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I know myself too well. I absolutely won't ever finish painting a Falcon
or Wave Serpent. So knowing that, what are my options for non mech
Eldar armies?

Is this a trick question? There's plenty of examples in the Army Lists section.

Not really a trick question. I'm of the mind that search is a horrible
way to distill certain kinds of information. Most of the Eldar lists that
I saw in going through the Army List posts were mech-oriented (this
is based on browsing through the early pages).

Taoofs is one of the few recent posts about non-mech, but even he
includes a Falcon and two Vypers.

So what units generally go into a non-Mech list (and I mean absolutely
no Falcon no Vyper, I can't bring myself to paint those things).

Warwalkers dude. Unless you mean ofourse no vehicles whatsoever.

My eldar list isnt extremely competitive, but it is quite fun.

eldrad and 4 jetbike warlocks
3 wraithgaurd as a body gaurd for eldrad
6 jetbikes with one shuricannon for each 3 man squad
5 fully kitted out shining spears
6 warwalkers with scasers
1 wraithlord w/ bl-eml

Very fun moving all those quick elemts around. Lots of decent firpower. looks dead sexy on the table.

I'd paint a Warwalker. It's those freakin' smooth hulled
hovercraft that drive me bonkers.

Don't know if I could manage the jetbikes either...

Crap.

A unit of 10 harlies, shadowseer, 2 fusion pistols and 6 kisses is damn mean at 254. One or two of these units will rip MEQs and tanks to bitz.

2-4 units of 10 guardians with a weapon platform are scary when in range of the Avatar. At 180 pts 3 walkers with scatter lasers can lay down 24 st6 shots, which most power armoured units can't even get up from.

Spiders are nice. Small jetbike units are great in city fights or heavily terrained boards. Hawks are possibly the best anti-horde unit Eldar get when using the deepstriiking grenades and sunrifle combo. A farseer with doom, fortune, jetbike with witnessing and stones is excellent. Follow behind the harlies doom their soon to be charged enemies and fortune the harlies.

Well, Warwalkers seem to be a good pure firepower platform, but they're fragile. A unit of 3 with scatterlasers is 180, that's 24 S6 shots at 36", which seems a pretty good deal. Only 120 for cannons, but then you've only got 18 shots at 24".

Most of the aspects can do fairly well on foot. Avatars and Wraithlords are nice for tying up units. Farseers go well with just about anything. Autarchs are probably pretty much out, since if it's on foot you don't need to worry so much about escalation.

I'm not a big fan of Hawks, but Spiders seem to be pretty cool, especially with a Powerblade/Withdraw exarch. A friend of mine uses a unit of 8 to very good effect, shooting, charging, withdrawing on my turn, then shooting and charging again. Depending on who they charge they are often more protected than just teleporting behind a terrain feature. It's pretty annoying, acutally.  It'll usually kill about 6 MEQs or so, wiping out min-maxed squads.

Airbrush! You'll never paint a vehicle faster than you will a Falcon.

I thiink you are better of letting Eldrad be an Independent Character then give him any sort of "body" Guard.

Non Mech is so not the way to go if you want to be competitive.

However you could still do some nice things with

Harlequins (Kisses + Shadowseer)
Wraithlords (think ant-tank)
Maybe a D-Cannon battery for better anti-tank (EDIT: maybe the Vibro Cannon, I keep getting them mixed up, the one that stuns stuff ala Fury style)
Rangers
Shining Spears
Eldrad
Warp Spiders

I really don't think that they're all that good as an army without the Skimmers of death. Maybe you should just send some falcons off to be painted by a service, at least that way you'll have a method to be competitive.

The avatar is a cc monster, especially with a farseer funning behind and fortuning him. Mine rocked at adepticon. He just walked across the field and put a beating on genestealers, a hive tyrant and a carnifex. Was beating up a bloodthirster too until the bloodletters took out his farseer buddy.

Harlequins are hard to get into position without a falcon. I had the most success with them when I was able to set up a charge by flying them into position.

I've been seeing a lot of Eldrad-Avatar lists lately. It allows you to set up a guardian/reaper/pathfinder firebase that won't run and will always behave predictably in HtH. Eldrad keeps them alive, and the Avatar keeps them solid. Then some harlequins (plus avatar) for countercharge and something that can zoom across the board and kill the whirlwind/bassie/defiler, and you're good to go.

The 4+ save aspects don't fare well without transports. One burst of heavy bolter/assault cannon/heavy flamer and they're dead.

Thanks.

I'm thinking if I can get a base army painted, maybe that would inspire me
to learn to paint those stupid skimmers. It's working for my Protectorate
stuff. I just need to get into a position where I can feel both inspired
to paint AND play.

Janthkin: Spraying in the basement with vents going gets me into enough
trouble as it is

Since Rangers are still good, and Warwalkers sound like fun I'll start
painting some of those and see if I can get a color scheme working.

Thanks again.

Is the pathfinder/ranger army a no-go these days? Last ed they whooped posterior.

Let's say I went with 6 Scatter lasers. Is it useful at all to try
a different weapon loadout for the last Warwalker unit?

AdeptiCon's TT Best Team Tacticians used non-Mech Eldar - can't remember exactly what they had, but they were running with an Avatar in each army, a Fire prism in each army, and then bunches of guardians along with aspects/harlies for flavoring.

Ok, now that's a bit different.

Does that mean they fielded 3 Avatars (guaranteeing that any Team configuration
yielded at least 1 Avatar on the table) or 1 each player (meaning they went
without an Autarch or Farseer).

Will have to sample Russ's photos to see if he's got em'.

Posted By Mahu on 04/05/2007 6:49 AM
I thiink you are better of letting Eldrad be an Independent Character then give him any sort of "body" Guard.

And why, pray tell, would that be?

As an independant character, he can hide behind units and stuff and never be targetted. Then, when you need him, he can charge in and lay down some witchblade power weapon hate!

I would recommend this for non mech eldar

Eldrad + 6 warlocks on jetbikes
Avatar

10 Dire Avengers
3x10 Guardians with weapon, prolly starcannon just cuz its controversial

2x Wraithlord with Brightlance and EML
1x Super Falcon!

Basically, you're going to try to hold the center with your Fearless Avatar. The Dire Avengers are a speed bump, to let your bikes or avatar or whoever jump in and blunt an assault. Conversely, the bikes and Falcon can zip off and grab objectives or reach out and touch those far away targets. Last but not least, the Falcon can block movement by driving in front of things, so they have to move around it.

Super fun, some pizazz! Fun models, and not mech.

Thanks for the suggestion, Whitedragon.

So I take it there's no way to make an Eldar list viable without at
least one of the skimmer vehicle options?

I was afraid of that...

Posted By malfred on 04/05/2007 7:10 PM
So I take it there's no way to make an Eldar list viable without at
least one of the skimmer vehicle options?

 

Sure there is.  It's just most people consider the mech configuration superior.

I kinda figured that much. I was just looking for advice on building armies
without them. With a Codex in hand I figure I have several years of buying
one box of Eldar a month but I already know how assembling/painting the
hovercraft will end.

In tears, and blood.

/ambassador Kosh voice off

Seriously, Mnemoch, you don't want to see vehicles I've painted. You'd end
up driving pencil tips into your eyeballs.

Hes right Mnemoch.

I post here only because malfred felt bad after I gouged both of my orbs from my cranium and he bought me a braille monitor and keyboard.

Posted By malfred on 04/05/2007 10:45 PM
I kinda figured that much. I was just looking for advice on building armies
without them. With a Codex in hand I figure I have several years of buying
one box of Eldar a month but I already know how assembling/painting the
hovercraft will end.

In tears, and blood.

/ambassador Kosh voice off

Seriously, Mnemoch, you don't want to see vehicles I've painted. You'd end
up driving pencil tips into your eyeballs.

just spray it black than high light with dry brush of half white-codex grey. ink wash chestnut brown the detail lines. it looks decent and is simple to do. plus you can modify when you gain confidence in your painting skills.

Maybe it'll be better to start with Dire Avengers and Rangers this
month then.

So I made a list of models that I wanted to use for my Eldar in Army Lists...

flame away!

I like your list, and it was similar to what I was going to suggest.  I'm primarily a mech Eldar player, but my local shops tend to limit lists to 1000 points on weekly game nights, which has been a tough point total for me to play a satisfying mech list.  So lately in my 1000 point games I've been running a more Alaitoc style with Pathfinders, War walkers, and Vibrocannon (which perform amazingly well in 1000 point games... if nothing else they're worth it to wipe the smug look off the face of the Necron player that plays a monolith in 1000 point games.  Not that I'm bitter )  This list has been a lot of fun to play and has done very well in friendly games.

I can't wait for the new Harlequin models to come out, as I think they're the perfect CC squad for a non-fast skimmer list.  (I know, I know, I went way out on a limb with that observation)

Thanks.

I might actually have some Vibrator cannons lying around. Will have
to check (or look for that awful thrumming table)

I'm thinking about having my 2 Fireprisms contracted out since I want them to really pop. I'd say start with Dire Avengers first. I'm about half way through a squad right now. God I love the fact that I can paint at work. If it wasn't for the pay and the hours this job would rock.

Swooping Hawks with sunrifle and tooled out exarch for anti-tank and dealing with swarm armies.

Striking Scorpions for dealing with Shooting low armor save armies, and counter assault

Dire Avengers with Blade Storm, defend and a power sword, shimmer shield to take out swarms.

Rangers with Pathfinder upgrade to assist with meq killing and godzilla armies.

a Farseer for each ranger squad with Fortune, Doom, guide, and either mind war or eldritch storm

I really reccomend getting a squad of warlocks with at least 2 destructor, and 1 enhance. These will help to deal with alot of different armies that use cover to give them saves, they will need either a transport or jet bikes. The bikes make them cost a crap load but works dangerously well if you have a farseer with them. Fortune on 4+ invulnerable saves, or even 3+ invulnerable if you turbo boost. You can also throw a Autarch with reaper cannon and a power sword also on a bike to make it even nastier.

If you want to be more stationary use the farseers with rangers 2+ rerollable cover saves if your in a building rocks!!!

P.S. Never Ever Ever! get runes of Witnessing for a farseer it will give you a tleast 4 perils of the warps a game and remembe it will instant kill farseers, if you use Eldrad simply try to cast fortune first, since you get to reroll the ghost helm save.