beast pack with farseer and baron

So I want to make a beastly beast pack unit to play in a tournament coming up. Its 1250 pts so im not sure how well this is going to work but i want to have baron and 4 beasts with 10 kymera and 4 razorwing flocks. Then I want to add a farseer on a bike to do its powers and give them re rollable saves and re rollable to hit/wound in close combat. Is this possible? I'm not really sure how the powers really work for eldar. I've actually never used them myself and get confused when i play someone who is using them. You have to roll to see if you get the powers you want? How many can I cast per turn? Also, is this too much a point sink for a unit? I have seen others make nasty nasty units for their codexs (eldar jetbike units) that do this same type of idea and they have worked out pretty well. The beasts are fast enough that I think they should be able to really do some damage and cant really be ignored. Anyone explain how this eldar farseer shinanigan can work?

At 1250 you could get away with 4 masters, 6 flocks and 5 hounds would work great.  A farseer on bike and the baron make this unit one tough but to crack. I play this units all the time. They are great with a seer with Divination primus Prescience.
I play this unit up to 1500-1750. Between 1750-2000 the unit has 5 mastered' 6 flocks and 8-10 hounds.

I use the beasts to be a bullet magnet and to help control the field

I've been thinking about adding eldar allies in just this way.

A farseer on a jetbike is fast enough to keep up with the pack, and buffs their Ld too. He adds some nice antitank too. For psychic powers, they work just like for any other psyker i.e. you have to roll for them, so alas no guarantee of picking up fortune, misfortune, doom or invisibility (probably what you should be shooting for), but you can of course always pick up prescience. The problem I see is that half the time, his other powers won't really help the beasts. The most efficient farseer uses guide/prescience to boost the shooting ability of nearby units (ravagers, warwalkers, and so forth), so you'd be losing out on that.

I've also been considering an autarch on jetbike to go with them: equipment like banshee mask, fusion gun, shard of anaris, or laser lance can all help the beastpack out (providing a decent challenger for one thing).

Also thought about a spiritseer. No jetbike option, so he'll slow them down (though still fleet), but some of the runes of battle powers would be really handy: fearless, enhance, jinx, empower. Conceal would be good if there is some area terrain to use (2+ cover save, bascially), or if you like taking mostly razorwing flocks.

As for your other questions, a farseer can cast powers until he runs out of warp charge points (usually 2-3 powers per turn).
On expense, the beast unit isn't that much of a point sink for such a fast and useful unit, usually only a bit over 200pts not including the HQs to go with them - and if you're taking eldar allies, you need to pay for a HQ so nothing wrong with boosting the beasts still further if you've already got them in your list. I've recently trimmed mine a little to take a minimum of beastmasters, so now i'm down to 2 to see how that goes; allows me to take more killy stuff. Your proposed beast unit looks like pretty much the right balance though.

@colinsherlow
So should I be ok to have 10 dogs instead of 6 flocks? I wasnt sure exactly how I wanted to make my combination but I like the fact that the dogs have a 4+ invol which is great if I don't have cover. Only 5 dogs would be hard to keep around. How ever, the flocks can also take a bunch more wounds. I have seen quite a few s6 shots fired lately with the new eldar codex though so i think right now the dogs are needed. Thoughts on why you take the 6 flocks instead?

@squierboy
I'm pretty positive, if I was going to do anything at 1250 points it would be a farseer since I won't be getting much use out of the allied force besides the powers so i want to have which ever one is going to give me the most powers. I wish I had the new eldar codex. I need to see what powers I can get and what the likely hood of me getting the ones I need. I want to be able to basically give them a cover save in the open and make them re rollable cover saves and then be able to re roll to wound in close combat when they assault and massively assault what ever I am sick of being on the board lol.

SOlyer wrote:

I'm pretty positive, if I was going to do anything at 1250 points it would be a farseer since I won't be getting much use out of the allied force besides the powers

I think that's your problem: at such a low points value, allies become too expensive. Eldar are great for adding some serious mid-strength firepower, and piling in some cheap lance fire - if you can't afford to add that, I don't think a farseer is worth it just to boost the beast pack a bit. I'd add eldar allies at >1500pts. Below that, just add more DE goodness.
Remember that the farseer's powers are randomly generated - you can't guarantee getting the ones you want.

It will definitely work well and while the pack will draw serious fire it can take it with potential for fortuned shadowfield/4++ save shenanigans and so on.

I like the beast pack build you propose btw and I run something similar nowdays. I used to be on the razorwing plan but things have shifted around here to even more S6+ and cover ignoring weaponry so I now prefer mostly khymera with 0-2 flocks for smaller units and 2-4 flocks for bigger units.

Anyway I would keep the your plan for the seers deployment flexible. Theres no reason he cant buff the beasts from 24" away or visa versa with ravagers etc.. although I doubt theres a safer place then in such a unit.

How can I get the unit that 2 better cover save? From what I can find, apparently that ability to get shrouded is not available to a farseer. Basically the 3 powers I want is guide, fortune, and the one that gives you shrouded. Then I'll take 3 bikes for fast easy scoring. At higher points I'll throw some more eldar stuff in. But for this upcoming tournament it's only 1250 pts with 4 player free for all. Hence the survival beast pack.

Just did a tournament with the baron, farseer on jetbike and 20 dogs.

It was unstopable.

If you get fortune, it is even better.

I did take the shard on the farseer to make the unit fearless as well.

Just curious why no Razorwing? Also, what did the farseer end up doing for the group? What was the winning strategy in making them work so well with the farseer?

Farseer cast prescience before the beast pack charged (rerolls are great!) if he had fortune, that makes the pack almost unstopable.
The main thing the farseer did was make the beastpack unbreakable (fearless). With hit and run, I had no qualms about charging say a soulgrinder to tie it up until i hit and run to a juicier target. He was invaluable.

Why no razorwings? Many reasons...
the plethora of str 6 weapons out there, the ton of no armor save shots available... and no invul.
Dogs are better in every way, in my opinion. Also, i noticed with no razorwings, my opponents tend to discount or underestimate the unit.
One opponent after a game said "That unit did not look that bad on paper!"

dogs have one wound. Flocks have five. You take S6+ wound and a models dies anyways. But the flocks protects you much  more from small arms fire. Have more attacks and rending.

A mix is always good

SOlyer wrote:

How can I get the unit that 2 better cover save? From what I can find, apparently that ability to get shrouded is not available to a farseer. Basically the 3 powers I want is guide, fortune, and the one that gives you shrouded. Then I'll take 3 bikes for fast easy scoring. At higher points I'll throw some more eldar stuff in. But for this upcoming tournament it's only 1250 pts with 4 player free for all. Hence the survival beast pack.

As noted, the farseer can't give you shrouded - only the spiritseer can do that. But shrouded isn't necessarily that awesome - your khymerae already have a 4++ save just sitting around in the open. Sitting in cover and benefitting from shrouded is more useful for a static unit, not the beasts. Picking up fortune is pretty darn powerful, but is only 1 in 3 chance (assuming that you take prescience from the divination pack to get rerolls to hit); reminds me of the old seer councils that were so hard to kill.

Getting fearless is important if you're going to be relying on this unit to do all the heavy lifting, so the shard is a reasonable (if expensive) choice. You're really looking at a 'death star' sort of unit at this stage. I use the beasts as a tempting target that can be a surprisingly effective linebreaker if ignored, and also to tie up dangerous units, so i don't invest too much into them.

Still think you need at least some razorwing flocks for help taking on armoured targets, though khymerae should be in the majority.

Quote :

I did take the shard on the farseer to make the unit fearless as well.

This is a great idea.

On beast pack composition ive really warmed to the khymera lately although I do like 2 razorwing around just because I like to assault vehicles and 2+ save units like broadsides and such. Plus as stated they really soak str < 5 fire beautifully.
IME khymera are better against the majority of xenos units barring crons, MCs and obviously anything with a 2+ save and since my meta is pretty devoid of marines atm ive adjusted accordingly.

Gotcha, so I might as well just keep my 10 kymera and 4 flocks combo and then run baron and a farseer with a shard, prescience, and roll twice on their codex chart to try for fortune. If i don't get fortune I'll take guide to help my Ravager take out anything in the sky. Then take my 3 bikes for my scoring unit to make it legal. I see them as the best choice to contest or capture at the last minute.

Sounds good. Everyone has their approach for psych powers im sure and it is somewhat list dependent also. I currently run grotesques, beasts and warp spiders + farseer so my preference is:

-roll on RoF, if fortune/doom roll next on divination (hoping for forewarning for grots or misfortune, at worst prescience for spiders). Anything else take primaris and move on.

-roll on divination hoping for forewarning/misfortune, if not take primaris.

-From there it depends on what powers I have and whats left. If I have 2 primaris and/or im facing MCs I may roll on telepathy for psychic shriek as my 3rd power although witchfire powers arent as useful with my setup since the seer wants the option of boosting to keep up.

So I made my list for the community to really pick apart. Take a look and see if you guys think now that I have more than just the hear of the army and have put the skeleton on there as well. Make sure to take a good look at the rules of how the tournament is being played since its not the normal 1v1 tournament.

http://www.thedarkcity.net/t7200-1250-4v4-free-for-all

I have been running the baron, the birds (4-8 flocks), a farseer on a bike and a clawed fiend (as a bullet magnet). It works well but has some hard counters to beware of. Wraiths with whips will rip them apart. Enfeeble will make them cry (bolters will double out the poor birds!).

I use them as a large body guard unit for the baron and the farseer. With good positioning this unit can soak a huge amount of wounds. RB

Like many others I've also taken the Khymerae heavy approuch lately. My last list versions had 9-10 dogs and only 2 Razorwings.

The Farseer is a very solid choise to go with beast herd. 3 rolls for psychic powers and Fearless for the price of terminator is a bargain.

A jetseer with the shard may be the cheapest "fearless" in town, as well as added hilarity if you happen to be stuck with death mission considering its a combat oriented unit. If you're fortunate enough to roll Fortune the Baron can take some serious punishment re-rolling failed 2+ invul saves. Flocks are some of the cheapest "wounds-per-points," and with potential doom/guide support and rending their damage is very respectable.