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Hello all, I recently took a serpent fleet with Eldrad and some wraith squads to tournament and I won against Tau twice.. which is fun and all.. But I lost in the final round to another serpent spam player who took one more serpent than I did and some Dark Eldar allies. Wanting to take the Baron if I did run Dark Eldar I decided that a seer council list would be in order, which is great to put wounds back on my wraithknight and really try for a deathstar. Plus grisly trophies giving the council re rolls is just too much synergy to pass up. So here's the list:

Farseer on Jetbike/Singing Spear/Runes of Witnessing/Spirit Stone
Farseer on Jetbike/Singing Spear/Runes of Witnessing/Wraithforge Stone
6x Warlocks on Jetbikes/Singing Spears

5x Dire Avengers
Wave Serpent/Scatter Laser/Holo Fields
5x Dire Avengers
Wave Serpent/Scatter Laser/Holo Fields
5x Dire Avengers
Wave Serpent/Scatter Laser/Holo Fields

Wraithknight/Sun Cannon/Scatter Shield/Scatter Laser

The Baron Sathonyx

5x Kabalites
Venom/Grisly Trophies
5x Kabalites
Venom/Grisly Trophies

The only downside to taking the Dark Eldar that I can see is the loss of a wave serpent and a warlock or two, along with the slowness of The Baron. These aren't necessarily bad things though. Venoms are very competent transports as long as no one shoots at them, and if they do, then no one is shooting at my serpents while they have their shields down. The entire army gets to move 11-12 inches up, allowing the council to stay within grisly trophy/wraithforge range so that everything can be put to full effect. As far as the council goes I figure first turn he sits at the front of the council and soaks up wounds. Second turn The Baron moves forward his 12 and becomes the rear of the council as they all turbo boost ahead of him in a large wave or a conga line, or whatever will best get the job done. Eventually the Baron will either be within charge range with the rest of the council with everything moving up, or the council will leave him behind assuming they have fortune for protection and he can join any squad that falls out on foot and get them to safety, acting as a rescue character or some such.

So how do you all feel about this general idea and it's tournament viability? Should I maybe drop the wraithforge stone and the two farseer singing spears for a shard of Anaris in case of death mission or something? Maybe drop a venom and kabalites for two more warlocks and the wraithforge and single singing spear for a shard of anaris?

You definitely want both of the venoms, having Grisly trophies up is absolutely critical for the council to function. LD8 is simply not reliable enough without a re-roll, and the re-roll also gives you better control over losing your Warlocks to Perils. If possible, also roll on Command Warlord traits aiming for the power that allows your Warlocks to test Leadership on the Farseer's LD10, makes a huge difference even with the re-roll.

I'm also of the opinion that Seer Councils are "go big or go home". With only 6 Warlocks, there's a significant chance you won't get the powers that really make the Council tick- specifically Protect/Jinx, but also Destructor/Renewer and Embolden/Horrify. Also, with fewer Warlocks you have a lower chance of being able to pull off multi-assaults.

I would start by cutting the Wraithknight and the Wraithforge Stone - he's going to have a giant target on his chest since the enemy won't have much incentive to target the Seer Council, and since he can't stay out of line of sight, he's going to eat dirt pretty quickly even if you can get a Renewer or two off on him. Plus, you already have enough S6 shooting from the Serpents. That gives you the points for at least 2 more Warlocks, and a more economical heavy support choice - there are certainly no shortage of them in the Eldar book.

I would also cut the Spirit Stone - it's definitely attractive to get in an extra psychic power each turn, but turning off his invuln save is a huge risk when he's at the front of the pack - you don't want a S8+ AP2 Ignores Cover shot (what's up Tau) to instant-kill him.on a failed LOS.

As far as the Shard, you shouldn't really be accepting challenges, you can get Fearless from Embolden/Horrify, and the Singing Spear's melee profile is generally better anyway. I'd leave it at home.

Another random tip: when rolling for Fortune, never take Guide until it's your third failed try for Fortune for each Farseer. Even if you roll Death Mission, just take it - that method increases your chance of getting Fortune considerably, since you will be able to re-roll any further rolls of Death Mission/whatever. Might be obvious to you but wanted to point it out.

Finally, other than Fortune, I find Prescience critical for a functioning council. Prescience is so much better than Guide that if I'm down to my last roll and I still don't have Fortune, I'd strongly consider taking the guarantee of Prescience over a 1 in 4 chance of getting Fortune, depending on what powers my Warlocks got (always roll for the Warlock powers first, since they have no choice in what table they roll on, and it's not hard to figure out which powers to swap out for Conceal/Reveal.)

That was a lot of words, but I hope they were helpful, and good luck with your tournament!

Thank you, I liked your words very much.

I'll start with the one point that I disagree on. Spirit Stones are totally worth it. The farseer loses nothing, because he is not going to be at the front.. ever. And so many Runes of Fate powers are warp charge two including the one I'm rolling for. It's a well spent 15 points in my opinion.

I can definitely do without wraithforge.
Dropping the Wraithknight is borderline heretical.. He's been in every list since I got him.. But I could get two more warlocks and a wave serpent without him..

I was working on a list today and I was pretty happy with a setup where I managed to fit in two extra warlocks and the shard of anaris for the cost of one venom squad..

Your point of taking even garbage powers makes a lot of sense now that I think about it.. So definitely not obvious.

The question in my mind is definitely going to be, should I take more Davu units in transports and council members or a wraithknight..? hmmm

I appreciate further criticism from any angle also.

I would bring the wraithknight but drop his suncannon and scatterlaser. The extra points allow you to get one more warlock and I think the heavy wraithcannons will serve you better as you have no long range AV for armor 14.

. Id only use one venom squad. Maybe add fire dragons.

If you are set on going down to one Venom I'd consider not running them at all.  1 Venom is not resilient enough to withstand focused fire, so against a smart opponent you'll be without your Grisly Trophies in short order.  Running two gives you redundancy.

If you're set on the Wraithknight, I agree with the poster who suggested running Wraithcannons instead of Suncannon/Scatter.  It's much cheaper and as I mentioned before, your Wave Serpents (and Venoms to an extent) already provide more than enough mid-Strength shooting, while you're weak against AV13-14 (outside of your Council which will easily wreck anything that's not AV14 all-round provided you aren't multi-charging, and with an Empower/Enervate or two will wreck the Land Raiders easily as well).

On the issue of the Spirit Stone and running the Farseer on the front - it's just a playstyle choice.  My preferred style is run the Baron at the front of course, but with his slower movement that's not always possible, and sometimes the enemy has your flank.  If I run the Farseers/Baron at the edges of the Council, and the Warlocks inside, it gives me a lot of control over wound allocation via Look Out Sir.  You can let the Farseer tank wounds until you determine it's unsafe to continue (depends on the type of wound), then start LOS'ing on a 2+ to specific Warlocks (assign wounds to the Warlocks with the worst powers first!) or your other HQ's if they are in range.  Then, on your next turn you can use Renewer to heal up your HQ's to "like new".

If you are assigning wounds to your Warlocks first since they are at the front, you have less control over who rolls saves against the wounds since your LOS is on a 4+.  If a Warlock gets unlucky and fails his save, he and whatever psychic power he had are gone, period, nothing Renewer can do.  So, using the Spirit Stone on a Farseer who is tanking wounds means anything that ignores armor and cover has to be LOS'd or the Seer is toast. I agree that the Spirit Stone is potentially very powerful especially with Mind War/Fortune/Eldritch Storm, so it might be worth it to tank with the other Seer but put the Spirit Stone'd Farseer in the middle of the pack. Again, just a playstyle choice, I don't think there's a right or wrong answer.

I agree that multiple Venoms are going to be a necessity, they are what make the council tick because ld 8 no rerolls is not going to be consistant enough to rely on. If you don't want to run enough venoms then switch to a beast pack for your cc.

TBH running 2 is the absolute minimum good players will target your venoms, I know that means they wont be shooting your wave serpents, but its very risky to run a council with no rerolls becuase warlocks die on perils.

I think the biggest thing people miss about the wraithknight in competative play is that its very good against the screamerstar, not insomuch that it will do anything against it but its one of the best ways eldar have of tying the unit up if you get 2nd and it buffs up the entire game. If i were running this I would consider even brining a 2nd wraithknight instead ofthe 3rd wave serpent and drop the upgrades on the farseers.

Otherwise this is a very well done list and can handle most armies with decent rolls, 3 wave serpents a solid council, 2 venoms and a wraithknight is very strong.

The only armies i would really worry about are necron flyer lists because of objective grabbing ability if they go 2nd, and screamerstar's.

Alright, that is a very solid block of advice, I'm pretty excited to try a seer council this edition. I had mixed luck with five and two seers earlier on.. But clearly that's not enough to stick around and do work.

Speaking of work, I reworked the list based on your suggestions and got to a nice round number that I think I'll playtest for this weeks games:

Farseer on Jetbike w/ spirit stone
Farseer on Jetbike
The Baron
8x Warlocks

5x Dire Avengers
Wave Serpent/Scatter Laser/ Holo Fields
5x Dire Avengers
Wave Serpent/Scatter Laser/ Holo Fields
5x Dire Avengers
Wave Serpent/Scatter Laser/ Holo Fields
5x Kabalites
Raider/Disintegrator Cannon/Trophies
5x Kabalites
Raider/Disintegrator Cannon/Trophies

Wraithknight w/ Wraithcannons

The only thing I'm worried about is the loss of spears and runes on the seers. Think those upgrades are worth a warlock?

No locks? Where's the seer council?

Judging by the points of the rest of his army, he either took 8 Warlocks w/2 Singing Spears (for exactly 1850) or 7 Warlocks all with Singing Spears (leaving 25 points on the table.)

I'm not sure about taking the Raiders over the Venoms, but I assume the Disintegrator Cannons are for Tau 2+ suits. Seems ok to me.

Oops, sorry about that. I've got 8 Warlocks all with singing spears. For exactly 1850.

I took the raiders, because a friend of mine has some that he doesn't use that I'm hoping to trade for, or buy if I must. I also like the additional hull point. The disintegrators are for infantry detail which the occupants will be aimed at any way. Personally I'll take a touch more survivability in exchange for tons of venom spam. I want those grisly trophies hanging around.

I building an army very similar to this. Are you finding singing spears on the entire council is the way to go?

 Iyandenseer wrote:
Oops, sorry about that. I've got 8 Warlocks all with singing spears. For exactly 1850.

I took the raiders, because a friend of mine has some that he doesn't use that I'm hoping to trade for, or buy if I must. I also like the additional hull point. The disintegrators are for infantry detail which the occupants will be aimed at any way. Personally I'll take a touch more survivability in exchange for tons of venom spam. I want those grisly trophies hanging around.

Sorry, I shortcutted your Serpents having Shuricannons in my mind, leading to my point miscount.

On the Raiders, the extra hullpoint is nice, but it's not a strict survivability upgrade since it doesn't have the 5++. Since you'll usually have a 5+ jink the 5++ isn't that important, but if the opponent has first turn or Ignores Cover weaponry you won't get a save at all on the Raider

In addition, to keep the Grisly Trophy buff, it's more important to keep the vehicle from suffering penetrating hits than it is to keep it from being glanced down, since it's AV10 and open-topped any firepower that gets past the cover save has a very favorable chance to either Stun, Immobilize, or Explode the transport, which to the Council is effectively the same as the vehicle being wrecked - if the Raider can't move to keep up with the Council, they will be out of range of the Grisly Trophies, and you're left with a sitting duck (no Jink save) that the opponent can deal with at their leisure.

Either way, neither transport is very resilient, so the most important thing is to take two of whatever you're taking!

I building an army very similar to this. Are you finding singing spears on the entire council is the way to go?

My opinion is that Spears are not necessary since the Council does most of its work in melee and the TLSC's are surprisingly excellent against a wide range of targets, but they do give the Council a few dimensions that they don't have otherwise:

1) A serious threat to flying vehicles
2) An attack good for Instant Death'ing multi-wound models, especially characters hiding in units since the entire Council has the ability to Precision Strike
3) A ranged attack that can threaten vehicles in the cases where the Council would have to make a very long charge, or would prefer to use the 2d6 assault move instead

All in all, a pretty useful upgrade IMO for 50-60 points total.

I haven't played a council of this magnitude in this edition so I won't have any knowledge on how well it plays until after this saturday.

As a thought, I could drop the singing spears for the extra rune of witnessing and the wraithforge stone.. So that could be good, and twin linked shuriken cannons are pretty great, but that's what windriders are for, so I think I'll stick with the spears for the test run.

Just a small correction. Warlocks that remain in a Council are not characters and are not able to produce precision strikes. Or LoS. A bit of a change from the previous codex.

Raiders need flickerfields, night shields and maybe splinter racks really.

 Sarigar wrote:
Just a small correction. Warlocks that remain in a Council are not characters and are not able to produce precision strikes. Or LoS. A bit of a change from the previous codex.

My apologies on that one. More reason to put the HQs on the outside!

Too expensive. I want cheap raiders. They can die and the list will move on. I need points for seer upgrades as is. Runes of witnessing is more important than trying to make a fragile transport not fragile..

 Iyandenseer wrote:
Too expensive. I want cheap raiders. They can die and the list will move on. I need points for seer upgrades as is. Runes of witnessing is more important than trying to make a fragile transport not fragile..

There is some irony in that statement, since the Raiders essentially represent re-usable Runes of Witnessing for everyone in your council. That being said, I'm not sure that the Night Shields and Flickerfield upgrades will do enough for the Raider's survivability to make the upgrades worth the extra points, and having a always-available re-roll when casting Fortune is so important that going with Runes of Witnessing over the transport upgrades is very reasonable.

So, I did get to play test this list one game... Lets just call it an ungodly massacre.. and there is an ultramarine world in ruin right now. This list really suffers without fortune, but with it, any other psychic powers are totally irrelevant..

I can see the tournament now. 1st round overwhelming victory. 2nd round overwhelming victory. 3rd round, no fortune, strongest opponent.. total curb stomp.. failure to place again..

But with luck, the game is won with this list before the game begins.. Not much else for tactical analysis, my opponent was poor and the handicap I gave him quickly crumbled.

Game 2 is in. Versus a slaanesh flying circus led by a player who I always lose to. Total slaughter. I definitely got lucky with the keeper of secrets failing it's charge, but watching the showdown of Cegorach and Slaanesh was a beautiful scene, after the raiders were incapacitated and the council surged forward towards the keeper, failing their fear check, but surrounding and bringing the mighty daemon of our past into check, down to a single wound, and down on it's own turn was a sure symbol of victory.

I killed one flying monstrous creature a turn and his troops evaporated before my onslaught. The Serpents did a lot of hiding, but they can really cover ground if you start moving them to seize ground on turn 4.

Pretty gratifying. The only thing that I can think that I'd want to add is a deep striking venom. The Raiders go down pretty easy, and the confidence of casting powers with the council next to grisly trophies is pretty intoxicating. . . So what would I take out in order to make room? True Borns with Splinter Cannons and perhaps a shredder equals a lot of poisoned shots entering the middle game undamaged and in close proximity to the action.. But I'd have to lose probably a wave serpent or something for it...?

I like this list.

I've recently converted my first Jetseet, and given how good he looks I want to build myself a SeerCouncil w/ Baron.

It looks like loads of fun to play, and just as much to model/prepare. Do you not find that 8 warlocks is a bit of overkill? I see 6 as the ideal amount.

On Spears, I was planning to run every 2nd warlock with one, and both of my Farseers. 8 S9 shots seems a bit redundant, at least to me.

Thanks, the conversions are definitely my favorite. Mine are all dragon riders of caledor from the fantasy line, while the farseers are exodite riders and the baron is a dire avenger exarch mounted on a custom hover/surf board I made.

I have been thinking myself if 8 warlocks might be overkill, but the only thing I'd swap them out for would be another venom to drop in and support the council.. I mean what else does one do that's so meaningful with 110 points.. I've already invested so much in the council in the terms of HQs and allies that it seems silly to drain points from it.

But, in my last game I was very glad that I Had the extra numbers when I was charged by a unit of daemonettes. Any dedicated assault unit with sufficient numbers is going to give the council a run for their money. I had been unable to get the baron up front in time to soak the wounds so I lost a few locks and struggled whittling down such a large and fearsome unit. The large numbers are also useful for multi charges and most importantly for lots of the important powers. As to the spears, it allows the council to hunt any form of prey known to the game, whether it be AV14, swooping, T8 or whatever. With prescience it's quite the volley, you'd be surprised how many things shrug off even the full lot of spears..