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Hey all I feel this might be the wrong place to post this but maybe not. I am starting an Eldar army. Happy about it and excited! How does the army in the box play comng out? Is it a good starter army to build off of?

Thanks,
Kenny

If you are starting up Eldar and have purchased no figures then save yourself a pile of money and purchase a 2nd hand army with 3-5 tanks in it. Starting up any GW army from retail pricing hurts... alot.

I would suggest doing what BlueDagger suggests and try and find a second hand army. If that doesn't work, look on ebay for 2 boxes of dire avengers, 2 wave serpents, and a farseer. Its a great starting point and you will use those models more than you would from the starter box.

Cool that's what I was looking for. So is the Farseer the best HQ to start with?

Thanks,
Kenny

I would say yes if you cast doom on a unit and then use the dire avenger ability bladestorm on it you will see why.
The Autarch is best in armies with elite/fast units or if you intend to deep strike.

The Farseer is great if accompanying a unit of dire avengers. Give him doom and guide, and you pretty much can effectively kill the majority of any infantry units (with a few exceptions - Terminators, Plague Marines, etc). The farseer is by no means the "BEST" hq choice, but he's not the worst. I personally feel Eldrad Ulthran is the best, but others may feel differently.

Give them the Wave serpents and they have a very reliable, fast, and versatile ride to go in too.

After you have your first few purchases and you get your games in, then look to expanding. Warhammer armies aren't a sprint to the finish. It takes time and patience to learn the intricacies of the game and to get a feel for your army.

So after you do all that, its time to start looking at support units. I would suggest Fire Dragons, another wave serpent, and 2 fire prisms. The fire prisms are fantastic at killing infantry and can beat down tanks. The fire dragons, are really good at killing tanks and downing high toughness creatures. The tricky part to the fire dragons is that their gun is such short range that they have a tendancy of getting assaulted or shot full of holes after they kill their target.

A lot of the replies above are sending you down the "Mechdar" route, this is an Eldar army with lots of tanks, everything mounts up in a tank and zips off.
This however isnt the only type of Eldar army you can play (you can play one where everything is on foot, if you have the cash do one where you have lots of tough guys, backed up with psykers etc) and each tank is....expensive cash-wise.

Imo the army box is pretty good value for money, you get two basic troop choices, a tank should you wish to "mech" up and a walker (currently WW are quite strong units).
Add the Farseer boxed HQ, breaking 100 quid but you now have a playable battleforce.

However Ebay is definetly a good option too.

I bought the Eldar starter army box. Have to agree its a good starting point, at least give you feel for the army. Is it tournament competitive army out of the box? No, but you should be able to have fun with your friends after you buy a HQ.

eh, ymmv

When I started playing Eldar a few years ago I went out with a pretty solid list. I still got my ass beat pretty soundly for a while until I could get my head wrapped around how the codex works. That said, I started with the Battle force, and its really not a bad deal. The problem is that 5 is a kind of awkward number for DA- especially if you are planning on running a full squad. The guardians are also fairly worthless in a mech list, and the Wave Serpent isn't very good in a foot list.

Anyway, this is the cheapest way I can think of to start an Eldar army that is capable on the table.

Here is a solid 500 point list that will preform well on the table and be easy on your wallet (for eldar)

(75) Farseer- Guide

(85) 10 Guardians- shuri cannon
(100) Wave Serpent- tl shuri cannon

(60) 5 Dire Avengers

(135) Falcon- Missile

(40) War Walker- 2x shuri cannon

Total: 495

Put the Farseer and Avengers in the Falcon, and shoot away. Make sure you magnetize your weapons, because as you start playing bigger games you'll want to upgrade shuri cannons to scatter lasers.

This would give you a strong start to a mechanized army (which is probably the strongest eldar build right now) and would require

1 Battle Force
1 Farseer blister (for obligatory HQ)
1 Falcon (to give your 5 Avengers a ride)

Alternately you can just grab a second Wave Serpent instead of a Falcon, and get basically the same result.

In around 3-6 months I'll be making my Eldar force (after I do my cheerful tiny tau army) and I fully intend to make that a decently sized force by buying a farseer w/ warlocks box, 3 battleforces and probably a wraithlord or two (cos you know.. wraithlords look awesome ) ( and I already have a squad of Harlequins from my DE force I can field too)

But I mean, that gives you a HQ, 3 Warlocks, 30 guardians (with 3 support platforms), 15 Dire Avengers, 3 Wave Serpents (which I feel are damn fine tanks) and a squad of 3 warwalkers. Throw in 1-2 Wraithlords (and some harlequins in my case) and that's both a decent starting army, and a great base force to expand on later.

Ok honestly I figure the battle force is a good call. I am looking for a very competitive list 1500 points. So with the starter box I figured I have the guardians and the gun platform probably best used to sit back and try to shoot targets. The walker... Is the walker a strong unit choice in this edition? The five DA and the Serpant.

So my question is what would be a good competitive list based off of this build for 1500, you don't need to be exact but some cool different options?

I really like Banshees and Dark Reapers maybe a wraith Gaurd.

Thanks,
Kenny

Foot-dar are okay. YMMV. I just see so many foot-slogging eldar lists get beaten pretty quickly and their players get annoyed by it. One of the key things about eldar are their speed. Their tanks are Fast, Skimmer, Tanks. And they can be tough. If you end up using alot of guardians, I would suggest an Avatar. He makes your troops Fearless so they won't break.

The Falcon with 5 DAVU inside is a great idea, perfect for holding your "home" objective point.

The War Walker unit is awesome. I suggest a full 3 walker unit with 2x Scatter Lasers. Tons of shots every turn.

Banshees are okay, but they are a target. In a foot-dar list, your opponent will pick them off in short order if they are smart. Banshees all have power weapons and are really good in CC, their only downfall is that without a transport, they get shot quickly and they only have Str and Toughness 3.

Dark Reapers are good because they can lay alot of fire onto your enemies, they can be points heavy though. They also take up your Heavy Support slots when you field them...I would prefer taking the war walkers, or a falcon for you 5 man DAVU squad, or Fire Prisms. Again, its your call though.

As for the Wraithguard, they are an amazing unit. I would love to own one. But sadly, they are a huge points sink and they cost alot of money to even buy. If you can find a great deal on ebay (less that $18 USD per model) then I wouldn't suggest buying them. You can do well without them. Plus, they are really slow.