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So i'd not heard all that much powergamer stuff come out of the harlequin codex (short of maybe spamming some Shadowseers).

The Skyweaver is a bit all over the place, but I think it's most viable taken in numbers with a bunch of farseers (3)

6 Skyweavers with glaives and shuriken cannons is a little over 360 points. 24 Str 5 Ap2 attacks @ WS 5, and a bunch of Str6 rending shooting (or haywire).

It'll mess up pretty much anything. Short of Av 13.

The Faolchu Blade formation allows cheap access to them, without much of a 'tax' in other units. The formation bonus is re-rolling Jink saves, making them a bit more survivable against an alpha strike. They get a 4+ armour, 5++, H&R and are only lacking fearless (which can easily be applied with a farseer).

Am I missing something? Is there something that doesn't make them a good choice? They seem a great replacement for warlocks in a seer council, giving more shooting, more wounds, reliable attacks, and don't require the investment in Baharroth.

50+ppm for t4 4+/5++.

Its actually a lot.

Comparably, Warlocks wound on 2s always, have a 3+/4++, and most importantly are ML1.

Seer Council work(s/ed) because they could buff themselves, potentially to 2+/2+ armor/cover with rerolls.

Without those psyker buffs to survivability, 50+ ppm is just too much.

(Also note that they lose their one-use 4++ when joined by another unit.)

Bharring wrote:
50+ppm for t4 4+/5++.

Its actually a lot.

Comparably, Warlocks wound on 2s always, have a 3+/4++, and most importantly are ML1.

Seer Council work(s/ed) because they could buff themselves, potentially to 2+/2+ armor/cover with rerolls.

Without those psyker buffs to survivability, 50+ ppm is just too much.

(Also note that they lose their one-use 4++ when joined by another unit.)

Rolling 3 farseers on telepathy guarantees Invis, or at least shrouding. Shrouding means rerollable 2+ cover. The skyweavers also get that 2nd wound too.
Warlocks cost the same points as a single Skyweaver, with the skyweaver having more attacks and much better shooting.

You do miss out on a substantial amount of warp charges though.

Fleshbane isn't a huge thing to miss out on, especially considering 3 farseers with 9 fleshbane attacks,

3 non-twinlinked S6 is better than 2 twinlinked S4, but you'll lose much of that firepower if you jink.

Almost anything can be a death star with 3 farseers. Invis is that stupidly good.

But don't Khamera do about the same thing for less?

Alternately, why not Shining Spears at half the PPM, and 3+/4+ cover without jink/4+ rerollable jinking without Fortune? Shooting would be a little worse, but a lot more survivabe?

Another note is, if you want a non-Jetlock Jetbike deathstar, you could add a Falchu's Wing Spirit Seer into any Jetbike squad. The Wings let them keep up, and Runes of Battle are nice.

Heck, even a Windridwr squad. 27ppm for Shuriken Cannons. 17ppm for ablative wounds. Per point, wouldn't this do even better?

The biggest problem is that Skyweavers don't want to be in a Deathstar. The Mirage Launchers only work in a unit of all Skyweavers, and being as expensive as they are any HQ choice that isn't a tank is worthless on them because they don't have the ablative wounds to spare.

Skyweavers can do amazingly well with Psyker support, but the Farseer doesn't actually want to be in the same unit as them. If you're looking for a Jetbike Deathstar that will work along side the Skyweavers, consider Reaver Jetbikers. Reaver Jetbikes *do* synergise well with both the Autarch for the Banshee Mask and the Farseer, are quite cheap and have a 3+ Cover Save.

I bought the Skyweavers models as soon as they came out because the models look amazing, but after quite a few games running Falchu's Blade I just feel like the ppm is too damn high.

They are just about worth their points the turn they charge, but it's sad how useless and overcosted they are every other turn. Jink keeps them alive when they're not in combat, but makes their Shuriken Cannon mostly useless. You generally charge a TEQ or at least an elite MEQ unit, because you don't want all these points tied up with anything less... but if you don't win the combat, their dinky S3, T4, 4+ save does not hold up well against anything at all, even with that AP3.

And I know my hit-and-run rolls have had crap luck, but failing even one in a game is the worst.

The models... the models are so pretty though...

If you want to run skyweavers in anything but min amounts, Falchu, lots of glaives, with 2-3 Farseer and an Autarch is the way to go. The re-roll jink makes fortune not absolutely necessary, and multi wounds mean you can take some dmg in combat. You do absolutely need invis, and preferably shrouding as well, but you should murderlate whatever you hit. Twin linking all the S6 rending shots means jinking/FMCs aren't as big a deal.

As mentioned, the farseer + anything can become a deathstar. So, yes technically the skyweavers can be a deathstar in the sense that anything with multiple farseers can become a deaathstar. Skyweavers are massively over costed for what they do, and their gear is just poorly designed (why don't have either flipbelts or grenades? Why do you have to pay for glaives?). The one thing that the skyweavers have going for em is mass AP2 at initiative attacks...which is again questionable due to a lack of belts/grenades. The farseer can shore up the bad armor saves, and Autarch can at least make sure you don't get lit up on the charge as well as make sure your opponent is I 1 as well. But at its base the unit isn't great.

Compare reavers: skilled rider, FnP, tons cheaper, and all their money attacks are HoW (aka counters other invis deathstars). They also wouldn't require you to take 175 points of dead weight either. Shining Spears don't compare as favorably, because they're an even worse base unit.

So, yes they can be deathstared. But the farseers are force multipliers, and their impact is based on the base strength of the unit they buff. If you just HAVE to play skyweavers or Harlies in a tournament setting, then this is a great unit. If you're looking for an undescovered gem, this likely falls short. Probably the biggest advantage this star has in competitive play is that it's highly likely your opponent has never seen it before.

 Dash2021 wrote:
If you want to run skyweavers in anything but min amounts, Falchu, lots of glaives, with 2-3 Farseer and an Autarch is the way to go. The re-roll jink makes fortune not absolutely necessary, and multi wounds mean you can take some dmg in combat. You do absolutely need invis, and preferably shrouding as well, but you should murderlate whatever you hit. Twin linking all the S6 rending shots means jinking/FMCs aren't as big a deal.

As mentioned, the farseer + anything can become a deathstar. So, yes technically the skyweavers can be a deathstar in the sense that anything with multiple farseers can become a deaathstar. Skyweavers are massively over costed for what they do, and their gear is just poorly designed (why don't have either flipbelts or grenades? Why do you have to pay for glaives?). The one thing that the skyweavers have going for em is mass AP2 at initiative attacks...which is again questionable due to a lack of belts/grenades. The farseer can shore up the bad armor saves, and Autarch can at least make sure you don't get lit up on the charge as well as make sure your opponent is I 1 as well. But at its base the unit isn't great.

Compare reavers: skilled rider, FnP, tons cheaper, and all their money attacks are HoW (aka counters other invis deathstars). They also wouldn't require you to take 175 points of dead weight either. Shining Spears don't compare as favorably, because they're an even worse base unit.

So, yes they can be deathstared. But the farseers are force multipliers, and their impact is based on the base strength of the unit they buff. If you just HAVE to play skyweavers or Harlies in a tournament setting, then this is a great unit. If you're looking for an undescovered gem, this likely falls short. Probably the biggest advantage this star has in competitive play is that it's highly likely your opponent has never seen it before.

Some great comments, thanks.

While I feel that skyweavers are not overcosted, they simply pay for everything they have. Everything they have makes them a bit of an overkill unit. Massed Str 6 firepower with their CC attacks means they're going to murder ANYTHING they get into combat with, assuming it's the right target.

I don't feel they're overcosted to be honest, especially with 2 wounds as base. I wasn't aware they cannot use their formation reroll if a farseer is with the unit. That changes things significantly. To be hoenst, I would totally build this unit if there wasn't an extra 150-200 point buy-in for the formation otherwise. I feel 300+ points is fair for what they provide.

Having thought it out, 10 Scatter-bike with farseers is a better choice, I wish there was more strategy in list building within the current Eldar codex. Several units are so good, it makes the codex write lists itself.

Sky weavers should have 3+ armor and the Eldar windrider jetbikes should have 4+ armor, and a lot of things would be fixed in 40k

Belly wrote:

Rolling 3 farseers on telepathy guarantees Invis, or at least shrouding.

No it doesn't.

 DarknessEternal wrote:

Belly wrote:

Rolling 3 farseers on telepathy guarantees Invis, or at least shrouding.

No it doesn't.

Way to add to the discussion dude.

87.5% chance of inivis.
93.6% chance of getting either invis or shrouding.

Go back to your cave now.

Belly wrote:

 DarknessEternal wrote:

Belly wrote:

Rolling 3 farseers on telepathy guarantees Invis, or at least shrouding.

No it doesn't.

Way to add to the discussion dude.

87.5% chance of inivis.
93.6% chance of getting either invis or shrouding.

Go back to your cave now.

Still not a guarantee.

Assault units need to be two of three things to be effective in a shooty edition. Cheap, fast, durable. A skyweaver's only strength is its speed.

Yes I understand that you're paying for everything the unit has, but you're not using it every turn. If you jink / turbo boost to get where you want, then you lose out on the shuriken cannon. Then if you don't jink, your models start dropping like flies to mass ap 4 weaponry.

DirtyDeeds wrote:
Assault units need to be two of three things to be effective in a shooty edition. Cheap, fast, durable. A skyweaver's only strength is its speed.

Yes I understand that you're paying for everything the unit has, but you're not using it every turn. If you jink / turbo boost to get where you want, then you lose out on the shuriken cannon. Then if you don't jink, your models start dropping like flies to mass ap 4 weaponry.

In a vaccume, agreed. Once you start factoring in Farseer support you can mitigate most of skyweavers weaknesses pretty quickly. Prescience mitigates jinking to some degree, and shroud/invis increases resilience to a respectable level.

As I said above, it's one of the better deathstar options in the Harlies codex. There are just better options to deathstar in both the Eldar and DE codex.

Groups of three with haywire. I'm running mostly harlequins (with a min-sized DE Ally detachment and one Vindicare Assassin) and they provide vital anti tank that's great at cracking big gnarly enemy vehicles. Knights, Land Raiders, even a big Typhon siege tank, they've popped em all and I wouldn't want them doing anything else.

Flinging a 60 point model into assault? Hell naw.