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Being a new/old player I was looking to start over on Eldar. But I noticed in the Baltimore tournaments the Eldar did not place that well. I think the highest a Eldar army placed was in the Ard boyz at around 9th and nothing really in the GT. What is happening with the Eldar? Also did anyone see any of the Eldar armies at the ardboyz or GT that they can give me some hints on what to take? If so what were some of their weeknesses that they did not play as well. I am still thinking about playing that army but would like to be competitive. I am a little frustatrated because I was hoping to build from my old army and not spend alot of money getting a new one.

lazer wrote:Being a new/old player I was looking to start over on Eldar. But I noticed in the Baltimore tournaments the Eldar did not place that well. I think the highest a Eldar army placed was in the Ard boyz at around 9th and nothing really in the GT. What is happening with the Eldar? Also did anyone see any of the Eldar armies at the ardboyz or GT that they can give me some hints on what to take? If so what were some of their weeknesses that they did not play as well. I am still thinking about playing that army but would like to be competitive. I am a little frustatrated because I was hoping to build from my old army and not spend alot of money getting a new one.

I know one player has complained that with true los and nothing blocking los, his falcons and wave serpents and fire prisms are being toasted before being able to do anything.

Couple that with the plethora of 4+ cover saves, and a shooting army like the Eldar can't compete. The game is, despite the desire to make it a short range shooting game, a game of assault, and horde army lists which can inflict alot of wounds wins.

Well, Eldar are still a rock solid army. I play them, and I"ve done pretty well. In 5th their two best units (falcons and harlies) both took a bit of a hit, and thus knocked the Eldar out of the absolute top tier.

They have four reasonably solid troops choices, and aces anti tank unit (Fire Dragon), a great HtH unit (harlies), amazing support HQ (eldrad or any farseer) and some tasty heavy choices. There are at least two top notch builds (fully mech and jet bike crazy) with another that is still solid (Eldrad/Avatar footsloggers).

Eldar can struggle with other top builds, which tends to hurt them at the top tables of big tournments. They tend to struggle against PM hordes and Loota spam, for example, and can often struggle against landraiders.

Indeed Polonius.

I would also ad that the reliance on characters with Eldar and the new save rules is very telling also. Suddenly loosing an Exarch, a Warlock or a Farseer can really hurt because the amplification that they provide is a key in many builds (Embolden, Enhance, Guide, Doom, Fortune, Conceal, Hit and Run), and they just aren't that tough.

Good luck.

Eldar were one of if not the top army for much of 4th edition, and while 5th edition has had some drawbacks for them (ending the absurd holofalcons, rending for harlies) they haven't been hit all that hard.

If you have no terrain that blocks line of sight, then that's the fault of the eldar player for not making sure there is some, or the tournament organizer that is hosting the game.

Ok this is odd I got a PM from a guy that said he saw the 9th place army at Ardboyz and it had no falcons or harlies or Eldard. He saw jetbikes and some waveserpeants but none of the standard eldar army tournament stuff. So I am intrigued. I have lots of guardians and dire avengers which I back with an Avatar. I am guessing not many people are using lots of guardians anymore. I was hoping to keep my cost very low in getting back into the game but it looks like I will have to buy a bunch of stuff. I would just like an idea of what to buy.

Well, keep in mind that nearly every unit in the Eldar codex is pretty good. Swooping Hawks are still overpriced, Guardian Support Weapons fill a niche that probably doesn't need to be filled, and Warp Spiders are expensive for what they do.

What eldar lack now is an amazingly good unit for it's price. Chaos have the lash, Orks have lootas, shootas, and Nob bikerz, Nids still have the dakka fex, Marines have Landraiders and sternguard, etc.

For eldar, some of their best units are things like Jetbike Seer Councils (lots of warlocks on bikes with a farseer) which is very, very tough but can struggle to do wounds; or the Fire prism which is tough to destroy but is not the most reliable in doing damage. Eldar have units that are tough, and units that can deal damage, but very few that can do both.

aye alot of Eldar armies in 4th ed (after the new dex anyway) were about points denial to the enemy, ie holofalcons loaded up with Harlies,

at the UK GT i saw some full mech done well, they tended to include dire avengers mounted up, fire dragons in the falcons and a farseer or eldrad, one unit of avengers tended to stay back with eldrad and he fortunes them as a 4+ re rollable cover save is quite nasty or he sped forward with a unit and used doom and guide to great effect,

Eldar nowadays are all about augmenting your army with psychic powers as for example a guided Dire Avengers unit unleashing bladestorm on a doomed squad tends to lead to a very dead or (in the case of fighting orks) a very depleted squad (30 Shots re rolling hits and re rolling wounds should in theory kill about say 18 - 24 orks not sure on the math hammer there but it seems about right)

I suggest you convert a Jetbike seer council, a good unit in either the mech or the crazy jetbike build. It's probably the best all around unit in the codex.

Also 3 man jetbike units with a Shuriken Cannon are nice additions that can grow into something more, cheap fast troop choices with a S6 gun and the jetbike bounce move are often pretty good. Plus they could fit into what you already have.

I did very well with them in the GT circuit last year, but I did not play them this year in 5th edition.

At the Baltimore GT the other day I played against WCBrian and his Eldar on table #7 in round #5 before I sent him back down the ranks.

Eldar have several problems.
One is they have weak troops. They are not very durable, and can be taken out without much effort by most armies. They did well at the ‘Ardboys because of the points being 2500, they can have Wraithguard as troops where most tournaments you can’t.

Another problem with them is that they are a speed bump on the ork highway. They really do not have an answer for orks.

Blackmoor wrote:I did very well at the GT circuit last year and did very well with them.

At the Baltimore GT the other day I played against BrianWC and his Eldar on table #7 in round #5 before I sent him back down the ranks.

Eldar have several problems.
One is they have weak troops. They are not very durable, and can be taken out without much effort by most armies. They did well at the ‘Ardboys because of the points being 2500, they can have Wraithguard as troops where most tournaments you can’t.

Another problem with them is that they are a speed bump on the ork highway. They really do not have an answer for orks.

What did the guy at the GT have in his army?

Did you play Ard boyz also? If so did you play any eldar and how was that?

Thanks all for you help. Looks like I have some good ideas for buying stuff.

Eldar are the most recent army I've started, and it's a really different thing... Mobile builds can handle average ork builds okay, but Lootas are a problem for everybody. Small army size is the problem with mech...

Y'know, I'm frankly quite alright with the relative nerfing that my beloved lame space elfs have gotten in 5th. If you win with Eldar, you're not merely relying upon a power build: even the stronger builds have weaknesses that are well known and widely available.

Mobility is really the only thing that makes Eldar very competitive these days. It's what allows them to survive to hit hard. Although advancing foot lists are fun for friendly, there's really no point to them in a competitive environment. Too bad Wraithguard have such cruddy range, or a ghost-army might actually be viable against most things besides Ork hordes. They would rip LR and PM spam up if they just had even 18" range on those wraithcannons.

The jetbike build is definitely the harder of the fast builds to wield well, as it is not very forgiving of mistakes and it must be focused very carefully due to the low model count. It's definitely not a beginner's army.

As for the more forgiving fast build, Mech needs a good number of Dire Avengers to be effective. He Who Shall Not Be Named (coughStelekcough) had some really good minimal-frills mech builds that could do alright against hordes in anything other than KP missions, IMO.

And I remain utterly unconvinced that Bike Councils do anything to cover the Eldar's weaknesses. In fact, they exacerbate them by taking up so darned many points with so few bodies.

As for the more forgiving fast build, Mech needs a good number of Dire Avengers to be effective. He Who Shall Not Be Named (coughStelekcough) had some really good minimal-frills mech builds that could do alright against hordes in anything other than KP missions, IMO.

Indeed, a spam mech list should do well: Farseer, Autarch, Fire Dragons in Serpents, Dire Avengers or Storm Guardians incl. Warlocks in Serpents, and naked Fire Prisms. But I haven't tried it so far.

I use that list on a regular basis, occasionally without the Dragons (swapped for more Avengers, all Serpents fielding Brightlances). You can get away with ad hoc anti-tank in such a list, but low anti-infantry shooting is trouble against hordes.

My one caveat is that the list really, really needs at least one Autarch, as you will start off the table at least half the time. If you can scrape the points, Yriel is a really good buy for that. If you have both him and a Fortune/Doom seer, field him in an Avenger unit. When the time comes to do the Eye of Wrath thing, the Avengers have got a 5++ save against it.

If you're low on points, a Hawk-wing or bike exarch with fusion gun helps with anti-tank if you're skipping Dragons.

I want to playtest Stelek's list, a possible list for the GT in 2009.

An Autarch in a mech list is definitely worth it; Stelek even fielded two Autarchs. I'd drop one for a Farseer with fortune and doom.

Yriel is certainly the best Autarch in the game. I've sent him against an MEQ unit. Eye of wrath against a doomed squad is absolutely deadly.

I am building a footslogging eldar list with a Avatar and 3 wraithlords.

I want to include pathfinders.
I think the are really good but I dont see alot of them. Why is that? Are the getting killed to easy nowadays by droppod marines with flamers?

Can a footslogging army with wraitlords and pathfinders work?

if you've got 50pts even with the glancing nerf i still like to field a vibro cannon (or 2) if nothing else it stops most tanks from shooting for a turn ... only down side is it takes up Heavy slot

Well, if you take an Avatar and 3 Wraithlords, then pick Eldrad. He can fortune the Avatar and doom squads threatening your front ranks. Possibly, I'd take two Wraithlords and three (guided) Warwalkers with scatter lasers for horde control.

This army needs a counter strike unit like a full squad of Harlies.

Why warwalkers if you can take 3 vypers with scatterlaser and shuriken cannon? because the warwalkers can flank with the scout ability?

I think its not allowed to pick special characters like eldrad in a GT.. is it?

Special characters are perfectly legal at GT's.

Outflanking Warwalkers are an option but I wouldn't think about this in the first place. Against horde armies they need to contribute to the main gun line from the very start. Vypers are an alternative to Warwalkers.

I know this has been discussed ad nauseum, but how big an advantage is running a Fire Prism naked over running it fully loaded? Obviously it's 65 pts a piece in upgrades, but I ran three fully loaded at hard boys and they were my safety net: turning minor wins into major, major losses into minor.

Is it the point difference at 1850? I can see running three naked there, were 195pts in saved upgrades is almost enough for more dragons in a serpent.

I guess I'm wondering if the utility of three hard to kill tanks makes up for what I could buy by downgrading to three cheap but easy to kill tanks.

Edit: I guess I'd point out that I've noticed that the best part of Prisms is that they're useful against anything: high tougness, terminators, AV14, hordes, etc. The downside is that they're not particularly great against anything. By keeping them cheap you emphasis their utility while not paying a lot. Fully loaded, you add a pretty nice ability: the ability to stay alive and keep KPs, contest objectives, and force your opponent to spend shots on the Prisms instead of your serpents.

One thing I've seen kicked around a few boards is the return of the Mech Eldar, with the twist of everything staying in reserve.

Take 2 Autarchs, now everything comes in on turn 2 on a 2+. Daemons, Drop Pods, etc. have already deployed, other enemys only have 4 or 5 rounds to destroy your holo-tanks and other skimmers, who have come in in mutual cover formations. You focus primarily on limiting your losses, and try to just chip off enough of the enemy army to get the minor win.

Polonius wrote:I know this has been discussed ad nauseum, but how big an advantage is running a Fire Prism naked over running it fully loaded? Obviously it's 65 pts a piece in upgrades, but I ran three fully loaded at hard boys and they were my safety net: turning minor wins into major, major losses into minor.

Is it the point difference at 1850? I can see running three naked there, were 195pts in saved upgrades is almost enough for more dragons in a serpent.

I guess I'm wondering if the utility of three hard to kill tanks makes up for what I could buy by downgrading to three cheap but easy to kill tanks.

Edit: I guess I'd point out that I've noticed that the best part of Prisms is that they're useful against anything: high tougness, terminators, AV14, hordes, etc. The downside is that they're not particularly great against anything. By keeping them cheap you emphasis their utility while not paying a lot. Fully loaded, you add a pretty nice ability: the ability to stay alive and keep KPs, contest objectives, and force your opponent to spend shots on the Prisms instead of your serpents.

The lower the points the more useful that 65 points becomes. I was designing for 1750 and just couldn't justify the cost. I think for mech, because you need the #'s so badly, naked is better. AS much as I love bladestorm I am thing about dropping it just becasue I could use the extra points. Point for point comparison. 6 DAw/exarch and storm is 99 points and 20 shots at 18". That 99 points of naked DA buys you 16 shots at 12".

I guess it all depends on how much S6 and higher weapons you will be facing.

40kenthusiast wrote:One thing I've seen kicked around a few boards is the return of the Mech Eldar, with the twist of everything staying in reserve.

Take 2 Autarchs, now everything comes in on turn 2 on a 2+. Daemons, Drop Pods, etc. have already deployed, other enemys only have 4 or 5 rounds to destroy your holo-tanks and other skimmers, who have come in in mutual cover formations. You focus primarily on limiting your losses, and try to just chip off enough of the enemy army to get the minor win.

Losing the advantage of the guide/doom seer is pretty big. I would be wary of 2 autarchs.. though they are cheaper.

ender502

I had the Eldar army that finished the hightest at the ard boyz. Probably would have finished higher but due to the time problem that happened(see other topics on ard boyz) I was not able to finish off my opponent after killing 90 orks. If we had the last turn like we were suppose to have I would have probably had a massacre.

But back to the question. I ran the jetbike configuration that was mentioned above. With seer council and squads I had around 29 jetbikes. Than add 3 prisms, and banshees and fire dragons. With Yriel and farseer on a jetbike.

With the exception of some Eldar armies and Dark Eldar I have not had much of a problem beating other armies with this build. Great for demon/orks and marines.

I have a similar build for lower point totals. I have seen the WS army and its not bad either.

- the problem I have with naked Fire Prisms is that its easy points you are giving up in KP missions.
- Two Autarch in theory is nice but you just need tha farseer to much. For doom, guide or ruins of warding for all those lash armies.

Lazer I would look at the WS build for now until you get used to the army. I think the jetbike army is the way to go but as someone mentioned above it takes a bit of practice.

I did not play in the GT because I had to be back for a meeting on saturday morning.

TO me, anked Prisms means 3 for the price of 2. I prefer more targets as a form of defense rather than fewer targets taht are harder to crash, but just as easy to neutralize (well, their shooting at least) by shaking. That and more shots. Eldar are a glass hammer anyways- better that the hammer hit harder than that it gain a small amount of resilience.

I would agree on the Autarch/Seer split, especially if you are playing with more, bling-free vehicles (like Stelek's sort of list). By contrast, in a concentrated list the better reinforcement rolls become more important.

Hey sabote- with that many bikes and only one unit of Dragons, were you using BLs on the Serpents carrying (I assume) the Dragons, Banshees, etc.? If not, what was your heavy-tank-killing tactic for this list? Heavy armored vehicles are the thing that always gives me fits with bike lists. With all the LR spam out there these days, your (obviously effective) approach would be much appreciated.

As for the naked Prisms, another solution is to run one with holofield, and one naked. The naked one stays at range if at all possible, or even concealed from the enemy (if at all possible) with LOS to the holo Prism to provide contributing shots.

Lash is less of a concern for Mech lists, but Sabote is right that it (and many other powers) can really screw you. Plus the Doom is handy with all the Avengers that form the scoring and anti-troop core of the build. Yeah, the Seer is pretty hard to ditch.

Savnock wrote:TO me, anked Prisms means 3 for the price of 2. I prefer more targets as a form of defense rather than fewer targets taht are harder to crash, but just as easy to neutralize (well, their shooting at least) by shaking. That and more shots. Eldar are a glass hammer anyways- better that the hammer hit harder than that it gain a small amount of resilience.

I would agree on the Autarch/Seer split, especially if you are playing with more, bling-free vehicles (like Stelek's sort of list). By contrast, in a concentrated list the better reinforcement rolls become more important.

Hey sabote- with that many bikes and only one unit of Dragons, were you using BLs on the Serpents carrying (I assume) the Dragons, Banshees, etc.? If not, what was your heavy-tank-killing tactic for this list? Heavy armored vehicles are the thing that always gives me fits with bike lists. With all the LR spam out there these days, your (obviously effective) approach would be much appreciated.

As for the naked Prisms, another solution is to run one with holofield, and one naked. The naked one stays at range if at all possible, or even concealed from the enemy (if at all possible) with LOS to the holo Prism to provide contributing shots.

Lash is less of a concern for Mech lists, but Sabote is right that it (and many other powers) can really screw you. Plus the Doom is handy with all the Avengers that form the scoring and anti-troop core of the build. Yeah, the Seer is pretty hard to ditch.

For the final round there was not any land raider heavy armies. But I saw them in previous rounds.

My anti armor was 1 wave serpeant with BL( 1 starcannon, 1 shurk), the fire dragons, seer council and farseer( 4 singing spears in the group, plus the witch blades), 3 prisms. I did not have a problem taking down multiple land raiders or monsterous creatures. I would try to start with the bright lances and Prisms than move to the council. Any cracked transport than was open to be assualted by the banshees.

With so many 6 to 9 oblit armies naked prisms just give up victory points. In addition just by having them hang around because of their holofields gives you an even better chance to contest objectives at the end.

I did not lose a game in the final round. But the last game being shortened by 1 hour put me in 9th place when I probably would have been 5th or 6th.

I dont dislike the wave serpent army. In fact I try it for a bit again.

Savnock wrote:TO me, anked Prisms means 3 for the price of 2. I prefer more targets as a form of defense rather than fewer targets taht are harder to crash, but just as easy to neutralize (well, their shooting at least) by shaking. That and more shots. Eldar are a glass hammer anyways- better that the hammer hit harder than that it gain a small amount of resilience.

I hear that, but I think it's a bit harsh to call it a small amount of resilience. Spirit Stones allowed a stunned prism to both tank shock and gain a 4+ SMF save. Holofields turn nearly all glances, and even the majority of penetrates to pen. Vectored Engines seem to be the most easily gotten rid of, as it only helps in one result, and an immobilized falcon is often destroyed any way.

I think that holofields make spirit stones more of a no-brainer, as stunned goes from 1 in 6 to less often to 5/36 of glances and 1/4 penetrations. Without holofields spirit stones and VE both become one in six benefits.

On the other hand, falcons are AV12 on front and side, and can still gain cover from terrain and use their long range to avoid the worst attacks.

I really should try some games with naked prisms.

Cover is free, compared to very expensive holos. Sure, you could have both-but do you really need that? I'm quite happy if the enemy is shooting up my Prisms in cover rather than my elite units' transports during the first few rounds. Not having holos on the Prisms makes many players (especially those who still recall holofalcon dominance with a shudder) target them preferentially. The smart players will still move on from that target once it's shaken, making holos less useful against such canny players. Sure, they're less liekly to be destroyed, but their effectiveness for everything but contesting is already neutered regardless of the effect of holos. If you are running a list with plentiful contesting units (tons of Serpents) already, making Prisms survive to contest is less vital than having more shots in the first place. More guns in the beginning is better than having more than 4 contester/spoiler units at game end, in my opinion.

Also, I do agree that Spirit Stones are always a good idea. Being able to flee the scene when getting shot up is always a good idea, and they're so inexpensive for the great amount of benefit that they bring. I guess I take them for granted- it's just holos and VE that are questionable. However if you ARE buying holos, you might as well load up on all the life-extending gear for transport skimmers- VE are really important if you're moving over 12". But for Prisms they're never likely to do that unless you're fleeing fire (already shaken) or trying desperately for rear shots on something.

sabote wrote:I had the Eldar army that finished the hightest at the ard boyz. Probably would have finished higher but due to the time problem that happened(see other topics on ard boyz) I was not able to finish off my opponent after killing 90 orks. If we had the last turn like we were suppose to have I would have probably had a massacre.

But back to the question. I ran the jetbike configuration that was mentioned above. With seer council and squads I had around 29 jetbikes. Than add 3 prisms, and banshees and fire dragons. With Yriel and farseer on a jetbike.

With the exception of some Eldar armies and Dark Eldar I have not had much of a problem beating other armies with this build. Great for demon/orks and marines.

I have a similar build for lower point totals. I have seen the WS army and its not bad either.

- the problem I have with naked Fire Prisms is that its easy points you are giving up in KP missions.
- Two Autarch in theory is nice but you just need tha farseer to much. For doom, guide or ruins of warding for all those lash armies.

Lazer I would look at the WS build for now until you get used to the army. I think the jetbike army is the way to go but as someone mentioned above it takes a bit of practice.

I did not play in the GT because I had to be back for a meeting on saturday morning.

I think I played you in the first round (I had the purple Witchhunters). I made a lot of mistakes, and you were able to beat me.

#1. I forgot to move your jetbikes with "word in your ear" so I could shoot them turn #1.
#2. When my assasin came on I for got to shoot and assault with her give you an easy kill (She would have taken out a jetbike squad).
#3. I wasted 2 turns shooting at your vehicles. I should have just blown your jetbikes off of the table and killed all of your scoring units, but I started that strategy too late.