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Hey folks,

I'm bored and have just acquired another couple Eldar Falcon chassis. I am considering writing up a simple datasheet for an Eldar Firestorm from the old Epic days. I understand it was in a Forgeworld book recently but can't find it online. I'm not asking for pilfered old edition datasheets but can someone give me the rundown of how GW viewed the latest iteration of this tank?

1) Is it more or less triple scatter lasers - or are they longer range or stronger than standard scatter lasers, etc.
2) Does it have a transport capacity like a Falcon or is it a dedicated gun platform like a Fire Prism
3) Were there any other stand-out rules or modifications they mentioned?

I've seen very mixed info on the random 40K wikipedia style sites, and I'm just going off of the old Epic model idea of an anti-flyer tank for fun. I know the official Forgeworld model had longer barrel scatter lasers, so I wasn't sure if it was longer-range or stronger than the classic scatter laser (just three of them).

Thanks for any suggestions.

Hello Elbows,

Ok I've got it from 7th ed here, last Doom of Mymeara.

AFAIK you can't cite all the profile or something (MP if you need more details), but it cost a bit more than a falcon, the gun was kind of a weird Scatter laser, increased range, and all the rules you could hope for on an AA gun, interceptor, rending, skyfire, etc.

The point is, that gun couldn't have done that much to a real flyer, and the tank was too expensive in 7th.

I think that if you had to make it in 8th, it's better to go with simpler things.

A good comparison point in my opinion would be a Crimson Hunter with Bright Lances.

They're generally good in that AA role, so you'd want your Firestorm to do more or less the same AA damage, with reduced AG damage so that it doesn't become a better Falcon (which admittedly is garbage compared to a C.H.).

Maybe BS 4+ with +2 to hit flyers or some such.

The Firestorm is in the FW Xenos FAQ.

Ahhh, fantastic. I hadn't ever scrolled to the bottom of that FAQ. Thanks!

PS: At a glance it's actually exactly what I was planning, so that's almost a laugh. I thought "Eh, maybe 48-60", and give it the rules from the Hydra regarding hitting FLY units..." Lo and behold it's exactly what they went with.

Doesn't seem that super hot to me. Against dakkajet whopping 2.5 wounds. Hydra does 4.74 and hydra is junk vehicle as it is...

Funny thing is in epic that was actually nice AA tank. 40k version suck though. Hard to make it good at blowing out flyers without being too good vs infantry/regular vehicles.

That'd be realistic, though. I mean, the German 88mm gun from WW2 started out as a flak gun until they found out it was the only thing big enough to poke holes in British infantry tanks, and I think vehicle crews were always happy to turn those quad MG and cannon mounts on ground targets.

Unless you add something along the lines of it can only target models with FLY, or suffers a penalty when shooting at things that don't have FLY.

That's more like exception though. Generally you don't see AA platforms as dedicated INF/AT hunters as well.

Also if you have one weapon that's good at everything either that needs to be very expensive or why take infantry/vehicle hunting when you could get flying bust as well...

But as it is ATM problem is this is more like good at killing infantry, bad at killing flyers!

Oh, I concur. It's not good...hell the scatter laser is arguably the worst weapon in the Eldar arsenal. I think a Fire Prism is better in every conceivable way, but I'm just looking at modeling options. I'll probably build an option for it just for fun.

The very original Firestorm was actually based on the larger tank chassis, so the Falcon version isn't super accurate anyway. The original one in Epic was on a very similar chassis so the old armorcast superheavy tanks, etc.

 Elbows wrote:
Oh, I concur. It's not good...hell the scatter laser is arguably the worst weapon in the Eldar arsenal.

Depends on your targets. It has an extra shot and a 12" range over the shuriken cannon at the cost of rending and assault. That scatter laser performs well enough against hordes as the AP-3 is overkill anyway. Just like everything (mostly) in the Eldar arsenal, it's a tool for a specific job.

 Elbows wrote:
Oh, I concur. It's not good...hell the scatter laser is arguably the worst weapon in the Eldar arsenal. I think a Fire Prism is better in every conceivable way, but I'm just looking at modeling options. I'll probably build an option for it just for fun.

The very original Firestorm was actually based on the larger tank chassis, so the Falcon version isn't super accurate anyway. The original one in Epic was on a very similar chassis so the old armorcast superheavy tanks, etc.

Do you mean the Tempest?

Either way, the Firestorm may even be worse in 8th than it was in 7th, quite an accomplishment and clear dedication from the FW team there

Good thing their job is to make nice models, and that we don't mind bringing vastly overcosted units to Apoc games.

Yeah, the old Epic Firestorm was on a very similar chassis to the ancient Tempest.



It hard arguably much larger guns than the later scatter laser version.


I haven't seen one in decades so it's possible the sizes were off, but the old Eldar grav tank base was similar --- it wasn't a Falcon chassis at the time.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 mokoshkana wrote:

 Elbows wrote:
Oh, I concur. It's not good...hell the scatter laser is arguably the worst weapon in the Eldar arsenal.

Depends on your targets. It has an extra shot and a 12" range over the shuriken cannon at the cost of rending and assault. That scatter laser performs well enough against hordes as the AP-3 is overkill anyway. Just like everything (mostly) in the Eldar arsenal, it's a tool for a specific job.

I would almost agree, but the occasional -3 makes the Shuriken Cannon more versatile. Also it's an assault weapon and benefits heavily from the Eldar ability to ignore that penalty. I also run Biel-Tan which lets me re-rolls '1's on Shuriken weapons, so the scatter laser just becomes an increasingly useless tool with no place. I would absolutely consider it if it was something like Heavy 6, Strength 5, -AP. or something. Something other than one additional shot. That just doesn't work for me when you suffer movement penalties, etc.