Eldar Tactics: HQ Choices: Farseer

There are four types of HQ the Eldar army can choose. Each one has their own strengths and weaknesses and, perhaps more than any other army I have encountered, indirectly shapes the army around them. The four choices are:
Farseer
Avatar
Autroch
Phoenix Lord

As I implied each one is so very different so I shall go through each one in more depth. This particular entry is seen as the King of Eldar Trickery: The Farseer.

FARSEER



Often you will hear of Eldar trickery. In many ways, these guys are the circus Ring Masters who plan and action such trickery. They are the psykers of the army and have many gifts and equipment that make them feared throughout the galaxy.

STATS

Let us start by looking at their stat line
WS 4 BS4 S3 T3 W3 I5 A1 Ld10 Sv- Invun 4+

This is a solid stat line that doesn’t excite anyone. Toughness 3 is relatively simple to cause instant death too (especially with Psy ammo) and I think the majority of squads/vehicles have access to something that can do it. It is countered by an invulnerable save but even so, it’s annoying. Therefore, it is advisable to hide Farseer’s in squads to absorb wounds for them!

One attack huh? Well this could be worse (just). We will look at their equipment shortly but they effectively have two due to the witch blade and pistol. Initiative 5 isn’t too bad and might mean you kill something before it kills you. Could be worse, but far from good.

Leadership 10 is really good of course and you just cannot knock it!

Equipment
A naked Farseer has some really good equipment. They also has some very nice upgrades! At last a positive…

Ghost helm – This give s 3+ to damage sustained from the Warp. To the best of my knowledge this is the only save of its kind in the game due to the changes in 6th. Very useful and included in the basic package

Witch Blade – not what they were but still so very good! I have to reread sections of the rule book for this one but – it wounds on 2+ (irrelevant of toughness), has armour bane (2d6 armour pen) and I think it is AP3. Sadly not the force sword I thought it was as how awesome would that be! Still – it is in the basic package again.

Runes of Warding (upgrade) – this means enemy Psykers have to take all tests on 3 dice with any result of 12 or higher being a perils. Due to recent clarifications this includes squads such as grey knights. Great stuff given there are no saves allowed! I have not actually found this to be too useful in terms of causing wounds. That might be because it stops people taking tests and casting in the first place. I think that is the key thing here – the fear factor. Just make sure you explain to your opponent what it does when you start so there is doubt in their mind,lol

Runes of Witnesing (upgrade) – We take the psy tests over three dice and remove the highest, Couple that with a Ld of 10. Very hard to fail. When combined with the ghost helm it certainly adds a degree of …. certainty to our powers.

Spirit stones – Allows us to cast a second power per turn. Much cheaper than the space marine equivalent too, hee hee.

Singing Spear – I have not found this too useful, but I believe that is due to the lists I play. I could see this being more useful in a squad of Jet bikes/Seer Council.

Powers

The reason you take Psykers in the first place! This will only cover the “codex” options. I will likely do a review of the powers in another post. An important note here, and one that is a relic of the 4th edition codex is that you have to buy powers. This means you can have as many or as few as you would like (and therefore simply change the Far Seers role on the battle field). You can still on cast a single spell though (two with spirit stones), so this is quite the balancing act.

In 6th edition you can convert the number of spells into the new ones. But you are limited to level. i.e. a standard Farseer who purchase one power gets a single spell. A Farseer who purchase two powers (and spirit stones) gets two spells, a Farseer with spirit stones who purchases three powers, till gets two spells! If you don’t change the powers in to spells, you can still take the number your bought.
The thing is that the new spells are all slightly better than the old ones. Not terribly different, but certainly better. The down side is they are random – so how can you plan? Honestly I have never rolled the spells I wanted when I wanted them. In addition there are duds due to the army lists I tend to take (better reserve rolls without reserves? L ). You may also not mix and match – all new or all old. Which is a real shame as the default options could have been a subtle if potentially match winning upgrade to the Eldar.

Here are the spells:

Guide – allows you reroll failed “to hit rolls” when shooting. Not a bad thing at all really! As this is only to shoot, this really helps to dedicate the roll of the Farseer. This is a spell for people at that back such as rangers, war walkers or perhaps even tanks. Might also be used with dire avengers blade Storming to good effect!

Fortune – allows you reroll any failed save. Now the wording of this is what makes it so wonderful (and the most expensive power available). Cover saves, armour saves, feel no pain (not that the Eldar have anyone with this…), invulnerable saves. Help to keep an Avatar or Farseer in the game, a unit in close combat or to survive long enough to reach the objective. The only downside is, when put on normal Eldar with questionable saves and a T3 it has limited uses to really settle a battle. Looks like a rerollable save for our Farseer then…

Doom – This means you get to reroll failed to wound rolls against a unit. This is unit specific to the doomed unit, not the unit shooting nor attacking. This will help be great with concentrated fire or assault. Really this is a great spell and I like it a lot.

Mind War – Roll a D6 and add your leadership. If you beat you opponent they take that many wounds with no armour save. Perfect for assassinations. Shame it only has a 18 inch range but it is model specific so it could be used against a nob with power Klaw or a HQ equally.

Eldrith Storm – large blast, s3, ap-. Horde killer, plain and simple. Very rarely take or use as I tend to face T4 or higher!

Anymore for anymore?
Why yes as a matter of fact there are 2 things of note to add here.

The first Is that they can take Jet Bikes… Increased speed, higher toughness and the chance of permanent cover saves…. Not too shabby.

And lastly, but certainly not least, Warlocks ....A body guard of Warlocks. I'm only going to cover these guy briefly here but….
- Entitled to one passive spell which is applied to the whole squad (reroll, Ld, Hvy flamer template, 5+ cover, +1 WS/I).
- - invulnerable save
- Witch blades all round!
- Similar stat line to a farseer

Even if it is T3 that is a lot of invulnerable saves to get through. Reroll leadership would affect the Farseer as well so that is massive. The destructor power means D3 hits on over watch. If you had a large squad that could be 4 or 5 D3 hits. That is a lot of damage… plus they will likely strike first in combat and hit with witch blades. Put them on jet bikes and your suddenly t4. Not too bad and certainly keeps them alive for longer….

General thoughts and Tactics.
So the above may sound quite a contradicting mix –
- Low toughness - great save?
- Great spell casting prowess - limited offensive spells
- Pretty nice CC weapons – 1 attack?!?

But the real reason people take them is the Eldar sorely need their boosts!

At T3 5+ the howling Banshees can be killed by nearly anything that shots. Re rolling their armour save helps! Guardians have limited uses in game but they do at least have an assault 2 gun – re rolling the “to hits” increases the chances of them being useful a lot! One unit being a real pain and just not shifting? Doom them and see how long they can last (tie it in with guide and your laughing). All of these are examples of where a Far Seer can shine – supporting others with a timely cast.

The examples above are good but when you exploit the situation they are better. Guided War Walkers get 24 S6 shots and so can cause serious damage to any squad. If you can doom the opponent too that would cause pain! Especially if the War Walkers are in cover and have fortune…. Obviously I ‘m talking of three spells here so that would mean two casters (or Eldrad) but the principal is sound. A different example would be the Avatar being fortuned (reroll 3+ invun save) against a Doomed opponent. Hard not to die against that no matter what you are….

These examples should show what a Farseer could do. The only thing left to choose is: do you leave him at the back with the War Walkers or Path Finders or do you put him at the front with the Avatars and CC troops? Good thing you can take two HQ's isn't it....

a few points ive got questions on as i read this - im writing as i come across them so forgive me if any are covered off later in the tactica.

Autarchs - ts definitely Aut-arch rather than autrach

Singing spears - i think these are really good - in orky terms they are like a hidden power klaw against vehicles as they give your attack S9? (so thats 2 S9 attacks with 2D6 penetration - goodbye landraider) as you say, good on bikes as they can easily tank hunt with their speed and such a devastating anti vehicle weapon. you do lose the extra cc attack though
Also, they give you a short range assault weapon if charging into the enemy that looks slightly better than the pistol? so situational really...

Guided war walkers- dear lord help us....

so re the powers/ obviously the power of dice manipulations is really good, but have you ever considered more destructive powers?
what would suit a farseer if you had to take another set?

I haven't looked at the spelling for awhile, nit I will look when I do a write up.

I don't have my book handy but I'm pretty sure that it's a 2 handed weapon so only 1 attack (

As for the powers, the Eldar don't really get offensive powers. Always supportive. Those 5 are what we have. 2 offensive and 3 supportive. The new ones are divination and telepathy. Both are supportive really.