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Can't Beat 'Em So Join Them

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This is my 1st attempt at an Eldar list I'm originally an Space Marine player and have never been able to defeat Eldar (my personal bane) but have always been interested in building an Eldar army.

Not totally sure the best way to build this particular list but this is what I have come up with for a 2000pts list so any advice and or comments would be much appreciated.

HQ (315)
Eldrad

3 Warlocks
Enhance
Embolden
Destructor

TROOP
10 Dire Avengers
Exarch
Avenger Catapult
Bladestorm
Wave Serpent
TL Eldar Missile Launchers
Star Engine
Spirit Stones
Vectored Engine

10 Dire Avengers
Exarch
Power Weapon & Shimmer Shield
Defend
Wave Serpent
TL Eldar Missile Launchers
Star Engine
Spirit Stones
Vectored Engine

10 Rangers
Pathfinders

ELITE
6 Fire Dragons
Exarch
Firepike
Crack Shot
Tank Hunters
Wave Serpent
TL Eldar Missile Launchers
Star Engine
Spirit Stones
Vectored Engine

10 Harlequins
(10) Harlequin Kiss
(2) Fusion Pistols
Shadow Seer
Troupe Master

HEAVY
Falcon
TL Brightlance
Vectored Engine
Spirit Stones
Holo Field

2000pts on the nose.

Also I have already purchased some of the models in the list:
6 Harlies
6 Firedragons
Falcon
Wave Serpent
10 Dire Avengers
3 Warlocks
1 Farseer (use as Eldrad for now)

I do like the idea of Wraithguard and Wraithlord but not sure thats the way I want to go right now (maybe to expand the army at a future date)
Target Lock (p28 C:Tau)
Twin-Linked (p31 40k 5th)

Wraithlords are definitely worth the money for a heavy selection.

Other than that, I'd trade the firepike for the dragon's breath flamer. You're only pay for the extra range with the pike and honestly, if you can only hit with the exarch then you didn't get your boys close enough. The flamer on the other hand can clear some space and is very useful vs. units in cover.

Are you planning to run the 'locks and Eldrad behind the harlies? Harlies usually do better in a serpent so you might want to put them in one of the DA's serpents...

Ok thanks for the input.

I chose the Pike more for modeling purposes so I'll just use a normal gun on the Exarch.

As for any particular tactics I havent really gotten that far seeing as I only just started them not even a week ago, so any suggestions on that would also be appreciated that way I can get a little more of a better grasp on Eldar instead of just jumping right in with them.

Thanks again.

im not really a fan of this list to be honest.. its close but just off a bit. if your going to do a seer council, do it right.

id suggest getting eldrad, and a farseer, with atleast 6 warlocks, embolden, enhance and 4 destructors.

take spirit stones fortune guide and doom on the farseer.


drop the star engines and the vectored engines, use the falcon for the fire dragons, drop the harlequens for banshees and to 6 and stick em in another falcon.

thats about what i run.

Ok heres anouther take on my list since after some thought I figured that the Pathfinders didn't really fit especially since everything else is so mobile.

So I played with the points and came up with this.



HQ (491)
(210) Eldrad

(281) 3 Warlocks
Enhance
Embolden
(3) Spiritseer
Singing Spear
Wave Serpent
TL Eldar Missile Launchers
Star Engine
Spirit Stones
Vectored Engine

TROOP (634)
(317) 10 Dire Avengers
Exarch
Avenger Catapult
Bladestorm
Wave Serpent
TL Eldar Missile Launchers
Star Engine
Spirit Stones
Vectored Engine
(317) 10 Dire Avengers
Exarch
Avenger Catapult
Bladestorm
Wave Serpent
TL Eldar Missile Launchers
Star Engine
Spirit Stones
Vectored Engine

ELITE (535)
(293) 6 Fire Dragons
Exarch
Crack Shot
Tank Hunters
Wave Serpent
TL Eldar Missile Launchers
Star Engine
Spirit Stones
Vectored Engine

(242) 8 Harlequins
(7) Harlequin Kiss
(2) Fusion Pistols
Shadow Seer
Troupe Master W/ Power Weapon

HEAVY (340)
(210) Falcon
TL Brightlance
Vectored Engine
Spirit Stones
Holo Field

(130) Wraithlord
Brightlance

One thing I am wondering about is if Star Engines are actually worth putting on all the vehicles, I do know they are great for grabbing last second objectives and all but other than that is it really necessary?
Target Lock (p28 C:Tau)
Twin-Linked (p31 40k 5th)

they are not worth it, and nor are vectored engines, switch the points and put bright lances on ur tanks instead, more warlocks too.. crack shot and tank hunter is OK, IF you have extra points, put a sword on ur wraithlord and dual flamers run it up. im not sure why you have spirit seer's id remove them

Definitely hard to read.
Two scoring units is a bit less.
The skimmers have too many upgrades. Take stones but nothing else. Move the skimmers not more than 12'' since you wanna shoot; in that case, vectored engines are not needed if the tanks gets immobilized. Read the rules.
Falcons should better have two shuricannons, holofields are fine.
The Seer Council is too small. Its a perfect anvil unit but only if it has at least 8 members.

The Seer Council is too small. Its a perfect anvil unit but only if it has at least 8 members

Agreed. If you drop the upgrades to the transports and make your troupe leader a regular harlie, you should have enough points to pick up a warlock or two. Also, if your harlies are in a transoport they probably won't need the seer. He's to veil them while the run across the board - best when you're using the harlies to screen another foot unit, like your warlocks. Keeping the harlies in a transport isn't a bad idea since you can then hoof your warlocks with your wraithlord, which they should be near anyway. Give any locks above the three that you have Destructor for the anti-horde template action and run them spearhead in front of your wraithlord = anvil. Drop the harlies for a countercharge = hammer.

Try not to get the DA's too close to enemy assaulters - they can speedbump/bog down non-CC units, but dedicated assaulters will waltz through your scoring units.

If you list your WL with a sword and flamers, give him a scatterlaser - the brightlance will be of limited usefulness in assaulting unless it's used vs. tanks and MC's. Kitted with sword, flamer, and SL, this WL will tear through hordes and still hit in CC with S10 and hit re-rolls vs. your heavier opponents.

You should decide if you want to field a Seer Council or not. Three Warlocks won't cut it, either go big or go home.

As others above me have already stated, the Vectored Engines and Star Engines are a waste of points. You might want to take Spirit Stones on your vehicles but that is a matter of personal preference, just playtest it and see if you like the Spirit Stones.

Which unit are you going to transport in the Falcon? If it won't be transporting anyone, than those points will be better spent on something else. I agree with wuestenfux though that 2 scoring units isn't enough at 2000 points, so you might want to take a cheap 5 man Dire Avenger squad to deploy in the Falcon. That way you will have a scoring Falcon with 3 S8 AP2 shots at 48".

In my opinion, the Harlequins need a transport and a Farseer (preferably Eldrad) to Fortune them and Doom their target. I've had very good experiences with them in this setup. Only go for it if you are not going to take a Seer Council though, as both units are pretty expensive (points wise). You can get them a transport by deploying them in a Dire Avenger's Wave Serpent (preferably a Wave Serpent owned by the squad that will deploy in the Falcon).

If you are going to take a Wraithlord (or more than one), give them a Bright Lance and an Eldar Missile Launcher. Be aware of their Wraithsight though, it might be hard to keep a Wraithlord in range of a transported Eldrad / Farseer / Warlock. If you are not going for the Wraithlord(s) than I'd suggest taking Bright Lances on your Wave Serpents to gain some ranged anti-tank.

Hope I've been of some help.

I'm assuming you don't want to put your Seer Council on bikes. From what I have seen, Bike Councils are Invincible. With rerolls for Leadership and Saves, a Bike Council is the one thing I don't want to face ever. I play Tau, my friend brought a Bike Council one game. I poured about 40 STR5 shots at BS4 into the council in one turn. I hit about 30 times (better than MathHammer says I should), scoring 19 wounds. He lost only one of his Warlocks. I almost cried. The next turn I put 3 Railguns, 6 Sniper Drones Shots, 2 Fusion Blasters, and another 30 STR5 shots into the unit. He lost another Warlock and took a wound on his Farseer.

I was in utter disbelief, but when you factor in a 3+ Rerollable Save and a 4+ Rerollable Inv. Save, the statistics weren't too far off the mark. Not to mention the fact that he had 2 Councils and I barely dented one of them.

I'm not an Eldar player, but I find myself making lists just to counter the possibility of seeing another one of those Councils.

**EDIT**
Also, his setup was Farseer with whatever magic to allow Rerolls on Saves and another magic to make him reroll hits or wounds or something.
Warlocks had 1x Embolden, 1x Enhance, and 4x Destructor. All had Witchblades I think.

I like this list better than your second one, so I will comment on it.

Ferik wrote:HQ (315)
Eldrad

3 Warlocks
Enhance
Embolden
Destructor

First off, you don't have enough warlocks in this squad. I wouldn't leave home with less than 5 and 6 or 7 would be better. So you can either ditch the warlocks all together and have eldrad hang with the defending dire avengers or you can scrape up some points to bump the squad up a bit. Second, destructor is kind of a waste for this squad. You are going to be spending most of your time running and when you are not running, you will probably be in hand to hand. Destructor just doesn't fit in well here since you'll use it once at most. Enhance is good, so keep it. Embolden is ok but not great. You are already rolling your psy powers at 3d6 take the lowest and your leadership is 10, so embolden isn't going to see much use, but if you have the points just sitting arround, I guess you could keep it.

TROOP
10 Dire Avengers
Exarch ,Avenger Catapult, Bladestorm
Wave Serpent
TL Eldar Missile Launchers, Star Engine, Spirit Stones, Vectored Engine

10 Dire Avengers
Exarch, Power Weapon & Shimmer Shield, Defend
Wave Serpent
TL Eldar Missile Launchers, Star Engine, Spirit Stones, Vectored Engine

These make up some decent forward units. I would recommend giving both exarchs blade storm but otherwise they look good. On the serpents, you probably want to drop the star engines and possibly the vectored engines. They are just too expensive compared to their usefulness, particularly for a unit that you have 2 of. The points saved there could go to better use elsewhere (like more warlocks).

10 Rangers
Pathfinders

While it may seem at odds to have a stationary unit in a mobile army, these guys are a great choice for you. 2 out of every 3 missions will be objective based. Most (if not all) of the objective missions will involve at least one objective in your deployment zone. Do you really plan on having one of your dire avenger units sit in your back field all game to hold that objective? That would be such a waste. On the other hand, pahtfinders are great for that role. They do a moderate amount of ranged damage and with 2+ cover saves, they are next to impossible to kill at range. I would split the squad into 2 squads of 5 if you plan on keeping all 10, otherwise, you could easily go down to a squad of 8 or even 6 if you need points elsewhere. Regardless, I think it would be a huge mistake to remove them from your army.

ELITE
6 Fire Dragons
Exarch
Firepike, Crack Shot, Tank Hunters
Wave Serpent
TL Eldar Missile Launchers, Star Engine, Spirit Stones, Vectored Engine

Question, what do you want to do with your fire dragons? Do you want them hunting tanks, heavy infantry, or trying to do a mix of both? The reason I ask is that what you want to do really changes how you build the unit. If you want to hunt tanks, just buy regular dragons and skip the exarch. The abilities of the exarch are not very useful at killing tanks when compared to the same amount of points spent on more dragons. If you want to go after heavy infanty then taking an exarch with the dragon flamer and crack shot is worth doing, however it means that you spent a lot of points on anti troop power and thus you are less efficient at tank killing. If you want to try both, you can do it, but again it means that no matter what you shoot at, you will have some weapons in the unit (that you payed for) that are just not going to be well suited to the task. In either case, tank hunter is worthless for a squad that's already rolling 2d6+8 for armor pen. Going to 2d6+9 just doesn't help that much. The only place it is useful at is when you screw up on your disembarcation and find your dragons are outside of melta range. In any case, the fire pike is worhless since it again is only useful (over the standard fusion gun) in situations where you screw up and drop your dragons completely out of range of their target. In general though, with your over all lack of anti tank power, I would recommend just taking a bunch of regular dragons in the serpent. On this serpent, since it is for your only unit of fire dragons and one of your only anti tank units, i would recommend keeping all the upgrades.

10 Harlequins
(10) Harlequin Kiss
(2) Fusion Pistols
Shadow Seer
Troupe Master

These guys are for hand to hand, not for tank hunting, so ditch the fusion pistols. In addition, you'll probably find that giving the troupe master a power weapon is better than a kiss since it gives you the ability to ignore all armor saves rather than just ones where you roll a 6 to wound. This unit is another place where you can slim down the number of models. 10 quins will obliterate just about anything they charge...leaveing them out in the open next turn. Not really the position you want to be in. Going down to 8 (total) would give you similar hitting power and save you some points.

HEAVY
Falcon
TL Brightlance
Vectored Engine
Spirit Stones
Holo Field

Falcons can't get twin linked weapons. That aside, you could put a single bright lance on the falcon (making it a stationary platform for anti tank work) or you could swap out for a missile launcher (letting you move 12 and fire both weapons if you fire the launcher on frag). Due to the presenece of the holo field, you have a significantly reduced chance of being imobilized so you may want to ditch the vectored engines. This is doubly true if you stick with the bright lance since the vectored engines are only useful if you moved over 6" in the movement phase (and if you did, then you can't shoot both the puls laser and the birght lance).

In one of your other posts, you considered adding in a dreadnaught. If you drop the fusion guns and 2 members from the quin squad, the star engines (and possibly the vectored engines) from the wave serpent, the fire dragon exarch, and then ditched a couple of pathfinders, you should be able to come up with enough points to field a dreadnaught with missile launcher and bright lance. Sure it sounds like a lot of cutting, but it's mostly just dross that's only going to be of limited use.

Ok thanks for all the input guys so with all the advice this was what I have come up with.

HQ (539)
(210) Eldrad

(329) 5 Warlocks
Enhance
Embolden
(3) Destructors
(4) Spiritseer
Wave Serpent
TL Eldar Missile Launchers
Spirit Stones

TROOP (684)
(282) 10 Dire Avengers
Exarch
Avenger Catapult
Bladestorm
Wave Serpent
TL Eldar Missile Launchers
Spirit Stones

(282) 10 Dire Avengers
Exarch
Avenger Catapult
Bladestorm
Wave Serpent
TL Eldar Missile Launchers
Spirit Stones

(120) 5 Rangers
(5) Pathfinders

ELITE (445)
(253) 6 Fire Dragons
Exarch
Tank Hunters
Wave Serpent
TL Eldar Missile Launchers
Spirit Stones

(192) 8 Harlequins
(7) Harlequin Kiss
Troupe Master W/ Power Weapon

HEAVY (330)
(190) Falcon
TL Shuriken Catapults
Pulse Laser
Brightlance
Spirit Stones
Holo Field

(140) Wraithlord
Shuriken Catapult
Flamer
Brightlance
Wraithsword

Looks like you are moving in the right direction. Just a few tweaks I would recommend for this list.

Ferik wrote:(329) 5 Warlocks
Enhance
Embolden
(3) Destructors
(4) Spiritseer
Wave Serpent
TL Eldar Missile Launchers
Spirit Stones

I would still recommend dropping the destructors since you are not going to be able to use them more than once, but you may decide they are still worth it. The big issue with this unit at the moment is the 4 spirit seers. This upgrade makes it so you can have a dreadnaught or unit of wraithguard within 12 of the unit ignore the roll for wraith sight. While this is nice, there is really no reason to give this to 4 squad members, and in addition, with 3 destructors in the squad, it’s also illegal since warlocks are only allowed 1 power each. So save yourself some points and just go down to 1 spirit seer. Another consideration is where are these guys going to be in relation to your dreadnaught (the only reason you army has for taking spirit seers)? The dreadnaught is only going to be moving 6" a turn (if it wants to use its heavy weapon) where as the seers in their wave serpent will be zipping around at 12" a turn. It seems to be a combination that doesn't work out well. Either the seers will move out of range from the dreadnaught or you will sacrifice the mobility of the seers in order to keep them in range of the dreadnaught. Or I suppose the third option is that you'll run the dreadnaught to keep up with the seers and thus waste its heavy weapon shooting potential.

So there are a couple ways to deal with this.
1) Ignore the problem: drop the spirit seer ability off of all your seers and then just suck up the fact that on 1 out of every 6 turns your dreadnaught will just sit around doing nothing
2) Slow roll things: drop the wave serpent from your seer unit and have them hang around the dreadnaught on foot.
3) Speed things up: if you drop the heavy weapon from the dreadnaught and just leave it with the sword, you are not losing any shooting potential if you have it run every turn. In that case, it should be able to keep up with the seers in their serpent.
4) Change everything: if you want to try and have the best of everything, you could adjust your list in a fairly major way to have your cake and eat it too. In this option you can drop the spirit seer ability off of all your warlocks. Then drop your ranger squad (not the pathfinders) and buy a 10 man guardian squad. Put a warlock in with them and give him embolden (for the way this unit works, you won't need the spirit seer ability). After that, you can just have the guardians walk up behind the dreadnaught. They'll get cover saves from being behind him most of the time, embolden will keep them from running away, and the presence of the warlock within 6" will keep the dreadnaught from suffering from wraith sight.

(140) Wraithlord
Shuriken Catapult
Flamer
Brightlance
Wraithsword

I'm not a fan of the lance / sword combo on a dreadnaught. If you are sitting at range, the sword is useless. If you are in hand to hand, the lance is useless. If you are running in order to get into hand to hand, the sword is again useless. If you want to use the dreadnaught for long ranged anti tank shooting, I would recommend you ditch the sword and pick up a missile launcher. This setup works the best when combined with the guardian squad I suggested earlier. On the flip side, if you want to get the guy into hand to hand, then there isn't much point in spending points on heavy weapons that just slow him down and become useless once he gets there, so just skip them entirely. This will allow you to run every turn and keep up with your seers in their serpent (mostly).

Ok hopefully this version shall be my last.


HQ (610)
(210) Eldrad

(400) 10 Warlocks
Enhance
Embolden
Wave Serpent
TL Eldar Missile Launchers
Spirit Stones

TROOP (684)
(282) 10 Dire Avengers
Exarch
Avenger Catapult
Bladestorm
Wave Serpent
TL Eldar Missile Launchers
Spirit Stones

(282) 10 Dire Avengers
Exarch
Avenger Catapult
Bladestorm
Wave Serpent
TL Eldar Missile Launchers
Spirit Stones

(120) 5 Rangers
5) Pathfinders

ELITE (329)
(123) 6 Fire Dragons
Exarch
Tank Hunters
(in Falcon)

(206) 8 Harlequins
Shadowseer
(8) Harlequin Kiss

HEAVY (380)
(190) Falcon
TL Shuriken Catapults
Pulse Laser
Brightlance
Spirit Stones
Holo Field

(190) Falcon
TL Shuriken Catapults
Pulse Laser
Brightlance
Spirit Stones
Holo Field