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I have a problem with variation in my lists. They all use 2 x 10 dire avengers in a wave serpent because none of the other troops seem to perform near as well in a mech list. I wanted to discuss the ideas of using other troops in a mech list if there are any. What troops do you think could be used besides dire avengers in a mech list?

I run a full mech Eldar list and love the hell out of them. Now that thats out of the way...

Take a look at Storm Guardians with a Warlock attached to them. Give the warlock a Destructor and the Guardians 2x Flamers. This is a great unit to fly up behind your fire dragons towards some units camped out in cover. They shouldn't take to much fire because of the immediate threat being the Dragons. I have found gun line units sitting in cover a HUGE pain in the ass to take care of. Storm Guardians solve this problem with ease...3 flame templates KUNG POW!!!

Also, consider dropping your DA squads down to 5. This just allows you to get extra Wave Serpents which is always a sweet thing to have on the table.

Hope this helped a bit.

How many hits do you normally get with your flamers on the storm guardian squad.

I love my tri-flamer Stormies. I can get 6-8 hits per Flamer without taking unnecessary risk. Anything with a 5+ sv has no chance, but it'll even put a dent in MEQs too. Against dev squads and tacticals they can even assault and win afterward depending on the unit sizes.

Recently I've also been playing an unconventional list with some Rangers and empty Falcons. Mid-game or if the Rangers get closed in on, I drive over and pick them up then take them to objectives if the time is right. It's been effective and very fun.

Yeah Stormies can be really great. I would never run more than 2 squads of them though. They get a little expensive and I'm all about maxing out grav tanks.

With the Stormies AND Dragons, your essentially rushing with 5 tanks. That's a bit scary for your opponent and can buy your DAs/Heavy Support time to get their shooting in. Its a win win IMO

To me the two main options for competitive Mechdar are:

5 Avengers, naked - usually known as DAVU. You put them in a Serpent or even better a Holo-field Falcon and you get a durable and (for Eldar) cheap scoring unit. No point changing this config round at all since they should never be getting out and are already Ld9 so the Exarch does nothing.

10 Storm Guardians, 2 Flamers, Warlock with Destructor. Easily the best damage dealing option Eldar have in their Troops (outside of the Serpents themselves of course), they aren't quite as durable as Avengers and have to get closer to be effective (which in practice is rarely an issue with a Serpent), but due to the prevalence of cover Avengers really aren't that impressive against infantry. Assuming 5 hits per flamer (which is pretty conservative when you factor in how common it is from infantry to be right next to wrecked vehicles + your ability to tank shock to group models up) Tri Flamer Guardians average the exact same number of kills against MEQ as a full unit of Bladestorming Avengers. However against anything with a 4+ save or worse the Flamers become much more effective than the Avengers because they bypass cover (which is everywhere). The Storm Squad clearly has a much higher damage potential as well, since you can easily get 10+ hits from the Flamers in good situations, which puts them miles ahead of the Avengers. You also have to factor in that it has 8 meatshields (which can die without really impacting the squads ability to do damage), hits harder in combat with 2 attacks per model and can actually threaten vehicles slightly with the Witchblade on the Warlock. All this from an unit which costs at least 40pts less than a full Avenger unit, and considering that Eldar units very rarely last a turn outside of a transport in any case it certainly makes more sense to suicide a 120pt unit rather than a 160pt unit. In practice S6 shooting can fill the same role as Avengers better, from longer (safer) ranges and on a more durable platform, whereas Flamers give you a way to remove units hiding in cover which you can't really get anywhere else in the codex.

As Bad_Sheep mentioned the issue is that Storm Guardians, and by extension large Bladestorming Avenger units (which I don't recommend but many people still use) take up a big chunk of your points, which can really limit the number of scoring units you take or force you to cut something you probably need from your elites/heavy to get the number of scoring units you ideally want. Basically I would always try and take a mix of DAVU and Storm Squads so you can still fit 3-4 scoring units in, only DAVU can work (you just have no damage output from your troops at all), but all Storm Squads is just too expensive.

I guess I'll try out some storm guardians. How do you normally load them out to make them 40pts less than dire avengers?