equipped units in my army, as I made all the heavy weapons-capable units capable of all using the same type of modular heavy weapons, so I can swap weapons between my Wraithlord, HW platforms, and Vypers for different games.

Seems like the Night Spinner would be awesome for fighting Templar, so when you hit and kill them and they pass their test to move closer, they could accrue further casualties....

I'm definitely torn between the uses of the two tanks! Haha

Thanks!

What Trogdor is trying to do is find the best answer to getting rid of my Leman Russ tanks that keep making him pack up his models and go home crying. Either that, or try to take care of my mass units of Black Templar with their obligatory LRCs that come with them :-)

If you decide to go with the Fire Prizm option against my IG, you can expect to have a few "Bring it down!" orders pointed in the tank's general direction. I would invest in some Holo Fields to be sure. The Black Templars run a couple of Multi-Meltas in the army, so same deal there.

As some posters have mentioned, the Nightspinner works great as a support weapon to other tank-killing units. The Nightspinner, while not nearly as high in strength as the Fire Prizm, would be a nightmare to the mass infantry I field. Also, it has the added bonus of being hidden as it fires, and as my IG are pretty static, it may pose more of a problem than something I can point at and have lots of squads shoot at. So for my IG, you could probably field the Nightspinner, get rid of those IG units that you love to hate, while some more tank-busty units move in and do the job. And even if the template scatters on a Leman Russ, it's not impossible to pop the tank, but it would be a longshot.

For my Black Templars, the Nightspinner would really wreck my massed units. The only thing you would need to worry about are the LRCs, and IIRC, a Nightspinner could only glance that at best. So you would either want some Lance weapons pointed at those, or you could field the Fire Prism in those games and hope I don't get close enough with the Multi-Meltas I field.

For my Orks, the Nightspinner is a no-brainer win. Even if you are targeting something with an AV, the highest AV I run is 12, so it even stands a chance of popping those as well. But it is a mass infantry army, so the template wounds plus the pinning would frustrate me (but I would still beat you and make you cry and go home).

So there. You just got some advice from your opponent on how best to beat me. I hope this helps your indecision on this "surprise" purchase you made that supposedly is going to be the end of my Leman Russ tanks. Now get your work schedule fixed so we can play some games you git.

A Nightspinner can penetrate a Land Raider as it's maximum roll is 15 for penetration (although it'll be at -1 on the damage because of AP-) and the extra 1/6th chance of immobilising is also nice if the Raider is being used as an assault transport. It's not good odds, but it's not completely useless either.

I don't think either a spinner or a fire prism is a good heavy choice for eldar.

That being said, I would take a spinner based on labmouse's advice.

Chrysis wrote:A Nightspinner can penetrate a Land Raider as it's maximum roll is 15 for penetration (although it'll be at -1 on the damage because of AP-) and the extra 1/6th chance of immobilising is also nice if the Raider is being used as an assault transport. It's not good odds, but it's not completely useless either.

Actually Rending hits are AP2 so they won't get a negative on the damage chart.

Roadkill Zombie wrote:

Chrysis wrote:A Nightspinner can penetrate a Land Raider as it's maximum roll is 15 for penetration (although it'll be at -1 on the damage because of AP-) and the extra 1/6th chance of immobilising is also nice if the Raider is being used as an assault transport. It's not good odds, but it's not completely useless either.

Actually Rending hits are AP2 so they won't get a negative on the damage chart.

No, a Rend TO WOUND is AP2. There is no mention of AP2 with regards penetration, so nothing changes and it's still AP-.

Honestly, I love both Prisms and Spinners, and I run them in my Saim Hann list: 2x Prisms and 1x Spinner. The combination of the Prims' longe range/high STR and the Spinner's TL Barrage and enemy comtrol make for a great combined support element.

The thing is, however, you really need to have 2 Prisms to make full use of their effectiveness. The option for Prisms to contrubute to each other is one of the key elements to their flexibility and effectiveness. Will you always use one to contrubute to another? No. Are their times that their contribution is a game changer? Oh yes! For this reason, I would never spend the points on a solo Prism. You simply are not getting your points worth out a single vehicle that was intended and point-cost for use in pairs.

If you are only going to field one other HS tank, as your list shows (with a Falcon adn WWs taking up your other heavy slots), ythen your only real option is the Spinner. It is designed as an area denial weapon that can fire either directly or indirectly with accuracy.

Long story short: If you are fielding 2 tanks, then 2 Prisms excel at their job. If you are only fielding one tank, stick with the Spinner or Falxon. If you are going with 3 tanks, then 2 Prisms, combined with a Spinner is fantastic, as is 2 Prisms and a Falcon.