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I've heard of a successful tactic called a bloodletter bomb. I'm not sure how it works but I wonder if Banshees could duplicate it. As far as I can tell the 2 units aren't that dissimilar. Is there some way to pull this off?

There's actually a very big difference between the two. For one thing bloodletters are troops, unlike Banshees, making them fill a mandatory slot without taking away CP from your army. Furthermore, although both have similar weapon stats for their weapons, Bloodletters hit a LOT harder than Banshees do. The first round of combat they get +1S and A, meaning they get a lot more attacks that can actually wound (Banshees only have S3), AND on 6's to wound they deal 2 damage instead of 1. To top it off, Bloodletters are cheaper than Banshees and are able to fielded in squads of up to 30, while Banshees are stuck at 10 max. Their 5+ invuln also makes them more survivable than Banshees in most instances. So bloodletters are not only an immediate threat with a very good chance to get into combat the moment they deep strike (thanks to +1 to charge from the instrument and the cheap 1 CP banner of blood stratagem for 3D6 charge) but they pretty much murder the vast majority of enemy targets in the first round of combat and with a usual unit size of 20-30, they hit pretty hard. Banshees fill a much more niche disruption role that is wasted if you try to deep strike them via Webway Strike. They don't have the weight of attacks or strength to do much damage outside of backfield shooting units like devastators, and their high mobility is best used in conjunction with Wave Serpents as transports rather than wasting it with a deep strike stratagem. They're really only good for their ability to ignore overwatch, so they're more of a way to tie up annoying shooting units and forcing them to fall back or to set up charges for other units in your army.

Pretty much, there's nothing in the regular eldar army that can replicate what the Bloodletter bomb does outside of mayyyybe Wraithblades? But that is a lot more expensive of an investment and requires several supporting units to pull off, whereas a bloodletter bomb is fairly a "fire and forget" unit, outside of maybe herald support.

There are essentially a handful of "powerful" melee units. These units normally have an egregious amount of attacks, cheap cost, an ability to re-roll charges, or deal additional damage, are occasionally armed with brutal weapons, etc. This is an edition where a "good" close combat unit may be able to roll upwards of 100-150 dice.

Banshees lack all of the traits in 8th edition which make an effective close combat unit. A toughness 3 model with two strength 3 attacks (power sword), with 4+ armour just evaporates under any hostile attention. They don't deal anywhere near enough damage or wounds to "bomb" them.

The closest you can get is Biel-Tan Shining Spears + Avatar but you need some wraith-balls to run this and there are more problems with this to explain than the actual benefits.

I doubt 10 banshees could even reliably kill 5 standard marines, so i dont know what the are good for. The models have allways been great, and I would like some of those new plastics. But theu better get a rules update because they lack true purpose.

10 Banshees do kill 5 marines.

If they also shoot all their pistols anyway and Exarch is upgraded to S4.

 Shadenuat wrote:
10 Banshees do kill 5 marines.

If they also shoot all their pistols anyway and Exarch is upgraded to S4.

Which just shows how bad they are. In 8th ed you need hell of a lot more damage output than that.

Melee only really get's to be considered if it is in cheap enugh units that are More then deadly enough in melee. That have a way of getting a strike in before they die.


Which shows why shooting is predominant.

 Shadenuat wrote:
10 Banshees do kill 5 marines.

If they also shoot all their pistols anyway and Exarch is upgraded to S4.

Which means they kill two primaris marines... wow, that blows.

IMO their problem has always been S3 - there is a gulf between S3 and S4, and I don't think any unit can be efficient at dealing damage with S3 unless they get a huge amount of attacks behind them. They really need more strength or +1 to wound on their weapons.

While for they are generally rubbish, they are nice to tarpit units with heavy weapons so they have to move away the following turn or charging a Tau gunline to deny them overwatch by declaring them as targets for a charge.

Good for tying up a unit for a turn with a cheap squad and that's about as big of a bomb as they get.

the Banshee's are a victim of the endless copy/paste from the previous edition or three malaise that afflicts a fair few Eldar units (Wraithlords and Falcons are the others that spring to mind)

and like everyone has noted the s3 thing is a hangover from when everything was balanced against a GEQ, which has generally shifted over time to stuff being balanced against a MEQ, which in turn leads to moar diceys being the answer to most cc situations

When were things balanced against GEQ?

Banshees as they are are a tarpit unit, not a unit for killing stuff.

Which would be...fine, but everything down to like tau fire warriors just kicks their teeth in in melee.

 Jidmah wrote:
Which means they kill two primaris marines... wow, that blows

I'm surprised we even evaluate anything in marines. However, what blows is not how many Banshees really kill, but what happens with Banshees when Primaris hit back.

 Turnip Jedi wrote:
the Banshee's are a victim of the endless copy/paste from the previous edition

Well to be honest GW slowly gets somewhere. It used to be you disembarked from WS and waited 1 turn of enemy shooting then died with last 1 model. Although at some point Power weapons did negate FNP.

Now look at them, charging from transports 24", ignoring Overwatch and even -1 to hit helps.

An edition or two, or three, more and maybe Banshees would get 3 Attacks in their profile or something.

Yeah, the problem with banshees is pretty easy to see when you look at how they do vs primaris marines.

On the charge, they kill 2. The primaris marines kill 2 back. The next turn, between bolt pistols and melee the marines kill 2 more (pistols make up for Shock Assault). The banshees kill 1 more.

Then on the banshees turn, they kill 1, and the sarge kills the remaining 2 banshees with his melee+his shooting and melee in the next turn.

The fact that a generalist MEQ troop unit with 30" range shooting can edge out a supposed anti-MEQ specialist melee unit IN MELEE is just amazing.

the_scotsman wrote:
Yeah, the problem with banshees is pretty easy to see when you look at how they do vs primaris marines.

On the charge, they kill 2. The primaris marines kill 2 back. The next turn, between bolt pistols and melee the marines kill 2 more (pistols make up for Shock Assault). The banshees kill 1 more.

Then on the banshees turn, they kill 1, and the sarge kills the remaining 2 banshees with his melee+his shooting and melee in the next turn.

The fact that a generalist MEQ troop unit with 30" range shooting can edge out a supposed anti-MEQ specialist melee unit IN MELEE is just amazing.

Pretty much this. In an army of so called unit specialists Banshees are beaten by the shooty meq units in combat a significant amount of the time and for better points value (Those primaris will def get work done at 30" before being charged unlike the banshees) is the nail in their coffin. That upsets me greatly as I ADORE Howling Banshees and most aspects.

They desperately need a boost to killing power for their cost.

10 Banshees only kill 5 Tac Marines if they haven't been touched and they shoot first and everyone makes it into combat on the charge.

5 Banshees on the charge, after shooting, kill something like 2-3 Tac Marines.

5 naked Tac Marines on the charge, after shooting, kill 4-5 Banshees.

Banshees don't beat Tac Marines by much *in CC*, man for man.

Banshees are a "CC" unit in that they have swords and pistols, but they are *not* a CC unit in terms of their killiness. They're super fast and deny overwatch. They tie things up. They lead the charge. But they don't kill squat in CC. And they can't survive a rebuttle.

Therefore, you use them to shut down a nasty shooty threat, or to lead the charge while bringing in other heavy hitters. Banshees can't survive in combat against even backfielders (Devs, Fire Warriors, Guardsmen, and Kabs all do significant damage to them in CC), so you need their relief to come in on the same turn. CWE don't have very many units that synergize with that, though.

Thus, I find that either I have them lead the charge for a Phoenix Lord and Aspect Host, or use them to tie up vehicles. They aren't going to kill anything, and they aren't going to tarpit infantry or MCs, but they have their uses.

Who cares how many they kill, they can move 30" with the charge without taking any overwatch, they are meant to tie up units and kill non melee units over a couple turns, aka shooting units.

Edit: They also have a couple stratagems to wound on +1, charge even farther, etc...

Kill non melee units in a couple of turns; now that's what Autarch would call efficiency.

 Shadenuat wrote:
Kill non melee units in a couple of turns; now that's what Autarch would call efficiency.

If its Broadsides i think anyone would be happy with that outcome, remember with 10 of them you can make sure units cant fallback. You dont need to kill everything in 1 turn.

How many turns of shooting does it take to kill those same units? More than 1, so why are you so surprise it takes melee units a couple turns too?

All the melle aspects need some serious revisiting.

In my experience banshees have always been about removing saves. Their swords should flat out ignore invune saves and with their extreme agility they should have a -1 to hit them in CC for the cost of 0 additional points. They should also pile in and consolidate 6 inchs like hormagaunts.


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 Amishprn86 wrote:

 Shadenuat wrote:
Kill non melee units in a couple of turns; now that's what Autarch would call efficiency.

If its Broadsides i think anyone would be happy with that outcome, remember with 10 of them you can make sure units cant fallback. You dont need to kill everything in 1 turn.

How many turns of shooting does it take to kill those same units? More than 1, so why are you so surprise it takes melee units a couple turns too?

ignore overwatch is big. Since autarch's already can do that though banshees aren't needed to fill that niche.

They will after the index unit moves to legends ^^

 Tyranid Horde wrote:
They will after the index unit moves to legends ^^

Hopefully with the new eldar codex they will allow an autarch to take a banshee mask.

If it's Broadsides then usually the rest of Tau army is probably dead. And there are units which can one-shot Broadsides, SS or Autarch on bike for example.

Yeah, Banshees can tie units up. But that being their primary function? Who decided that? It's just how Eldar players use them because that's only thing they are good for.

They will after the index unit moves to legends ^^

There is a Warlord trait to ignore OW. Or just ram units with Wave Serpents.

 Xenomancers wrote:
All the melle aspects need some serious revisiting.

In my experience banshees have always been about removing saves. Their swords should flat out ignore invune saves and with their extreme agility they should have a -1 to hit them in CC for the cost of 0 additional points. They should also pile in and consolidate 6 inchs like hormagaunts.


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 Amishprn86 wrote:

 Shadenuat wrote:
Kill non melee units in a couple of turns; now that's what Autarch would call efficiency.

If its Broadsides i think anyone would be happy with that outcome, remember with 10 of them you can make sure units cant fallback. You dont need to kill everything in 1 turn.

How many turns of shooting does it take to kill those same units? More than 1, so why are you so surprise it takes melee units a couple turns too?

ignore overwatch is big. Since autarch's already can do that though banshees aren't needed to fill that niche.

Banshees do have -1 to hit in the fight phase. They're just T3, 4+, and Intercessors now get friggin 3 WS3+ attacks when you charge them. Banshees being 11ppm, Intercessors are more efficient at murdering banshees than banshees are at murdering intercessors.

A superfast hyperspecialist melee killing machine armed with a ninja sword charging into combat gets 2 attacks, and a lumpy spaceman holding a rifle who gets charged now busts out his sweet tae kwon do and gets 3 attacks.

Also, FWIW, equal points of Dark Reapers kill 1/3 more Intercessors from 48" away. So...there's that.

But Intercessors cant stop overwatch, charge +3 inches with advance and charge, and are -1 to hit in melee, that means they are 4+ to hit against them. They also cost more, but at the same time dont have the same psychic/stratagem support.

Banshees can literally charge from 40" away, re-roll hits/wounds, stop overwatch vs any number of viable targets and can get a 3+ save as well, sure you wont do all those things at once, but those are options. You can make them more killy or more tanky.

If you have 5 intercessors on 1 objective, then banshees taking it from them are a good unit to have, charge some odd 30" give the leader the Executioner blade (+1str, -3, D3) that'll leave 1.5-2 guys left, you consolidate to stop them from falling back. Now they attack you with what 5 attacks as WS 4+ now killing maybe 1.

Not really....I'm not sure where your math is coming from, and why you assume any Eldar player would be spending 3-5 psychic powers to make Banshees "almost useful".

 Amishprn86 wrote:
But Intercessors cant stop overwatch, charge +3 inches with advance and charge, and are -1 to hit in melee, that means they are 4+ to hit against them. They also cost more, but at the same time dont have the same psychic/stratagem support.

Banshees can literally charge from 40" away, re-roll hits/wounds, stop overwatch vs any number of viable targets and can get a 3+ save as well, sure you wont do all those things at once, but those are options. You can make them more killy or more tanky.

If you have 5 intercessors on 1 objective, then banshees taking it from them are a good unit to have, charge some odd 30" give the leader the Executioner blade (+1str, -3, D3) that'll leave 1.5-2 guys left, you consolidate to stop them from falling back. Now they attack you with what 5 attacks as WS 4+ now killing maybe 1.

Yeah, in order to charge some odd 30" and reroll hits and wounds you just need to buy a Farseer, a Spiritseer, and then cheat I guess because there's a +1 to wound spell but not a reroll wounds spell, we'll assume you meant that so two spiritseers.

Only - let's see... 240 points of support for your 72 point banshee squad, and we'll just assume all three of those psychic powers go off and they roll average on their advance+charge rolls to get there.

And indeed, when you arrive with all your rerolls and your +1 to wound and your Executioner exarch you do an impressive 4.5 wounds on average to the intercessors holding that objective, killing two. The remaining three kill two of your five banshees in return.

Then they stay on the objective because they have obsec.

Then they shoot the banshees in the face with their pistols and punch them again, killing two more and losing 1 in return. Then on your turn, you kill one more, and he kills your exarch, still having retained the objective they were holding the whole time.

Boy it's a good thing we compared that 312 points of banshees+support to only 85 points of intercessors, and not 312.

If you'd taken just three dark reapers with Guide, and skipped the two spiritseers entirely, you could kill 3/5 of those intercessors in a single round of shooting.

They can't stop overwatch, but they don't take overwatch. They can't get -1 to hit in melee, good thing the intercessors don't get to punch back if you shoot them.They can't charge 30", but they can just sit back and shoot from the comfort of an objective (and possibly a cover save) that you own.

This is why shooting is king undisputed respected saluted and seen for the wonder it is in 8th.

the_scotsman wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
All the melle aspects need some serious revisiting.

In my experience banshees have always been about removing saves. Their swords should flat out ignore invune saves and with their extreme agility they should have a -1 to hit them in CC for the cost of 0 additional points. They should also pile in and consolidate 6 inchs like hormagaunts.


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 Amishprn86 wrote:

 Shadenuat wrote:
Kill non melee units in a couple of turns; now that's what Autarch would call efficiency.

If its Broadsides i think anyone would be happy with that outcome, remember with 10 of them you can make sure units cant fallback. You dont need to kill everything in 1 turn.

How many turns of shooting does it take to kill those same units? More than 1, so why are you so surprise it takes melee units a couple turns too?

ignore overwatch is big. Since autarch's already can do that though banshees aren't needed to fill that niche.

Banshees do have -1 to hit in the fight phase. They're just T3, 4+, and Intercessors now get friggin 3 WS3+ attacks when you charge them. Banshees being 11ppm, Intercessors are more efficient at murdering banshees than banshees are at murdering intercessors.

A superfast hyperspecialist melee killing machine armed with a ninja sword charging into combat gets 2 attacks, and a lumpy spaceman holding a rifle who gets charged now busts out his sweet tae kwon do and gets 3 attacks.

Also, FWIW, equal points of Dark Reapers kill 1/3 more Intercessors from 48" away. So...there's that.

Both units specialize against each other though. So whoever hits first should win. I wouldn't be opposed to all aspects getting +1 attack in the first round just like marines get. In many cases aspects are in fact MEQ and suffer from all the same issues marines did. Finally marines have a troop choice that plays like it should. Now it's time for Eldar to get some aspects playing like they should.


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Harlequins are another story....they put banshees to shame.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

the_scotsman wrote:

 Amishprn86 wrote:
But Intercessors cant stop overwatch, charge +3 inches with advance and charge, and are -1 to hit in melee, that means they are 4+ to hit against them. They also cost more, but at the same time dont have the same psychic/stratagem support.

Banshees can literally charge from 40" away, re-roll hits/wounds, stop overwatch vs any number of viable targets and can get a 3+ save as well, sure you wont do all those things at once, but those are options. You can make them more killy or more tanky.

If you have 5 intercessors on 1 objective, then banshees taking it from them are a good unit to have, charge some odd 30" give the leader the Executioner blade (+1str, -3, D3) that'll leave 1.5-2 guys left, you consolidate to stop them from falling back. Now they attack you with what 5 attacks as WS 4+ now killing maybe 1.

Yeah, in order to charge some odd 30" and reroll hits and wounds you just need to buy a Farseer, a Spiritseer, and then cheat I guess because there's a +1 to wound spell but not a reroll wounds spell, we'll assume you meant that so two spiritseers.

Only - let's see... 240 points of support for your 72 point banshee squad, and we'll just assume all three of those psychic powers go off and they roll average on their advance+charge rolls to get there.

And indeed, when you arrive with all your rerolls and your +1 to wound and your Executioner exarch you do an impressive 4.5 wounds on average to the intercessors holding that objective, killing two. The remaining three kill two of your five banshees in return.

Then they stay on the objective because they have obsec.

Then they shoot the banshees in the face with their pistols and punch them again, killing two more and losing 1 in return. Then on your turn, you kill one more, and he kills your exarch, still having retained the objective they were holding the whole time.

Boy it's a good thing we compared that 312 points of banshees+support to only 85 points of intercessors, and not 312.

If you'd taken just three dark reapers with Guide, and skipped the two spiritseers entirely, you could kill 3/5 of those intercessors in a single round of shooting.

They can't stop overwatch, but they don't take overwatch. They can't get -1 to hit in melee, good thing the intercessors don't get to punch back if you shoot them.They can't charge 30", but they can just sit back and shoot from the comfort of an objective (and possibly a cover save) that you own.

This is why shooting is king undisputed respected saluted and seen for the wonder it is in 8th.

Marines can shoot back if you shoot them though where if you kill them in CC they only get a single CC attack back with the banner.

I just have to give props to the_scotsman installing a line from Be Prepared in his response. Kudos.