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The point of the dire avenger hand to hand upgrades is to keep them alive, not to make them good at hand to hand. In general, when you buy defend and a shimmershield, you are focusing on defense. The idea is that with the avenger's fairly (although not incredibly) short range, they are likely to end up in hand ot hand. If they don't have any upgrades, they are going to die and die fast. If you have given them the afore mentioned upgrades then they become much more difficult to kill and can tie up enemy units in hand to hand till a real assault unit gets there to finish things off.

Defend and shimmershield are useful if you stick a Farseer into the DA squad, just to keep him alive and kicking.

Well, since this thread seems to be about all different Eldar units I'll take the oppertunity to ask about the Harlequins.

Are they still a better option than Scorpions and Banshees in 5:th? And if that is the case (most of the time at least), how do you use them? From my point of view the Shadowseer seems like a must. Without him they could easily be shot to pieces. The Troupe Master is a bit expensive but still good with a powerweapon. The Death Jester however seems a bit pointless.

I am guessing smallish units with equiped mostly with the Harlequins Kiss?

I still prefer Harlies and transport them in a Falcon with stones and holofield. The Shadowseer is important (granting plasma grenades), while the DJ is not.

was looking at the Eldar Codex and it struck me that a Fire Dragon Exarch isn't a complete waste when armed with the Dragon's Breath Flamethrower: Particularly if he has the Tank Hunter and Crack Shot powers.

Dragons excel against heavy tanks or MCs, while they suck against everything else. Taking 6 for popping a LR is enough. Don't bother with upgrades.

A Falcon for the Harlies strikes me as a bit odd. With the Veil they are probably the one unit that can approach the enemy virtually untouched. Though I might revise that after actually trying them (:

Lightbringer wrote:Well, since this thread seems to be about all different Eldar units I'll take the opportunity to ask about the Harlequins.

Are they still a better option than Scorpions and Banshees in 5:th? And if that is the case (most of the time at least), how do you use them? From my point of view the Shadowseer seems like a must. Without him they could easily be shot to pieces. The Troupe Master is a bit expensive but still good with a powerweapon. The Death Jester however seems a bit pointless.

I am guessing smallish units with equipped mostly with the Harlequins Kiss?

So, some quick math-hammer for units that are close to the same point cost (no codex at hand so someone might want to make sure that’s correct). I am assuming that the quin units have a shadowseer and kisses, the banshees have an exarch with executioner, and the scorpions have an exarch with the claw.
7 Quins charge MEQ’s => 5.2 dead
10 Banshees charge MEQ’s => 5.8 dead (4.5 from banshees, 1.3 from exarch)
10 Scorpions charge MEQ’s => 4.7 dead (3 from scorpions, 1.7 from exarch)

7 Quins charge GEQ’s => 9.3 dead
10 Banshees charge GEQ’s => 10.7 dead (9 from banshees, 1.7 from exarch)
10 Scorpions charge GEQ’s => 12.3 dead (10.7 from scorpions, 1.7 from exarch)

7 Quins charge Terminators => 3.1 dead
10 Banshees charge Terminators => 3.9 dead (3 from banshees, .9 from exarch)
10 Scorpions charge Terminators => 2.6 dead (1.5 from scorpions, 1.1 from exarch)

So as you can see, all of the choices are about the same when it comes to lethality. Some are a bit better in some situations than others, but not by huge margins. Where the real difference comes in is in each unit’s special abilities. Banshees always go first, are fleet, and get a huge damage boost if their target is doomed. Scorpions have heavy armor, a huge number of attacks, and are the only place in the eldar codex where you can get a power fist (even though he gets one less attack with it due to the new power fist rules). The quins have the huge advantage of not being able to be shot at from long range, a large number of attacks, rending, and very high weapon skill.

In general I find that quins work out the best as foot sloggers. The shadow seer ensures that they don’t get shot up on the way to where ever they are going. I tend to use mine as a counter charge unit to protect my lines, but they work just as well as an offensive unit. Banshees on the other hand, cannot survive the trip to the front on foot. They are just too frail, even if they are moving up behind another unit. So banshees work best in a wave serpent. Just fly them up, wait a turn, and then jump out, move, run and assault. Scorpions are a bit of a wild card. They are tough enough to go at it on foot to have a fair number of them live to see the fight or they can be packed into a wave serpents and flown around. The only down side to that is since they are not fleet, they can’t run on the turn they want to assault.

Phoenix wrote:Banshees always go first, are fleet, and get a huge damage boost if their target is doomed.

That seems pretty appropriate.

I am still working out how to play harlies best in 5th. I usually play 6 with a shadowseer and all with kisses. I think I will add a troopmaster and 1 more harlie for a solid squad of 8 in 5th. The other thing is that doom is a must now for harlies.

Are you assuming the Harlies are equiped with the Harlequins Kiss? If so the points are about right.

Though I can't see how you got that score for the Harlies. When I count a get a lower number in all three cases.

Back to the DAs thing for amoment, with a 5th ed question:

As Pheonix pointed out, DA Exarch CC gear isn't about hitting the enemy, it's about being a tarpit. The DA's are there to be the anvil. Let your counter-charge units do the hitting. Any powerweapon attacks from the DA exarch are just gravy. The PW/SS with Fortune makes the DA's a reliable sticking point.

Now, this was a good 4th ed strategy (that I built many of my forces around), but I haven't used DAs with the 5th ed rules yet. I'm wondering if the new combat resolution rules make tarpitting with these weak little fellows less effective. Less powerfist attacks/rending wounds coming in makes the invulnerable save marginally less important, but it's still useful against TMCs, mass rending, and ork warbosses.

What do you all think? Are tarpit DAs still worth it? Or are speedbump units of Guardians a better investment, now that we don't have to worry about consolidating into combat?

Lightbringer wrote:Are you assuming the Harlies are equiped with the Harlequins Kiss? If so the points are about right.

Though I can't see how you got that score for the Harlies. When I count a get a lower number in all three cases.

Yes, the quins were quiped with kisses.

My base formula for determining the damage the quins do is (more or less) as follows:
(# of attacks * Chance to hit * Chance to wound but not rend * Chance for enemy to fail armor saves) + (# of attacks * Chance to hit * Chance to rend)

Is that how you were doing it? If so, I suppose I can go over my equations to make sure they are correct.

Lightbringer wrote:A Falcon for the Harlies strikes me as a bit odd. With the Veil they are probably the one unit that can approach the enemy virtually untouched. Though I might revise that after actually trying them (:

The problem is that there's a crucial turn where the Veil (typically) won't protect them. Unless your opponent is hard-charging 6" toward your Harlies (which is typically not the case), then if you want to get the Harlequins the charge on a unit then they need to end a turn no more than about 15" away from the enemy (and this is counting on a 3" fleet at least). If they nearby unit then walks forward 6", they only need a 5 on the spotting roll to see the Harlies and blow them away with rapid fire. The Shadowseer protects them while they're far away, but barring a really bad spotting roll, he can't protect them on the one turn they have to get close before they charge. That's why the Falcon is necessary to get near a lot of opponents.

What the foot-slogging Harlequins really need to boost past that one key turn is some with Lash of Submission. Unfortunately the Farseers don't know that one.

This has all been great information for me too. I'm a returning player starting out with eldar as well and have been trying to put together a decent list to determine which models I should pick up in greater numbers. I think this thread justified the purchase of 20 dire avengers... now to justify it to my wife!

Didn't Scorpions have the option to Infiltrate at some point? I have the old 2nd and 3rd ed codices which have nothing about it, but I swear I heard that scorps could infiltrate from somewhere. That could make foot-slogging them easier to do since they'd be further in on the board.

I guess the hawks I picked up are about useless unless they're put in the hawk-heavy list over in the Lists Forum... that's too bad since I love the models. My kitbashed warp spiders are in the same boat: so-so on game value, even if I love the work I put into them.

Funny how the old schoolers are showing up playing eldar...

sirisaacnuton wrote:The problem is that there's a crucial turn where the Veil (typically) won't protect them. Unless your opponent is hard-charging 6" toward your Harlies (which is typically not the case), then if you want to get the Harlequins the charge on a unit then they need to end a turn no more than about 15" away from the enemy (and this is counting on a 3" fleet at least). If they nearby unit then walks forward 6", they only need a 5 on the spotting roll to see the Harlies and blow them away with rapid fire.

While this is true, you can let your opponent come to you (or not) as they choose. What I mean by this is that you can place your quins between the enemy and whatever juicy target they are heading for. Then you maneuver so you are about 20ish inches away from them. They then have the choice of either continuing to move forward and putting themselves in charge range or moving laterally and doing nothing interesting. If they move laterally, you can too on your turn. In the end, they either move up into your charge range or they stay away from your lines for the entire game. Either way, you win.

Gavin Thorne wrote:Didn't Scorpions have the option to Infiltrate at some point? I have the old 2nd and 3rd ed codices which have nothing about it, but I swear I heard that scorps could infiltrate from somewhere. That could make foot-slogging them easier to do since they'd be further in on the board.

The problem with infiltrate is that it means that you start the game off a lot closer to the enemy than any other unit in your army. This then leads to that one unit being the sole target of all the enemy units that are out of range to shoot at the rest of your army. The net effect is that the infiltrator dies horribly. The only way infiltrate really works is if you do it with lots of units and overload the enemy with targets. Now you could use them to flank march (probably a better idea) but people are starting to get wise to that and just dump their units in the middle of their deployment zone. Unfortunately, scorpions are not fleet, so if they do come in off the sides, they can't run on the turn they want to assault. So you had best have a target within 12" of the board edge or you are going to have to suck up a round of shooting (and possibly being assaulted) before you can get into hand to hand.

Funny how the old schoolers are showing up playing eldar...

The eldar army is one that requires a lot of finesse and has a lot of options, so it lends itself well to the old schoolers.

Phoenix wrote:My base formula for determining the damage the quins do is (more or less) as follows:
(# of attacks * Chance to hit * Chance to wound but not rend * Chance for enemy to fail armor saves) + (# of attacks * Chance to hit * Chance to rend)

Doh! I used a slightly different formula, which would have worked if I hadn't for some reason figured that one out of six wounds would be rending, instead of one out of six to wound rolls. Your figures are correct.

Phoenix wrote:The problem with infiltrate is that it means that you start the game off a lot closer to the enemy than any other unit in your army. This then leads to that one unit being the sole target of all the enemy units that are out of range to shoot at the rest of your army. The net effect is that the infiltrator dies horribly. The only way infiltrate really works is if you do it with lots of units and overload the enemy with targets.

Yeah, that sucks, and isn't exactly what I was thinking of... Units that begin play infiltrated aren't necessarily Concealed unless the mission specifies? This was an assumption on my part, one I'd do best to dissuade myself from. Although Conceal or Ambush may be better rules for scorps, more representative of their fluff.

Phoenix wrote:Now you could use them to flank march (probably a better idea) but people are starting to get wise to that and just dump their units in the middle of their deployment zone. Unfortunately, scorpions are not fleet, so if they do come in off the sides, they can't run on the turn they want to assault. So you had best have a target within 12" of the board edge or you are going to have to suck up a round of shooting (and possibly being assaulted) before you can get into hand to hand.

Flank marching is another thing I was confusing with Infiltrating I was thinking of... if you reserve your units that infiltrate, they can enter on the long side of the table, i.e. flank march, right? Also, if the scorps are in a transport, it benefits from that rule as well, IIRC.