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Three night spinners seems unnecessary. Mainly because you'll have fewer and fewer targets to hit with the template, meaning less ability to use the dangerous terrain effect. Though not bad at killing targets the terrain rule is what really sets it apart. But you will only be able to hit so many targets with it. I'd say 2 would be the most you'd want/need to field, and 1 should be sufficient (apply pressure with wave serpents or falcons with mean occupants to draw away fire if that's your concern).

If you attend a tournament it is likely that some of the stronger lists will be mechanized. Realizing this you must surely see that before your Nightspinner can have any fun snaring infantry you have to get your enemy out of their tin cans first.

Remember for comparison, Fire prisms can bust transport tanks open then kill the infantry that fall out.
Nightspinners wait till the rest of your (diminished) antitank pops transports then hopes that the units that fall out have are either vulnerable to str: 6 ap: - weapons, or in a good position to be snared. Snaring some TH/SS terminators after their Landraider is popped would be a very exciting combo and would be quite game changing, but you have to realise that lots of armies don't rely on one hammer unit, so snaring individual units affects your opponent less; the obvious example here is Mech Guard. They don't care nearly as much if one of their units is snared and snared outside melta/ flamer range, 3 more identical or similar squads will likely be posing similar threats.

Nightspinners will probably work pretty well against a few specific opponents that rely on hammer units (Nob bikers, Thunderwolf cavalry, TH/SS termies, Jetseers) but they are hardly as useful in general as a Fire prism or a Falcon.

I like the part where a Fire Prism opens a transport AND kills the unit inside after it fall out. I wonder how the Fireprism will kill the Guard squad that falls out of it's destroyed tank and hides behind the wreckage? The Nightspinner, on the other hand, can send a barrage large blast template sailing over the wreckage and hammer the enemy scoring unit. The hiding guardsman have a 4+ cover (or 3+ if they go to ground) vs. the fire prism and only a 5+ save vs. the Nightspinner.

Let's look at the most common transport you will see in a tourney, the chimera. A Fire Prism will need 4's to pen a chimera. The Nightspinner will need 5's to pen the chimera and the Spinner will hit the chimera more often than the prism will. But why is the spinner shooting at tanks anyway? Aren't there other weapons in the Eldar codex to do that?

Is the prism the best weapon for the Eldar to open an enemy tank? The biggest transport the Eldar's oppoent can bring to the table is the Land Raider. A prism needs 6's to pen a LR while a brightlance needs a 5. Wouldn't the brightlance be the best anti-tank transport killer at range for the Eldar?

How about at close range? A serpent can drop off 5 Fire Dragons in front of an enemy transport and kill it with 5 meltaguns. The enemy troops will spill out and which weapon will be best to deal with the disembarked troops? A Prism or a Spinner? The troops will most likely be using cover for the shot whether behind the wreck or in the crater. The prism hits and the enemy takes a 4+ cover. The spinner, which hits more often, forces an armor save. The unit is now in dangerous terrain and less likely to make the move to assault the fire dragons who destroyed the tank. Any failed save will produce a pin check (barrage) and either a 5+ or 3+ armor save is taken. Let's see you have the unit in dangerous terrain and needs to make checks to move and assault, they then most likely need to make a pin check which can keep them from moving again. Finally the Spinner just hits more often and the prevelance of cover saves makes the AP difference between the two guns less important.

If you play in a tournament you are more likely to run into a horde list of some sort. In the case of Ork mobs anchored by a KFF, the Prism shot will be like pissing in the wind to the Ork Horde. Remember Eldar don't have a plethora of heavy flamers to stick in every Force Org slot like Guard. The 120+, 4+ cover save Orks will laugh off the prism shot while the Spinner shot will not only slow the horde down, but inflict more damage than the Prism ever could.

So we are to believe the Eldar NEED another anti-tank template when brightlances and fusion guns do a better job and with the Eldar's lack of cover save denying templates they can easily choose to forgo a superior weapon to deal with the weakness of the Eldar codex.

Actually I'd venture that nightspinners will be poor against Thunderwolves and TH/SS termies for the following reasons:
1. Low model count. You won't do much damage to these units either with the blast or with the dangerous terrain tests.
2. 3+ invulnerable save. You do still get this against dangerous terrain, which further decreases casualty count.

Yes some of the stronger builds will be mech lists, but usually these will be mech guard and mech marines. For the former long range fire (pulse lasers and TL EMLs for my army) can hit the chimeras, and the spinner can get some good damage on the guardsmen (between pinning and a likely following morale check they may very well be shut down for at least a turn). Against the latter, marine armies tend to be short range. Again S8 fire to knock out their rhinos and the spinner can slow the advance of the short ranged marines.

Foldalot wrote:If you attend a tournament it is likely that some of the stronger lists will be mechanized.

Why because full mech lists have won much of anything nationwide? According to the results posted on Dakka fully Mech lists have not won much of anything. Are Space Wolves a common site on the top table? How's the Prism going to do against 6 long fangs in cover? 6 Long Fangs in cover sound like a common unit on the top tables. Let's say the Prism and Spinner both shoot at 6 long fangs in cover. Let's throw out the fact the Spinner will hit on target more often and say they both hit 6 long fangs. The prism will kill, on average, 3 fangs and force a morale check. The Spinner will kill, on average, 2 fangs, cause a pin check and then a morale check. Who is doing better against the Long Fangs? Did you know the Spinner doesn't need LOS to those 5 missiles to get the job done?

Ail-Shan wrote:Actually I'd venture that nightspinners will be poor against Thunderwolves and TH/SS termies for the following reasons:
1. Low model count. You won't do much damage to these units either with the blast or with the dangerous terrain tests.
2. 3+ invulnerable save. You do still get this against dangerous terrain, which further decreases casualty count.

Yes some of the stronger builds will be mech lists, but usually these will be mech guard and mech marines. For the former long range fire (pulse lasers and TL EMLs for my army) can hit the chimeras, and the spinner can get some good damage on the guardsmen (between pinning and a likely following morale check they may very well be shut down for at least a turn). Against the latter, marine armies tend to be short range. Again S8 fire to knock out their rhinos and the spinner can slow the advance of the short ranged marines.

I disagree with the assumption that forcing dangerous terrain tests doesn't work. When nob bikers were all the rage I would lash them into terrain to slow them and force them to take those dangerous terrain tests. Against units like that every wound you can slap on them is help for knocking them down.

I think a mechdar army that trades the shuri-cannons for lances on the serpents could work well with three spinners in it's backfield.

The Nightspinner is great against those big expensive units because it slows them down, the kills it might get are just the cherry on top. It can really screw with your opponents movement if they have a limited number of important units.

@Darthdiggler
Thanks for the constructive analysis, it's actually all that I wanted to read, and I am genuinely pleased that you did respond.
Doesn't mean I agree on all of your points however.

I would prefer not to bicker about the most common armies that are being played, but I was just highlighting that you need to plan for both horde and mech armies and the NIght spinner is not ideally suited to face mechanized armies (I did not highlight this for your benefit). And yes I realize that Fire prism should not be shot individually at Land raiders, and- remarkably- I do use fusion guns and brightlances to kill landraiders.

Fundamentally my problem with he nightspinner is that it weakens your antitank- maybe not your anti AV 14- but nonetheless the loss is apparent. That's all I'm really saying. As the points value of games increases, the enemy bring more tanks and you need to counter with more antitank, and IMO this squeezes the Night spinner out of contention when compared to other choices; I prefer Falcons but Fire prism is a more direct comparison for talking about the NIghtspinner.

What type of Eldar armies would you feel benefit most from the nightspinner, and at what points levels?

I think the Spinner would work well with the close range shooting of most Eldar units. So many of them, Guardians, Dire Avengers, Warp Spiders, even Fire Dragons all have deadly close range shooting. The problem comes when there are two small enemy units or one big unit that survives the shots and assaults the T3 Eldar models the next turn. The Spinner will slow that assault down and in some cases make it fail.

I like the Spinner on it's own for dealy with enemy units hiding out of LOS from the Eldar. My foot lists have a long way to go to dig someone out of a spot I can't see them in. The Spinner solves that problem.

DarthDiggler wrote:I think the Spinner would work well with the close range shooting of most Eldar units. So many of them, Guardians, Dire Avengers, Warp Spiders, even Fire Dragons all have deadly close range shooting. The problem comes when there are two small enemy units or one big unit that survives the shots and assaults the T3 Eldar models the next turn. The Spinner will slow that assault down and in some cases make it fail.

That's a good point. However, if the template scatters your own units might be victims of the monofilament cannons.

Just a quick question...what is the range on the night spinner's weapon? I'm putting a prism together and I'm just curious

Gorechild wrote:Just a quick question...what is the range on the night spinner's weapon? I'm putting a prism together and I'm just curious

The range is 72" and its a barrage weapon.

Brilliant thanks wuestenfux. I will go ahead with my plan of magnetizing the weapons then could be intresting to give a go!

Not sure if magnetizing works here very well.
I'll buy one Spinner (two in toto) by tomorrow.