Jetbikes Vs Swarms

[Callaghan41]

I'm thinking about starting Eldar, and am wondering if jetbikes could deal with hoards of infantry like ork boyz. Does anyone have any experience in situations like this?

[yWizePapaSmurfy]

Well, if you're wondering just how "pure" Jetbikes deal with Hordes it's quite different than mixing Jetbikes in a list.

But:

- Jetbikes are anti-infantry anyways, so some focus fire can bring down numbers fast. Read: If one squad can't do the job, get aid from other Jetbike Squads, and pick your fights wisely.
- Destructor Warlocks on a Jetbike with them could help. (Though I think I'd rather take Embolden for the Leadership bonus)
- Since Eldar Jetbikes have the 6" assault phase move no matter what, if you dive into 12" to get your shots off, with practice you can get the distances down so you're 16-18" away from the enemy after this process, against a foot horde this means they have to roll a 4+ on their WAAAGH! fleet rolls to get you. (Doesn't help vs. Ghazghkull)
- With Fortune on the Jetbikes, you're pretty hardy against anything sub-Power Weapon/ AP 3.
- Don't forget Shuriken Cannons!

[Sybrite]

guardian jetbikes fair okay vs horde so long as you can keep out of assaults (just as smurfy said, the faster you learn to finese your movement distances the better)
-also like smurfy said, embolden is the best friend of guardian jetbikes. destructor seems nice, but typically being in range to use it means if the target survives you're gonna get assaulted (even with the assault phase move back)
for a decent jetbike troop choice, go with a min. of 6 guardian jetbikes, 2 upgraded with shuriken cannons then add an embolden warlock on jetbike (7 jetbikes @ 202pts) I usually give the warlock a singing spear too (to throw at vehicles, mostly because I have bad luck with explosions killing my own models so having the option to throw a S9 spear from 12 inches keeps me safer than being always having to be in base contact with an exploding tin can during the assault phase by keeping the regular witchblade)
-if you want some jetbikes to toss into a mixed list, than just 3 bikes (with or without a cannon upgrade so @66-76pts) work great, put them in reserves to keep them safe, once they're on the table you usually turbo-boost around for safety then swoopdown to claim or contest an objective towards the end of the match (turn5+)

on the other hand a seercouncil (farseer's warlock unit mounted on jetbikes) with a few destructors are definately horde hunters (plus all those witchblades lets them tear into vehicles very well too) aside from stabbing vehicles to death, seercouncils also don't do well in assault, as they become a tarpit -fortune lets them reroll their armor and invul saves so they don't die too easy, but witchblades don't ignore armor saves so against anything with a decent save or even feel no pain is going to hold them up for a long time. luckily most hordes have horrible armor saves so a few overlapping destructor templates buffed by dooming the target means that usually there will be nothing left to assault you.
Typical Seercouncil is a farseer with Jetbike, Runes of Warding, spiritstones, doom & fortune (175pts) then at least 5 warlocks, jetbikes, 2 destructors, 1 embolden, 1 enhancer (embolden helps moral tests as well as the farseer's psychic test, enhance is to boost their WS and I which helps alot when taking down dreadnoughts, 2 destructors for laying waste to infantry hordes, 5th has no power but is there as an extra body to shuffle wound allocation) (265pts; so 440 total with the farseer attached) again I typically shuffle in a singing spear or two on the warlock unit (ones that don't have the destructor power) as well I don't use any non-power warlocks, its 1embolden 1enhance, rest of the unit gets destructors (less wound allocation groups, but it's more damage output, cause if you spam enough wounds even elite infantry like terminators fall over dead (I usually do a 8man warlock unit so it's a gaping 446pts so 621 with the farseer well over a quarter of my list for 1,500-2,000 builds just in my HQ)