To Exarch or not

The question is, should you take an Exarch in your aspect warriors?

This is actually more of a difficult question than it seems.  Not all Aspect warriors benefit as much from their Exarch as others.

The key is to look at the skills the bring along in the form of warrior powers.  Some Exarchs are nailed on essential in even a 5 man squad, while others are only useful in bigger units.   Remember Exarchs are your Sgts and Special weapons guys rolled into 1.  

In my opinion Striking Scorpions, Howling Banshees and Shining Spears should always, always include an exarch, even in minimum sized squads.  The reason for this is that Exarchs have strictly superior weapons and statistics to their squad, and the cost to upgrade them is more than reasonable considering you get better WS and BS as well as access to much more powerful close combat weapons.  Always take Scorpions Claw, Executioner and Star Lances.

Swooping Hawks really don't get much mileage out of their Exarch.  Their special guns really are not all that great, and neither are their abilities.  I suppose you can attempt to blind someone, but I would rather just field 6 for the large blast and leave it there.

Warp Spiders maybe want an Exarch, but only if you want to use him with the Spinneret Rifle and maybe Power Blades.  Against certain armies he turns the unit into a reasonable melee threat.

Crimson Hunters should always be Exarchs.  Better BS, can snipe characters, weapon options.  All very worthwhile.

Fire Dragons it depends.  I always take one with a Firepike with fast shot, as his damage output is greater than  two normal dragons this way.  The Heavy Flamer wastes his exceptional BS to give some decent anti infantry firepower, but I suppose he can man a quad gun or something.  That said, the unit doing its primary objective of wasting tanks, don't actually need an Exarch.

Dark Reapers.  Again it depends, as a small squad of three is quite lethal vs marines and the Exarch pays all kinds of extortionate taxes on his upgrades. But the Exarch adds flexibility. With my favourite heavy weapon in the entire game in the Tempest Launcher, I always include him.  Fast shot is a must.

Dire Avengers.  Leaving the worst until last.  Their Exarch varies between being completely pointless and quite decent.  I would only ever include him if you have already got a full sized squad of Avengers, and then I would always give him the Power Weapon and Shimmer Shield combo to boost the entire unit.  He really doesn't have the statistics to go around assassinating multiple wound characters with a Diresword, a twin linked catapult is laughable compared to what it was in 4th edition and sword and pistol really doesn't make the squad a valid combat threat.

Now you might be wondering why I say the power blade option on the Warp Spider Exarch is a good idea, but the power weapon pistol combo on the Dire Avenger isn't.  The reason is the Warp spider keeps his considerably decent gun, and doesn't have a pistol.  He is also more liable to survive combat due to his better speed, and has hit and run.

Howling Banshees, can they be competitive in an Eldar list?

Howling Banshees.  Can they be a competitive choice in an Eldar list?

They are the unit which has virtually no love in the new book.  This article is going to compare them to units they compete against, within their own codex.  Specifically Striking Scorpions and Wraithblades.  All third units occupy the Elites slot, with Wraithblades having the ability to move into troops with a Spirit Seer.  Origonally I had included harlequins in this but they pretty much came last on everything.

For the sake of simplicity, we will take a ten man unit of each aspect and 5 wraithblades since they are quite similar on points.

10 Howling banshees
5 Wraithblades
10 Striking scorpions


These will be tested against MEQs, tau firewarriors and GEQs.  We are only including the melee ability of these units, not their shooting ability.  The reason being that all the units except Wraithblades have exactly the same BS and pistol weapon making this point redundant.

Fighting vs 10 GEQs
So, one of the more common match ups is against space marines.

Eldar Charge
Guardsmen stand and shoot.  They kill on average;

0.835 Banshees
0.184 Wraithblades
0.551 Scorpions

So Banshees are bottom for taking damage.  Lets assume that they all make it into combat though.
All of the eldar units strike before the guardsmen.  Banshee mask therefore contributes nothing to this combat.

Banshees kill 10.05 guardsmen leaving none to strike back.
Wraithblades kill 8.34 guardsmen leaving two to strike back.
Scorpions kill 3.35 with mandiblasters, and 9.023 with normal attacks, leaving none to strike back.

They all mop up guardsmen with ease, except the wraithblades.  Taking points into consideration, Banshees are cheaper than the other two, but kill 10 models all the same.  Banshees may win this round.


Fighting vs Firewarriors
This may be seen as quite an unusual choice of unit, but tau are increasingly common in games and fire warriors are perhaps the most points efficient troops choice in the entire game.  While pre 6th edition many players had never seen a tau army, they are everywhere like a bad smell these days.

Eldar charge
Tau Firewarriors stand and shoot.  They kill on average;

2.78 Banshees!
0.363 Wraithblades
0.92 Scorpions

That is really, really bad for Banshees.  Nearly 3 die on average charging just ten fire warriors.  Assuming some kind of miracle, and everyong makes it into combat, this is what happens.

Banshees kill 10.5 Firewarriors, leaving none to strike back.
Wraithblades kill 8.34 Firewarriors, leaving two to strike back.
Scorpions kill 2.5 with mandiblasters, and 6.734 leaving one to strike back.

Banshees out perform scorpions here.  Power swords make short work of the reasonably good tau armour, where scorpions struggle somewhat.  Wraithblades are consistent but don't kill a lot.  Still I expect them to wade through the remaining tau in the second turn with no losses.

Finally we will look at Fighting vs Marines
Still the most common unit type on the table, we need to consider how effective each type of eldar is against the humble tactical space marine.

Eldar charge
Marines stand and shoot.  They kill on average;

1.19 Banshees
0.184 Wraithblades
0.746 Scorpions

Again, the Banshees do badly here taking more damage.  Their lower armour is really hurting them.  Assuming they all make it over to combat, again, highly unlikely and we will run the numbers.

Banshees kill 4.95 marines, before the marines swing.  Not good for a unit designed to kill marines.
Wraithblades kill 6.225 marines before they swing.  They are super consistent vs any unit.
Scorpions kill 2.21 with mandiblasters and 2.475 with attacks.

None of them kill ten marines. 

Conclusion.
Which is best?  Well in all honesty there is not much to pick between Scorpions and Wraithblades.  Banshees die far too easily to be considered.  If I had taken their deaths into account on the maths, they would have come consistently bottom, and that is without factoring in any turns of shooting they may suffer on the way in.

Normal Service will be resumed

Normal service will be resumed, hopefully this month.  I have had a crazy few months doing exam revision and this should be over in the next month or two.

This blog isn't dead.  Well not yet anyway!  I am in the middle of writing an article on Howling Banshees at the moment, which should hopefully be up this week sometime.