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So I'm playing around with pure Eldar lists to be competitive, keen to avoid the standard build and try something different in a tournament. I'd like to try adding in a seer council. But I don't know if they'd be any good, or if it's an incredibly expensive unit to get squashed. So I was wondering if anyone used them? And to what effect. What are their strengths and weaknesses? What's a good combo for them? What powers do people fish for? What do they want to avoid?

Thanks in advance.

I've thrown my two cents at you already, but to answer one of your questions that I haven't in your army build thread:

At 1850 with a Council / Wraithknight / Scatbikes / Hemlocks I got 3rd in a ~37 man tournament. In that sense it's very competitive. If you're asking about the real tournaments - LVO / Adepticon, then no probably not. You'll run into sustainability problems where you can't consistently pick up powers you require to combat certain opponents, or fail to cast a spell at a crucial moment, or run into a Culexus in a pod.

To be honest, I don't think I'll ever be attending tournaments at that level. Mostly local tournaments and such. There's still a decent standard but nothing quite at that power level.

So what I'm thinking is a min council on bikes and add in the seer from the CAD. With that in mind I was thinking telepathy on one, divination on a second, and runes of fate on the third. Perhaps going sanctic on the locks for sanctuary. But as you've seen in my list I normally only run a single seer. So I'm not used to this many options.

 Khaine's Wrath wrote:
So I'm playing around with pure Eldar lists to be competitive, keen to avoid the standard build and try something different in a tournament.

Uh, skyrunner seer council is the most competitive way to run a seer council and the most common way to see them in tournament play.

I haven't seen a seer council in a tournament yet. The last one I went to 4 of the top 5 were Eldar and there wasn't a single council.

3rd place finisher at nova is a seer council list. They just go around and shriek/mind war the crap out of everything. And they have hit and run so you can't tar pit the star.

How do they gain hit and run? Is it Baharroth? Or is there something else? I want to keep them all on bikes for aesthetics. I know that seems odd coming from someone wanting to be competitive. But that's also why I want to roll on sanctic for a chance of gate.

Yeah baha

Baharroth is the typical drug of choice for H&R. There is however the Forgeworld alternative whose name I won't butcher without reference - the mini-fire Prism-phoenix lord.

I haven't been partial to H&R myself. It's expensive, useful only every so often, and limits mobility on the bike squad as it denies epic turbo-boosting. There have definitely been moments I've wished I've had it (first turn assaulters - Skyhammer, Broodkin, Wulfen).

As far as what to roll, I find that very game dependent. Secondarily I find it roll dependent. For example on my first Farseer on my first roll I pick up Invisibility - if I were facing a Tau list this ability is crucial and I had planned on rolling two Farseers on the chart to try and pick it up. This opens me up to alternatives and the thought process goes from there.

Generically speaking however, with three Farseers I do one Fate, one Telepathy, and one Divination/Sanctic.

Any competitive seer council needs to include baharroth, not only for hit & run, but also for not scattering when using gate of infinity.

Furthermore, up the number of seers. 7-8 warlocks, baharroth, and 5 farseers is a great number of bodies, dice, and psychic powers being thrown around.

In nova and etc formats, it's especially effective throwing out 3+ shrieks a turn as well as any cleansing flames, vortexes, or eldritch storms.

That seems pointlessly excessive. It's also rather difficult to get 5 farseers into the same unit in a battle-forged army.

You're talking about a thousand point unit, and you kept adding to it to make it less susceptible to harm, when if it were just cheaper, it wouldn't need all that protection.

I don't understand the "need" for hit and run; you control their movement, and they can move 4 feet, why would you ever let them get assaulted? And deep strike/infiltrate assaults are controlled by you as well, before you try that one.

The council's effective range is going to be within 9" for cleansing flame, psychic shriek, and other witchfires, as well as 12" for shooting. Baharroth allows non scatter when using gate of infinity. Needless to say, you'll be close to the enemy. Furthermore, hit & run is also used offensively and prevents the unit from being tied up if they don't kill a unit in one round of combat.

5 seers also helps ensure getting the powers you want. As a deathstar, it is not only incredibly resilient, but will also pump out a lot of damage. More points invested in this case means more damage done.

You're suggesting it be an entire army though. Your unit is ~1200 points.

One unit will simply not win any games in the modern era.

 Rypher wrote:
Any competitive seer council needs to include baharroth, not only for hit & run, but also for not scattering when using gate of infinity.

Furthermore, up the number of seers. 7-8 warlocks, baharroth, and 5 farseers is a great number of bodies, dice, and psychic powers being thrown around.

In nova and etc formats, it's especially effective throwing out 3+ shrieks a turn as well as any cleansing flames, vortexes, or eldritch storms.

I thought a unit couldn't cast the same power more than once? How are you able to cast three different Psychic Shrieks if they are in the same unit?

DirtyDeeds wrote:

 Rypher wrote:
Any competitive seer council needs to include baharroth, not only for hit & run, but also for not scattering when using gate of infinity.

Furthermore, up the number of seers. 7-8 warlocks, baharroth, and 5 farseers is a great number of bodies, dice, and psychic powers being thrown around.

In nova and etc formats, it's especially effective throwing out 3+ shrieks a turn as well as any cleansing flames, vortexes, or eldritch storms.

I thought a unit couldn't cast the same power more than once? How are you able to cast three different Psychic Shrieks if they are in the same unit?

NOVA allows a unit to cast the same psychic shooting more than once, not sure about ITC

Some interesting thoughts.

@Darkness
BFS this past year was won by that exact army. 5 farseers, baharroth, a few scatterbikes, and a wraithknight. Zach, my good friend and fellow club member, was able to go 6-0 over the weekend with said super seer council, beating out many top tier players including past and present American ETC members.

Likewise, the recent ITC gt, Hammer in the New Year, was won by Matt, also playing a 5 farseer / baharroth / wknight council.

Yes, it is points intensive and yes it is pretty much your "whole army." The fact remains that it is quite the resilient unit that puts out horrendous amounts of damage, enough to make it one of the best deathstars in the current meta. : )


@Thread
NOVA as well as ETC and other UK events read psycher / psycher unit as an individual model and not a whole unit, thus allowing each psycher in a real unit to cast multiple powers. One farseer can't cast shriek twice, but two in a unit can. ITC, however, does not allow this whatsoever. Both event wins give some credibility in both formats to the overall strength of a full seer council (on jetbikes, of course).

 Rypher wrote:
@Darkness
BFS this past year was won by that exact army. 5 farseers, baharroth, a few scatterbikes, and a wraithknight. Zach, my good friend and fellow club member, was able to go 6-0 over the weekend with said super seer council, beating out many top tier players including past and present American ETC members.

Likewise, the recent ITC gt, Hammer in the New Year, was won by Matt, also playing a 5 farseer / baharroth / wknight council.

Yes, it is points intensive and yes it is pretty much your "whole army." The fact remains that it is quite the resilient unit that puts out horrendous amounts of damage, enough to make it one of the best deathstars in the current meta. : )


@Thread
NOVA as well as ETC and other UK events read psycher / psycher unit as an individual model and not a whole unit, thus allowing each psycher in a real unit to cast multiple powers. One farseer can't cast shriek twice, but two in a unit can. ITC, however, does not allow this whatsoever. Both event wins give some credibility in both formats to the overall strength of a full seer council (on jetbikes, of course).

I don't know about it being the best deathstar tho... They kinda struggle against other invisible death stars like the Thunder Star(IP, DA, and Lib conclave). Like they'll still need to roll a 6 to hit for mind war and shriek, and can't template invis units in Nova. In ITC they will really struggle in combat, since you only need 5's to hit invis units, and since they don't have access to Biomancy, so no FNP and get ID by thunder hammers.

 SonsofVulkan wrote:
They kinda struggle against other invisible death stars like the Thunder Star(IP, DA, and Lib conclave). Like they'll still need to roll a 6 to hit for mind war and shriek,

Neither of those powers require successful to-hit rolls. Those are actually the best way of killing Invisible things.

 DarknessEternal wrote:

 SonsofVulkan wrote:
They kinda struggle against other invisible death stars like the Thunder Star(IP, DA, and Lib conclave). Like they'll still need to roll a 6 to hit for mind war and shriek,

Neither of those powers require successful to-hit rolls. Those are actually the best way of killing Invisible things.

That is arguable. I agree they don't need a to hit roll. But the tournament setting I play in seems to view it otherwise. It's not an argument I want to get in to to be honest as I see valid points for both side of the argument.

 DarknessEternal wrote:

 SonsofVulkan wrote:
They kinda struggle against other invisible death stars like the Thunder Star(IP, DA, and Lib conclave). Like they'll still need to roll a 6 to hit for mind war and shriek,

Neither of those powers require successful to-hit rolls. Those are actually the best way of killing Invisible things.

Huh? In the rules they are both witchfires, and thus they both require to-hit rolls and Snap-shots applied to both (p497).

Like I said, there's arguments for both and YMDC is full of it. So let's leave it out of this thread.

 SonsofVulkan wrote:

 DarknessEternal wrote:

 SonsofVulkan wrote:
They kinda struggle against other invisible death stars like the Thunder Star(IP, DA, and Lib conclave). Like they'll still need to roll a 6 to hit for mind war and shriek,

Neither of those powers require successful to-hit rolls. Those are actually the best way of killing Invisible things.

Huh? In the rules they are both witchfires, and thus they both require to-hit rolls and Snap-shots applied to both (p497).

Here is a previous discussion on this topic on the forum. http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/599053.page Lets not rehash it here.

Ok for NOVA/ITC purposes, yes you need to roll to hit.

Yeah, the local tournament scene that I play in rule that you have to roll to hit too. So I wonder if sanctic for sanctuary along with fortune is better overall. Add in some invisibility and that's pretty nasty. Conceal reveal isn't bad and I always find the reveal portion very very useful.

So it was mentioned cleansing flame (which i never actually thought to roll for with my eldar before *genius* ), as i have limited experience with that specific nova power.. do you measure the 6" bubble around the model casting the power or the entire unit?

Casting model.

 DarknessEternal wrote:
Casting model.

Is that ruling applied with the warlock unit too? As they're essentially brotherhood of psykers does the unit not cast the power.

 Khaine's Wrath wrote:

 DarknessEternal wrote:
Casting model.

Is that ruling applied with the warlock unit too? As they're essentially brotherhood of psykers does the unit not cast the power.

You still declare one of the Brotherhood as the casting model.

 FTGTEvan wrote:

 Khaine's Wrath wrote:

 DarknessEternal wrote:
Casting model.

Is that ruling applied with the warlock unit too? As they're essentially brotherhood of psykers does the unit not cast the power.

You still declare one of the Brotherhood as the casting model.

But you can pick any one right??