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Is it possible to create a effective eldar army using close combat and close in shooting?

Sure, you'll want to base it around harlequins, fire dragons in wave serpents, dire avengers in wave serpents, and maybe a seer council thrown in for fun.

The harlequins and seer council are your CC "beater" units.

Should I involve a unit of banshees and scorpions?

Yes you can...but it will most likely be mech to be competitive.

You can go horde/combatty with a Avatar, but it's not as flexible.

Just focus on one or two of the aspects in the elites section like scorps or harlies, have a Doom or two around to assist them.

As for close range fire power:
1. Dire Avengers.
2. Stormguardians with the triple flame template.
Boosts from Doom of course.

Then transports will most likely be the cover fire/anti-light tank platform.

My 7 Cents.

Huffy wrote:Should I involve a unit of banshees and scorpions?

No, they both suck compared to seer councils or harlequins.

I can agree to seer councils being good but harlies?
Didn't 5th ed. bring about the nerf stick to their usage in general.

Counter Charge.
No more clipping a squad and kill zones.
The rise of mech spam.
Still only GEQ++.
Much fast moving flamer/RoF weapons to get within the veil of tears.
Rending is cool with doom, but without it, it has taken a hit with needing to hit first.

/shrug.

What sort of squad sizes of harlies would you use and how would you use it Willydstyle?

My 7 Cents.

You use harlequins in small units with a shadowseer as an anti-tarpit, behind the lines of your seer council.

I've still been having some luck with a mech army built around the old-fashioned serpent full of banshees and serpent full of scorpions, both decked out with exarchs and supported by Eldrad. They do the job more effectively and cheaper than seer councils or harlequins, and they can get their own transport (unlike harlies).

I wouldn't call it a pure assault army because you still need lots of fire support (prisms, warwalkers/vypers, fire dragons for cracking transports) and you really have to have everything inside grav tanks. No bikes, no rangers, nothing that presents a static firebase or potential flamer or heavy bolter target. The assault units are used mainly for going deep and wiping out the one or two isolated things that are vulnerable or that threaten your grav tanks (lootas, hydras, shooty combat squads). Or sometimes for countercharge to protect the tanks if the enemy is coming to you anyway.

But it's a heavy finesse army that requires a real strong hit-and-run mentality. You have to find a way to either make your assaults last two phases (multicharge is the usual way) or find a way to protect the troops after they wipe out their target. And you won't be scoring any massacres in tournaments with it.

Flavius Infernus wrote:I've still been having some luck with a mech army built around the old-fashioned serpent full of banshees and serpent full of scorpions, both decked out with exarchs and supported by Eldrad. They do the job more effectively and cheaper than seer councils or harlequins, and they can get their own transport (unlike harlies).

I wouldn't call it a pure assault army because you still need lots of fire support (prisms, warwalkers/vypers, fire dragons for cracking transports) and you really have to have everything inside grav tanks. No bikes, no rangers, nothing that presents a static firebase or potential flamer or heavy bolter target. The assault units are used mainly for going deep and wiping out the one or two isolated things that are vulnerable or that threaten your grav tanks (lootas, hydras, shooty combat squads). Or sometimes for countercharge to protect the tanks if the enemy is coming to you anyway.

But it's a heavy finesse army that requires a real strong hit-and-run mentality. You have to find a way to either make your assaults last two phases (multicharge is the usual way) or find a way to protect the troops after they wipe out their target. And you won't be scoring any massacres in tournaments with it.

Then you're playing against players who are not as good as you are, or players who don't use strong lists. If you have some generalship skills you can make crappy units work against players who don't have those skills, but the fact that wave serpents are not assault vehicles makes running CC infantry in them a highly limiting affair.

eldar can do whatever you design them to do. They are so diverse at everythign.

I wouldn't take this list to Adepticon or anything, but as long as you plan your assaults correctly, you can depend on a unit of scorpions or banshees supported by fortune/doom from Eldrad to take out 1-2 enemy units per game without getting killed themselves, or at least make a sacrificial attack that takes out an enemy unit.

The trick is picking the target--one that's worth taking out and possibly worth sacrificing your unit to kill, one that can't be more easily or surely killed by other means available, and one that--for strategic reasons--can't just evade your assault. The advantage of using Eldar assault troops for the job is that they have the mobility that lets you pick the target *you* want dead and the striking power to overcome the safety that cover would otherwise afford them (banshees, scorpions and harlequins w/ seer are all essentially indifferent to terrain).

The same is true of harlies and seer councils in assault except that harlies are a bit better at escaping while they have their shadowseer, and councils just get taken out of the game by being tarpitted rather than destroyed.

You could also include Wraithlords as your heavy support, with or without wraithblades they can kill lots of things in CC (and with shooting too!), just keep a warlock or a shadowseer near them at all times and they'll do well.

willydstyle wrote:

Flavius Infernus wrote:I've still been having some luck with a mech army built around the old-fashioned serpent full of banshees and serpent full of scorpions, both decked out with exarchs and supported by Eldrad. They do the job more effectively and cheaper than seer councils or harlequins, and they can get their own transport (unlike harlies).

I wouldn't call it a pure assault army because you still need lots of fire support (prisms, warwalkers/vypers, fire dragons for cracking transports) and you really have to have everything inside grav tanks. No bikes, no rangers, nothing that presents a static firebase or potential flamer or heavy bolter target. The assault units are used mainly for going deep and wiping out the one or two isolated things that are vulnerable or that threaten your grav tanks (lootas, hydras, shooty combat squads). Or sometimes for countercharge to protect the tanks if the enemy is coming to you anyway.

But it's a heavy finesse army that requires a real strong hit-and-run mentality. You have to find a way to either make your assaults last two phases (multicharge is the usual way) or find a way to protect the troops after they wipe out their target. And you won't be scoring any massacres in tournaments with it.

Then you're playing against players who are not as good as you are, or players who don't use strong lists. If you have some generalship skills you can make crappy units work against players who don't have those skills, but the fact that wave serpents are not assault vehicles makes running CC infantry in them a highly limiting affair.

Assault ramp isnt needed when you get a 3+ save and no 2D6 shots at S8 max.

Its a 4+ but yes, agreed. Star engines lets you move that extra foot in the first turn, so you dont need to move it to assault in the second turn.

Err right, 4+, but another 4+ if its fortuned as well. Either way, they are very difficult to take down, and even if you do, you better hope you have enough shooting to kill whats left inside.

Night Lords wrote:Err right, 4+, but another 4+ if its fortuned as well. Either way, they are very difficult to take down, and even if you do, you better hope you have enough shooting to kill whats left inside.

For 90 points base without buying the compulsory weapon turret, its a damn good thing those things are idiot proof.

Assault is a bigger threat--no energy field, no cover save, versus the rear armor. A unit with a lot of attacks, like charging orks, can pull a wave serpent down.

Flavius Infernus wrote:Assault is a bigger threat--no energy field, no cover save, versus the rear armor. A unit with a lot of attacks, like charging orks, can pull a wave serpent down.

Whats the probability of just 1 of those 30 boyz rolling 3 6's in a row?

Entirely possible. Most aspect warriors are designed around it, and all phoenix lords are good at it. Transports are important for CC armies, so use lots of those when possible. If you can't get any (money, points value, etc.) the eldar have fleet, so don't waste your time shooting.

Falconlance wrote:

Flavius Infernus wrote:Assault is a bigger threat--no energy field, no cover save, versus the rear armor. A unit with a lot of attacks, like charging orks, can pull a wave serpent down.

Whats the probability of just 1 of those 30 boyz rolling 3 6's in a row?

Close to 60%

2x Smallish councils with farseers

3x Medium sized harlie squads withs shadowseers

2x Wave serpents with banshee squads in each.

Roughly 2000pts?

Razerous wrote:2x Smallish councils with farseers

3x Medium sized harlie squads withs shadowseers

2x Wave serpents with banshee squads in each.

Roughly 2000pts?

...and 5 Elite choices.

Brings up a good point, though: all Eldar dedicated HtH units are Elites (unlike the old days of Biel Tan). (Warp spiders and swooping hawks are not really assault.) So in a fully-mechanized army, not only are you limited to a maximum of 3 assault units, but they also compete with fire dragons for the same slots. I feel like pretty much every mech army needs a unit of fire dragons, so you're looking usually at 2 assault units max, plus possibly a council.

Shining spears, like bikes, I hesitate to put in an army of otherwise just tanks, since they present a target then for all the str >6 guns.

Farseer
Council
inna Serpent

Farseer
Banshees or Scorps
inna Serpent

Dragons
inna serpent

2x Troops (storm guardians or Dire Avengers)
inna serpent

2-3x Fire Prisms

Yeah it can work. You better bring the Jetcouncil though. That is the best CC unit in the codex hands down.

whitedragon wrote:
2x Troops (storm guardians or Dire Avengers)
inna serpent

Aren't Pathfinders troops too? pathfinders can sit in cover and snipe IIRC, so they don't even need a transport, and your troops aren't going to be out there attacking everything.

However, I could have this wrong, and Dire Avengers are pretty sweet too, their transport can be built to shoot fairly well, so it depends on what you want.

starbomber109 wrote:

whitedragon wrote:
2x Troops (storm guardians or Dire Avengers)
inna serpent

Aren't Pathfinders troops too? pathfinders can sit in cover and snipe IIRC, so they don't even need a transport, and your troops aren't going to be out there attacking everything.

However, I could have this wrong, and Dire Avengers are pretty sweet too, their transport can be built to shoot fairly well, so it depends on what you want.

I used to be enthusiastic about rangers/pathfinders as troops and didn't think they were too expensive because of their awesome cover saves.

Then I started encountering HF speeders and droppodding ironclads with flamers (very common in Vulkan lists) and trukks full of burna boys. Now they're on the shelf.

If I took them, I'd take a squad of no more than 5-6 and keep a falcon nearby for them to embark on in games versus opponents with flamers. But they're still not a good value because they're still priced for the relatively flamer-free metagame of 4th edition.

whitedragon wrote:Farseer
Council
inna Serpent

Farseer
Banshees or Scorps
inna Serpent

Dragons
inna serpent

2x Troops (storm guardians or Dire Avengers)
inna serpent

2-3x Fire Prisms

I'd prefer outflanking Scorpions in a Serpent instead of Banshees.
But Banshees vs Scorpions is still a debate.

Outflanking scorpions in a wave serpent is fail because you won't have a chance to fortune the wave serpent on its "attack run."

The only chance you have of parking a serpent close enough to the enemy's army for the scorpions to get an assault off is if you can fortune the wave serpent.

How about painting them up as corsairs and running them as a "counts as" Drak eldar?

In 4th edition I ran a Biel-tan army with 6 units of striking scorpions, fire dragons, and dire avengers. I bought 3 wraithlords (with no additional weapons for 75 points each) and an incredibly cheap 80 point avatar. Adding to this was a seer council squad which was as effective in 4th ed as it is today. It was an very successful army, and won many games.
That army list does not and cannot work in 5th ed. The days of the mass eldar assault armies are gone with high Mech and more vehicles.

In all fairness, that fits the fluff IMHO. 70+ footslogging, screaming, bullet-catching eldar on the table does not fit the role of a 'dying race' well. 25 models in tanks or on bikes fits the feel of an eldar army much more closely.