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Hi,

Ive been trying to research what the best load out for the war walker. I was considering double shuriken cannons? I want to use them as a run and gun option ,not a sit back and shoot. More of a run around and distract.

Whats everyone opinion on this load out?

I would recommend magnetizing for added model utility. There has been a lot of changes in what weapons are most useful just in 8th edition alone.

If you want pure mobility without movement penalties, then the Shuriken Cannon is optimal. If you face a lot of Primaris Marine armies, you may want to consider Star Cannons and set the War Walkers up in a detachment with the Expert Crafters Craftworld trait. This would help offset the to hit penalty for moving and firing a heavy weapon. Single unit War Walkers are an ideal unit to utilize with Expert Crafters.

Just a quick break-down on the general Eldar weaponry, or how I've found them to perform.

1) Shuriken Cannon: Superb, but now expensive. Where everyone else is getting discount Heavy Bolters...our Shuriken Cannons are still 10 points. That's a large ask for three Strength 6 shots at 24". Incredibly spotty AP ability, but it's trump card is: it's an Assault weapon, thus benefits heavily from Eldar's ability to move and shoot Assault weapons without penalty. The War Walker suffers from having two separate weapons as well, meaning twin Shuriken Cannons are still 20 points, not 17 (they're not linked).

2) Scatter Laser: A gak weapon...now a cheap gak weapon. It's now 7 points (used to be like 12 or something absurd). 4 Strength 6 shots, no AP and 36" range...BUT...it's heavy. The Scatter Laser was basically neutered into the ground as a result of scatter-bike spam from the last generation (because some idiot thought bike needed scatter lasers on the sprue). It should have been a Heavy 6, Strength 5 style weapon so that it had something to really separate itself from the crowd, at least a ton of shots or something. Being an actual Heavy weapon it suffers on any Eldar platform that moves. It's new price of 7 points isn't terrible though if you want to stand and shoot Orks or Guard...I guess?

3) Star Cannon: Inconsistent but capable. Again a heavy weapon, and one which received a points drop. It's a multi-damage plasma weapon which is weaker than any other plasma weapons in the game...making it rather questionable as a Heavy weapon. Other than D3 damage it's just "okay". It's one of the few Eldar weapons which is not mega-strong, or mega-crap. Flat 2 damage would make these something to consider. Suffers with Strength 6 vs. armored targets (often Tough 7+).

4) Missile Launcher: Good, but as always you pay out the nose for the versatility. Slightly better than Imperial ones because your "frag" round has AP -1. War Walkers may not be around long enough to make use of the versatility of the weapon.

5) Bright Lance: 36" range is a hindrance, as is the Strength of 8 (instead of 48" and 9 of a lascannon), but you get a long-range weapon with -4 AP. Somehow the Dark Eldar version is better (it becomes an assault weapon?), but most Dark Eldar weapon options annihilate the Craftworld equivalents. In theory your speed would mean the 36" range wouldn't matter a ton, but it's also a Heavy weapon and thus you're penalized for moving and shooting it...unlike the Dark Eldar....

War Walkers are my favourite unit to set-up with Shuriken Cannons, and then when I'm done with my list, if I have a spare 5-10 points, I upgrade one of them to a bright lance or something. With two Shuriken Cannons they're a 55 point unit with vague survivability. If you treat them as a kind of heavy infantry, 55 points isn't bad at all. I think they're a little too weak to justify heavy weapons all the times. If the Scatter Laser was six shots like it used to be I'd suggest some of those for anti-horde clearing, but the Shuriken Cannon basically outshines the Scatter Laser across the board.

PS: And yes, absolutely magnetize your walkers.

 Sarigar wrote:
I would recommend magnetizing for added model utility. There has been a lot of changes in what weapons are most useful just in 8th edition alone.

If you want pure mobility without movement penalties, then the Shuriken Cannon is optimal. If you face a lot of Primaris Marine armies, you may want to consider Star Cannons and set the War Walkers up in a detachment with the Expert Crafters Craftworld trait. This would help offset the to hit penalty for moving and firing a heavy weapon. Single unit War Walkers are an ideal unit to utilize with Expert Crafters.

Pretty much this. Magnetizing is the way forward. Expert crafters is amazing for msu so you want to take 3 separate walkers to maximise how much you squeeze out of the trait.

Personally I am keen to try out scat lazer/EML or BL or Star Cannon walkers. with expert crafters that's really maximising efficiency. The idea is to use the re-rolls from traits on the single heavy weapon going into high value target, awhile the scat lazor supports in mowing down infantry as priority and going after high value targets secondarily.

I've always run my WWs as bright lance platforms. IMO, there are far better platforms for moving around and fighting in the eldar arsenal. Wave Serpents, for example, are much faster, get 3 shuriken Cannons, has fly, and is very tough. wraithlords can have the exact same guns, but instead of just turning off if something gets them in melee, they generally just kick the crap out of the thing and keep rolling.

I think Shuris or star cannons is the best way to use them. Keeps them cheap. Great place to cast guide for a 3 man unit too.

 Xenomancers wrote:
I think Shuris or star cannons is the best way to use them. Keeps them cheap. Great place to cast guide for a 3 man unit too.

and also paints a nice juicy target on their ass

Dont blob up. MSU/expert crafters is the way to go and you dont even need guide anymore. Take executioner/Mind war/fortune instead on your seers.

At 55 points per + an HQ, they'll also snag you a rather cheap bonus CP. It's not guard cheap, but by not blobbing them, you can grab a CP for what 205/210 points with three Shuriken war walkers and a warlock? That's not awful.

Or, a Bone Singer who dropped to 55, stand between them and fix them during the fight if you're going to sit still and shoot with heavier weapons?

 Argive wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
I think Shuris or star cannons is the best way to use them. Keeps them cheap. Great place to cast guide for a 3 man unit too.

and also paints a nice juicy target on their ass

Dont blob up. MSU/expert crafters is the way to go and you dont even need guide anymore. Take executioner/Mind war/fortune instead on your seers.

What second trait do you take with them? Ignore cover? On your point though I am pretty happy to let people shoot at my warwalkers. They are pretty durable and don't degrade. I like 6+ FNP on them with Ulthwe. Just my preference. With your build I would probably go for bright lances or EML.

Elbows wrote:At 55 points per + an HQ, they'll also snag you a rather cheap bonus CP. It's not guard cheap, but by not blobbing them, you can grab a CP for what 205/210 points with three Shuriken war walkers and a warlock? That's not awful.

Or, a Bone Singer who dropped to 55, stand between them and fix them during the fight if you're going to sit still and shoot with heavier weapons?

Yeah the bone singer going to legends saddens me deeply. I had him in a bunch of lists even before points drop because he's cool. I've been a massive fan of the unit and was really hoping they'd bring him back in as a support character :(.
But until legends is largely not allowed into the main stream I can still use him.

Xenomancers wrote:

 Argive wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
I think Shuris or star cannons is the best way to use them. Keeps them cheap. Great place to cast guide for a 3 man unit too.

and also paints a nice juicy target on their ass

Dont blob up. MSU/expert crafters is the way to go and you dont even need guide anymore. Take executioner/Mind war/fortune instead on your seers.

What second trait do you take with them? Ignore cover? On your point though I am pretty happy to let people shoot at my warwalkers. They are pretty durable and don't degrade. I like 6+ FNP on them with Ulthwe. Just my preference. With your build I would probably go for bright lances or EML.

Ulthwe is nice. But expert crafters just takes a steaming poop all over all the current traits its soo good. Alitoic is irrelevant thanks to re-roll everything for everything meta.

It depends entirely on what detachment you are putting your walkers in I think.
With 3 detachment minimum I don't think using a detachment slot just for 3 walkers is realistic, so the second trait would need to benefit whatever else you will have in there. For example with wraithlords youd want extra charge distance/ cover/ wrath of the dead. Dakka lords with master crafters/wrath of the dead sound cool but downside is you can only take 3 lol. If you had reapers and a wave serpent you'd want concealment I think.

However, Expert crafters/ignore cover is a really good option as well and certainly highly valid. It boils down to personal preference and what you are up against I guess.

If you're going to glue and forget, I'd do Star Cannon. It's the only gun that has never been bad in any edition. The others fluctuate more.

as said they magnetize easy. but i almost always run shuri cannons they are good enough at everything that I never run out of targets. only time they change is if i retool a list and maybe need mroe anti tank or anti elite infanty fire.

Magnetise, but you'll mostly be weighing up your options between shuriken cannons and star cannons.

Before custom craftworlds came in, they were a good choice as a unit of three to tie things up for a while and with Biel-Tan they could get decent rerolls.

Having them as a unit makes them a threat but they're durable enough to require a good portion of fire power to shift.

Well, I usually run a Biel-Tan army.
One unit of 3 Warwalkers with dual shuriken cannons is an option.
Rerolling 1's to hit makes them decent.

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/783464.page

 jeff white wrote:
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/783464.page

Well, now I feel stupid.

Sheeeet you and me both! I never though of foil.. the amounts of times i had to pick at a magnet that was glued with wrong polarisation.