Warhammer 40,000/Tactics/Eldar Corsairs (7E)

The army list can be found in Imperial Armour Volume Eleven - The Doom of Mymeara.

Why Play Corsairs

Pros

• Jet packs everywhere
• Walkers in troops
• Everyone could deep strike
• Tons of shuriken cannons
• It’s space elf ninja pirates!

In short Eldar Corsairs are like about as mech-capable as Eldar (without Wave Serpents though) and are faster than Dark Eldar.

Playing Corsairs could get you the most powerful alpha-strike IN THE WHOLE GAME as well as a lot of jump-shoot-jump and deepstrike [phallic reference] to [sex reference] your opponents [pooping reference] up ASAP. On the other hand you are paper thin, if you fail to shoot him right away or hide behind some solid cover your guys would drop like a flies to ANYTHING your opponent could point at them. If you like glass-cannon type of armies, which are able to blast anything to pieces in one volley of fire and avoid payback if used properly, but collapse into pieces after one mistake, Corsairs are your army. If you like the cheese fortress tactic, play Tau.

Cons

However, this is one list that Forgeworld really needs to pull their finger out and fix. As it was originally a 5th edition army list, when the 6th Edition Codex: Eldar came out, the Corsairs were rapidly overtaken just by sheer the basics that the differences are completely laughable.

• WS3 & I4 means that Corsairs are inferior to Guardians & basic Kabalites, despite being described as more "experienced and battle-hardened"
• Complete lack of any colourful special rules that both the Craftworld & Dark Eldar get, such as Ancient Doom, Battle Focus, Power from Pain or Night Vision.
• Inferior versions of the same equipment such as Lasblasters, Shimmershields & Nightspinners which have rules for them in IA, so can't be referred back to the codex.
• No access to special characters, unique warlord traits

None of this changes how the army is to be played, it just means that they suffer one of the most severe forms of Codex Creep.

Army-Wide Special Rules

Everyone gets Void Hardened Armour for those extremely rare situations where it counts.

Jet infantry everywhere as mentioned, meaning relentless heavy weapons and the ability to retreat out of sight in the assault phase.

Special Wargear

Corsairs don't use exactly the same equipment as their Craftworld or Commorite cousins, and they do have a few tricks of their own:

• Balelight - a one-use weapon. Assault 4, Rending, flashlight which is only suitable for when you're just about to charge in close combat. Your HQ choices are the only guys who get access to this. It causes Pinning, but since it only has a 6" range that's almost entirely irrelevant since you'll be charging the unit.

• Void Sabre - a S+1, AP-, Rending Weapon... REALLY not worth it since it costs you more than a power weapon (choice of: Sword, Mace, Axe, Spear) and you'll take one of those for your daily needs. If the simply made it the same cost as a power weapon you might find a niche for it. But relying on Rending to save your bacon only works when you've got lots of attack dice.

Unit Analysis

HQ

• Corsair Prince: Space elf ninja pirate pimp master. He’s like a bastard son of Archon and Autarch. He's a bit overpriced, but versatile choice which can do decent in close combat or shooting with appropriate upgrades. The extra points you pay for him are presumably for his ability to deep strike up to three units and bring down a void strike, which could be S9 AP2 lance pieplate of pure destruction, gigantic S4 AP5, pinning D6+6" blast or one turn of night-fighting.
  • Remember you can deep strike a unit and its dedicated transport as a single unit, allowing you to drop, say an outcast Fire Dragon Squad and its Wave Serpent, disembark and pop enemy tanks, and still deep strike two other units.

• Corsair Blade Sworn Retinue: Cheap meatshield retinue for close-combat oriented Princes. Basically stripped down Aspect Warriors, since they have the same statline, although with +1 Attack, -1 Leadership basic. Though they have unimpressive wargear options, they can tear vehicles apart if equipped with haywire/melta grenades and/or fusion pistols. Also Jet-Packs come cheap, but only if your Prince has one too. One of your better infantry units, but don’t expect to make miracles with them.

• Corsair Void Dreamer: Corsair Farseer, but (usually) nowhere near as good. He has 4++ like crafworld psykers, but has some fairly average psy-powers (Mastery Level 1, but upgradable to ML2 due to the way rules translate into 7th). Spiritshield has gotten a little boost, since it flatly nullifies incoming powers on a 4+, especially since Deny the Witch has become harder to pull off. Withering Radiance also gives you some nice higher strength AP2, even though it is reduced by opponent's toughness, that's still S6 versus marines.
  • Can be given neural shredder: S8 AP1 flamer pistol, but uses the older rules where it has to roll to wound against Ld (most Ld is around 7/8 so wound on 3/4+), however it FUCKS vehicles, as it auto-pens, though only rolls a D3 on the damage table plus the AP1 bonus.
  • Oh, and he can get webway portal for extra dickish reserve tricks.

Troops

• Eldar Corsair Squad: (1+ Compulsory Choice) Two shuriken cannons or eldar missile launchers. On deep striking jet pack bodies. With BS4. It's gonna be Christmas. Additionally you can also get two fusion guns, if you feel your army have not enough vehicle-raping power, or two flamers in case you need powerful overwatch shots to prevent charges. Although the rest of the squad is armed with flashlights lasblasters and have poor 5+ armor, jet packs would boost their survivability a lot. In case you really want to charge someone (like fire warriors, guardsmen or gretchins – everyone else would rip you apart), they even have plasma grenades. Alternatively you could keep them in start count of five without jet packs and heavy weapon, to take the awesome armored gunhouse Corsair Falcon is. There is no sense in middle points in between - either you go full squad jet pack bristling with guns, or stock guys as upgrade for the Falcon.

• Corsair Wasp Assault Walker Squadron: 25pts more than regular War Walkers. With jet packs. And BS4. Taken as troops. Can Deep Strike. If there is a reason not to take them, I don’t know it. Give them scatter lasers and deep strike to get that beautiful Leman Russ's rear armour (bit of maths: 3 Wasps with scatter lasers = 24 shots, 3+ to hit means on average 16 hits, rear armour of standard Leman Russ is 10 so 4+ needed to glance, 8 glances on average, if there is a full squadron that leaves 2 Tanks down and 1 on it's last hull point, in 1 turn of shooting, combine with guide or prescience from allied Farseer for more cheese). Just remember they are still AV10 open-topped 2HP, and being tall its hard for them to fully hide behind BLoS, especially since 6-th ed randomized thrust move.
  • Worth noting is that you can't have more of these than Corsair squads so you are essentially limited to 3 units (up to 9 models) per FOC.

• Corsair Jetbike Squadron: Tougher, faster and much more expensive version of regular corsairs. They can bring up to 3 shuriken cannons, and draw a lot of fire – not even T4 and 3+/5+ saves would make them survive in the open – its good they have scout rule and the eldar jetbike jump-shoot-jump move to hide behind the walls or tanks.

Dedicated Transport

• Corsair Falcon: It’s your standard eldar Falcon, only with BS4 and 10-men 6 elf (read the FAQ) transport capacity, and it don’t take heavy support slot. Awesome. BS4 makes the bright lance awesome on this guy, you can never have too much S8 AP1. Taking 2 Princes with Bladesworn and 4 squads of 5 corsairs, mounting them all in Falcons and deep striking is a rapetrain with no brakes. Combine with 2 Squads of Wasp Walkers for more deep strike and some units to start on the map (since no more than 1/2 of your units can start in reserve) you can reserve as much of your army as you want in the new edition, so ally in DE for the Scalpel Squadron formation and enjoy full null deployment.

• Corsair Venom: I love Venoms. You love Venoms. We all love Venoms. Corsair ones lack inbuilt flickerfields, making the more fragile than their counterparts and jinking now causes snapshots, but with shuriken cannon with twin catapults you're still likily to hit something while transporting your dudes. But deals much less anti-infantry dakka then dark eldar set of two splinter cannons, but can threaten vehicles. Also, with all that deep strike and jet pack goodness corsairs don’t really need extra mobility of Venom. Though, fast open-topped transport work in great synergy with Outcasts. The most rage inducing elves to put in this thing are Fire Dragons, however their short range and the fragility of the Venom can let you down.

Elite

• Corsair Voidstorm Squad: Corsair veterans. Most notably for up to 3 meltaguns on jet pack body, and ability to take melta bombs or haywire grenades – so any enemy vehicle in their charge range is already dead, just don’t know it (though, Swooping Hawks could do haywire grenading much better, swooping hawks don't have melta guns so can't focus on vehicles as reliably). Don’t be fooled by their melee-oriented wargear – with only 1A they are not dedicated HtH fighters – don’t even think to charge ork boys or hormagaunts with them.

• Harlequin Troupe: both a fluffy choice and very likely something that you'll end up taking in Corsairs even if you would leave them home in Craftworld/Dark Eldar lists since they are pretty much your main melee option here.

• Eldar Craftworld Outcasts (0-1 restriction): These are Eldar codex fast attack, elites choices or Rangers/Pathfinders. See eldar tactics for details. The ONLY reason you should do this is for either Venom/Falcon dedicated transports or Prince's Deep Strike, take Eldar Allies for anything else. Unfortunately you can only have one Outcast choice in your army so you can't spam 3 deep striking wraithguard squads. Pity.
  • Rangers - Should have been a troops choice in this army already, since they are THE outcasts, but Forgeworld probably just wanted to sell you corsair jet packs and wasp walkers. You already have enough Dakka, however these guys are useful for holding back-field objectives, but there are better choices for your Outcast selection
  • Fire dragons – Its Fire Dragons – Good old meltabane of any vehicle or TEQ you remember from Eldar codex, but unlike Eldar codex Fire Dragons, these ones can take Venom as dedicated transport, deep strike with Prince sky raiders rule or pop out from Void Dreamer webway portal. It’s a good news for the unit which need to be as close to enemy as possible. These guys are an excellent source of anti Nobz/Paladins (since you can't take Fire Prisms).
  • Howling Banshees – Your good old screaming psycho-feminists with power weapon. Good at butchering MEQ’s and nothing else. Even better with Venoms, which are assault delivery vehicles.
  • Striking Scorpions – This guys are designed to slaughter tarpits, and while they still can do this in corsair army and beef up the melee/dakka ratio a bit since the rest of your army would be focussed on shooting.
  • Shadow Specters – Your army already has a lot of medium-ranged shooty jet pack infantry, but like dakka there is no such thing as too much jet infantry. Take these guys and blast MEQ’s to oblivion or evaporate tanks with ghostlight shots. Just remember, that they are MASSIVELY expensive and draw a lot of fire – ALWAYS hide them behind cover or they die pointlessly.
  • Shining Spears – You’re playing corsairs, your own jetbikes are better, cheaper, and don’t take oh so precious elite slots. Pass.
  • Swooping Hawks – Your fast and decently armored haywire grenades. Grenade pack/Skyleap bombing could be good, and eldar flashlights aren't terrible in shredding light infantry, but nothing says fuck you like a cheap squad of 5-6 Hawks, wrecking Land Raider in one charge, or 10-Hawk squad, tearing apart entire Leman Russ tank squadron as haywire is the new HP shredding king in 6th ed.
  • Warp Spiders – Spiders themselves are awesome with their high mobility, tough armor and brutal guns, but in corsair army almost anyone could spam S6 shots with much higher range. Only reason you should take Spiders is their exarch with powerblades and withdraw power, who work surprisingly good in challenges.
  • Wraithguard – HOLY [HAVING SEX WITH POOP] DO IT! Deep striking a unit of 10 Wraithguard behind enemy lines is the ultimate rage inducer. They are your ONLY source of S10 to deal with bikers and Ogryns.
  • Wraithblades - The main drawback of Wraithblades in vanilla codex is that they are slow, but here they can deep strike, pop out of webway portal or even hijack dark eldar kabalite Raider. Enjoy your eldary assault terminators.
  • Vyper squadron – No. Just no. You have Hornets.
  • Hemlock Wraithfighter - Coupled with the new Deathjester rules this could be a fun unit to have on the board
  • Crimson Hunter - Why not, who doesn't like 4 BS5 (potentially BS6) S8 shots (with the option for precision shots) that re-roll on the vehicle damage table when firing against other flyers...easily one of the best (if not THE BEST) flyer in the game at the moment (Necron Nightshroud Bomber being another contender for said title allbeit for a rather different role on the battlefield)

• Dark Eldar Kabalite Warriors: (0-1 restriction) You get a basic Kabalite squad without paying the allies tax and including a HQ choice... that's about it. Though you cannot have more Dark Eldar or Outcasts than you have Corsair squads.
  • There is one redeeming point in taking warriors - they can take Dark Eldar transports. While double-cannon Venom is good for shredding infantry, you really should consider Raider. Your Scorpions, Banshees and Wraithblades would be happy to ride on big assault transport.

Fast Attack

• Corsair Hornet Squadron: AV11 fast scouting skimmers with two standard eldar guns. Vypers wish to be so awesome. Take them, zoom around and torrent death and destruction from their cannons. Pulse lasers = 125pts 80pts (IA:A 6E updated costs) for 4!! S8 AP2 shots or Scatter Lasers for 8 S6 AP6 shots at 80 pts. Pulse lasers are rapetastic against wound allocation abusers, Missile Launcher will ruin every 4+sv unit's Christmas, Starcannons are meh, Bright lances will knock down most vehicles reliably, Shuriken Cannons/Scatter lasers own Blob units and even some Monstrous Creatures. Seriously, an entire unit of these will kill ANYTHING you point them at, combined with the ability to outflank taking 3 will cause immense butthurt. Just don't forget, that full Hornet squadron with good guns would cost you arm and leg at both points and pounds, so use them wise and carefully.

• Nightwing Interceptor: Pure undiluted destruction, BS4, 2 Shuriken Cannons and 2 Bright Lances, Supersonic and Vector Dancer make for pure terror in the hearts of your opponents. Arguably the best air superiority fighter, hell even best flyer, in 40K. Though, it's AV10 2HP, so the first time you roll one to save could be the last. It has Shrouded so has a flat 5+ cover save even if you don't choose to jink, but if you do choose to make that decision you'll get 2+ cover due to all to bonuses the Nightwing gets.

• Corsair Night Spinner: Big scary anti-infanty artillery tank. Much like Eldar codex one, but in Fast attack slot. At first glance it looks good, but Corsair fast attack is arguably better then heavy support – you need more Hornets and Nightwings. If you really want impressive infantry stopping power of Night Spinner, it’s most times better to take it in Eldar allied detachment.

Heavy Support

• Corsair Phoenix Bomber: The only Heavy Support really worth taking for Corsairs. Like Nightwing, this flyer also comes with shrouded and vector dancer for unparalleled mobility and a modicum of protection, plus strafing run for BS FIVE against ground targets. It can torrent absurd amount of anti-infantry dakka, but it almost reaches Land Raider’s price-tag in points. There is are a couple of things the Phoenix actually does really well: killing MEQ’s in the open - consider it a flying Dark Reaper squad. It also tears other flyers out of the skies by throwing around fifteen of S5-S8 shots depending on what your underslung weapon choice has been. Against Horde armies like Guard, Nids or Orks it can just remove entire squads, particularly if you replace the phoenix missile launchers with Nightfire missile launchers, giving you six frag missiles that pin and ignore cover on top of all the other firepower.

• Corsair Warp Hunter: Short-ranged tank armed with D-flail, which once upon a time was pretty scary. Nowadays, it fires either a flamer template or three small blasts at 36" range, and in both modes it fires S7 AP3, Distortion, meaning getting auto-penetration at 6, so this thing could rape almost anything in it’s mediocre range. It could. Not any more since being AP3 means it can't roll an explode on the vehicle damage chart so you'll have to settle with lucky hull points on high AV vehicles. Used to be The best heavy support choice in your army. Now does what Dark Reapers do: Killing MEQ, which is nothing interesting, I guess. Ah, yes, aside from gun nerf FW made it more expensive.

• Corsair Fire Storm: Anti-air tank. It’s basically Falcon with twin-linked 6-shot R60 skyfire/interceptor scatter laser. Though, its not a Hydra flak tank – you cannot just point at a flyer and remove it; since most enemy flyers will be AV11-12 which S6 will struggle with. Though the Firestorm will still get shit done it is severely hobbled by the 7E skyfire/interceptor rules which mean it has no really use other than killing flyers and if that's all you needed it for then you were better off taking a Nightwing or Phoenix which you should have done anyway. However, one thing it is really good for is raping AV10 skimming vehicles since skyfire works on skimmers too, but this means that you are playing against Dark Eldar, or Land Speeders which is a bit of a niche that most of your other units can cover anyway. So its the worst Heavy Support choice you have.

Building your Army

The best thing about this army is most of the infantry can be converted out of any regular Eldar/Deldar troops with greenstuff, patience and a steady hand. The worst thing is that most of the vehicles are Forge World (beautiful, but expensive).

As with Craftworld Eldar careful consideration should be taken when choosing your army however they do have more flexible choices over their craftworld brethren. The first thing you should notice is BS4 everywhere, this is a godsend when compared to the measly BS3 on many codexes out there. Falcons are Corsair dedicated transports, put EVERYTHING in Falcons.

Now, lets look at the army:

• HQ
  • Corsair prince is my personal favorite here, the void strikes and Deep Strike ability make for very interesting tactical choices, and in the new edition you can now have more then 50% of your army in reserve. Take 2, give them a Blade Sworn bodyguard and put in Falcons.

• Elite, Painfully limited in this Codex.
  • First, squad of 10 Wraithguard with a Warlock and deep strike using Prince's ability. Drink opponent's tears.
  • Second, Harlequins love Venoms (it was originally a harlequin vehicle) but you can only fit a small squad in one, Shadowseer's powers work VERY well with Darkfire Skyburst (Prince's void strike).
  • Third, Small squad of 5 Voidstorm with fusion guns and haywire grenades automatically get to deep strike (all Jet and Jump infantry do in 6th Ed) will annihilate vehicles.

• Troops
  • I go for 3 squads of Corsairs in Falcons and 3 Squadrons of Wasp Walkers with Scatter Lasers. But others go for 2 of each and 2 Jetbike Squads.

• Fast Attack
  • Hornets are beautifully effective as are Nightwings, Hornets hit harder but Nightwings are harder to kill. 1 Squad of 3 Hornets and 2 Nightwings can't go wrong. Just wait for FW to update these babies.

• Heavy Support
  • Warp Hunters and Firestorms provide much needed firepower, Firestorm is better at killing light vehicles while Warp Hunter is better at killing infantry. Still waiting for an update. Holofields and shit, you know.

• A good idea is also to get eldar as allies and get eldrad/or Irillyth, add dem S9 AP1 Lance fire prisms, and a Void Dragon Phoenix. and Bingo instant salsa.

Tactics

- I prefer a 5 man squad of troops with lasblasters and an Eldar missle launcher in a venom with an eldar missle launcher (EML) for 120pts. It is a fast platform guarding the rear, supporting the front with 48" range and can fire EML at 2 different targets (open-topped). 6 of these gives you 12 shots effective against either troops or vehicles and can score late game objectives.