New to Eldar: how should I collect my army?

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**Skinnereal**

The thing that winds up my opponents most is "Battle Focus".
Move into LoS, then shoot and run back into cover.
Almost every Guardian or Aspect unit gets Battle Focus, or the Eldar Jetbike equivalent (move 2D6" in the Assault phase), even War Walkers.
So, choosing the 'weaker' units will do you some good, and earn good-will for holding back.

**Diogenes**

Is the army builder in the special edition electronic coded any good? Is it worth the $50?

**JohnHwangDD**

I would be shocked if any GW army builder tool was worth $50.

I still do mine in Excel.

**Diogenes**

Well it's $50 for an enhanced edition codes and the army builder app. I played with my friends app on the tau codex and I thought it was awesome. It didn't get very good reviews on iTunes.

**AnomanderRake**

The enhanced-edition Codexes are a lot more useful for the hyperlinking (iBooks is terrible at flipping from section to section in non-hyperlinked books if you need to frequently). I've never touched the built-in apps.

**Table**

JohnHwangDD wrote:
Diogenes wrote:
I'm trying to decide between saim-hann and ulthwe. I like both paint schemes and I think I like the guardians more than most aspect shrines. I also really like the war walkers and I might want to incorporate wraith models at some point.

Can anybody tell me what fluffy ulthwe army would look like? I know about the black guardians. They don't currently have a representation in the rules do they? I know I'm past additions they had slightly better guardians. I also know the seer council is huge and eldrad . Anybody know what else makes an army ulthwe fluffy?

From a practical standpoint, Ulthwe black is easier to paint than Saim-Hann red. Ulthwe more easily incorporates the de rigueur Wraithknights and War Walkers.

For Ulthwe, I would field Guardian Jetbikes, and/or Black Guardians count as Dire Avengers. Fluff-wise, you'll also need some Warlocks, and a Seer Council of some sort. The rest is kinda open to taste, but you should try not to let non-Guardian (i.e Aspect / Wraith / Ranger) units dominate your Guardians on Scatbike + Black Guardians on foot + Guardian-crewed vehicles + Warlocks. Including a unit of HtH Guardians would be thematic, even if they count as Banshees, and a nice gimme when you're playing against Fluff bunnies.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Table wrote:
JohnHwangDD wrote:
Remember, if they aren't paying, they don't get a say.

I find the ending of your post to be horrible advice. Rest of it is sound tho. While other players may not be buying his army, he does need to factor them into his buying. Because what good is a army that you cant play in any games?

I started 40k with Necrons. While having losing its standing in the big 4 some time ago my list was darn annoying to play against and frankly, when I switched the armies around with my friend, I HATED playing against it. [SNIP!] would you enjoy playing against your list?

As I've said multiple times, he can always play down to a soft army. Second, he's said that his meta includes Tau & SM, so he'll be able to play against the hard lists.

I have never enjoyed playing against Necrons, and it's unfortunate that we have a Necron player in our group. If he's playing, I break out the big boy toys. Otherwise, I prefer to play Guard. Not that I don't have the resources to play soft Eldar if I choose. So I don't get what you're complaining about.

Im not complaining. But I am sure that is fairly obvious so ill take that part as a jab and move on. What I did type however is I think that a piece of advice you had posted was not good advice. I went over why "I" thought it was not. You can, if you wish, re-read the post. Feel free to disagree with my points but be so curtious as to state WHY instead of what you posted in reply. My point is not to offend, simply to make a statement.

Edit : I see the miscommunication in my post. I can see that you misconstrued that I was saying that YOU as a player wanted to make a hard boy list. This is not the case. I was stating that some people do infact do that and what I see typed most to criticism of it is the old mantra "Its my money ill do what I want". Which I actually agree with. None of it was aimed at you. Im sorry for not typing the post out better. My apologies.

**JohnHwangDD**

Oh, no worries, and no apologies needed.

In my experience, it is easier (and often instructive) to play a hard list softly, than a soft list hard (if it is even possible).

That is, there are tricks to dialing back a tournament level army, where one deliberately takes poor advantage of Reserves / deployment / randomness / whatever to see just how deep of a hole one can dig yourself out of.

However, if one's army is inherently poor, often there is very little you can do, even if you are playing your best.