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What I like!

I like being fast, I like hitting hard, I like flanking and I like isolating and destroying enemy units. I want my eldar army to eventually be something that uses transports, bikes and fast tanks to outpace my opponent.

What I have!

So, currently I'm running a 750 points Eldar army that I have moderate success with, for reference it looks something like this:

Farseer (stones, doom and guide, spear)
5-6 banshees
3 Guardian bikes (1x shuricannon)
6 Pathfinders
Falcon w/ Scatter laser (and TL catapults)
Dark Reapers + Exarch (w shuricannon)

I don't particularly like my eldar army at the moment, I bought these models years ago, and I've mostly been fixing and painting them, but now I'm at a point where I can start adding and removing from the army, and I would like to get experienced advice on what I should be taking soon enough.

I own these models too:

20 guardians (but I don't own a weapons platform)
2 Warlocks (1 spear, 1 blade)

And I bought 10 dire avengers, the box with one exarch, I think those are a good fit in most armies. Can someone maybe advise me on what weapons I should be putting on him? the dual catapults, or the shimmershield?

The Goal

Slowly replace units in my army to make it fast. 750 is a standard size of army in my group of friends, so the first order is to build a list by removing from this one, while obviously not spending too much cash, that better suits my idea of being fast, hitting hard.

In addition, I want to build up to around 2000 points of solid eldar choices, so I can later play 1500 and 1850 tournaments.

What should I get?

I think I already know my next purchase should be a wave serpent, if anyone can tell me that's wrong, please do. The idea is to lose the dark reapers and the pathfinders soon in my 750 point list, in order to become faster, if I bought a wave serpent and finished assembling my dire avengers, I could run this list:

Farseer (stones, doom and guide, spear)
6 Banshees (inside a falcon)
10 Avengers (exarch w shimmershield and defend. Inside a wave serpent with scatter laser)
3 Jetbikes (1 shuricannon)
Falcon (holo fields, scatter laser and catapults)

How good do you think this list is? I'm not WAAC, but I would like to do at least well. Am I correct in thinking that a Wave Serpent is a good next investment for my army?

How to follow up?

Assuming I am correct about the wave serpent being next. What should I get after this (remember, I'm also building up an 1850 eldar army). So what should be my next choice after the wave serpent. These are some of the ideas I have so far:


- Convert a Warlock and buy a jetbike, to add it to my guardian jetbike squad
- Get 3 more guardian jetbikes
- Get another wave serpent and then add fire dragons to deal with tanks
- Get a fire prism, possibly followed by a second one
- Get an Autarch to add to my dire avenger squad (give it more close combat power) and to help my reserve rolls (I might use reserves alot with a fast army like this)
- Get War Walkers or Vypers for fire support (I'm really a fan of Vypers although I hear they're not efficient)

Thanks everyone!

To answer your main question, yes the waveserpent is a good choice for your army. Then get another one. As for the Dire Avengers, I only ever use exarchs with dual shuri. If the opponent is alive to charge me then the Bladestorm gambit has failed and I'm probably done for anyhow (also, its cheaper).

The rest of my advice might be a bit haphazard as I cover some of the stuff you've written.

Gaurdian Jetbiked: I love these guys but not because they hit hard or anything. I use squads of three with a heavy shuri and they usually spend most of the game zooming around for invulnerable saves or taking S6 pot-shots. Its in the last turns of the game that these bad-boys hop only objectives and contest them with T4 and 3+ invuln. I don't really see the point of a warlock but if you enjoy the conversion work then you can use these until you have enough for a jet-seer council. I don't use those myself but they are the hardest thing this side of biker nobs apparently.

General Army Stuff: You're right about losing the pathfinders and Reapers for mobility. These guys either get isolated and slaughtered or you get tied down protecting them and lose overall mobility. Honestly, the banshees are also a liability imo since there is no way to assault from out transports. You either sit the transport within assault range or spend a turn out of it. It can work on a suped-up Falcon with fortune cast after you over-drive but that's a hell of an investment for S3 attacks. I usually stick to Dire Avengers and Fire Dragons. Medium and short range suppression is still exciting and hard-hitting but you shouldn't ever want to get tied down.

Vipers: I actually started using the cheapy Vipers only because I had all my fast-attack choices (it ironic but fast eldar really don't need FA slots) and they are awesome!! Your opponent is either wasting fire on them or ignoring them. If they're still around they hop over tanks and fire 6 shots S6 against rear armour. I've crippled a Blood Angel army with my 3 Vipers before (taking out 2 transports and a vindicator)

Waveserpent: Get more. Look online for people selling them off. I have 4 and its not enough for 2000pts. Two squads of 10 Avengers and 2 of 5 Dragons at least for 1750 and up imo.

Fire Dragons: Awesome unit for so many reasons. I've even had them beat stuff in combat thanks to being in their fallen Serpent's cover and ok WS.

I don't use Autarchs because I'm always tight on points and Doomseer is the way to go for making those important Bladestorms all the more effective. I use 3 Prisms because of the additional tactical options for linking but in most cases, 2 would be enough.

3 war walkers with either Shuri cannons or Scatter. are awesome with outflank, especially if you go for the Aurach.

Those are my thoughts on playing Mechdar. There are a lot of guides online. I really like the one on LibrariumOnline myself. Hope some of this helps

Eldrad
Waveserpents
Fire dragons
War Walkers (With Scatter Lasers)

These take up most successful elder lists i see.
Mostly because they are the BEST units you have access to.
DA are the best troop choice you have.

1850 Mechdar lists are usually

Seer Council

3x Fire Dragon Units in Wave Serpents

3-6 Dire Avenger Squads in Wave Serpents or Falcons

0-3 Fire Prisms or Falcons



1850 Footdar is usually something like

Eldrad

Farseer or Avatar

3x Fire Dragon Units in Wave Serpents

3-6 Dire Avenger Squads sometimes in Wave Serpents

9xWar Walkers with Scatter Lasers


For your proposed 750 Point list i would suggest replacing the banshees with a squad of fire dragons.

The guardians are good without a weapon platform if you go storm guardians with 2 flamers and destructor on the warlock. This gives 3 flamer templates coming out of a wave serpent. Blades are better for them in my opinion for the extra attacks, but if you want to use your spear model give the other guardians 2 melta, so your second guardian unit is a 2 melta s9 spear vehicle hunter.

For the Dire Avengers Shimmershield with Defend is definately the way to go in my opinion. Its one of the better cc units you get suprisingly, as it locks down and pulls attacks away from your deathdealers like Banshees.

So in review, I would recommend 3 wave serpents for your dire avengers and guardians. After that, I would go with 2 more wave serpents for 2 units of fire dragons, and since you have 2 heavy support your 3rd HS could be war walkers.

The choice really comes at the eldar heavy choices.

Right now elites - should be fire dragons.
Troops - Dire avengers.

Heavy: - Falcon pro troop carrier, high survivability con high cost and low firepower

Fire prism - good shooting Con: questionable value for one template.

Night spinner - good synergy in slowing down your opponent. Indirect fire con: low value on S6 templates vs vehicles.

Walkers - cheapest firepower for cost, flanking Con: can get sucked into HTH and made ineffective.

Others - immobile and too vulnerable to enemy fire.

Of the 4 choices the most common are the fire prism or the walkers with nightspinner and falcons coming in as a second choice.

For dire avenger - it depends on your use - if you are going minimum squads - no exarch. If you back them up with a farseer, I like the SS + PW layout but if they are going to be used on their own, the 2 catapult is hard to go wrong with.

Personnally I am going to experiment with the falcons and minimum dire avenger squads. Outfitted with EML and their pulse laser I am hoping to get enough anti-tank out of 3 S8 shots times 3 to de-vehicle my opponent and then use speed.

Thanks for all the replies.

Here's a question. Can a traditional Mech army like the one you existed work if I'm a fan of jetbikes and vypers? Or is it basically a huge blow to my army if I want to field those?

It can certainly work. I use a jetbike council and shining spears in my mech list. I would use GJBs but the models are ugly. They look like KKK members to me. When we get new ones I'll buy some and run 6 + 1 warlock with 2 ShuCans and either Embolden or Destructor. Many people do a min squad of 3 with a ShuCan but I think that's kinda dull even if they do their job of scoring when they come out of hiding.

Many other things work in addition to the excellent advice from other posters. I use Guardian Defenders in tanks and love it. They take a ShuCan and do either drive-bys against weakened units or rear armor. I also have to back up the tri-flamer Storm Guardians. They erase anything weaker than MEQ and even marines don't like the hurt they dish out. Adding doom is wonderful.

Edit: one more Stormie setup is 1 flamer, 1 fusion gun and a warlock with spear and destructor. They have 2 templates and 2 anti-tank shots. Pretty effective against both targets.

This is only sort of on topic but I cut the heads off my GJB riders and used newer guardian heads. It looks much better. As long as you use more colour on the biked than on the guardians the old crappyness of their bodies isn't noticeable at all.

Palmar wrote:Thanks for all the replies.

Here's a question. Can a traditional Mech army like the one you existed work if I'm a fan of jetbikes and vypers? Or is it basically a huge blow to my army if I want to field those?

It can work. I would agree I hate the riders but that can be easily solved with a little green stuff and some guardian upper torsos. I have my bikes all that way and they don't look like Nathan Bedford Forest's Own...

I haven't use Banshees, Reapers or Rangers in a long time. I prefer to use my jetbikes (6, 2 cannons and a warlock with embolden), fire dragons in wave serpents and Dire Avengers (no exarch) in Falcons (scatter laser, shuriken cannon, HF & SS if points are available).

I've just about given up on my fire prism. When I fire the small blast it either misses, glances a vehicle or kills one marine. When I fire the large blast it kills maybe 2 or 3 guys. I can better results from a falcon - and a lot more shots!

I also swaped the heads on my guardian jetbikes. They look much better!

The general idea with eldar has always been keep everything the same speed, that way your units can more easily support eachother which is where Eldar gain the advantage.

So generally you want to go either fast or slow

Fast will have your Grav Tanks, Serpent mounted units, Jetbikes, Warp Spiders, Etc

Slow will have Avatar, Wraithlords, etc.

You get the idea. Obviously the more cookie cutter your list is the more strictly speaking competitive it is, but there is still some wiggle room in the codex for personal choice and preference. So figure out what works for you and go for it. Just don't mix slow and fast units unless you enjoy losing especially hard

Oh a few pitfalls to be weary of

- Eldar Close Combat (except for jetseer councils) is generally not very good in a fast list, since nothing can charge out of a transport. You are better off just taking more guns and shooting things apart.
- Pathfinders are terrible in all lists. They should be good, but they cost so many points per model and do so little damage... basically they cost a lot of points and don't really contribute to the fight
- Shining Spears are especially bad. The fact that they are as durable (read vulnerable) as a space marine combat squad, only have a charge range of 18 inches (which also puts them in rapid fire range, or assault range of other bikes / calvery) and are utterly useless if they don't get the charge (s3 not power weapons, one attack per model) AND they are hugely expensive. If you want a biker gang convert a jetseer council of war locks, indeed a well played jetseer council practically hard counters the ENTIRE newcron codex, and they will do horrible things to Imperial Guard as well.

powerclaw wrote:Gaurdian Jetbiked: I love these guys but not because they hit hard or anything. I use squads of three with a heavy shuri and they usually spend most of the game zooming around for invulnerable saves or taking S6 pot-shots. Its in the last turns of the game that these bad-boys hop only objectives and contest them with T4 and 3+ invuln. I don't really see the point of a warlock but if you enjoy the conversion work then you can use these until you have enough for a jet-seer council. I don't use those myself but they are the hardest thing this side of biker nobs apparently.

I disagree with this completely. Always take a warlock for your guardian Jetbikes, the conversion really isn't that hard with spare Dire Avenger bits (honestly nobody ACTUALLY uses that spear...) and some green stuff robes. The Warlock is there to add embolden to the squad. True Line of Sight these days makes it easier to get cover saves, but its also easier to be seen and shot at. Jump Shoot Jump will not be able to totally hide your Objective Cappers from sight all the time, and you can expect to take some light flack really no matter what you do. What the Warlock does then is let you re roll that leadership 8. I've seen failed (and failed) leadership 8 moral checks a lot. When you want your Jetbikes to capture an objective and not run 3d6 off the board, embolden's leadership bonus is incredible. The fact that you can get a singing spear for 3 points is just icing on the cake.

One other thing to note is that you get a COVER save from going flat out. That means that things like Flamerstorm Cannons, Bane Wolves, and Winds of Chaos (and some others) can still burn through both your 3+ cover and 3+ armor, also Fire on My Target will still force you to re roll that 3+ and it can not be taken in close combat. Its still a great save, and but its definitely not an invulnerable save.

Something else is that if all the Guardians in the squad die to flame storm or something, the warlock still scores if he survives. I had a game where my storm guardians all died to a Tau Hammerhead's blast and the warlock lived to score the objective they were on. Very handy.

Since you guys are being awesome and giving me loads of good advice (I just read your guide akaean, it's very, very helpful), I'm just going to go ahead and ask a bit more.

I think I will be slowly converting my way to a jetseer council, but this will take a while.

Until I have a ready council, how strong is a ghetto council (Farseer with stones, doom and fortune. Warlock with destructor, 3 guardian jetbikes with 1 shuricannon). I was thinking that this unit of five bikes could be a great and tough objective snatcher, and could also work wonders against stationary shooty targets in the back (Doom them, then shoot them up with shuriken weaponry and finish off with a charge)

Here are some questions.

Can my farseer still cast Fortune and Doom if the squad moves flat out?
Can my farseer and warlocks shoot from the twin-linked shuriken catapults on the bikes?
Does the warlock count towards the "1 cannon per 3 bikes" rule? (ie: could I field a lock, 2 shuricannon-bikes and 3 vanilla bikes as a squad?)

- Eldar Close Combat (except for jetseer councils) is generally not very good in a fast list, since nothing can charge out of a transport. You are better off just taking more guns and shooting things apart.

I was under the impression that you could charge out of a transport as long as it remains stationary,if not, I owe my dark angels friend an apology, cause I moved my falcon up 24 to get within 18" of a terminator squad. Then next round I shot it up and charged it with banshees out of the falcon (without moving the falcon).

What I did was dump it about 16" away from the termies and face them with side armor. Then I deployed the banshees next round using the 2" from exit rule, moved them 6", rolled a 4" on fleet, and charged them.

Haha yeah you did it right. It's good you don't mind assaulting a turn late because that's the reality of most Eldar CC. This is one big reason why many people prefer the JetCouncil. It's a lot more convenient if you don't have to rely on your opponent staying in charge range.

No, the Warlock does not count toward your models for ShuCan upgrades. To get 2 Cannons you need 4 regular bikers and 2 upgraded ShuCan bikers.

The unit you described would be functional and has a place, but there really isn't a substitute for the Council. There is just SO much that makes them good. Its the resiliency from everyone being MEQ toughness and with a 3+/4++ rerollable save. Then on top of that they can wound anything and rip vehicles apart like nobody's business. They go before most enemies and usually hit on 3s. Then they can take so many heavy flamers it borderlines the absurd. I think only Burna Boyz can put more templates in a unit. When you combine all this with their movement it makes them the only Eldar unit that is great at pretty much everything. Just watch out for large units with great saves, FNP MEQs, and stuff that will ID you Farseer. I run my Council with a Laser Lance Autarch to give them some high S power weapon hits on the charge to keep them from being tarpitted. A good set up is 6-10 Warlocks with 1-2 enhance, 1-2 embolden and destructors to taste. I personally take one spear because I converted a guy that way and he looks cool. My Farseer takes a spear too because he has good BS and I try to keep him away from combat as long as I can anyway.

Oh and dear god do I wish you could cast powers and turbo boost in the same turn. If you want to fortune your turbo cover, put the Farseer in front when you deploy and fortune the warlocks. Then turbo boost the Locks and move the Farseer into coherency. I think that's legal but maybe someone else can confirm.