Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

In the top 8 of the LVO were 4 Eldar lists, 3 with Dark Eldar allies and one straight up Eldar list. Interestingly there were no Tau armies present in the top 8. In fact Tau as a whole reportedly didn't do that great in overal. This might mean that Eldar is now the top tier army but it might also just be variance. Of the 3 Eldar / Dark Eldar armies two ran the Beast pack while one went for the Seer Council. However the Seer Council did win the event.

Given this statistic, which build is more powerful and which build is the 'better' choice if that is even possible to say such a thing.

My money's on the Seerstar.

Can you reflect on the why your money is on the Seerstar.

Well it really depends, the seerstar is fairly dependent on psykic powers to make it work while the Beast Star will always be fast and deadly. A standard seerstar will at least reach 500pts (2 Farseer + 5 Bike locks), probably more, while 500pts is usually the upper bounds of a beastpack. Even a full beastpack will rarely scratch 250pts before adding the Baron, Shardseer or Both. This means that you can get more supporting units such as Wave Serpents, Ravagers or Wraithknights in a Beast Army then in a Seerstar Army. All the while the Beaststar has comparable (arguably better) combat potential but with less survivability.

If it was a fight to the death then it would entirely hinge on if the seerstar got fortune, if not then it is likely for the beaststar to utterly drown the seerstar in wounds. If they do have fortune then the seerstar wins. Based on the inherent randomness of psy-powers and the extra points you put into he Seerstar lessening the supporting units, I would say the surpiror unit is the Beastpack.

 Barnie25 wrote:
Can you reflect on the why your money is on the Seerstar.

Being admittedly uninformed on the Beastpack's strengths (short of high wound count and rending), the Seerstar totes cover saves, invuls, armorbane, fleshbane, S9 AP2 goodness, the potential for a 2++ re-rollable, extreme mobility, psychic defense, and can engage a wide variety of targets. On the negative end, SitW makes them cry.

SitW makes them roll "8" or under for their powers? That's not so bad.

S9 AP2? Seerstar has no AP2 attacks at all, if you don't count Bladestorm on their catapults. You must mean the Singing Spears, which are actually AP6.

The real workhorses of the Council aren't the Farseers, but the Warlocks. And they cast their powers at LD6 in SitW range, which is bad. Also, when you cast 9 psychic powers per turn(ML3 per Farseer), you're bound to fail your fair share.

The Council is amazing, probably the best out there, but it has it's weaknesses. At LVO, though, they were playing that if you had 2++ rerollable, when you rerolled you only had 4++, so their biggest selling point was diminished somewhat and they still won. So I while my gut tells me it's Beaststar that's better because it's a third of the cost of the Council, evidence shows the Seerstar is better in the end.

Watch out for suicide attacks/alpha strikes if you're going to run the Seerstar. If you don't get first deployment, or even worse, your opponent seizes the initiative, you run the risk of (commonly drop pods) landing right on top of them and popping scores of wounds against your psychers which haven't had the chance of a psycher phase. This has crippled and tabled my council a few times and I've learned to pay a lot more attention to deep strikers on the opponent's list, as well as whether to keep the council in reserve if the opponent can touch them before my first psycher phase.

Well, the Jetseer Council will generally be more costly than the Beast star. I'd include two Jetseer into the Council which gives a greater chance to get fortune. On the other hand, a DE army can only have one Jetseer.
As said, alpha strike (Belial, Mordrak, and whatnot) can ruin the Jetcouncil's day. But alpha strikers are not very common these days. Moreover, you could screen the Jetbikers by your Serpents and this should work pretty well.

There are more counters to the serrstar. Rune Priests on bikes, Haemies with crucibles, GK Stormravens and others. They just di not see a lot of them at the LVO. Loike mentioned above - the beatstar still survives an attack on your psychics.

I think the reason you dont see the hard counters is because they really dont have much value beyond that role and end up being a points sink in other match-ups.

Rune priests can be pretty solid in other match-ups. A friend plays White Scars, and chucks in 1 or 2 biker priests, they can certainly pull their weight.

 felixcat wrote:
There are more counters to the serrstar. Rune Priests on bikes, Haemies with crucibles, GK Stormravens and others. They just di not see a lot of them at the LVO. Loike mentioned above - the beatstar still survives an attack on your psychics.

None of them are particularly great counters though. Rune Priests get a 50/50 chance of blocking Fortune and then probably get blasted off the board in response (and the Council is mobile enough to zoom to the other side of the board and just stay out of range if it needs too anyway). Even just with Conceal (which you usually have multiple attempts to cast) the 2+ cover isn't easy to get through.
Haemonculi with Crucible is never going to get there, no Eldar army is going to let any Venom containing a Crucible get close enough (average range is 10", so you need to be very close to get it to work reliably) and in any case its just a Ld test, which means all the Farseers are fine and you maybe lose a couple of Warlocks. If you have a Venom nearby with Grisly Trophies then it does nothing.

GK Stormravens are one of the best direct counters, but they aren't that hard to deal with either. With Hit and Run you can bounce around and never let it get a chance to hit you or with some good LOS blocking terrain you can hide everything out of sight. Worse case scenario with good spacing you lose maybe 4 Warlocks, but if you can predict where the Raven will be next turn (harder if its not on the board yet, but easier if there is some LOS block or something else limiting its angles) then you can tank the first 3 hits on a Farseer with his Ghosthelm. They are one of the reasons I run Crimson Hunters in my Council list, because all I have to do is hide for a turn and then I can blow them out of the sky.

The only thing that is a major issue for my list now is Deep Strike alpha strike lists, particularly ones which include some no scattering units. Even with a Bastion I would be worried about several units of Marines dropping in before my first turn and taking a big chunk out of the Council. Infiltrators I can block thanks to Servo Skulls, and a Bastion means that you should have at least some LOS block even on the worst tables to avoid gunlines blasting you off the board. Other than that stuff which Ignores Cover is still tricky to deal with (because you lose the 2+ cover), and missing out on Fortune obviously makes life much more difficult.

How much does a full seerstar cost? 8 Warlocks, 1 Jetseer 1 Shardseer and the Baron. So that is 775pts without any spears or runes or that grisly trophy venom and it's kabalites. A full beast pack (10 Khymerae, 6 flocks, 5 Beast matsers, Baron and Shardseer) only comes in at 470pts without runes or spear. That is a 300pt difference, or an extra Wraithknight/Wave Serpent/Warwalker Squadron. Beastpack is amazing with fortune, but I will ALWAYS be an extremely fast and tough unit with or without it while the Seerstar really feels to expensive when the fail to get fortune as their models get picked off one 50pt model at a time.

In a tournament you aim should be to rely on luck as little as possible, so by the inherent randomness of psy-powers the Beaststar is a far more reliable unit on the cheap with the added bonus of having a larger foot print for multi-charges. So in my opinion the Beaststar wins.

Assuming you walk the Beast pack in cover so that it always has at least a 4+ save, you have 45 wounds with a 4+ save (ignoring the characters here for the moment), so 90 wounds on average kills the unit assuming you don't have Fortune. However 30 out of those 45 wounds instantly pop to S6 - which means most of the time you really only have 21 wounds with a 4+, which drops you down to 42 wounds to kill.
The Seerstar has 8 wounds with 2+ saves (again ignoring the characters wounds/saves), which is 48 wounds to kill on average. So against small arms the Beasts do better, but against massed S6+ the Council is actually better off assuming Fortune isn't involved. With Fortune you jump up to 288 wounds to kill for the Council and 180 for the Beasts (only 84 if its S6, which is a painfully significant gap), so the Council gets quite a bit more milage out of Fortune.

The main thing you get for the extra 300 odd points is flexibility and the ability to take on anything in the game. There are some things which Beasts will just clean bounce off or take a while to chew through (Riptides/Wraithknights being good examples) because they are fishing for Rends. Not getting Fortune obviously makes the Council, much worse but people who claim it makes the unit terrible all of a sudden are thinking too linearly - you don't have to ram the Council down someones throat to do well with them.

cover saves as you said or likely but. the Khymerae will always have that 4++ and if your meta has lots of strength 6+ then take 10 Khymerae and 4 Flocks to mitigate that. To say that people will be shooting as many strength 6+ shots into this unit is a point in itself. Every single strength 6+ shot is a considerable threat to the Dark Eldars fragile vehicles, if the enemy is putting his shots into a 15pt model with usually a 4+ cover then that can only be a good thing.

You are also not taking into account model significance, in a beastpack apart from the general Khymerae<Razorwing all models are just as deadly and just as cheap as each other while in a Seerstar each dead Warlock is 50pts and possibly an important power so you will probably find without fortune they both leak points at around the same amount.

While i agree even without fortune a Seerstar is still a good unit, ultimately, it will then be a unit not effective for it's points. In a seerstar the best possible saves are a 2+ armour with protect and a 2+ cover so any unit that can pile on enough wounds will take down some very expensive models and it is this reason that an unfortuned seerstar isn't worth it. Your returns diminish by a sizable chunk with each death which is untrue with the beastpack. While it is also true some units a beastpack might have trouble killing, but then again the Beastpack has amazing speed and hit'n'run so it shouldn't get caught up in something they don't want to anyhow.

Randomness = Bad. Reliability = Good. It is that simply to me.

>

 ALEXisAWESOME wrote:
cover saves as you said or likely but. the Khymerae will always have that 4++ and if your meta has lots of strength 6+ then take 10 Khymerae and 4 Flocks to mitigate that. To say that people will be shooting as many strength 6+ shots into this unit is a point in itself. Every single strength 6+ shot is a considerable threat to the Dark Eldars fragile vehicles, if the enemy is putting his shots into a 15pt model with usually a 4+ cover then that can only be a good thing.

You are also not taking into account model significance, in a beastpack apart from the general Khymerae<Razorwing all models are just as deadly and just as cheap as each other while in a Seerstar each dead Warlock is 50pts and possibly an important power so you will probably find without fortune they both leak points at around the same amount.

While i agree even without fortune a Seerstar is still a good unit, ultimately, it will then be a unit not effective for it's points. In a seerstar the best possible saves are a 2+ armour with protect and a 2+ cover so any unit that can pile on enough wounds will take down some very expensive models and it is this reason that an unfortuned seerstar isn't worth it. Your returns diminish by a sizable chunk with each death which is untrue with the beastpack. While it is also true some units a beastpack might have trouble killing, but then again the Beastpack has amazing speed and hit'n'run so it shouldn't get caught up in something they don't want to anyhow.

Randomness = Bad. Reliability = Good. It is that simply to me.

>

Amen. Beastpack is far superior to the council in many ways, but more importantly it's meant to be a tarpit unit at the end of the day, and it tarpits far better than the council.

Unless the meta shifts toward tanks when the IG Codex drops, the new wave of Beastpacks are 25 Khy. This is obviously much more resilient than the traditional pack.

In a cover ignoring Str 6 dominated meta Khy>razor

There would need to be an incredible buff to vehicles, which I don't see happening. That said Knights kill off most deathstars... even Beastpack feels the pain when getting stomped on 6s.

I kind of wonder how well the Necron Monoliths other portal ability works against this unit since it is a STR check.

Hollismason wrote:
I kind of wonder how well the Necron Monoliths other portal ability works against this unit since it is a STR check.

Its range 6" on a model that can move 6" per turn so the Eldar player has to mess up pretty badly to let that happen. If they get the +1S power on one of the Warlocks then they can fairly reliably take out the Monolith in a single round of assault if they need to, but more likely they kill all the support elements by bouncing around in and out of combats with Hit and Run.