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So I have been playing Eldar since the days when they had Lasguns and Landraiders, and now that a new codex has come out we have a flood of people jumping on our bandwagon with nothing but Scatter-bikes and WraithKnights.........

I submit an old-school Foot-dar list with no WK or Wave serpents.......can such a thing be done?!?! Have I suffered brain-damage?!?!?!
You be the judge, I am looking for possible flaws with the new meta..........please feel free to comment as long as you DON'T suggest WKs or more bikes.

HQ Farseer (naked) (Guide/Prescience)

Troops
Dire Avengers x10 with Exarch/Shimmershield
Dire Avengers x10 with Exarch/Shimmershield
Guardian Defenders x20, Warlock (conceal), Scatterlaser
Windriders x6, Scatterlaser x6 (general harassment and scoring)
Rangers x 10
Rangers x 10 (picking off Missiles, Plasma Cannons, and other blast weapons, also outflanking and hard to dislodge from objectives)

Elites
Wraithblades x5, GhostAxes and Force Shields (frontline bullet sponge to draw Plasma Cannon fire away from shootie units, possible Linebreaker unit)
HowlingBanshees x5, Exarch with MirrorSwords (throwaway units for backfield scoring or suppressing Tau over-watch)

Heavy
Wraithlord, flamers, Brightlances x2, Ghost Glave (Bulletsponge, and ranged Heavy Vehicle duty)

Aspect Host
Swooping Hawks x 10, Exarch with SunRifle (light infantry, Heavy Vehicle hunting, and Necron nerfing)
Dark Reapers x5, , Starshot missles, Exach w/Starshot (Cracking Transports and scaring the snot out of MEQ armies, plus with guide doing some anti-air))
Dark Reapers x5, , Starshot missles, Exach w/Starshot

1997 pts, 98 models,
The idea is similar to Guard in that I have too much scoring units to shoot at and too many threats to ignore, with a Farseer keeping everyone shooting. I am trying to avoid using Lord of War units and have an All-comers list.

Comments?

No Wave Serpents, No WK, but including a Wraithlord and Wraithblades? It's a bold strategy, Cotton...let's see if it pays off.

bigsaks5 wrote:
No Wave Serpents, No WK, but including a Wraithlord and Wraithblades? It's a bold strategy, Cotton...let's see if it pays off.

Yeah, I already run circles around most of the other players in my area, and almost vehemently refuse to use a WK, D-Weapons, or more than one squad of bikes. It is a strong enough Codex to not need to cheese out. I get plenty of mileage and wins out of a Guardian Battle Host with a Aspect Host of Reapers and Hawks. With the meta in my area shifting to deal with my Waveserpents, it may be time to change it up and make all those las-cannons worthless......... I figure the Wraithblades are good for a solid, tough, unit that can take a lot of abuse and act as a wedge splitting the opponents force in the middle allowing me to shift my attention to 1/2 his army at a time. The Wraithlord is just for Brightlances and keeping the back field clear of drop-podding units.

Yeah I feel you. I'm building a Wraith Host + DE list right now but that's simply because half of my local meta is all about casual fluffy games (which my first army does magnificently) but the other half are people that try to make it in the top ten at BAO and LVO. I love the Wraithblade models though. And the Wraithlord, but I'm determined just to give him a Glaive and Flamers and have him just charge up the field.

Bravo for not going the way of cheese. I don't see what you have to lose by slapping those Reapers and Hawks into an Aspect Host for BS5.

I've played a Guardian Host with Aspect Host styled army running several units in a similar fashion as to what you have presented. (I'm also a RT era Eldar 40K and Eldar player!) While staying with a single CAD that you have presented, I'd recommend using the LoW slot for an Avatar. I've found him to be fairly decent in this edition and his Fearless bubble is clutch in addition to the other buffs he provides. With so many units presented, target priority will be a challenge for folks and I think you could get more mileage out of the Avatar. To get the points, I'd recommend dropping one squad of Rangers and then pick off a couple models from a few other squads to accommodate him.

While you mention you don't want any of the 'cheese', I do think running a Vaul's Wrath Battery with 2 D-Cannons is still a type of equalizer in the realm of nigh unkillable deathstars that exist on the tabletop. For the points, you could either swap out the Wraithlord or the smaller Dark Reaper squad.

Overall, this is the kind of army I really enjoy running as it does provide a TON of flexibility. However, I really love the Battle Focus buffs by running a full Eldar Warhost. Have fun and let us know how it goes.

 astro_nomicon wrote:
Bravo for not going the way of cheese. I don't see what you have to lose by slapping those Reapers and Hawks into an Aspect Host for BS5.

Wow, I dont know how it escaped my attention, but you're exactly correct! I am adjusting the list now.......


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Sarigar wrote:
I've played a Guardian Host with Aspect Host styled army running several units in a similar fashion as to what you have presented. (I'm also a RT era Eldar 40K and Eldar player!) While staying with a single CAD that you have presented, I'd recommend using the LoW slot for an Avatar. I've found him to be fairly decent in this edition and his Fearless bubble is clutch in addition to the other buffs he provides. With so many units presented, target priority will be a challenge for folks and I think you could get more mileage out of the Avatar. To get the points, I'd recommend dropping one squad of Rangers and then pick off a couple models from a few other squads to accommodate him.

While you mention you don't want any of the 'cheese', I do think running a Vaul's Wrath Battery with 2 D-Cannons is still a type of equalizer in the realm of nigh unkillable deathstars that exist on the tabletop. For the points, you could either swap out the Wraithlord or the smaller Dark Reaper squad.

Overall, this is the kind of army I really enjoy running as it does provide a TON of flexibility. However, I really love the Battle Focus buffs by running a full Eldar Warhost. Have fun and let us know how it goes.

I agree in the sense that the Avatar has always been a great addition to a foot-dar list, but I feel the current codex is more than capable of surviving without one, and then I get the satisfaction of not hearing complaints about bringing a LOW, and watching their face as I win with a unconventional list. As for the D-Cannon, I am unsure that a 24" gun won't keep up with the speed I need from a battlefocus based list. That and D-weapons are kind of an easy button I like to avoid........ That being said, you are correct, they would be great additions, but those are 2 of the things I am trying to avoid bringing.

 DJ Illuminati wrote:
So I have been playing Eldar since the days when they had Lasguns and Landraiders, and now that a new codex has come out we have a flood of people jumping on our bandwagon with nothing but Scatter-bikes and WraithKnights.........

I submit an old-school Foot-dar list with no WK or Wave serpents.......can such a thing be done?!?! Have I suffered brain-damage?!?!?!
You be the judge, I am looking for possible flaws with the new meta..........please feel free to comment as long as you DON'T suggest WKs or more bikes.

HQ Farseer (naked) (Guide/Prescience)

Troops
Dire Avengers x10 with Exarch/Shimmershield
Dire Avengers x10 with Exarch/Shimmershield
Guardian Defenders x20, Warlock (conceal), Scatterlaser
Windriders x6, Scatterlaser x6 (general harassment and scoring)
Rangers x 10
Rangers x 10 (picking off Missiles, Plasma Cannons, and other blast weapons, also outflanking and hard to dislodge from objectives)

Elites
Wraithblades x5, GhostAxes and Force Shields (frontline bullet sponge to draw Plasma Cannon fire away from shootie units, possible Linebreaker unit)
HowlingBanshees x5, Exarch with MirrorSwords (throwaway units for backfield scoring or suppressing Tau over-watch)

Fast Attack
Swooping Hawks x 10, Exarch with SunRifle (light infantry, Heavy Vehicle hunting, and Necron nerfing)

Heavy
Wraithlord, flamers, Brightlances x2, Ghost Glave (Bulletsponge, and ranged Heavy Vehicle duty)
Dark Reapers x5, , Starshot missles, Exach w/Starshot (Cracking Transports and scaring the snot out of MEQ armies, plus with guide doing some anti-air))
Dark Reapers x5, , Starshot missles, Exach w/Starshot

1997 pts, 98 models,
The idea is similar to Guard in that I have too much scoring units to shoot at and too many threats to ignore, with a Farseer keeping everyone shooting. I am trying to avoid using Lord of War units and have an All-comers list.

Comments?

Dude... i like what you are trying to do ! However, lets be honest... Eldars doesnt deserve so much hate... OFC they have good units but people's skills and army list also matters... You can go all the way competitive and still, i can win a good amount of game vs eldar with my 5 flyrants list.. This game is about knowleges and calculations and i honestly dont think eldars should be banned like that... Happy wargaming mate !

alex0911 wrote:


Dude... i like what you are trying to do ! However, lets be honest... Eldars doesnt deserve so much hate... OFC they have good units but people's skills and army list also matters... You can go all the way competitive and still, i can win a good amount of game vs eldar with my 5 flyrants list.. This game is about knowleges and calculations and i honestly dont think eldars should be banned like that... Happy wargaming mate !

I think that is the exact point I am hoping to make with some of the new Eldar players, and many of my local players..... I can still bring a solid list even without the cliche units that everyone feels makes the codex unbalanced. I am also hoping it inspires some players to start making more fun lists ( without silly amounts of Bikes and Knights) while still being competitive.

I may just do a battle report for this list when I use it this week!

 DJ Illuminati wrote:

alex0911 wrote:


Dude... i like what you are trying to do ! However, lets be honest... Eldars doesnt deserve so much hate... OFC they have good units but people's skills and army list also matters... You can go all the way competitive and still, i can win a good amount of game vs eldar with my 5 flyrants list.. This game is about knowleges and calculations and i honestly dont think eldars should be banned like that... Happy wargaming mate !

I think that is the exact point I am hoping to make with some of the new Eldar players, and many of my local players..... I can still bring a solid list even without the cliche units that everyone feels makes the codex unbalanced. I am also hoping it inspires some players to start making more fun lists ( without silly amounts of Bikes and Knights) while still being competitive.

I may just do a battle report for this list when I use it this week!

If you do ill take a look for sure

Game was played today.....making battle report as we speak!

The thing about this list is that it still gives your opponent some things to focus down with high STR AP3/2 shooting with the WL and Wraithblades. If you really want an all foot list that won't give those weapons good targets(other than obliterating 1 dude pretty much) replace those units with some warp spiders and a few more scatbikes, take another aspect host(unless you're not allowed more than 2 formations) to give those dire avengers some real mean shooting. Heck you could just do that and improve this list with more BS5 shooting, or buff their melee capability by sticking them with the banshees in an aspect host.

You could also take another unit of hawks if your meta has alot of SM and necrons. Drop the hawks down to 2 smaller squads would be a good idea anyways.

Take an aspect host of some kind, and split your scatbikes up. 12 shots might be a bit overkill already at str 6 against light vehicles and liight infantry squads. 24 almost certainly is. MSU is best generally. Only inferior in kill-points games.

As for worying about getting flack for a LoW, don't worry about it. He's pretty cheap as far as LoW go, just an expensive HQ really, he's cheaper than a biker chapter master with decent upgrades.

 Nalydyn wrote:
The thing about this list is that it still gives your opponent some things to focus down with high STR AP3/2 shooting with the WL and Wraithblades. If you really want an all foot list that won't give those weapons good targets(other than obliterating 1 dude pretty much) replace those units with some warp spiders and a few more scatbikes, take another aspect host(unless you're not allowed more than 2 formations) to give those dire avengers some real mean shooting. Heck you could just do that and improve this list with more BS5 shooting, or buff their melee capability by sticking them with the banshees in an aspect host.

You could also take another unit of hawks if your meta has alot of SM and necrons. Drop the hawks down to 2 smaller squads would be a good idea anyways.

Take an aspect host of some kind, and split your scatbikes up. 12 shots might be a bit overkill already at str 6 against light vehicles and liight infantry squads. 24 almost certainly is. MSU is best generally. Only inferior in kill-points games.

As for worying about getting flack for a LoW, don't worry about it. He's pretty cheap as far as LoW go, just an expensive HQ really, he's cheaper than a biker chapter master with decent upgrades.

I dont realy have a lot of room for adding stuff as I am already sitting at 6 troops, and very few of the games at my flgs go over 2k points. I did think about making a Avenger Shrine, but they honestly are not multipurpose enough, I would rather have firedragons, but once again, I would have to remove units to make points/room. As for the WL, I agree, he is a point sink, but having a T8 guy with 2 brightlances and 2 flamers, make many people refuse to deepstrike in my back lines, the psychological damage he does to my opponent's plans are almost as good as anything else he does for the rest of the game.

I wouldn't be scared of a WL particularly. Then again I always have something with Str8 Ap2 at least at long range in my lists.

Anyways, I would take the DA together with the banshees in an aspect host, you lose some objsec, but can make up for it by splitting the bikes, still have 5 troops choices. And you get BS5 shuriken shots galore.

If you take Fire dragons, you need a way to get them in close. Usually with wave serpents/falcons. But they do work very well in an aspect host. BS5 melta guns are brutal.

I honestly might go with guardians split in this case as well. Hold 2 objectives at once instead of one, potentially.

 Nalydyn wrote:
I wouldn't be scared of a WL particularly. Then again I always have something with Str8 Ap2 at least at long range in my lists.

Anyways, I would take the DA together with the banshees in an aspect host, you lose some objsec, but can make up for it by splitting the bikes, still have 5 troops choices. And you get BS5 shuriken shots galore.

If you take Fire dragons, you need a way to get them in close. Usually with wave serpents/falcons. But they do work very well in an aspect host. BS5 melta guns are brutal.

I honestly might go with guardians split in this case as well. Hold 2 objectives at once instead of one, potentially.

Maybe it is the meta of my local area, but Objective Secured is worth its weight in gold, not worth giving up to make the Avengers shoot slightly better when I already have copious amounts of Guide and Prescience to use on squads that already shoot really well. The reason I didnt go with Dragons is simply cause this was meant to be a foot-list, no vehicles, no walkers, no WK, no avatar.....I guess it was more about making a point to some players rather than being tournament competitive.

The reason i went with 20 man squad for the guardians was multi fold, Guide makes the entire squad scary as well as twinlinking the heavy weapons with just one power, and return fire will be harder pressed to cause a leadership check against the crappy ld8 they have....

MSU is a fine tactic, but it requires more psychic powers to be efficient, and I already have enough units on the table that I dont have trouble getting objectives. Its finding the synergy that makes them function together that is key! In fact I already tested the list out this week, check out the BR, http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/666234.page

Thank you for the battle report. It does help put things in perspective when one can see the types of missions and types of armies one would face off when making recommendations on an army list. For the style of game and opponent you demonstrated, your list is fine.

If you put in Eldrad you can get the scout moves and if you run one of those fancy formations you always get 6 inch runs to make your army more mobile js

marcman wrote:
If you put in Eldrad you can get the scout moves and if you run one of those fancy formations you always get 6 inch runs to make your army more mobile js

I am not impressed with Eldrad, he is almost double the cost of a farseer for an extra mastery level, I would rather take an extra farseer and get extra warpcharge points and a completely different set of powers.........as for the formation (which I am a huge fan of, and run often), I havent needed the Run bonus as fleet is plenty reliable as is, plus a Weapon Platform would only slow down the overall maneuverability of the list. Also including 2 vehicles kind of goes against the Infantry theme I was going for, lol!

It's good to know that there are still people out there who want to play Eldar without the cheese. I've been experimenting with different foot lists ever since the new codex came out and it became a viable army to play. Wave serpents/ bikes/tanks have been strong for years. Its about time we can pull out all of our old aspect warriors/guardians.

Anywho about your list:

I love the big squads of troops but I think the rangers are a bit excessive. They don't put out much firepower for how many points they cost. I would drop a squad of rangers and split the other squad in to 2x5 man.

The biggest change I would recommend is changing out your wraithlord for an avatar. The avatar gives a lot more flexibility to the army with the fearless/rage/furiouscharge bubble and he has battlefocus to run and shoot.

The fire prisms could be replaced by war walkers which may be a little more effective for your points.

Lastly I would think about changing one of the dark reaper squads to a squad of warp spiders. Warp spiders are the best aspect warrior in the whole darn codex.

Glad your playin a foot army! Good Luck!

 Helvost wrote:
It's good to know that there are still people out there who want to play Eldar without the cheese. I've been experimenting with different foot lists ever since the new codex came out and it became a viable army to play. Wave serpents/ bikes/tanks have been strong for years. Its about time we can pull out all of our old aspect warriors/guardians.

Anywho about your list:

I love the big squads of troops but I think the rangers are a bit excessive. They don't put out much firepower for how many points they cost. I would drop a squad of rangers and split the other squad in to 2x5 man.

The biggest change I would recommend is changing out your wraithlord for an avatar. The avatar gives a lot more flexibility to the army with the fearless/rage/furiouscharge bubble and he has battlefocus to run and shoot.

The fire prisms could be replaced by war walkers which may be a little more effective for your points.

Lastly I would think about changing one of the dark reaper squads to a squad of warp spiders. Warp spiders are the best aspect warrior in the whole darn codex.

Glad your playin a foot army! Good Luck!

Thank you, I am glad you guys are entertained with the list!
I agree that the Ranger squad was a bit big, and in the battle report I made for this list, I did just what you said and dropped it to 2x5

I went with the wraithlord for a couple of reasons over the avatar ( which is always a good unit in a foot-list, first the toughness makes the wraithlord a psychological thorn for the other player as most players will ignore mission cards or objectives anywhere near the Wl, and they tend to abandon the side of the table he is on or just dump too much fire on him leaving the rest of my list to position better. He is also one of the few sources of ranged anti-tank, for 1/2 the price of an avatars, giveing me more points for troops.

Fire prisms? Also the nature of the list was to take no vehicles and focus on non_cheese infantry, other wise I would gladly drop all 9 of my war walkers into this list!

I actually didn't feel the need for Spiders as the list is already very fast and swooping hawks do most of the long range running for me, the reapers are there as part of the long range anti-tank/ jinking bike shootiness, if I do free up any points it would be to give the reapers starshot missiles.........perhaps I can adjust some points and squeeze a 5 man spider squad in.......

This is a man after my own heart! I love wraith models I am a fan of spiders. I really like this list and I loved the battle report.

Over all great work i hope to see great things

OP: You've advised you did not want to run an Avatar, but you made mention that the Wraithlord was nearly 1/2 the cost of the Avatar. Your Wraithlord build is 160 points and an Avatar is 195. However, I will concede that running an Avatar in a non Craftworld Warhost may be a bit trickier (the additional 6" Run move is fairly significant). But, take out a few Rangers would give you the points. In today's game, there is so much out there that can erase a Wraithlord in a single turn, I just can't see it being such a significant threat, but YMMV.

 Sarigar wrote:
OP: You've advised you did not want to run an Avatar, but you made mention that the Wraithlord was nearly 1/2 the cost of the Avatar. Your Wraithlord build is 160 points and an Avatar is 195. However, I will concede that running an Avatar in a non Craftworld Warhost may be a bit trickier (the additional 6" Run move is fairly significant). But, take out a few Rangers would give you the points. In today's game, there is so much out there that can erase a Wraithlord in a single turn, I just can't see it being such a significant threat, but YMMV.

You're correct, I didn't account for the equipment on the WL, I went with base price for my estimate. My bad!