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This is fascinating. I always wanted to try artillery but the cost of a full unit (price I mean not points) put me off.

I have found Eldar unsuccessful in 6th ed tbh. I think they are creaking and showing their age. They are now underpowered and overcosted compared to similar armies. Their weapons and armour tend to my mind to be inferior. E.g. dire avengers vs space marines, necron warriors, etc.

What Eldar still have in spades though is that customisation that allows you to tailor armies with specialist troops for every job.

I hope for a new codex and some new models and options soon. Something more generalised like the new CSM codex. Critically I think larger unit sizes should be allowed.

I've always thought Eldar are too 'ordinary'. They are supposed to be super-tech but dying out. Why not have very expensive and powerful units to represent this? Certainly they ought to have armour and weapons at least as good as other races.

Hell, at this point I would almost just like to see Eldar Guardians get back their Lasguns as a basic weapon instead of the Shuriken Catapults.

Shurican Catapults are good enough for overwatch in the instance you ever get charged. They are fine for what they do. Plus, you aren't really meant to have them get charged in the first place.

The thing with Eldar that is even more so in 6th is that you really need to use the correct troops for the single task they do well. I have had good luck with my Eldar in 6th so I do not see the point about them being a underpowerd army, they just requier more effort than say SM: IG and such.

 Tyranid Horde wrote:
Shurican Catapults are good enough for overwatch in the instance you ever get charged. They are fine for what they do. Plus, you aren't really meant to have them get charged in the first place.

20 Guardian Defenders shooting 40 times. 1/6 hit to that is ~7 hits. With 50% to wound and 33% to bypass PA you can expect to drop a single Space Marine assaulting that unit. Thats 160 points dropping 16?
I wouldn't call it good, even with guide.
They aren't meant to shoot anything with this pathetic range either.

 Macok wrote:

 Tyranid Horde wrote:
Shurican Catapults are good enough for overwatch in the instance you ever get charged. They are fine for what they do. Plus, you aren't really meant to have them get charged in the first place.

20 Guardian Defenders shooting 40 times. 1/6 hit to that is ~7 hits. With 50% to wound and 33% to bypass PA you can expect to drop a single Space Marine assaulting that unit. Thats 160 points dropping 16?
I wouldn't call it good, even with guide.
They aren't meant to shoot anything with this pathetic range either.

And by the time those marines reach the guardians, the guardians should have killed at least 2 or 3 so now you're looking at 7 marines vs 20 guardians. Guardians that should have scorpions, harlequins, an avatar, or some other cc unit that can wreck those marines close by. At least if you're doing it right.

That's just how the codex works. Very few things in the Eldar codex are designed to "hold their own." It's all about multiple units supporting one another.

Multiple units tend to be kinda expensive.
Eldar units were kinda weird and had some neat finesse ways of tackling previous generations but a lot of their tricks are really expensive now and there are good old DVU or contesting empty wave serpents to fall back on anymore.

Harlequins are neat, so are dragons in serpents, far seers make nice if expensive upgrades to your units and you can still shoot a billion str 6 shots but its starting to feel like other races are really catching up to what eldar used to be good at and the game is way more about hearty scoring units than it used to be.

The nightspinner has been mentioned.
If you've already picked a WW squad, I'd always take this as my 2nd unit.
Dark Reapers die too easily, and are too static. I have some, but the Nightspinners gets picked over them every time.
Their rules are on the Falcon page of GW's website.

I've been using Dark Reapers inside a Bastion lately, to great effect. And parking a quad-gun/icarus lascannon + Fire Dragon exarch on top.

It may be static, but it's still our only AV14 vehicle.

You just need to protect it from drop-podding meltaguns.

 Macok wrote:

 Tyranid Horde wrote:
Shurican Catapults are good enough for overwatch in the instance you ever get charged. They are fine for what they do. Plus, you aren't really meant to have them get charged in the first place.

20 Guardian Defenders shooting 40 times. 1/6 hit to that is ~7 hits. With 50% to wound and 33% to bypass PA you can expect to drop a single Space Marine assaulting that unit. Thats 160 points dropping 16?
I wouldn't call it good, even with guide.
They aren't meant to shoot anything with this pathetic range either.

You forgot a scatter laser and the warlock in the squad too mate, sure not much better, but hey, I'd love to see your marines walk across a board to assault my guardians AND be a ten strong squad. AND me having no other squad but my guardians nearby. So your mathshammer may work on a one on one basis, but certainly not against units supporting each other.

I checked out the nightspinner and it sounded amazing specially because its gun is also twin linked, i really think im getting one of those in my army. Another thing is that i was checking how many points the army i putted together (on the first page) would take, but i got lost when i needed to choose how to upgrade the dark reapers and the warp spiders, and also choosing the exarch weapon on them and to choose a weapon to put on the wave serpent. And the last thing was that i decided to pick another hq with eldrad, but i couldnt choose what i should buy. I had a big thougts about taking avatar or another farseer, but i checked phoenix king stats and they where great, and i also loved iriel except for the fact that his awesome weapon is killing him, damaging a single wound every turn, but i dont know who i should take. If you can help me with this i would really like it

Bladur wrote:
The thing i fear most about the vindicator is his guns ability to ignore coversaves so...

Wait, what? Is there something about Vindi's I've missed or has someone been telling him porkies?

I completely forgot about the night spinner! They are great too, but I'm still picking a Dark Reaper squad over them. For Dark Reapers, give the Exarch a Tempest Launcher with Crack Shot, a really nice combo. Heavy 2 barrage at AP3 with re-rolling wounds is pretty good, a reason why I love Dark Reapers for a start, excluding fluff and all. For warp spiders, I have never used them, so I cannot help you with their Exarch options, but I do know they have a str 6 AP 1 weapon I think? Maybe someone can confirm that for me. My wave serpents differ from the types of jobs they do.
For a fire dragon serpent, running the serpent with scatter lasers and a shurican catapult is pretty nice. I wouldn't add anything like vectored engines or what have you, unless you have a few points left over to spend. My Dire Avenger Serpent would be armed with an EML and a shurican cannon and that's all.
Eldrad is a nice choice for HQ, 3 powers a turn is really nice to have, the only Mastery level 3 we have. The Lords are not worth taking at all, but if you are going to bring one, bring Fuegan, or Maugan Ra. Some people swear by Yriel, and he is very good alright, but I prefer seers to support my units.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Quanar wrote:

Bladur wrote:
The thing i fear most about the vindicator is his guns ability to ignore coversaves so...

Wait, what? Is there something about Vindi's I've missed or has someone been telling him porkies?

Not sure on vindi's rules here, but isn't that cannon ordnance? Don't quote me on that though...

It is Ordanance, but that doesn't mean it ignores cover. Can't find anything in the SM codex about it ignoring cover either...

I grew to love Dark Reapers for Combat Patrol games from 4th/5th edition. They use a 3x4 battlefield as standard, which Dark Reapers can command a very large chunk of with good use of terrain, and their ability versus 3+ armor shows it's strengths in such small games, where in larger games they can be easily overshadowed by things you can afford to spend more points on.

About the vindicator... My freind told me that he allowes no coversaves but that was probably some misunderstanding :/

CrowSplat wrote:
And by the time those marines reach the guardians, the guardians should have killed at least 2 or 3 so now you're looking at 7 marines vs 20 guardians. Guardians that should have scorpions, harlequins, an avatar, or some other cc unit that can wreck those marines close by. At least if you're doing it right.

That's just how the codex works. Very few things in the Eldar codex are designed to "hold their own." It's all about multiple units supporting one another.

 Tyranid Horde wrote:
You forgot a scatter laser and the warlock in the squad too mate, sure not much better, but hey, I'd love to see your marines walk across a board to assault my guardians AND be a ten strong squad. AND me having no other squad but my guardians nearby. So your mathshammer may work on a one on one basis, but certainly not against units supporting each other.

I didn't forget anything. The strength of Guardian Defenders are: warlock, weapon platform, scoring, cheap (for Eldar) and support of other units. That doesn't change the fact that Shuriken Catapult is a horrible, horrible, horrible weapon.
My mathhammer is still good because it was not aimed at Guardian Defenders as a unit in an Eldar army but at shuricat being good overwatch weapon. It's not. Its not even a good weapon on it's own. It's one of the worst basic weaponry now.
Aun'va is not good because Broadsides exists. Shucat is not good because you also have a scatter in a unit. Shucat is not good because there is an Avatar, Eldrad, Scorpions and Harlies nearby. One has nothing to do with the other.

Quanar wrote:
It is Ordanance, but that doesn't mean it ignores cover. Can't find anything in the SM codex about it ignoring cover either...

Just checked the BRB, doesn't say anything about cover saves, just the 2D6 for armour pen. Nevermind me!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Macok wrote:

CrowSplat wrote:
And by the time those marines reach the guardians, the guardians should have killed at least 2 or 3 so now you're looking at 7 marines vs 20 guardians. Guardians that should have scorpions, harlequins, an avatar, or some other cc unit that can wreck those marines close by. At least if you're doing it right.

That's just how the codex works. Very few things in the Eldar codex are designed to "hold their own." It's all about multiple units supporting one another.

 Tyranid Horde wrote:
You forgot a scatter laser and the warlock in the squad too mate, sure not much better, but hey, I'd love to see your marines walk across a board to assault my guardians AND be a ten strong squad. AND me having no other squad but my guardians nearby. So your mathshammer may work on a one on one basis, but certainly not against units supporting each other.

I didn't forget anything. The strength of Guardian Defenders are: warlock, weapon platform, scoring, cheap (for Eldar) and support of other units. That doesn't change the fact that Shuriken Catapult is a horrible, horrible, horrible weapon.
My mathhammer is still good because it was not aimed at Guardian Defenders as a unit in an Eldar army but at shuricat being good overwatch weapon. It's not. Its not even a good weapon on it's own. It's one of the worst basic weaponry now.
Aun'va is not good because Broadsides exists. Shucat is not good because you also have a scatter in a unit. Shucat is not good because there is an Avatar, Eldrad, Scorpions and Harlies nearby. One has nothing to do with the other.

Sure its a poor weapon, but for overwatch, the weight of shots they put out is what I am getting at here. They are sure to wound something. But what weapon is good at over watch exactly? 10 Rapid firing marines is worse again than guardians. They make up for underwhelming range for an increase in shots. Any time I've used them overwatching, they have always downed at least one or more MEQs. Either from good rolling on my part or bad saves on my opponent's part. From my experiences, they aren't too bad, not from mathhammer's experience.

Bladur wrote:
I checked out the nightspinner and it sounded amazing specially because its gun is also twin linked, i really think im getting one of those in my army. Another thing is that i was checking how many points the army i putted together (on the first page) would take, but i got lost when i needed to choose how to upgrade the dark reapers and the warp spiders, and also choosing the exarch weapon on them and to choose a weapon to put on the wave serpent. And the last thing was that i decided to pick another hq with eldrad, but i couldnt choose what i should buy. I had a big thougts about taking avatar or another farseer, but i checked phoenix king stats and they where great, and i also loved iriel except for the fact that his awesome weapon is killing him, damaging a single wound every turn, but i dont know who i should take. If you can help me with this i would really like it

For Dark Reapers, I'm not a big fan of the Tempest Launcher because it's got a foot less range than the rest of the squad, making it ineffective for some of the things you want to shoot. I prefer the EML with Fast Shot, but I've only got limited experience with them.

For Warp Spiders, give the Exarch dual Death Spinners and Withdraw. They're all about volume of fire, and you can't get much better volume on a single model than an Assault 4 S6 gun. Withdraw is for if they get assaulted, that way instead of getting stuck in a grinding assault, they can just jump away after round one and keep shooting.

I don't think the Avatar would synergize very well with your list, as it is written, and as Tyranid Horde said, the Pheonix Lords aren't worth their points in any circumstance. In 5th I swore by Yriel with a squad of Banshees, but now that you can't assault out of a transport, I've stopped taking him. If you could reliably get him in a position to assault by himself, his Eye of Wrath will pretty reliably wipe an entire squad of 3+ or worse saves per game in one go. I've considered trying him with Harlequins, but then I'd lose psychic powers . Also his weapon deals one wound at the end of the game, not each turn. Currently, I'm running a regular Farseer alongside Eldrad. I give him Prescience (the primaris power off Divination) and something else if I have the points, and have him stay back with some Rangers and cast Prescience on the War Walkers so they're re-rolling hits. That way, Eldrad can ride around in a Wave Serpent and cast Doom and Fortune on things a little farther upfield, and since he keeps the codex powers, he doesn't need line of sight for those, so he can cast from inside the Serpent!