Well we have varied tables, and therefore play varied conventions.

When we play on a city-type terrain with denser terrain, we play with the Onyx-type rules, and when we play on a more desert-like table, we play with the euk-type conventions.

We are more and more moving away from the euk conventions after a series of arguments around Titans, though, and have started to build more cactuses (cacti?) for the desert.

All I said in the different threads pretty much stands in the Matt-Shadowlord paradigm of terrain, but I am not certain it wouldnt stand just as well in the Kyuss paradigm of terrain.

How do you guys place terrain? Alternating turns, or some other method? As I have posted above the alternating method does give more control on cover to the attacking player.

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"War is not about who is right, but about who is left". - B. Russell

I usually ask a third person to set up the terrain (should be readily available if you play at a gaming club ).

I've played people from different groups. Area terrain (terrain that has a base) I've usually played the Epic-UK way and built up areas were there are houses without bases of their own have been handle the way Matt describes.

Risk and reward why the Void Spinner is the best (not only, just best) alpha strike in the Eldar army

To bring this back to the very interesting if slightly heated topic. The Void Spinner is clearly not the only alpha strike tool available to an Eldar player. Many others have been mentioned already in this thread.

However I think where some confusion has crept in is in the concept of how viable and risky each alpha strike option is compared to the gains available in their use and how that might apply in the thinking of a player who very regular wins tournaments and their use of the various alpha strike tools available.

Why are we alpha striking?

This is clearly a disruption or preparation tool (possibly to enable a further decisive strike) being used to gain an advantage in either position or material which we then exploit and maintain to enable us to more easily achieve a win condition as the game progresses.

Let’s look at some options


Doubling Scorpion/Falcons/Fire Prisms (NetEA)

Reward – level of fire power is good, results in aggressive positioning for future turns.

Risk - May be blocked by terrain to at least some degree. Although impossible to block the path to most formations it is usually possible to block line of site to one or two very important ones.
Path to an ideal attacking spot may be blocked to a degree by enemy scout formations potentially on overwatch.
A double is forced in all cases for 45cm or 60cm firepower to reach the back of the opposing deployment zone so shooting ability is reduced and significantly so at targets in cover or hull down.
Hit and run ability reduced as both moves must be advances forward to get in range of the opposite deployment zone (especially the back of the deployment zone), this can leave the attacking and rather fragile Eldar formations in a position where retaliation is very possible.

This last one is the big problem here if I can guess what targets you might want to alpha strike (AA, Artillery etc) and place them against my board edge (something that doesn’t really cost me much to do) it forces an expensive and very fragile Eldar armoured vehicle formation to finish very close to my lines when going for the alpha strike.


Storm Serpent march or Vampire drop to enable an assault

This could be either on its own or in follow up to another previous formation prepping with an alpha strike.

Reward – Allows a massively powerful assault to disrupt an opponent’s starting position. Could potentially win the game very quickly especially against an unprepared opponent.

Risk – Path to an ideal attacking spot may be blocked to a degree by enemy scout formations.
Enemy overwatch fire
You might lose the assault, which is almost certainly disastrous.
Even if everything goes perfectly it is unlikely the Storm Serpent / Vampire or assaulting Eldar formation can move far enough away from all enemy to avoid retaliation of some kind.

This is an example of a high risk / high reward strategy it is committing a large amount of points and resources to hopefully gain a completely decisive advantage almost immediately.
It will certainly win games but in the context of a three or five game tournament against very good players it is almost certain to fail at the very least once and so prevent you winning the tournament.


Spaceship – Dragonship / Wraithship

Reward – Both Eldar spacecraft are very good choices, with the flexibility to fire barrage and pin-point making them very good alpha strike options.
Easy to use, just pick turn one and pass an initiative test, fairly easy to guess correctly and hit something in the opponents army.

Risk – Fairly random, although you will almost certainly hit something it is probably not the thing you really wanted to hit.
You might be playing against another army with a high strategy rating and a spaceship and then be forced to bring yours on in a later turn effectively removing your alpha strike option.
Against certain armies which start much of their forces off table it might achieve very little and effectively mean you are playing the rest of the game an activation and 150 or 300 points down on your opponent.

Certainly a very good alpha strike option and it is quite common to see both a Spaceship and Void Spinners in a UK tournament army. But the Void Spinners go in the list first .


Teleporting Swooping Hawks

Reward – Fairly similar in concept to the Storm Serpent or Vampire assault but effectively committing less forces.

Risk – Enemy overwatch fire
Rolling badly for blast markers when they teleport in.
You might lose the assault (more chance of this here).
Even if everything goes perfectly it is unlikely the Hawks can move far enough away from all enemy to avoid retaliation of some kind.

Using Hawks aggressively like this is certainly not as all in as an alpha strike using a Vampire or Serpent assault but it can still lose you 350 points worth of Hawks fairly easily. It may be an option against a poorly deployed opponent who leaves you an easy target but is risky even then and too dependent on opposing bad play.


Finally we come to the Void Spinner.


Void Spinner barrage

Reward – Easy to use, place as out of sight as possible depending on local terrain rules, model is quite flat so even with true LOS should still be possible.
Fire power is very good against both infantry and vehicles and has the disrupt rule.
Works as a reasonable blitz guard while contributing to the game
Provides ongoing barrage potential which forces enemy formations to spread out and makes the all important Eldar assaults even more likely to succeed.

Risk – Might fail to activate.
Your opponent may have brought a spaceship with a pin-point attack.

Basically in terms of tournament play the Void Spinner is just the best choice, easy to use, synergises with the Eldar army, possibly forces an opponent to over commit to remove it. At the very least it requires the least committal of forces to risky areas to achieve a very good alpha strike.

Very good and spot-on analysis. One thing missing though, is that the actual Apha strike of the Void Spinner is very weak compared to the other options. Unless you are targetting a very weak formation (lige IG artillery for example), there is no way you will break the opponent formation, whereas all the other options you mentioned can.

2 questions:

- How important is Alpha-striking in your tournament planning? And how frequent are your opponents fielding very weak formations that can actually be affected by a void spinner?

In my experience, when blind-picking, having a plan to reach the some of the enemy deployment zone is important, but committing 250-500 points to a unit that lacks a bit of punch compared to most Eldar options, and that is pretty vulnerable at the later stages of the game, has made me play them less and less.

- Despite your argument that it fulfills its battlefield role better than other options in the Eldar army, you have not addressed the point cost reasoning that has been argued within this topic. Do you have an opinion on the matter?

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"War is not about who is right, but about who is left". - B. Russell

At 250 points, I hope stating that the Void Spinner is probably the best Artillery formation in the game isn't controversial so the argument that Void Spinners are somehow not worth it seems bizarre to me. Often, you're specifically going to want to go after small formations that your opponent would keep hidden behind terrain; artillery formations, AA formations etc. The mere presence of one will also pressure the opponent to spread his formations out more; making them more vulnerable to assaults.

Artillery formations in general act as a force multiplier for whichever army they're in, and Void Spinners are better than just about any other.

I disagree that Void spinners are the best Artillery formation in the game.

As stated in the IG development thread, other artillery formations in the game are currently overpriced. If Basilisks were 225 and 400 for 6, there would be even more contenders (on top of the ordinati, the contagion engines, the whole Tau armada, Krieg field artillery, etc.) out there as the best artillery formation in the game.

The problem with Void spinners and the Eldar Battleplan is that Void spinners are static, where the rest of the army is not. Out of 3k points, if you have a 6th (500 pts.) of your army sitting in your deployment zone, thats easy targets for the enemy, as they are not supported and cannot defend themselves.


Even tau stealth suits eat them for breakfast.

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"War is not about who is right, but about who is left". - B. Russell

"The whole Tau Armada" needs markerlights to work, can only shoot AT and doesn't use templates so doesn't force the opponent to spread out. Also, as non War Engines suffer from suppression.
Contagion Engines are more expensive, shorter range and are still AV so easier to suppress.
Krieg artillery are LVs and so also vulnerable to suppression (Emplacements or Trojans don't actually help much in this compared to Steel Legion equivalents) and as Light Vehicles are even easier to shoot.

6 Stealth Suits assaulting a Void Spinner:

6x5+FF v 3x5+FF

Most likely 1 non saved hit against the Void Spinner v no kills against Stealth Suits. Stealth Suits outnumber (+1) and have scored 1 hit (+1) vs Void Spinner probably has no blast markers (+1) and opponent has blast markers (I assume they teleported in) (+1). That's a straight rolloff; hardly being "eaten for breakfast".

I get you don't like Void Spinners and think their points can be spent better elsewhere, but to claim they're not one of the best Artillery formations is just disingenuous at best.

Edit: Aaah, we are going from the best to one of the best. Much more acceptable.

Contagion engines have better range: they are deployed as garrisons. They are also fearless, not to mention double the firepower, all that for 75 pts. more.

Remember I am talking Net EA Krieg Field artillery here, not the nerfed to oblivion euk version. They are garrisoned under cover infantry units, with a high breakpoint, and considerable firepower (2 templates at 60 cm, or 8 shots at 90 cm), all that for 150 points. I find them Superior to SL artillery in most instances, and definitely a better choice than Void Spinners all-around (though not for Alpha strikes).

Are you seriously telling us that getting markerlights in range in a Tau army is a problem? Your argument on the Template use is valid, but I don't see how that is relevant to Alpha strikes? Tau are an Eldar nightmare made flesh, except for Iyanden of course.

I note that you didnt bring up the Ordinati, perhaps because you don't use them in your house rules. You also dont bring up any of the Squat stuff, perhaps for the same reason, nor do you bring up Dactylis.

For that matter, did you try 1 Dactylis and 1 nest, 3 Biovores formation in your house rule system ? For edt: a similar amount of points than a Void Spinner, thats an incredibly nasty and resilient artillery formation.

Regarding the Stealth suits, I was joking with you. Everyone knows they are complete rubbish.

Regarding the Void Spinner, I actually like the unit, and it does fill a void in the Eldar list. I just think you are making it something it is not.

Concerning Alpha strikes and Void Spinner, I realize that I didnt bring up the best argument why Void spinners are not the best for that use in the Eldar army: in a L-Shaped deployment, they cannot reach the enemy opposite corner area, due to their 120 cm range at best.

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"War is not about who is right, but about who is left". - B. Russell

Just a few questions which we have arguments about in our playgroup:

I suppose in that case that the Imperator sees above the forest and can practically shoot at anything?

Now, concerning Eldar, do you use the wings of the Titans to determine LOS? or the Head?

And what do you do if one of your players has modelled crouching Eldar titans? or even Lying down? They are supposed to be super agile...

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"War is not about who is right, but about who is left". - B. Russell

B can shot with a -1 whilst A would not be able to shot at all (locally).

We rarely have to, but every now and then we have a look at things from models eye view.

Shots from the War Engine would be judged from the weapons point of view.

kyussinchains - I would never misconstrue any posts from you as a personal attack!

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Lordotmilk, what's with all this "house rules" business? A dig at Epic UK I assume.

On the subject of this thread, for me it's just obvious that the Void Spinner is the best option for a counter-battery unit, which is an important role for Eldar who suffer at the hands of artillery. And that is how the Void Spinner was originally presented in spawning this thread. The premise is, you can spend 250 points to have a good chance of stopping the overall battle plan falling apart in the enemy's first activation. Of course, you won't always face such artillery (or you might face more than one!), but the Void Spinner is pretty much always a useful activation, which you can use at any point in the turn. IMO that is what makes it such a no-brainer inclusion in the list - it means you get that counter-battery function for very little additional cost, in truth. That's not to say it's perfect, or that there are no other units that can reach the deployment zone, but that wasn't what was claimed in the first place. It's just the best balance of risk, reward, cost, reliability. All of the other options are more expensive, more likely to be suicide missions, AND less likely to succeed (at that specific but very important task of crippling artillery). I think discounting it because there is an edge case configuration of deployment that might mean it won't work, is a bit silly. There are very few tactics in the game that cannot be mitigated by your opponent, which is partly why EpicA is such a good game. You can dismiss the Void Spinner because it has downsides and isn't guaranteed to work, but still, for it to not be the best option, there has to actually be an option that is better.

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My main argument is that Spacecraft are better (especially in Ulthwe).

My secondary argument is that that counter-battery fire is not that necessary (you can save yourself better through having a coherent battleplan, placing your units wisely to avoid templates from being effective, and limiting the number of targets vulnerable to artillery fire), nor effective (due to the problems of multiplication).

My third argument is that Ulthwe and/or Iyanden are better overall, despite not having access to Void Spinners.

Separately, I am arguing that Void spinners are not the best artillery unit in the game.

I am also arguing that they definitely should not be increased in price, as they are not a no-brainer (for the reasons listed above) and are pretty much the only reason to play Biel Tan today. As Ulrik stated in another thread, Aspect troupes are often better than Aspect Hosts.

Despite all of the above, it is undeniable that Void Spinners are the best artillery units Eldar have, and that artillery is useful. All of the above stems only from my experience with the unit, and I can perfectly understand you have a different experience, which has no reason not to be equally as valid.

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"War is not about who is right, but about who is left". - B. Russell

Maybe it's just because I place more value on having confidence that something will work, rather than having the possibility that it will work. I like to reduce down the number of contributing factors. For example, sure you can spread all your units out, but it's actually quite difficult/impossible to do within the deployment zone (most Eldar can't garrison) whilst also staying out of sight. Call it laziness The whole artillery issue is less of a problem when using an air assault/planetfall list though, although the target then becomes your flak. You can always hit at least 2 units with a barrage no matter how you deploy them, which for fire prisms is often enough

I wouldn't say the VS is the best artillery in the game necessarily, I haven't played all of them. I do think it's a better counter-battery option than a spacecraft, which on the balance of probabilities is probably going to miss the artillery.

Ulthwe might well be better than Biel Tan, the SR5 and 1+ Farsight black guardian combo is quite good... Total beginners might struggle with guardians but after a couple of games you figure out how important it is to position them correctly in an engagement. They you have an army that finds it actually pretty easy to execute the rolling assault. Epic UK already nerfed that 1+ thankfully. It's also true that it can be frustrating for Biel Tan not having access to aspect troupes, but some of the aspects really need those numbers to get their overwhelming odds in winning engagements (see laziness above). In any case I like to have at least 2 aspect formations, which for Ulthwe might mean having one too many assault-themed formations once the necessary hosts are included. And aspects are just more "in theme" for Biel Tan. So pretty much just personal preference for me.

Then there's Iyanden, which I resist playing with as I don't think it's fair on my opponent. We have a joke that using Iyanden is the same as cheating If your gaming group generally uses Ulthwe or Iyanden, maybe that's contributing to you thinking NetEA Eldar are generally too strong?

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As someone who is about to start Eldar and has a genuine interest in this topic, I'd like to say there have been some excellent posts in this thread, thanks. Yme-loc's comparison earlier on this page is especially good.

If you'd like the point of view of someone who doesn't already have an allegiance to a specific type of Eldar (beyond the fact I have Ulthwe in 40K), from a completely dispassionate point of view it's clear that Eldar do have multiple options for Alpha Striking, as LoM has said several times, but that the Void Spinner is probably the simplest, lowest risk and most consistent.

I'd go as far as to say that not only does it appear best of the list, it would also be the primary or even the only reason I'd stick with Biel-Tan rather than one of its peers after the initial learning period. That's how important I think it is for a fragile army like Eldar to grab the reins early in the game, and that's how good the VS looks at accomplishing that task.

Does that sound like a fair assessment?

I would sign that statement*.


*With a disclaimer on the point cost increase of the VS.

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"War is not about who is right, but about who is left". - B. Russell