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I've been thinking a lot about this. With the new haywires, great HQs, cheap darklances and very good synergy between the two armies what units and combinations thereof would go well with core Eldar, both mech, hybrid and foot lists. Just curious about people's experiences, tactics, advice what to get and so on and so forth.

ummm.....well venom gunboats are always good, small wych units with haywire grenades and venoms are good anti tank, but its not like eldar arnt good against tanks. umm......as for an HQ i would say shadowfield archon is the way to go, pretty cheap and mean in cc.

Troops:
wyches with haywires in a venom or a raider. Great at killing tanks and ok at tarpitting nasties with power weapons/fists.

Warriors are pretty terrible DL platforms and large squads arent really too good at anything. 5 warriors with a blaster only runs 60 points though and gives you an 18" assault bright lance at BS4 with 4 ablative wounds.

raiders are decent transports for large squads with the free DL or Disintigrator they can be ok these days. Not being able to embark on allied transports means you probably wont need too many

venoms are great anit infantry for the cost. 2 hull points hurts a bit but otherwise these are great. limit of 5 transported models means you need small units.

Reaver jetbikes have become awesome. 4+ cover in the open and 3+ while turboing.

The baron was one of the most popular HQ choices from 5th and he has only gotten better. No power weapon and gimpy statline might shy people away but he gives any unit he joins assault and defensive grenades, steath, and super hit and run. He has str6 on the charge(7 after a few kills) and he has a 2++ save.

Archons arent what they use to be but the 2++ save and access to some killy wargear might make them popular in eldar lists because of fortune. rerolling at 2++ save is godly.

I cant see anything in the elite section interesting Eldar. FD are better trueborn and banshees are better Incubi, although I guess incubi can get an assault transport.

Ravagers are the only cheap DL in the book. 105 points for 3 BS 4 lances. buyer beware, they sound a lot more effective than they usually are.

DE has jets and those will of course interest any army that has none. They arent the best, but they are better than nothing.

So basically, 10 Wyches in a DL/Disintegrator Raider with Archon would be pretty cheap, effective and actually fill a gap in my 1750 Eldar list. I'll certainly look into proxying that in my next game, to see how it plays.

Honestly, for the time being you really should take a Razorwing if you are going to ally with Dark Eldar. Having a model that can actually use sky fire will really help a lot against Imperial Guard Vendettas, GK and BA Storm Ravens, and Necron Scythes.

Just make sure you get the first shot

Araenion wrote:So basically, 10 Wyches in a DL/Disintegrator Raider with Archon would be pretty cheap, effective and actually fill a gap in my 1750 Eldar list. I'll certainly look into proxying that in my next game, to see how it plays.

9 wyches with haywires, hextrix venom blade, raider. 123+60
You might want to give the hextrix a PGL for defensive grenades, and you might want a night shield or FＦ for the raider. You might want to run less wyches if you just want to blow up tanks.
Archon costs whatever you want to put in.

The wording on "grusome trophies" is that all friendly models can reroll any failed leadership check. Might be nice to avoid MSS or reroll psykic tests. I guess sear councils have the same ability but its a 5 point vehicle upgrade for DE.

akaean wrote:Honestly, for the time being you really should take a Razorwing if you are going to ally with Dark Eldar. Having a model that can actually use sky fire will really help a lot against Imperial Guard Vendettas, GK and BA Storm Ravens, and Necron Scythes.

Just make sure you get the first shot

If I find someone in my local gaming club that has a Razorwing he'd be willing to trade for something of Eldar's I don't use, I'd be glad to try it out. Would you even recommend allying with them? Personally I like the idea of having an option to take something entirely different, like Wyches, especially since I ditched one Fire Dragon squad in my list in favour of Rangers and Warp Spiders. Besides, having some models that can actually put a hurting in melee is an interesting prospect for my Eldar which were always 99% shooting oriented.

Araenion wrote:
Besides, having some models that can actually put a hurting in melee is an interesting prospect for my Eldar which were always 99% shooting oriented.

Banshees and Striking Scorpians are purely shooting now?

Wyches wont kill much, Incubi will, but are pretty much the same as scorps/banshees.

I said -my- Eldar As in, the list I run.

Exergy wrote:

Araenion wrote:
Besides, having some models that can actually put a hurting in melee is an interesting prospect for my Eldar which were always 99% shooting oriented.

Banshees and Striking Scorpians are purely shooting now?

Wyches wont kill much, Incubi will, but are pretty much the same as scorps/banshees.

Incubi are still way better than Scorpions or Banshees, 3+ saves with a possible 5++ makes them more durable than Scorpions, but still have Fleet so are faster. S4 power weapons are much better than S3 power weapons + you can get an AP2 weapon with Incubi and Doom is a moot point now since you can ally to get the Incubi into an Eldar list (or vice versa) anyway.

The main issue however is that Scorpions and Banshees are now completely useless because they can't disembark and assault, which means you see assaults coming well before they happen and have time to react before they hit. No Eldar infantry unit likes being outside a transport for a turn, particularly at short range, and with cover being worse any kind of semi competitive list will blow them apart before they can do anything meaningful. Incubi at least can hide slightly better inside a transport and have a much bigger threat range.

@OP. Dark Eldar give Eldar tools to deal with a couple of things they can otherwise struggle with, or fill gaps in their codex (i.e assault units) while adding in a couple of scoring units at the same time. The most obvious is fliers, or at least a reliable way of dealing with them. Eldar have plenty of twin linked weaponry, which is better than nothing against fliers, but adding a Razorwing or Voidraven gives you dedicated anti air (on top of the missiles and generally solid air to ground ability).
If you want a proper assault unit for your best bets are either Incubi (probably with an Archon for grenades or Haemonculi for FNP) or more likely a big unit of Beasts. With the Baron now able to keep up + convey his special rules to the unit, Beasts are now very scary and very fast.

Those are probably the three obvious units tbh, quite a few of the other FOC slots are fairly clear cut. Trueborn are generally worse than Dragons (although can take Lances for longer range anti tank), Reavers and Scourges are ok and Hellions, Mandrakes, Bloodbrides and DE Harlies (just take Eldar ones) are a waste of time. A Ravager is still a good buy if you aren't taking a flier, and a Talos could be useful in a MC spam list. Obviously you still need troops, but Dark Eldar troops aren't much better than Eldar ones. Realistically you are looking at 1-2 units of Blaster Warriors or Haywire Wyches in Raiders to give yourself a good mix of Poison goodness and anti tank ability. You could take Venoms, but I really don't see much point since Eldar S6 shooting does pretty much the same job except it can damage light vehicles as well. Obviously if you are doing things the other way around and allying Eldar to Dark Eldar then you still need them. For an HQ the Baron is definitely a good choice (and goes well with Beasts) since he is cheap and the +1 to go first is always nice. Otherwise you are looking at an Archon to make use of the 2+ re-rollable (as long as he joins an Eldar unit it works), or just going for a cheap Haemonculi. The other HQ's/special characters don't mesh particularly well with Eldar, Vect is expensive and only AP3 so no longer a beatstick, Malys isn't very good since all her abilities got less useful (immune to psychic powers isn't as helpful when you can have board wide psychic defence, and redeploying into reserves now makes it easier to lose), the Duke really requires a reasonable number of Dark Eldar units to be worth his cost and the Decapitator is still terrible.

Powerguy wrote:

Exergy wrote:

Wyches wont kill much, Incubi will, but are pretty much the same as scorps/banshees.

Incubi are still way better than Scorpions or Banshees, 3+ saves with a possible 5++ makes them more durable than Scorpions, but still have Fleet so are faster. S4 power weapons are much better than S3 power weapons + you can get an AP2 weapon with Incubi and Doom is a moot point now since you can ally to get the Incubi into an Eldar list (or vice versa) anyway.

The main issue however is that Scorpions and Banshees are now completely useless because they can't disembark and assault, which means you see assaults coming well before they happen and have time to react before they hit. No Eldar infantry unit likes being outside a transport for a turn, particularly at short range, and with cover being worse any kind of semi competitive list will blow them apart before they can do anything meaningful. Incubi at least can hide slightly better inside a transport and have a much bigger threat range.

Incubi cost 40% more so you are going to have less attacks and less wounds. the cost of 7 Incubi will get you 10 banshees or scorpians
They dont have grenades so you are likely striking last on the first round of combat.
Banshee exarchs have mirror swords which ignore all armorsaves and they can model up power axes for +1 str and AP2
Scopian exarchs can take power fists

WS5 is nice, as is power from pain but for the points I would rather have more models when they are T3.

I like how you managed to ignore one single biggest flaw of Banshees/Scorpions that I pointed out. Not being able to assault out of a transport makes Banshees terrible and Scorpions aren't much better (they also can't assault after Outflank either). Beasts are imo orders of magnitude better than any of them in any case.

Banshees with Axes are going to get cut to pieces before they can swing, it makes them worse against MEQ (who will happily swing first at T3 4+ save guys) and they still lose to Terminators (swing at the same time but don't hit as hard + Terminators get a save).

Powerguy wrote:
Banshees with Axes are going to get cut to pieces before they can swing, it makes them worse against MEQ (who will happily swing first at T3 4+ save guys) and they still lose to Terminators (swing at the same time but don't hit as hard + Terminators get a save).

you can model some up with axes and some up with swords to kill meq and teq. Incubi are going to have just one model that can possibly hurt a terminator. The rest of the squad are just going to get their faces smashed.

The assault transport think sucks, but the way vehicles are in 6th its not like a raider is going to survive very long anyway.

Exergy: I honestly feel there's no place for Banshees or Scorpions in Eldar lists, any kind of Eldar lists, ever. Which sucks, because I think Scorpions are gorgeous models and I'd really like to field them.

I will look into making some preliminary lists and post them in the army list section, really curious what I can do with two different codexes working together.

The inability to assault from a wave serpent makes the banshees rely upon fleeting up to the battle on foot to have a chance at assault. While you could spam 30 banshees/scorpions for this role, sticking them next to an avatar and Eldrad, you will need some serious threat to make your opponent ignore the banshees/scorpions.
Personally I would go with scorpions for this role. While they are weaker vs MEQ, their ability to inflitrate helps greatly. Also since I believe the next 'power' codex will be Necrons -- which the scorpions are better against.

To the OP, DE and Eldar have great synergy. I would suggest looking at the top 'footdar' builds from the end of 5th edition. Take those builds and replace the crappy eldar troops with the DE ones. Here are the highlights of what I would do.
* Take 8 eldar jetbikes and reserve them -- they are for scoring objectives. Warlocks are optional, and give heavy flamer / anti-tank.
* Take reaver jetbikes -- they are awesome
* Take DE 20 warriors as troops with 2 spinter cannons. Two of those squads gives you a base of of poisoned shots that can't be dislodged easily like a Venom can.
* Alternativly, take 2 squads of 15 wytches and run them up so your opponent has to choose to shoot banshees/scorpions of wytches. Forcing 60 fearless CC elves down his throat can be scary.
* Voidraven
* Archon with shadow field. Have him join Eldrad so he is giving his buddy Eldrad a 2++ with fortune save. Stick them next to your Avatar and go to town.

Well, the basic question is how your main force, Eldar, will look like - mech, foot or hybrid. Frankly, Eldar got a nerf in the 6th and you should take all the help (from allies) you can get. Synergy is key.

wuestenfux wrote:Well, the basic question is how your main force, Eldar, will look like - mech, foot or hybrid. Frankly, Eldar got a nerf in the 6th and you should take all the help (from allies) you can get. Synergy is key.

Indeed it is. I ran all mech force in 5th, but atm I'm considering various hybrid builds. Foot lists don't really interest me atm. So basically hybrids are most interesting to me.

Araenion wrote:

wuestenfux wrote:Well, the basic question is how your main force, Eldar, will look like - mech, foot or hybrid. Frankly, Eldar got a nerf in the 6th and you should take all the help (from allies) you can get. Synergy is key.

Indeed it is. I ran all mech force in 5th, but atm I'm considering various hybrid builds. Foot lists don't really interest me atm. So basically hybrids are most interesting to me.

However, there are different kinds of footdar lists. Eldrad and Avatar are often seen in such a list, with Dire Avengers or Guardians walking in the Avatar's fearless bubble. Heavy support comes from Warwalkers and Fire Prims. Fire Dragons in Serpents are used to intercept approaching tanks or deep striking Termies, and Harlies are used for counter-strike.
In such a list, I'd take DE units for shooting support (Warriors) and counter-strike (Beastmaster squad).

Araenion wrote:

wuestenfux wrote:Well, the basic question is how your main force, Eldar, will look like - mech, foot or hybrid. Frankly, Eldar got a nerf in the 6th and you should take all the help (from allies) you can get. Synergy is key.

Indeed it is. I ran all mech force in 5th, but atm I'm considering various hybrid builds. Foot lists don't really interest me atm. So basically hybrids are most interesting to me.

You can still utilize the strength of DE to help shore up the Eldar weakness of crappy troops. Basically you can take wytches/warriors instead of loading up on serpents with avengers.

Araenion wrote:Exergy: I honestly feel there's no place for Banshees or Scorpions in Eldar lists, any kind of Eldar lists, ever. Which sucks, because I think Scorpions are gorgeous models and I'd really like to field them.

I will look into making some preliminary lists and post them in the army list section, really curious what I can do with two different codexes working together.

I agree that the no assault out of transports really hurts them. But Incubi just arent that great to compare against. They costs more and come in paper transports (although they can assault out of them) You tool them up to the point they can actually beat something and then your have a huge investment in points(~400) sitting there in an AV10 skimmer. Any smart opponent will shoot them down and then you have foot slogging incubi, which thanks to their high cost and no shooting weapons are pretty awful. Once your are downed you have to huge cover to prevent you from getting shot to death and then you charge and you dont have any grenades so you get overwatched and then the enemy strikes first.

The good assault units in the DE dex are beast packs. If you want assault units in your eldar list, that is what you should be looking at.

In fact, I'd consider a Haemonculus, a full Warrior squad and a Beastmaster unit as a core for the ally detachment.

wuestenfux wrote:In fact, I'd consider a Haemonculus, a full Warrior squad and a Beastmaster unit as a core for the ally detachment.

that does sound good. 265 points gets you a haemi with liquifier and venom(or a hex rifle) blade 20 warriors and 2 splinter cannons.
You could add a sybarite(10pts) for an extra challenge dummy and +1 ld, dont think i would give him anything else
You could add a shredder for 5pts, blasts can be nice with the new terrain encouraging people to hug cover.
You could add in a venom for 65 points to zoom the haemi around after he gives up his pain token and add some more anti infantry fire

Core for what kind of list? Hybrid, foot or mech?

Araenion wrote:Core for what kind of list? Hybrid, foot or mech?

Well, it gives you a unit that can hold an objective and a fast and strong cc unit Eldar is lacking. By the way, I'd give the Haemi a hexrifle.

Araenion wrote:Core for what kind of list? Hybrid, foot or mech?

isnt full mech dead? Those serpants are awfully expensive so get chopped to bits in CC now.

Well, if you want a fully mech list, target saturation is key. Then include as many DE skimmers you can get.

Has anyone toyed with concept of tag-teaming the Baron with a Seer Council on jetbikes? For a humble 105 pts he gives them a 2++ re-rollable shadow field with fortune, but more importantly Hit and Run. This allows the council to bail from a tar pit or an uphill battle and strike with destructors before charging again. His stealth effect is less useful, and he can't turbo-boost with the rest of the jetcouncil, but the hit and run and shadow field are definitely worth the modest price, especially considering he helps gain the upper hand in deployment as well. Add in another farseer casting invisibility or prescience and you've got a jet-council that can lay deathstar beatdowns all around.

The Baron seems to be an interesting option for Eldar. Thanks for pointing out.
Moreover, the Baron allow Hellions to be taken as troops. Since I love these models, I'll think about such a tag team.

A Razorwing could also be a good add-on since Eldar lacks flyers.

Toranaga wrote:Has anyone toyed with concept of tag-teaming the Baron with a Seer Council on jetbikes? For a humble 105 pts he gives them a 2++ re-rollable shadow field with fortune, but more importantly Hit and Run. This allows the council to bail from a tar pit or an uphill battle and strike with destructors before charging again. His stealth effect is less useful, and he can't turbo-boost with the rest of the jetcouncil, but the hit and run and shadow field are definitely worth the modest price, especially considering he helps gain the upper hand in deployment as well. Add in another farseer casting invisibility or prescience and you've got a jet-council that can lay deathstar beatdowns all around.

The Council imo took a hit thanks to the change to how Witchblades work, S3 with 2D6 pen is nowhere near as reliable as S9 particularly when you are striking AV10 most of the time. You drop from an auto glance to a ~40% chance of doing nothing, which doesn't really balance out the fact that hitting vehicles is easier now. Against infantry they still aren't particularly impressive since they lack the attacks to get enough wounds through. The Baron is definitely a very nice ally though, imo since you need an ally HQ its either him or a Haemonculi (or 3), the rest really gel better with DE units (which you can't take that many of as allies) or sit in niches which the Eldar HQs can already cover. For me the best place for him is a Beast pack though, they hit much much harder than the Council, have 3 times as many wounds, don't rely on psychic powers to function (Council without Fortune is toast, Beasts are still dangerous without Doom/other re-rolls), get more from his Stealth and he no longer slows them down. If you want more punch you can always add in a Jetbike Autarch with Laser Lance, who prevents the unit from running but otherwise doesn't slow them down (still has Fleet).

Powerguy: Wait, the Beastmaster unit counts as beasts, and Baron and an Autarch on jetbike count as jetbikes. How does that complement (move, shoot, run, fof, charge) well?