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First I just want to say, I really want to avoid putting my troops into transports cause I don't like that style of play but this is what I've come up with so far and I really need some input from you Dakka as most of you are just far better players than me :(

HQ - Prince with jump pack. He can make it night fighting for a turn or use a large blast S9 AP2 Lance shot at BS6. Or a weaker D6+6" (?!?) pinning blast, useful for hordes I guess.


Troops:

4 squads of 5 man corsairs with jump packs and missile launcher. 1 Felarch upgrade. Shuriken catapults on the rest.

2 Wasp War Walkers squadrons of 3. 2 in each squad will have 2 x star cannons and 1 will have 2 x bright lances. Spirit stones on each one.

Fast Attack

3 single units of hornets. Each one with Holo Fields and spirit stones. They come with star engines as standard. 2 of the hornets will have 2 x pulse lasers and one of them will have 2 bright lances.

This comes to about 1645 so I have around 105 points to play with.


What I'm most concerned with here is balance. Do all of the units mesh together well? The corsairs squads will just hide behind things, jumping out to take pot shots with missile launchers. They can also move 6" in the assault phase and have fleet so they have the ability to move around quite quickly to grab objectives. They are really fragile which is why I'm thinking that 5 man squads are better as they will be able to hide more easily. Do you think it's worth upgrading one to a felarch for 10 points? he has LD9 but with the squads being so small and fragile and useless in CC, will the extra 1 LD really help me much?

Where I'm worried with the Wasps is that they cannot outflank like normal war walkers. They can deep strike and also have the JSJ ability of the corsairs. They can also move an extra 12" in lieu of shooting so, again, they have the trademark eldar mobility but they will rely on cover to survive and a squadron of 3 probably won't find cover very easily.

The Hornets are great - really fast and can fire all weapons at cruising speed. They also bring some strong firepower and with the holos and spirit stones with cover saves, won't be easy to take out but are only AV11, 11, 10. What I'm worried with is that if I do reserve them to outflank, then my wasps are going to take a lot of fire until the hornets come on.

Finally, what do I do with my last 100 odd points? I could get another prince for 2 turns of nightfighting or two of those great blasts. Or, drop a squad of corsairs and add their points to the 100 I've got left over and take some jet bikes instead for a bit more mobility. They can scout so I'd have some great objective grabbing abilities with them and the hornets.

The reason for the Bright lances scattered throughout the list is that I just need to be able to take on AV13 and 14 due to the armies I usually face now. The reason for taking a lot of AP2 stuff is that I quite regularly face armour 2 stuff. All the corsairs stuff is BS4 btw.

So what do you think - how would you change this? Please note that Falcons are dedicated transports for Corsairs but if at all possible, I just want to avoid transports. Really looking forward to your advice. Thanks!

ColdSadHungry wrote:First I just want to say, I really want to avoid putting my troops into transports cause I don't like that style of play but this is what I've come up with so far and I really need some input from you Dakka as most of you are just far better players than me :(

HQ - Prince with jump pack. He can make it night fighting for a turn or use a large blast S9 AP2 Lance shot at BS6. Or a weaker D6+6" (?!?) pinning blast, useful for hordes I guess.

Not a bad start. Better than the Void Dreamer... consider a shield upgrade. 5+ invul in a pinch is better than having nothing because of AP. Also, sometimes the Bladesworn retinue can be worth a look for spreading wounds. By himself, he's not that intimidating. Granted, not much more with the retinue but people will think twice about charging him with a squad of basic troops if there's 4 or 5 more guys with him with power weapons. That being said, you might wanna give him a power weapon of his own. Or the Void Saber. Ok ok, it's not that great for the points, or so some claim (I haven't decided yet if I disagree...) but c'mon. It's got a flippin sweet name!

ColdSadHungry wrote:Troops:

4 squads of 5 man corsairs with jump packs and missile launcher. 1 Felarch upgrade. Shuriken catapults on the rest.

2 Wasp War Walkers squadrons of 3. 2 in each squad will have 2 x star cannons and 1 will have 2 x bright lances. Spirit stones on each one.

Consider two squads of 10. You get the same number of EML... or if you want to take ShuriCannons mixed in there too... Also, I use flamers with mine as well; you can take 1 for every 5 models. Ignores cover - very useful against units that rely on cover. ShuriCats are fine - sacrifice range for strength. Oh yeah... and lose the Felarch. Useless. As far as the walkers go, I'd advise against Star Cannons. Just... pick something else. EML or ShuriCannons. Bright Lances are good. Wasps are fast, but I wouldn't say fast enough to get in a position to shoot the back side of tanks (before said tank ruins your Christmas), so the Lance helps there. I don't think the Spirit stones are useful here, but some might disagree...

ColdSadHungry wrote:Fast Attack

3 single units of hornets. Each one with Holo Fields and spirit stones. They come with star engines as standard. 2 of the hornets will have 2 x pulse lasers and one of them will have 2 bright lances.

This comes to about 1645 so I have around 105 points to play with.

Good on ya for Hornets. They're a big pile of sexy space elf sprinkled with rad and awesome. If you're gonna give two of them double Pulse Lasers though, might as well give all of them double Pulse Lasers. Hornets, unlike Wasps are fast enough that they can get behind, or at least to the side of enemy tanks in the first or second turn. With heavy2, you have more chances to pen so it's an even trade from the Lance imo and anyway, AR greater than 12 isn't THAT common in games under 2000pts in my experience at least. And I may be misremembering, but I think Hornets can also get a ShuriCannon in addition to those Pulse Lasers. Get that. You need more regular infantry shredding. ...Same comment on Spirit Stones as before.

The suggestions for addons should take care of your extra 105+ points...

ColdSadHungry wrote:What I'm most concerned with here is balance. Do all of the units mesh together well? The corsairs squads will just hide behind things, jumping out to take pot shots with missile launchers. They can also move 6" in the assault phase and have fleet so they have the ability to move around quite quickly to grab objectives. They are really fragile which is why I'm thinking that 5 man squads are better as they will be able to hide more easily. Do you think it's worth upgrading one to a felarch for 10 points? he has LD9 but with the squads being so small and fragile and useless in CC, will the extra 1 LD really help me much?

Here's the thing. So they're fragile, right? So you don't have a Farseer or a Warlock to help them out. All the more reason to take them in larger groups. At least that way, if they get to hit first, they're more likely to reduce their opponents numbers. Or at the very least, tar-pit their opponent. Anyone attacking them can't shoot at your other units like your Wasps or Hornets (which can still get penned by a chump with a S4 weapon). Don't worry about cover; remember so long as half the unit is in cover, they're all in cover. If you're worried about LOS, forget about it. There's almost nothing terrain-wise that can provide complete LOS cover against everything on a table, particularly in a game as big as 1750 points; in fact, I don't think I've ever seen anything at any GW that would do it. And in the (unfortunately, highly likely) event that you lose them, well... some you win, some you lose. Of course, if you use the Jetpacks correctly, they'll be exceedingly difficult to catch.

ColdSadHungry wrote:Where I'm worried with the Wasps is that they cannot outflank like normal war walkers. They can deep strike and also have the JSJ ability of the corsairs. They can also move an extra 12" in lieu of shooting so, again, they have the trademark eldar mobility but they will rely on cover to survive and a squadron of 3 probably won't find cover very easily.

This is true... What's nice about them though, is that they are point for point one of the best mobile heavy firepower units you can select and with two units of three, they are going to make life very difficult for your enemy before they are taken down (maybe by turn 3 or 4... unless you use your Jetpacks right!) The other thing is, they are not the only big threat in your army................

ColdSadHungry wrote:The Hornets are great - really fast and can fire all weapons at cruising speed. They also bring some strong firepower and with the holos and spirit stones with cover saves, won't be easy to take out but are only AV11, 11, 10. What I'm worried with is that if I do reserve them to outflank, then my wasps are going to take a lot of fire until the hornets come on.

You know your Prince allows you to make three other units that aren't already DS units into DS units. If you want to DS your Wasps, you can. That'll save them from getting shot at... Personally, I find with my own play style that outflank tends to hurt me more than help. These units are fast enough that you can get into a flanking position in turn 1... maybe even on multiple sides, and force your opponent to make a decision. Do they shoot at one or two of your Hornets, or do they shoot at one of your squads of Wasps? I don't know how it is where you're at, but most SM type players (and most players I've run into are SM types) aren't packing loads of big heat. They grab themselves one--two if they're really splurging--of the biggest guns they can find and they say, "that'll take care of any tank!" Your Holo Fields are going to get you out of most jams vs. S5 and S6. About half the time out of S7 unless you're unlucky and anything higher than that is typically considered an unusually big gun. You might see three of these on the other side at a time and they're almost always Heavy1 which means your opponent can't move if they plan to shoot you with it and a static enemy is a predictable enemy.

ColdSadHungry wrote:Finally, what do I do with my last 100 odd points? I could get another prince for 2 turns of nightfighting or two of those great blasts. Or, drop a squad of corsairs and add their points to the 100 I've got left over and take some jet bikes instead for a bit more mobility. They can scout so I'd have some great objective grabbing abilities with them and the hornets.

A second Prince isn't an aweful idea... but again, without his Retinue, he's mostly a sack of meat waiting to gib. Unfortunately, he doesn't have enough special powers that boost him--as opposed to hindering your opponent--and with a 4+ and T3, he's only going to save half the time unless his armor is penned, and most likely you're looking at Instant Death. You could take another Retinue to help mitigate that risk, but that would mean taking something away from another unit and I didn't do the math but I don't think that's something you would want to do, even beyond the suggestions I made. ... ...Hmm, now that I'm thinking about it... someone might correct me (probably) but you might be able to have one unit with two Princes and a Retinue of five... if you can, it's not a bad idea... ...well, on second thought, the second Prince would take up the points needed to give your first Prince a Retinue, so scratch that idea... Anyway, just some ideas to consider there.

ColdSadHungry wrote:The reason for the Bright lances scattered throughout the list is that I just need to be able to take on AV13 and 14 due to the armies I usually face now. The reason for taking a lot of AP2 stuff is that I quite regularly face armour 2 stuff. All the corsairs stuff is BS4 btw.

So what do you think - how would you change this? Please note that Falcons are dedicated transports for Corsairs but if at all possible, I just want to avoid transports. Really looking forward to your advice. Thanks!

Yeah, not a bad start. I don't blame you for not liking Falcons. I don't like them either; too impersonal, and plus everyone's doing it. I gotta run across the grain man! Remember that EML can drop a pinning blast which when effective can be very useful. All those hidden missile launchers getting pinned... happy happy day!

That's a great response - thanks DX!

A lot of what you've said makes sense there. I've got to say though that I just don't see 10 man squads being good enough. I've had a few practice games proxying other models as corsairs and those 10 man squads just fall apart under bolter fire just as quick as if they are 5 man squads, although taking 2 EML per squad is great. Also, a small 5 man squad is less likely to get attention from my opponent than a larger one (hopefully). I am considering taking flamers as you do and they're only cheap so if I do have 24 points left over, I will give each squad a flamer.

One thing that has got me thinking is changing the wasps weargear to shuriken cannons or scatter lasers. I hadn't actually considered shuriken cannons before but if I did drop to those on all my wasps and, then I'd be able to also take 2 warp hunters on top of all the other units which would be pretty cool. It's just a question of whether I'd be happy with my AP2 and anti AV13/14, which I do need to be able to take on. The extra shots would bump up my ability against hordes but I'd lose something against elites. It's tricky. I'll have to sit and do an exact calculation of the points and see exactly what I could squeeze in if I dropped the wasps to shurkien cannons or scatter lasers but I know I'll have around 430 points to play with if I did and dropped the spirit stones off the walkers, too. 430 is a nice amount to play with, too

Well, avoiding transports is eventually not a good idea if you want a competitive list. Corsairs on foot are too vulnerable to incoming fire. They can be decimated quickly even when in cover and then they are eventually breaking.
For the 100 pts, I'd include a Nightspinner.

wuestenfux wrote:Well, avoiding transports is eventually not a good idea if you want a competitive list. Corsairs on foot are too vulnerable to incoming fire. They can be decimated quickly even when in cover and then they are eventually breaking.
For the 100 pts, I'd include a Nightspinner.

Ah, the Nightspinner is actually Fast Attack in a Corsairs list and my fast attack slots are taken and I really don't want to lose the Hornets. I really hope that the NIghtspinner doesn't move to FA in any new Eldar codex if it ends up competing with the likes of Hornets. I hear what you say about a competitive list needing transports but I'm only really going to consider those if I do really badly over and over with the Corsairs.

Nightspinner is awesome... You could combine your hornets to one or two units to take the Nightspinner. ... In fact you could take two for the price reductions I made earlier. But that would be mean...