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And I'm trying to find a fun, moderately-optimized way to use them. Forge World hasn't really gotten its act together yet this edition, so their rules leave a bit to be desired compared to last edition, but I think I have an inkling of how I'd like to use them. I'm thinking of bringing an aeldari list that includes harlequin and drukhari elements to get access to as many leadership debuffing effects as possible. Team those up with Irrilyth and the spectres (including the exarch), and I ought to be able to start evaporating enemy units with morale checks starting around turn 2 (because many of those effects require I get closer than deepstriking will allow). I can also mix in a farseer and shadow seer to take advantage of the enemy's reduced leadership with mind war, mirage launchers, etc.

So yeah. 8th edition freakshow is the general idea. Does that seem like a reasonable foundation for moderately-optimized games?

Also, what are your thoughts regarding the exarch upgrades? The exarch-only weapons seem like a trap as the haywire blaster is heavy on a platform that will generally want to move quickly, and the prism blaster trades range and AP for damage that won't matter against most of the infantry units I'll likely be pointing the spectres at. Plus the prism blaster loses the heavy flamer profile.

The exarch weapon is certainly a trap. If I were to make a freakshow list I would use a large unit of Spectres and Irillyth with webway strike to deliver the two units at the same time since their leadership rules (I forget their name) are both applicable at the same time since they have different names and their range is large enough to effect a unit after deep striking in. I would suggest a hemlock and farseer for mind war also but then would deviate the rest of the list to make it less specialized and more general.

The leadership modifying abilities available to you are a bit of a trap. They're a nice bonus to have for the units that have them if they work, but unfortunately, morale is a mostly negligible mechanic in 8th edition. Most units are either run as MSU that are functionally immune to morale, or are hordes that get enough special rules to ignore it with little effort. Hemlocks are worth taking because they're good before the morale modifier even comes into consideration.

The problem with Spectres is that they are very overcosted right now. Their high cost means that you'll have to pump a fair amount of support into them to get as much value out of them as you can, but in doing so, you end up putting even more points behind them that can end up turning into a black hole.

Running them as Alaitoc is a bit of a no brainer. As are Dark Reapers (although they're a no-brainer for any list, they're extremely undercosted and on good standing to contest being the best unit in the game) for support.

Harlequins would work well for providing offensive pressure to support Spectres in their work, but Shining Spears would do that well enough on their own for the most part (they're also straight up better than Spectres at their job as well).