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I've noticed something in my travels recently...

There are very few Eldar players.

Is there any reason for this???

I only ask as I'm looking for a good tactica and some army advice as I'm thinking of starting the only one of two armies I've never played (the other being Orks).

Well Eldar were made by GW for females and "males" (if thats what you wish to call them) that weigh under 140 pounds and comb their hair over their face to hide is from the world.........


jk. I have notice it to be really rare too. I don't hear much from GW about the Eldar so I suppose not enough exposure there for lack of interest. and a somewhat bad codex ;\

The Eldar codex is really showing it's age (namely due to the trend of simplifying things, they tend to have one generalised build and little else) plus it's not exactly as forgiving as the other dexes, certainly not to the extent as any SM codex, and even nids are slightly easier to play.

This is the thing I hate with 40K atm.

Everywhere I see:

Space Marines (Includes all variants).
Imperial Guard.
Dark Eldar.
CSM.
Orks.
Necrons.

No Tau, Eldar or Daemons.

I simply don't want to play an army that I see everyone playing.

Yeah, its a shame, I LOVE fighting orks. I like fighting horde nids (MC is kinda boring) but they are never around! I love fighting guard infantry too, its so fun (I would love to come up against Ailaros sometime!) but once again these armies are rare.


Although I must say Im getting rather specialized at killing space marines

Ok...

So lets say I choose either Tau or Eldar.

What builds are good for either and how viable are they???

And can someone please link me to a decent uptodate tactica pls???

I'm currently working on an eldar army, and I am planning on making my Tyranid army with a bit more horde to it. But yes, things are a bit stale for me too, I've only faced eldar once.

A Nid player??? Good for you dude. I don't see Nid players either.
Apparently they are really difficult to play.

We have 2 eldar players in our league right now (out of 12 players). I'm suspecting lack of plastic kits might be an issue for some would be players though.

I also agree with the lack of eldar it seems as though many people like to model them but not play them. I think that this is because of how hard they are to play. That being said i wouldnt want it any other way. Not saying i dont want a new codex but it is nice to play an armie that most people say is bad mainly because when or if you prove them wronge it is all the more glorious. Also i just want to throw this out there i think that people spam fire dragons to much. Having one squad in you armie is good and this is only going out to spammers of fire dragons and beggining eldy players.Eldar are an armie about falling into place at the right time with the right peice not sending out a squad of gaurdians and hoping to hit somthing you will just loose 100 odd points. Dont do it. So as my final decrea i as well would like people to start playiong eldar again and i also want stronger tanks why are tau the only ones who get armor 13 skimmers i want one.

I was going to go with a Biel-Tan-esque force with a fair amount of Aspect Warriors, but then I dare say I need to go Mechdar with a force like that.

Other than that idea, i'm pretty stumped for what else to do. I don't want to go Mechdar as the transports cost a ton of £$£.

I wanna go for an army that doesn't require meching up.

All I can think of is Orks, Nids and Daemons. None of those armies are on my list of to do's.

Orks - maybe, but not the other two if I can help it.

about the whole list thing i play foot slogger eldy which most people don't like to play or at least so ive seen and so ive read. This is what i sugjest: I always take at least two transports i don't care which but you need transports none the less, I always field 2 squads of DA or more, Dark reapers are always nice mainly because every body seems to love marines, I like using a night spinner they kill things good, only use one farseer i don't like to use Eldrad but whatever floats your boat right, 1-2 squads of gaurdians, a squad of shining spears, banshees, scorpions, ONE squad of fire dragons just ONE,a vyper squad for hahas take your pick on swooping hawks or warp spiders i like them both,and whatever you want for second hq that isnt a farseer this should get you up to just about 2500 pts have fun

I play Eldar, currently the only 40k army I've ever had.
I used to get creamed all the time (and still do, but not so much ), but that is good because you can look at each individual unit, it's role and how it fared so I can adjust accordingly how to use them next time.
I mean last week i got trashed by my mates SW and I know why, deployment wrong and I allowed my Banshees to much unwanted attention at the wrong time, Guardians advancing too early etc.
Next time we play it'll be different
Seriously though Eldar are very rewarding because standing there and letting everything bounce off you/running headlong into the other guys as it's how they win (delete as applicable) will get you nowhere, so when you win it feels so much more gratifying.
Best advise I could give to anyone wanting to play Eldar is:
1. Take your Avatar (just in case )
2. Guide and Doom are your friends
3. Avengers Bladestorm + Banshees charging = VP

foofighter wrote:I play Eldar, currently the only 40k army I've ever had.
I used to get creamed all the time (and still do, but not so much ), but that is good because you can look at each individual unit, it's role and how it fared so I can adjust accordingly how to use them next time.
I mean last week i got trashed by my mates SW and I know why, deployment wrong and I allowed my Banshees to much unwanted attention at the wrong time, Guardians advancing too early etc.
Next time we play it'll be different
Seriously though Eldar are very rewarding because standing there and letting everything bounce off you/running headlong into the other guys as it's how they win (delete as applicable) will get you nowhere, so when you win it feels so much more gratifying.
Best advise I could give to anyone wanting to play Eldar is:
1. Take your Avatar (just in case )
2. Guide and Doom are your friends
3. Avengers Bladestorm + Banshees charging = VP

Now this is what I'm after...

Avatar - I can get along with, he is a bit of a beast in CC and a huge bullet magnet.
Farseer - Eldrad is good so I hear.
Banshees - Definately want to take them as they do work with...
Avengers - Bladestorm is awesome.

So basically - the Eldar army is a lot more dependent on unit synergy than most other armies???

we've got 2 out of the 10 or so people that play. One guy beat me up both times and the other I played the 'kill a unit and run' game in order to win.

The only advice I have is the unit with ap3 (dark reapers maybe?) shreds marines, especially if you can get them in range of any fire support units and shred them. Harlies are pretty effective as well. That's about all I know.

Eldar is a lot more of a tactical army and you have to be fairly certain of unit matchups to do it well I think. Still over my head so you might not want to be listening to me.

Yeah, I almost like to pair units up if I can - 1 shooty and 1 CC, Scorpians are also good with 4 S4 attacks on the charge each.
Banshees still top them though as they count as I10 in the first round of any combat due to their masks.

Eldrad rules - 3 psychic powers a turn and can even use one twice in 1 turn. But for a non Ulthwe craftworld Spirit Stones and Doom and Guide will keep your Farseer cheap and useful. Add 3 Warlocks and give one Enhance and they ain't too bad in combat either (WS6 wounding on 2's coz of witchblades for the Farseer)


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Luco wrote:The only advice I have is the unit with ap3 (dark reapers maybe?) shreds marines, especially if you can get them in range of any fire support units and shred them. Harlies are pretty effective as well. That's about all I know.

Harleys are also damn sweet, ignore terrain and have Furious Charge, best cities of death unit you could want

I'm not a fan of reapers personally, I like to use other HS units, WL with Starcannon. War Walkers are another cool choice as walkers don't suffer penalties to shooting and the fact you can 3 per unit, choose from all heavy weapons (2 each) AND have Scout means you'll be shooting them beasties early on
Never a bad thing

Luco wrote:we've got 2 out of the 10 or so people that play. One guy beat me up both times and the other I played the 'kill a unit and run' game in order to win.

The only advice I have is the unit with ap3 (dark reapers maybe?) shreds marines, especially if you can get them in range of any fire support units and shred them. Harlies are pretty effective as well. That's about all I know.

Eldar is a lot more of a tactical army and you have to be fairly certain of unit matchups to do it well I think. Still over my head so you might not want to be listening to me.

Nothing wrong with any advice at this point. It is sound advice you give. Reapers are definately going in my army - Too many Marine players in my meta.
As for Harlies - I have 40+ of the old skool Harlie models as I bought them off ebay dirt cheap about ten years ago.

foofighter wrote:Yeah, I almost like to pair units up if I can - 1 shooty and 1 CC, Scorpians are also good with 4 S4 attacks on the charge each.
Banshees still top them though as they count as I10 in the first round of any combat due to their masks.

Eldrad rules - 3 psychic powers a turn and can even use one twice in 1 turn. But for a non Ulthwe craftworld Spirit Stones and Doom and Guide will keep your Farseer cheap and useful. Add 3 Warlocks and give one Enhance and they ain't too bad in combat either (WS6 wounding on 2's coz of witchblades for the Farseer)

Scorpions seem subpar, but I can see their viabilty.

So far I want to add...

Eldrad.
Avatar or a second Farseer.

Fire Dragons.
Howling Banshees.
Striking Scorpions or Harlies.

Dire Avengers.
Pathfinders.
Maybe some form of Guardian.

Warp Spiders - I love the models.

Dark Reapers - My all time favourite and most annoying Eldar unit.
War Walkers.
Wraithlord or another unit of War Walkers.

As I said, I want to go heavy aspect more than anything else.

I can agree with him on the walkers but they do have a couple flaws. Most eldar guns don't reach past 36 inches and most marine guns do and with 10 armor all around thier flimsy. I ushally go with a tank for heavy support again like the Night Spinner or Falcon. The falcon can also carry things which makes it even better. The main reason why i like dark reapers is that they can take alot of hate and they have 10 ap 3 shots. As far as the scorpions thing they do different things than banshees they more or less stave off attack or kill off termis. They are masters at bboth if you give the exarch a claw. They also destroy swarming armies because of their 15 odd attacks 20 on a charge. Besides that i fairly agree with you

Its a shame not people play eldar.

The FW eldar tanks being released are rather awesome looking and its sad I might never see them in action.

I'd love a squad of Hornets

foofighter wrote:I'd love a squad of Hornets

I've got one so far.

Mr Nobody wrote:

foofighter wrote:I'd love a squad of Hornets

I've got one so far.

Awesome paint job have you used it in a battle?

As I said before. I have never seen FW Eldar tanks in a battle.

Chalk up another vote for "not enough plastic" - most of the really cool Eldar stuff is still metal, which has a stigma to it. GW doesn't stock metal stuff as well as plastics in gamestores either.

Eldar aesthetics are also kind of a hard sell to new players. They don't have the "human" factor that attracts people to Guard and Marines, yet they don't have the brutish, goofy appeal that Orks have. They're in a unique predicament, but I'm sure GW could push them really well when they get a new codex.

Eldar are an armie about falling into place at the right time with the right peice

The issue is that isn't really possible. Between the range and increasing mobility of other armies, Eldar's capabilities are dwindling. They don't hit hard anymore, and short of serpents and falcons they still don't survive being shot at.

As an example, take a unit of banshees. Charging a full unit of grey hunters, arguably their chosen target, they kill 5, and lose 2 banshees to return swings (if the grey hunters aren't upgraded with any cc options, which is unlikely). Banshees should kill the rest of the unit in the next phase if they are lucky, and if they aren't will probably kill them in your turn, leaving you open to being shot. And this is for a unit that is more expensive and doesn't have the shooting capability of grey hunters.

Now let's look at variants where the Eldar army is working together. If you shoot the grey hunters up before the charge you not only risk them running away leaving your banshees open but also risk killing them in 1 phase, again leaving your banshees open.

In any case, Eldar are spending far more points on specialists to kill a generalist unit, but our assault specialist is crippled in the process. By the way, I do love banshees. Power swords are awesome. The issue is, they don't hit very hard anymore and are both out assaulted and out shot by anything other than a basic tactical marine squad. And with true line of sight and the range of most weapons they are easy to shoot at after an assault. And since there are few mass fire AP4- weapons, the cover save is near worthless.

I do love Eldar, but the concept of mobility is being taken by other armies, and Eldar don't have the hitting power they need to offset their fragility. And while 2ish units can be used to wipe out part of an enemy force in one turn, it can't kill enough for it to make that big of an impact, especially considering how long that takes (1 turn to move up, 2 turns to get in exact position, 3 turns to attack, 4 turns to get back in the vehicle, 5 turns to get back in position, all assuming none of your vehicles are shot down). Arguably though, the issue isn't so much with the Eldar codex as it is with the main rules. There is no longer enough differentiation between the speeds of different armies. Dark Eldar I don't think got a large enough mobility boost to allow Eldar to be comparatively as fast as they used to.

As of now, I'm on a break from my Eldar to play Tau (and Nids once I start painting and get money). I grew tired of feeling like I couldn't build an effective army. I probably could, and likely just need more practice, but I couldn't stand to watch my assault specialist be out assaulted by a shooty opponent, or my shooty specialists fail to do significant shooting damage.

Well, to prove the pudding, i'll be testing an Eldar army tomorrow night.

If I get on with them, i'll play them, if not...

That leaves Nids and Tau.

And Daemons.

I've got a friend who has a pretty huge Eldar army, thanks to a couple of GW grand openings. He wound up with about 6 Falcons, 60 odd Guardians, enough Dark Reapers to fill out 6 HS slots, and a bunch of other stuff.

He played some games with them in 5th edition, decided to 'try something new' and got a small Space marine army. He doesn't look at his Eldar anymore.

Scorpions are only subpar against marine equivalents, put them against something with ho-hum armor saves and those extra attacks get you lots of kills. Plus the scorpion exarch is about the only way to get a powerfist in the army for those tough nuts to crack.
Against marines, better to charge them with banshees.

I actually started Eldar recently because I loved their models and backstory. I've quickly noticed a few issues that I suspect drive a lot of would-be player away:

1. Older Plastics- Eldar models (notably Guardians) are NOT Space Marines. By this I mean that they are a pain in the arse to put together. Having assembled both Space Marines and then Tau, I found Eldar plastics to be extremely finicky in comparison. I've learned since my first disaster of a guardian squad, but I fear the same fate awaits my first attempt at a War Walker or Dire Avengers. While the models look pretty awesome, they are not recommended for beginners.

2. Da Rules- The second issue the Eldar face are their rules. Again, Eldar are NOT Space Marines. They aren't a forgiving army and require a lot of skill to play. Once they are figured out they can be quite powerful, but they have a steep learning curve. First you have models that were difficult to assemble, and now it's taking you forever to not get tabled in every game (I haven't had this issue, but more on this in number 3.)

3. Eldar, Honestly, are a Veteran's Army - Between a powerful but hard-to-use codex and more advanced models, the Eldar are a great second or third army. Unless you fell in love with the models, I would never recommend the Eldar for a first army. They require too much finesse/skill to use effectively to have a new player not get frustrated. This is where GW marketing comes in. Their new marketing plan in many areas (as far as I've heard) is to get someone hooked, have them make a massive set of purchases, and then just let them drop the game. The issue for the Eldar is that most of these new armies are Space Marines or Orks or other simpler armies. Eldar are an advanced-level army, and so isn't conductive to the current GW sales scheme.
(Note: This isn't to say that Space Marines, Orks, or other armies can't be played with great skill. They just don't lose effectiveness as quickly in the hand of an incompetent general.)

4. Metal - Back to harping on the models briefly, another (for me less major) issue is that many of the Eldar models aren't available in plastic. This makes the army less appealing to some and can also drive up the dollar/euro/currency cost depending on the army build.


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Amendment: That Hornet looks awesome; here's hoping it's in the next codex and GW makes a model for it!

Scorpions are only subpar against marine equivalents, put them against something with ho-hum armor saves and those extra attacks get you lots of kills. Plus the scorpion exarch is about the only way to get a powerfist in the army for those tough nuts to crack.
Against marines, better to charge them with banshees.

Again, that isn't exactly true, at least from the math perspective. 10 scorpions with Exarch with biting blade (because I love that weapon and can't stand for trading I6) I believe end up killing a mob of shoota boyz with Klaw not, but are down to around 3 scorpions after the fight (if they win). Eldar need a lot of support from inside their army, but they aren't very good at supplying it. They don't hit very hard, and don't have rules that make it so they meld together other than a farseer who I have 3 issues with:

1. They aren't that reliable. The new psychic defense (especially the runic weapon which had NO reason to not be a psychic hood, and notably made the deathleaper useless at preventing Space Wolf psychic defense) is really hurting Eldar who pay a lot for their psychic abilities. If we count on that support being there to put the fight in our favor, and it is removed because our opponent rolled a 4+....yea. It's one thing to say that your heavy autocannon can't shoot this turn, but completely another to say "your battle plan wont work, try again next turn."

2. Vehicles. Generally the idea I keep hearing from non Eldar players (and even from Eldar players) especially in regards to banshees is "use doom with them and they'll slaughter marines." First off, that isn't true. While doom is influential, it is not THAT influential. Second, I'm assuming those marines are in a vehicle, and so cannot be doomed, because the super metal box protects them from the emperor's enemies (I really dislike this ruling).

3. They are a unit upgrade. Whenever a farseer is purchased as far as I've seen it isn't to make the army better, it's to make a unit better (and to throw out doom because you can). Either you take a farseer with guide for your war walkers, or one with fortune and doom for your warlocks or banshees. Farseers are always taken to benefit one unit. Part of the restriction is the range (6" powers are incredibly restrictive, and even 24" isn't that far), while the other part is the vehicle mental wall (cannot guide an ally unit in a neighboring vehicle).

Anyway back to my main point, the concept of synergy only works if the result is greater than the sum of its parts and so on. But that doesn't happen for the Eldar. Eldar have to pay more for multiple units to do the same job as one unit in a marine army for example (such as the avengers and banshees taking on a grey hunter squad). While this is acceptable, it isn't implemented very well because it is too easy to take out parts of the Eldar army leaving them crippled (such as taking out the wave serpent with the fire dragons in it).

With Eldar there is possibly a very great reward, as if your units accomplish their task they can virtually steamroll the enemy into submission. However, if the dice gods dont like you even a tiny bit, or if the opponent gains the upper hand because you weren't paying attention, things can fall apart really, really fast. I've never actually played Eldar, but have faced them. There is usually one focal point for the entire army, and once that point is taken care of everything else can be dealt with piecemeal.