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I see a lot of people saying they never take Eldar Jetbike squads without a Warlock with Singing Spear and Destructor power. How useful is this model actually, and how does it affect the squad's effectiveness?

Three bikes with a cannon only cost 76 points and as such make for a relatively cheap and highly mobile scoring unit, but once you buy a Spearlock the unit costs 134 points. That's a whopping 58 points for a T3(4) one wound model with one attack and two different ranged weapons. Now the unit is capable of destroying vehicles up close or shooting once with the heavy flamer before charging into close combat, but at what price? Is 134 points acceptable? Food for thought, 5 Pathfinders cost 120 points and three Vypers 150 points. Additionally for the price of two 134 point Spearlock bike squads you could get 2x3 bikes with cannon and 6 Rangers or 5 Pathfinders.

Could those who actually use these Spearlock units explain what makes them worthwhile in your opinion? Do you think they are points effective? Why?

I sure like the VPs I get from killin 134pts of 3 bikes with bolters.

Pathfinders own them point for point.

If you need more tank busting or flamers/troopkillin, I'd say the correct answer is a waveserpent full of dire avengers or storm guardians over a spearlok. I'm not a fan of the dire avengers due to the lack of anti-tank or flamers. I believe the 10 man SG squad with 2 fusion guns runs something around 220pts?

Pathfinders look pretty good on paper, but they aren't mobile. Pathfinders can hurt big bugs, but... they don't hurt vehicles. Jetbikes with spearloks are the opposite. Both hurt troops, but troops in cover tend to balance out both unit types.

My thoughts are that I tend to fear vehicles more than big bugs. And I expect everything to get a cover save so AP1 shots while good are about 30% more effiicient than bikes against a dakka fex. Against a 2+ bug... yeah much better. But against a vehicle heavy army, especially skimmers, it flips flops heavily in favor of the jetbikes.

My jetbikes have taken down everything from a full marine squad (with both jetbike units) to venerable dreadnoughts, vindicators, predators, whirlwinds, even a fire prism. I do need more experience against Nids to determine if in general they are more optimal than rangers. In general I would think that if my harlequins and jetbikes clear out the little bugs, I can use my wraithlords and harlequins and eldrad to take out the big bugs. Maybe its best to run a unit of jetbikes and a unit of pathfinders?

A 4 man jetbike squad with s.cannon and spearlock with destructor is a very good value and compliments a mech eldr list well for the following reasons:

you get a fast unit that is both anti tank and anti hoarde. the unit cn lay down a heavy flamer and a lot of flak to take out hoarde troops and still charge. it can do all this at a range of more than 24".

it is a fast scoring unit that can turbo boost to take objectives.

it can punch tanks with what is essentially a BS4 las cannon with a 36" range.

in a pinch, they can charge dedicated shooty units or nasty assault units and tie them up for a turn or two, or they can charge in with an assault unit such as harlies and keep an enemy squad engaged while allowing harlies to disengage and recharge the same or another unit the following turn.

and, it is relatively cheap unit and easy to hide.

Again, it depends on the overall list. I would take DA's in a wave serpent in a bigger game, but a squad of these guys is very versatile for their points, you cant go wrong with them, just dont use them unsupported.

I had about a page on this, before my browser decided to crash.. I have condensed it down to a few paragraphs

In the standard mech list, Eldar have 3 credible threats to tanks, two squads of harlequins, and a squad of fire dragons. All 3 of which you will have in constant demand for other tasks. You also have 3 late game objective grabbers, Falcons. They too will be in constant demand for transporting your squads to where they need to be. The primary goal then, of your troops, should be to cover over these limitations as much as possible.

Both Jetbikes and Pathfinders help to solve these problems to a degree, but jetbikes with a spearlock cover both. But more importantly, its a credible, dynamic threat that needs to be dealt with. Any list that can be broken down into tiers of 'shoot this first, these can wait for later' is inherently weak. A flanking squad sneaking down to hunt your Leman Russ needs to be answered, a squad that hides behind cover for 5 turns is predictable as well as being easy to work around.

That being said, Pathfinders are a far better choice in todays metagame than Jetbikes. Especially as the Chaos Codex phases out.

The Falcon list is not so much about claiming vps as it is about not losing 600pts in falcons and swapping everything else for equal vps so you come out ahead. Pathfinders are far more likely to trade themselves for equal points or better than jetbikes are.

Having an extra threat to tanks is nice, but I'd rather take guardians with a brightlance than jetbikes with a spear.

I had the same thought myself (regarding Guardians), until I realized he said "in a mech Eldar" list, where presumably the only non-mobile infantry units are infiltrating Scorpions, Warp Spiders, Pathfinders etc.

Mine regularly run off the field, but that may be because I use them too aggressively. They are quickly non-scoring and not that shooty after all.
But the spearlock is always the biggest thread and can, all by himself, wreak a lot of havoc in the enemy lines. Sure it's expensive to boot but he has some wounds provided by his buddies.

Mobility is the main factor here. If you don't need that, I would indeed go with the Pathfinders, in combination with a Avatar/Guardian/Wraithlord firebase or some variation thereof.

Greets
Schepp himself

Eldar jetbikes are not really killy units. Regardless of the configuration, you are not too likely to get your points back out of them by haveing them kill enemy units. However they can be a useful utility unit. As has been stated before, they are good last minute objective grabbers. They are a decent mop up unit for killing light infantry and they are moderately tough so they can tie up shooty enemies in hand to hand for a while if need be. Adding on the warlock gives them anti tank power and possibly some additional light infantry killing power but as quite a bit of extra cost. In general, I'm not convinced it's worth it, but if you are going to buy a warlock, you might as well throw in the singing spear...after all its only 3 points.