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Does anyone think it is more points effective if Banshees are run on foot now? Also, what Character should be attached to them to get the most out of them? PL? Or Farseer? Spiritseer? Also what squad size do you think is best?

I honestly, as much as i hate to say this, find them useless. I usually put them ahead of the scorpians and just run them forward. Dont sink points in them because evern when they do attack they dont fare well.

BUT

Against the death cult assasins (i think thts what they are) they are pretty good. An opponent had a squad and i managed to kill of the crusaders and the banshess went in and inflicted the hurt against them, whereas my scorpions failed.

So against other girls they do well In all seriousness if you can use them against units with a high Amount of attacks and initiative banshees are your best bet for hurting them in melee.

Do they lose their speed if joined by an HQ?

If not, I think a Fortune or Doom Farseer or Spiritseer who has that power that turns their armor into 3+ (and the Exarch's into a 2+!) can make them useful.

I mean if you take a full 10 woman squad, they will reach CC by turn 2, so the enemy only has 1 turn to shoot the hell out of them.

 Sir Arun wrote:
Do they lose their speed if joined by an HQ?

If not, I think a Fortune or Doom Farseer or Spiritseer who has that power that turns their armor into 3+ (and the Exarch's into a 2+!) can make them useful.

I mean if you take a full 10 woman squad, they will reach CC by turn 2, so the enemy only has 1 turn to shoot the hell out of them.

All this only exists on paper i assure you. If you are lucky you can get the warlord trait that increases your HQs run by D3" but its a lot to bargain on. But its not just them surviving which is the problem, its also finding them targets they can hurt.

I think of them like rough riders. They are fast and have some great potential, but rough riders cant hit anything. Banshees are the same but they can hardly wound anything.

If you are fighting other eldar they are probably amazing. Hitting on 4s, wounduing on 4s and ignoring most of the armour AND striking first. Same with guard. But i wouldnt put lots of points into them personally.

While they do not lose their speed if they are joined by an HQ, they must move with the slowest model in the unit, and that will be any HQ except for Jain Zar, who actually makes the banshees faster due to her Falcon's Swiftness WT.

Banshees are not useless. They are plenty good against they main target: Marines. Not terminators, not things with great invuln saves, just normal marines. Assault marines, tacticals, etc. That's where they shine. And that's without an exarch. With an exarch, they can take challenges, they can skewer 2+ saves, and with Disarming strike they can even take on decent HQs.

They're not OMFG great at assault, but they are good at what they do, and that's being fast and deadly against marines. Though, don't put them in a wave serpent. A HB unit moves 6"+D6+3" with fleet, so you can very easily get that turn 2 assault, especially if they're also an assault army.

I mean when you look at it they are the equivalent of (non-running) Jump pack marines in terms of mobility, aren't they? Assault marines all armed with power weapons, rending bolt pistols and striking first when not charging into cover. Except at -1S, -1T and -1 Sv, of course.

Yeah and assault marines are terrible also.. not the best thing to compare them to. The problem with banshees is they don't do anything unique, and don't perform any role well.. Eldar basically has no good CC outside of warlock jetbikes so might as well not even bother.

I could go on about how ridiculously bad they are, but instead I'll just go with how I would run them if I had to:

1) 5 Banshees including an Exarch with the +2S weapon.

or

2) 5 Banshees, no upgrades.

Like this, they are cheap enough not to mess up the rest of your army too much, but can still be a distraction. Sort of.

Keep in mind that if a unit charges a unit that is already locked in combat, it doesn't take the initiative penalty from charging through difficult terrain without grenades (BRB, p28) So you could use Banshees to finish assaults that have already started without penalty.

 S.K.Ren wrote:
Keep in mind that if a unit charges a unit that is already locked in combat, it doesn't take the initiative penalty from charging through difficult terrain without grenades (BRB, p28) So you could use Banshees to finish assaults that have already started without penalty.

Thats a good idea. Especially if you use a Dire Avenger gunline.

Or it means they could work well with Striking Scorps.

Have the scorps infiltrate and charge, the banshees follow up and help them out.

Instead of naysaying Banshees as many do, myself included, let me try to offer some ideas;

1. Deploy them forward.
2. Exarch mandatory for S5.
3. Farseer Doom Banshee's target (luck required to roll power).
4. Farseer Guide Banshees.
5. Farseer 4++ save on Banshees (luck required to roll power).
6. Breathe a sigh of relief if you're going against T3 targets (that wounding on 5s against their -intended- targets sux balz).

I suggest keeping them back and hiding them as much as possible. Keep em in cover or out of loS and if the enemy get close to your gunline infantry then have em jump out and attack. As i dont use psykers i find this works well sometimes.

I find a cheap autarch can be a useful ad to the unit. Gives you assault grenades, access to ap2 and a whole boatload of attacks. A much more expensive version would be karandras, you can infiltrate them into a good position, while using cover and shrouded to make them a bigger threat. Generally though I would keep them as more of an area denial unit with the autarch.

 seapheonix wrote:
I find a cheap autarch can be a useful ad to the unit. Gives you assault grenades, access to ap2 and a whole boatload of attacks.

Autarch? AP2? How? Power Axe? Well you'd have to model that onto him though. Also, Power Axe on a T3 model that relies on its initiative more than a SM commander does it a bad idea.

 seapheonix wrote:
A much more expensive version would be karandras, you can infiltrate them into a good position

Nope, you can't.

 RancidHate wrote:
Instead of naysaying Banshees as many do, myself included, let me try to offer some ideas;

1. Deploy them forward.
2. Exarch mandatory for S5.
3. Farseer Doom Banshee's target (luck required to roll power).
4. Farseer Guide Banshees.
5. Farseer 4++ save on Banshees (luck required to roll power).
6. Breathe a sigh of relief if you're going against T3 targets (that wounding on 5s against their -intended- targets sux balz).

1. How? They do not have Scout or Infiltrate
2. And now they have something to actually Challenge.
3. There may be better targets to Doom, and shooting might wipe them out to make melee pointless.
4. Guide only works on shooting, so a total waste of a Guide.
5. And your slowing down the Banshees to run with a guy or your spending points on a Jetbike unit to protect your jetbike Farseer.
6. Yeah, you now have a 50% chance to Wound instead of a 33% chance.

Point is, Banshees are dogs unless you spam them and build your list around them. Your taking away slots from Clowns and Scorpions that are far superior melee combatants (Str 6 Power claw at my Init? Hell yeah). If Banshees were Fast instead of Elite, there might be more of an agreement for them. If it said 'Power Weapon' instead of 'Power Sword' and you could use Axes or even Maces, I could see that as an improvement or an argument for using them. But what you get is a faster than normal unit (for Eldar) that drops the Init by -5 to a minimum of 1 of a target you Charge for /1 phase/! That means if you don't kill them that first turn, your Mask is wasted on their melee turn. For a base Banshee, your getting 1 attack base, +1 attack for 2 CCWs, and hopefully +1 attack for the charge for 15pts a model, 75pts a squad. The cost is reasonable, specially if they were Fast instead of Elite. Maybe if they had 2 base attacks, or a higher WS so that once they were in combat it is harder to hit them... but they don't. They are cheap, just not very good. You really have to ask why your not getting Storm Guardians at that point (which are arguably better due to being Scoring alone).

Arent Harlies even more fragile, given that the Shadowseer has to pass psychic tests now?

 BlkTom wrote:

 RancidHate wrote:
Instead of naysaying Banshees as many do, myself included, let me try to offer some ideas;

1. Deploy them forward.
2. Exarch mandatory for S5.
3. Farseer Doom Banshee's target (luck required to roll power).
4. Farseer Guide Banshees.
5. Farseer 4++ save on Banshees (luck required to roll power).
6. Breathe a sigh of relief if you're going against T3 targets (that wounding on 5s against their -intended- targets sux balz).

1. How? They do not have Scout or Infiltrate
I meant up front of your deployment zone. You put words in that weren't there.

2. And now they have something to actually Challenge.
I got something that directs PFs away from the squad and she's usually first

3. There may be better targets to Doom, and shooting might wipe them out to make melee pointless.
No contest

4. Guide only works on shooting, so a total waste of a Guide.
No contest... technically, I meant to say Prescience...

5. And your slowing down the Banshees to run with a guy or your spending points on a Jetbike unit to protect your jetbike Farseer.
The 4++ I save does not require the Farseer to be attached to the squad... I might be misunderstanding you

6. Yeah, you now have a 50% chance to Wound instead of a 33% chance.
That's better, not good but definately better

Point is, Banshees are dogs unless you spam them and build your list around them. Your taking away slots from Clowns and Scorpions that are far superior melee combatants (Str 6 Power claw at my Init? Hell yeah). If Banshees were Fast instead of Elite, there might be more of an agreement for them. If it said 'Power Weapon' instead of 'Power Sword' and you could use Axes or even Maces, I could see that as an improvement or an argument for using them. But what you get is a faster than normal unit (for Eldar) that drops the Init by -5 to a minimum of 1 of a target you Charge for /1 phase/! That means if you don't kill them that first turn, your Mask is wasted on their melee turn. For a base Banshee, your getting 1 attack base, +1 attack for 2 CCWs, and hopefully +1 attack for the charge for 15pts a model, 75pts a squad. The cost is reasonable, specially if they were Fast instead of Elite. Maybe if they had 2 base attacks, or a higher WS so that once they were in combat it is harder to hit them... but they don't. They are cheap, just not very good. You really have to ask why your not getting Storm Guardians at that point (which are arguably better due to being Scoring alone).

You know what's sad? I pretty much agree with you; I was just trying to cast any positive light I could. They really are the worst unit in the codex...

...but damn dude, you Hate them; to read your post one would think that Banshees were actually Southern speed trap cops who wrote you BS tickets :p

I don't hate them, but I have never been a fan of them. I was one of those Striking Scorpion players from back in the day when you got dumped on by everyone for not playing Howling Banshees because power weapons ignored armor in 5th.... and 4th I think. Now that power weapons are balanced (I actually like the new power weapon rules), they are dogs. Live by the power sword, die by the power sword. Pretty much as simple as that.

 Sir Arun wrote:
Arent Harlies even more fragile, given that the Shadowseer has to pass psychic tests now?

Not really. You should still go from terrain to terrain since your Flip Belts ignore terrain, so you should always be getting a decent cover save if you do fail or kill yourself. Worse comes to worse your also still rocking the 5++. The Veil of Tears is really the frosting on that cake of Defense goodness. Your first line of defense is the Veil. If they can't shoot you, you win. Your second line should be cover. If they roll well and get through Veil (and the closer you get, the better chance), you have to try to get better saves, and a 4+ Cover save is better than a 5++ against bolters and Las Cannons. Then, your last line of Defense is the one they can never take away from you. If your Seer dies, and your caught out in the open, you ride that 5++ that can never be taken away from you. And the beauty of that 5++ is that unlike cover saves or armor saves, it protects against everything.

No other melee unit in the Codex gets a 5++ AND Veil to go with a good offense (Rending attacks) on normal guys that can't get sucked out via a Challenge. It really is a potent combination that makes Clowns the best Melee unit in the Codex.

I feel Scorpions are the 2nd best, because even though they have good armor and Infiltrate and can ignore Terrain (with an Exarch), they still have no Invuln saves or weapons that can ignore armor on the normal troops. The Exarch, as cool as he is (and he is /really/ good with the Claw), can still get sucked out in a Challenge. Terminators can suck, but you win any Challenge against them and your doing enough attacks on a charge to overwhelm their 2+ save (each guy effectively gets 3 attacks +1 Auto hit at Init 10). But man, you have a shot against 30 Ork boyz with a 10 man squad, and that is saying something. That is a really good Acid test for a melee unit... Terminators and 30 Boyz. If you can deal with both, your probably are a pretty good melee unit.

...but how is a S4 rending weapon better than a S3 AP3 weapon? Okay, you wound easier, but only have a 16% chance to deny your enemy their armor save. This means inferior performance both against MEQ and GEQ. Sure, your squad WILL fare off much better against termies than my banshees will, but throwing harlies at termies means they'll either have to survive their stormbolter + asscannon overwatch, or you send them against assault termies, but nobody fields lightning claw assault termies these days, and stormshield termies wont care much about harlies now, will they?

I play Iyanden. I think running a small squad behind a squad of wraithblades (axes) with one or more spiritseers has a lot of potential; the two squads compliment each other in many ways:

banshees are weakest against 2+ armor - wrathblades are strongest against 2+ armor
wraithblades have few strong attacks, banshees have many weak attacks - the diversity here will help deal with multiple types of opponents
wraithblades are hitting at I1 - if you can get banshees to charge the same turn, or keep them clear of an enemy multi-assault and counter charge, then the masks actually do something very useful by lowering the opponent to the same initiative as the blades
marching the banshees behind the blades means that the opponent has relatively few options for shooting them out which aren't going to net the banshees a save of some sort

having many spiritseers but lacking a primaris that you want more than one of means that there is a pretty high chance that they will get at least one power that is going to not do much for you - in the case of blades, the least effective power is probably empower - which also happens to shore up the banshees greatest weakness - their low strength. If you can time it right, jump the seer out of the blades squad and in to the banshees the turn before assault.
getting quicken on a seer means that you can speed up your squad of blades and not have to worry about the banshees falling behind or needing a second seer to quicken them.

 Sir Arun wrote:
...but how is a S4 rending weapon better than a S3 AP3 weapon? Okay, you wound easier, but only have a 16% chance to deny your enemy their armor save. This means inferior performance both against MEQ and GEQ. Sure, your squad WILL fare off much better against termies than my banshees will, but throwing harlies at termies means they'll either have to survive their stormbolter + asscannon overwatch, or you send them against assault termies, but nobody fields lightning claw assault termies these days, and stormshield termies wont care much about harlies now, will they?

Pretty much because the Base Clown has 2 attacks... +1 for two CCWs and hopefully +1 on the Charge and they are Init 6 and a base WS of 5. They also have a better Leadership with a Troop Master and can pack two Fusion pistols to allow them to 3" melta a vehicle to pop it and charge the guys inside.

Yesit is 16% per attack to roll a Rend, but each guy is attacking 4 times with a WS 5. If you have a 10 man squad you have 40+ attacks, and that is a lot of Rends and hits. I have yet to see Overwatch /really/ matter. They have to be very lucky and you have to have really bad luck to have Overwatch make a difference in CC.

Do the math and check it out. Lets create a situation and figure it out... This is 266pts of Clowns vs 450pts of Vanilla Terminators .

A 10 man squad of clowns (with Troop master and Seer, 10 kisses) is 15" away from a 10 man Terminator squad that just DS in with two Cyclone ML. The Terminators just DS in and fired on a different unit (lets say it was Guardians and they killed them), perhaps due to a bad Veil of Tear's roll.

The clowns move 6" and shoot. Figure 6 hits with 1 rending shot (hitting on 3+, so 66%). Either way the Terminators should lose 1-2 figs, either by failing a 2+ save or failing the 33% invuln on the Rending. Will say it is one random Stormbolter guy. The clowns charge and the Marines Overwatch. 18 Stormbolter shots and 4 Krak missiles for 22 shots. 3 shots should hit, killing two clowns (5++ should save 1). The clowns reach due to Fleet re-roll and get in combat, 8 vs 9. The clowns do not Challenge but the Marine issues a Challenge just to try to take the Troop master out of the fight or kill the Seer. The TM accepts and the dual is on.

We will do the scrum first and the clowns attack first at Init 6. They have 28 attacks coming in at 3+ to hit. They get 18 hits and 4 of those are Rending attacks. Str 4 (due to FC) vs T 4 is 7 Wounds and 4 Rends. At least 1 dies from failed 2+ save and 3 die from the Rending attacks with only their 5++ save, for a total of 4 wounds. The remaining 4 marines swing with their PFs at Init 1 with 8 attacks. 4 attacks hit (4+ to hit) and we will say no 1s are rolled to wound. 3 Clowns die as only 1 makes his Invuln save. It is 4 to 3, Clowns winning combat.

The Dual has the TM attacking the Sergeant 5 times first, the Sergeant's Init 3 power sword meaning nothing. He hits 3 times, but one attack is a Rend. He gets 1 additional wound from the 2 other hits and the Sarge has to make a 5++ save and a 2+ save. He makes the normal save but fails the Rend Invuln save. Clowns win combat 5 to 3 and have 5 figs left vs 4 Terminators. The Marines pass their moral check and they stay locked in combat.

Marine phase the Clowns strike first, getting 19 attacks at Init 6. They get 12 hits and 3 Rends. They only get 4 Wounds due to not having FC of the 12 hits, but get one failed 2+ save (.64 chance out of 4) and kill 2 more out of the 3 Rends. The last 2 Marines have 2 attacks, hit 1 and kill a Clown. It is now 4 vs 2. The marine makes his Leadership test to stay locked, but the Clowns make their Hit and Run roll and break combat.

The Terminators will then either get shot apart (with a possible Rending attack via Bladestorm) and then get charged again (to give them FC on the Wounds). The Clowns strike first at Init 6 with 13 attacks, getting 6 hits and 2 Rends. The Hits equal 3 wound which the Terminators should all save, but they should fail the two Rends (barely). Four Clowns, including the Seer and TM remain.

Everything was generally in favor of the Terminators with how I did the math. Obviously you can re-do the math, but it will still probably be a close win for the Clowns 3/4 times. Sure, you throw them against 450pts of TH/SS Terminators and that SS pretty much takes those Rends out of the Equation due to the 3++. Your now only getting 1 out of 3 Rends as a kill vs 2 out of 3.

I can't see the Banshees doing better and I can't see the Scorpions really doing much better than the Banshees against TH/SS Terminators. The Scorps will have an extra attack on the charge, but both are fighting that Str 3 vs T 4 uphill climb that the Clowns can kind of ignore with FC and Hit and Run. If the Scorp Exarch lives long enough, he has the ability to really do some damage to the squad with that Str 7, Init 5 Powerclaw against normal tactical Terminators.

@BlkTom
Well, can't argue with the mathhammer.
But two whings you forgot:
1) Terminators have two attacks each
2) The Scorpion Chainsword is +1S

Also Shadowseers can't take Kisses. Once they become Shadowseers they are no longer Harlequins for the purpose of upgrades. Just like you can't give the Sergeant in a Tactical Squad the Heavy Weapon and Dark Reaper Exarchs pay 10 points instead of 8 for Starshot Missiles.

 BlkTom wrote:
They get 18 hits and 4 of those are Rending attacks.

...shouldn't it be 3?

 BlkTom wrote:
Marine phase the Clowns strike first, getting 19 attacks at Init 6.

If there are 5 members left (including the troupe master) shouldn't this be 3+3+3+3+4 = 16 attacks? How did you get 19?

 BlkTom wrote:
They get 12 hits and 3 Rends.

Even with 19 attacks, shouldn't this be 11 hits, out of which lets be generous and say 2 rends and 9 normal hits? You are hitting on 4s with 15 of those 19 attacks, after all, only the troupe master hits on 3s.



Okay you know what? Let me redo this by my own input:





Pretty much because the Base Clown has 2 attacks... +1 for two CCWs and hopefully +1 on the Charge and they are Init 6 and a base WS of 5. They also have a better Leadership with a Troop Master and can pack two Fusion pistols to allow them to 3" melta a vehicle to pop it and charge the guys inside.

Yesit is 16% per attack to roll a Rend, but each guy is attacking 4 times with a WS 5. If you have a 10 man squad you have 40+ attacks, and that is a lot of Rends and hits. I have yet to see Overwatch /really/ matter. They have to be very lucky and you have to have really bad luck to have Overwatch make a difference in CC.

Do the math and check it out. Lets create a situation and figure it out...


10 Harlequins, composed of 8 normal Harlies, with 2 fusion pistols, 6 shuriken pistols and 8 harlequin's Kisses, one Shadowseer armed with shurikenpistol and harlequin's kiss, led by a Troupe Master armed with shruikenpistol and harlie's kiss.



This is 286pts of Clowns vs 450pts of Vanilla Terminators .

A 10 man squad of clowns is 12" away from a 10 man Terminator squad that just DS in with two Cyclone ML. The Terminators just DS in and fired on a different unit (lets say it was Guardians and they killed them), perhaps due to a bad Veil of Tear's roll.

The clowns move 6" and shoot. 2 Fusion Pistols in range means 0.74 dead terminators. 8 shuriken pistols means 5.33 hits...0.59 dead termies from the rending pistols, plus 0.37 dead termies from the non-rending shuriken pistols means a grand total of 1.7 (= two) dead termies from the harlies' shooting, either by failing a 2+ save or failing the 33% invuln on the Rending. We'll say it is one random Stormbolter guy. The clowns charge and the Marines Overwatch. 18 Stormbolter shots (1.33 dead harlies) and 4 Krak missiles (0.37 dead harlies) killing (1.7) = two clowns (5++ should save 1). The clowns reach due to Fleet re-roll and get in combat, 8 vs 8. The clowns do not Challenge but the Marine issues a Challenge just to try to take the Troop master out of the fight or kill the Seer. The TM accepts and the dual is on.

We will do the scum first and the clowns attack first at Init 6. They have 28 attacks coming in at 3+ to hit (WS5). They get 19 hits and 3 of those are Rending attacks. Str 4 (due to FC) vs T 4 is 8 Wounds and 3 Rends. 1 dies from failed 2+ save and 3 die from the Rending attacks with only their 5++ save, for a total of 4 wounds. The remaining 4 marines swing with their PFs at Init 1 with 8 attacks. 4 attacks hit (4+ to hit) and we will say no 1s are rolled to wound. 3 Clowns die as only 1 makes his Invuln save. It is 4 wounds inflicted to 3, Clowns winning combat.

The Dual has the TM attacking the Sergeant 5 times first, the Sergeant's Init 4 power sword meaning nothing. He hits 3 times, but one attack is a Rend (TM got lucky!!!). He gets 1 additional wound from the 2 other hits and the Sarge has to make a 5++ save and a 2+ save. He makes the normal save but fails the Rend Invuln save. Clowns win combat 5 to 3 and have 5 figs left vs 4 Terminators. The Marines pass their moral check and they stay locked in combat.

Marine phase the Clowns strike first, getting 16 attacks at Init 6. The regular harlies get 8 hits meaning 1 Rend and 2.33 wounds as they no longer have FC and are thus wounding on 5s. The TM scored 0.88 wounds. This equals to 1.20 dead termies, let's make that 1 as the TM got lucky in the duel before. The remaining 3 termies have 6 attacks, hit 3 times and kill 1.66 clowns, lets make that 2. As you can already see, the termies have won this round. The remaining 3 Clowns make their Hit and Run roll and break combat.

Next turn. The Harlies charge, getting 3 stormbolters to overwatch. That'll be 1 hit, meaning 0.44 dead Harlies. We'll let that slide. The Harlies shoot (lets say by now the fusion pistol guys are dead as they had to pretty much stand at the front in the previous turn's shooting), causing 0.166 termies to drop and the termies then get charged again (FC on the Wounds). The Clowns strike first at Init 6 with 13 attacks. 8 come from the regular harlies, causing 0.44 dead termies. Another 5 come from the TM, causing 0.27 dead termies. All of this causes 1 dead termie. The termie strikes back with 2 attacks, killing 0.55 harlies. Harlies win combat by 1. The remaining 1 terminator has to pass an LD test on a 7. He could break, but can't be swept.

Obviously you can re-do the math, but it will still probably be a close win for the Clowns 3/4 times. Sure, you throw them against 450pts of TH/SS Terminators and that SS pretty much takes those Rends out of the Equation due to the 3++. Your now only getting 1 out of 3 Rends as a kill vs 2 out of 3.

I can't see the Banshees doing better and I think the Scorpions might perform better against TH/SS Terminators, and probably fare better than Harlies against regular termies. Why? Because the Scorps will have an extra attack on the charge and all of them at S4, but Clowns can somewhat mitigate that Str 3 vs T 4 uphill climb with FC and Hit and Run. If the Scorp Exarch lives long enough, he has the ability to really do some damage to the squad with that Str 7, Init 5 Powerclaw against normal tactical Terminators.

While banshees are not an amazing unit, if you are using them against terminators you have made a serious tactical error. One of the reasons I'm not a huge fan of comparing to harlequins and scorpions. Banshees are an area denial and counter attack unit. Scorpions are a forward denial unit, using infiltrate to force your opponent to shift and based on deployment. Harlequins are an aggressive assault unit and bullet soaker with the veil of tears.

I'm not good at math hammering on the fly, but try comparing equal points of chaos chosen with power swords or some other all power sword unit. To equal points banshees.

Corrrection: harlequins are a flamer soaker Burn clowns!

soomemafia wrote:@BlkTom
Well, can't argue with the mathhammer.
But two whings you forgot:
1) Terminators have two attacks each
2) The Scorpion Chainsword is +1S

Yup... must have looked at Assault Marines or something.

S.K.Ren wrote:Also Shadowseers can't take Kisses. Once they become Shadowseers they are no longer Harlequins for the purpose of upgrades. Just like you can't give the Sergeant in a Tactical Squad the Heavy Weapon and Dark Reaper Exarchs pay 10 points instead of 8 for Starshot Missiles.

You can give them a kiss before the upgrade, just like a Ork Nob in a boyz mob could be given a Big shoota while a Boy, and then upgraded to a Nob and given a PK and a Boss pole. It is something GW has never been good at rule-wise. You can always play it safe in a tourney, but according to the rules it is legal.


Sir Arun, one thing you have to keep in mind for the Rending attacks is that it is not based off of hits, it is based off of the number of dice you roll to hit with. If you roll 24 dice hitting on a 3+, your averaging four 6s out of 24 dice. Strict math-hammer is 16 total hits instead of 18, but average roll is 3.5 so I increased the hits to reflect that average.

Theoretically, couldn't they be used as a good counter-assault and/or backfield secure? Like Deep Striking BA infantry would have to make changes to plans. Or if your frontlines got assaulted, Banshees could counter that. Just thoughts.

I think if you're facing an aggressive BT or BA player you should always take Banshees. Because Dark Reapers just wont cut it once they get podded/assaulted.