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I have been playing Eldar on foot for a bit now and my track record is pretty good.

But my brother keeps telling me if i wanna play seriously the only way to do it is mechdar.

And after a few serious thrashings at the hands of his Frackin Tau i am starting to think he's right.

Is he right? do i need to start stockpiling Wave serpents, falcons and fire prism's?

From playing against eldar a few times I can say from experience my mech marines have always tabled or nearly tabled foot-dar and hybrid mech-dar but strait up mech-dar gives me fits with your tanks special rules. Especially in objective games where they can cruise on to points last turn to contest.

I don't know how they fare against other armies but mass high strength weapons shut down their high toughness creatures, my psychic hood stops a lot of the shenanigans when they get too close to me and mass long range anti infantry seems to deal with the rest.

Also, from playing against eldar, my competitive nids will table footdar pretty esily although they sometimes have afew problems with banshees and their damned masks. The 'nids will definitely table hybrid mech-dar even easier than foot-dar as I can waste a few tanks easily and that's a load of his points gone. However, mech-dar I have problems with as I pretty much have to rely on the hive guard alone to take out tanks as nothing else can get close enough. Occasionally the parasite might but he's not that strong.

But, I'm sure it's possible to do competitive foot-dar.

Where's Blackmoor? Check out his batreps - he plays Footdar competitively.

I've played Footdar competitively as well with success, but since I've moved on.

Main reason for mechdar superiority is due to the fact that eldar have amazing tanks and their infantry are both expensive and fragile.

For hybrids and footdar, personally I would include a lot of warwalkers. Those things are awesome and dirt cheap with double shuriken cannons.
Not quite sure why they have a spirit stone option, maybe a cross edition thing.

From what I hear, as I dont play them, the footdar play better at 1500-1850 points. As the points increase, I hear the effectiveness goes down. I would guess this is directly due to the amount of firepower they have to withstand at higher points.

No its not competitive. With the new dexs.and the mobility, firepower, and charge range footdar doesnt work.

Can a veteran player beat a noob with footdar? Yea.

Can footdar come close to winning a gt? No

Can you give me any advantages footdar has over anything?

Norbu the Destroyer wrote:From what I hear, as I dont play them, the footdar play better at 1500-1850 points. As the points increase, I hear the effectiveness goes down. I would guess this is directly due to the amount of firepower they have to withstand at higher points.

1850 is considered low? Jeeze... the times we live in today...

I find eldar's problem to be the lack of anything that's both scary and fast, scary and tough, and fast and tough, on foot. Footdar will have to wait for their next codex in 2014 when guardians become 6/model.

Yes Footdar are competitive. In fact I find Mechdar to be very suboptimal and only good against inferior lists. Wave Serpents are over costed and their cargo generally a waste of points. Because you have to spend so many points on serpents and their useless cargo, Mechdar never plays equal points against their opponent. Better to wait for a new Eldar codex with cheaper serpents. Proper Footdar have every unit engaged in the firefight and are much more subtle than Mechdar. Competitive Footdar is rare and the General good enough to play them even rarer.

Will they table opponents? Not often and that leads to their bad reputation.

One advantage? Not to be mean spirited, but there are many and this is one of the best. Doom + Guide means you won't write long batreps about how bad your dice are.

Domm + guide does mean blaming the dice less often.......the terrain on the other hand.....

I find that my foot-dar does pretty well at my local gaming, having won all 7 of my games. I run a 1000pt list with farseer with fortune and then 2 cheap units of dire avengers and then an avatar, 2 wraithlords and small squad of wraith guard and a seer council.

The short answer is "no."

terranarc wrote:Main reason for mechdar superiority is due to the fact that eldar have amazing tanks and their infantry are both expensive and fragile.

I find the opposite to be true. The tanks can be taken down by all of the firepower we see these days (Hydra Flak Tank, Long Fangs, Psyfleman Dreds) and as Darth Diggler said, they have to by a lot of points on units that do not do anything to unlock Wave Serpents, and to get scoring units.

Now foot eldar are rally cheap: Avatar, Warithlords, Guardians, and Jetbikes are undercosted. This lets you splurge on some more expensive units like Warp Spiders and War Walkers.

This problem that a lot of people have is that they do not know how to build a proper foot list and how it works. In a foot list all of the units have to work together, and if they do not you are in a lot of trouble. If you get that figured out you can do good things with them.

I think this is the first time I ever heard Guardians and a Wraithlord as being under costed...

I believe they can be competitive - when played like this I tend to see Harlequins up front to give the force a cover save without relying on terrain...

It can compete in GTs, but keep in mind there is no standardized GT format. Off the top of my head, I can think of three different GTs where this style army either won Overall or went undefeated and placed top 5 in our most recent GT season.

There are a whole lot of variables which can be extremely difficult to accurately factor at any given tournament. But, I don't think it is an overly easy army to win with when you see some of the other competitive army builds.

Try to combine MechDar with Jetbikes and you have a really devastating fast-moving force

With serpents being cited as over priced points wise I tried a footdar list past few times I've bothered playing 40k and the advice I'll gove comes from those games.

Take the avatar, that fearless bubble is invaluable.

Doom and guide seer is your friend.

Two small units of fire dragons are really needed to have reliable anti tank so your elite choices become limited.

Jetbikes for turboboosting to objectives very useful.

Warp spiders are fun, so many things have AV 10 to the rear.

I even found a place for a small unit of swooping hawks to add haywire fun into the mix, don't deep strike them, and it sucks when they all roll 1's and 2's for their to hit with the grenades.

Dual scatter laser war walkers with guide each turn makes your opponent wince.

Pathfinders in cover on any deployment zone objectives are brilliant.

Most importantly don't go along with anyone who says "well, we don#t really need a huge amount of scenery" chances are they are power armoured, a big mistake in my last game costing me many bodies of eldar. But meh, just make sure theres a lot of cover for your force to get the saves from.

Storm guardians are also fun, two flamers and a destructor lock in one, or one flamer, one melta works.

Found it best to try to have a lot of troop options, you will lose a lot of models, so have enough troops to take and hold objectives.

Did I mention warp spiders?

Wraithlords with lance weapons are also good, but easily tied up in melee by a canny opponent, take two flamers on them with their heavy weapons as it can help thin any potential assaulters before your WL charges them to finish them.

Blackmoor wrote:
I find the opposite to be true. The tanks can be taken down by all of the firepower we see these days (Hydra Flak Tank, Long Fangs, Psyfleman Dreds) and as Darth Diggler said, they have to by a lot of points on units that do not do anything to unlock Wave Serpents, and to get scoring units.

Now foot eldar are rally cheap: Avatar, Warithlords, Guardians, and Jetbikes are undercosted. This lets you splurge on some more expensive units like Warp Spiders and War Walkers.

This problem that a lot of people have is that they do not know how to build a proper foot list and how it works. In a foot list all of the units have to work together, and if they do not you are in a lot of trouble. If you get that figured out you can do good things with them.

So... can I get a peek at your footdar list?

MIKEtheMERCILESS wrote:I think this is the first time I ever heard Guardians and a Wraithlord as being under costed...

Same...

Guardians to me are I4 guardsmen minus the things that make guardsmen awesome at twice the price. And the fact that their super expensive artillery platforms are BS3 just makes it worse.

Avatar is certainly undercosted for its potential and one Wraithlord isn't usually worth his points, but 3 of them certainly are.

And while guardians are certainly not worth their points model-per-model, in a foot eldar list they can work wonders what with being fearless and having 20 shuriken shots(assuming squads of 10) at a 12" range means they can't get assaulted by anything without fleet or open-topped transport without turning into a pincushion.

I think that's what Blackmoor was pointing at...in a vacuum, Guardians, Wraithlords and even Guardian jetbikes are overcosted, but in proper synergy with the rest of the army(mainly due to Avatar fearless bubble and Farseer psychic powers) they can quickly become well-worth their investment.

Araenion wrote:
And while guardians are certainly not worth their points model-per-model, in a foot eldar list they can work wonders what with being fearless and having 20 shuriken shots(assuming squads of 10) at a 12" range means they can't get assaulted by anything without fleet or open-topped transport without turning into a pincushion.

Is there anything doing assaults that isn't one of those (or Jump Infantry)?

Alright, let’s talk a little about Footdar basics.

Lets start with the HQ.
First up is Eldrad. The reason why is not only does he have every psychic power (which means that you can us the right power at the right time), but he can cast 3 of them. Doom, Guide and Fortune are what makes your army work. Not only that but he is hard to kill and not to bad in assault. A regular Farseer can work in a pinch, but Eldrad is way better in a foot list. And speaking of fortune…

Next up is the Avatar. This guys adds a lot to your army. He fights just about as well as a bloodthirster in assault, has a melta gun for vehicles, and the most important thing is that he has a fearless bubble around him to keep everyone from running. Add Fortune to him and he is one of the hardest things to kill in the game.

Elites
I like harlequins here. The reason why is that you need counter-assault. The avatar is good, but he will not cut it alone. There are two reasons why you want Harlies. #1. They are one of the best assault units in the game hands down. #2, They can just sit behind your guardian bubble wrap and you will never have to worry about them being shot unlike the other assault units that are in the Eldar codex. Assault armies come in and hit your cheap guardians and kill them, and then you counter-attack with the clowns. Works like a charm.

Troops
Guardians! Yes in a vacuum Guardians are bad, but when you Doom your opponents, they become better, and with Guide even better. To give you an example, with the above bonus’s they will do 11.5 wounds to MEQs which is 4 dead marines which is not too shabby, and more to other races. Multiply this by several squads and good things happen. Also they can move and shoot a heavy weapon which is nice but let’s face it, no one ever shoots at guardians so they survive a lot, but they are there for bubble wrapping. Someone charges, kills them (does a lot of wounds, and no retreat from fearless takes out the rest) and then you unload into them with your short range shooting and then assault what is left.

Dire Avengers. Everyone knows about them. They are like guardians on steroids.

Heavy Support
Wraithlords. They really do it all. I give them Missile Launchers and Bright Lances and they are the vehicle killers. Add in 2 flamers for anti-horde is a nice bonus and they are good in assault too.

War Walkers. What is bad about scatter lasers shooting 24 strength 6 shots?

Everyone though miixs and matches around units for there own playstyle. I have seen people use Wraithguard for troops, Murgan Ra as an HQ, and use the Wraithlords as the only counter-assault, etc, so there are still a lot of builds that you can do with the foot eldar and not one right way of building your list.

Let me piggy back on what Blackmoor said.

Doom and Guide are what makes the Footdar list work. It's really that simple. Doom + Guide makes BS 3 Guardians shoot better then Marines. Give it to something better, like Dire Avengers or Warp Spiders, and you can take down tough units.

The Footdar work around 5th editions 4+ cover saves. Your 8pt guardian will get it and all your weapons don't care if the enemy has it. Doom + Guide torrents units off the table no matter what their save is.

Most lists work to maximize their anti-tank weapons because you mostly see tanks on the tabletop. Footdar moves away from this and makes most anti-tank weapons less effective. What is the definition of frustrating? It's when the twin-linked Lazorback is frying one guardian a turn.

I've begun to come around to the Harlequins. You can attach Eldrad to them and he becomes almost untargetable from shooting. The Harlies grant your Footdar list a mobile 4+ cover save to follow behind when you need it.

I think things are looking up for footdar. Last year DoA BA and leafblower IG were very popular builds in the tournament scene. Footdar are poorly equipped to deal with DoA and leafblower. Now that DE and GK have entered the scene DoA & leafblower have become less common, and footdar are better equipped to deal with DE and GK than they are DoA and leafblower. Slight changes in the meta can make an older codex build more viable without an update to the actual old codex.

I find that in order for footdar to be competitive you have to hamstring yourself to using only certain units at the expense of all others. The most successful build I have seen is the "wratihwall' variant, basically heavy on the wraithguard and wraithlords. I've had some success with maxed out warpspiders, but in general I find the Eldar's lack of easily accessible long range anti-tank weaponry to be the footdar lists ultimate downfall.

In regards to the "outplaying the meta" commentary I've seen some people throw around, with the shift in peoples anti-tank preferences to missile launcher and auto cannon type weapons, I can't say that the footdar list will outplay the anti-mech lists by invalidating their weapon loadout. If anything, the abundance of frag missiles and multi-shot ap4 weapons really put a rain on my parade.

As for doom and guide, while useful, I prefer the effects of fortune, especially in games where I'm going to be babysitting an objective.

chaos0xomega wrote:As for doom and guide, while useful, I prefer the effects of fortune, especially in games where I'm going to be babysitting an objective.

It's easy to say Eldrad can cast all three in one turn, which he can, but realistically the short range of Guide and Fortune severely limit their options as far as units go.

Blackmoor wrote: interesting stuff

Aren't shuriken catapults like 18" range? If you're hugging cover for that 4+ save, how will you also be in range? And if eldrad is with the guardians sitting on an objective then the rest of your army are basically standalone. If big EL is on the front lines, then your objective holders will be lacking.
This is assuming that the 2 objectives are farther than 18" from each other.
Dire avengers will also have range issues as you'd have to get them close to the enemy squads before doing that doubletap thing.
Also, doesn't fortune affect only 1 squad? Assuming you have more than 1 guardian squad, I would just shoot the other; or more realistically, shoot the things that are a threat and less fortunate like harlies and warwalkers.

I'm very skeptical over footdar still but I would certainly love to play against it. It sounds very interesting and I don't think I've ever seen anyone run footdar before.
On that note... can I see your list this time? Just out of curiosity as to what they look like.

Avenger Shurikens are 18" range, you know the fancy ones the Dire Avengers get. The Shuriken Catapult that the Guardians (civilians) get are only 12" range.

Guardian shuriken catapults are range 12, BS3. Dire avenger catapults are range 18, BS4. Both kinds are str4, AP5, assault 2, so they always doubletap if they're in range.

Eldrad can put fortune on up to two units per turn (he uses 3 powers each turn, 2 of which can be the same power).

IMO the difference between a foot eldar and a mech eldar army is not necessarily so much in the durability or firepower, but mainly in the maneuverability. If you walk your foot army into the wrong place on the table, you can't redeploy 24"-36" away in turn 5 like you can with a mech army.

Shadowseer_Kim wrote:Avenger Shurikens are 18" range, you know the fancy ones the Dire Avengers get. The Shuriken Catapult that the Guardians (civilians) get are only 12" range.

My goodness that's horrible. Why would you ever bother with non-storm guardians? If you can shoot, you might as well assault.

EDIT: stupid stupid stupid. Move THEN shoot. 18" total. Ignore my stupidity.

Oh but on that note, having to move and shoot means getting out of cover. It doesn't see like a very good idea either way.

@ Terranarc. You can't shoot Harlies as long as they have a Shadowseer. Or at least you only 2d6*2 detection range, which is 24" at best (where, granted, it's nice), 4" at worse (where you're seriously in for a beating), and 14" at average (which is pretty guaranteed to get your ass assaulted next turn).
Also, you would never fortune guardians. You need fortune for the Avatar.
And on the objectives: I'm pretty sure you wouldn't camp out that much. Take a few jetbikes instead and... granted their survival, turbo boost them to objectives late in the game. Staying within 24" of an objective shouldn't be that hard.