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I was thinking about using cloudstriking falcons to deploy a dire avenger shrine as part of a craftworld warhost. At first it seemed like a great idea but now i'm wondering if being forced to shoot all the falcons at a single target is too limiting when you consider how expensive the unit is.

Has anyone tried doing this? How did it work out for you?

I have used a cloudstrike with dragons in one and avengers in the other two. I don't think it is too limiting to have them all shoot at the same thing, 9 S8 shots is decent but the dragons are still more powerful at killing hard tanks.

Make no mistake that unit will be dead by the end of the game, but with decent positioning of the avengers you can keep the tanks from being assaulted and glanced down by S4, so they will survive a while. And while they are preoccupied with that third of your army in their deployment there is a lot less shooting at the other 2 thirds. You drop in and pop something tough then you keep the attention of your opponent on them for as long as possible.

Disclaimer: I've not tried this yet.

This is one time I might use a mis-matched HW on the turret.
Usually you'd put a Bright Lance on each Falcon, to work with the pulse laser.
But, since you'll have 3 PLs firing at the same target, put MLs on there, or SLs, maybe.
Falcons are usually built for AV. Carrying Fire Dragons in there too, that's a lot of AV, all in one place. So, spread the purpose around a bit.

To protect your Dragons, fire them, then run behind a line of Avengers (or something else better suited).
Or, Fire your Dragons, and run-and-fire your Avengers in front of them.

The Falcons will still easily destroy any light and most medium vehicles, but with a high-ROF weapon, they can now do some damage to hordes too.

I could see that working. If you're up against something where 3xBL would do more than SLs even atop 3xPL, you probably want to be using FDs anyways.

An option for rebalancing away from AT if you need it. I like it.

I was thinking of building the falcons with bright lances (and possibly shuriken cannons as well) to deal with high armor threats and the dire avenger shrine to deal with troops. Three squads of six avengers declaring their killing strike is 54 bladestorming shots at 18" range. And at BS5 to boot.

It would come to 624 points by my count (654 with the shuriken cannons). Very expensive in my opinion but possibly worth it.

I play the Cloudstrike regularly. I've won two tiny tournaments (8-man) with it and came in third overall at Dragonfall GT using it.

The most important feature of the Cloudstrike is the Zero Scatter. You can put them anywhere on the table you want to--9 AV12 Hull Points (I recommend investing the 45 points for the 5++ Holo Fields; they work in CC as well). This means you can disembark up to 18 models exactly where you want them.

I always include a unit of Fire Dragons. At the Dragonfall, I brought two min-sized units of Dire Avengers (ObSec) in case I wanted to be able to drop ObSec in my opponent's backfield on Turn Two. Falcons, in my opinion, are optimally armed when maximizing AP2. This means equipping 3 Star Cannons and upgrading the underslung to Shuriken Cannons. In my Dragonfall list, I was short a few points, so one Falcon ran the stock Shuriken Cannon.

In the 5 games at the Dragonfall tournament, the dragons blew up a Ghost Ark (hardly necessary), 2 big Trukks and an Imperial Knight--all with a single round of shooting. In one game (versus Daemons), they did not disembark at all. The unit survived until the end of every game.

In those same 5 games, the Cloudstrike accounted for a Tomb Spyder & a few miscellaneous Necrons, an Ork Trukk and Looted vehicle, A SINGLE meganob (TERRIBLE TERRIBLE MISTAKES WERE MADE), some Khorne Dogs and a Dread Knight. The Cloudstrike squadron was completely destroyed in only one game (my only loss--and entirely my fault for mis-playing them). In three games the squadron was intact (if short a hull point or two).

The fact that the Squadron has to fire at the same target really informs the load options: If you want to drop 18 Dire Avengers as part of a Shrine, then put Bright Lances on the Falcons and don't bother to upgrade the underslung to a Shuriken Cannon, since you'll be firing the squadron at AV12+ and polishing off whatever pops out (or whatever's standing nearby) with the avengers.

If, like me, you enjoy watching Fire Dragons die horribly in explosions they caused themselves, either loadout for 5+ hordes (Scatter Laser & Shuriken Cannon) or for smaller 2+ targets (Star Cannon & Shuriken Cannon).

Enjoy!

negasmurf wrote:
I was thinking of building the falcons with bright lances (and possibly shuriken cannons as well) to deal with high armor threats and the dire avenger shrine to deal with troops. Three squads of six avengers declaring their killing strike is 54 bladestorming shots at 18" range. And at BS5 to boot.

It would come to 624 points by my count (654 with the shuriken cannons). Very expensive in my opinion but possibly worth it.

I’d not bother with the shuriken cannons. Those points could probably be spent better elsewhere. Eldar armies can generally get enough of that kind of fire on other platforms, for less.

Also, on the topic of building: Magnets!