Post your favorite Eldar tactics here.

Shoot stuff.

Step One: Field Eldrad in a WS.
Step Two: Laugh at my opponent's annoyance

I'm interested in starting an Eldar army myself, so I'd appreciate any elaborate input on this topic.

Wraith Guard as troop and take a warlock with conceal. Then take Krandras and join him to the unit, every one now has +1 to their cover save (till Krandras dies any way).

Then just walk across the board take shots. (while the rest of your army huggs cover and shoots from your side)

This is cheesy but to actually field this you will need to spend £95.15 ...

That sucks. Instead, have Harlequins in front - you have a 3+ cover, you have a CC unit so you won't die, it's more points effective...

Elessar wrote:That sucks. Instead, have Harlequins in front - you have a 3+ cover, you have a CC unit so you won't die, it's more points effective...

Yes adding the Harlequins in front would be novel but not cheaper ... unless you meant to just take WG with a squad of HQ in front but then that would only be a 4+ (only Krandras has stealth).

Meth some thing to think about any way.

Of course, Foot Eldar are Fail on many levels anyway.

I run a mech Eldar army.
If I go 2nd and the enemy is very shooty, I leave the army in reserve. An Autarch helps to bolster the reserve rolls.
Generally, my army rolls up a flank so that everything in front goes down, no matter what. Then the units move towards the center and repeat.

Take Tri's wraithguard + Karandas unit and then include Eldrad in your list. You then deploy the wraithguard unit back on your objective .... and then use Eldrad's redeployment after set up to redeploy them across the board dircetly across from your opponent's home objective. Worlds of fun. Especially if Eldrad is close enough to their new location to hit them with fortune for their first turn run.


Harlies work well as a cover screen, but better when followed by a unit of banshees (or scorpions if you are playing orc/ IG)

The basic eldar tactic tho is to just take a tank for each unit, mechdar does work.


Sliggoth

infiltrating scorpions, or guide+doom+bladestorm

statu wrote:infiltrating scorpions, or guide+doom+bladestorm

IMHO nether of these works very well. Scorpions that infiltrate will have at least one turn of being shot at and possibly being assaulted. BladeStorm is far to situational (personally I can find better places to spend 27pts)

Far more useful ...

Striking Scorpions in a Wave Serpent (ether with a missile launcher or Scatter lasers ... and a S.Cannon) Outflanking

Against IG I love to outflank a squad of War Walkers with twin Scatterlasers.....

or to really piss a Guard player off, take 2 Autarchs and 3 squads of Swooping (rubber) hawks with Skyleap
Its three Large blasts that only scatter 1d6 at S4 ap5, coming from squads that he cant shoot at, and when you do decide to leave them on the board you always out gun him with 24" assault 2 guns that wound on 4s..... and all the fun starts on turn 2 with a 2+ for reserves..... i feel so dirty lol

lol

Yeah, you outrange the Lasguns...while your Plasma Grenades bounce off his Chimeras. He sticks a single Heavy Flamer up your face, and you crumple and die.

Don't let them assault your shooty ones or shoot your assaulty ones.

Or give up, you'll never win more than you lose against them Templars.

Avatar, War Walkers, Wave Serpents and Fire Prisms. Go crazy.

Personally I run several variants, though the important parts are as follows:

HQs -
Farseers/Eldrad. Eldar psychic powers in combination with elite units are what gives eldar armies higher tier status.

Troops -
Dire Avengers in wave serpents or Guardian Jetbike Units. Eldar speed is crucial. If you run smaller GJB units, keep them in reserve as long as possible.

Elites -
Fire Dragons (5 or 6 man units) in serpents. Use these if you are not fielding Fire Prisms.
Howling Banshees (full squad... smaller squads are a waste) in serpent. Banshees work best to assist seer councils in a multi-charge, but Doom is necessary to make them effective.

Fast Attack -
Warp Spiders (5 spiders + exarch) very effective at putting down a lot of fire on light vehicles or small, units to force failed saves. 2 units in combo can be very effective support.
Vypers - tend to be too expensive for their lack of armor, but the speed can be used very well in jet bike style armies. I prefer EML/ShuriCannon builds with guide support to hammer troops.

Heavy Support -
Fire Prisms. Field at least 2 if you are going to run them, all with holo fields. Personally I prefer to run 3 if I am going to run them.
Wraithlords - wraith sword and 2x flamer tends to be amazing for the point cost. At 100 points per they either suck up a ton of fire or get into melee and tie up/kill nearly any unit vehicle. Shooting wraithlords are a waste, field war walkers or tanks.
War Walkers - double scatter laser tends to be one of the best variants as it allows anti-light vehicle and volume fire for killing infantry. I would not field more than 2 units of them and never run them solo, 2 or 3 per unit, prefer 3.
Falcons - not as much useful fire out put as other units, but they are as durable as a prism and can hold squads. I prefer running them in a fire torrent build (scatter laser with shuricannon upgrade) then putting 5 or 6 dragons in them for anti-tank. Another use is 5 DAs to use 60 points to make a scoring falcon, which is a pain to kill.

basics there.

Personal list tends to have a larger jetbike mounted seer council with a fortune/doom seer. Full DA unit with Eldrad, exarch has shimmershield/power weapon combo. Unit of banshees, large GJB unit as secondary trip, then either dragons or and melee wraith lords or prisms.

^^^^
Correct. Eldrad=awesome.

I've started to run my Eldar as Counts-As IG Air Cav since they do everything so much better and cheaper.

It just occured to me...if you are sure that your enemy will not field long-range anti-cover weapons and you want some resilient objective holders for your baseline...what about pathfinders with fortune? Rerollable 2+ save means 97,22% of saving a wound. I mean, it does simply not get better than this, only if you could cram FnP in there, too. The enemy would need 144 lasgun shots or at least 36 boltgun shots to kill a single model on average!

Does anyone use that?

Well, Pathfinders are a different story.
There are two big issues using them.
First, outflankers can eventually charge them.
Second, there is an increasing number of cover-save ignorning weapons out there in the 40k universe.

Granted, there is some bad stuff out there...Eradicator LR for IG, Whirlwind for SM, Sternguard ammo for SM, dark reaper exarchs for Eldar...hmmm...I'm not sure about other races and if there are cover-denying long-range weapons? I can't think of an Ork weapon, for example...

You forgot the thunderhammer cannon.
Against Orks, Pathfinders are rather useless.

I'm not that experienced of a player and I'll agree that they're not really anti-horde But howzabout trukk orks? Some AT weapon pops the fragile trukk, with a bit of luck one or two orks die in the process, rangers kill maybe two to three, orks are on "normal" leadership at this point and they have to take pinning tests - could stop them in their tracks, with a bit of luck

But you're right, if I know I'm up against orks, I probably would take something with a higher RoF.

Also don't forget our own humble Maugan Ra. He eats pathfinders for breakfast. Or the hellhound. Also anything that can deepstrike with a flamer is death to pathfinders.

Of course, I just use Maugan Ra as a counts-as for Straken nowadays. He's so much better in CC now.

Witzkatz wrote:I'm not that experienced of a player and I'll agree that they're not really anti-horde But howzabout trukk orks? Some AT weapon pops the fragile trukk, with a bit of luck one or two orks die in the process, rangers kill maybe two to three, orks are on "normal" leadership at this point and they have to take pinning tests - could stop them in their tracks, with a bit of luck

Well, Trukks can be easily taken down by long range S5 weapons or even by bolters.
Rangers do not work against mobz as they tend to be fearless if their size is large enough.
Against Orks, you need template weapons.
A fully kitted out Seer Council can take down a mob of 30 Orks in one round of cc.

Witzkatz wrote:Granted, there is some bad stuff out there...Eradicator LR for IG, Whirlwind for SM, Sternguard ammo for SM, dark reaper exarchs for Eldar...hmmm...I'm not sure about other races and if there are cover-denying long-range weapons? I can't think of an Ork weapon, for example...

Orks don't need long range cover denying weapons to kill Pathfinders. With a 24" scout move, Koptas can assault Pathinders turn one...say goodby to those snipers. Then of course there are Burnas outta BWs....

I actaully own 15 Pathfinders/Rangers...all are in the "bin" now :(

I also disagree with the poster who said that Shooty WLs are a waste.
I use 2 WLs with BL+EML in my Hybrid tourney list (Mech+MCs) and they do great. If you model your WSs on the shortest base, the WLs can walk behind the WSs, and still see over them (thus allowing the WLs to shoot). Even better, the WLs will be over 1/2 covered by the WS...thus giving the WL a 3+ cover save Shooty WLs also have the advantage of never being stunned, so you get 2 AT shots a turn unitl they are dead. Finally, they also help out in a counter assault role, if somone gets too close to your WSs holding onto objectives, something that a Prism just cannot do.

I know that everyone seems to loathe Swooping Hawks, but could their aerial assault template grenade be useful against orks? Wounding them on 4+ is at least something and the greater the mob the greater your chance to hit something...

Witzkatz wrote:I know that everyone seems to loathe Swooping Hawks, but could their aerial assault template grenade be useful against orks? Wounding them on 4+ is at least something and the greater the mob the greater your chance to hit something...

Swooping hawks are ... difficult to quantify. With an exarch and sky leap they can be dropping a template every turn (past 2nd if they have Autarchs) this can mean one unit is safe till turn 5-7 when you stop sky leaping. There guns are are also weak but not terrible, at 24" they can whittle down orks (just remember to doom them) odds are 80/216 & 100/216 (for the Exarch). The Exarch can boost his chances by taking a better gun ether str5 3 shot (if i recall correctly) or a str3 6shot.

...but personally i run them cheap just 5 man no Exarch. Start by deep-striking near a unit that I'm going to be targeting and start shooting. If they survive a turn I charge them at the nearest tank (19-24" charge range). Now often if pick the right spot to deep strike they often get ignored simply because every one thinks they are terrible (why waste the shots at them, when we could be aiming at x and y). At only 105pts this unit is so throw away that if it kills any thing or draws fire its done its job.

Still they're an odd mix of weapons which is why don't think every one likes them.

Alerian wrote:I also disagree with the poster who said that Shooty WLs are a waste.
I use 2 WLs with BL+EML in my Hybrid tourney list (Mech+MCs) and they do great. If you model your WSs on the shortest base, the WLs can walk behind the WSs, and still see over them (thus allowing the WLs to shoot). Even better, the WLs will be over 1/2 covered by the WS...thus giving the WL a 3+ cover save Shooty WLs also have the advantage of never being stunned, so you get 2 AT shots a turn unitl they are dead. Finally, they also help out in a counter assault role, if somone gets too close to your WSs holding onto objectives, something that a Prism just cannot do.

How do you get this 3+ Cover? It's not a vehicle.

My bad....3+ armor/4+ cover....it was really late when I posted

Monstrous Creatures can't go to ground. Page 51.

Elessar wrote:lol

Yeah, you outrange the Lasguns...while your Plasma Grenades bounce off his Chimeras. He sticks a single Heavy Flamer up your face, and you crumple and die.

the idea of having jump troops with a 24" assault gun....... is not to be in flamer range ever....... and Haywire grenades do great against vehicles.....

However this is Eldar, you will never find a single squad that can do everything, and certainly not a single squad that can take on every aspect of an army by itself, but Swooping Hawks, Halequins, and Wraithguard are as close as some units get..........

No, because the Haywire Grenades dilute their purpose. Can't use them from 24" away, and you can't fly away from a wall of Chimeras indefinitely.

My point being, Hawks are neither specialised, nor optimised, for ANY role. So they're crap.

Well, Hawks can be fun to play.
However, they are not good in any role you try to give them.
Leave them home.
DE has a similar unit: Hellions.

*Cough Scourges, Warp Beasts, Mandrakes, Grotesques, Talos Cough*

Elessar wrote:*Cough Scourges, Warp Beasts, Mandrakes, Grotesques, Talos Cough*

The ratio of playable Eldar units is much higher than that of playable DE squads.

Another question for you all?

What's your opinion of Muagen Ra? Is he good to use?

Euraldius wrote:Another question for you all?

What's your opinion of Muagen Ra? Is he good to use?

That was my question, euraldius has auto-login on my computer and I forgot to log out.

Maugan Ra is one of the better PL's but still he's too expensive for what he can achieve.
This is the problem with all the PL's.
Use them in friendly play but leave them out in a competitive environment.

wuestenfux wrote:Maugan Ra is one of the better PL's but still he's too expensive for what he can achieve.
This is the problem with all the PL's.
Use them in friendly play but leave them out in a competitive environment.

So I'm getting the impression that none of them are that great.
Which PL do you think is best?

The usable ones are Karandras with outflanking Scorpions,
Maugan Ra sticked to Dark Reapers, and
Jain Zar that works with Banshees and with Harlequins.

So Asuryan sucks?

Asurmen, but yeah.

His InvulSave is nice, especially being an Eternal Warrior and all...but not competitive outside of a very specific, OTP list.

Now, if PLs didn't take up a FoC slot...

Personally I like most of the Phoenix Lords but I find 99% of the time they work better in different unit then their aspect.

Maugan Ra is one of my favourite HQ's. He has one of the best guns in the game the Maugatar (Aka Assault Cannon with 36" range) and he is BS7 (2+ to hit with a 5+ reroll). Give that he also has the power to reroll wounds and ignore cover he is a scary guy (note i rarely if ever use fast shot unless I'm aiming at doomed unit in the open) . Also his gun doubles up as a power weapon that give a +2str bonus, so thats 4 str6 power weapon attacks being made with WS7 at I7.
Ra works best in the following units ....

Wraith guard. They're T6 so he'll be safer against shooting, and he can help them out in CC.
Harlequin troupe*. He can soften up a unit without much chance of return fire (veil of tears) and can help out in CC
Pathfinder*s. They have stealth so he gets +1 to his cover save while he's with them.
Support Weapon Battery*. These guys are an odd choice in them selves but if you're using them he can join them and shoot at something else.
(*Danger they may run)

Now if you don't take any of those units then i can see why you wouldn't like him.

He has to shoot the same target if in the unit.

Elessar wrote:He has to shoot the same target if in the unit.

Ha some one hasn't kept up to date with the rules. In 5th Artillery guns can shoot at one target and every one else can shoot at some thing different.

I've been playing with Maugan Ra for a while... and he can be frustrating, or awesome.

Tri hit many of the salient points, but there is an upside to putting him with units that can run away: he increases their leadership to 10, making them much more resilient.

One thing that I love to do with him that Tri did not bring up is the utility of using him without a unit. His lack of an invulnerable save makes him strangely fragile for a 200 point unit, however, his 2+ armor and Eternal Warrior means that you can put him out on his own to increase your opponent's difficulties for target priority.

Since he's a threat to nearly any unit in the game, his chance of ruining your opponent's plans might be low (trying to rely on rending for pens is yuck...) but the fact that he has the capability of killing a squad of pathfinders one turn then downing a wraithlord the next (just an example) means that he can distract from the rest of your army, and is ignored only at your opponent's peril.

But, since he is an independent character if your opponent starts to seriously threaten him, he jumps back into a "safe" unit, like pathfinders or harlequins, where it makes both the unit and himself seriously more durable against ranged fire.

I stopped playing with him for a while, since he does cost so many points... but I put him back into my list last night and did not regret it.

Oh wow. I had only read the Artillery page once in it's entirety before, somehow I missed that...possibly whilst discounting them as viable in serious play. Hmmm.

Thanks for pointing that out.

Luckily I can edit that in my Eldar Artillery assessment in my Complete Guide To The Eldar.

Elessar wrote:Oh wow. I had only read the Artillery page once in it's entirety before, somehow I missed that...possibly whilst discounting them as viable in serious play. Hmmm.

Thanks for pointing that out.

Luckily I can edit that in my Eldar Artillery assessment in my Complete Guide To The Eldar.

I use them quite a bit. Shadow Weavers are stupidly cheap 90pts and I get 3 Str6 blasts a turn, at 48" ... deploy them in the middle behind some terrain and they can hit every thing. IG, orks and Nids hate them.

Elessar wrote:Oh wow. I had only read the Artillery page once in it's entirety before, somehow I missed that...possibly whilst discounting them as viable in serious play. Hmmm.

Thanks for pointing that out.

Luckily I can edit that in my Eldar Artillery assessment in my Complete Guide To The Eldar.

Maybe gives the Shock Attack Gun some utility as well, if you put him with a lobba/kannon battery.

A little. Majority T still applies, ofc.

Few notes on the PLs - their squad based powers (karandras' stealth, M. Ra's night vision) only apply to their aspect, so you cannot add karandras to a conceal'd wraithguard unit to get a 4+ cover.

Pathfinders are useful in a mixed or foot list due to their nature as bait. The only way an enemy is going to shift them off an objective effectively is with a thunderfire cannon or by walking up to them and flaming/assaulting them. You can exploit this to lure your opponent into fragmenting his army, and using the eldar's superior mobility to squash the separated element with ease. I use a unit of warp spiders in my back field to murder DPing marines with flamers, and the rear armor of any vehicles.

Gwyidion wrote:Few notes on the PLs - their squad based powers (karandras' stealth, M. Ra's night vision) only apply to their aspect, so you cannot add karandras to a conceal'd wraithguard unit to get a 4+ cover.

Cry, number of times people get this wrong. Firstly Acute vision and Stealth are not exarch powers. Secondly Acute vision is explicitly past on to any unit joined while the character is with them. Thirdly Stealth is conferred to scorpions but stealth automatically adds +1 to the units cover save if one person in a unit has it.

Tri wrote:

Elessar wrote:Oh wow. I had only read the Artillery page once in it's entirety before, somehow I missed that...possibly whilst discounting them as viable in serious play. Hmmm.

Thanks for pointing that out.

Luckily I can edit that in my Eldar Artillery assessment in my Complete Guide To The Eldar.

I use them quite a bit. Shadow Weavers are stupidly cheap 90pts and I get 3 Str6 blasts a turn, at 48" ... deploy them in the middle behind some terrain and they can hit every thing. IG, orks and Nids hate them.

That's a nice strategy, but it brings up another question. How do all of you use D-cannons, if at all?

D-Cannons are not really use able outside of Apocalypses (possibly planet strike but i have yet to try them here). They have very short range but will kill any thing that come within that range. If you were to use them I would hunker them down on your home objective with a CC unit.

while on the subject Vibro-Cannons. Take a unit of 2 and place them on a flank (or 2 units of 2 one each flank). And sit you army back and wait for them to come to you. Reason you only take 2 is its the optimum number for them. Odds of hitting are 3/4 and every unit they pass through take D6 Str5 hits (and it will stun or shake any vehicles)

The GW eldar FAQ states that the PL powers only affect aspect warriors (and since they can only join AW of their aspect, Karandras' stealth power only affects striking scorpion units). Even at places I have played which usually don't pay attention to rules or rulings not in the codex/BRB, this is how it is played - you can't improve a conceal save on a wraithguard unit with karandras.


The D-cannons and other weapon platforms are really nice, especially D-cannons and the way they generate a 24" bubble of dont-go-here.... but they compete with other great HS choices, and I find myself taking wraithlords instead of the guns.

Gwyidion wrote:The GW eldar FAQ states that the PL powers only affect aspect warriors (and since they can only join AW of their aspect, Karandras' stealth power only affects striking scorpion units). Even at places I have played which usually don't pay attention to rules or rulings not in the codex/BRB, this is how it is played - you can't improve a conceal save on a wraithguard unit with karandras.


The D-cannons and other weapon platforms are really nice, especially D-cannons and the way they generate a 24" bubble of dont-go-here.... but they compete with other great HS choices, and I find myself taking wraithlords instead of the guns.

Go back to the FAQ and reread it. The FAQ is talking about Exarch powers, these can only effect their aspect. How ever Acute Vision(or what ever its call. senses?) and Stealth are not exarch powers. So in turn they are not restricted.

The question asks about exarch powers, the answer says "Their powers only affects [sic] units of aspect warriors". As stealth and acute senses fall under 'their powers'... they only have an effect on aspect warriors. I suppose in this document that is correcting ambiguities you could argue that they really meant their exarch powers, but the answer says powers, so i think that it means exactly what it says.

(full text)
Q
"As Phoenix Lords are not exarchs, but independant characters, do their exarch powers (Shadowstrike, skyleap, etc.) affect units other than aspect warriors?"
A
"Their powers only affects units of Aspect Warriors."

"Their" being the PLs.... Phoenix Lord powers only affect units of aspect warriors. If they wanted non-exarch powers to affect non-aspect units, they would have said "Their exarch powers only affect units of Aspect Warriors"... but they didn't say that.

So the answer is poorly worded... but the question is specifically about exarch powers, not about the other abilities of the Phoenix Lords.

Gwyidion wrote:The question asks about exarch powers, the answer says "Their powers only affects [sic] units of aspect warriors". As stealth and acute senses fall under 'their powers'... they only have an effect on aspect warriors. I suppose in this document that is correcting ambiguities you could argue that they really meant their exarch powers, but the answer says powers, so i think that it means exactly what it says.

(full text)
Q
"As Phoenix Lords are not exarchs, but independant characters, do their exarch powers (Shadowstrike, skyleap, etc.) affect units other than aspect warriors?"
A
"Their powers only affects units of Aspect Warriors."

"Their" being the PLs.... Phoenix Lord powers only affect units of aspect warriors. If they wanted non-exarch powers to affect non-aspect units, they would have said "Their exarch powers only affect units of Aspect Warriors"... but they didn't say that.

Ok i can see where you coming from. So now can you explain how Stealth is a power? Its not defined as such, nor is Acute Sense. They are rules, special rules, and possibly even Universal Special Rules. You are the first person i have heard to ever call them powers. Note the question is also being very specific in asking about "Exarch Powers" which are indeed, rules defined as powers.

I LIKE the 24" denial zone...but it's vastly inferior to Prisms/Falcons/Walkers.

Is prince Yriel worth the points?

fludit wrote:Is prince Yriel worth the points?

Yes, he is.
For instance, a Seer Council is the best anvil unit in the game.
But with Yriel and Eldrad, it also becomes a hammer unit.

I used Yriel to charge a doomed unit and use the eye of wrath.
An MEQ unit dies easily.

Prince Yriel can work, but in order to use his eye he needs to leave the council. The template hits all models under the blast marker except for Yriel.... including other eldar models so unless you want to force your council to take a lot of saves Yriel has to run off on his own. This of course means that during the next turn Yriel is an IC sitting there by himself, all alone, saying shoot me shoot me.

Yriel does have the spear of twilight (wounds on 2+, ignores armor saves) so he is very good in adding killing power in cc, but using his eye is problematic.

Karandas adds tremendously to a full unit of wraithguard with a conceal warlock but the points value is so high its not worth doing outside of weird fun games or apoc.


Sliggoth

Prince Yriel can work, but in order to use his eye he needs to leave the council.

I used the eye once when Yriel was part of the Council.
Clever placement will get a minimum of Warlocks under the template, and they have a rerollable save.

Put Eldrad in an Falcon and have him guide\fortune 2x warp spiders squads or even guide the falcon. Then another Farseer with guide and doom, supporting 3 squads of Dire Advengers in Wave Serpents. With their 18" range, better BS and doom, they perform the FoF (Tau tactic MUCH better). oh and throw in 2 Wraithlords to draw some fire and take care of the heavies (AV14).

The key to this tactic is to have each group concentrate on single units

Use Eldrad to fortune the Warp Spiders, jump them to within 12" of the enemy, fire away with BS4 S6 and jump back. You can doom the unit if they are T5 or greater. And with Eldrad being in a Falcon, Spirit stones and Halo fields will give you are greater chance of keeping Eldrad alive. Even if the Falcon is stun\shaken, Eldrad can still use his physic powers.

Same for the second Farseer and Dire Advengers. Guide a squad of DA, doom the enemy, fly to within 18" of the enemy in the Wave Serpents, disembark the Dire Advengers, while leaving the Farseer in the Wave Serpent - 60x BS4 S4 shots on a doomed unit and they are most likey to go down. And with the 18" range it will help you from being assaulted or being shot at next turn.

Also remember, guide\fortune\doom can done without line of sight and be measured from the Falcon\Wave Serpent's hull.

The Wraithlord, armed with w\link flamers, a Bright Lance and a Wraithsword will help them take out heavy tanks like melted butter (yummy S10 and 2D6 Armour Penetration!!!). TL flamers to help reduce the enemy prior to assaulting them and the Wraithsword, for 10pts, will allow you to re-roll To Hits.

And arm the Wave Serpents with TL Star Cannon, TL 36" S6 AP2 will help you clean up to pesky light vehicles or remove the remaining models left behind by the Warp Spiders and Dire Advengers

Eldar is a fragile and specialized army to play. They are unforgiven is you make a mistake or get bad dice rolls, but can kick some serious booty if played right. Also because of this, I find that I have more satisfaction playing them than I do my 179 Orks or trigger happy IG armies.

Good luck and let me know what you all think

Yeah, I have used Eldrad in a falcon with DAs in conjunction with another falcon with DAs, guiding both falcons to make them effective long-range standoff gunboats, then using fortune in the endgame to move around and claim objectives.

On dakka everybody says "that's too expensive." But it's not like you're *not* going to buy Eldrad anyway, and a guided falcon with five DAs and no exarch is a reasonable value for pretty good capabilities compared with the comparably-costed wave serpent full of DAs. Especially if the WS avengers have an exarch. Eldrad has good synergy with falcons.

oh no you've got me started on the falcon ...

The falcon used to be the hands down winner. In 4th it could move 12" and fire all str6 guns and one more powerful gun. Where as now ...

look if you want a transport take a Wave serpent its cheaper, has more room and has a higher survivability as a transport ... if you want ranged fire power take a Fire Prism, its cheaper and has better range and fire power.

Tri wrote:oh no you've got me started on the falcon ...

The falcon used to be the hands down winner. In 4th it could move 12" and fire all str6 guns and one more powerful gun. Where as now ...

look if you want a transport take a Wave serpent its cheaper, has more room and has a higher survivability as a transport ... if you want ranged fire power take a Fire Prism, its cheaper and has better range and fire power.

The only redeeming value of a falcon in my eyes is the holofield....... it is very hard to kill something with a holofield. but if you move 6" with a guided Falcon you can shoot all guns with a re-roll......its almost worth putting a farseer in the falcon by himself just make it better at shooting

if they would make the Falcon a BS4 vehicle like a true specialized tank and knock the Fire Prism to BS3 I would be happy, even the Waveserpent has twinlink to counter the bad shooting.

its pretty bad when the Falcon makes a better transport than a Waveserpent, and the Waveserpent makes a better tank than the Falcon

Tri and DJ, you're missing the point.

Yes, I agree with you both about falcons in general.

But falcons + Eldrad + 60-point scoring upgrade + standoff tactics is a horse of a different color. It uses all of the remaining strengths of falcons (DJ mentions the holofield, but also they pack more firepower than serpents) and compensates for the weak BS (guide) and melta vulnerability (standoff tactics), and minimizes the buy-in for big DA point sink troop units.

Look outside the box, guys.

Sure, even given all that, the fireprism is still better:

60 inch range
Variable Strength
S10
Variable Twinlinked
Variable Blast
Cheaper

Fire prisms don't score, Augustus.

Flavius Infernus wrote:Fire prisms don't score, Augustus.

But they can still tank shock and contest.

Yeah but if you're looking again, like in the last three threads I've been in on this forum, for a way to minimize your investment in point-sink troop units in order to maximize your expenditures on firepower while still maintaining a viable scoring capability and keeping your troop units safe until the endgame when you actually need them, then the scoring capability is key.

You can buy serpents with dragons or something to tank-shock and contest.

[edit]
Let me rephrase that: The wave serpents that your fire dragons were riding in before they made their one-shot attack and were blown off the board can tank-shock and contest, and do it better and cheaper than a fire prism because it has more melta resistance and doesn't cost your army significant firepower by moving fast.

Ah, you are right about the powers thing. But I knew I was right, so I checked back, and I remembered why I was so sure I am right:

Eldar codex p56 "Karandras... Has the stealth special rule (this ability is conferred to any unit of striking scorpions Karandras joins)"

A fire prism will get to shoot alot more times than the fire dragons popping out of their Wave Serpent.

Eldrad can then fly around in a wave serpent with min size DA, and doesn't have to guide the serpent because it's already twin linked, and can use psychic powers on other stuff.

Gwyidion wrote:Ah, you are right about the powers thing. But I knew I was right, so I checked back, and I remembered why I was so sure I am right:

Eldar codex p56 "Karandras... Has the stealth special rule (this ability is conferred to any unit of striking scorpions Karandras joins)"

And RAW the bit about "this ability is conferred to any unit of striking scorpions" is redundant since stealth is conferred to any unit a character with stealth joins.

Flavius Infernus wrote:Tri and DJ, you're missing the point.

Yes, I agree with you both about falcons in general.

But falcons + Eldrad + 60-point scoring upgrade + standoff tactics is a horse of a different color. It uses all of the remaining strengths of falcons (DJ mentions the holofield, but also they pack more firepower than serpents) and compensates for the weak BS (guide) and melta vulnerability (standoff tactics), and minimizes the buy-in for big DA point sink troop units.

Look outside the box, guys.

No, I do see your point, and you are correct, but i think what we were saying is that Eldrad+falcon with holofield+DA is single target that cost 445 points and is worth 3 kill points.....

Eldar need to diversify their units as much as possible, and 445 points in a single unit that can be shut down for a turn by a single glancing hit.......that is too many eggs in one basket for me. I have always noticed that Eldar can not survive a focused amount of fire power. When 1/3 of an army (1500 points) is sitting in a single vehicle....AND is a scoring unit......expect to see every las-cannon in range try to rape that little Falcon.

Plus a single glance can shut down the Falcons shooting (which is a very common result with Holo-field) which nerfs Eldrads powers......ie Guide on the falcon has no use that turn, cant use shooting psychic powers in the Falcon, and must be 6" away from another friendly unit to give fortune/guide to someone else.........You can only use Doom so many times a turn and that puts you closer to the enemy and vulnerable to rear-armor shots from fast moving units (Speeders, Pirana, Melta Vets).

So while I do agree with you that it is a valid idea, and it is thinking outside the box........ IMHO, the inside of the box in this case, is a safer bet.

whitedragon wrote:A fire prism will get to shoot alot more times than the fire dragons popping out of their Wave Serpent.

Eldrad can then fly around in a wave serpent with min size DA, and doesn't have to guide the serpent because it's already twin linked, and can use psychic powers on other stuff.

I'm assuming that everyone is going to be taking 1-2 WS with fire dragons in every Eldar army anyway. I mean, why wouldn't you?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

DJ Illuminati wrote:

No, I do see your point, and you are correct, but i think what we were saying is that Eldrad+falcon with holofield+DA is single target that cost 445 points and is worth 3 kill points.....

...and to reiterate:

"On dakka everybody says "that's too expensive." But it's not like you're *not* going to buy Eldrad anyway, and a guided falcon with five DAs and no exarch is a reasonable value for pretty good capabilities compared with the comparably-costed wave serpent full of DAs. Especially if the WS avengers have an exarch. Eldrad has good synergy with falcons. "

I would be pretty happy if every long-range AT weapon on the table shot at a falcon--that means more survivability for the killy parts of my mech Eldar force. The risk of losing a single round of fire from a falcon to a shaken result is no big deal--Eldrad can use a different power for something else for a turn.

I think that the whole "killing your points worth" view that focuses on the cost of single units misses something important about the total value of an army. All other things being equal, it seems to me that an army that spent 120 points on troops and the rest of its points on dangerous firepower units--assuming that the troops are at least as survivable as if you spent 500 points on them--will be able to outgun an army that spent 500+ points on troops. Particularly in armies like Eldar that don't have troop choices that are inherently durable, mobile and dangerous.

Flavius Infernus wrote:

whitedragon wrote:A fire prism will get to shoot alot more times than the fire dragons popping out of their Wave Serpent.

Eldrad can then fly around in a wave serpent with min size DA, and doesn't have to guide the serpent because it's already twin linked, and can use psychic powers on other stuff.

I'm assuming that everyone is going to be taking 1-2 WS with fire dragons in every Eldar army anyway. I mean, why wouldn't you?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

DJ Illuminati wrote:

No, I do see your point, and you are correct, but i think what we were saying is that Eldrad+falcon with holofield+DA is single target that cost 445 points and is worth 3 kill points.....

...and to reiterate:

"On dakka everybody says "that's too expensive." But it's not like you're *not* going to buy Eldrad anyway, and a guided falcon with five DAs and no exarch is a reasonable value for pretty good capabilities compared with the comparably-costed wave serpent full of DAs. Especially if the WS avengers have an exarch. Eldrad has good synergy with falcons. "

but a 10 DA squad with all the trimmings in a WS is still 1/2 the cost and only 2 kill points and harder to kill (5 DAs is a simple kill, 10 is harder)......and with twin link it doesnt need a farseer.........

do you have anything to counter the fact that your falcon will be shaken 80% of the game and not helping until the last turn......if it survives.

DJ Illuminati wrote:[

do you have anything to counter the fact that your falcon will be shaken 80% of the game and not helping until the last turn......if it survives.

Only my gameplay experience that suggests people would rather shoot at the wave serpents full of dragons and other dangerous units that are in their faces presenting immediate threats than a falcon sitting at the other side of the board.

Flavius Infernus wrote:

DJ Illuminati wrote:[

do you have anything to counter the fact that your falcon will be shaken 80% of the game and not helping until the last turn......if it survives.

Only my gameplay experience that suggests people would rather shoot at the wave serpents full of dragons and other dangerous units that are in their faces presenting immediate threats than a falcon sitting at the other side of the board.

Granted....

but it sounds like your opponits are either unaware of your list, or are inexperianced against Eldar........ Maby I am looking at it from the POV of an Eldar player and thus I see the threat it would pose. But as an experianced player I would see 3 kill points in a scoring unit being worth the effort to shoot down as I know the Dragons will undoubtedly kill one vehicle, and then die in a torrent of las-gun/shoota/close combat........

My friends I play against have learned to focus on my Fire prism above all my other units, as it takes so little to shake it for a turn or two

Flavius Infernus wrote:

whitedragon wrote:A fire prism will get to shoot alot more times than the fire dragons popping out of their Wave Serpent.

Eldrad can then fly around in a wave serpent with min size DA, and doesn't have to guide the serpent because it's already twin linked, and can use psychic powers on other stuff.

I'm assuming that everyone is going to be taking 1-2 WS with fire dragons in every Eldar army anyway. I mean, why wouldn't you?

Guilty as charged.

But I guess, you could put eldrad in with a wave serpent with DA, and get the same thing as the falcon for 60+ points less, and Eldrad doesn't have to use guide on the wave serpent, so he can cast other nastiness. And, it leaves your heavy slots open for more fire prisms.

There are many ways to win with Eldar.

Those who say that there are only a couple of ways to win are either not very good players, or lack imagination.

I have a very good record with Eldar and I have never used a Seer Council, Fire Dragons or Wave Serpents and for the most part use a guardian horde. .

willydstyle wrote:

Gwyidion wrote:Ah, you are right about the powers thing. But I knew I was right, so I checked back, and I remembered why I was so sure I am right:

Eldar codex p56 "Karandras... Has the stealth special rule (this ability is conferred to any unit of striking scorpions Karandras joins)"

And RAW the bit about "this ability is conferred to any unit of striking scorpions" is redundant since stealth is conferred to any unit a character with stealth joins.

whoa it isn't conferred to unit that he joins. However the rules for stealth is it adds +1 to a units cover save. So, so long as just one person has the Stealth USR, every one in that unit gets +1 to their cover save.


=====
Flavius Infernus, if you stuff Eldrad in a falcon with 5 DA that's a lot of points. That's around third of 1500pts game and quarter of a 1850pts game. End of the day what can it do? Force the enemy to stun it each turn, taxi round Eldrad and score.
Hell I'd much rather stuff Eldrad in the WS with the FireDragons he can guide them and doom before they jump out (he then runs back to your lines to get another squad ... why not a 10man squad of Dire Avengers they might actually be able to clear the objective)

What's the most effective use of pathfinders? I absolutely love them in every way possible(except that way), and am wondering what the best use for them would be.

Fafnir wrote:What's the most effective use of pathfinders? I absolutely love them in every way possible(except that way), and am wondering what the best use for them would be.

killing small units of +2 saves and MC

They like to kill Terminators, C'tan, WraithLords, Hive Tyrants, Carnifexs, Wraithguard, AV10-11, ect...

At most you'll only ever want 10, ether 2 5man units or one 10man

Fafnir wrote:What's the most effective use of pathfinders? I absolutely love them in every way possible(except that way), and am wondering what the best use for them would be.

Put them in cover and shoot the bad guys. They're horribly too expensive for their offensive capabilities. If the bad guys get close, don't forget to use their ability to ignore cover to run the hell away.

Tri wrote:

Fafnir wrote:What's the most effective use of pathfinders? I absolutely love them in every way possible(except that way), and am wondering what the best use for them would be.

killing small units of +2 saves and MC

They like to kill Terminators, C'tan, WraithLords, Hive Tyrants, Carnifexs, Wraithguard, AV10-11, ect...

At most you'll only ever want 10, ether 2 5man units or one 10man

I plan on taking 2 units of 5. And the whole Termis/C'tan/blahblah looks like exactly what I planned for.

Fafnir wrote:What's the most effective use of pathfinders? I absolutely love them in every way possible(except that way), and am wondering what the best use for them would be.

\

They are a good, durable troop unit.

If you have an objective in or near your deployment zone you set them down in the closest piece of terrain and you will not have to worry about it.

It frees up the rest of your army to move around and move out.

I was about to complain about how many points rangers cost, but then I realized that for just 5 points more they rend on a 5+. Oh the possibilities. I face a lot of Nidzilla, and I was looking at their chances of downing even 1 carnifex the whole game. Fortunately, they'll average a wound on a Godfex per turn. Which means I can afford to take two, and hopefully down one in two turns of shooting, leaving other stuff to focus on the non 2+ save, t7 monsters.

My favorite tactic is

Autarch w/ Laser Lance ; fusion gun ; mandiblaster, jetbike

Then joined to a 5 man Squad w/ Warlock w/ Enhance on jetbikes.

Yes, I do like having WS 7 and INI 7 w/ 6 attacks at STR6.

Striking scorpions vs howling banshees. Which is more useful.

Depends. Imagine that they're both guns.

Would you prefer...

S4 ap- with two shots...
or S3 ap2 with one shot?

answer that, and you know which unit to pick.

(it's also worth noting that scorpions have a 3+ save)

Hollismason wrote:My favorite tactic is

Autarch w/ Laser Lance ; fusion gun ; mandiblaster, jetbike

Then joined to a 5 man Squad w/ Warlock w/ Enhance on jetbikes.

Yes, I do like having WS 7 and INI 7 w/ 6 attacks at STR6.

Is there really a difference between ws7 and ws6...... enhance almost seems wasted on him...... the warlocks use it well though....



Automatically Appended Next Post:

fludit wrote:Striking scorpions vs howling banshees. Which is more useful.

depends on what you are fighting.....

Scorpions are great for orks/tyranids/guard

Banshees are great against Meq's


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Orkestra wrote:Depends. Imagine that they're both guns.

Would you prefer...

S4 ap- with two shots...
or S3 ap2 with one shot?

answer that, and you know which unit to pick.

(it's also worth noting that scorpions have a 3+ save)

its closer to s4 ap- with 4 shots......5 on the charge

Other than a few models in the game I think Avatar; Daemon Prince a autarch will need a 3+ to hit.

Initiative goes before most things in the game as well. Excepting I think Dark Eldar lords on combat drugs and maybe Wyches.

fludit wrote:Striking scorpions vs howling banshees. Which is more useful.

(assuming all attacks are on the charge, the target is WS4, and no Farseer fooling around)

T3 with 2+ save
Banshee: .75 wounds
Scorpion: .222~ wounds

T3 with 3+ save
Banshee: .75 wounds
Scorpion: .444~ wounds

T3 with 4+ save
Banshee: .75 wounds
Scorpion: .666~ wounds

T3 with 5+ save
Banshee: .75 wounds
Scorpion: .888~ wounds

T3 with 6+ save
Banshee: .75 wounds
Scorpion: 1.11~ wounds

T4 with 2+ save
Banshee: .5 wounds
Scorpion: .166~ wounds

T4 with 3+ save
Banshee: .5 wounds
Scorpion: .333~ wounds

T4 with 4+ save
Banshee: .5 wounds
Scorpion: .5 wounds

T4 with 5+ save
Banshee: .5 wounds
Scorpion: .666~ wounds

T4 with 6+ save
Banshee: .5 wounds
Scorpion: .833~ wounds

T5 with 2+ save
Banshee: .25 wounds
Scorpion: .111~ wounds

T5 with 3+ save
Banshee: .25 wounds
Scorpion: .222~ wounds

T5 with 4+ save
Banshee: .25 wounds
Scorpion: .333~ wounds

T5 with 5+ save
Banshee: .25 wounds
Scorpion: .444~ wounds

T5 with 6+ save
Banshee: .25 wounds
Scorpion: .555~ wounds

That list should sum it up for you. Basic rule is, if the enemies you commonly face have 4+ or worse save, take Scorpions. If they have 3+ or better, take Banshees. If you have constant farseer support, take Banshees if your enemies have 4+ or better, and Scorpions if they have 5+ or worse, since Banshees get a lot more out of Doom then Scorpions.

While we were talking about Eldar, how are Warp Spiders in play? I don't quite understand what they're used for. Anti-Infantry, Anti-light tank? or just a big distraction? Been thinking about buying some mainly because them being able to Deep Strike. Or are Swooping hawks a better choice.

QuanQuan wrote:While we were talking about Eldar, how are Warp Spiders in play? I don't quite understand what they're used for. Anti-Infantry, Anti-light tank? or just a big distraction? Been thinking about buying some mainly because them being able to Deep Strike. Or are Swooping hawks a better choice.

I myself prefer Spiders.... they are a 3+ armor and much faster than Hawks....

the gun they have is 1/2 the range but twice the strength of the hawks gun......just as many shots and more likely to survive the return shots if they cant jump away far enough......and the Hit and run ability keeps them out of combat and on the board as opposed to skyleap that puts your hawks in reserve.

I like to deep strike them in behind vehicles, pop the rear armor, and then warp out to chase down priority targets (weapon teams, high toughness units, and HQs)

Orkestra wrote:I was about to complain about how many points rangers cost, but then I realized that for just 5 points more they rend on a 5+. Oh the possibilities. I face a lot of Nidzilla, and I was looking at their chances of downing even 1 carnifex the whole game. Fortunately, they'll average a wound on a Godfex per turn. Which means I can afford to take two, and hopefully down one in two turns of shooting, leaving other stuff to focus on the non 2+ save, t7 monsters.

Ha they're better then that. Roll to hit on a 5-6 that shot counts as AP1 .... Roll to wound any roll of 6 rends. Basically 2/9 chance to kill some one with out a save. (+Doom =3/9) (+Guide =8/27) (+doom & guide = 4/9) .... this of cause ignores people that still get an armour save but simply fail it.

Blackmoor wrote:There are many ways to win with Eldar.

Those who say that there are only a couple of ways to win are either not very good players, or lack imagination.

I have a very good record with Eldar and I have never used a Seer Council, Fire Dragons or Wave Serpents and for the most part use a guardian horde. .

REALLY? Never used Dragons, or Seer Council?

How do you kill vehicles?

Is you army list posted anywhere?

Elessar wrote:

Blackmoor wrote:There are many ways to win with Eldar.

Those who say that there are only a couple of ways to win are either not very good players, or lack imagination.

I have a very good record with Eldar and I have never used a Seer Council, Fire Dragons or Wave Serpents and for the most part use a guardian horde. .

REALLY? Never used Dragons, or Seer Council?

How do you kill vehicles?

Is you army list posted anywhere?

Killing vehicles is easy with dragons but they're not the only things ...
Wraith lords have guns and and are str 10 MC (10+2D6 ... any thing other then a monolith is toast)
Wraith Guard open all vehicles with odds of 2/9 (both Pen and Glance have the same odds)
Storm Guardians have Fusion guns
WarWalkers can have 2 guns + guide ...ouch
FirePrism, Falcon and Wave Serpent
...

Eldar was top tier in the 4th ed. but it is no longer.

The basic issues are

1. random game length,

2. low toughness and staying power of scoring units (up to Wraithguard), and

3. less reliability of skimmers.

Tri wrote:

Elessar wrote:

Blackmoor wrote:There are many ways to win with Eldar.

Those who say that there are only a couple of ways to win are either not very good players, or lack imagination.

I have a very good record with Eldar and I have never used a Seer Council, Fire Dragons or Wave Serpents and for the most part use a guardian horde. .

REALLY? Never used Dragons, or Seer Council?

How do you kill vehicles?

Is you army list posted anywhere?

Killing vehicles is easy with dragons but they're not the only things ...
Wraith lords have guns and and are str 10 MC (10+2D6 ... any thing other then a monolith is toast)
Wraith Guard open all vehicles with odds of 2/9 (both Pen and Glance have the same odds)
Storm Guardians have Fusion guns
WarWalkers can have 2 guns + guide ...ouch
FirePrism, Falcon and Wave Serpent
...

Wraithlords have 2 Attacks, and are too slow to even reach stuff to gakker it round the face.
Wraithguard are too slow, too short-ranged guns, and have virtually no chance of destroying vehicles, especially since they aren't AP1.
Storm Guardians may take 2 Fusion Guns (lol) but are BS3. So...one hit. Awesome.
War Walkers can indeed do it, but are fragile as hell.
Fire Prisms are not viable anti-tank. Good to have in pinch, but certainly not a real a-t weapon.
Falcons with a-t weapons are horribly expensive, and far from optimal.
Wave Serpents are good at a-t, but one shot each.

...At least you didn't mention Vypers, !

Eldar being top teir is certainly debatable; but bike council armies still do extremely well in tournements.

On the debate about the falcon, consider this:

Falcon with scatter laser, stones, holofield 175
Five man DA squad (scoring) 60


Prism with stones, holofield 160
Three man jetbikes (scoring) 66

The prism combo is cheaper, unless you want to upgrade the bikes a bit.
This is not considering the points for a farseer sitting in the falcon. A farseer (especially eldrad with his ability to use three powers a turn) will not be able to use his powers fully in the falcon as the falcon will likely be shaken at least part of the time. With a farseer that at least a 300 point unit sitting there, its going to draw fire.


The advantage that the prism combo has is two fold. The prism is a better shooter than the falcon, especially in complementing another prism. And the prism/ bike choice gives you far more flexibility.

If the falcon is destroyed or immobilized then the DA portion of the unit loses its value as well. (it is always POSSIBLE that the 5 man DA unit could slog over and claim an objective, but ....) If the prism is destroyed or has weapon destroyed then it loses its main function but the scoring portion of the unit is unaffected.

A small unit of jetbikes is one of my favorite tactics. Keep them in reserve, have them boost onto the table and hide until they have the oportunity to race over and grab an objective. Often I will use a slightly larger squad or at least include an embolden warlock. Either the bikes tend to be ignored, or occasionally they will draw far more attention then they deserve. If your opponent spends a lot of time and effort trying to hunt down a small bike squad then they are well worth taking.


Sliggoth

BUT, if the opponent shoots the Jetbikes, there are only 3, they're only T4, despite a 3+ save...one will surely die, and if one dies, they flee.

Also, saying a Prism is a better shot, especially when complementing, is simply false. I hate having to use 320 points of vehicles to fire a t-l Large Blast at a Tactical Squad. Even if I kill them, I've no chance of making it worthwhile.

That said, H-F are unnecessary on Prisms, and Stones instead of a S-Can on the Falcon is Fail.

@sliggoth: crew shaken results have no bearing on the ability of a farseer to use non-shooting powers.

Elessar ... Yes all of them have disadvantages. They are not dedicated anti tank units ... they can however destroy them. Also while you picking at units you're also being unfair to them.

Wraithlords have 2 Attacks, and are too slow to even reach stuff to gakker it round the face. Right so that Land raiders going to sit back and hide rather then transport the Terminators ...
Wraithguard are too slow, too short-ranged guns, and have virtually no chance of destroying vehicles, especially since they aren't AP1. They range 12" same as fire dragons Both need to be in a WS to hunt tanks. AP1 is nice but its not the be all and end all.
Storm Guardians may take 2 Fusion Guns (lol) but are BS3. So...one hit. Awesome. They are also dirt cheap.
War Walkers can indeed do it, but are fragile as hell. what AV10 is more fragile then T3?

We'll ignore the bit on the tanks as you've forgot these are fast skimmer tanks and can easily zoom round to target the weaker side and rear armour. No they're not brilliant but they're not terrible ether.

Storm guardians w/ 2 fusion guns: 96 points.

5 Fire dragons: 80 points.

Storm Guardians are not dirt cheap, especially considering their lack of durability and effectiveness.

Guardsmen are dirt cheap, Guardians can't even compare to them.

Now, you guys realize Yriel and Eldrad are from completely different craftworlds, right?
Not to mention the fact that Eldrad is dead. I just think it's more fun to create your own personalities for your own characters.

However, there's nothing saying you can't make "Smelldrad, the ultimate farseer of craftworld Pupesinmowth, and his space-pirate cohort Yurinal."

willydstyle wrote:However, there's nothing saying you can't make "Smelldrad, the ultimate farseer of craftworld Pupesinmowth, and his space-pirate cohort Yurinal."

I lol'd.

I like to think that Craftworlds just dress up Farseers like eldrad and put him out on the battlefield.

Hollismason wrote:I like to think that Craftworlds just dress up Farseers like eldrad and put him out on the battlefield.

Or maybe they just dress their farseers like Eldrad?

I like to think of it as a elaborate ritual

" Put on this helmet"

" Kay"

" Put on these gloves"

" Kay"

" Now put on these Hello Kitty Panties and Bra"

" What"

" Just do it the future has been forseen , you are now representative of eldrad and tapped into his psychic abilities"

" These panties are to small"

" He had a small frame, OFF TO BATTLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLEE"

I just realized that my last post was 100% identical to what I quoted... gogo lackofsleep.

Plus, I'm pretty sure that Eldrad shops at Victoria's Secret. He has some dignity you know.

Discount Lingerie at Walmart.

Elessar wrote:

Tri wrote:

Elessar wrote:

Blackmoor wrote:There are many ways to win with Eldar.

Those who say that there are only a couple of ways to win are either not very good players, or lack imagination.

I have a very good record with Eldar and I have never used a Seer Council, Fire Dragons or Wave Serpents and for the most part use a guardian horde. .

REALLY? Never used Dragons, or Seer Council?

How do you kill vehicles?

Is you army list posted anywhere?

Killing vehicles is easy with dragons but they're not the only things ...
Wraith lords have guns and and are str 10 MC (10+2D6 ... any thing other then a monolith is toast)
Wraith Guard open all vehicles with odds of 2/9 (both Pen and Glance have the same odds)
Storm Guardians have Fusion guns
WarWalkers can have 2 guns + guide ...ouch
FirePrism, Falcon and Wave Serpent
...

Wraithlords have 2 Attacks, and are too slow to even reach stuff to gakker it round the face.
Wraithguard are too slow, too short-ranged guns, and have virtually no chance of destroying vehicles, especially since they aren't AP1.
Storm Guardians may take 2 Fusion Guns (lol) but are BS3. So...one hit. Awesome.
War Walkers can indeed do it, but are fragile as hell.
Fire Prisms are not viable anti-tank. Good to have in pinch, but certainly not a real a-t weapon.
Falcons with a-t weapons are horribly expensive, and far from optimal.
Wave Serpents are good at a-t, but one shot each.

...At least you didn't mention Vypers, !

I kill vehicles with all the ways that you did not mention...and Vypers!

I take a lot of guardians with Brightlances.
I take an Avatar of Kaine.
And of course, Vypers with brightlances.

And in an emergency, Harlequins with fusion pistols.

I kill vehicles with all the ways that you did not mention...and Vypers!

I take a lot of guardians with Brightlances.
I take an Avatar of Kaine.
And of course, Vypers with brightlances.

And in an emergency, Harlequins with fusion pistols.

Rather unusual in competitive play.

wuestenfux wrote:
Rather unusual in competitive play.

I like to play builds other than what every one things can win.

I went 4-0-1 at the Las Vegas GT and 5-0 at the Baltimore GT in 2007.

Lately I changed my army for 5th edition and here is my batreps from the 'Ard Boyz:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/250049.page

I played Shep's Mech IG last week and won, and I played at the SoCal Slaughter RTT and won. My betreps will be posted for them this weekend. Those games were at 1850 points.

@ willy The part about crew shaken on a falcon loaded with a farseer isnt that the farseer has any problems, he doesnt. He can still use guide just fine.... but the problem is that the falcon that he was set up to guide cant shoot since its shaken.



A little discussion on the use of prisms may be in order. If firing at an infantry squad, there is seldom any reason to want to twin link two prisms. If the squad has a high armor save then simply fire two unlinked small blasts. If the infantry has poor armor saves then simply fire two unlinked large blasts.

The option to fire twin linked should only rarely be employed, but it is the flexibility that option gives twp prisms that make them so strong.

Many games the prisms may well never want to TL, but playing unlnown lists or random armies in a tourney situation, then having the ability to TL can be a life saver.

Have a monolith or two that you didnt expect sitting across the table from you? TL the small blast shot for the best odds most eldar armies will have on taking out the big block. (yes, a unit of wraithguard have better odds but not many people run a mobile unit of them). Perhaps you opponent is playing LR spam, its very handy to have a str10 ap1 blast to add to the fire.

Its not that you will use the TL very often, but there are times that the TL improved power will be badly needed.

Even one shot from a prism using the focussed blast is a pretty good AT weapon, Str9 will pop medium and light armor well and has a chance at heavies. Plus the hit odds arent bad; 33% it hits, 42% it hits or doesnt scatter (BS4), 58% it hits or scatters 2" or less which should keep it on the hull of the vehicle.

And of course, the two modes of blast fire is the real key to the prisms flexibility. Hordes of infantry or hordes of tank the prism can adapt its fire.



As to how to kit out the falcon and or prism that is another topic. If the falcon is going to snipe and carry a scoring unit into an objective near the end of the game then it needs to be able to survive. A holofield is just about required, and since it is going to need to be able to move to get to the objective, yes spirit stones are really a good idea as well. Not spending 10 points on stones and having the falcon get stunned on the last turn means that the falcon was neutralized. As far as putting a shuriken cannon upgrade on the falcon....when do you expect to be within 24" of an enemy unit and not moving more then 6" in your turn? At least the shuricatapults could fire while you move since they are defensive weapons. A shuricannon upgrade for the catapults is usually a wasted 10 points.
The prisms now, their outifitting is a little less straight forward. If the eldar force is running many vehicles, say 2-3 prisms and 3-4 waveserpents, then it may well make sense to run naked prisms. Spirit stones arent worth much in a large mech force, since whatever fired at and stunned the prism will most likely be able to shoot at a different tank next turn if the prism hides. And the holofields would of course make the prisms much more durable, but at 35 points apiece its often that those points would be better spent elsewhere, perhaps buying another serpent. There is also always the idea that the serpents with their cargo are more valuable than the prisms ... so I WANT my opponent to shoot at my prisms rather than my serpents, so making the prisms a sofeter target lures fire away from the serpents.



There are many many ways to play the eldar since the eldar are probably the most flexible army in 40k. The main thing is to be consistent in any one army, dont take it in too many directions at once.



Sliggoth

"There are many many ways to play the eldar since the eldar are probably the most flexible army in 40k. The main thing is to be consistent in any one army, dont take it in too many directions at once. "

Second point, yes, obviously. First point...really? Do you honestly believe that?

Imperial Guard are by far the most flexible army in 40k atm. Eldar are more flexible than, say Dark Eldar...but they are getting more and more outdated with every Codex release. (45 point Vypers, 90 Points WSs etc etc) By the end of 2011, I don't think ANYONE will still consider Eldar top-tier. Honestly.

For eldar to be top tier they need to field bike council(s). As was shown at the recent ard boys eldar bike council armies perform very well indeed.

Do the other types of eldar armies perform as well? By no means, but many other types of eldar armies can do ok. There are optimal builds in each army. The eldar at have several alternative builds that are at least playable, and can handle a fairly wide variety of opponents. Various tyles of mechdar are good builds, either going with prism spam, or a mix of walkers and even a falcon or two. Then there is elfzilla which while not fast is not a push over.

Now purely infantry eldar armies arent viable in a competitve environment but thats because of changes in the nature of the game, even swarm armies arent particularly good at the moment at fielding infantry armies.

Eldar are flexible because they at least have a chance against any army, they have a wide variety of tools to handle a wide variety of problems. Some armies have no good answer to twin lash or the IG psyker battle squad, some armies cant handle LRs, some armies cant handle fast moving armies....the eldar has answers to all of these. Yes the eldar do need to follow certain builds to handle all of these threats, its why runes of warding and prisms have bcome so common.


The eldar are by no means an easy army to play or to build a list with, but at least they arent going to have to just pick up their models against certain opponents.




Sliggoth

Bike council are good but they aren't everything. Then again I might simply be biased because I face people who know how to deal with them.

Blackmoor wrote:

wuestenfux wrote:
Rather unusual in competitive play.

I like to play builds other than what every one things can win.

I went 4-0-1 at the Las Vegas GT and 5-0 at the Baltimore GT in 2007.

Lately I changed my army for 5th edition and here is my batreps from the 'Ard Boyz:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/250049.page

I played Shep's Mech IG last week and won, and I played at the SoCal Slaughter RTT and won. My betreps will be posted for them this weekend. Those games were at 1850 points.

I agree with Alan. I have been concentrating on more foot slogging Eldar than Mech and I like it better. Serpents are to expensive and to fragile to take in great numbers, IMO. I dropped an 11 Skimmer Eldar army at Ard Boyz without losing a single vehicle. With the proliferation of IG mech armies, most lists are moving to combat armor 12 spam and the Eldar Mech lists are in the crosshairs. Eldar foot can throw a curveball at the enemy who comes prepaired for armor 12 spam.

I, myself, have seen fewer and fewer heavy bolters in IG and Marine lists out at tournaments. A testamount to the changing metagame and how Foot Eldar can be effective. I'm not saying Mech eldar are no good, they beat up some lists just fine, but foot eldar is a rarer, yet effective, version of Eldar that can still work. And with the run rule and objective based games, Wraithlords and an Avatar can get to the enemy no problem.

DarthDiggler wrote:
I, myself, have seen fewer and fewer heavy bolters in IG and Marine lists out at tournaments. A testamount to the changing metagame and how Foot Eldar can be effective. I'm not saying Mech eldar are no good, they beat up some lists just fine, but foot eldar is a rarer, yet effective, version of Eldar that can still work. And with the run rule and objective based games, Wraithlords and an Avatar can get to the enemy no problem.

I like elfzilla, and it's the best excuse I can think of to talk myself into the FW Avatar.... .

As far as your line I quoted, I've seen alot more LRC's, and they scare the bejesus out of me and my ideas of footslogging...

Foot Eldar do have access to brightlances. That can help vs. LRC's. So can an Autarch on Jetbike with fusion gun. You can let the LRC barrel it's way into a guardian squad and sacrifice them as you other units counter attack. A simple enough tactic is to run a fortuned avatar into the path of the LRC where they both meet somewhere in the middle of the board. The LRC can not ignore the Avatars meltagun and charge. If the Termies come out to fight the Avatar, then you have mitigated the LRC's charge into your foot lines. If the LRC drives around the Avatar, you've got, probably, two meltagun shots and a MC charge to try and take it out. That's just from the Avatar.

Bright lances are horribly overpriced for their battlefield effect. They're slightly better than a lascannon against AV14, but not monoliths, so the targets they are more effective against are the following:

Leman Russ tanks (however they are equivalent against side armor)
Land Raiders
Battlewagons (however lascannons are better against side armor shots)

They are just as effective as lascannons against Predators and Hammerheads/Skyrays and wave serpents

But lascannons are better than bright lances against the following vehicles:

Chimeras
Rhinos
Whirlwinds
IG artillery tanks
Land speeders
Piranhas
Devilfish
Fire Prisms
Falcons
Trukks
Killa Kans
Buggies
Looted Wagons
Defilers
Dreadnoughts
Valkyries

All of which are common vehicles that you're probably going to see several of no matter what army you face. Add on the fact that bright lances are more expensive than lascannons on any platform that a bright lance can be purchased on, and bright lances have 12" shorter range than lascannons...

And the fact of the matter is that neither weapon does AT worth a damn compared to the multi-melta, because they're not AP1.

If you're running Eldar, relying on bright lances to do your AT for you, then you might as well just be praying because they're honestly not that effective for the number of points you're paying for them compared to their in-game effectiveness.

Well, I've seen several mech and semi-mech Eldar armies at the GT final this year.
They all failed more or less.
Kaminari got 22nd out of 75 players and was the highest ranked Eldar army.
Notice there were no soft scores involved.

Kaminari's list was something like this:

Eldrad
Yriel
9 Warlocks 1 Spear, 3 Embolden, 2 Enhance
in Serpent with Shuricencannon and Spirit Stones
10 Storm Guardians with 2 Flamers
in Serpent with Brightlance and Spirit Stones
5 Dire Avengers
in Serpent with Brightlance and Spirit Stones
5 Dire Avengers
1 Falcon with Eldar Missile Launcher, Holofield, Spirit Stones
2 Fire Prisms with Holofield and Spirit Stones

willydstyle wrote:Bright lances are horribly overpriced for their battlefield effect. They're slightly better than a lascannon against AV14, but not monoliths, so the targets they are more effective against are the following:

But lascannons are better than bright lances against the following vehicles:

Add on the fact that bright lances are more expensive than lascannons on any platform that a bright lance can be purchased on, and bright lances have 12" shorter range than lascannons...

Thank you for pointing that out.

Now I know that I should take lascannons in my Eldar army as my prefered anti-tank weapon!

And the fact of the matter is that neither weapon does AT worth a damn compared to the multi-melta, because they're not AP1.

My avatar and my guardians support the use of Melta when ever possible.

Long range anti-tank weapons such as lascannons or bright lances are less reliable for popping tanks in the 5th ed due to cover saves everywhere and the changed armor penetration table.

There is no doubt that Mech armies are a lot better now because of a lot of factors like the vehicle damage table, the lessening of long range anti-tank weapons, etc.

As DarthDiggler pointed out, if there is a meta shift to mech armies, there will be a meta shift to anti-mech armies, and that is where non-mech Eldar builds start to do a lot better.

The best anti-Mech is better Mech. That's why the IG are, IMO, the best Dex.

Blackmoor wrote:

willydstyle wrote:Bright lances are horribly overpriced for their battlefield effect. They're slightly better than a lascannon against AV14, but not monoliths, so the targets they are more effective against are the following:

But lascannons are better than bright lances against the following vehicles:

Add on the fact that bright lances are more expensive than lascannons on any platform that a bright lance can be purchased on, and bright lances have 12" shorter range than lascannons...

Thank you for pointing that out.

Now I know that I should take lascannons in my Eldar army as my prefered anti-tank weapon!

And the fact of the matter is that neither weapon does AT worth a damn compared to the multi-melta, because they're not AP1.

My avatar and my guardians support the use of Melta when ever possible.

Thank you for completely missing the point of the post, which is that bright lances are horribly over-priced for their comparative effectiveness to other common long-range AT weapons.

I am beginning to believe Mech Eldar is a red herring. It's good enough to beat average players/lists, but the weakness of a 110pt transport with one effective gun is glaring. And what does that transport (the wave serpent) do? It move a fragile toughness 3 unit into harms way. Sure, Fire Dragons in a serpent will down a lone vehicle, but that's only if the vehicle isn't screened by stuff the Dragons don't want to deal with. Now what else happens? The Eldar player flies serpents around the board, hoping not to die, until they can deliver their payload to the objective, hopefully, on the bottom of the turn. Not very good.

I'm beginning to see foot eldar excel at things Mech can't and I'm beginning to see foot elder take the leap and compete against better players and better lists where mech eldar would not.

That's why you take 145 point Wave Serpents, with Lance and Cannon. Flying is overrated.

Foot Eldar can't take objectives, and are priced even more horribly than MechDar.

What you're actually seeing is the Fall Of the Eldar, as I've been saying for several months...since the SM Dex came out, Eldar have been on the way out. As I've posted several times, all over the interwebs, by the start of 2012, the Eldar Dex will be uncompetitive, whatever build you use.

Elessar wrote:That's why you take 145 point Wave Serpents, with Lance and Cannon. Flying is overrated.

Foot Eldar can't take objectives, and are priced even more horribly than MechDar.

What you're actually seeing is the Fall Of the Eldar, as I've been saying for several months...since the SM Dex came out, Eldar have been on the way out. As I've posted several times, all over the interwebs, by the start of 2012, the Eldar Dex will be uncompetitive, whatever build you use.

I agree with this. When my semi-mech (NOT a competitive build) Eldar goes up against space marine or IG forces I am just overwhelmed by how much more they can bring to the table, and their troops units can do more than hide in a tank and hope. Of course, since their tanks have fire points they can hide in their tanks and actually effect the battlefield.

Precisely. A lot of the reason I favour 5-man DAVU is because whatever other number I have in there does the exact same job, no better, while inside.

While outside, yes, they're significantly more effective...but NEVER enough more effective to justify throwing away a Scoring Unit.

Essentially, I think a lot of people need to realise that, as bad as the Tactical Squad is considered to be, EVERY Eldar Troop is twice as bad, or worse.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
If Razorbacks had FirePoints/a Capacity of ten/ Marines could take Chimeras there would be no reason to EVER play Eldar competitively.

I think MechDar is far better than JetLocks, btw, but that's taking the Necron Codex into consideration as well...for the meantime it's close, but Mech still beats Bike, IMO.

For Eldar at least. After all, SM Bike armies are better than ours.

SM bikes are near godlike, better firepower, durability, and CC ability... for about the same cost as our bike units. It makes me sad.

I think its because people have pigeonholed themselves with the Eldar codex into believing there are only a few viable competitive builds.


I still think that Viable builds will become more and more available as more people branch out from trying to play one certain way.


I dont play Eldar that much I only have a few models mostly proxy play with stuff but there are still very viable builds with the army.

Trust me, I have been "branching out" more. My lists routinely incorporate warp spiders and Maugan Ra. The "viable builds" are made of the best, most cost-efficient units, and still don't hold a candle to what IG or SMs can bring to the table. When you bring Battleforce crap (I.E. my army) you don't stand a chance against a general of equal skill. Since I do my best at actually helping the other gamers in my area play better, I'm quickly being outmatched by my friends that field good armies, compared to what I bring.

I still think, though, that if I focused on using a more efficient army (what some players would refer to as *spam*) that in the long run I would be outmatched. 135 for a bright lance serpent compared to 130 for a tri-las valkyrie is fail game balance.

Sadly, I'm in full accord with Willy here...there's so little depth in the Eldar Dex, and it seems to shrink every 6 months more.

The problem with and the main problem is the Cost Efficient units are far and few ; their suppose to be a elite strike force etc.. but they pay out the nose for it.

This is what I view as cost efficient

HQ
Avatar
Warlocks

Elites
Fire Dragons
Banshees

Troops
Dire Avengers

Fast Attack
None

H. Support
War Walkers
Fire Prism


Most of the other units in the army are horribly overpriced or have some bizzaro world disadvanatage like Wraithsight.

What the hell.

There really is not a single cost effiicent unit out of the Fast Attack Option.

Hrm, you really think Farseers are overpriced?

And I don't know about you, but I'd much - MUCH - rather have harlequins than banshees. How are you going to get your banshee's anywhere? Yes they are cheaper, but Eldar doesn't have any transports they can easily assault out of, and walking gets you dead.

At least harlies are borderline impossible to hit at range with the veil of tears.

Other than that I guess I agree...

Because of their single role, lack of duality, and lack of a points-efficient transport option, I do not see dire avengers (or howling banshees for that matter) as being cost-efficient. They are necessary... but not efficient.

Again, agreed.

Apart from that though, spot on, with the omission of Yriel. He usually manages to net enough kills, and have an off-table presence, with on-table threat, to be cost-effective. Eldrad isn't overpriced, he's pretty much ok. Autarchs should be added to the list though.

Pick any unit on its own and its subpar. All Eldar unit have a roll to play in an army the key lies in using them in tandem.

But its still very much a case of codex slip, comparing like to like the Wave serpent is going to have a massive points drop or its going to get the works built into its base cost. It's completely out classed by the valkyrie.

willydstyle wrote:SM bikes are near godlike, better firepower, durability, and CC ability... for about the same cost as our bike units. It makes me sad.

Ha! I think this is so funny. I think the two of you are so fixated on your failings with Eldar you are projecting those failings on to the entire 40k playing population. Beleive me boys there is another way. Just last week I played the Memphis Big WAAAGH best General in two games. His sm bike list against my Eldar all foot army. In both games it wasn't even close. Total wipeout for the foot Eldar in both games.

I think it's hard for some people to see past their own abilities and can't accept there is another way to skin a cat. Apparently Allan is having success with his Eldar in Florida and California and I'm having success in Illinois. I'd like to see Allan's batrep against Shep's Guard. His foot eldar did beat a good guard army.

Not even. This Codex is an entire Edition out of date, the fact that we can still use it at all is testament to good future-proofing by Phil Kelly. It's more than we can expect, really. Don't expect the same next time around - it may well be better than the others when it comes out, but I'd expect a greater rules shift between 5th and 6th than we've had since 3rd.

Still a while off, of course.

Elessar wrote:Again, agreed.

Apart from that though, spot on, with the omission of Yriel. He usually manages to net enough kills, and have an off-table presence, with on-table threat, to be cost-effective. Eldrad isn't overpriced, he's pretty much ok. Autarchs should be added to the list though.

I think this is where your eldar failings come from. Yriel is a greatr HQ choice, in 4th edition. I've looked at him and in 5th edition he's not among the best HQ choices Eldar can take. Eldar do not succeed going unit to unit against 5th edition army lists. That's 4th edition thinking. Eldar need to work together to compound their strength vs. the enemy. Farseer's and the Avatar do that, Yriel does not. He's designed to get thrown into the enemy and kill a bunch of points. That's great for him, but bad for your army as the rest of it is ripped up by the enemy. The Farseer and Avatar both improve your army units, increasing their survivability and also increasing thier damage potential. It's your other unit choices that need the help those two can provide. Yriel does not help them.

Err, Yriel adds the usual +1 to reserves, has a power weapon that always wounds on a 2, can bomb large groups of enemy units and has some decent ranged anti-tank. He seems pretty damn useful all-around to me.

How is the avatar better exactly? Especially in a mech list.

number9dream wrote:Err, Yriel adds the usual +1 to reserves, has a power weapon that always wounds on a 2, can bomb large groups of enemy units and has some decent ranged anti-tank. He seems pretty damn useful all-around to me.

How is the avatar better exactly? Especially in a mech list.

My premise is that foot lists are better than Mech lists. The Avatar makes all the Eldar units nearby fearless, which is invaluable in a foot list. He also benifits from the Farseer's fortune ability to make him nearly invulnerable.

Everything you've said about Yriel is true. But you also have to admit he is a guided missile unit which can not help the survivability of any other eldar unit in the game. He would be great if the Eldar were more survivable on their own, but they're not. Yriel needs to get to the fight which means more points taken from your army list to get him there.

Yriel can be used to provide support to Fire Dragons as a suicide bomb.

He's not the most cost-effective of the HQs, but he's better because he has a duality Farseers cannot provide, adding a CC element that every army needs. Is he better than a regular Autarch? Debatable. Once that Autarch has a Fusion Gun, it's hard to argue they're not equal, at least.

Avatars are slow, force you to play a certain way, attract more than enough firepower to down them, and are one-dimensional. Are they quite cost-effective, yes. Do they have any role in a non-Foot list though? No. There is simply no reasonable way to splash them, because if there's one thing worse than a Foot Eldar List, it's a Semi-Mech Eldar list.

Talking about using units in concert is obviously correct, and there's no other decent way to use them. However, most units in the Codex aren't even able to perform an equivalent role to older (and equivalent) Codicies. Sisters of Battle vs Dire Avengers? SoBs come out on top. Scorpions vs PAGK? GJBs vs Ravenwing Attack Squadrons? Dark Reapers vs Lootas? Of course, I can find many more examples, so can you - the point is that they shouldn't be outclassed by everything since, AND things before as well.

As for Eldar Failings? I've lost twice with the list, against a variant of Stelek's 'Best Of Marines' that used Vulkan over a MotF, and dropped a few Scouts. I'm sure you know it. The player who used it is roughly as good as I - making my actual skill level irrelevant, as we had roughly equivalent skill levels - and his list destroyed mine. Usually, we have tight games ending in draws, I've beaten him 4 times in our last ten, but never by a good margin...the two losses I had only slightly below average luck in the early game, and I got trounced.

Against good players you will occasionally get a unit isolated, the main problem I'm trying to highlight here is that when that DOES happen, Eldar will always lose out. At the minute only Necrons and Tyranids have common units that don't terribly worry Eldar units on foot - EVERY other Codex is superior, even DE.

Yriel was amazing in 4th...he's merely average in 5th. But, for the Eldar, average is as good as it gets. (excluding, of course, Fire Dragons, who are still the best anti-tank in the game.)

Elessar wrote:Yriel can be used to provide support to Fire Dragons as a suicide bomb.

He's not the most cost-effective of the HQs, but he's better because he has a duality Farseers cannot provide, adding a CC element that every army needs. Is he better than a regular Autarch? Debatable. Once that Autarch has a Fusion Gun, it's hard to argue they're not equal, at least.

Avatars are slow, force you to play a certain way, attract more than enough firepower to down them, and are one-dimensional. Are they quite cost-effective, yes. Do they have any role in a non-Foot list though? No. There is simply no reasonable way to splash them, because if there's one thing worse than a Foot Eldar List, it's a Semi-Mech Eldar list.

Talking about using units in concert is obviously correct, and there's no other decent way to use them. However, most units in the Codex aren't even able to perform an equivalent role to older (and equivalent) Codicies. Sisters of Battle vs Dire Avengers? SoBs come out on top. Scorpions vs PAGK? GJBs vs Ravenwing Attack Squadrons? Dark Reapers vs Lootas? Of course, I can find many more examples, so can you - the point is that they shouldn't be outclassed by everything since, AND things before as well.

As for Eldar Failings? I've lost twice with the list, against a variant of Stelek's 'Best Of Marines' that used Vulkan over a MotF, and dropped a few Scouts. I'm sure you know it. The player who used it is roughly as good as I - making my actual skill level irrelevant, as we had roughly equivalent skill levels - and his list destroyed mine. Usually, we have tight games ending in draws, I've beaten him 4 times in our last ten, but never by a good margin...the two losses I had only slightly below average luck in the early game, and I got trounced.

Against good players you will occasionally get a unit isolated, the main problem I'm trying to highlight here is that when that DOES happen, Eldar will always lose out. At the minute only Necrons and Tyranids have common units that don't terribly worry Eldar units on foot - EVERY other Codex is superior, even DE.

Yriel was amazing in 4th...he's merely average in 5th. But, for the Eldar, average is as good as it gets. (excluding, of course, Fire Dragons, who are still the best anti-tank in the game.)

Fair enough.

Yrial with a Squad of Warlocks w/ Enhance etc. in a Wave serpent that recieves Fortune is probably one of the more brutal H t H combat units.


Why yes, I can center this blast on top of my own models they all get rerollable invulns.

thank you.

Hollismason wrote:Yrial with a Squad of Warlocks w/ Enhance etc. in a Wave serpent that recieves Fortune is probably one of the more brutal H t H combat units.


Why yes, I can center this blast on top of my own models they all get rerollable invulns.

thank you.

Even better when he charges something solo, and due to the enemy's counter attack, they are all nice and tightly bunched around him base to base. Perfect for an Eye of Wrath.

Wow, I do not know where to start.

Elessar wrote:

Essentially, I think a lot of people need to realize that, as bad as the Tactical Squad is considered to be, EVERY Eldar Troop is twice as bad, or worse.

Wow…Eldar quietly have some of the best troops in the game. They have Wraithguard which are very, very durable as well as Pathfinders that you have to kill with a 2+ cover save. You have jetbikes with the 6” assault move means that they can also be a pain to kill, but configured properly can be a great all-around unit and they are also the fastest troop unit in the game. Guardians are cheap and can move and shoot a heavy weapon and lay down a lot of firepower if the enemy gets within 12”. Dire Avengers are one of my least favorite troops.

Hollismason wrote:I think it’s because people have pigeonholed themselves with the Eldar codex into believing there are only a few viable competitive builds.


I still think that Viable builds will become more and more available as more people branch out from trying to play one certain way.

Amen brother!

Elessar wrote:Sadly, I'm in full accord with Willy here...there's so little depth in the Eldar Dex, and it seems to shrink every 6 months more.

Wow…I am just the opposite! Each time I open the book I see units that I had not thought about before and I am starting to like. For example: Warp Spiders, and Dark Reapers with the Tempest Launcher.

Hollismason wrote:
HQ
Avatar
Warlocks

Elites
Fire Dragons
Banshees

Troops
Dire Avengers

Fast Attack
None

H. Support
War Walkers
Fire Prism

I must be doing something wrong, because from that list I only like the Avatar and War Walkers.

DarthDiggler wrote:Apparently Allan is having success with his Eldar in Florida and California and I'm having success in Illinois. I'd like to see Allan's batrep against Shep's Guard. His foot eldar did beat a good guard army.

Well I am in AZ now and not Florida anymore.

I will post my game with Sheps mech IG as soon as he responds to my PM requesting his army list.

I will try to get up my games from last week tonight.

DarthDiggler wrote:
My premise is that foot lists are better than Mech lists. The Avatar makes all the Eldar units nearby fearless, which is invaluable in a foot list. He also benefits from the Farseer's fortune ability to make him nearly invulnerable.

The Avatar is worth his weight in gold in my list. Not only to make everyone fearless, but he is a great counter assault unit and he often kills a lot of vehicles.

I am thinking about dropping Eldrad from my list because I find myself going second a lot so I do not use his re-deploy, and he is seen as being a but cheesy. For the most part all I every use him for is to fortune my Avatar even though he does not get shot much, I worry that someone might realize that he is often my armies MVP and try to take him down.

Elessar wrote:
Talking about using units in concert is obviously correct, and there's no other decent way to use them. However, most units in the Codex aren't even able to perform an equivalent role to older (and equivalent) Codicies. Sisters of Battle vs. Dire Avengers? SoBs come out on top. Scorpions vs. PAGK? GJBs vs. Ravenwing Attack Squadrons? Dark Reapers vs. Lootas? Of course, I can find many more examples, so can you - the point is that they shouldn't be outclassed by everything since, AND things before as well.

You can’t do cross codex comparisons. Every codex has some unit that is better than what you have. What you do is look at army synergy, and build around that. Game #1 last week I played against Hulksmash’s Grey Knight army and I blew him off of the board.

Oh, and just to show you how wrong you are… (since that is one of my great joys here)
6 Grey Knights
1 Justicar
200 Points

9 Scorpions 3
1 Exarch 4
187 Points
Scorpions go first at Int 5 and hit 13.5 times and wound 6.75 times killing 2.25 Grey Knights. 4 Grey Knights swing back and hit 5.3 times, and wounding 4.44 times killing 1.48 scorpions. The Justicar swings and hits 2 times and wounds and kills 1.6 Scorpions. The Exarch swings with his claw and hits 1.5 times and kills 1.25 Grey Knights.

So, after a round of combat 3.5 Dead Grey Knights and 3.08 dead scorpions, and this is a best case scenario for the Grey Knights with them charging, and not having to pay any points and losing the strength 6 attacks from having special weapons in the squad (and being down 13 points).

Elessar wrote:
As for Eldar Failings? I've lost twice with the list, against a variant of Stelek's 'Best Of Marines' that used Vulkan over a MotF, and dropped a few Scouts. I'm sure you know it. The player who used it is roughly as good as I - making my actual skill level irrelevant, as we had roughly equivalent skill levels - and his list destroyed mine. Usually, we have tight games ending in draws, I've beaten him 4 times in our last ten, but never by a good margin...the two losses I had only slightly below average luck in the early game, and I got trounced.

I wonder what list is that. I have seen Edwin’s list and I could wipe that off the table. I am thinking about coming to Utah to visit friends in Nov. and stopping by to show Stelek and his crew where they might have errored in their thinking.

Yriel really isnt that good in 5th, if you are using him in some of these ways then I can well understand why you might think eldar are weak now.

Adding him to a unit of fire dragons? Total lack of synergy since the fire dragons are usually going to be suiciding while shooting heavy armor, and Yriel in a suicide run wants to be assaulting troops with saves of 3+ (if he is using the eye).
Sending him solo into a squad to use the eye? Thats 155 points of HQ that you are writing off to take out one squad of regular infantry?
Using him in a council squad is at least giving him a chance to survive, altho since its cc and the farseer being an IC would have to be in btb with the other squad too if possible you are risking a one shot kill on your farseer too. (thats going with the rerolled invuln save mentioned)

Yriel has a power weapon that wounds on 2+, thats far far more important than using his trick eye.

The bigger problem is that Yriel takes up an hq slot which could have gone to a farseer, an autarch (an autarch at 100 points gets a power weapon, fusion gun and haywire grenades) or possibly an avatar . Yriel plays well only in a council, he really doesnt improve any other squad. He has the same problem the phoenix lords have, too many points for what he does; Yriel can certainly be fun but in most lists hes just a light weight PL. There is very little he adds to a squad that a regular autarch doesnt add for a much cheaper cost.


And of course any list that is taking Yriel should already have Eldrad. Between the two there is no question, Eldrad is undercosted for what he adds while Yriel is average to perhaps somewhat overcosted.


Dont become locked into just a couple ideas for the eldar, eldar armies can be built around a wide variety of core ideas. Mechdar can work, elfzilla can work and yes other ideas can work too. Bike councils were not an obvious eldar build but they work very well indeed.

IG have a lot of shiny new toys, and may well be the army of the future....but its a little early to tell. SM certainly can be rough, but they do not autowin against the eldar. SMs probably do have the best (value per cost) IC in the game in Vulkan but Vulkan armies arent especially geared to defeat the eldar.


Its certainly possible that some eldar builds will lose often against certain other armies, but perhaps its more that the build needs to be adjusted or perhaps entirely remade.



Sliggoth

Here is the army I won the So Cal slaughter with:

My Army:
Headquarters
Eldrad
Avatar

Elite
6 Harlequins w/5 Kisses , 2 Fusion Pistols
Shadowseer w/Kiss
Troupe Leader w/Power Weapon

Troops
10 Guardians w/Brightlance
10 Guardians w/Brightlance
10 Guardians w/Brightlance

8 Dire Avengers

3 Guardian Jetbikes w/Shriken Cannon
Warlock w/Destructor, Singing Spear

Fast Attack
2 Vypers w/Brightlance

Heavy Support
3 War Walkers w/Scatter Lasers
3 War Walkers w/Scatter Lasers
3 War Walkers w/Scatter Lasers

How did your vypers perform the more I see them the more I like them honestly.

I am pretty in love with the bastard child space marine rip off.

Vyper EML w/ Shuriken Cannon x 2

As a support for jetbikes ; they seem alright.


150 points and has a 48 inch range. If needed it can move forward fire 2 blasts and 6 shots with the shuriken cannon.

Its a very nice platform and most people ignore them.

Hollismason wrote:How did your vypers perform the more I see them the more I like them honestly.

I am pretty in love with the bastard child space marine rip off.

Vyper EML w/ Shuriken Cannon x 2

As a support for jetbikes ; they seem alright.


150 points and has a 48 inch range. If needed it can move forward fire 2 blasts and 6 shots with the shuriken cannon.

Its a very nice platform and most people ignore them.

If your opponent is ignoring a high-firepower/low durability unit like Vypers he's doing it wrong.

As far as the viability of Eldar troops...

T3 and vulnerability to any sort of template weapon combined with very high points cost makes pathfinders less-than-optimal, especially with how dismal their firepower really is (again, considering their cost).

Wraithguard shoot 12" and move 6"... they can be useful as a bully unit, but they're easily outmaneuvered and out-ranged.

Guardians cost 8 pts per model for 5 pts per model worth of unit... they are not "cheap." 10 Guardians w/ bright lance= 110 points. 10 guardsmen with lascannon is more effective and just as "durable" as the guardians, and yet are what 70... maybe 75 points?

I think it's really stupid when I see people post "you have to use synergy with Eldar!!"

Guess what, synergy is not something that other races can't use, and in fact is more a hallmark of a well-played army than it is any particular army list. The fact of the matter is that other armies can use "synergy" to great effect... it's only the Eldar that have to in order to compete.

Hollismason wrote:How did your vypers perform the more I see them the more I like them honestly.

They did not do so well. No one likes brightlances, and Vypers are the first to go down.

I might put EML on them for the extra range and start them always in reserve, but I have not figured out what I am going to do with them yet.

Blackmoor wrote:
You can’t do cross codex comparisons. Every codex has some unit that is better than what you have. What you do is look at army synergy, and build around that. Game #1 last week I played against Hulksmash’s Grey Knight army and I blew him off of the board.

Oh, and just to show you how wrong you are… (since that is one of my great joys here)
6 Grey Knights
1 Justicar
200 Points

9 Scorpions 3
1 Exarch 4
187 Points
Scorpions go first at Int 5 and hit 13.5 times and wound 6.75 times killing 2.25 Grey Knights. 4 Grey Knights swing back and hit 5.3 times, and wounding 4.44 times killing 1.48 scorpions. The Justicar swings and hits 2 times and wounds and kills 1.6 Scorpions. The Exarch swings with his claw and hits 1.5 times and kills 1.25 Grey Knights.

So, after a round of combat 3.5 Dead Grey Knights and 3.08 dead scorpions, and this is a best case scenario for the Grey Knights with them charging, and not having to pay any points and losing the strength 6 attacks from having special weapons in the squad (and being down 13 points).

To be fair, Grey Knights in powered armour are horrible assault units. Despite being S6 and WS5, they're actually a shooty force. Their low number of attacks(especially since they don't really get that +1 on the charge... which sucks) and small unit size makes close combat a bad choice for the knights. Their real strength is that they wield arguably the best standard infantry weapon in the game, the Storm Bolter. PAGK are best at sitting back at mid range, picking away with SB/Psycannon fire, and then moving in to finish up only after they've cut down the enemy down to a managable size.

PAGK are NOT close combat units, and should never attempt to go for in for CC unless the opponent is either crap at CC or is at such small numbers that they can easily be destroyed right away. Proper use is all about judging when would be the best chance to actually assault. No good GK player would let his PAGKs get into combat with a real CC unit, they just aren't good at it.

If you want to compare CC units, try our Terminators or Grand Master. Those are meant to push forward and do the dirty work.

Eldar don't really have any units that can be compared to Grey Knights, since GK units are all about versatility

willydstyle wrote:
As far as the viability of Eldar troops...

T3 and vulnerability to any sort of template weapon combined with very high points cost makes pathfinders less-than-optimal, especially with how dismal their firepower really is (again, considering their cost).

Yes they are vulnerable to template weapons, but it is one thing to say that you are going to use it on them, and it is another to get it to them. It is hard to get a flamer across the board.

Wraithguard shoot 12" and move 6"... they can be useful as a bully unit, but they're easily outmaneuvered and out-ranged.

I have seen a lot of winning Eldar lists with Wraithguard. I refer you to this post:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/246186.page
Once they get on an objective, they are very hard to get off. Also their durability helps in KP missions.

Guardians cost 8 pts per model for 5 pts per model worth of unit... they are not "cheap." 10 Guardians w/ bright lance= 110 points. 10 guardsmen with lascannon is more effective and just as "durable" as the guardians, and yet are what 70... maybe 75 points?

The grass isn’t always greener. You want to compare IG to Eldar, compare Elites and HQ units.

I think it's really stupid when I see people post "you have to use synergy with Eldar!!"

You need to have a focus with your army and you need to have units that fill rolls. War walkers can mow down infantry, but they struggle with anti-tank. So I have brightlances that never stop shooting, and other anti-tank options.

Guess what, synergy is not something that other races can't use, and in fact is more a hallmark of a well-played army than it is any particular army list. The fact of the matter is that other armies can use "synergy" to great effect... it's only the Eldar that have to in order to compete.

I disagree. I think the Eldar codex lends itself to synergy more than other codexes. Taking over powered and under costed units and running them at the enemy has nothing to do with synergy.

Blackmoor wrote:Here is the army I won the So Cal slaughter with:

My Army:
Headquarters
Eldrad
Avatar

Elite
6 Harlequins w/5 Kisses , 2 Fusion Pistols
Shadowseer w/Kiss
Troupe Leader w/Power Weapon

Troops
10 Guardians w/Brightlance
10 Guardians w/Brightlance
10 Guardians w/Brightlance

8 Dire Avengers

3 Guardian Jetbikes w/Shriken Cannon
Warlock w/Destructor, Singing Spear

Fast Attack
2 Vypers w/Brightlance

Heavy Support
3 War Walkers w/Scatter Lasers
3 War Walkers w/Scatter Lasers
3 War Walkers w/Scatter Lasers

How many points is this?

1850 Points

willydstyle wrote:I've started to run my Eldar as Counts-As IG Air Cav since they do everything so much better and cheaper.

You should have your eldar minis taken away for such a travesty; shame on you.

Wraithlordmechanic wrote:

willydstyle wrote:I've started to run my Eldar as Counts-As IG Air Cav since they do everything so much better and cheaper.

You should have your eldar minis taken away for such a travesty; shame on you.

Why? Sounds like an awesome use of counts as to me.

And Sliggy, you're obviously not going to suicide Yriel the first chance you get, but if you put him with the council, at some point he can detach and take out a 10+ man MEQ squad by himself. That counts for an awful lot depending on what turn it is, and I'm thinkin' around turn 4 or 5.

Blackmoor wrote:Here is the army I won the So Cal slaughter with:

My Army:
Headquarters
Eldrad
Avatar

Elite
6 Harlequins w/5 Kisses , 2 Fusion Pistols
Shadowseer w/Kiss
Troupe Leader w/Power Weapon

Troops
10 Guardians w/Brightlance
10 Guardians w/Brightlance
10 Guardians w/Brightlance

8 Dire Avengers

3 Guardian Jetbikes w/Shriken Cannon
Warlock w/Destructor, Singing Spear

Fast Attack
2 Vypers w/Brightlance

Heavy Support
3 War Walkers w/Scatter Lasers
3 War Walkers w/Scatter Lasers
3 War Walkers w/Scatter Lasers

When was this? I don't understand how this would deal with mech... All your BLs are on BS3 units and you have next to no melta. If it was recent, do you have battle reports up anywhere? I'd be interested in seeing them to get a better idea of how it worked out.

One thing I really don't get tho, is the 8 man DA unit. It seems so fragile, and it doesn't feel like it would do much - wouldn't 5 rangers or so be more useful?

Yriel in the council is the one tactic that I can agree with, yes if the right situation arises then he might want to suicide out of the council at the right moment. But thats not a tactic that was being mentioned, people wanted to attach him to fire dragons or have him fire off his eye while still in the council. Yes, the potential to have him split off and die needs to be remembered but its certainly not a reason to inculde him by itself.

Synergy is the effect the eldar get from their units working togehter and improving their overall output. Eldrad is the king of this kind of play, a regular farseer still is better than virtually any other army's choice for this multiplier effect. Autarchs also can add quite a bit to an army, especially if reserves are going to be used.

The firepower of many eldar units are good but not great.... until you add in the effect of guide and/ or doom. Eldrad using a couple of guides and a doom can turn even a unit og guardians into a killing machine, and I trust most of us are familiar with the effect of guide and war walkers. The only other army that can approach this level of flexibility is the new IG with their order system.


Again, if a particular eldar army list is having trouble perhaps its time to change the particulars of what you are bringing to the table rather than writing off the whole codex. Too many people remember how easily the eldar rolled over other armies a few years ago, its not an auto win anymore but its by no means an autol loss either.



Sliggoth

Blackmoor = I didn't say PAGK would beat Scorp. They are better against the things Scorps are 'good' against. I thought that was obvious.

If people don't know to shoot out the Avatar then they are crap players.


Sliggoth -
Yriel doesn't need to assault, if he's going to get assaulted. Put him in the opponent's way, and he will. Also, if he jumps out and kills a Rhino with his spear, it frees the FDs to shoot the contents, trashing a Scoring Unit of the enemy's for unimportant loss. If he gets to charge them, he finishes them off, so even better.

I suggest that perhaps if yuo can't see ANY good way to use Yriel other than in a Foot Council, an inherently awful unit due to costing half an army alone, then it is your failing.

ElfZilla CANNOT work competitively. It is a terrible list, and good players shouldn't struggle with it too much. While some lists are trumped by it, of course, there are more lists that put serious hurt on it than the other way around.


Blackmoor again - It's not really that hard to get a Flamer across the board at all. Land Speeders, Rhinos, Chimeras, Wave Serpents, Land Raiders, Raiders, SM Bike Squadrons, JetLocks, Raptors, CSM Bikes, CSM Rhinos, Chosen, Valkyries, Vendettas, Rough Riders, Immolators, Drop Pods, Razorbacks, Falcons, Wolf Scouts, Snikrot, Battlewagons, Trukks, Assault Squads, Hellhounds, BaneWolves, Devil Dogs...

There are a million and one ways to do it, and whilst not all are good, virtually none can be stopped by Pathfinders' shooting alone.

Synergy is all very well and good, but Eldar are a shooty army, and if a unit doesn't add shooty, then it needs to be a hell of a lot better at it's job than Pathfinders are to be considered top of the tree.

FYI, everyone, I don't consider Eldar to be BAD. Worse than SM, SW and IG, yes. No better than DE, WH or CSM, sure (CSM get a reprieve, because of the Obliterator, and the Plague Marine. Sadly they're too one-dimensional, making the Eldar look awesome in that respect, and will be the next Codex to drop from competitiveness, after Orks.)

The Space Wolf Dex will hurt us, because it puts us further down the pecking order. The Nid Codex will make Orks obsolete, and make Chaos the worst competitive list, with us only just above. The Nid Codex, at least, will prove my point about Foot Eldar, even if you still don't believe me after the Wolves. Necrons will probably oust Chaos from being competitive, and put us bottom of the heap...but that remains to be seen - and it is a year away.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
@Sliggoth: Just because he's in their Transport doesn't mean he doesn't leave if that's obviously the right thing to do.

It shouldn't REALLY need stated.

I have been trying for a while to come up with something that works in the following

Small seer council -> 4 to 5 models

troops
?????
I want jetbikes

Elite
3 x 10 man Warp Spider Squads

H. Support
Fire prisms x 3


Basically I want to use the fire prisms for antitank and with 30 Warp Spiders you have 72 STR6 shots.

Having the Farseers fly around guiding the warpsiders and the warpspiders jumping back behind seer council tank squads or something.

I dunno I just want to field 30 warp spiders.

Small Seer Councils are worse than no Council. Seriously.

Elessar and Willy: usually I agree with you guys, but I'm sitting here laughing at the position you guys have taken on this thread.

You seem to be arguing on the one hand that only one army configuration (mech) and a small number of codex choices are effective, then arguing on the other hand that the mech army and the few units that you like don't actually work in competitive play anymore. Any time someone suggests an alternate army configuration, you shoot it down, then complain about how Eldar are no good anymore--or not as good as guard anyway. Anytime someone like Blackmoor (or I) presents a winning record with a nonstandard list, you argue that his opponents must be no good.

lol, could it be that maybe you're wrong?

You know I'm interested in what the critics here think of my army ... (this roughly what i take)

HQ
Maugan Ra

Elite
Scorpions x2
Harlequins

Troop
Wraith Guard
Jetbikes x2
Pathfinders

Fast
Hawks (5 man no upgrades)

Heavy
FirePrismx2
SWB Shadow Weaver (3+warlock)

... I tweak here and there (for points, transports and fire dragons) but that what I'm using ...

How many points, Tri?

Looks like 1750? Possibly more...

Elessar wrote:How many points, Tri?

Looks like 1750? Possibly more...

Well i normally add up grades and WS comes so it comes to about 1850pts ... on the other hand drop the warlock (from SWB not WG) and the swooping hawks and i can fit that lot under 1500.

In 5th edition the eldar are all about firepower and mobility.

I used to enjoy playing on-foot eldar but you are hard pressed to do anything.

With T3 and only troops controlling objectives I have reduced the core choices to:

1. Jetbike farseer & council.
2. Eldrad and warlocks in wave serpent.

There is no resiliency to any of the eldar CC elites so they will at best get one shot and with a wave serpent run you somewhere between 300 and 400 points.

3. Dire Avengers in Wave Serpent. (either minimum squads to cower inside all game or get bladestorm & defend on the exarch. Between a bladestorm, defend and farseer powers, you can clean the clock of any target you need to.
4. Guardian jetbikes. 6 bikes with 2 cannons is great firepower and hard for your opponent to survive.
5. Fire Dragons in Wave Serpent.
6. 3 vypers with scatterlaser & cannon.
21 mobile S6 shots. Again with a guide from a farseer very deadly.
7. 3 warwalkers with 2 scatterlasers. 24 S6 shots. Less mobility but cheaper for more firepower.

Everything beyond these 7 is fluffy but hard for me to justify playing. If aspect warriors had 1 more base attack, maybe but scorpions and banshees are very situational and very one shot IMO.

@Elessar The point was (as you mentioned again) a GOOD way to use Yriel. Having him around to throw his spear at a rhino so that the dragons can shhot at the passnegers? You would rather spend 155 points for that rather than just put a bright lance on the serpent that they are riding in? And suggesting that he can leave the fire dragon unit ... he is going to move away so that he is sitting there alone, a 155 freebie target that hasnt done anything as of yet?

Putting him into a position where he will be charged and so can pop his eye would be great, if there was any reason at all for the opponent to charge a deadly cc unit that is rather easy to kill with fire. What unit would you place Yriel in so that he would get charged rather than shot? The reason that Yriel works moderately well in a council is that the council provides a lot of protection for him, and the council IS going to be charging into cc.

Yriel is simply a marginal unit, not enough better than an autarch to really warrant his point cost unless you know for certain that you can get him to the right kind of target. Against many armies he simply isnt going to see a useful target to use his eye.


IG got a lot of great toys, and Im personally hoping that the vendetta will provide a good counterpoint to the serpent. The arguement previously has always been that the serpent is the best transport in the game, its fast and has a good wepon so its not over costed. Im thinking that we can finally bury this arguement since the vendetta is faster and has better weapons...and its cheaper. So that should at the very least lead to a lowering of the points cost on the serpent.

Talking about IG tho ... if they do rise to take over the metagame then actually the eldar are in good shape. The IG has some nasty psykers that can devastate many armies; the eldar have runes of warding (15 points!) that make using those powers difficult and risky. The IG has loads of heavy armor (causing much gnashing or orkish teeth); the eldar have lances, fire dragons, haywire grenades (yes they can occasionally be useful) and prisms to handle this. Yes the IG has a lot of firepower, some of which is cheaper than comparable eldar weaponry (las cannon vs lances). Go head to head with any armor and try to beat them at their strong suit and the eldar are not going to win. Dont try and out assault orks, dont try and out mass shoot IG.


Eldar are not a one trick pony, dont get stuck on one idea. Sooner or later that one army will no longer win as well, as the metagame changes and as the armies change.



Sliggoth

Sliggoth wrote:
Eldar are not a one trick pony, dont get stuck on one idea. Sooner or later that one army will no longer win as well, as the metagame changes and as the armies change.

I believe I clearly stated this. The difference is that you think they will still be competitive, I don't. I think that by 2012 Eldar will be uncompetitive, and will have a year of hell until the next Codex in 2013.

Elessar wrote:

Sliggoth wrote:
Eldar are not a one trick pony, dont get stuck on one idea. Sooner or later that one army will no longer win as well, as the metagame changes and as the armies change.

I believe I clearly stated this. The difference is that you think they will still be competitive, I don't. I think that by 2012 Eldar will be uncompetitive, and will have a year of hell until the next Codex in 2013.

I could see you point except for....the main rules are on a 4 (or is it 5) year cycle now.

This means that we will see 6th ed in 2012/2013. No one knows what changes it will bring, and changes to main rules could bring Eldar right back to the top.

Also, due ot the flexibility of units that Eldar can field, we have the opportunity to change easier than most armies, as the metagame changes. I firmly believe that SW, DE and Necrons will change the metagame....Tyranids definately will. This means that those codexes themselves might bring Eldar back up, as well.

Even now, I have won my last RTT with a Mechdar/MC hybrid and I plan on taking it to 40k Radio's World Wide War...and I expect to do well there, as well. Eldar are far from helpless right now, and due to our flexibility, I don't see the bleak future for us that you seem to see.

Only time will tell.

My position in this thread is that Eldar are:

1. Too expensive to do mech as well as the new guys (SM, IG).

2. Have troops which are less functional while being either: more expensive, or much more fragile than the other armies.


There's a reason why so many Eldar lists end up looking like thus:

Farseer w/ blalbablah (usually just Eldrad anyways)

2x Fire Dragons in wave serpent

5 DA in wave serpent

5 da in wave serpent

(ad nauseum... sometimes people do storm guardians... but you really want to max out on your *number* of scoring units, rather than your *quality* because the more wave serpents you have on the table the more objectives you can contest at the end of the game)

Fire prism

Fire prism

Fire prism

It's because, for the most part, these are the choices that let you cover your bases in 5th ed: the ability to kill vehicles, the ability to have more objectives at the end, and the ability to kill infantry.

When you start taking different "less optimized" units, not only do you reduce the amount of army you can bring to the table, but you're also sacrificing the ability to actually win 5th ed games.

Wraithguard are not completely worthless because they are durable enough to bully their way onto objectives, however they are extremely vulnerable to last-turn charges to pull them off objectives, or merely to kill them with things like TH terminators or harlequins.

Jetseer council is a neat trick, and I can see how it's difficult for a lot of players to deal with as they force your opponent to play to minimize their ability to multi-charge, which means a spread-out army.

I'm toying with a list idea to bring too many pathfinder units for my opponent to effectively flame them down, and I'll let you guys know how it works, but currently IG and SMs are putting a big hurt on the competitiveness of Eldar in general, just by being able to do a lot of the things that Eldar can, but cheaper and better.

But anyways, here's my experimental non-mech Eldar list idea (just a framework for now, no actual points costs:

Farseer, doom, fortune (maybe Eldrad, cuz he does things better)

Maugan Ra

one or two small-ish harlequin units with shadowseers and probably fusion pistols, kisses (for dealing with dreadnoughts up close, and for countercharging stuff)

several units of pathfinders (3 or 4?)

3 wraithlords in HS. I really like sword/lance lords, but I think with the harlequins I might not need the swords on the lords, so maybe EML/Lance lords, or I can just accept that trying to kill land raiders is futile and do EML/scatter for extra anti-rhino utility while retaining dual purpose for pure anti-infantry.

Units of warp spiders with withdraw exarchs to round it out.

Most of the units are difficult to deal with at range due to covers saves/veil of tears/high toughness, but a lot of the army has hit and run in order to maximize their close range ability. I don't know if it can be competitive in 5th ed against mechanized lists (in fact I'm pretty sure it can't...) but it could be fun to try.

Eldar paid top dollar in 4th for the best (some of the only good) vehicles in the game. Since then, everybody else's vehicles got better, the eldar's got very slightly worse (no SMF), and most other vehicles got cheaper. That leaves them in a bit of a bind.

Couple that with GW's inability to properly write rules for medium infantry. I don't know what it is, but GW can do good rules for MeQs, and good rules for hordes, but can't quite nail the middle.

Willy-

That's not a half bad Eldar foot list. Just replace Maugan with the Avatar and you are barking up my very own tree.

Blackmoor wrote:
I take a lot of guardians with Brightlances.
I take an Avatar of Kaine.
And of course, Vypers with brightlances.

And in an emergency, Harlequins with fusion pistols.

I thought you were being serious till this.

Avatar, Vipers and Guardians? Wait Harlequins? Those are the worst AT units out there. Tell me you're not serious...

Ha ha ha Blackmoor is a comedian.

Augustus wrote:

Blackmoor wrote:
I take a lot of guardians with Brightlances.
I take an Avatar of Kaine.
And of course, Vypers with brightlances.

And in an emergency, Harlequins with fusion pistols.

I thought you were being serious till this.

Avatar, Vipers and Guardians? Wait Harlequins? Those are the worst AT units out there. Tell me you're not serious...

Ha ha ha Blackmoor is a comedian.

Its not that unheard of........ I had a squad of Harlequins holding an objective untill I could get a troop near it, and the ork player I was playing against decided that he was going to move his looted wagon near them to shoot my incoming troops..... till my Halequins hopped out and popped it....... he was compleatly unaware that Haleys had any form of anti tank.........nice to have a little ace in your pocket for emergencies.......

Sure, but a 6 inch meltagun?

and technically, they weren't holding the objective...

Dont get me wrong, I think Harlequins are awesome looking, but uh, they are the same game role as howling banshees with a bunch of strange rules and mismatched gear for more points...

DarthDiggler wrote:Willy-

That's not a half bad Eldar foot list. Just replace Maugan with the Avatar and you are barking up my very own tree.

Maugan Ra is for dealing with enemy mech at range. He's not nearly as good as the Avatar in CC, and doesn't have a melta gun, but can start blowing things up from turn one, and add a slight amount of durability to flame weapons to a pathfinder unit, and also synergizes well with harlequins. I honestly don't see how the list could deal with all-mech IG or Space marines.

Augustus wrote:Sure, but a 6 inch meltagun?

and technically, they weren't holding the objective...

Dont get me wrong, I think Harlequins are awesome looking, but uh, they are the same game role as howling banshees with a bunch of strange rules and mismatched gear for more points...

After a Land Raider dumps out it's payload they are normally still hanging around trying to shoot stuff. After the Harlequins take care of the payload, they can then move on to the tanks.

When I played against Mech Guard, the harlequins went after a squad of Hell Hounds (Devil Dogs?) and I shot both of them, and did nothing :(

The Harlequins are really a counter assault unit, but in the later turns they are wondering around and there are a lot of vehicles that are close by.

Augustus wrote:Sure, but a 6 inch meltagun?

and technically, they weren't holding the objective...

Hence why I said they were waiting for a troop to get there...... Harlies tend to keep people at bay and off objectives I would then have to fight for......

and yea I dont go hunting for vehicles with them, but when is it ever bad to shoot 2 B4 S8 ap1 pistols at a unit your going to assault, and they are cheep enough to never leave home without them.......

Multipurpose units are rare in Eldar and any chance to add another ability to my squads is a welcome advantage if a situation pops up.

DJ Illuminati wrote:
Multipurpose units are rare in Eldar and any chance to add another ability to my squads is a welcome advantage if a situation pops up.

Totally agree, although, for me, this is the main problem with the Eldar. Much more so than cost (Vyper, really?! Swooping Hawks = 2x Sisters of Battle?!!??)

Elessar wrote:

DJ Illuminati wrote:
Multipurpose units are rare in Eldar and any chance to add another ability to my squads is a welcome advantage if a situation pops up.

Totally agree, although, for me, this is the main problem with the Eldar. Much more so than cost (Vyper, really?! Swooping Hawks = 2x Sisters of Battle?!!??)

If the Eldar ever get a new codex before 6th ed........ I dont care if they dont add any units to our army.......just reduce the points for some of our stuff.......

I can never wrap my head around how a Shining Spear squad is worth all the points that they cost.....

....or why my guardians cost as much as guardsmen yet have crappier guns and are not as useful, Storm Guardians are the better choice

.....or why a Lascannon costs HALF of what a brightlance does, and is more useful when shooting at anything other than landraiders


We dont need special characters and new units........ we need "point coupons" so we can afford the things in our codex.

Its pretty bad when Eldar is outnumbered by SMs.....

Personally i wish they'd mash some of the units together.
Dark reapers + Support Weapons Battery = unit that can fire at 2 targets (see the artillery rules) and is worth a Heavy support slot.

Guardian Jetbike Squadron + shinning spears = a unit that can take wounds and still retain its effectiveness

Guardians Defenders and Storm Guardians = 2 shots, 2 attacks, 1 heavy weapon, 2 special & a warlock for good measure.

Waveserpent + Falcon = 14 man transport and 1 TW gun or 2 separate guns. Option to buy energy field and/or holofield (each field removes 2 transport spaces)

and so on

Tri wrote:Personally i wish they'd mash some of the units together.
Dark reapers + Support Weapons Battery = unit that can fire at 2 targets (see the artillery rules) and is worth a Heavy support slot.

Guardian Jetbike Squadron + shinning spears = a unit that can take wounds and still retain its effectiveness

Guardians Defenders and Storm Guardians = 2 shots, 2 attacks, 1 heavy weapon, 2 special & a warlock for good measure.

Waveserpent + Falcon = 14 man transport and 1 TW gun or 2 separate guns. Option to buy energy field and/or holofield (each field removes 2 transport spaces)

and so on

I dont have a problem with the Weapons battery other than the D-cannon is too short a range to survive after a single shot......the Vibrocannon is nice but not for its points cost

A shining spear squad that can take 10 man squads is a great idea....

Make holofield available for waveserpents.......or any of the vehicles....... Warwalkers with holofield make my pants a little tight.....lol

War Walkers are pretty darn good. Enough to make me want to try to find some old style metal ones for the cheap!

One of my friends sometimes runs 6 or 9 warwalkers and can saturate me with str 6 scatterlasers. They are easy to start popping when I get up close but even one or two turns of fire from all those walkers can ruin your day.

augustus5 wrote:One of my friends sometimes runs 6 or 9 warwalkers and can saturate me with str 6 scatterlasers. They are easy to start popping when I get up close but even one or two turns of fire from all those walkers can ruin your day.

2 autarch & 9 outflanking warwalkers ... you know they're coming round turn 2-3 and when I run them they get missile launchers that's 6 S8 shots at rear and side armour.Any AV10-11's had it... for every thing else there's fire dragons

DJ Illuminati wrote:

Tri wrote:Personally i wish they'd mash some of the units together.
Dark reapers + Support Weapons Battery = unit that can fire at 2 targets (see the artillery rules) and is worth a Heavy support slot.

Guardian Jetbike Squadron + shinning spears = a unit that can take wounds and still retain its effectiveness

Guardians Defenders and Storm Guardians = 2 shots, 2 attacks, 1 heavy weapon, 2 special & a warlock for good measure.

Waveserpent + Falcon = 14 man transport and 1 TW gun or 2 separate guns. Option to buy energy field and/or holofield (each field removes 2 transport spaces)

and so on

I dont have a problem with the Weapons battery other than the D-cannon is too short a range to survive after a single shot......the Vibrocannon is nice but not for its points cost

A shining spear squad that can take 10 man squads is a great idea....

Make holofield available for waveserpents.......or any of the vehicles....... Warwalkers with holofield make my pants a little tight.....lol

I'd far sooner have even AV11 Walkers... :(


Automatically Appended Next Post:
That said, I'm really enjoying this thread atm, since when I posted that the Eldar were ridiculously overpriced 3 months ago, I got roundly shouted down...

Elessar wrote:
Automatically Appended Next Post:
That said, I'm really enjoying this thread atm, since when I posted that the Eldar were ridiculously overpriced 3 months ago, I got roundly shouted down...

That's because they're not ... yet. It's codex slip. Every thing that's come out now 5th is here (SM on wards) is designed to work perfectly with the new rules (or as perfectly as GW can manage anyway). If you compare eldar with any one that hasn't got a new codex (SM/IG) they're still one of the better armies. But I fully expect them to lose ground as each new codex comes out.

Yeah, Eldar is supposed to lose more and more ground the more new codices are published.
Nevertheless, I still think that there are only minor changes to make Eldar a bit more competitive.
The problems are
random game length,
weakness of troops, and
durability of Eldar skimmers.

Weakness of troops, indeed, I'd also say Rare effective antitank units is also a problem in Mech land.

I also agree that Eldar are over costed generally. Particularly in the aspect warrior ranges:

Swooping Hawks
Shining Spears
Exarchs
Dark Reapers
Scorpions
Banshees
Guardians
Waveserpents

Wave serpents are very much overcosted, it's almost absurd. Shining Spears are up there in price and Dark Reapers were hit very hard with the 5th editon rules for cover (it's everywhere and 4+ to boot).

Guardians are slightly over costed. The Avatar is about right and Wraithlords are a good buy. Dire Avengers are a good price, but very limited and shouldn't be taken in big numbers.

Fire Dragons are a good price. 5-6 are just about the most relaible way to take out a big tank (except monolith) in the game and come in under 100pts. Banshees are a tad high, but limited in the current meta. You'll do great against MEQ, especially with the Farseer and Doom, but 50% of the time you are facing non-MEQ now a days and that's not good for the Banshees.

Scorpions can be to hit or miss, but Warp Spiders are a good buy. I think Harlequins, though one of the few units that can diversify to be anti-troop and anti-tank (low range, but whose going to see them with the Veil), suffer the same problems as the Banshees.

I think the Eldar units are fine, most just need a slight points adjustment. (ok the Serpent needs a big adjustment)

IMO the current Eldar codex works best at 1500pts and starts to lose the race with other dex's at higher point games.

Strange, I think it's ineffective below 1750, simply because we can't afford enough stuff to compete, especially with Guard.

Elessar wrote:Strange, I think it's ineffective below 1750, simply because we can't afford enough stuff to compete, especially with Guard.

Everyone just seems to say "X army doesn't work well under 1500" without actually thinking about it.

The level an army can compete at is the level that it has all of its bases covered as far as winning in 5th edition goes: anti-mech, anti-infantry, scoring units.

In order to make up for the relative inability of the Eldar scoring units to be able to kill much of anything (for the amount of points you pay for them) you need to be able to have enough points to be taking units that are good at purely killing things.

Orks, Space Marines, Chaos Space marines can excel at low points games, because their troops units can cover all three bases to an extent (and its difficult to fit land raiders, the orks' biggest foil, into low point games).

Eldar just plain suck at low-points games because they have to waist a good chunk of their points on scoring units that don't have much ability to actually affect the battlefield.

It's only at mid-high points that Eldar can cover all of their bases and have enough scoring units.

One of the big reasons I like to take prisms is the power they give in lower point games. Three naked prisms tend to shine in lower points games since they are relatively cheap and the opponent tends to not have enough AT to go around. For 345 points we get three tanks that can do well against hordes, tough infantry or armor. With the ability to link up they are even an excellent answer to heavy armor.

Eldar troops are expensive enough that they are a weak link in low points games, but the heaby slot shines brightly. Altho in 1000 points games a unit (or two) of guardians with an eml and a unit of pathfinders works well enough with 3 prisms against a lot of armies. Its just that the mechdar build doesnt do so well at lower points, so trying to field a mechdar army tends to fail.



Sliggoth

I'm trying my hand at Mechdar and trying to field a force that presents a threat to opponent is proving difficult to build.

Wave Serpents are armed similar to SM Razorbacks and cost almost twice as much. Don't know if being a fast vehicle is worth that big a difference in points.

Wildstyle I find the excact opposite to be true. I find that at 1500pts it almost doesn't matter what else I have in my Eldar army, the Farseer + Avatar + 3 Wraithlords is powerful enough to snuff out most opponent lists all by themselves. After I spend about 730pts in those 5 units, I have about 770pts to place in 'whatever' to win the game.

1500pt lists just have a real hard time dealing with 3 toughness 8 creatures and a 3+/4+ MC with rerollable saves. Now add in another 250-350pts and enemy list now begin to find the guns to drop those 4 bad boys, but at 1500pts it is not very easy.

Now before anyone says you just fly away from the MC's I say who flies away from 3 Brightlances/Missile launchers? Those Wraithlords can reach out and touch anything they want. If you want a KP mission it's hard to get the KP's from the 4 MC's. If you play an objective mission, then it's hard to keep some of them off the objectives, while the Avatar or a Wraithlord sits back and protects the 'fragile' troops from getting assaulted. You can't shoot enough at 1500pts to kill all the troops, not with 4+ cover and 'hit the ground' to make it a 3+ cover save. No sir you need to assault them and the Eldar MC's make that really hard.

Eldar have always been tough at 1500pts, IMO. It's only when the enemy can bring 1750-1850pts of weapons do the Eldar MC's begin to drop to fast to be overly effective.

I agree with Darth that the combo Farseer + Avatar + 3 Wraithlords is hard to deal with at the 1500 pt level.

The Wraithlords with bright lances + eml's are anti-tank and can counter-strike with the Avatar.

What is needed in this army are anti-infantry and anti-horde units.

Nice thread guys! I was painting some more Eldar today - and finding this up has been most useful.

If you have first turn, go all out fire.
If your second, have the guys with the highest toughness, if not the ones with the best armor save.
Use the guys with best armor save or toughness as shields
as well as heavy.

I can agree with a lot of points here like high points cost especially for transports and with a limited amount of points having all bases covered with AT fire to take out armour it can be tough.

The morale rules support larger units able to weather casualties over smaller units which need protected somehow to get to the objectives so a lot of points being sunk there. With the lower costs for units in other armies it looks like the eldar codex is soon to be abandoned by many.

But isn't that good business sense? Why have a player of the hobby sit there the past 3 years with just their eldar, if a newer codex looks more competitive more sales. Small aside there.

Some units I see people saying are must haves I dont entirely agree with. Banshees I see as too weak with their str 3, the prisms shots scatter with the new rules which imo were just plain uncalled for, they going to bring back weapons that use blast marker exploding like in 2nd ed?

Units I see as useful are guardians for lowest points cost, massed shuriken fire with fore and move heavy weapons, holding objectives.

DA's with bladestorm which is a serious threat to almost any unit.

Warwalkers, back in fashion

Wraithlords for what you pay you get a nice solid unit.

Falcon depending on weapon options and whats inside, preferably....

Fire dragons sick since RT days and we'll still reduce your terminators and land raiders to molten piles

Farseers with guide and doom, you can't go wrong.

Scorpions good save for durability in combat and high number of attacks. Worst case they tie themselves and an enemy unit in CC in my 5th ed experience. Pity they dont have haywore grenades anymore.

Warp spiders, lot of str 6 shots there, lot of saves for the opponent to make.

Vypers - sheer threat value and fire magnets with high mobility.

Jetbike squads - 6 with a lock and 2 cannons have proven effective for the points cost for me over and over.

Avatar - abilities and its threat makes it worth the cost imo.

Shining spears - high in cost yes but the laser lances + hit and run win it over for me.

It used to be 3+ save armies everywhere and the starcannon and reapers weapons of choice now we're forced to make the tournament lists to cover everything and still have the durabilty in our troops choices to take and hold objectives, just needs more thinking.
Anti tank arguments seem to revolve around the dreaded monolith I'm sad to hear, yes it's a tough one and in all honesty if i knew in advance there'd be one on the table there'd be 2 prisms sitting there waiting, but is it worth building an army around that one thing might be there? What about the t5 3+ save armies of plague marines that were so common?

The synergy argument, eldar have always been about it, not just "this squad can mow down troops and has melta bombs to blow away tanks with a save better than most cover so I dont need to worry whats going to be near it".

But I'm interested in the fire prism a bit more now, even with this stupid scatter thing, curious as to peoples experiences with it with shots probably more often than not going elsewhere.

Sure we have a long wait for a new codex and with the core rules changing SM players will always have a codexdue to them being the sort of flagship army for GW while others have to wait their turn. The changes in def weapon strength has hit eldar hard, the loss of skimmers moving fast anopther blow but I think theres more to eldar then loaded into serpents the entire game.

Overall the biggest disadvantage I think is the basic weapon only having a 12" range, so in order to shoot your shooting units, you are opened up to assaults which they are more often than not crumpled in. If that changes for the better I think we'll see a shift back to RT and 2nd ed orientated armies of guardian cores with massed shuriken fire and will I'm sure make the guardian cost for people happy compared to an IG or SM troop.

Prisms are good because of their flexibility. They are indeed the best monolith killers for the eldar, but with a str9 ap2 blast they also work quite well against meq. They are also perfect for killing hordes with their str5 ap4 large blast version.

As far as scatter goes..... 33% they hit, 45% that they hit or else roll small enough on the scatter that they dont really scatter (BS4).
If used in small blast as an AT shot, then its about 60% that it will hit or scatter 2" or less, which should still stay on the hull.

The scatter isnt really a problem, since even if it does scatter widely it may well scatter onto some other juicy target (at least in the first couple turns)


Sliggoth

Sliggoth wrote:Prisms are good because of their flexibility. They are indeed the best monolith killers for the eldar, but with a str9 ap2 blast they also work quite well against meq. They are also perfect for killing hordes with their str5 ap4 large blast version.

I'd disagree with this as to me the best monolith killer is a 5 man wraithgaurd unit in a waveserpent.

Pricey but better.

Brother Bartius wrote:

Sliggoth wrote:Prisms are good because of their flexibility. They are indeed the best monolith killers for the eldar, but with a str9 ap2 blast they also work quite well against meq. They are also perfect for killing hordes with their str5 ap4 large blast version.

I'd disagree with this as to me the best monolith killer is a 5 man wraithgaurd unit in a waveserpent.

Pricey but better.

10 man fire dragons have better odds against a monolith then a single shot from 2 Prisms
Guided Dragons = 22.3%
Prism = 9.9% (edit oops) 17.9%

Monolith killers?

Using 5 Wraithguard is a gamble, they need to be guided.

Another option is a ramming Serpent.
In the GT final last year, my ramming Serpent was 24'' away and gained strength 10, popping that d**** thing.

Moreover, an option is a Seer Council.
If transported in a Serpent they can come pretty close.

@ Tri Hmm, how are you arriving at 9.9% for the TL prisms? They are Str10 and AP1, plus with the TL you can reroll the scatter dice so on a monolith the odds of staying on the body of the vehicle are very high. I havent measured a monolith exactly, but people call it a 6" block, which would mean that a scatter of up to 7 on the dice should still hit.



Also:
Part of the reason that two prisms are the best at cracking monoliths is that they can get two or more tries. Something that a squad of fire dragons or wraithguard are VERY unlikely to see



Sliggoth

Sliggoth wrote:@ Tri Hmm, how are you arriving at 9.9% for the TL prisms? They are Str10 and AP1, plus with the TL you can reroll the scatter dice so on a monolith the odds of staying on the body of the vehicle are very high. I havent measured a monolith exactly, but people call it a 6" block, which would mean that a scatter of up to 7 on the dice should still hit.



Also:
Part of the reason that two prisms are the best at cracking monoliths is that they can get two or more tries. Something that a squad of fire dragons or wraithguard are VERY unlikely to see



Sliggoth

ok checking my sums its better then i said (last time i overly simplified when working it out)...
(1/3 + 2/3 *(21/36 +15/36 *(1/3 + 2/3 * 21/36))) = Hit chance = 10764/11664
(2/6 3/6 +1/6 1/6) = chance to pen and destroy = 7/36
total chance of 2 fire-prisms TL to kill a monolith = 75348/419904 = 17.9%
so my apologies they've slightly better odd then unguided fire dragons but both units would be better used to evaporate the necrons and force phase out. chance of killing with one turns shooting 17.9% Two 32.7% Three 44.8% Four 54.7% Five 62.7% ...

Something I have came to love since 2nd ed when the falcon was released was 6 dragons in it. These days they still get carted around in one equipped with a scatter laser and shuriken cannon upgrade, moving 6" tops on the disembark move to hunt heavy infantry (terminators/chaos possessed etc) that are high priority targets and allows the dragons shots at either a tank or same/different unit.

Which actually gives me another gripe at points cost for eldar transports, they dont become mobile cover for the troops like those 35 points rhinos :(

Brother Bartius wrote:

Sliggoth wrote:Prisms are good because of their flexibility. They are indeed the best monolith killers for the eldar, but with a str9 ap2 blast they also work quite well against meq. They are also perfect for killing hordes with their str5 ap4 large blast version.

I'd disagree with this as to me the best monolith killer is a 5 man wraithgaurd unit in a waveserpent.

Pricey but better.

Not according to Mathematical Anti Telharsic Harfatum Septomin, or MATHS for short.

A LINKED prism is good for the str 10 and AP1.
Generally that's the only time a focused linked shot is ever worth it, against AV14.

Generally, if you want Anti-tank, you will want AP1.

Even vs. Monolith, it can't do anything agaisnt the AP1. Now melta gun equivalent weapons will have a rough time getting that glance, but few weapons will get to kill on a single glance against the AV14 variety.

My 7 Cents.

Tri wrote:

Sliggoth wrote:@ Tri Hmm, how are you arriving at 9.9% for the TL prisms? They are Str10 and AP1, plus with the TL you can reroll the scatter dice so on a monolith the odds of staying on the body of the vehicle are very high. I havent measured a monolith exactly, but people call it a 6" block, which would mean that a scatter of up to 7 on the dice should still hit.



Also:
Part of the reason that two prisms are the best at cracking monoliths is that they can get two or more tries. Something that a squad of fire dragons or wraithguard are VERY unlikely to see



Sliggoth

ok checking my sums its better then i said (last time i overly simplified when working it out)...
(1/3 + 2/3 *(21/36 +15/36 *(1/3 + 2/3 * 21/36))) = Hit chance = 10764/11664
(2/6 3/6 +1/6 1/6) = chance to pen and destroy = 7/36
total chance of 2 fire-prisms TL to kill a monolith = 75348/419904 = 17.9%
so my apologies they've slightly better odd then unguided fire dragons but both units would be better used to evaporate the necrons and force phase out. chance of killing with one turns shooting 17.9% Two 32.7% Three 44.8% Four 54.7% Five 62.7% ...

I think you also failed to take into account the chance of a glancing 6 destroying the monolith.

willydstyle wrote:

My dam workings wrote:
(2/6 3/6 +1/6 1/6) = chance to pen and destroy = 7/36

I think you also failed to take into account the chance of a glancing 6 destroying the monolith.

I have highlighted the chance to glance it to death

I suppose if we want to go for the best best best unit odds of destroying a monlith we should go with a 10 man wraithguard unit with a spiritseer/ spear, being guided. But how do we get the necron player to doze off for those turns needed to get things close enough, hehe.


Sliggoth

Sliggoth wrote:I suppose if we want to go for the best best best unit odds of destroying a monlith we should go with a 10 man wraithguard unit with a spiritseer/ spear, being guided. But how do we get the necron player to doze off for those turns needed to get things close enough, hehe.


Sliggoth

Put em in two wave serpents. 700 points later, no monolith can escape.

Sliggoth wrote:I suppose if we want to go for the best best best unit odds of destroying a monlith we should go with a 10 man wraithguard unit with a spiritseer/ spear, being guided. But how do we get the necron player to doze off for those turns needed to get things close enough, hehe.


Sliggoth

Again, not really. 10 Fire Dragons with Tank Hunters is FAR more effective. Even without Guide.

Well, theory says to ignore the d*** Monolith.
This works with MEQ armies but can go wrong with Eldar and definitely goes wrong with DE.

My favorite Monolith killers are ramming Serpents and Seer Councils.

Hmm, the wraithguard pen on one third of their hits.

The fire dragons only pen if they roll a 6, even with tank hunter. With the living metal rules, its only tank hunter that lets the dragons pen at all.

So each wraithguard will pen twice as often as each dragon, each wraithguard will glance twice as often, and they are all BS4 except for the dragon autarch. Granted the dragons are AP1 but thats not going to counter twice as many rolls on the table.

So the wraithguard are more effective than the dragons. If anyone ran full squads of either of course


But yes, its usually going to be a better idea to kill regular necrons to make his army phase out. If the necron player has too many warriors in reserve tho we dont always have that option and then we may find that a monolith needs to die.

In practical terms that usually means either a TL prism set, or else a smaller unit of fire dragons since few eldar lists run full squads of dragons or wraithguard.


Sliggoth

I was pretty sure that living metal negated tank hunter. Could someone check that?

willydstyle wrote:I was pretty sure that living metal negated tank hunter. Could someone check that?

It is not listed as being blocked but is implied. in practice you will only ever roll strength plus a D6 against AV14. Now the actual rules say you never get to roll more then 1D6 and you don't get lancing .... which doesn't include tank hunter .... Now we could say it doesn't say that tank hunter would work as it is not mention as working but nether is it mentioned as working for any other vehicles. In this case i would say living metal would have to say that tank hunter doesn't work.

I think it may have been in an FAQ, not 100% sure about that though

well this topics certainly giving me some ideas for soon to be eldar army! ^^ damn shouldnt have said that...the inquisitors will be after meh D:

Minaith1989 wrote:well this topics certainly giving me some ideas for soon to be eldar army! ^^ damn shouldnt have said that...the inquisitors will be after meh D:

lol, what's your theme?

Actually, Tank Hunters DOES work. In 4th, it did not, but the wording was changed, and it was removed from the Necron FAQ. It works just fine.

Well i think the eldar avatar is good against two armies. Salamaders led by vulcan he'stan, or orks with lots of trucks. if salamanders,they will have lots of melta and flamer weps. they cant affect the avatar because of the molten body spec rule. with orks, try to imobolise the veichles on the first turn, then blow up tanks with 5 strength 6 attacks and a wailing doom. also take fire prisms and fire dragons, to take the enemy out, and to make a greatn looking fire-based army.

Use 2 Farseer both with doom, guide and spirit stones (to make them cast 2 psychics a turn).
Also have 2 squads of dire avengers with at least 10 men and a exarch with bladestorm.
First turn both Farseers casts doom on an enemy unit and guide on a dire avenger unit.
1 dire avenger squad bladestorms and one shoots normally. This should take out at least 1 or 2 units.
Next turn the dire avengers who shot normally bladestorm and the other squad with 1 Farseer go into cover. Do the same as last turn with the other Farseer.
Continue doing the same as what you did in the second turn while alternating the unit that bladestorms.

This army probably wont even be 1000 points so you could add in a unit(s) of Howling Banshees in a wave serpent to kill enemies in close combat.
The wave serpent is highly recommended and so is putting bright lances to kill tanks.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

zamuel30 wrote:Well i think the eldar avatar is good against two armies. Salamaders led by vulcan he'stan, or orks with lots of trucks. if salamanders,they will have lots of melta and flamer weps. they cant affect the avatar because of the molten body spec rule. with orks, try to imobolise the veichles on the first turn, then blow up tanks with 5 strength 6 attacks and a wailing doom. also take fire prisms and fire dragons, to take the enemy out, and to make a greatn looking fire-based army.

yes but the the avatar is strength 6 and is a monstrous creature so he attacks tanks with 2D6+6 armour penetration.

Saltoric wrote:
Next turn the dire avengers who shot normally bladestorm and the other squad with 1 Farseer go into cover. Do the same as last turn with the other Farseer.
Continue doing the same as what you did in the second turn while alternating the unit that bladestorms.

This way you get 30 shots each turn. Shooting regularly will give you 40 shots. I realize this scenario won't last long in a true game setting but what's the point of alternating bladestorms?

Elessar wrote:If Razorbacks had FirePoints/a Capacity of ten/ Marines could take Chimeras there would be no reason to EVER play Eldar competitively.

WH/DH allies with Inquisitional Stormtroopers and then they can have Chimeras
Expensive Chimeras.

For the Dire Avengers just shoot both then when you are about to be assaulted bladestorm both and deny them the charge

migsula wrote:Nice thread guys! I was painting some more Eldar today - and finding this up has been most useful.

I was/am in the same position.
Thanks

Elessar wrote:Actually, Tank Hunters DOES work. In 4th, it did not, but the wording was changed, and it was removed from the Necron FAQ. It works just fine.

Tank hunter is an ability that not many units out there in the 40k universe have at hand.
I remember tank hunting Havocs in the 3rd ed codex.
But these guys are gone.

any opinions on this army listing:

HQ
Eldrad
Muagran Ra
Kandaras
Baharoth

Elites
Harlie Troupe (troupe leader, shadow seer, death jester, and accompanied by Muagan Ra)

Troops
Rangers (5 units)
Swooping Hawks (accompanied by the PL)
Scorpions (accompained by PL)

Heavy Support
Wraithguards (3 units)
Reaper Unit (3 units)

anythoughts? ive just starte playing, before i just collected since no one here plays and the models are so hard to come by if i dont order them from the states or what not.

anyway some thoughts and suggestions would be appreciated.

You can only have at max 2 HQ's and the hawks are fast attack and the scorps elites. Wraithguard are also elites.
If you're wanting to start playing then getting the codex is the first step.
When building the army remember that eldar are great for synergy and units supporting each other is usually the way for eldar to win. And you also need some anti tank stuff in there.

A good start for the troop choices are the dire avengers with bladestorm abilty from the exarch, really chews units up and for HQ's I started to favour running 2 farseers with doom and guide to hang around my units doing the support fire or in wave serpents/falcons for mobilty to use the powers where they're needed.

Farseer, Jain Zar, Banshees and a Wave Serpent. Beautiful. Too bad I never have the points.

ok could some one please help explain the use of the PL.
Ive heard so many things that im confused as to the best way to use a PL

anyone please help clear this up?

Much like each of the aspect warriors, the phoenix lords have different uses.

Maugan Ra blows up rhinos, and kills pathfinders dead at range.

Fuegan is good against tough vehicles at short range.

Jain Zar and Karandras are both super killy in CC.

Asurmen is an all-rounder. Low on offensive potential he's mostly just tough, considering that he's an Eldar character.

Baharoth, much like his aspect, looks pretty, doesn't kill much, and dies easily.

willydstyle wrote:Much like each of the aspect warriors, the phoenix lords have different uses.

Maugan Ra blows up rhinos, and kills pathfinders dead at range.

Fuegan is good against tough vehicles at short range.

Jain Zar and Karandras are both super killy in CC.

Asurmen is an all-rounder. Low on offensive potential he's mostly just tough, considering that he's an Eldar character.

Baharoth, much like his aspect, looks pretty, doesn't kill much, and dies easily.

And most people will only take one phoenix lord, Maugan Ra.

Maugan Ra is probably one of the best HQ out there. Can ignore cover and reroll wounds. Has range 36" Assault cannon.

is there anything that the hawks are good at?
ive heard so many bad things bout them its rather sad, the do look good, and so does baharoth

Avalon wrote:is there anything that the hawks are good at?
ive heard so many bad things bout them its rather sad, the do look good, and so does baharoth

IG cleaning out, these guys are great at clearing out infantry and tanks thanks to their Haywire grenades

and one more thing, do the farseer automaticlly count as HQ or can more than one be fielded?

Ive heard only two HQ can be fielded, and that only 2 PL's at a time can be in one army

Avalon, you really need to purchase the 40k Rulebook and the Eldar codex then read them thoroughly. Once you do that you will have a much better understanding of how the game works in general and this will allow you to decide which units are good at which roles and from there you will be able to formulate tactics and appreciate other peoples advice much more.

But you are correct in that there can only be 2 HQ choices in an army, this means you can field at a maximum: 2 Pheonix Lords/ A Farseer and a PL/ 2 Farseers/ 1 Avatar 1 PL.....etc

wish i could Foldalot, there really isnt much that one can find here, let alone for it to be the new codex or rule books is a slim shot at best

so far this forum has been a great help for me to understand what the new rules are, and what special rules apply to specific characters.

ok i admit the forum says im in the states by that little flag but im actually in Thailand where WH 40k is just bout unheard of outside of the odd few

otherwise i have the rule book, downloaded and a 'copy' of the eldar codex although i have no idea if its up to date or not

cheers though

Alerian wrote:

Witzkatz wrote:Granted, there is some bad stuff out there...Eradicator LR for IG, Whirlwind for SM, Sternguard ammo for SM, dark reaper exarchs for Eldar...hmmm...I'm not sure about other races and if there are cover-denying long-range weapons? I can't think of an Ork weapon, for example...

I also disagree with the poster who said that Shooty WLs are a waste.
I use 2 WLs with BL+EML in my Hybrid tourney list (Mech+MCs) and they do great. If you model your WSs on the shortest base, the WLs can walk behind the WSs, and still see over them (thus allowing the WLs to shoot). Even better, the WLs will be over 1/2 covered by the WS...thus giving the WL a 3+ cover save Shooty WLs also have the advantage of never being stunned, so you get 2 AT shots a turn unitl they are dead. Finally, they also help out in a counter assault role, if somone gets too close to your WSs holding onto objectives, something that a Prism just cannot do.

Pop da' brakes there...modeling for advantage is really kind of lame. Not conversion really. More like sticky gloves in football. I mean where does it end? I love well done conversions. And I tolerate crappy conversions, unless they were modeled for advantage. Cheap shot. IMHO.

Avalon wrote:wish i could Foldalot, there really isnt much that one can find here, let alone for it to be the new codex or rule books is a slim shot at best

so far this forum has been a great help for me to understand what the new rules are, and what special rules apply to specific characters.

ok i admit the forum says im in the states by that little flag but im actually in Thailand where WH 40k is just bout unheard of outside of the odd few

otherwise i have the rule book, downloaded and a 'copy' of the eldar codex although i have no idea if its up to date or not

cheers though

cheers

This is something I faced and uh; it was not pleasant and just beat me about the head and shoulders.

Eldrad

4 Wave Serpents w/ Guardians w/ Fusion guns and a Warlock ( it may have been 3.


3 Squads of Warp Spiders

3 Squads of 3 Warwalkers w/ Scatter Lasers


Why yes I will be dying horribly to 120 ST6 shots a turn.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
edit:

Oh what he did was keep Eldrad in a Wave Serpent with some guardians near the warwalkers and cast fortune and guide on them.

I think he had another Farseer with fortune in there somewhere.

Basically.

Guide guide fortune.


I was playing a mechanized marine list it was not pleasant to play against this.

Hollismason wrote:This is something I faced and uh; it was not pleasant and just beat me about the head and shoulders.

Eldrad

4 Wave Serpents w/ Guardians w/ Fusion guns and a Warlock ( it may have been 3.


3 Squads of Warp Spiders

3 Squads of 3 Warwalkers w/ Scatter Lasers


Why yes I will be dying horribly to 120 ST6 shots a turn.

Kind of meh. Yes lots of Str6 but ...

Warp spiders are shortish range (12+2d6") and No AP
War walkers are AV10 and AP6
Relying on 8 BS3 meltas for anti tank .... really?

Guess its a situational list.