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I just always imaged that Eldar would be very skilled, but lack strength. But after hearing a lot of the arguements, I can see keeping the HtH troops at WS 4.

What about Dark Reapers? They definately need a boost since they are so small and expensive. Either BS 5 or ignore/-1 to cover?

WS/BS 4 actually represents "very skilled." Even the space marine veteran units (vanguard, sternguard) remain WS and BS 4, and they are respectively hand-to-hand, and shooting-focused veteran elite units. IMO I think that a lot of people see WS/BS 4 as being "average" is because troopers like Guardsmen and Guardians, who actually represent quite-skilled warriors, are very under-represented in the actual game.

I agree aspect warriors should have more skills than a marine.

namegoeshere wrote:I agree aspect warriors should have more skills than a marine.

Why? Marines are supposed to live and breathe all aspects of the arts of war... much like aspect warriors. IMO it makes sense that they have equal skill levels.

I see most people agreeing, in principle, that most Aspects are pretty solid in what they do, and how they do it (with a few specifics that are, of course, debatable).

Would it be a better discussion in terms of coming up with better tactics on how to get a given Aspect Unit where it needs to be, when it needs to be there? Back in 3rd/4th, when I still ran my Eldar, that was the big problem.

The units always performed admirably, it was just getting the suckers to the right location before they were either... shot down, cut to ribbons, blasted into chunky eldar salsa, or some combination thereof.

cmagee79 wrote:
The units always performed admirably, it was just getting the suckers to the right location before they were either... shot down, cut to ribbons, blasted into chunky eldar salsa, or some combination thereof.

In one word - Transports. Load up in WS and get them wherever the need to go - also giving them some extra protection from shooting. What eldar really need is for the WS to drop in points and then the aspect warriors should be fine as is. Since most have fleet anyway they can disembark 2", Fleet d6 and then assult 6.

Perhaps giving the WS the assult vehicle ability like the CSM LR would help. (however limit the ability to disembark to a 6" movement)

Wave Serpent Transports, by themselves and with the current rules set that would apply, make Dire Avengers and Fire Dragons pretty nasty, but it's Banshees and Scorpions that are left in a bind as to how to get to the enemy. They disembark and are stuck since the WS isn't an 'Assault' vehicle. It should drop in points cost somewhat, but I don't see it becoming an assault akin to the C:SM LR.

One thing that did just pop into my mind was... well, maybe a Vyper-transport of sorts that will function as an open-topped vehicle similar to the new Land Speeder Storm. Moreso, there was something akin to that in the Harelquins dex that was circulating many years back that filled that niche. A light, flimsy assault transport. Sure it might only get 6 models into the fight, but 6 banshees or scorpions with respective exarch is pretty nasty.

The other aspects are pretty good. Warp Spiders are still pretty spiffy, Shining Spears are as good as they've ever been, with Swooping Hawks just kind of... well, just kind of there.

Again, only read the beginning & end of this thread but ;

Warp spyders need to be ever-so-slightly remodelled to change their deep-striking power as it is either near-redundant or just completely useless.

Swooping hawks - I just dont see them happening. Too weak for an assaulty shooty unit. Some form of cover-save from vibrating wing-packs?

Harlequins need a related HQ. Thier fine as they are, 22pt is fine for rending including ALL the other rules they have. An IC to join the unit that wouldnt cause them to loose half thier awesome rules would simply make them awesome enough right there. Doesnt matter if its an expensive one either.

Has anyone considered that Eldar are in a "caught in the middle" situation?

Anything that is good at killing marines is good at killing Eldar since the numbers are similar. (i.e. Eldar can't usually swarm you with targets)

Anything that is good at killing Hordes is good at killing Eldar. (low T and armor saves).

In other words everything is good at killing Eldar, while eldar are not good (on a unit by unit basis) at killing everything. You need a specific unit for a specific job.

This has led to the situation we have now where it takes 2-3 units to do the job that other armies send 1 unit to do. This was fine in 3rd edition when mobility meant something. It was shaved down in 4th with the advent of no assaulting from transports, and has been shaved even more now that everyone can run, and fast vehicles can only move 12" if troops get IN.

They need to fix something. With all the deepstriking, drop podding, skimmer flying, teleporting imperials, the Eldar are getting rings run around them in the mobility arena. This leaves the only viable list the Mechanized one. It's the only way Eldar have ANY added mobility.

As for Eldar gun lines, the last time I tried that the mobile marine army I played STILL had twice as many heavy weapons as I did, and proceeded to both outshoot and out assault me. Thank you free heavy bolters vs 15 pt scatter lasers.

As far as aspects specifically, there isn't a need to increase the basic statline, there just needs to be something done to make them more mobile than your basic marine. (Yes I know they don't have fleet by default, but what kind of marine player building an assault oriented army ISN'T taking Shrike?)

They are also one shot wonders right now, as pointed out earlier. They are too expensive for that. Since the very beginning of 4th edition my Banshees have had one successful game. It came about when a marine player just ignored shooting them with a devastator squad for some reason shooting an immobilized Wave Serpent (the one they bailed out of 30" from the enemy) instead. No army should rely on the opponent to play dumb in order to work.

Around here people generally keep units 6" or more apart, keep units within LOS of one another (to eliminate divide and conquer tactics), and spread out enough that templates rarely hit more than 1 or 2 models.

If your opponents do that, then Eldar in any variety other than mechanized are screwed.

they should be glass cannons, powerful but fragile

problem is they are glass but have no firepower ( don't mean shooting specifically)

they either need more offensive, or an all around better statline imo

Being able to assault out of wave serpents would be a big help, but the basic problem is that Eldar need to tag team, but 5e makes that really hard to do with short ranged fragile units.

Yes, a 16 pt Scorpion or Banshee will kill a 16 pt marine in CC, but if they have to hoof it over there the marine will win every time, and even in CC a full 10 aspects will take enough casualties that the next fight will be a gamble. Plus the marine gets combat squads, free special and heavy weapons, ATSKNF, drop pods/rhinos/razorbacks etc.

Same deal with Guardsmen. A platoon will shoot down an aspect squad long before they walk into assault range, and a guard squad is a third to half the cost.

Walking aspects just don't have the ability to support the rest of the army, and mounted don't kill enough to make the Waveserpent's cost back. Plus the cost is such that you cannot afford any redundancy.

I think aspects need a price reduction, the ability to assault out of waveserpents (or waveserpents getting some sort of auto-pinning AOE attack from their shields)
and/or aspect powers that better compensate for their tendency to be all on their own.

Auto-Pinning AoE? Yeah I can see it now; armies of nothing but minsize squads mounted in waveserpents, half of them probably fire-dragons, pinning everything on turn 2 (or probably 1, depending how the thing works), and then spending the next 5 turns killing as much as they can without being fired back at (or assaulted) even once after they take out the vehicles.

Guardsmen are the baseline. You can throw in the conscript statline as a show of people who are just moderately trained (a Guardsman is taken and trained up from a planetary defense force's elite). Tau are supposedly better shot with their optics and all, but their BS is 3 just the same and their melee is no better than conscripts. 2 of the armies are composed of slightly underpriced genetically engineered supermutants with centuries of experience (with spiky and not spiky variants), and those have WS and BS 4. 5 and 6 is really pushing it.

Guardians should be 1pt less and have defensive grenades for free. that would be pretty much in step with what many are getting this edition.

Swooping hawks would be most awesome (they pretty much annihilate whatever vehicle they touch, and as far as I understand it could do the same to a titan right then and there with haywires) if they were just 19 points apiece: the gun's already much better than a lasgun, just not in strength, and I'd suggest giving them +1S on the charge in assault... maybe furious charge though with their initiative its kinda superfluous.

Vypers are 5, maybe 10 points too high. I'm not big on squadrons of light vehicles (3 russ or basilisks are one thing given their firepower, but 3 scout sentinels?) being worth multiple kill points, though.

Lots of good ideas here. I've seen lots of Eldar builds that emphasize war walkers, dire avengers with bladestorm and lots of little squads of other aspect warriors in Falcons, emphasizing the Falcon's heavy weapon more than the aspect warriors. They seem to be treating the Eldar like a race of snipers. Whether it fits the fluff or not, it's brutally effective. Something to make aspect warriors worth playing again would make the Eldar a more interesting enemy.

Eldar always suffer from T3. They will generally go first due to the high initiative but then get underminded by either S3 PW or S4 non-PW close combat.

SS will do a number on orks but have real problems on Mec. HB need a doom to be effective against T4 opponents...

The WS +1 would increase the lethality but truly in a basic 1-6 scale, they should probably remain 4.

My argument is the number of base attacks. You have marine veterans (pick your flavor) getting 2 base attacks while the eldar are running around with 1 base attack. Mind you with the adds we are talking 4 attacks for scorpions or 3 for banshees but that 1 extra attack will restore the hammer to the glass.

I agree that 5th ed has taken the subtlety out of close combat and the eldar have suffered for it. With only troops being able to control objectives, it is hard to justify 300+ points(transport) for a close combat unit that is usually 1 shot and done and can't directly win the game for you. Right now the most effective builds I am seeing are prisms and dire avengers with HTH handled by seer councils if at all. I would love to see the CC aspect warriors regain a valued place in Eldar lists.

I love the idea of playing a very elite-focused army with small squads. Unfortunately we don't seem to be that elite and focused because we're just so darn fragile especially now that it is a troops game. I do not mind a point increase to make that so. I think a better armor save might help this slightly, as well as increased WS/BS/I which won't take away from any of the Eldar fluffy-ness.

I don't mind guardians staying relatively weak, they're conscripts. With the fact that they are reserve citizens in mind and can still kick butt on some other trained warriors, fine by me. Maybe some more versatility in guardian squads would be nice, or at least changing the minimum squad size to 8.

I just can't leave an eldar thread like this alone.

The Eldar army only needs small, moderate adjustments in comparison to other races (i.e. Dark Eldar and Necrons). However, because of how unbalanced the current codex is, there are a number of units I believe need some sort of moderate fixing. These being the Dark Reapers, Vyper Jetbikes, Swooping Hawks, Falcon, and Guardians. I say these units because, by and large, they aren't very good at the job they're designed to do for the point cost and so they're not very often fielding, resulting in characteristic cookie cutter lists.

Dark Reapers, at 35 pts/model top my list. They don't have many options at all and their given weapon, while good, isn't necessarily the points required. At a BS 4, S5, you have a 66% chance to-hit and a 66-83% to wound for most infantry targets. Given that the AP value of the Reaper Launcher is 3, most infantry targets will not receive an armour save, so a squad of 3 Dark Reapers can expect to dish out 2-3 wounds per round from a 48" distance for spending 105pts. Good luck taking out elite units with a 2+ Sv. Compare that with, say, a pair of War Walkers with dual Scatter Lasers at 120pts, which averages slightly more wounds (2-4) at a marginal decrease in range (36") and is decidedly more mobile and survivable. My suggestion for the Dark Reapers is to choose ONE of the following:
A) Adjust their stats to 5 3 3 3 1 5 1 9 3+, and buff their weapon to something slightly more effective. (i.e. S6 or AP2) (This would follow nicely with the fluff that says the Dark Reapers pride themselves on their accuracy.)
B) Change nothing else but altering the weapon to have it dispense blast markers. (This would allow it to be far more effective as an anti-infantry choice, while retaining limited capabilities against vehicles.)
C) Drop the point cost to about 25-30 pts/model.

Vyper Jetbikes, 45 pts/model, are also broken. In almost all respects they are comparable to War Walkers except for their place on the force organization chart and survivability for the point value. Vypers are expensive, easy to kill, and have limited firepower for what their designed to be good for; fast attack. Something about Open-Topped Skimmers just doesn't make for a happy vehicle when something hits it. As I see it, Vyper Jetbikes should be the go-to unit for a vehicle when you need it somewhere fast to provide strong firepower for a unit in need. This is difficult to do by comparison, since all Eldar vehicles are fast skimmers unless you natively give them Star Engines (Wouldn't it be great to be able to move a unit 36" in one turn?). My suggestion for these one is to choose ONE of the following:
A) Natively give them Star Engines with the option to upgrade or purchase Vectored Engines, Holo-field, and/or Spirit Stones at a discounted point cost.
B) Upgrade the BS to 4 and the Front and Side Armour to 11.
C) Upgrade the BS to 4 and give better point costs on the weaponry (maybe make them twin-linked, too).

Swooping Hawks, 21 pts/model, still retain usefulness but it's a little off-kilter. They have a neat grenade pack that drops a rather fun Large Blast marker when they drop in, and they're decent against vehicles, provided they can get into close combat with them and not die in the process (or shortly thereafter). Fire Dragon's do it better from farther away, though, despite not being as mobile. Against anything that's not a vehicle, the Hawks are dead in the water, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. My simple fix for these guys is to simply give them a slightly stronger weapon (S4?), a close combat weapon, a better armour save, and/or melta bombs.

Falcons just need a better BS to get them competitive with the Fire Prisms. (That's a nice looking Pulse Laser.)

Lastly, our poor civilian guardians. For being comparable to imperial guardsmen in everything but I and Ld, these guys are mighty expensive. It's not that they need to be buffed, they just need to be cheaper. 6-7 pts/model?

Nothing else needs to be changed. The other units, by and large, are all pretty balanced for what they're designed to do and kill. It's up to the player to protect them from what they're weak against.

@tuatha, I'm generally good with your suggestions, though I don't like units of 20 Guardians as Eldar horde, nor do I think that Sv5+ makes any sense at all WRT the Fluff. I could see them at 7 pts, but they would have to be Sv4+ and have the ability to withdraw from the battlefield to not give up a KP.

@JohnHwangDD You're probably right there... The fluff does indicate that the Eldar are dying off, so every Eldar life is valued. So 4+ armor does make more sense. Not so sure about the ability to withdraw though...

Guardains - Fine. They can assault after spitting out two str 4 ap 5 shots. I mean wow.. thats pretty good. They also -could- be ws4 i5 which is actually pretty awesome & combined with the shuriken fire, will cause damage. Generally, fine. Id say their worth the 1pt premium on thier actual worth of about 7pts due to the additions of a warlock/farseer/autarch/avatar.

Vypers - Poo. These -are- a bit rubbish. Requires either a unique weapon, preferably a templatey one or/and slightly more surviability options.

Swooping hawks - anti-light troop weapons (perhaps should be ap 4 or does the exarch weapon redeem that need?. Awesome anti-vehicle grenades. There should be rules clarifying that these guys can hit anything on 4+'s when it comes to vehicular aggression. That means walkers too. Decent armor, mobile troops. Worthy of the pt cost.

Eldar vehicles in general - better mobility options. More things like the star engines & most importantly, way more than all of the above;

An assault-capable transport.

Razerous wrote:Guardains - Fine. They can assault after spitting out two str 4 ap 5 shots. I mean wow.. thats pretty good. They also -could- be ws4 i5 which is actually pretty awesome & combined with the shuriken fire, will cause damage. Generally, fine. Id say their worth the 1pt premium on thier actual worth of about 7pts due to the additions of a warlock/farseer/autarch/avatar.

Vypers - Poo. These -are- a bit rubbish. Requires either a unique weapon, preferably a templatey one or/and slightly more surviability options.

Swooping hawks - anti-light troop weapons (perhaps should be ap 4 or does the exarch weapon redeem that need?. Awesome anti-vehicle grenades. There should be rules clarifying that these guys can hit anything on 4+'s when it comes to vehicular aggression. That means walkers too. Decent armor, mobile troops. Worthy of the pt cost.

Eldar vehicles in general - better mobility options. More things like the star engines & most importantly, way more than all of the above;

An assault-capable transport.

Guardians are not fine. Sure, you buy them an enhance warlock, and all of a sudden your guardian squad costs just as much as a squad of dire avengers that shoot better and have a better armor save. With str 3, t3, one attack, and a 5+ saving throw Guardian defenders aren't winning CC against anybody and especially not against orks (who cost less points) or space marines.

As far as swooping hawks go, in the Eldar FAQ (in the errata section so it is official) it actually clarifies that intercept does not work against walkers.

You keep mentioning things like autarchs, farseers, exarchs, the Avatar, etc. as though they automatically make the rest of the army better. And while most Eldar HQs and upgrade characters do carry around good bonuses, they also have points values of their own, and strengths and weaknesses of their own.

I think the Aspect statline is fine (not the Exarch one but I'll get to that later).

The problem is, the 'Exarch powers' should be just 'Aspect powers' as most of them are just veteran upgrades.

As Eldar are so long lived, it would make sense that some squads would have 'veteran skills' as they approach the end of the path; the powers should be purchasable as a squad upgrades rather than for the Exarch.

Exarchs, on the otherhand are each legendary warriors who fight more and train longer than most Chapter Masters; the only comparable mortals should be Chaos Lords. They should have their WS/BS swapped with the Autarch and get more interesting individual powers.

as a former eldar player i feel the need to enter my 2 bits as well

Guardians: in most circumstances are atrocious. Very few were the games where i ever got them into even firing range unless tere were massive amounts of cover available, then they were pretty good. less points, or increase range of gun slightly (i mean come on, a technologically advanced race only shooting that far)

banshees/scorpions: Definately need an assault transport, too hard to get them into CC against even a decent player

Spiders: Keep as is. every game i played the MVP for my side was either them or my wraithguard

i cant remember who said it, but i agree that the aspects should be better than marines at what they do. A reaper should outshoot a marine any day of the week, but be out assaulted, while the CC aspects should beat marines hand to hand while not being very good at shooting. I say this because they dedicate themselves to a single aspect of war, where the marines dedicate themselves to war in general. Both races live hundreds of years, but someone who spends 100% of the time learning how to weild a sword should kill someone who spends 50/50 ish between CC and range.

lots of really great points in here though.

Not a big eldar player and dont know much about the units or even codex, but from fluff, they are a dying race which wouldn't it not make it want to gamble too many of there warriors, guessing why the eldar cant field as many units as other races? Also better weapons I think would be hard to come by cause they dont have the manufacturing capabilities or time for research and all, which I know when Slanessh was born was there fall but the Imperium still drove them from planets they held during the Great Crusade, I guess meaning there tech fell behind?, which is also how the Imperium is falling behind against the Tau. And perhaps the Exarchs training is not as modern and effective as a Space Marine, techniques do become obsolete after awhile and eldar are more fragile, but the WS, and initiative,increase for them would make since cause arent eldar suppose to have more speed and finesse? I do agree bout how if you dedicate yourself to one aspect of war such as as shooting you should outshoot someone who only dedicates himself half the time to shooting, but wouldnt that mean that vanguard/assault terminators(expert CC) and sternguard/terminators(expert shooting) would be better at what they do too? I know Ive compared everything to a space marine forgive me for my lack of unit knowledge and I hope I dont anger too many people just giving my opinion of perhaps why the eldar army is like the way it is. If ive misspoken please tell me only way can learn more is if someone enlightens me

The 'Aspects' are all complete martial disciplines.

Exarchs train and fight all the time.

No only that, but the soul stone integrates the experience of the previous user. They can actually have more years of experience than the suit's age.

In conclusion

Exarchs should be some of the greatest warriors in the galaxy.

on a side note:

Eldar tech can be researched in safety, and tested basically anywhere thanks to the webway.

Anything that can't be produced on Craftworld? They have planet colonies for that. Even then, they can trade with Exodites or even other races.

Someone did some calculations; the population of one of the larger craftworlds (like Biel Tan) outnumber the entire Tau Empire still.

in regards to the sternguard/CC termies etc. for the marines. They way i understand each of the races ( or we'll take sternguard and dark reapers for examples here ) this is how i see it. The reapers have spent nearly their entire life dedicated tobeing shooty. Sternguard should be beter than a normal marine at shooting, but i think that i shown by their ability to use more weapons and their special ammo. However, they have had to work their way up to being a sternguard, and therefor have probaby spent lots of time devoted to CC. So i see a normal marine being 50/50 CC/shooty, a sternguard being closer to 75/25 and an aspect warrior being around 90/10 (adjusting for youth etc.)

SonofTerra wrote:in regards to the sternguard/CC termies etc. for the marines. They way i understand each of the races ( or we'll take sternguard and dark reapers for examples here ) this is how i see it. The reapers have spent nearly their entire life dedicated tobeing shooty. Sternguard should be beter than a normal marine at shooting, but i think that i shown by their ability to use more weapons and their special ammo. However, they have had to work their way up to being a sternguard, and therefor have probaby spent lots of time devoted to CC. So i see a normal marine being 50/50 CC/shooty, a sternguard being closer to 75/25 and an aspect warrior being around 90/10 (adjusting for youth etc.)

I think the idea that aspect warriors "spend their entire life" in one role is a common misconception. Unless an Eldar becomes so dedicated that he cannot escape the path and becomes an Exarch, Eldar will change the path they follow many times during their life, including among the warrior and non-warriors paths. Exarchs are the only Eldar that are all-aspect-all-the-time and that is represented by their WS/BS 5, which is better than many armies' heroes.