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I am currently debating the difference in overall effectiveness between mech Eldar and Eldrad/Avatar/Wraithlord combo...

I know that overall effectiveness is tough to judge, but I was curious if anyone noticed a difference between these lists at Adepticon, or a prevalence of one over the other.

I saw very few fully-mechanized (everyone in tanks or on bikes) lists there. I saw LOTS of lists with multiple Falcons, maybe a serpent or two, and a few walking units, usually including an Avatar and Eldrad. This matches what I see elsewhere as well.

A friend of mine took the Avatar/ Eldrad/ Wraithlord combo to both the Gladiator and the Championships.

This was his list (from memory):

Eldrad

Avatar

3x Gaurdian Squads

Pathfinders

2x Fire Dragons

Viper

2x Falcons

Wraithlord

Between both tournaments he went 6-0-1. He won all his championships games.

Contrary to popular belief, Eldar don't do Mechanized well. Wave Serpents are way too expensive and Jetbike are not offensive enough to make their points back. You are always better off with a Combined Arms force, which the Eldrad/Avatar combo is the best.

So some combination of Eldrad/Avatar/Wraithlord/Falcons was actually most prevalent?

It appears to me that it is most efficient in an army list to either use lots of armor or use none. Thus I concluded that people would either stick to 3x Falcon +random gribblies, or Eldrad/Avatar/Wraithlord.

It is surprising to me that the most successful combo seen was Eldrad/Avatar/2x Falcon/Wraithlord, but then again I guess it shouldn't be...

I guess I should also ask:

what armies placed in the top 5 of the Gladiator event?

I've recently taken to running:

Eldrad
Avatar
2x Min./Max guardians
1x 6 pathfinders
8 Spiders
8 Banshees
Wraithlord
2x 5 Dark Reapers with all the goodies

I've been getting better performance from this list than any Eldar list in any edition I've ever run, and I'm convinced that including skimmers is no longer the way to go. But apparently Falcons remain viable, despite how much I hate the changes...

It is truly unfortunate that GW clearly attempted to "fix" the Wave Serpent and STILL managed to completely f*** up. Along with the starcannon, these two changes leave me wondering "what in the hell was the author thinking!?" But at least the new Eldar Codex is infinitely better quality than what we came from...

Well, that's alot of the mistakes that go into building Eldar.

Eldar are the epitomy of a combined arms for, not even Harlequins can be used without some support, so when you are taking you units, you have to look at the list like an interconnected web. If I want to take Spears, I should take bikes to run interference and might as well have a Bike Seer to keep up with all that. You get the idea.

You will fail against any of the truly competitve lists if you try and conform to the standard "all or nothing" aprouch most other lists have. I mean look at it, Tau can do Mech. Skimmers better, Tyranids can do mass monstrous creatures better, etc.

Falcons are nigh unkillable for a reason in the Eldar list. The Eldar rely on a few units anchoring the rest of their fragile force. If you luckly kill the Falcons, the list falls apart.

Of the list you posted, I would change the Banshees for Harlequins as that is a more static list and Harlequins with a Shadow Seer can prove better more reliable counter attack.

If you want to start a discussion about the viability of these two lists, please do make a thread in the tactics forum.

I was merely stating that I've had tremendous success with my current build (more so than builds with 2 falcons) precisely because of the fact that if the falcons go down, it's "the end of the world" as far as the rest of the army is concerned. My recent experiences with falcons have been very, very bad. The list I posted above is the complete opposite.

And if you have doubt about the merit of my list, know that I took 2nd place in battle points at an unofficial GT (assault '07) with this list. And it went up against chaos, marines, and necrons. I was very confident in my ability to beat the 'zilla nid list there, even though I didn't play against it, because I didn't have to worry about twin-linked str 8 and 10 guns tearing up falcons. I had a loss to a chaos-biker-demonbomb army with a statured DP and infiltrating chosen w/ demonhost [bloodthirster]. I had a solid victory against 2 monolith necrons. The only other serious threats were the other Eldar lists floating around; Tau did not fare so well, so I didn't get to test against them.

No matter how you slice it, this really is a tactics thread.

Moving to tactics now. . .

I have been trying something similar.

A falcon with harlies,a unit of banshees in a wave serpent, and a squad of shinning spears advance one of the flanks. Than i have a mobil firing squad advancing the middle with 2 units of guardians, a unit of warwalkers, eldrad, avatar, and a wraithlord. Eldrad.

I still like the all bikes/skimmer armies, but it gets boring fast. Eldrad casting 2x guides in one turn is something very nice.

Make sure if you use Eldrad that is a Ulthwe themed army otherwise its pretty bad form.

Bad form?

A summary of the argument that such a comment can evoke:
An attempt to place arbitrary restrictions on your opponent's army list, restrictions not enforced in any way by the rules, is, in itself, bad form. Moreover, and especially given the commentary in the DA codex, "Eldrad" doesn't have to be Eldrad; any sufficiently powerful farseer (and any craftworld is going to have one) would stand in nicely.

Agreed with Janthkin!

I really like how the DA codex opened the options for DIY special characters.

I'm still waiting to see the armies that placed at Adepticon, let alone the lists that composed it all. It's always very entertaining to see what did well at such cut-throat competitions.

Posted By thehod on 04/17/2007 11:19 PM
Make sure if you use Eldrad that is a Ulthwe themed army otherwise its pretty bad form.

Fluff wise, Eldrad is pretty much a goner. So kinda bad form if you use him in an army.

I think if you use a "count as", as long as you explain to your opponnt who it is, then you should be fine.

GW with the Eldar and Dark Angels codex, took away the "special character" restrictions and simply made them an HQ choice. If it upsets your fluff stomach, then get over it. As long as the list is legal and all the "counts as models" are explained before the game begins, there should be no problems.

I personally make use of Eldrad's rules not only because they're friggin awesome, but because Eldrad's divination rule and NOT being instant-slayed by a perils attack makes the army play so much more like fluffy Eldar should play, in my eyes.

Craftworlds are nothing but a paint job now. Use Eldrad or any of the other special characters however you feel.

Can justify their presence in any number of ways.