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most things are too expensive for what they do

As compared to what though? A lot of stuff across all armies gone up in points.

 Shadenuat wrote:

most things are too expensive for what they do

As compared to what though? A lot of stuff across all armies gone up in points.

Take dire avengers. 17 points for t3 4+ and an 18" gun? Dark Reapers might do some damage, but they'll get shredded if anything looks at them funny. and they're what, 36 points each? Warp spiders have S6, sure, but at no AP and a short range gun, their points aren't really worth it. -1 to shoot and the warp jump helps, but an assault cannon is still going to rip through them. Striking scorpions don't seem like they do that much damage. Sure infiltrating is nice, but raptors can basically do the same thing and reroll the charge with icon of wrath. They also lost all of their defensive cover abilities.

Even the things that are pretty cheap don't feel file they do anything. Howling banshees are wounding most things of 5's and 6's so they need doom to even get some wounds through. And now you need jain zar to get ignore overwatch?

I dunno, everything seems pretty meh to me

Agree about Avengers.

Reapers cost 4 pts less than Long Fangs (if they pick missiles) I think and their ability is a lot better.

Spider's rending now punches through cover and while they have gone up in pts, with free Exarch and 8 pts for +2 shots they still don't cost a lot (118 pts for 12 S6 shots -4 rending compared to 7th 114 pts). They're better than they were in any edition since 4th but the 7th, but it was obvious they'd get scaled back from 7th.

With Scorps, not sure myself, but you should concider that many melee specialists never gained even 2 attacks by default while losing their +1 for charge compared to aspects.

Banshees, now wound T5 on 5+ and finally can assault from transports - which can charge before banshees and eat up the Overwatch.

I mean, before there wasn't even a concievable way to use Banshees because you couldn't charge from a transport.

 DarknessEternal wrote:

 Khaine wrote:

 DarknessEternal wrote:
When the playtesters say they tried to make Eldar bad on purpose, it doesn't fill me with much happiness.

Where did they say this? Pretty frustrating if true.

See the Summary of their comments in the main news and rumors thread.

They premier playtesters/article writers have a long history of hating Eldar, and finally had a chance to put their bias into the game.

Can you please link that, I am unable to find a reference that they made them bad on purpose.


After taking some more time reading other faction rules and watching some games I am finding eldar to be even worse than I predicted.
Example:
A friend of mine plays orks and he talked to me about some lists (2000 points) that he put together.
At first I thought that he made some kind of mistake when adding points, but it turns out that orks can cram so much firepower and bodies into a list it is almost unbelievable.
I cannot find a cost efficient way of dealing with 80+ orks, let alone everything else their army brings to the table. Teleporting ork blobs will make short work of almost anything we can put onto table.
I told him about some of my list ideas (with the models I own) and he agreed with me that there is almost no way to defeat his list with what I have.

Some of you talk about scorpions being ok. No, they really aren't. Orks have more attacks, same strength, and reroll charge distance for a fraction of the scorpion cost. You can even teleport them with weirdboy.
Most of our units seems so impotent comparing to other armies, even stupid orks with their 5+ bs are going to outshoot us due to the sheer number of shots.

I did not want to believe that, but the idea that the balancing team hates eldar seems more and more plausible.
Frontline gaming article summary reads that they believe that eldar are in the bottom 5 tier (with Inquisition, Demons, Legion of the Damned)
Having a clear bottom tier for an edition that was advertised as thoroughly playtested does not fill me with confidence.

Yeah pretty sure Eldar are trash this edition. Don't confuse play testing to make a balanced game with play testing to drive sales of models. GW strictly the latter cause they're just to stupid to see the forest through the trees.

Static Eldar units just feels wrong to me. I guess I could have my war walkers just chill some where the whole game and not move but dam it's just not fun.

Scorpions just plain suck now. I'm not even sure Banshees are that good. 4+ armor and LD8 is not good.

Yep I must agree with you all, Craftworld Eldar are overall very weak.

I had such initial hope for this edition but it just seems like the power has moved from mobile shooting --> cheap hordes & turn 1 alpha strike. No offence meant to the playtesters but I really wish they'd had people with analytical minds running numbers or something, because the disparity between units and especially between different weapons is even worse than it has been in the last few editions and mostly due to wacky costing.

 Khaine wrote:
Yep I must agree with you all, Craftworld Eldar are overall very weak.

I had such initial hope for this edition but it just seems like the power has moved from mobile shooting --> cheap hordes & turn 1 alpha strike. No offence meant to the playtesters but I really wish they'd had people with analytical minds running numbers or something, because the disparity between units and especially between different weapons is even worse than it has been in the last few editions and mostly due to wacky costing.

You keep thinking this is just some kind of accident on the part of GW's play testers. It's not. It's intentional. Always has been.

Also the turn one alpha strike has never been easier. Which just makes the entire game worse.

pingu wrote:

After taking some more time reading other faction rules and watching some games I am finding eldar to be even worse than I predicted.
Example:
A friend of mine plays orks and he talked to me about some lists (2000 points) that he put together.
At first I thought that he made some kind of mistake when adding points, but it turns out that orks can cram so much firepower and bodies into a list it is almost unbelievable.
I cannot find a cost efficient way of dealing with 80+ orks, let alone everything else their army brings to the table. Teleporting ork blobs will make short work of almost anything we can put onto table.
I told him about some of my list ideas (with the models I own) and he agreed with me that there is almost no way to defeat his list with what I have.

Some of you talk about scorpions being ok. No, they really aren't. Orks have more attacks, same strength, and reroll charge distance for a fraction of the scorpion cost. You can even teleport them with weirdboy.
Most of our units seems so impotent comparing to other armies, even stupid orks with their 5+ bs are going to outshoot us due to the sheer number of shots.

I did not want to believe that, but the idea that the balancing team hates eldar seems more and more plausible.
Frontline gaming article summary reads that they believe that eldar are in the bottom 5 tier (with Inquisition, Demons, Legion of the Damned)
Having a clear bottom tier for an edition that was advertised as thoroughly playtested does not fill me with confidence.

Yes, mostly the Aspects are not great. They can be made to work but they're not the backbone of a list, and some are just plain bad. I don't think any of them have a really clear use other than the Fire Dragons. Like I've probably said, the best units in the index are Guardians, Wave Serpents, and the flyers. Guardians and Serpents are excellent against infantry Orks, especially with a Farseer to Doom big groups. The Serpents can even help keep them off of your Guardians by charging -- it takes a lot of S4 attacks to bring one down. Your flyers only really have stuff to shoot at if the Ork player brings more than just mobs, but if he doesn't have anything that itself flies you can use them to block movement and charges or deny Deep Strikes. Orks have very few ways to efficiently deal with flyers other than charging them with Stormboyz or something like that.

Are Eldar really poor, or you guys just spoiled by 2nd, 4th, 6th, and 7th eds? When you've always got undercosted units to field, paying appropriate costs seems unacceptable.

Martel732 wrote:
Are Eldar really poor, or you guys just spoiled by 2nd, 4th, 6th, and 7th eds? When you've always got undercosted units to field, paying appropriate costs seems unacceptable.

I think they're mostly fine, it's just that most of the units aren't worth using compared to the best units in the faction and other factions. Most other factions are in the same boat. Certainly there are lots of Guard units I wouldn't touch, and I think they're probably the best faction right now.

I haven't seen a whole lot of "best" units, really. At least not for BA.

Spartacus wrote:
Shining Spears are going to be a contender for most improved I'd say.

They're pricy, but hit like a truck now along with increased movement and more wounds.

I envisage my armies to be jetbike heavy (that'll please many people...) With a core of 1 or 2 units of Spears to knock out pesky fliers or tough deepstrikers.

Poor Dire Avengers. Relegated to Shadow War for now I think. Hoping to see them back when an Eldar codex arrives.

My thoughts exactly. The Spears and any farseer/warlock on a bike will be nice to take out enemy flyers.

gery81 wrote:
..

I think War Walkers are one of the best heavy weapon platform in the elder codex. 101 points gives you 2 brightlance on a T6 W6 and 5++. Does not lose any firepower until all 6 wounds are gone. Also, the have their "scout" move to reposition themselves after deployment and should mitigate the need to move and get the -1 hit modifier. They can carry starcannons too! Those guns are just nasty!

I also see them as fairly cheap compared to a lot of the vehicles out there. You need a Fortune from the Farseer on a full unit of 3 WarWalkers to give them extra staying power.

I haven't gotten my books yet or played any games with my Eldar, but from watching batreps of 8th edition here are my general ideas:

1. Cover is key for Eldar. We don't have good saves on most units, and most weapons with high -AP values also tend to be high-strength. If your units aren't in cover or in a transport, there had better be a very good reason why.

2. Mobility and deployment shenanigans will be key for Eldar in 8th edition. What with assault being much more lethal and alpha-charging a very real concern, Eldar units will either need to deploy away from the center of the table or be able to reposition quickly. Fortunately, Eldar vehicles tend to be quite fast and we have plenty of options for quickly moving models around the table now. Rangers and Striking Scorpions will be big winners, as they can deploy from unexpected angles or take objectives at critical times.

There appears to be a lot of flexibility in list building for Craftworld. A previous poster indicated they don't know how to handle 80+ Orks, but one of my lists has 103 Craftworld models (2000 point Battalion detachment)

But, some of the Aspect Warriors I am struggling with, but this has been the case in 2nd, 4th, 5th, 6th editions. Fire Dragons still are an easy choice, while I'm still not convinced about Banshees and Scorpions.

I'm currently struggling with Swooping Hawks. They can easily get within Rapid Fire range and unload 40 shots, but with S3, it definitely needs Doom cast on a target unit. They can go into cover with little issue for some protection, but I'm a bit torn on their efficiency.

Wave Serpents seem ok, but not great. I see folks posting twin Scatterlasers and Shuriken Cannon. When moving, you average 4 Scatterlaser hits and 2 Shuriken Cannon hits. Is that enough hits? It has some durability, but I don't think it will be difficult to destroy a Wave Serpent in 1-2 turns. Time will tell.

Folks seem to be writing off Wraithknights due to points. I'm curious if multiple Wraithknights have merit. I've got a 2000 point army consisting of 3 Wraithknights, Avatar, Farseer, and Spiritseer. While I can't play for a bit more (I'm out of country and w/o my army), it has been interesting seeing how armies are evolving and battle reports have been interesting - lists seem a bit small and a bit too 'take all comer'.

 Sarigar wrote:
There appears to be a lot of flexibility in list building for Craftworld. A previous poster indicated they don't know how to handle 80+ Orks, but one of my lists has 103 Craftworld models (2000 point Battalion detachment)

But, some of the Aspect Warriors I am struggling with, but this has been the case in 2nd, 4th, 5th, 6th editions. Fire Dragons still are an easy choice, while I'm still not convinced about Banshees and Scorpions.

I'm currently struggling with Swooping Hawks. They can easily get within Rapid Fire range and unload 40 shots, but with S3, it definitely needs Doom cast on a target unit. They can go into cover with little issue for some protection, but I'm a bit torn on their efficiency.

Wave Serpents seem ok, but not great. I see folks posting twin Scatterlasers and Shuriken Cannon. When moving, you average 4 Scatterlaser hits and 2 Shuriken Cannon hits. Is that enough hits? It has some durability, but I don't think it will be difficult to destroy a Wave Serpent in 1-2 turns. Time will tell.

Folks seem to be writing off Wraithknights due to points. I'm curious if multiple Wraithknights have merit. I've got a 2000 point army consisting of 3 Wraithknights, Avatar, Farseer, and Spiritseer. While I can't play for a bit more (I'm out of country and w/o my army), it has been interesting seeing how armies are evolving and battle reports have been interesting - lists seem a bit small and a bit too 'take all comer'.

With regards to "take all comer", I think that might be the best list-building approach for now. With such a variety of army builds theoretically powerful at this point in the game, it seems to me like being prepared for a lot of different types of threats is the way to go.

TAC will be fine learning the rules, but I've got a feeling it will shift as other players find ways to overload a certain phase of the game and dominate. Nothing new, but with such a significant change in 8th edition, this may take just a bit longer than previous editions.

All I know is that once FW is done updating their points, I am totally running a spear head detachment of a Wraith Seer, 6 Wraith Lords, and a Wraith Knight for a 2k list. Just cause I can, and it will look cool as hell. An entire army of Giants. Lol.

56 points for an MSU Storm Guardian unit without upgrades.

Could be a useful screening unit?

So if so am understanding the rules right, if we use Ynnari our infantry get to double tap out of turn when we lose a unit with the same rule. And for that we get to pay more for our whole army?

Craft world Eldar are now legacy as empire and dwarves in AoS, so there is not much to say there. But I would expect maybe a better points set up where we could run the craft world only vs being penalized army wide for a rule that only affects infantry.

Or am I missing something else?

 Uriels_Flame wrote:
So if so am understanding the rules right, if we use Ynnari our infantry get to double tap out of turn when we lose a unit with the same rule. And for that we get to pay more for our whole army?

Craft world Eldar are now legacy as empire and dwarves in AoS, so there is not much to say there. But I would expect maybe a better points set up where we could run the craft world only vs being penalized army wide for a rule that only affects infantry.

Or am I missing something else?

How exactly are they legacy? They aren't being replaced by multiple other books, support hasn't been cut and large parts of the range haven't been removed.

pm713 wrote:

 Uriels_Flame wrote:
So if so am understanding the rules right, if we use Ynnari our infantry get to double tap out of turn when we lose a unit with the same rule. And for that we get to pay more for our whole army?

Craft world Eldar are now legacy as empire and dwarves in AoS, so there is not much to say there. But I would expect maybe a better points set up where we could run the craft world only vs being penalized army wide for a rule that only affects infantry.

Or am I missing something else?

How exactly are they legacy? They aren't being replaced by multiple other books, support hasn't been cut and large parts of the range haven't been removed.

the internet is home to hyperbole you know.

They are not gone, just weak. I have a huge eldar army, but i also have several other armies of decent size and im fine shelving the my eldar unit we get a codex. now to figure out between csm, ultras, deathguard or admech who will be best from the indexes since i have 2k of each atleast. . Im thinking ultras or admech from what ive read.

No one thought Empire or dwarves would become legacy but new worlds mean new toys.

Robin5t wrote:56 points for an MSU Storm Guardian unit without upgrades.

Could be a useful screening unit?

Personally I would go for regular Guardians as a screen rather than Storm Guardians. Storm Guardians don't look to be that much more effective in CC unless they get the charge, and vanilla Guardians have twice the number of shots and can take a Weapons Platform to tank more wounds.

PyrhusOfEpirus wrote:

the internet is home to hyperbole you know.

They are not gone, just weak. I have a huge eldar army, but i also have several other armies of decent size and im fine shelving the my eldar unit we get a codex. now to figure out between csm, ultras, deathguard or admech who will be best from the indexes since i have 2k of each atleast. . Im thinking ultras or admech from what ive read.

I have to agree, part of me is happy to be shelving Eldar (at least until codex release) and playing my other main army which is Dark Eldar/Harlequins. The last time I had this situation was all the way back in mid 5th edition

As someone who has played (Craftworld) Eldar since 3d. Ed. and who shelved them for the majority of 6th and pretty much the entirety of 7th due to how powerful (read: so-good-they're-boring ) they where, I welcome alot of complaints about us being "weaker" in 8th.

Ofcouse we're weaker, it was unavoidable.
Perhaps now I can finally get some joy out of playing with my first 40k-army again!

(+7ppm for Dire Avenger Catapults must be a typo though. I welcome us being weaker, but I'll always be against bad internal balance.)

If the new rules will cause some 6th and 7th Codeci-bandwagoners to jump ship, well...so much better for the rest of us.

I have played 2 games as Eldar since the 8th rules have come out and haven't found them to be OP or weak. 1 win and 1 draw against tau and grey knights. The games felt balanced unlike 7th where i was consistently winning 9/10 games as eldar.

Going to play a game against orks next weekend, can't wait to try some strats against what i believe will be a huge horde coming at me. I believe strategy and luck play a way bigger role this time around. In 7th i would pick an army knowing it would table an ork player, now i am not sure.

I was looking at units in a vacuum before i played the games yesterday but now i see there is more to it. I am actually looking forward to trying a whole bunch of different things. Best to give it 3-6 months before you make any judgement calls.

I think we do need to give it some time before letting the doom and gloom set in, it's early, and there was no way we we're going to be as strong as in 7th so of course some things got toned down.

Out of curiosity to get an idea of how people are thinking about the new index and unit changes:

Strongest overall unit: best overall, most likely to be seen in competitive lists.
Most improved: benefits most from 8th, something now useable or with a new strength.
Worst off: worst in the index overall. Most changed for the worst.
Dark horse: the secret winner or less obviously strong unit.

For me:
Strongest overall: wave serpents
Improved: nightspinner or hemlocks
Worst off: avengers sadly
Dark horse: reapers and illic/rangers

Colgado wrote:
For me:
Strongest overall: wave serpents
Improved: nightspinner or hemlocks
Worst off: avengers sadly
Dark horse: reapers and illic/rangers

Strongest overall: WarWalker x3 with Fortune
Improved: shining spears
Worst off: avengers ....bummer
Dark horse: Dark Reapers or MauganRa(dude can lay down some real fire)

I'm not too impressed with the aspect warriors over all with the new codex. Especially where in the case of fire dragon and scorpion exarch's their special ability is cancelled out by their special war-gear. The scorpion claw is -1 to hit so no sustained attacks on 6's. The fire dragon exarch ability to reroll 1's to hit is useless when equipped with heavy flamer. I do really like wave serpents, crimson hunters, wraithguard, war walkers, night spinner, farseers and warlocks. As well the humble shuriken cannon seems to be the go to weapon this edition being assault rather than heavy.

Wave Serpents are tough and very fast. especially when upgraded with vectored engines and star engines. Tough 7, 13 wounds with a 3+ would be good on its own but add to that 9 shurcannon shots, serpent shield, -1 to hit when advancing 2d6 seems like it might be one of the best transports in the game right now. Big plus is that it can fly. With pile ins the serpent can lock down up to two enemy units in assault without being bogged down itself. I think this is going to be a big asset for any infantry on board the transport getting out to shoot or assault.

Crimson Hunter: It's cheaper, faster and arguably just as durable as a predator with four lascannons. With crystal targeting matrix it hits on a 2+ on the move with 4 solid strength 8 guns is great. rerolling wounds on units that fly is just gravy.

War Walkers: two shurcannons seems to be the best bet for these guys. Movement 10 with 6 strength 6 shots at tough 6 with a 4+/5++ save seems great. Its a smaller profile so it should be able to get a cover save. Plus I think it can do a decent job tarpiting infantry squads in assault. Also has battle focus

Night Spinner: seems like a great backfield objective holder. Give it crystal targeting matrix and it gives you a mobile hidden light version of the sun cannon.

Wraithguard: man I think these dudes are going to work so well with wave serpents. Being able to leave combat and still shoot is great. Jump out of a serpent, blast a tank soul burst another thank then charge a third tank - whats not to like. They will die but 3 wounds a pop with a leadership 9 will mean a lot of dedicated fire power required to deal with them.

Farseers have a 5+ ward save now and rerolls for psychic dice with some of the best powers in the game.

Warlocks: cheep hq sources. I really do not like our troop choices, but with warlocks we can have a better time of filling out the other detachments for command points.

beachedwalrusau wrote:
I have played 2 games as Eldar since the 8th rules have come out and haven't found them to be OP or weak. 1 win and 1 draw against tau and grey knights. The games felt balanced unlike 7th where i was consistently winning 9/10 games as eldar.

Going to play a game against orks next weekend, can't wait to try some strats against what i believe will be a huge horde coming at me. I believe strategy and luck play a way bigger role this time around. In 7th i would pick an army knowing it would table an ork player, now i am not sure.

I was looking at units in a vacuum before i played the games yesterday but now i see there is more to it. I am actually looking forward to trying a whole bunch of different things. Best to give it 3-6 months before you make any judgement calls.

In advocacy of them being weak, the 2 armies you played against might also be 2 of the weaker armies out atm. See how you do against AM, DE, or Necrons, perhaps Nids as well.