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Khe-Loc wrote:I feel like a nightspinner would be a nice addiion to my warhost. So I decided to get one. Or two?

What do you guys think? One or two? Which is better?

I would take two and magnetise the weapons, that way you could always take them as 2 Fire Prisms if the situation suggests it or if you find out that one spinner is enough

Murenius wrote:

Khe-Loc wrote:I feel like a nightspinner would be a nice addiion to my warhost. So I decided to get one. Or two?

What do you guys think? One or two? Which is better?

I would take two and magnetise the weapons, that way you could always take them as 2 Fire Prisms if the situation suggests it or if you find out that one spinner is enough

Hmm... never done any magnetising, so that would be something new... Is it possible for someone withoout expirience like me to do that without ruining the model?

Khe-Loc wrote:Hmm... never done any magnetising, so that would be something new... Is it possible for someone withoout expirience like me to do that without ruining the model?

Definitely. For my fire prism I didn't even have to drill. Order some disc shaped magnets, you can order them for few money in the net. I used 6x1 mm for the fire prism. Then decide where to cut in two halves. I (super)glued the magnets to the parts and painted them in the same color as the surrounding plastic parts. You can't tell the difference if you don't look very closely and now I can turn from fire prism to night spinner in 2 seconds

Edit: if you need more instructions just PM me, I could try to take some photos.

Murenius wrote:

Khe-Loc wrote:Hmm... never done any magnetising, so that would be something new... Is it possible for someone withoout expirience like me to do that without ruining the model?

Definitely. For my fire prism I didn't even have to drill. Order some disc shaped magnets, you can order them for few money in the net. I used 6x1 mm for the fire prism. Then decide where to cut in two halves. I (super)glued the magnets to the parts and painted them in the same color as the surrounding plastic parts. You can't tell the difference if you don't look very closely and now I can turn from fire prism to night spinner in 2 seconds

Edit: if you need more instructions just PM me, I could try to take some photos.

Ok if I don´t even have to drill, I might actually be able to pull it of. I´ll try at least... If I die, don´t be sad... I died an honourable death, cutting my throat while magnetising a prism^^

Khe-Loc, PM sent about magnets.

Khe-Loc wrote:

AchillesFTW wrote:Eh, Fire Prisms can TL to get a Str6 Ap3 Blast. Still It's lacking on Anti-Tank and if those firedragons ever get shot down and your kinda screwed over.

Besides I've been saying the whole time that Night Spinners are good against Gaunts and Orks anyway.

I feel like they are not only effective against hordes. I mean if I hit 5 terminators with the spinner, chances are I get a rending of and actually might take one down. In addition to that the opponent will think about moving that terminator squad, because chances are he will roll a one and loose another 40p model to the monofilament rule.

If you were playing a DoA Blood Angels army, you could hit 2 or maybe even 3 assault squads( lucky case I know). You might not kill that many with the atual blast(maybe 2 or 3) but your opponent will think about moving his marines, because he WILL loose more and with 20 - 30 guys moving, 5 or 6 are going down for sure.

After all its this psychological edge it gives you, that makes the nightpinner so attractive imho.

BTW would those jump pack guys have to test twice due to their jumppacks or are they only in diff/dang terrain at the start of their movement?

It is a real edge, not a psychological one. A DoA list for example can not choose to remain still as that would lead to certain doom. Also with doa it is all about the priests. If the priests squad is hit the actual priest has a 1/6 chance of going pop. Leaving the priest in place is not an option because the fnp bubble needs to move with the troops.

Nightspinners murder mech, as long as that mech, as long as the mech is ig or de. Against ig a wrecked result will send 10 melta vets out 1 chimera acess hatch in a very clustered ball behind the chimera wreck. A night spinner can hit them all, wound on a 2+, and no cover save from the wreck. Against de s6=no fnp. Blasterborne have a nasty habit of jumping out of a venom after it moves, so targvet the venom, hit it withs6, and catch all the blasterborn while you are at it.

schadenfreude wrote: Against de s6=no fnp. Blasterborne have a nasty habit of jumping out of a venom after it moves, so targvet the venom, hit it withs6, and catch all the blasterborn while you are at it.

Thats right! I´ve not thought about the Instant death/fnp canceling advantage of s6 so far... noobish me

Khe-Loc wrote:

schadenfreude wrote: Against de s6=no fnp. Blasterborne have a nasty habit of jumping out of a venom after it moves, so targvet the venom, hit it withs6, and catch all the blasterborn while you are at it.

Thats right! I´ve not thought about the Instant death/fnp canceling advantage of s6 so far... noobish me

Also good against multi-wound IG. Most do not have eternal warrior, so S6=ID. Same goes for HWTs.

Going to point out 1 more thing.

If a fast vehicle is destroyed in it's own movement phase all passengers are removed from play. A fast skimmer that goes flat out is destroyed if it is immobolized by a difficult terrain test. Normally I view shooting a vehicle to get a 1/6 change of immobolizing it as poor target priority, but I make a definate exception for a fully loaded storm raven.

After making some rules mistakes and getting yelled at--which I freely admit were my fault--I was going to walk away from this thread and just say YMMV. But I can't believe that many posters whose posts I always respect are still going on about how wonderful the nightspinnner. is.

It's a str6 long-range shooting weapon in an army full of str6 long-range shooting weapons. The last thing Eldar need is another str6 shooting weapon, even if it is barrage.

Back before May 2009 and the release of the current IG codex, Str6 shooting could handle every common army that you saw in a tournament environment. But since then, we have chimeras, vendettas, hydras, storm ravens, and dual-AC dreads, all of which are exceedingly dangerous to Eldar skimmers. All of these vehicles have front and/or side armor 12, which is nearly immune to str6 shooting.

(Oh, but you say, the barrage hits the side armor. You know what else hits the side armor? A shuriken cannon or scatterlaser that has moved around to shoot at the side.)

You really need str 8-9 shooting to have any chance of suppressing AR 12 units at range. Nightspinners replace two of the best options for this type of shooting in a mechanized list--falcons and fire prisms. So you trade your few opportunities for high-strength shots in exchange for more str6.

The dangerous terrain test is a gimmick. It's easily countered by an opponent who actually understands the mathhammer behind rolling 1s and plays an affected unit smart. A "tactic" that depends on your opponent being clueless is not a tactic at all, because it never works against a veteran player who knows better.

A better way to kill 1 out of 6 of your opponent's models is to shoot them to death with your regular str6 weapons that you bought with the points you didn't spend on a nightspinner.

Flavius Infernus wrote:After making some rules mistakes and getting yelled at--which I freely admit were my fault--I was going to walk away from this thread and just say YMMV. But I can't believe that many posters whose posts I always respect are still going on about how wonderful the nightspinnner. is.

It's a str6 long-range shooting weapon in an army full of str6 long-range shooting weapons. The last thing Eldar need is another str6 shooting weapon, even if it is barrage.

Back before May 2009 and the release of the current IG codex, Str6 shooting could handle every common army that you saw in a tournament environment. But since then, we have chimeras, vendettas, hydras, storm ravens, and dual-AC dreads, all of which are exceedingly dangerous to Eldar skimmers. All of these vehicles have front and/or side armor 12, which is nearly immune to str6 shooting.

(Oh, but you say, the barrage hits the side armor. You know what else hits the side armor? A shuriken cannon or scatterlaser that has moved around to shoot at the side.)

You really need str 8-9 shooting to have any chance of suppressing AR 12 units at range. Nightspinners replace two of the best options for this type of shooting in a mechanized list--falcons and fire prisms. So you trade your few opportunities for high-strength shots in exchange for more str6.

The dangerous terrain test is a gimmick. It's easily countered by an opponent who actually understands the mathhammer behind rolling 1s and plays an affected unit smart. A "tactic" that depends on your opponent being clueless is not a tactic at all, because it never works against a veteran player who knows better.

A better way to kill 1 out of 6 of your opponent's models is to shoot them to death with your regular str6 weapons that you bought with the points you didn't spend on a nightspinner.

It´s ok if you don´t like it, but I feel like with fire dragons, eldar missile launchers on vypers/serpents you can have some decent anti tank anyway.

You are right tho, that another s6 shooty is not what the eldar needed. However I think it has some nice advantages over the other s6 stuff we already have.

And lastly, I don´t think, that you would want to field 3 spinners anyway so there would still be enough room for another 1-2 falcons/fire prisms.

Flavius Infernus wrote:But I can't believe that many posters whose posts I always respect are still going on about how wonderful the nightspinnner is.

The dangerous terrain test is a gimmick. It's easily countered by an opponent who actually understands the mathhammer behind rolling 1s and plays an affected unit smart. A "tactic" that depends on your opponent being clueless is not a tactic at all, because it never works against a veteran player who knows better.

A better way to kill 1 out of 6 of your opponent's models is to shoot them to death with your regular str6 weapons that you bought with the points you didn't spend on a nightspinner.

Aside from a few people, I believe most suggest 1 spinner to 2 prisms. If the spinner was the 'bomb-diggity' then people would suggest bringing 3. What you describe as a gimmick is still valueable in specific situations, and in an all-corners list, I think its a great tool to add to the Eldar toolbag.

Let me give you an example. Nob bikes. 1 spinner can slow down a squad of nob bikes from moving 12" to 24" a turn to moving just 1 model 2" (to maintain cohesion)
In the case of the nob bikes, they could still move the full 12", as bikes still move full speed through difficult terrrain, but they cannot turbo boost.
Sure, the ork player can move just one bike to minimize the number of wounds he has to take, but the goal has been accomplished. For a 115 point model, you are trying up a 500 point deathstar.

The goal of the spinner is not to kill the enemy, but hinder them.

Hmmm, you know what else can stop nob bikers from moving forward? Parking a grav tank in front of them.

Nob bikers have two wounds--and sometimes a cybork body--so moving forward is a lot more important to them than a tiny chance of taking a wound by rolling a 1. The nightspinner shot is only a hindrance if the ork player makes the wrong decision about how to play his unit.

Parking a grav tank in front of the unit is much a more effective hindrance because it works 100% of the time, and rather than depending on the ork player to make a mistake, it gives him the choice of two bad options: (1) lose movement by driving around the tank (if you can force him to drive through terrain, you get the effects of the nightspinner shot anyway) or (2) spend a turn moving hardly at all in order to assault and kill a grav tank.

This, I think, is my major issue overall with the nightspinner. Yes, barrage is fun and it's a cool model. But it doesn't do anything that an already-existing unit in the Eldar list already does at least as well or better.

Or, the Orks attack the tank and blow it up.

Parking a grav tank in front of Nob Bikers in no way approximates the effectiveness of denying them a turbo move. It's not even close. The Bikers can still move 24" around the tank and more importantly they get a 3+ cover save in doing so. Getting hit with a Nightspinner does 2 things. It doesn't waste a grav tank and more importantly it denies the 3+ cover save from turbo boosting the Nob bikers. Without that cover save, maybe some other elements of the Eldar list can take down more of the Bikers than they could otherwise.

Skinnereal wrote:Or, the Orks attack the tank and blow it up.

Right, which stops their forward movement for a turn, because they have to stay in place during the movement phase, then assault it during the assault phase, and they don't get any consolidation move afterward.

You've sacrificed one grav tank (maybe--or it might survive) to save everything behind it for an additional turn.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

DarthDiggler wrote:Parking a grav tank in front of Nob Bikers in no way approximates the effectiveness of denying them a turbo move. It's not even close. The Bikers can still move 24" around the tank and more importantly they get a 3+ cover save in doing so. Getting hit with a Nightspinner does 2 things. It doesn't waste a grav tank and more importantly it denies the 3+ cover save from turbo boosting the Nob bikers. Without that cover save, maybe some other elements of the Eldar list can take down more of the Bikers than they could otherwise.

Yeah, it's not exact, because a lot depends on terrain and the angle at which you park the tank, and whether or not you're willing to sacrifice a second tank (or maybe you have a squadron of vypers that could interdict them even more effectively) and whether or not there's a handy gap available between two pieces of terrain, which would force them to either turn back altogether or go through the terrain, thus not boosting and making those dangerous terrain tests anyway. So it's hard to quantify, but even on a moonscape table with no terrain at all, you're costing them probably 8 or 9 inches movement minimum, and possibly as much as 12" or 18" if you get favorable terrain or use vypers.

And you don't deny them the boosting save unless you can force them to go through terrain, agreed. But if you can reduce their forward movement by at least 12", then you're doing as good a job at interdicting total forward movement as you would be with the nightspinner shot.

But interdicting with skimmers *is* exact in that there's no chance that your interdicting skimmers will scatter off the target and not do the job you need them to do at the critical moment. And it is exact in that there's no chance that your opponent will decide to go for it, not roll any 1's on his dangerous terrain test, and get his full 12" move directly toward you--which is really what you should expect a competent ork player to do when hit by a nightspinner template.

(Do they get FNP on failed dangerous terrain tests?)

I wouldn't call it a "waste" of a grav tank. If the ork player decides to stand there for a turn and kill the tank, then I consider that a tactical error on his part. There's a small chance that he won't even kill it, and will have to spend another turn pounding it, and whether he kills it or not, his movement for the turn has been effectively reduced to 1" and he's got no boosting cover save during my turn--and a wreck or crater he'll have to drive around or through to continue his forward advance. That's much more effective interdiction than a nightpinner shot.

The tank that moves alone *toward* a fast assaulty unit like nob bikers or bike councils is actually the tank that has a greater chance of survival, because the smart opponent won't want to slow his advance to spend a turn dealing with it.

I can't believe that you are suggesting an effective way of slowing down Nob bikers is to park your tank in front of them LOLOLOL. A novel idea is to... just move away from them and shoot the piss outta them.

K to explain a bit further...

The nightspinner:
- Does not rely on another tank to become accurate (nor eat another tank's shot or Farseer's Guide)
- Does not require LoS
- Wounds marines on a 2+ with it's large blast
- Ignores armor on a Rend
- Ignores FNP on a Rend
- Can be combined with Doom to have a whole pile of chances to rend
- Has a 1/6 chance to make the enemy kill themselves except an invuln save
- Slows down a lot of enemies/makes them think twice
- Can place it's special effect on multiple units with a single shot.

The Night Spinner can essentially be tucked behind whatever huge cover it can find and threaten the entire damn board with as much death as the s5 ap4 large blast of a prism, without the downside of losing the shot of another prism/use guide to become accurate. If it is Armor 12, 13, 14 then use your ML, BL, or FD to knock it out. If it is armor 10, 11 (most stuff) then use your scatter lasers to knock it out.

Do I advocate replacing all your Prisms with Nightspinners? No. Nightspinners special rule becomes redundant once that golden target has been hit by one already.
Would I be running two if I had 2? Most likely, but GW's prices can kiss may arse.

BlueDagger wrote:I can't believe that you are suggesting an effective way of slowing down Nob bikers is to park your tank in front of them LOLOLOL. A novel idea is to... just move away from them and shoot the piss outta them.

You never interdicted movement with a skimmer, BlueDagger? You realize that you can only move 12" away if you want to shoot, and bikers can chase you 18" to assault. Sooner or later you run out of table--which is how orks or whatever eventually catch you unless you interdict them.

BlueDagger wrote:

The nightspinner:
- Does not rely on another tank to become accurate (nor eat another tank's shot or Farseer's Guide)
- Does not require LoS
- Wounds marines on a 2+ with it's large blast
- Ignores armor on a Rend
- Ignores FNP on a Rend
- Can be combined with Doom to have a whole pile of chances to rend
- Has a 1/6 chance to make the enemy kill themselves except an invuln save
- Slows down a lot of enemies/makes them think twice
- Can place it's special effect on multiple units with a single shot.

-Hmm, you know what else doesn't depend on another tank to become accurate? A wave serpent turret, or warwalker/vyper with twice the shots (not more accurate, but the same number of hits).
-What else doesn't require line of sight? A grav tank that has moved far enough in the movement phase that it can see its target (barrage weapons are for static armies).
-What else wounds marines on a 2+? Every single str6 weapon in the Eldar arsenal.
-What else ignores armor on a rend? Well nothing really as far as ranged weapons, but unlike the nightspinner, other str6 guns do ignore 5+ or 6+ armor (or 2+) with every single wound, and not just the rends.
-What else ignores FNP? Uh, fire dragons--and on every single wound, not just the one or two where you manage to roll a 6. Unless you're talking about T3 or less (i.e. Dark Eldar), in which case every other str6 weapon in the Eldar arsenal ignores FNP on every wound, not just rending ones.
-What else can be combined with doom to increase the odds of ignoring armor/FNP? Every single weapon in the Eldar arsenal that otherwise bypasses armor and/or FNP
-Hmmm, what else kills 1 in 6 enemies? Anything that shoots them dead.
-What else slows down enemies? Movement interdiction with your many skimmers.
-What else can place its effect on multiple units? Multiple guns.

BlueDagger wrote:
The Night Spinner can essentially be tucked behind whatever huge cover it can find and threaten the entire damn board with as much death as the s5 ap4 large blast of a prism, without the downside of losing the shot of another prism/use guide to become accurate. If it is Armor 12, 13, 14 then use your ML, BL, or FD to knock it out. If it is armor 10, 11 (most stuff) then use your scatter lasers to knock it out.

So I should tuck my nightspinner behind cover, and then shoot at AR 10, 11, 12, 13, and 14 vehicles with other stuff? Why did I bring a nightspinner then?

I don't use prisms either because personally I find that they are too inaccurate--so we agree on that. But if you're saying that a nightspinner is just for hitting infantry, then massed scatterlasers are a better all-around weapon, because they don't depend on the vagaries of that template managing to cover enough models to make it worthwhile.

Two scatterlaser warwalkers will score 8 hits, on average, on an infantry unit for only 5 points more. How many times do you even get 8 models under the large template? And--as we already agree--scatterlasers are also useful against AR10-11, unlike the nightspinner.

(I'm not taking myself at all that seriously here, you should know--except about interdicting with skimmers, which I actually do all the time. I mean, if people want to use nightspinners, it's fine by me. It's just I'm so surprised that so many posters seem to think nightspinners have these indispensable, unique capabilities when I have somehow been able to do fine without one by using other stuff already in the Eldar army list. It seems bizarre to me.)

Flavius Infernus wrote:

BlueDagger wrote:I can't believe that you are suggesting an effective way of slowing down Nob bikers is to park your tank in front of them LOLOLOL. A novel idea is to... just move away from them and shoot the piss outta them.

You never interdicted movement with a skimmer, BlueDagger? You realize that you can only move 12" away if you want to shoot, and bikers can chase you 18" to assault. Sooner or later you run out of table--which is how orks or whatever eventually catch you unless you interdict them.

BlueDagger wrote:

The nightspinner:
- Does not rely on another tank to become accurate (nor eat another tank's shot or Farseer's Guide)
- Does not require LoS
- Wounds marines on a 2+ with it's large blast
- Ignores armor on a Rend
- Ignores FNP on a Rend
- Can be combined with Doom to have a whole pile of chances to rend
- Has a 1/6 chance to make the enemy kill themselves except an invuln save
- Slows down a lot of enemies/makes them think twice
- Can place it's special effect on multiple units with a single shot.

-Hmm, you know what else doesn't depend on another tank to become accurate? A wave serpent turret, or warwalker/vyper with twice the shots (not more accurate, but the same number of hits).
-What else doesn't require line of sight? A grav tank that has moved far enough in the movement phase that it can see its target (barrage weapons are for static armies).
-What else wounds marines on a 2+? Every single str6 weapon in the Eldar arsenal.
-What else ignores armor on a rend? Well nothing really as far as ranged weapons, but unlike the nightspinner, other str6 guns do ignore 5+ or 6+ armor (or 2+) with every single wound, and not just the rends.
-What else ignores FNP? Uh, fire dragons--and on every single wound, not just the one or two where you manage to roll a 6. Unless you're talking about T3 or less (i.e. Dark Eldar), in which case every other str6 weapon in the Eldar arsenal ignores FNP on every wound, not just rending ones.
-What else can be combined with doom to increase the odds of ignoring armor/FNP? Every single weapon in the Eldar arsenal that otherwise bypasses armor and/or FNP
-Hmmm, what else kills 1 in 6 enemies? Anything that shoots them dead.
-What else slows down enemies? Movement interdiction with your many skimmers.
-What else can place its effect on multiple units? Multiple guns.

BlueDagger wrote:
The Night Spinner can essentially be tucked behind whatever huge cover it can find and threaten the entire damn board with as much death as the s5 ap4 large blast of a prism, without the downside of losing the shot of another prism/use guide to become accurate. If it is Armor 12, 13, 14 then use your ML, BL, or FD to knock it out. If it is armor 10, 11 (most stuff) then use your scatter lasers to knock it out.

So I should tuck my nightspinner behind cover, and then shoot at AR 10, 11, 12, 13, and 14 vehicles with other stuff? Why did I bring a nightspinner then?

I don't use prisms either because personally I find that they are too inaccurate--so we agree on that. But if you're saying that a nightspinner is just for hitting infantry, then massed scatterlasers are a better all-around weapon, because they don't depend on the vagaries of that template managing to cover enough models to make it worthwhile.

Two scatterlaser warwalkers will score 8 hits, on average, on an infantry unit for only 5 points more. How many times do you even get 8 models under the large template? And--as we already agree--scatterlasers are also useful against AR10-11, unlike the nightspinner.

(I'm not taking myself at all that seriously here, you should know--except about interdicting with skimmers, which I actually do all the time. I mean, if people want to use nightspinners, it's fine by me. It's just I'm so surprised that so many posters seem to think nightspinners have these indispensable, unique capabilities when I have somehow been able to do fine without one by using other stuff already in the Eldar army list. It seems bizarre to me.)

I have to agree with the fact, that massed scatter lasers are better vs mass infantry than the nightspinner is. However for getting the critical mass of scatter lasers, war walkers are required. In my jetbike like army, there is just no place for them. They will get left behind and isolated. For the same reason I don´t take rangers/pathfinders in my army even though I like the models and their rules.

The Nightspinner however will fit into my army´s scheme and will also fulfill a different role than just killing infantry. It will not only help me exploit my speed trough slowing my opponents infantry down, but also help dealing with deathstars and parking lots. It will maybe deny my opponent a charge or two trough difficult terrain, and it will even be able o contest an objective at the end of the game.

In addition to that we have the enormous LULZ factor when someone like Calgar, Logan Grimnar, Draigo or any other big HQ dies due to dangerous terrain.

I use war walkers with my mech army and they don't have any trouble keeping up because they can outflank. That puts them in the side arcs of parking lots, gives me the first shot, and often forces my opponent to slow his advance by sending something to deal with them (people love to assault war walkers for some reason).

I still think you're overestimating nightspinners' ability to slow enemy movement, but maybe I'm wrong.

And I understand that you want to try out nightspinners, so please go ahead and see what you think.

K so at this point you are taking about complete army makeup not just the Night Spinner.

Warwalkers IMO are laughable, since a light breeze will wreck them and they are too slow to keep up nowadays. Wraithlords were a fun option, but sadly codex creep has trumped them. Artillery and Dark Reapers are out of the picture, so now that leaves the Fire Prism, Falcon, and Night Spinner left as the sole choices for competitive mech eldar.

Falcons suffer from their price tag and 6" move so they are for specialty builds with eldrad.

Fire Prisms fill either an anti-horde or anti-vehicle role, but they do not do well with anti-FNP unless they use their small beam. Yes, I understand DE lose it to a Str6 if it a T3 model, but that isn't what we are talking about since they never give us trouble with all our S6. No I'm talking about power armored/terminator armored blood angel, DA, and Grey Knights. DE we have enough advantages over that they aren't a huge threat as much as the T4 FNP that is given out like candy as of late to things with deep armor saves and typically an invul save. S5 Ap4 or Even S6 AP3 won't do much to them since with cover and FNP they laugh off your wounds. As anti vehicle they are pricey without a Eldrad double Guide to allow for TL Lascannon blasts

Thus why the Nightspinner was described above. I commonly run 5-6 Wave Serpents with at least 4 with Scatter Lasers, it's not enough for anti-SM. Suggesting Fire Dragons for Anti-FNP makes me facepalm. I'm not sure if you are trolling at this point or just have no clue about Eldar, but suggesting to people that might be reading this that placing your 120pt+ Wave Serpent as a Road block to Massed S8 powerfists as a viable option... yeah. Here is an Idea: don't bunch up and just turbo boost away. You move 24", they move 18" if they are lucky and have clear ground and didn't get nightspinnered (you can't turbo boost through difficult terrain). Next turn your wave serpent and it's contents are still alive.

BlueDagger wrote:Warwalkers IMO are laughable, since a light breeze will wreck them and they are too slow to keep up nowadays. Wraithlords were a fun option, but sadly codex creep has trumped them. Artillery and Dark Reapers are out of the picture, so now that leaves the Fire Prism, Falcon, and Night Spinner left as the sole choices for competitive mech eldar.

While normally I agree with you BlueDagger, this is one area where I'm dont.

War walkers are not laughable, they are just a fire-and-forget weapon.
Due to squadron rules, AV 10, and open-topped, they die to any reasonable long range fire. Sure, 2 years ago when everyone was bringing Vulcan lists, these guys could stand 30" back and get a few shots in, but now with Las/Plas becoming popular, long fangs, and other long range support -- the fragility of walkers is really brought to light.

So with walkers your paying points for 1...maybe 2 rounds of shooting. Your targets are light side armor, including chimeras, and (maybe rhinos). So your paying 45 points for 8 shots at BS 4. On AV 10, that's a decent chance of destroying the vehicle, for a low entry cost. Against AV 11 or greater there is a big point of diminishing returns.

Given the cost and how easy they are to destory, I could see someone using 3 of them to fill their heavy support slots and just use them for vehicle poping. You give up 3 VP by doing so, but in the 2/3 objective missions they can be a nice little trick.

The main drawback with that tactic is that you lose 2 more AV12 skimmers in your army (as 3 walkers costs ~1 prism, meaning you can buy 1 more serpent)

Warwalkers aren't open topped, or they would be total garbage lol.

Heavy slots are our hardest hitters, so picking an option that will survive 1-2 rounds to shoot in a 5-6 round battle? If you outflank they are dead, period and if you keep them on your side you have to hope there is good enough cover for them, or park a serpent in the way that could be angling better.

In my eye is really comes down to:
- 3 AV 10 walkers that can move 6"+D6 (gamble with reserves and die the round after)

or

- 1 AV 12 Fast Skimmer Tank that can move 24" that has Holofields to shrug off incoming damage

Which of these can kill as well as do last minute object contesting, ramming, and tank shocking?

Personally I´m not a fan of war walkers.

To me, they seem like they die after they hit the table. You most likely will have one (maybe two) turns of shooting with them. Imo I like vypers better, because they can keep up with the army and can collect a cover save very easily.
However thats offtopic. We´re supposed to be discussing the nightspinner here.

Maybe Flavius Infernus is right and I´m overestimating the slowing capability of the spinner, but I still feel like that thats one of it´s main advantages.

Having played it so many times it's slowing capability should be viewed inconjunction with it's ability to inflict dangerous terrain tests. Some times you slow stuff way down, sometimes not at all.

It's main point is reaching out and touching that clump of guys on the other side of the board behind a wall that mass majority of your army doesn't have LoS to.

BlueDagger wrote:Having played it so many times it's slowing capability should be viewed inconjunction with it's ability to inflict dangerous terrain tests. Some times you slow stuff way down, sometimes not at all.

It's main point is reaching out and touching that clump of guys on the other side of the board behind a wall that mass majority of your army doesn't have LoS to.

Yeah. I think that will be rather good, since it´s the only thing in the eldar codex capable of that.

Maybe BlueDagger's view of the nightspinner is due to different experience using war walkers.

A squadron of 2 dual-SL warwalkers at 120 points is optimal (three is overkil and overpricedl). They can deploy wide and scout for side shots, or outflank depending on what the rest of the army is doing. Effective range 42" means they pretty much always have a target even in a fast mech army, and can cover nearly 2/3 of the table when outflanking. So that's what I use instead of a nightspinner for "reaching out and touching that clump of guys."

The other advantage of having a squadron of 2 is that you put one in cover, and they both get cover saves (with 3, you'd have to get 2 in cover). I'm not sure how it is with the new plastic models, but my old metal warwalkers easily get more than 50% cover by standing behind a grav tank, and their weapons can still draw LoS over/around the tank's hull.

Then you use hit allocation to keep at least one walker firing, and they're much more survivable than it looks like they'd be on paper. I'm glancing over my notes on my last dozen or so tournament matches, and I see only one battle where one or both war walker squadrons (sometimes I use two) didn't survive the entire game. They routinely get many more than the 2-3 volleys you guys are supposing. Usually they have no problem surviving shooting--they can outrange a lot of the stuff people take that's dangerous to AR10 squadrons, like assault cannons and psycannons--and tend to die mainly when I deliberately sacrifice them to pull or bog an assault unit, or in a game that I'm already losing anyway.

But then I also use falcons (without any specialized farseer build) and I also actually use skimmers to interdict movement. Depending on what's charging it, a skimmer that moved over 6" will nearly always survive a charge from things that need 6's to pen, and even do pretty well against, for example, 5 thunderhammer terminators, as long as they're not vulcan terminators.

And of course the surest way to contribute to their survival is to put the skimmer in a place where the opponent won't assault it because it would slow down the unit. Then you get the interdiction benefit *and* the skimmer is fine. But even if it doesn't survive, the sacrifice is worth it in terms of winning the game--or else I wouldn't have sacrificed the skimmer in the first place.

But I'm the only regular mech Eldar player in my area--was the only Eldar player at all at the last GT I went to--so I guess what I thought was an obvious and widespread tactic is actually not that common.

At least not for Eldar, I guess. It's a bread-and-butter tactic for Tau.


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BlueDagger wrote:
Suggesting Fire Dragons for Anti-FNP makes me facepalm. I'm not sure if you are trolling at this point or just have no clue about Eldar, but suggesting to people that might be reading this that placing your 120pt+ Wave Serpent as a Road block to Massed S8 powerfists as a viable option... yeah.

Again, it's a Tau tactic adapted for Eldar:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/User:Flavius%20Infernus

I tabled a whole BA DoA assault army in a tournament a couple of months ago using fire dragons to bypass their FNP. This is also the way I prefer to deal with nob bikers, when I have to kill them. You isolate the unit you want to kill by interdicting their follow-up units with some of your skimmers, then you toast your target unit with a fish of fury. Rinse, and repeat.

BlueDagger wrote:
Here is an Idea: don't bunch up and just turbo boost away. You move 24", they move 18" if they are lucky and have clear ground and didn't get nightspinnered (you can't turbo boost through difficult terrain). Next turn your wave serpent and it's contents are still alive.

Uhhh, sometimes in 5th edition you need to be able to hold a position on the table, even if you're Eldar. Or sometimes, like with the DoA army above, you're already backed up against your table edge and flat-outing past the guys near you will just put you in the middle of a forest of melta that can jump into your rear arc.

You have skimmers, they move fast, they block movement. Why not use that?

Flavius Infernus wrote:Maybe BlueDagger's view of the nightspinner is due to different experience using war walkers.

A squadron of 2 dual-SL warwalkers at 120 points is optimal (three is overkil and overpricedl). They can deploy wide and scout for side shots, or outflank depending on what the rest of the army is doing. Effective range 42" means they pretty much always have a target even in a fast mech army, and can cover nearly 2/3 of the table when outflanking. So that's what I use instead of a nightspinner for "reaching out and touching that clump of guys."

The other advantage of having a squadron of 2 is that you put one in cover, and they both get cover saves (with 3, you'd have to get 2 in cover). I'm not sure how it is with the new plastic models, but my old metal warwalkers easily get more than 50% cover by standing behind a grav tank, and their weapons can still draw LoS over/around the tank's hull.

Then you use hit allocation to keep at least one walker firing, and they're much more survivable than it looks like they'd be on paper. I'm glancing over my notes on my last dozen or so tournament matches, and I see only one battle where one or both war walker squadrons (sometimes I use two) didn't survive the entire game. They routinely get many more than the 2-3 volleys you guys are supposing. Usually they have no problem surviving shooting--they can outrange a lot of the stuff people take that's dangerous to AR10 squadrons, like assault cannons and psycannons--and tend to die mainly when I deliberately sacrifice them to pull or bog an assault unit, or in a game that I'm already losing anyway.

But then I also use falcons (without any specialized farseer build) and I also actually use skimmers to interdict movement. Depending on what's charging it, a skimmer that moved over 6" will nearly always survive a charge from things that need 6's to pen, and even do pretty well against, for example, 5 thunderhammer terminators, as long as they're not vulcan terminators.

And of course the surest way to contribute to their survival is to put the skimmer in a place where the opponent won't assault it because it would slow down the unit. Then you get the interdiction benefit *and* the skimmer is fine. But even if it doesn't survive, the sacrifice is worth it in terms of winning the game--or else I wouldn't have sacrificed the skimmer in the first place.

But I'm the only regular mech Eldar player in my area--was the only Eldar player at all at the last GT I went to--so I guess what I thought was an obvious and widespread tactic is actually not that common.

At least not for Eldar, I guess. It's a bread-and-butter tactic for Tau.

Personally I haven´t had any good experiences with war walkers. But I don´t even like their models...

I think they could be good, if used correctly, and since so many other eldar players love them, I suppose the can´t be as bad as I think they are.

The tactic of putting skimmers into the way of deathstars is something I´ve never heard of, and also something I´d never do.

Let´s get that nob biker example back up, shall we?

Say you moved your serpent 12" into their way. The Ork player would just charge your tank, and dispite only hitting you on 6`s he would probably get at least 3-4 powerfist hits since nobs have a whole bunch of atacks. On the charge with the claw nobs are s9 so they are auto glancing and penetrating your rear on a 2+. and 4 rolls on the damage table usually means a dead vehicle...

I just don´t see how that would be viable.

Yes, a unit of nob bikers would almost certainly kill a grav tank, regardless of how fast or slow it moved. Even a tank with a holofield wouldn't have very good odds. Unless something unusual happens, it's a suicide run.

But stop thinking about losing units (or killing enemy units) and think about winning games instead. If all games were won or lost by tallying up the number of enemy units killed versus the units that you lost, then sacrificing a unit for no kill gain would be a bad move.

However, most games are won not by killing enemy units, but rather by maneuver. Especially tournament games, which tend to have scenarios that minimize the importance of kill points, the game is won in the movement phase, not the shooting phase.

Think about a pure objective game for a second. If you can hold or lure your opponent's units out of position such that you hold one objective (and contest all others) at the end of the last turn, you win. You can burn every single unit in your entire army except that one troop unit and the 1-4 contesting units, and still win.

With both my mech Eldar and mech marine armies, it's not unusual for my entire army to be gutted and crippled at the end of the round, and maybe my opponent hasn't lost anything at all, but I'm the one standing on the objectives, so I win. A couple of months ago I placed first in a tournament with 3 undefeated rounds with my mech marines, and in one of the rounds I scored 1KP, and in another round I scored 0 KPs. (In the Annihilation round I think I scored about 5 and lost 3).

Example off the top of my head: at the most recent Boston Brawl the vet player who eventually won, Ben (sorry, Ben, can't remember your last name) defeated huge ork army that outnumbered and outgunned him by a huge margin. He saw that he was never going to be able to beat the ork army by engaging them, so he used his mobility to hide his units behind terrain for most of the game, then in the last turn made a rush for the objectives and won. The ork army was essentially intact at the end of the game, and Ben had lost a lot of units, but the game wasn't about killing units, it was about maneuvering.

So, many times, it's worth sacrificing a grav tank to hold up a nob biker unit.

But as I have already said twice, a good ork player knows you're trying to interdict him and knows that if he sticks around for a turn to kill that tank, he's lost the game. So he'll usually just drive around and leave it alone (so you've slowed him down with 100% success *and* not lost your tank). If the ork player is clueless enough to actually stick around and attack the tank, then he's made a mistake that you should be able to capitalize on to win the match.

I'm kinda confused here are we talking about sacrificing a take the last turn of the game or round 2-3? Sacing your tanks last turn of the game is a common practice so of course you'd put your (empty) serpent in the way of any bikers that are still alive and going for a last minute rush. From your post though it sounds like you were talking about sacrificing one in like round 2-3 where the orks are turbo boosting a key objective or something.

If anyone is a mecheldar player and they don't know to objective rush the last turn of the game, they need to reanalyze their list. Yet another perk of the nightspinner, its always away from danger and trying to avoid any LoS leading to it's survival and use on objective rushes.