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hey guys/gals I'm looking to start a new army and it will be based around a deathstar!!!
I'm currently playing fmc/heldrakes csm and demons, as well as.serpent spam eldar. so its off to the new project.

current thoughts are: paladinstar, heraldstar, nob bikers, some kind of sm bike squad, the new centurion star.

idk if there are others, I'm sure there is. but what does dakka think the best current one is?

Seer council and Screamerstar. Theyre both invincible or as close as it gets

I'd give it to screamerstar. The Seer Council just isn't as reliable.

I'm not sure I agree with that (and I'm a Daemons player). Doesn't the Seer Council have more chances to get Fortune and other ways to buff their invuls besides chancy artefacts that require another expensive HQ?

Plus the Seers have a bunch of Eldar shooty stuff that is not psychic in nature and thus more reliable, plus the Witchblades right? And they can ally with the Baron Sarthonyx who can tank wounds like nobody's business (if they get Fortune).

In combat I've seen them eat through many of my Daemon units, whilst my Screamer star gets easily tarpitted in combat. They don't die if all the stuff goes right, but they actually don't do that much damage with bad rolling due to poor weapon skill and limited attacks, very limited at AP2.

so its up in the air between seerstar and screamerstar.

I'd probably prefer the seercouncil.

what is the general makeup of the unit?
2x farseer, bikes extra powers
8-10x warlocks bikes?

 Lord Krungharr wrote:
I'm not sure I agree with that (and I'm a Daemons player). Doesn't the Seer Council have more chances to get Fortune and other ways to buff their invuls besides chancy artefacts that require another expensive HQ?

Plus the Seers have a bunch of Eldar shooty stuff that is not psychic in nature and thus more reliable, plus the Witchblades right? And they can ally with the Baron Sarthonyx who can tank wounds like nobody's business (if they get Fortune).

In combat I've seen them eat through many of my Daemon units, whilst my Screamer star gets easily tarpitted in combat. They don't die if all the stuff goes right, but they actually don't do that much damage with bad rolling due to poor weapon skill and limited attacks, very limited at AP2.

The Seerstar depends on a rerollable cover and or armor save, only ever gets a 4++ on most models. Not as durable as Screamerstar.

I think the Oves'a-Star should be considered.

Some locals went nuts at a tournament with a centurion star a few weeks back.

Centurions + Tiggy + Lysander is pretty badass

Another took Centurions + Tiggy + Shadowsun for infiltrating goodness.



My vote is for the Seer Council. Not only is it highly effective and fun, but it's also pretty fluffy. The Warlock council is supposed to be with Farseer's bodyguard.

Ontop of that, when the screamerstar doesn't get the right powers, it's effectiveness completely dissappears. When the Council doesn't get fortune, it's still a really strong unit that rolls with a 2+/2+/4++. Against an assault based army, you may not even need to roll for fortune.

Until an Oves'a star drops a cover-ignoring AP template on the Seer Council. Or perfect timing from a Libby + Plasma fire from a command squad.

The 2++ on the Screamer Star cinches it in their favor for me.

@Belly. Imo its the other way around, against assault armies you need Fortune more, because you end up in combat and are stuck relying on the 3+ (or 2+) normal and the 4++. Against shooty armies (which don't ignore cover) then you can usually manage with the 2+ cover, and once you hit assault you no longer need defensive buffs because you just murder people before they swing.

@obsidiankatana. Assuming you get Fortune a 4++ rerollable and max coherency means that even ignore cover pie plates don't hurt that much (obviously moreso than it hurts the Screamerstar with all its buffs up) and with 1-2 turns to stop them I would still back the 2 Farseers and 5 or so Warlocks that would probably be left to take out Oves'a. Of course that ignores the Baron, who should be up front against that unit to tank the hits with Fortune on a 2++.

Imo this is a toss up between the Jetcouncil and the Screamerstar, but if you are purely looking at one self contained unit (including characters) then the Jetcouncil wins every time. The Screamerstar absolutely has to have Fateweaver in the army which technically means its always a Deathstar + a support unit, otherwise the Grimore is too unreliable and you can get nuked by bad Warp Storm rolls. Ignoring that issue though its pretty close, the Screamstar is more durable (re-rollable 2++ rather than re-rollable 2+ cover, and they have a better chance of rolling the powers they need simply due to more characters), can hit harder against some targets (2+ armour with T5 of less basically, althought I suspect the Council would do more damage as long as they cast Jinx first) and is often cheaper (Fate is an auto include in most lists to start with, Heralds cost around the same as Farseers, but Screamers are much cheaper than Warlocks). The Council is much more flexible, with better shooting, better mobility, access to various buff/debuff powers and better damage output against a wider range of units (with 2+ to wound, decent volume of attacks and Jinx nothing is safe against them). What tips the scales their way is the Baron though, even if he only gave you Hit and Run then he would be worth bringing because it means nothing can tarpit you. The Grenades, +1 to go first and the 2+ invulnerable (which works with Fortune) are just a bonus (even Stealth is helpful, going second it means you often have 2+ or 3+ cover before you even cast anything).

To me the other Deathstar units around largely fall down because of their lack of mobility, which limits their influence on a game. A big block of Paladins are seriously powerful and tick the durability box as well, but their tactical usage usually consists of 'walk to the middle of the table, shoot some stuff and hope someone is stupid enough to let them get an assault off' - they can't force the issue until turn 4-5.

Keep one thing in mind about the Jet council: It relies heavily on DE to make it work. And at the rate codecs are coming out, it won't be long before the composition changes, and who knows what that will look like. Grisly trophies are almost guaranteed to be a thing of the past at the least.

Screemerstar is self contained w/in it's own codex. It's not going anywhere for the foreseeable future.

Food for thought before you plop down cash on the FOTM.

I may be wrong on this, but the book does not count as a psychic power, and neither does fateweavers reroll. So if you are playing say nids, you may not get the seer's powers off to make them powerhouses in the first place.

I dunno, both units seem like huge oversights that gw just didn't care to test further, and I hate them both. And 3+ riptides, and waveserpent spam, and crossant spam....

Calling the Council the FOTM is a bit rich. It has been a solid list for quite some time, having been a good build with the previous codex.

Even without the Baron, there's still ways to make the council work, they're just not quite as effective. But when DE get a new codex (and lord knows when that is), i'm sure there'll be some synergy there, there always is.

@ Powerguy - id much prefer Fortune for use against shooty armies. They seem to be the current competitive lists, and even at the end of it, a Seer council is just 12-18 T4 wounds. Force enough 2+ saves with small weapons and they go down. That's how I kill terminators. Against assault armies, i'd be using guide+doom and witchfires to severly weaken a unit, charge the remainder, then use mobility to control engagements. The mobility is the key part of defense against assault, and don't forget that 2d6 jetbike move

Why not farsight bomb? Ignore Cover, AP2, lots of wounds able to put out.

DE prob won't come out til next year, so still a while for the seer council to stick around

 Makutsu wrote:
Why not farsight bomb? Ignore Cover, AP2, lots of wounds able to put out.

DE prob won't come out til next year, so still a while for the seer council to stick around

Farsight bomb with Tigerious (Rolling all telekinesis until he gets gate of infinity) or Sevin Loth Choosing Gate of infinity is definitely one of the better deathstars imo. It's very moble, with 24" teleport effectively, mass amounts of firepower, splitfire allowing it to kill several units a turn, and hit and run with a unit that has a decent beatstick character and possible a tough space marine backing them up.

I'd say the Seer Council and the Farsun Bomb w/farseer ally.

 Dash2021 wrote:
Keep one thing in mind about the Jet council: It relies heavily on DE to make it work. And at the rate codecs are coming out, it won't be long before the composition changes, and who knows what that will look like. Grisly trophies are almost guaranteed to be a thing of the past at the least.

Screemerstar is self contained w/in it's own codex. It's not going anywhere for the foreseeable future.

Food for thought before you plop down cash on the FOTM.

You can get Hit and Run from a Tau Commander and that is the single biggest buff the Baron brings. Grisly Trophies are helpful but you can survive without them, you have enough Warlocks so you usually have redundancy in important powers. Imo the list wouldn't really be any weaker if you ran it with Tau, the Council itself might be slightly weaker (the Commander is slower etc), but the rest of the Tau codex is significantly stronger than the Dark Eldar one - you would end up with more tactical options with the extra shooting you add from Tau (Kroot, Broadsides, maybe Riptide etc).

 Orock wrote:
I may be wrong on this, but the book does not count as a psychic power, and neither does fateweavers reroll. So if you are playing say nids, you may not get the seer's powers off to make them powerhouses in the first place.

I dunno, both units seem like huge oversights that gw just didn't care to test further, and I hate them both. And 3+ riptides, and waveserpent spam, and crossant spam....

It's really quite easy to cast powers outside the shadow in the warp range then move 12'' and charge. Just make sure to premeasure that you would be out of SitW range, but if you get your powers off then shoot (statistically 'causes 2 wounds) then charge anything would simply fall over by amount of wounds. So incase you haven't guessed my bias, I think the SeerStar is the best deathstar, due to Hit'n'Run making them untarpitable and that they have awesome powers that even if they don't get fortune they will get protect. They can just multi charge an entire army!

what's the typical seecouncil load out?

 ALEXisAWESOME wrote:

 Orock wrote:
I may be wrong on this, but the book does not count as a psychic power, and neither does fateweavers reroll. So if you are playing say nids, you may not get the seer's powers off to make them powerhouses in the first place.

I dunno, both units seem like huge oversights that gw just didn't care to test further, and I hate them both. And 3+ riptides, and waveserpent spam, and crossant spam....

It's really quite easy to cast powers outside the shadow in the warp range then move 12'' and charge. Just make sure to premeasure that you would be out of SitW range, but if you get your powers off then shoot (statistically 'causes 2 wounds) then charge anything would simply fall over by amount of wounds. So incase you haven't guessed my bias, I think the SeerStar is the best deathstar, due to Hit'n'Run making them untarpitable and that they have awesome powers that even if they don't get fortune they will get protect. They can just multi charge an entire army!

Then your opponents flies a flyrant within 12inch of your council and that really nerfs their powers that turn seeing as the majority are blessings you either boost away or try/kill him but then another SITW MC will be there along at the start of your next turn.

Biased opinion and from experince, screamer council is best it puts the seercouncils shooting to shame very hard to kill and impossible to beat in combat unless the grim/powers fail, inherently fearless (taking out the shard farseer isnt hard nor unexpected), and they can take everything on and have some AP in combat (all seer is ap-)


Also one to consider is the beast pack bomb, 2 farseers (one being eldrad maybe) baron and full beast pack, quick all with invul's and fearless not just from the shard but also combat drugs after a few turns. Its not unkillable but its a LOT cheaper then seer and screamer meaning the rest of your army is pretty mean.

 zachwho wrote:
what's the typical seecouncil load out?

From memory its something like 2 Farseers, 5+ Warlocks all on bikes, possibly with The Baron to tank wounds and a venom to sit back with grisly trophies.

 zachwho wrote:
so its up in the air between seerstar and screamerstar.

I'd probably prefer the seercouncil.

what is the general makeup of the unit?
2x farseer, bikes extra powers
8-10x warlocks bikes?

2 farseers. The shard to give them fearless.
6 warlocks is enough.
The Baron as DE allies.

The baron is key here. I wrote up a post on this a few months ago.
Its hands down the best deathstar in the game. In 3/4 of your games is nearly auto-win.

1. Seer Council

2. Screamerstar

3. O'Vesa star

4. Farsight bomb

5. Centurion squad of doom

I would heavily recommend proxying the models until the tyranid book drops...both screamers and seer heavily depend on psykers and all rumors point towards tyanids being this huge anti psychic/LD reduction capabilities.

If rumours of minus 4 is true then it will affect the seer more then the screamers, as it is the screamers sit back and delete unit after unit of nids while the seer needs to relie on the rest of the army or get in close. Minus 4 to warlocks means ld4, which is pointless, minus 4 to tzeentch heralds means minus one effectively meaning ld7 which will be better then ld6 on the farseers

MarkyMark wrote:
If rumours of minus 4 is true then it will affect the seer more then the screamers, as it is the screamers sit back and delete unit after unit of nids while the seer needs to relie on the rest of the army or get in close. Minus 4 to warlocks means ld4, which is pointless, minus 4 to tzeentch heralds means minus one effectively meaning ld7 which will be better then ld6 on the farseers

A very fair point and realistic rumor as GK Ven Dreads already do the -4 LD for psychic tests.

With runes of warding gone, I can really see SITW being minus 4, average on 2d6 is 7 and on 3d6 is 10 so shadow will probably be better the it is now.

Thud wrote:
1. Seer Council

2. Screamerstar

3. O'Vesa star

4. Farsight bomb

5. Centurion squad of doom

Of this list I would expect:

3. O'Vesa star

4. Farsight bomb

To be the longest lasting deathstars before new codecies come out to roll them.

Ovesa star, how are people seeing a Ovesa star?.

The farsight bomb relies on either a bad opponent or getting Gate, either one of those not happening its not exactly a easy game to win at high end compeitive level.

Centaurion squad, how are people making that one up, the lack of invul would worry me to be frank.

MarkyMark wrote:
Ovesa star, how are people seeing a Ovesa star?.

The farsight bomb relies on either a bad opponent or getting Gate, either one of those not happening its not exactly a easy game to win at high end compeitive level.

Centaurion squad, how are people making that one up, the lack of invul would worry me to be frank.

Tigurius provides the invuln when you need it.

As well as Gate I assume?. With 4 heralds 2 of them sometimes not rolling on the Tzeentch table, plently of times I have failed to get forewarning. Thats 11 rolls including fateweaver and not swapping any powers out. That is like a 97% chance of getting forewarning. Tiggy is a lot lower and without say a raven or LR to transport that bomb I wouldnt be relying on that any time soon to be honest. My bum has had enough of failing to roll a 2 for one power let alone wanting to roll 2 on 2 tables....