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Managed to play a game today with a few new units.
Took the Phoenix and shadow spectres out.
The shadow spectres were great but are easily priority 1 for opponents to deal with. Still, if they are left unimpeded they have a scary amount of firepower. Especially when soulbursting.
The phoenix was ok. I probably was a not precise enough with its movement to make sure the target it wanted to shoot was closest. But 16 wounds is very nice and it has a lot of firepower.

The hemlock is still scarily good. its a conundrum for the opponent especially with conceal where it can suck up a whole lot of firepower but if left unchecked it will wreck whatever it targets.

What do you guys think about the differences in wording for morale buffing abilities of Khaine and Yncarne?

 Shadenuat wrote:
What do you guys think about the differences in wording for morale buffing abilities of Khaine and Yncarne?

I guess technically you roll the dice for morale tests with the Yncarne but the test is automatically passed so you don't lose models. Are there any rules or psychic powers that require morale tests and don't rely on a pass/fail system for an effect?

Wyldcarde wrote:
The hemlock is still scarily good. its a conundrum for the opponent especially with conceal where it can suck up a whole lot of firepower but if left unchecked it will wreck whatever it targets.

Sadly the Hemlock cannot Conceal itself. Conceal can only target Infantry and Bikers. I would probably go for Horrify in order to stack Leadership debuffs.

It absolutely can, and it's even an '3 inch aura. Read Conceal wording again.

 Karhedron wrote:

Wyldcarde wrote:
The hemlock is still scarily good. its a conundrum for the opponent especially with conceal where it can suck up a whole lot of firepower but if left unchecked it will wreck whatever it targets.

Sadly the Hemlock cannot Conceal itself. Conceal can only target Infantry and Bikers. I would probably go for Horrify in order to stack Leadership debuffs.

As Shadenaut said, the power affect the psyker AND units around it with these unit types. The condition is never stated to apply to the own psyker.

Martel732 wrote:


Just a little suffering. It's good for you. We can broadly define suffering as having to bring weapons other than D weapons and scatterlasers. And maybe not having a criminally undercosted unit in every slot of the force org. Maybe even some fragile units. I thought Eldar were supposed to be a least a LITTLE fragile. But nope, they aren't. Of course, I'd have actually have to have models to shoot back at Eldar to see if they were fragile or not.

You, sir, are a douchebag. I don't want anyone to suffer, nor daemons players, nor SM players with razorback spam. I don't want anyone to have to play harder to achieve a win than any other. We should all be at the same level, or at least look forward to that and not making a comunity pay for past GW mistakes, of which players are not responsible for. I have played Eldar for 21 years, since 2nd edition, but I skipped 7th as I hated it, so I should pay for that? What about my Chaos, should I then get free wins at a tournament just for showing due to how bad they have been for the last 5 editions?

Please grow up and look for a healthy community. We should all be feeding to improve bad armies even if it's not ours, and nerf things like gillyman.

What Aspect Warriors are people finding decent and reliable use of? Currently I am seeing a lot of Serpents and Wraiths in lists, but not much Aspect stuff.

Fire Dragons are still good as they were, although you'd better take around 7 or more for reliability.
Reapers are the new black - with their ability to ignore penalties to shooting and solid damage from both types of missiles, they pop around in tournament lists all the time in my meta.

I also played Spears, Spiders and Hawks. Spears have tremendous potential in Ynnari army, but even fortune'd they do suffer from D2 weapons and their price tag. Spiders I still fail to use right and I play them since 4th edition 'dex. I guess next time I am going to just borrow fish of fury tactic from Tau and run them behind line of charging Serpents filled with dragons and melee stuff.
Hawks... surprisingly are good if they have actual target - like 3T stuff with low save but huge amount of wounds, I played them once and 170 pts squad killed at least 250 enemy points or more.
Only one I don't know about much are Scorpions. On paper, they are actually effective against things like terminators - 3-4 models with good save and no more than 2 wounds, since it's possible to do 2 mortal wounds every phase with a squad of 10 + in cover they hit on 2 and with Biting blade it doesn't matter if model has 2+ or 3++. But eh, that 9 inch charge after infiltration... maybe just pack them in Serpent too.

And I guess I'll just leave this guy's post from other forum here:

 Karhedron wrote:

Wyldcarde wrote:
The hemlock is still scarily good. its a conundrum for the opponent especially with conceal where it can suck up a whole lot of firepower but if left unchecked it will wreck whatever it targets.

Sadly the Hemlock cannot Conceal itself. Conceal can only target Infantry and Bikers. I would probably go for Horrify in order to stack Leadership debuffs.

Could people start reading the rules instead of doing a quick read and asume things from 7th as this is very clear? Also please read the whole topic as this has been answered a few times before.

From my experiences so far
Dire avengers: overcosted for what they bring, but solid.
Reapers: scary amount of shooting but expensive and fragile.
Fire dragons: benefit from more survivable wave serpents as well as being able to drop opponent vehicles in one salvo.
Scorpions: expensive for the amount of attacks they dish out but deep striking is handy
Swooping Hawks: deep striking is handy and good verses hordes which means they earn a consideration.
Warp spiders: not as OP as 7th ed but still good. 3+ save and -1 to hit is great and manouverable, but short ranged weapons puts them in danger.
Howling banshees: have some very handy combat buffs available but Str 3 hurts them. A lot better than they have been though.
Shining spears: a lot of changes have benefited them this edition so they are usable. High priority target due to their damage potential but 4+ inv and 2 wounds help them marginally in this.
Crimson hunters: fliers are good.

With different psychic buffs and Phoenix lord auras they each get varying degrees better. But that's my take so far.

I've been eyeballing things loosely from over here. I have the *parts* for an Eldar army that I never got around to assembling, and a few ideas, but one of my fav units are Dire Avengers, due to them being the main soldiery of the Eldar, and it seems like they're not doing so good just now. The general thought I see is that their fine in terms of offense and more or less durability, but are overcosted. I'm curious as to how much that is? I see 17 a model for non-Exarchs, but I'm curious what cost you think would be appropriate.

In addition, the one thing it seems that the force is lacking is some kind of durable point-taking trooper. Someone like Tactical Marines who can just sit on a point, hunker down, and it's going to take surprising levels of firepower to dislodge them. Eldar are more scot n shoot then stand firm, so what do you use in that role of take and HOLD, rather than just sweeping people away with concentrated firepower?

Reapers and Dragons are my go to specialist units. i run a squad of 5 reapers, always in ruins. The 2+ they get keeps them plenty survivable, and the damage out put is just amazing. Always hitting on 3+ is great as well, really sticks it to flyers.

Fire Dragons, just nasty. Played against a monster Tau list the other day. They rode up in a Serpent, jumped out, and nuked a Riptide. Got back in, rode further up the table, and nuked a storm surge. Got back in, rode right up to the HQ, and nuked him.

I'm loving Eldar this edition. Glad I didn't listen to all the nay sayers at the beginning. I almost shelved them.

Wakshaani wrote:
I've been eyeballing things loosely from over here. I have the *parts* for an Eldar army that I never got around to assembling, and a few ideas, but one of my fav units are Dire Avengers, due to them being the main soldiery of the Eldar, and it seems like they're not doing so good just now. The general thought I see is that their fine in terms of offense and more or less durability, but are overcosted. I'm curious as to how much that is? I see 17 a model for non-Exarchs, but I'm curious what cost you think would be appropriate.

The Dire Avengers are 10ppm plus 7ppm for their ASC. GW separated the price like this so that other units do not have to pay differing costs for the same weapons, except that only the DA use ASC. Really, the DA should be around 14-15ppm, and the ASC should be 0ppm, given the current listbuilding method.

Here's a fun fact though, a DA Exarch with power glaive and shuriken pistol is 14 points. Weird.

I think the main thing to understand about Dire Avengers is that, like other Aspect Warriors, all you're getting from them is the thing that the basic guy does, so they have to be really good at that. They're not like tactical marines where it's fine that a naked marine is somewhat overcosted by himself because they function as ablative wounds for better guns. I mean, nobody's taking naked tactical marine squads and judging that adding a special or heavy weapon just isn't worth the cost. Guardian Defenders are also supposed to work this way -- you're supposed to be taking the Guardians over the Avengers because you value the heavy weapon and want cheap wounds around it. So I think the starting point for coming up with an appropriate cost for Dire Avengers is understanding that standard Dire Avengers should be significantly more appealing than naked Marines (which no one thinks are worth their points) or Guardians without heavy weapons.

I think they'd be playable at 12 per model, depending on what happens with the Exarch. Ignoring the Exarch you would probably still rather just have Guardians in your Serpents, and Avengers still wouldn't be appealing enough to take on foot outside of something weird like Asurmen and 100 Avengers. Guardians would still be 50% shootier within 12" and at least 12% more durable against everything. But if the Exarch isn't paying anything for the extra catapult, then minimum squads of Avengers start looking like a good way to take cheap Serpents, if that's what you want to do.

I suspect they were playtested at 10 (and that this is why playtesters seemed to think they were pretty good). That feels like a pretty aggressive price which would make them a very strong choice as the backbone of a footslogging or mechanized Eldar list. It's worth noting that that's still more expensive than a Battle Sister with a 3+/6++ save, a bolter, and ablative wound functionality.

I guess I trip up on the fluff side, where Guardians are average, every day Eldar who are gathered up, take old gear out of storage, and go, "Well, I've been a baker for 80 years, but I used to be an Aspect Warrior, three lifepaths ago. I guess I can go catch bullets if it's that important..." For a dying race, tossing the civilians out there always sat wrong with me, so, Dire Avengers, and the other aspects, always clicked as the way Eldar were *supposed* to fight.

I understand that it's not as sound mechanically, but that's where my brain is.

Would DA's be broken at 12 points? You're paying for the 18" Shuriken Catapults and +1 save, which isn't *much* better, but -s- better. You trade off a heavy platform for an Exarch, then top it all off with impressive Overwatch skills. But 17 seems far too high for that while 10 seems too low. Finding that sweet spot's a challenge.

So ive been wanting to make a jetbike list for a couple editions but they have been a little unfriendly in our groups games in past editions, but looking at all the eldar, dark eldar, and harliquin stuff i was thinking about finally starting them.

my question is this, guardian jet bikes vs skyweaers, where would you make your core around for a jetbike list? and with all that speed would it be worth going ynnari and loosing there respective ability for soulburst?

lordtaco wrote:
So ive been wanting to make a jetbike list for a couple editions but they have been a little unfriendly in our groups games in past editions, but looking at all the eldar, dark eldar, and harliquin stuff i was thinking about finally starting them.

my question is this, guardian jet bikes vs skyweaers, where would you make your core around for a jetbike list? and with all that speed would it be worth going ynnari and loosing there respective ability for soulburst?

If you are looking for ynnari I like the corsair cloud dancers with splinter cannons. We have a lot of fast moving anti vehicle but not much anti infantry. The splinter cannon is amazing at anti infantry and the corsair jetbikes have an 18" move so are very fast without the battle focus running and they lose nothing from becoming ynnari.

Addmitedly shuriken bikes are very cheap compared to them and also make a solid choice. Another rising favourite is shinning spears which while very expensive keep a 3+/4++ And hit very hard.

Wakshaani wrote:
I guess I trip up on the fluff side, where Guardians are average, every day Eldar who are gathered up, take old gear out of storage, and go, "Well, I've been a baker for 80 years, but I used to be an Aspect Warrior, three lifepaths ago. I guess I can go catch bullets if it's that important..." For a dying race, tossing the civilians out there always sat wrong with me, so, Dire Avengers, and the other aspects, always clicked as the way Eldar were *supposed* to fight.

The Guardian units are just a militia to "guard" a Craftworld under assault. They aren't professional soldiers. Seeing them on the battlefield is basically like what happens when Britain in WW1 ran out of troops. Except odds are that these guys have fought before, and know what they're doing..

No sane Autarch looks at his Craftworld and thinks to himself, "Man, I could really do with a squad of soldiers consisting of a butcher, a baker and a candlestick maker..." even if those guys came with the Eldar equivalent of a Maxim gun.

 Selym wrote:

Wakshaani wrote:
I guess I trip up on the fluff side, where Guardians are average, every day Eldar who are gathered up, take old gear out of storage, and go, "Well, I've been a baker for 80 years, but I used to be an Aspect Warrior, three lifepaths ago. I guess I can go catch bullets if it's that important..." For a dying race, tossing the civilians out there always sat wrong with me, so, Dire Avengers, and the other aspects, always clicked as the way Eldar were *supposed* to fight.

The Guardian units are just a militia to "guard" a Craftworld under assault. They aren't professional soldiers. Seeing them on the battlefield is basically like what happens when Britain in WW1 ran out of troops. Except odds are that these guys have fought before, and know what they're doing..

No sane Autarch looks at his Craftworld and thinks to himself, "Man, I could really do with a squad of soldiers consisting of a butcher, a baker and a candlestick maker..." even if those guys came with the Eldar equivalent of a Maxim gun.

Right right, exactly why I get twitchy about fielding them. They seem like a desperation deployment, not a standard fighting force, and certainly nothing that you'd use for a mission that was, you know, "Recon in force" or the like. Thus my view that, whenever possible, I should be using Aspects to fight. I dunno. Again, I'm weird. But with that in mind, if the DA would drop in points cost to, say, 12 or 13 (13'd be the same as a Tactical marine) then I'd be pretty dang happy. They're what I want to form the backbone of my force, so...

Titanicus wrote:

lordtaco wrote:
So ive been wanting to make a jetbike list for a couple editions but they have been a little unfriendly in our groups games in past editions, but looking at all the eldar, dark eldar, and harliquin stuff i was thinking about finally starting them.

my question is this, guardian jet bikes vs skyweaers, where would you make your core around for a jetbike list? and with all that speed would it be worth going ynnari and loosing there respective ability for soulburst?

If you are looking for ynnari I like the corsair cloud dancers with splinter cannons. We have a lot of fast moving anti vehicle but not much anti infantry. The splinter cannon is amazing at anti infantry and the corsair jetbikes have an 18" move so are very fast without the battle focus running and they lose nothing from becoming ynnari.

Addmitedly shuriken bikes are very cheap compared to them and also make a solid choice. Another rising favourite is shinning spears which while very expensive keep a 3+/4++ And hit very hard.

im honestly not too big of a fan of the eldar corsairs stuff from forgeworld, more interested in what could make a good list with out them.

I have about 50 Dire Avengers and have yet to find an edition that motivates to finish painting them. I really want to field a mostly DA list. I love the models.

Looking at a vacuum I like DA to be 12 or 13 points compared to what you get from a tac marine. I do concede that they can play better with ynarri or craftworld buffs/psychics so perhaps 14. 15 and I still prob wont field more than 1 unit

Here is a fun fact. The shuriken catapult for guardians/Avengers used to have the same range as a storm bolter, the chance to roll as many shots and -2 save vs the -1 for storm bolter. Then 3rd ed came along and nuked the fave weapon of Imperial characters that could take Shuriken Catapults.{they were rare, but a mainline battle weapon found its way into many inquisitors/governor's armories through trade or the black market

Dire Avebgers are 5-7 points over. They should clearly not be more expensive than tactical marines.
Shining Spears can't be praised enough, their shooting is awesome albeit short ranged, their charge is brutal and thanks to the fly keyword they can disengage and do it all over.
Their survivability is as good as it gets for Eldar, especially with tje 4++ against shooting.
Warlocks are an often overlooked asset. They are dirt cheap. Slightly hampered by the rules you can try to cast each power just once but there's some awesomw buffs and debuffs to be had.

I'm going to be playing in a Power Level tournament soon which is annoying but a great excuse to use Dire Avengers. They are massively over costed in points but their power level equates to about 120pts which is much more reasonable.

Yes warlocks are great.
The can't cast the same power more than once is mitigated slightly by the other side of the power not counting as the same power. So having 2 warlocks with conceal or enhance isn't wasted as they can still cast reveal or drain which are both great powers.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

Moosatronic Warrior wrote:
I'm going to be playing in a Power Level tournament soon which is annoying but a great excuse to use Dire Avengers. They are massively over costed in points but their power level equates to about 120pts which is much more reasonable.

Yep. Their power level seems to count their avenger catapaults as free which would honestly make sense. At 12 points per model they would be a decent choice. There is no way they fit to the power level rating they have been given at 17 points per model. Which is odd.

Guardian Defender weapon platforms... are they actually worth the points? At least Shuriken cannon.

The breakdown - you pay 25 points pet shuriken cannon in the squad. Because you need 1 guardian to operate it (and he can't shoot while doing it), platform costs extra points and then there is the price of actual SC.
For that price you can have 3 basic guardians with catapults.

my question is this, guardian jet bikes vs skyweaers, where would you make your core around for a jetbike list? and with all that speed would it be worth going ynnari and loosing there respective ability for soulburst?

For a small list (1000 pts) I use Farseer on Bike with Fortune&Doom, 9 windriders or Shining Spears, and add up either 2 small units of bikes, or 1+1 Vyper (Outrider, 3 FA). The rest is for Crimson Hunter, or preferably Crimson Hunter + Hemlock to Conceal the bikes.

Just know that bikes are a lot more fragile than they were, so you want to use something else to tank for them as points go up and your chance to alpha strike the enemy before he strikes you goes down (like transports, etc.)

Ynnari, all the way. Speed allows using SfD better than slower armies.

I have never liked the fluff about the Shuricat from 3rd ed onwards. It makes no sense to arm militia with the equivalent of a machine pistol. If you look at countries that do have militia like Switzerland, they are usually armed with a long-ranged rifle so that they can stand well back and plink at targets.

Rant over!

In all seriousness, if you want Troop units on foot, I think you might be better off playing Ynnari and taking Kabalite warriors as your basic infantry. Slightly cheaper than Guardians, similar stats but come with a 24" range Rapid Fire gun that wounds all non-vehicle targets on a 4+.

Guardians work well as cheap fillings for Wave Serpents as they are well protected until the leap and shoot 20+ shurcat shots + a heavy weapon.

Guardians and Dire Avengers both have almost the same stats as 7th edition. Guardians cost 8 points in both editions yet Avengers have leapt from 12 to 17 points. IMHO, Avengers would be fine priced at 12 points. There is nothing to justify them costing more than Marines and certainly not almost as much as Vanguard Veterans.

I think the weapon platforms are costed appropriately relative to, say, Marine heavy weapons. A platform and a bright lance together are 25 points, and you need an 8 point Guardian to shoot one. A Marine with a Lascannon is 38 points. Neither is that appealing of a choice -- this is why you see Marines more commonly taking special weapons like plasma or melta guns. They don't strike me as terrible options for stand-and-shoot objective holders, but with how easy it is to deep strike or just move really far in 8th you need something more durable for this.

If you're taking a heavy weapon you should basically always be taking one of the expensive ones, though. Yes, shuriken cannons are assault but you would generally rather have the extra Guardians instead. Now, if Defenders had Storm Guardians' special weapon options we'd be in business.

Shuriken Catapults never worked for Guardians, for me. They used to have Lasguns, waaaaayyy back in the day, and something similar would be ideal today. Like:

Eldar Las-Spear: Range 36", Rapid Fire 1, S 3, Ap -, Dam 1

It's a real "Stay the heck away from the other guy with your precious Eldar body" type of weapon, better than an Imperial lasgun but not stomping on the design space of the Tau. Helps invoke the spear and bow of the Fantasy style Elves while still being appropriate for sci-fi Elves.

That leaves ShuriCats for Dire Avengers, where it makes sense, and some vehicles, where it works like a close-in MG on modern vehicles.

But, again, I'm weird, so.

Wakshaani wrote:
Shuriken Catapults never worked for Guardians, for me. They used to have Lasguns, waaaaayyy back in the day, and something similar would be ideal today. Like:

Eldar Las-Spear: Range 36", Rapid Fire 1, S 3, Ap -, Dam 1

It's a real "Stay the heck away from the other guy with your precious Eldar body" type of weapon, better than an Imperial lasgun but not stomping on the design space of the Tau. Helps invoke the spear and bow of the Fantasy style Elves while still being appropriate for sci-fi Elves.

That leaves ShuriCats for Dire Avengers, where it makes sense, and some vehicles, where it works like a close-in MG on modern vehicles.

But, again, I'm weird, so.

No, no, that's not weird. What's weird is how Eldar have always played with the mindset that "Right, I need to kill a unit. Where's my sacrificial squad of ____?"

Running away from combat, cheating with magic, and generally range-scumming is exactly how Eldar should play. Cowardly tricksy elves.
And I miss the pewpewlayzorz of the lasgun. Give that power to Guardians, and I'd be a happy chappie.