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1) Falcon - Can always transport a squad, and are hard to hit.

2) Wraithlord - Seems the most effective with a Bright Lance and Missile Launcher and just hang back and shoot.  Also can't be silenced by "Crew Shaken and Crew Stunned".  Although I guess you could also do Scatter Laser/Shuriken Cannon, or Scatter Laser/Starcannon and just walk forward slowly. 

3) War Walkers (Blackmoor pattern)

Are any of these choices the end all be all of eldar?  Or are they all dependent on your army build?  Is the wraithlord dead?

like anything else-depends what else is in your army to balance them out-

falcon-hard to knock down, free transport, good at points denial and objective rushing. decent shooting threat to anything on the table

 

wraithlord-good save, good toughness, more than 1 gun and brutal in CC but it is so slow it is unlikely to make it acrosss the table for that.

 

war walkers-more bang for the buck with squads but rather lightly armored, slow moving but optimal for longer ranged shooting, not inteded for close combat

As noted, it is hard to say what would work best *every* time, but, having said that, it is hard to beat a "properly" equiped Falcon...

I think Falcons are the easiest choice to make (and I have two in the list I'm painting now). They're not necessarily mandatory, but if you're going to build a list around your HS, or make that choice first, I'd suggest the Falcon.

I don't know a ton about the Wraithlord, I can see him having value in a more static, shooty list, where he shoots for a few turns, then counter-charges. The good news with a Wraithlord is that he shoots and fights well. But that's also the bad news, as you pay for that flexibility, and one of the best ways to win the game is to take inflexible units, and play smart enough to keep them playing to their strength.

I think the main strength of War Walkers is that they can bring any type of shooting you want in a mobile platform. I put a pair of twin Bright Lance War Walkers in my list, and while I wouldn't ever recommend that loadout on its own, for a list that needs ranged tank killing, it makes a lot more sense. So, the point is that I see War Walkers as a choice that fills out a list, rather than a choice that forms the core of a list. I don't think I'd base an army around War Walkers, but I would use War Walkers to add a category of shooting I'm short on.

That is actually my 3 HS choices; one unit of each. If I were to drop any one choice or replace it, that would be my Warwalker squadron. They need to most care in order for them to survive each turn. They look cool and scare lots of folks with their shooting, but just don't withstand counter fire.

If I were to replace them, it would be for another Falcon or Wraithlord (Brightlance/EML)

I'd take vibrocannons before warwalkers. 2 seems to be optimal.

None of the above.

Fire Prism all the way. 115pts for a model with BS4, already armed with all the weapons it needs, the ability to take out heavily armoured vehicles AND units, and the abilty to "link fire" with other Prisms!

I think I am going to try two Falcons and a Blackmoor pattern Warwalker squad in my list.

Yeah, my favourite is 2 Prisms and a Falc w/ snakes. Packs a serious punch against all armoured targets.

Prisms have the advantage that your opponent HAS to keep them shaken, otherwise they can seriously dish out some hurt. So this takes some of the pressure off your Wave Serpents giving them a better chance of delivering their cargo.

Although in the end it depends entirely on how you want to play and with what. I play very mechanised and fast, so no Warwalkers or Wraithlords. If you paly static then Wraithlords are awesome. Warwalkers are good if you need lots of guns but don't mind them being dead by turn 3.

A wraithlords biggest fear is rending units. Two hormagaunts could smash him to bits. And never ever ever EVER let him fight another monsterous creature. I thought mine could deal with a carnifex, but the fex crushed him in 1 turn.

I think you mean Genestealer, but the point is valid... Rending really puts some hurting on Wraithlords and we all know how popular rending weaponry is these says.

Greets
Schepp himself

Agreed about rending and Wraithlords. My defense works against shooting that is rending: Fortune and Ruins for cover saves. This has helped me a lot vs. lots of assault cannons. My Wraithlord build is also more of a stationary shooter (Brightlance/EML). He tends to move within the cover to get good LOS shots.

i mostly use a wraithlord with brightlance and wraithsword wichis only 140pts but a falcon is more efficient for transporting assult models.

Eldar HS Choices....Falcon vs Wraithlord vs War Walker?

Amazing that this thread got this far... There is no comparrison to the Falcon. Falcon is the superb choice by head and shoulders! 3 Falcons, even better. Falcon = transport, always glancing hits, most mobile, most endurance, comparable or better Anti tank... No contest.

Wraithlord: -1 attack, Stupidity rules, rending weakness, only + is you can take 2 heavy weapons, (a mediocre one and a bad one) why bother for the points, get a far more mobile, better armed, transport with even more firepower, and mobile scoring! ???

Warwalkers: -Hello, AV10? BOLTERS KILL THESE, and they are nearly helpless in hand to hand, a unit that will probably shoot once, and then die to well, any return fire at all, can't even fight in hand to hand like a dreadnought, and scout units with no scout move or extra speed, awful, way to expensive, just a flashier version of the IG walker Sentinel, which is also, a complete waste of points...

Tactically speaking the Falcon (and Prism) may be the only Eldar scoring unit(s) with any staying power at all! (and they are mobile) Why play Warwalkers or Wraithlords at all? They are fancy junk with huge Achiles heals.  Like most of the aspect warrior units, wraithlords and walkers are really awesome in a perfect matchup, but generally disadvantaged accross the board, not so the Falcon, it's always good!

*(admitedly I LOVE how walkers and wraithlords look, and will probably build and play them on principal, but at a tourney, ha, never.)

Furthermore, in a direct comparisson, a match up, clear advantage: Falcon

Eldar only have 1 HS choice.

Everybody's still ignoring vibrocannons.

Assuming your group (like mine) reads the rules to say that they don't need LoS, they are definitely worth taking as the 3rd HS after two falcons. Take two of them, and it's easy to convert your standard tournament army for 1750 GT play by dropping them.

Am I the only one who appreciates the value of auto-glancing?

Excellent point Flavius, you know I hadn't even considered that, autoglancing could be great, especially from out of LOS.  I stand corrected, perhaps Eldar have 2 HS choices.

Can you enlighten us on the LOS controversy for V cannons?

The LoS controversy for vibrocannons is the same as for indirect fire weapons. The rules allow you to hit units that are not in LoS, but the casualty removal rules don't allow you to remove models that are not in LoS. It's a rules fluke, but it's enough to make it an open question whether or not you'll be allowed to hurt targets that are not Los to your vibrocannons at an away tournament.

So far I've had excellent results from my vibrocannons. I've taken out concealed Russes with frontal shots, and multiple speeders that were in different squadrons, and disabled monolith shooting without having to get through the armor. In a recent game against Tau, the cannons prevented a railhead from getting all but one shot off during the game. In one lucky shot against an Iron Warriors army (by putting the line through the units left after a huge assault scrum was over) the cannons saved the game for me by knocking 3 or 4 weakened CSM units below half with a single shot.  In a recent game against Dark Angels, the vibrocannons made a shot in turn one that immobilized a land raider full of terminators and knocked out the demolisher cannon on the vindicator that thought it was hidden *behind* the LR.  This is not the kind of thing that any other weapon in the game can do. 

One thing I haven't tried yet, but am keen to give a go when I get a chance, is to use grav tankshocks to herd together a bunch of enemy units and tanks (even rhinos can be shoved around by falcons) and then put a vibro shot through the middle.

The major weakness is the 36" range and the fact that you have to keep your own units out of the line of fire too. But if you get a sweet deployment spot in a terrain-protected pocket in the center of the board, the opponent really has a big headache to deal with.

Superb, sounds like a real sleeper unit, good but unknown, excellent!

2*Vibrocannon, 2*prism is looks the ideal HS for Eldar in 1500. Maybe 1850 you might want Falcons and 3 Vibros, as the Prisms are very vulnerable to weapon destroyed

If you equip them with a shuricannon then the can still perform a roll even after a weapon destroyed result.

3 strength 6 shots against side or rear armour may be handy.

Posted By Brother Bartius on 01/12/2007 6:37 PM
If you equip them with a shuricannon then the can still perform a roll even after a weapon destroyed result.

3 strength 6 shots against side or rear armour may be handy.

Especially since the Prism has a far better BS than the Falcon or Wave Serpent, the shurican will actually hit something.

Well Flavius, because of you I just picked up a Vibrocannon at the FLGS today, and I'll order another online. I'll probably dump my Warwalkers in favor of the Vibrocannons. You're right about them, you just can't beat a 75% chance to glance any tank on the board without LOS.

It also seems like you can glance an entire squadron of vehicles with AVs. For example, if somebody is silly enough to line up their Killa Kans so you can draw a line across all of them, then all of them get glanced. Not bad...

Hadn't even thought about the increase in BS but your right.

Even better

lol

Thanks flavius, I do keep forgetting about vibro cannons, but what would you protect them with? Would you have an avatar or something sticking close by?

Whats really interesting is 3x2 vibros + 3x10 harlies w/ Fortuneseer. The Vibros can keep 3 tanks permanently shaken while the harlies rush forward, invisible, and slice everything in cc.

At first, I was thinking, 'what, no falcon'? But, I see the merit in 9 Vibrocannons. The use of Harlequins, Farseers(Fortune) and (I assume Jetbikes) is it will be hard to hit anything in the army. Usually, I see Falcons acting as buffers for the other Eldar units to get into position.

The only reason I can think of for not seeing 9 Vibrocannons being fielded is they are $25 (U.S.) apiece. Otherwise, I see a lot of merit with them.

But, this is why I really like the new codex. So much more is playable in this codex.

 

 

 

I protect the vibrocannons with terrain, putting them behind (not in) something forward and toward the middle of the board. As I mentioned before, my group reads the rule as saying that vibrocannons ignore LoS.

Theoretically one smart missile shot or whirlwind pie plate could wipe out the whole battery, but I haven't seen it actually happen yet (and if you can deploy within 36" of the thing that shoots indirect, you can shut it down for the whole game). The opponent either has to ignore them or has to dedicate a whole unit usually--deepstrikers or flyers or a speeder or something--to killing the vibrocannons. So that's something in the enemy force that isn't dealing with the rest of my army. Especially in an alpha game where scoring units count, having that one that stays behind anyway (and one cannon + crew is still scoring) is nice in every mission except recon.

Sometimes the vibrocannons do get killed, and sometimes they don't get a good target for the whole game, but that's still only 100 points.

More than 3. If you can draw lines that intersect multiple vehicles, they all get hit (and some more than once if they're on multiple lines).

Even with a single battery, forcing the opponent to jockey vehicles around and avoid having any of them in a straight line with the cannons disrupts his plans.

Seems like it might be cheaper to bitz order just what you need, and then use plastic Guardians for the crew.



Well, you CAN stun more than 3, but since there's a 25% chance that a both of a pair will miss, you can't assure yourself that every battery is going to stun something every round. That said, 3x3 will not miss much (1 time in 8).

A pair seems like the magic number. Still cheap, but pretty reliable.