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Mmmm..... naked Eldar. Slaanesh likey.

I hear guardians aren't that bad with the Avatar. But still no Dire Avengers. Flanking Scorps in a WS is hilarious. So are FDs dropping out of a hov craft to melt tanks.

Falcs still have a use- they can transport!

I, too, have shelved my Eldar for a while for similar reasons. Basically, the nerfs were harsh, but livable. The real issues I see are thus:

1) Any competitive Eldar list is going to be one of two boring styles. Sorry, I have done the Guardian Creep back in second edition. If I wanted to do something like that again, I would play Guard (who are better at it). I also ran the sniper heavy passive agressive army for a while and it wasn't fun for either side of the table. The new codex was the death of diversity, with so many redundant units of differing efficiency competing in the same slots.

2) Any remotely competitive Eldar list takes massive comp hits. There is a decided anti Xenos bias in both the GW design team and the player community. Marine lists with 12 Las Cannons get applauded while an Eldar list sporting a dozen Lances would get bitched about, despite the lances being worse BS and more expensive. I watched an Eldar player at the slaughter with litterally no two units alike in his army get comped as the third lowest in the entire GT, simply because he had 8 clowns and Eldrad in the list (one grav tank btw), while the same people were comping Pedro Cantor led lists near the top of the pack. Its part of the SM community mentality and it started back in 4th edition. Eldar match up well against marines and poor against anything horde, but 90% of the people out there are marines, so the nerd rage made perception reality. When I play Nidzilla, I don't get anywhere near the flak I used to when I played Eldar, and I never personally ran Eldrad in the last decade or so.

So, I have almost 20k of Eldar sitting on my shelves that I never use. Why should I play an army that is so poorly designed that only a couple of builds work with it and everyone will despise you for using them? The shear number of units in the new SM codex that completely rape the army pretty much tell me GW's stance on the matter. When I can get higher soft scores playing a more effective NId or Sisters army, why bother?

Eldar require a mind to play whereas it seems optional to survive with marines or orc hoards.. T3 and predominant 4+ Sv means you have to watch what you are doing. You can't just go out and say that you will be competitive by virtue of your base troops being all-around good.

I do think guardians are not the way to go right now. The argument is between a dire avenger base with or without bladestorm. BS4, 18" range, Ld 9, 4+ Sv for 12 points or BS3, 12" range, Ld 8, 5+ Sv for 8 points. Guardians are garbage or niche units in a greater build.
Guardians shooting means they are dying... they are a pricey way to get a heavy weapon out there with a BS 3, don't count on it. The decision is do I or don't I need the exarch with bladestorm.

At 1000 points you are better served by a doomseer than an avatar. Doom makes your S4 shots deadly. The avatar is the second option.

Mech eldar works but personally I dislike it. I think eldar are better served on foot with some guardian bike units to provide the much needed late game mobility to grab objectives. Eldar vehicles just don't put out a lot of firepower... 145 for a wave serpent with stones and TL brightlance. 75 for a razorback with TL las or other combination. Sorry, fast and 4 more eldar is not worth +70 points.

I am also starting to think all eldar CC units are somewhat worthless. They take up elite slots so they can't hold objectives and no one is really an all around unit. Banshees, scorpions, harlequins... All good but learn how to do the eldar dance and dire avengers will do the job for you without more than one counter attack force.

I do agree that Eldar in 5th really are a pale competitor to what they used to be. (When raven terminators get fleet and sorry your scorpions are too weighted down to fleet... eldar are losing the mobility factor. The defensive wpns to S4 also made falcons a total waste of time.)

Try a base of dire avengers with a doomseer add a wraithlord or two to discourage them getting close and you can dominate with firepower. 3 x 10 dire avengers bladestorming a doomed 10 terminator squad will kill them on average. (96 shots, 64 hits, 48 wounds... 8 dead termies on average...)

Just know you are not playing one of the current top-tier armies at this point in time.

willydstyle wrote:Violence is what makes the world go 'round.

And sarcasm is the grease in the wheels.