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Hello Dakka !
I've been a guard player for most of these years ( since 4th ed guard codex came out) and i've dabbled with MEC with my brother, but today i want something more xenos !

I was tempted by nids, but i just didnt have a good feeling playing them... and then the eldar codex landed in my hands and i'm hooked with the fluff and models !

Problem is ---- I'm at loss at where to start !

What should a buy first ? What lists ( i want to go progressive not mass buy ) should I aim to obtain ?
I've faced a couple of eldar over the years, including jetbike spam, guardian spam, and a weird list with a bunch of warlocks.... but i still have no idea what direction to take....

Theres a few really useful units that you can't go wrong with:

1) Farseer - never leave home without one, they are the heart and soul of an Eldar army. I use Guide and Doom on mine, but the other powers are also very useful.

2) Dire Avengers - a unit of 5 or 10 of these with Exarch with defend and Bladestorm is always going to be useful, mount in a Wave Serpent and you have a very mobile hard hitting unit.

3) Jetbikes - not a great offensive unit, but they are great for bringing on from reserves last minute and snatching objectives.

4) Depending on your local area a unit of Howling Banshees or Striking Scorpions are really useful. Banshees for MEQ, Scorpions for hordes.

This will give you a good beginning to your force, and all of the units are useful. I hope this has helped a bit!.

mayfist wrote:Hello Dakka !
I've been a guard player for most of these years ( since 4th ed guard codex came out) and i've dabbled with MEC with my brother, but today i want something more xenos !

I was tempted by nids, but i just didnt have a good feeling playing them... and then the eldar codex landed in my hands and i'm hooked with the fluff and models !

Problem is ---- I'm at loss at where to start !

What should a buy first ? What lists ( i want to go progressive not mass buy ) should I aim to obtain ?
I've faced a couple of eldar over the years, including jetbike spam, guardian spam, and a weird list with a bunch of warlocks.... but i still have no idea what direction to take....

I would start with your army's strengths: psykers, grav tanks, and aspect warriors. The other stuff is more or less peripheral imo. Eldrad, two wave serpents, and a squad of dire avengers backed up by some banshees or fire dragons would be a good start. If I were you I would leave some of the flashier models, like the avatar or the wraith lord, alone for the moment. They're cool but they aren't really central to the pointy eared way of war, and don't mesh very well with the other elements.

Thanks for the advice ! I'll start off with some dire avengers, a farseer and and wave serpent.

My advice would be to ditch the goody two shoes and go with their badarse cousins, the DARK ELDAR.

lost_soul wrote:My advice would be to ditch the goody two shoes and go with their badarse cousins, the DARK ELDAR.

So you can catch rail gun slugs with your face... Stick with Eldar, at least they have some semblance of armor.

For a fairly comprehensive run down on the Eldar I suggest listening to the 11th Company podcast episode 108.

http://www.tangtwo.com/11thcompany/episodes.cfm

Experiment with different combinations, Eldar are great for having very different types of troops within their codex. Many armies are quite similar across all units. Eldar have real variety. Mess about with them until you find combinations that work. Personally I like to use guardians but I have a method of play that rewards their use. There are lots of fun units to try out and play about with. Enjoy!

Jade.Longinus wrote:

lost_soul wrote:My advice would be to ditch the goody two shoes and go with their badarse cousins, the DARK ELDAR.

So you can catch rail gun slugs with your face... Stick with Eldar, at least they have some semblance of armor.

Yeah cause there's totally a ton of tau players out there. Anyway, if your local group is pretty relaxed, eldar might be better. DE would be better if it was a competitive area. Based on what I've seen, DE either beat the s*** out of the other army or get nearly tabled. And there's a big power gap between the omptimal lists and the less than optimal lists. Eldar on the other hand are so outdated their optimal lists and not so good lists are both relatively mediocre.

Maloghurst wrote:

Jade.Longinus wrote:

lost_soul wrote:My advice would be to ditch the goody two shoes and go with their badarse cousins, the DARK ELDAR.

So you can catch rail gun slugs with your face... Stick with Eldar, at least they have some semblance of armor.

Yeah cause there's totally a ton of tau players out there. Anyway, if your local group is pretty relaxed, eldar might be better. DE would be better if it was a competitive area. Based on what I've seen, DE either beat the s*** out of the other army or get nearly tabled. And there's a big power gap between the omptimal lists and the less than optimal lists. Eldar on the other hand are so outdated their optimal lists and not so good lists are both relatively mediocre.

Honestly i think the eldar do quite good !

I have sucessfully assembeled my first couple of units I had this wild idea i could start a dkka blog but my paiting skilz are so mediocre that the idea died just as quick

I LOVE eldar vehicules and i am not a fan of ther bdsm cousins, sorry.... So I want to go with a vehicule spam Any arch-typical lists i should know about ?

I don't play it, but from what I gather the preferred mech Eldar List is basically a farseer, dire avengers and fire dragons in wave serpents and falcons and then the rest is down to taste. I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong.

Castiel wrote:I don't play it, but from what I gather the preferred mech Eldar List is basically a farseer, dire avengers and fire dragons in wave serpents and falcons and then the rest is down to taste. I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong.

Generally you'll see prisms rather than falcons. This is because they only have the big gun (don't bother upgrading the token shuriken catapult to a cannon) so can move 12" every turn and fire effectively. The best falcon has the pulse laser, a second turret weapon and an under mounted shuriken cannon so it's stuck only going 6" to avoid losing some shots. Another great thing about prisms is that the gun on the model is really big. Most players suffer from the delusion that they should always shoot at the big guns even if it would be better to shoot at the wave serpents. And because of the holo-field you'll have on them, they become pretty tough to kill.