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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.