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Troops win games. Fact. And in my opinion, the pointy-eared ones drew the short straw in the Troop department.

Personally, I have 2x3 Jetbikes, a Pathfinder squad and a small Dire Avenger squad. I fel I have made the most of a bad situation here... So Dakka, what do your Eldar troop choices consist of?

It depends on what you are trying to accomplish. I like 10-man DA with SS/PW Defend and Bladestorm. They put out a lot of firepower and are resilient in HTH.

10 Pathfinders - if you know you are going to face MC or termies, these are the answer...

10 Guardian Storms - awesome coming out of a vehicle.

5-man DA - When you want to spam transports.

10 Guardian Defenders- By far my least favorite choice but with an avatar, it can present a lot of firepower to an enemy.

7 bikes with a spearlock with embolden. All around bike unit.

4 bikes with spearlock with embolden. For objective grabbing and tank hunting.

The secret to all of these though is a farseer casting doom, sometimes guide or fortune in some cases.

I like Pathfinders, for the objective camping. But most of the time I go for 5-man Dire Avenger squads without Exarchs running around in Holo-field Falcons, or Wave Serpents.

I run 2 10 Strong units of DA's tooled and 2 5 Strong units of Pathfinders 90% off the time.

Pathfinders? Watch out for cover-save ignoring weapons.

For footdar guardians, for mechdar dire avengers.

n0t_u wrote:For footdar guardians, for mechdar dire avengers.

For footdar, I'd take Guardians (any coleur) walking in the fearlessness bubble of an Avatar. Attach a Warlock with conceal to each squad.

I run a combination of Storm Guardians and Dire Avengers in my mech lists. Dire Avengers shoot a unit that I plan to assault with the Storm Guardians, the Storm Guardian mitigate any return fire to the Dire Avengers by assaulting the threat, combined with their three possible flame templates and the unit is toast.

In my Footdar lists, I run 3 Defender Guardians, 2 Storm Guardians, and a unit of 10 Wraithguard. Everyong gets a Warlock for tank poppy goodness.

I never run Pathfinders. Ever.

At least Eldar have five troop choices - necrons have two, grey knights have two, and for BA, all the DC ones are not scoring.



For Eldar, 5 man DA squads in tanks and guardian jetbikes being the strongest , so I don't see any short straws...

severedblue wrote:At least Eldar have five troop choices - necrons have two, grey knights have two, and for BA, all the DC ones are not scoring.



For Eldar, 5 man DA squads in tanks and guardian jetbikes being the strongest , so I don't see any short straws...

Eldar have 4, Pathfinders are an upgrade to rangers, but yeah, it is better to things like Necrons and BA. Grey Knights don't seem to have the problem as much though due to Grand Strategy, or whatever that Grand Master/Draigo special rule is to allow you to make units scoring.

I think the main problem with Eldar though as far as force org is concerned is that most of their good units are tied up in the elites section

My 5 tropps were

DA
Guardians Defenders
Storm Guardians
Guardian jetbikes
Rangers / Pathfinders (as one entry)


Wraithguard can count as troops, but you need 10 of them and they're expensive in models and in points, so that's impractical. There are funny lists built around them though (get 10, put Eldrad and Karandras, +conceal warlock , then hide three metal dreadnaughts behind it)





I think a lot of the newer lists you can pay the "character tax" in order to make an elites into a troops choice. Like Dante or Baron Sarthonyx, or Crowe.

Eldar elites actually are not really great...

Fire Dragons are gold, many armies would give their left arm for a squad of mass meltas.

Harlequins are a bit expensive but are good value in other ways, particularly the Shadowseer's Veil of Tears and being able to use the flip belts.




But otherwise, Eldar CC is underwhelming, Wraithguard are underwhelming. The strength the Eldar have is the mobility of their vehicles, primarily, with better armour than DE vehicles. Their vehicles are expensive though so it's better to run them next to naked... remember for one vectored engine you can take 1.5 fire dragons. The interesting one to check with Eldar is whether you can use star engines to ram using your shop / tournament's rules.





I really do not like Necron troop choices... either cheap MEQ or expensive MEQ, with minimal squad options. Even though it's a better selection that the previous necron codex (which only had one crap troop choice) at least you could teleport that troop choice onto the objectives at the end of games... even though you had to keep them away from combat for the entire game. And the Tau... you HAVE to take a squad of FW, which should stay in their transport to avoid getting munched.

The armies with better troop selections are the ones with both a viable CC and a viable shooting choice. Fast ways of claiming objectives (e.g. Guardian Jetbikes) are also nice.

And vanilla space marines have similarly few choices, at least BA have Assault Marines as a troops choice. At least TAC squads have decent options.



Ultimately the value of any one unit comes down to what it can kill reliably, and in what volume (rolling lots of dice being better than rolling one or two dice).

That's why I don't like pathfinders. They rely on cover, they are static, and their sniper rifles only hit infantry squads reliably with a low volume of fire, which is exacerbated by being in a mech environment. On top of that, they get munched in CC. At best they are a distraction.

I'm really pleased that people use a lot of different troops. Not all of our troops slaughter their targets, but I feel they all have a place in some kind of army.

I suppose the least popular must be either Rangers or Guardian Defenders, but I personally like them both as long as they're played to their strengths. My Def Gs get played with either Scatter Lasers or with ShuCans. The former I use on the ground like many other players do, but the later are only 25 more points than a min DA unit and can ride in a Serpent shooting the rear armor of vehicles.

Rangers I like much better than Paths which I think are too expensive. I've even seen math somewhere that show Rangers doing more damage per point and they can always go to ground for the save boost. I put them near enough to objectives to run at them or I have Falcons in the army to pick them up. I find that if they sit on objectives they force the opponent to come down on them with flamers and CC. If they're only nearby they look less threatening and if the enemy does come at them they're not heading toward an objective so you're not feeding them a double win.

severedblue wrote:My 5 tropps were

Wraithguard can count as troops, but you need 10 of them and they're expensive in models and in points, so that's impractical. There are funny lists built around them though (get 10, put Eldrad and Karandras, +conceal warlock , then hide three metal dreadnaughts behind it)

Ah yes, forgot about those guys, good point.

severedblue wrote:Eldar elites actually are not really great...

Fire Dragons are gold, many armies would give their left arm for a squad of mass meltas.

Harlequins are a bit expensive but are good value in other ways, particularly the Shadowseer's Veil of Tears and being able to use the flip belts.

But neithers the rest of the codex, if you compare it to things like the Eldar fast attack slots, it is much better.

Striking Scorpions are ok for against horde armies, and are decent for things like capture and control as the fact that they can outflank with 3+ armour allows them to pummell most deckchair units, but for anything else, yeah not great.

Like you said, Fire Dragons are great, enough said.

Wraithguard used to be pretty good, you have to remember that this is a codex written mid-way through 4th edition, and for a while taking lots of wriathguard was a moderately popular choice, for 35 points you can get a T6 3+ save warrior with fearless, although that warlock is all but mandatory.

I actually really like Howling banshees, for 16 points you get a power weapon that strikes with 3 attacks at initiative 10 in the first round of a combat, with the possibility of reducing your opponent to WS1. Yes, they are fragile, but if you stuck them in a Wave Serpent and then jumped them out straight into a combat they can be brutal, but you do need to give the exarch an executioner simply for the added punch.

Harlequins, yeah maybe a little over-costed, but this is what happens when a codex gets older, plus you are right about needing to take a shadowseer, this saves you a lot of points as it means that you don't need to get a wave serpent in order to avoid being shot.

severedblue wrote:That's why I don't like pathfinders. They rely on cover, they are static, and their sniper rifles only hit infantry squads reliably with a low volume of fire, which is exacerbated by being in a mech environment. On top of that, they get munched in CC. At best they are a distraction.

Which oddly enough is why I like pathfinders/rangers. You don't take them for their sniper rifles, and so with normal rangers, you stick an objective in cover, move your pathfinders onto it, and go to ground with them, getting a 2+ cover save in most cases, for only 85pts, as a deckchair unit they become pretty difficult to shift without getting close to them, and with all of the shenanigans going on around your opponent, when they think about target priority, the rangers are not at the top of the list straight away.

Rampage wrote:But neithers the rest of the codex, if you compare it to things like the Eldar fast attack slots, it is much better.

I think the weakness is that Eldar units are not "generally good" or "must take"

farseer powers (esp on a jetbike). then fire dragons are a must take in mech, dire avengers are the best troop choice overall (even if you just leave them as 5 men min in a transport), and they both can be put in wave serpents, expensive but fast and resiliant. eldar heavy support comes next... falcons and fire prisms in one or more combinations. Or maybe war walkers for massed fire.

then you have leftover points for other things

that's the way things generally roll, unless you build a specialised list like a wraithstar

Point being the other units are quite specialised and need significant support / a list built around them to do anything well. Banshees have GEQ strength and toughness, for example, so other than their weapons ignoring armour save they need guide / doom to make up for their lack of MEQ str and toughness. If the unit was a better unit, it would be more useful in a min/max competitive list. When they revise the codex, hopefully they making languishing units, such as the FA choices, more viable.

Rampage wrote:
Striking Scorpions are ok for against horde armies, and are decent for things like capture and control as the fact that they can outflank with 3+ armour allows them to pummell most deckchair units, but for anything else, yeah not great.

Footdar maybe. But if you've got a mech list with the fastest / very resiliant tanks in the game, why not go flat out instead? Then you don't have to take scorpions which are only situationally good at hordes and deckchairs. If they were good against MCs, LRs or MEQ assault units, maybe they'd have a better place.

Rampage wrote:
if you stuck them in a Wave Serpent and then jumped them out straight into a combat they can be brutal

... the problem being WS aren't open topped, so the banshees can't charge the turn they disembark. You have to either use a move like the dragonfish, or use them as a counter-charge deterrent. That's the problem with playing a game of chess, where you need two moves to pin and not one move to pin, two moves to pin being too slow. Disembark and assault have to be on separate turns, so that really kills the speed that banshees are meant to be known for, on top of that requiring Doom to do real damage to MEQ units that rely on the armour save. Plus getting caught in the open means their less-than-MEQ armour save and T3 affords them being shredded by machine guns or pie plates. With all these disadvantages, I'd rather field 3 termagants instead at 5 points each.

Rampage wrote:
Harlequins, yeah maybe a little over-costed, but this is what happens when a codex gets older, plus you are right about needing to take a shadowseer,

It being overcosted isn't because it's an "old codex". Harlequins are just pricey in general, they cost the exact same in the brand new DE codex, and have a better option of taking a Venom which is open topped to charge out of. They may be top tier CC in the Eldar codex, but in the DE codex they lose to incubi (which hit harder) and wyches (which are close to 50% cheaper and
better at tarpitting in CC). DE players will take those two CC units over harlequins anytime, which says something about the quality of Eldar CC if the DE last choice is Eldar's top choice.

Harlequins work best as an elite disruption unit- they ignore terrain and the shaowseer makes the unit irritating to shoot at. An expensive disruption unit that you are giving up a fire dragon elite slot to field.

Rampage wrote:
You don't take them for their sniper rifles, and so with normal rangers, you stick an objective in cover,

85 points for a unit where you don't use the rifles? Instead you could put those 85 points into another Fire Dragon MSU. You already understand the merits of a DA MSU unit in a Falcon that can actually use its heavy weapon effectively in the back field, can maneuver (you only need to be next to the objective on the last turn to claim it, yeah?) and can't be munched like a deckchair by units with flamers or outflanking CC units.

It boils down to taking a foot-slogger that should be ignored vs more threatening targets (footdar)

vs a falcon that should not be ignored in a skimmer saturated mech environment

my preference would be saturation over praying that the opponent ignores the rangers

severedblue wrote:

Rampage wrote:But neithers the rest of the codex, if you compare it to things like the Eldar fast attack slots, it is much better.

I think the weakness is that Eldar units are not "generally good" or "must take"

farseer powers (esp on a jetbike). then fire dragons are a must take in mech

Eh, but didn't you just state that Eldar units aren't must take?

I will agree that there are very few Eldar units that you need to take if you aren't building an optimum list, but for Eldar, there is really only one optimum build, and that is the Mechdar list. So if you want the optimum build, then the DA, Fire Dragons, Wave Serpents, Falcons and the Farseer/Eldrad all become things that you will have to take.

severedblue wrote:dire avengers are the best troop choice overall (even if you just leave them as 5 men min in a transport), and they both can be put in wave serpents, expensive but fast and resiliant.

Completely agree, I actually find that leaving them as a bog-standard 5-man squad is best, as the main reason that they are there is to be scoring.

severedblue wrote:Eldar heavy support comes next... falcons and fire prisms in one or more combinations. Or maybe war walkers for massed fire.

Yeah, I like my Scatter laser walkers.

severedblue wrote:Banshees have GEQ strength and toughness, for example, so other than their weapons ignoring armour save they need guide / doom to make up for their lack of MEQ str and toughness.

Mathammer time, squad of 10 Marines are charged by a squad of 6 banshees including an Exarch with an Executioner. Banshees strike first with 3 attacks each (base + dual CC weapons + Charge) total of 15 ignoring Exarch, marines pass War Shout test, likely 7-8 attacks hit, 2-3 wound, Exarch has 4 attacks, 2-3 hit 1-2 wounds, so about 4 wounds, 6 marines hit back, 3 hit 2 wound, 1 is saved, so 1 wound in total, banshees win combat by 3. Ok yeah, so maybe not amazing without doom, but still not bad.

severedblue wrote:If the unit was a better unit, it would be more useful in a min/max competitive list. When they revise the codex, hopefully they making languishing units, such as the FA choices, more viable.

I hope so too, seeing as I already own Shinging Spears and Swooping Hawks

severedblue wrote:

Rampage wrote:
Striking Scorpions are ok for against horde armies, and are decent for things like capture and control as the fact that they can outflank with 3+ armour allows them to pummell most deckchair units, but for anything else, yeah not great.

Footdar maybe. But if you've got a mech list with the fastest / very resiliant tanks in the game, why not go flat out instead? Then you don't have to take scorpions which are only situationally good at hordes and deckchairs. If they were good against MCs, LRs or MEQ assault units, maybe they'd have a better place.

Well yeah, but what if you don't want to make the optimum build, just something that's reasonably effective and fun to play, the OP never said anything about creating the optimum build.

severedblue wrote:

Rampage wrote:
if you stuck them in a Wave Serpent and then jumped them out straight into a combat they can be brutal

... the problem being WS aren't open topped, so the banshees can't charge the turn they disembark. You have to either use a move like the dragonfish, or use them as a counter-charge deterrent. That's the problem with playing a game of chess, where you need two moves to pin and not one move to pin, two moves to pin being too slow. Disembark and assault have to be on separate turns, so that really kills the speed that banshees are meant to be known for, on top of that requiring Doom to do real damage to MEQ units that rely on the armour save. Plus getting caught in the open means their less-than-MEQ armour save and T3 affords them being shredded by machine guns or pie plates. With all these disadvantages, I'd rather field 3 termagants instead at 5 points each.

I know, but if you park your Wave Serpent relatively nearby to the unit that you want to charge, and then in the next turn, jumping your banshees out before their transport moves, fleeting in case the target unit has tried to move away, and then assaulting, then it can work reasonably well. But again, this is not meant for the optimum build, because it is not a particularly reliable plan. You may well prefer to field 3 termagants, but the fact that they aren't in the Eldar codex does sort of get in the way of this plan.

severedblue wrote:

Rampage wrote:
Harlequins, yeah maybe a little over-costed, but this is what happens when a codex gets older, plus you are right about needing to take a shadowseer,

It being overcosted isn't because it's an "old codex". Harlequins are just pricey in general, they cost the exact same in the brand new DE codex

Good point, forgot about that.

severedblue wrote:Harlequins work best as an elite disruption unit- they ignore terrain and the shaowseer makes the unit irritating to shoot at. An expensive disruption unit that you are giving up a fire dragon elite slot to field.

Which is exactly the point that I made earlier about many of the good Eldar units all being stock in the elites section in the force org.

severedblue wrote:

Rampage wrote:
You don't take them for their sniper rifles, and so with normal rangers, you stick an objective in cover,

85 points for a unit where you don't use the rifles? Instead you could put those 85 points into another Fire Dragon MSU. You already understand the merits of a DA MSU unit in a Falcon that can actually use its heavy weapon effectively in the back field, can maneuver (you only need to be next to the objective on the last turn to claim it, yeah?) and can't be munched like a deckchair by units with flamers or outflanking CC units.

Alternatively, you could take Pathfinders, still use the rifles and still get the 2+ cover. This is probably going to sound really naive here but it's 85pts for a near guarenteed objective. Your oppenent is going to have a really hard time shifting them at range due to the 2+ cover and all of the other things that are going around causing damage that they need to deal with, and they'll struggle to get up close to them due to all of the other stuff that is going on.

You are absolutely spot on when you say that they aren't a good choice in the DA MSU list, and I completely agree with you, but if you are not building that list and you want something fun yet reasonably effective then rangers can at least do the job.

I think that the odd thing is that we both agree on what makes a good Eldar list, all I'm trying to say is that some units can be good in a fun setting, just not an optimum one.

Well if the list isn't optimised, then take anything you like lol

fun is fun

i could take 3 squads of swooping hawks and 2 hawkwing autarchs

well, maybe not termagants. Maybe storm guardians instead of banshees... which are 3 pts more than termagants for the same stats per model... at least they can take melta weapons.



i guess optimisation is more important in Australia when we are paying the prices we do for our models. "Fun" is expensive here at $600AUD per 1000pts

For me my next Eldar purchases are a squad of harlequins, a squad of fire dragons and a Shadow Seer for $151 AUD. If I'm paying that much for models, no point buying anything fun... unless I don't mind getting tabled every time I play...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Rampage wrote:Which is exactly the point that I made earlier about many of the good Eldar units all being stock in the elites section in the force org.

oh I misunderstood you. I thought you meant "all elites are good" because of statements regarding strikign scorpions and banshees, rather than "fire dragons are stock."


The thing that is disappointing about banshees is that a premiere CC unit in another Codex don't need doom to murder an MEQ unit (lychguard, genestealers, incubi, assault terminators). The premiere CC unit in the Eldar codex is underwhelming and balanced around doom.

Yeah, I suppose living in Australia you do especially have to make your money go further what with the especially ludacris prices that you guys have to deal with.

When I read my statement back about the elites, the banshees and the scorpions I didn't really make it there clear, sorry about that my bad. You're dead on about the Banshees though, I mean they can munch Incubi but that's only really because of their T3 and the advantage the Banshees have in initiative, the second you hit T4 you're gonna need doom. I think that if they just had furious charge they would become a lot better.

severedblue wrote:

Wraithguard can count as troops, but you need 10 of them and they're expensive in models and in points, so that's impractical. There are funny lists built around them though (get 10, put Eldrad and Karandras, +conceal warlock , then hide three metal dreadnaughts behind it)

Why would you put Karandras with the Wraithguard unit? I'm just curious because my interpretation of his rules suggest he can only confer his Stealth ability to Striking Scorpions. Now if you were taking him for his Infiltrate/Outflanking... and generally being awesome in close combat, then that's different.

Also, what's a Wraithstar build? Sounds awesome, lol.

Oozi Hobo wrote:

severedblue wrote:

Wraithguard can count as troops, but you need 10 of them and they're expensive in models and in points, so that's impractical. There are funny lists built around them though (get 10, put Eldrad and Karandras, +conceal warlock , then hide three metal dreadnaughts behind it)

Why would you put Karandras with the Wraithguard unit? I'm just curious because my interpretation of his rules suggest he can only confer his Stealth ability to Striking Scorpions. Now if you were taking him for his Infiltrate/Outflanking... and generally being awesome in close combat, then that's different.

Also, what's a Wraithstar build? Sounds awesome, lol.

That is the wraithstar build! haha karandras stealth + warlock conceal + eldrad re-roll

I think it'll be a YMDC call on BRB p74, whether the two statements are linked together

"the special rules marked with a (*)... These rules are lost"

Does these rules = special rule marked with a (*)?

and a YMDC call on Karandras's entry (he can join units that are not aspect warriors, but does he confer stealth on the unit he joins unless they are scorpions? His army list entry seems to suggest they must be scorpions to get stealth...)

I think from the Eldar FAQ , precedence is that it only applies to scorpions, but not Karadras's stealth is not mentioned:

Q. As Phoenix Lords are not Exarchs, but independent
characters, do their exarch powers (Shadowstrike,
Skyleap, etc.) affect units other than Aspect Warriors?
A. Their powers only affects units of Aspect Warriors.