Eldar Weapon Choices

[Firedrake Cordova]

Hi all,

 

I've been assembling my Eldar planes, and have got a bit stuck with the weapons options...

 

Looking at the Nightwing fighters:

• Unless I've missed something, the starcannon and scatter lasers are effectively "the same" (the scatter laser has double the shots but with half the chance of damaging when compared to the starcannon). Both seem to synergise with the shuriken cannon well.
• Bright lances give a couple of potent mid- and long range shots, giving a bit more versatility across the range bands, given that the shuriken cannons are decidedly short-to-medium range weapons
• Whilst you could use the krak missile launcher option to build a "wild weasel" ground attack fighter, giving a Phoenix bomber the krak missile upgrade seems to be a better idea? (same profile)

I was thinking of a mix of starcannons and scatter lasers, with a bright lance plane for variety? (I have 6)

 

Looking at the Phoenix bombers:

• The krak missile launcher seems to be a good option to provide a strafing run option against ground targets
• The pulse lasers seem to give balanced performance through the range bands
• The bright lances seem to be a reasonable option, being a bit better at long range and a bit worse at short- and medium range, when compared to the pulse lasers
• The starcannon seem worse than the pulse lasers, giving you one extra shot at short range, but one fewer a medium range, and two fewer at long range, with the same chance of causing damage.

I was thinking two with pulse lasers and krak missiles, and one with bright lances, just to avoid being boring and having three the same?

Edited April 22, 2022 by Firedrake Cordova

[Trokair]

I think I put bright and pulse lasers on mine because I don’t know enough AI yet, but my 40k brain says planes are vehicles and these are anti vehicle guns, while star cannons and related are anti infantry/heavy infantry (and maybe at a stretch light vehicle) weapons.

 

 

Edit: spellings! 

Edited April 23, 2022 by Trokair

[Firedrake Cordova]

my 40k brains sassy planes are vehicles and dose are anti vehicle guns, while star cannons and related are anti infantry/heavy infantry (and maybe at a stretch light vehicle) weapons.

Actually, that's a good point (especially as I'm more of a "background player"). :)  Way back in 2nd Edition (when I started playing), scatter lasers had incredibly poor armour penetrating abilities (actually identical to a regular bolter). Starcannon were just heavy plasma guns back then, and could penetrate the tracks or sponson on a Predator with a fair amount of luck (AV15 vs max roll of 17).

[Mandragola]

I mostly went with star cannon on fighters. I wanted them to maximise their effectiveness at close range, since they have the speed to get there.

 

I think the same logic applies to nightwings, mostly. However having the missiles as well does open up the option of making a sort of sniper plane to hit stuff (air or ground) from far awaY, protected by holo fields. In that case you’d want one of the lasers, though I’m away from my books and can’t remember which one right now.