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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.