Philip Bright: Hm, I wouldn´t say that jump packers are really hard hitting; transported things are predictable (they won´t appear in nowhere as daemons). And daemons...they are sort of unpredictable with their summoning, but I wanted something hard hitting, not completely reliable:-)
So you´re right.
To the exarch - he costs you those points (i can´t say how much though, it´s against forum rules I worry), for which you could buy three more spiders (if you have really few pts left and I think that you could find them).
What does he do? He will save some spiders after cc+some power in cc (pretty pathetic imho as you can´t shoot before charge).
...But there are only 5 spiders - no reason to save them as the charge of something nasty can kill 4-5 of them.
I think that it would be better to have 8-men squad with no exarch. If you would take care to use them propertly, they would show you their true abilities.
But what I would REALLY do - I would drop avatar + fire prism
and have 2x7 spiders+exarch with withdraw. Because two units of spiders will likely be able to turn the tide of many battles. And 7+exarch IS worth saving by withdraw. Two cooperating spider units are immensely lethal; one is just good harrasment.
And some statistic to the end - to the broadsides
when 9 spiders+exarch with powerblades charge
18 normal attacks - 18*2/3*2/3*1/6=4/3
5 exarch attacks - 5*2/3*2/3= about 2,2
so whole squad will kill 1-2 suits
when shooting
20 attacks - 20*2/3(some correction for exarch, I will slightly raise final score - comment after counting - the exarch doesn´t matter very much)*5/6*1/6=about 1 suit dead
So it is not immense difference, although certainly there is some. But I would never waste spiders (with or without) exarch on suits with their 2+ saves (3+ are no problem though). We are eldar. We have starcannons and brightlances (which can inflict IK on suits). Yes, hypothetical examples have their sense, but not every example and this example seems you made serious mistake when you´re so desperate to use spiders on suits (they work well against their skimmers). And eldar can be played without mistakes.
