Retribution/Warp Spider Squad/Strategy
Stats • Leveling • Weapons • Abilities • Upgrades • Strategy
Strategy
Warp Spiders (Usually shortened as WS) are the elite anti-infantry units of the Eldar faction. They are specialized in fast attacks. They deal heavy amounts of damage to light infantry. This means that you will want to use them vs the Imperial Guard/Orks/Tyranids. They are also competent against "heavy infantry" units such as Tac.Marines, CSMs, or Stormboyz. They are, however, not an option vs Nobz, Terminators, or other "super heavy" squads among these lines. The amount of light infantry late game can go pretty low, so you rarely want to make more than a single squad of spiders.
Teleport
Teleport is the most important ability of the warp spiders, WS models doen't have much HP and the fact that they are light infantry doesn't help. So, if they start taking damage, they will start to lose models. This is where teleportation comes in : you can use it to either place your spiders behind pieces of cover, or as a retreat tool (most notably to get away from melee units). Leveling the warp spider squad will not solve the health problem either, so always keep an eye on them when engaging enemy units.
Upgrades.
Warp Spider Exarch
Not only will this upgrade give you more firepower and one more model, but it will also give additional energy regen to your squad. This will notably give your warp spiders extra mobility thanks to Teleport being available more often, and in turn give them extra survivability beyond the additional squad member.
Aspect of Warp Spider
This upgrade, will, first of all, grant acess to the Haywire Grenades, these explosives will stun and damage the vehicle that they hit after a short delay.
Combined with the spiders' warp ability, it can be used as an excellent opener (for instance to keep a baneblade or leman russ exposed for your wraithguard or heavy weapon teams to shoot at), as well as a strategic tool giving you time to space out or retreat your infantry without suffering casualties or even squad wipes from the tanks' AoE weapons.
This upgrade will also upgrade the Exarch's weaponry to dual death spinners complemented by a pair of power-blades, thus further enhancing the squad's damage and allowing them to last longer during melee fights (even if you should *never* fight dedicated melee units with warp spiders due to their fragility)