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Hello everyone. I'm brand new here, and was recommended to this site by a friend. He and some other friends have gotten me into 40k, and I've decided to play Eldar. I'm looking to create an army at around 1,500 points, but I don't really know what units to use. I've got the 6th Edition codex, and I've bought a unit of 5 Dire Avengers and Eldrad Ulthran, but I'm pretty much lost regarding what else to get. I'd really like to use some Harlequins because they just seem really cool to me, but if they aren't useful I can do without. Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

Well, eldar are not the easiest army to learn with or use, but they can be incredibly effective if used correctly. With the new dex, there are plenty of viable units and builds, with only a few things you really need to avoid like the plague. Also, you have a few builds you can generally go towards:Mech, foot, hybrid and wraith. All have some uses, and for casual/semi competitive play you should do fine.

Unfortunately, harlequins are pretty bad in the new dex, so they are on the list of things to avoid. Other units to avoid are banshees, hemlock wraithfighters, and most of the named characters. A couple of the Phoenix lords are usable, but they generally cost too much for what they bring. Eldrad is okay, but you might want to consider a normal seer(use his model as a regular seer).

To make a playable list, you need another troop choice, but I would have 3 for 1500(or 1 per 500 points). Dire avengers go good on foot, decent in mech. Wave serpents are also insanely good, so if you want mech the build is strong. Guardian defenders go well on foot or mech, and jetbikes are fantastic. rangers are a novelty unit. Good for their cost, but you don't want to sink a lot of points into them.

Next, grab some heavy support. The support weapons are good for cheap/foot, fire prisms are great, wraithknights are good, and wraithlords and dark reapers are ok.

Then round out your list with more scoring, a second HQ, possible elite/fast attack. Warp spiders are fantastic, hawks, spears and crimson hunters are playable. Vypers are somewhat lousy, but not terrible.

Some things you absolutely cant go wrong with buying:
Wave Serpents
Guardians
Fire prism
Spiritseer/farseer
Jetbikes

Thank you for the help. I'm probably going to be primarily playing against a Tau army. Any suggestions on how to tackle that in particular?

Harlequins are by no means bad, they have just lost some of there thunder because the old Veil of Tears got abused the heck out of with fortune for 2+ cover with rerolls. I like to use Harlequins in either 2 ways. 1; as a semi-deathstar unit containing a beatstick character such as Karandras or a DE Archon, or both! They can use Veil of tears to make them unshootable until they are in charge range, then they are truly deadly. 2; is a really fun, but not incredibly competitive unit which contains 3 harlequins plus death jester and shadowseer as well as the phoenix lord Morgan Ra, hopefully with psyker support. The idea is to hang around the 24 inch mark and shoot, while Veil of Tears makes it all but impossible to shoot you back. This is a really annoying unit, and also don't forget they fight like ninja's if anyone ever decides to charge them, fun!

Eldar are a much easier army than they used to be. Wave serpents are incredible, and are almost a must take for your troops.

A mantle-autarch is also a good support choice.

 Dr. Serling wrote:
Well, eldar are not the easiest army to learn with or use, but they can be incredibly effective if used correctly. With the new dex, there are plenty of viable units and builds, with only a few things you really need to avoid like the plague. Also, you have a few builds you can generally go towards:Mech, foot, hybrid and wraith. All have some uses, and for casual/semi competitive play you should do fine.

Unfortunately, harlequins are pretty bad in the new dex, so they are on the list of things to avoid. Other units to avoid are banshees, hemlock wraithfighters, and most of the named characters. A couple of the Phoenix lords are usable, but they generally cost too much for what they bring. Eldrad is okay, but you might want to consider a normal seer(use his model as a regular seer).

To make a playable list, you need another troop choice, but I would have 3 for 1500(or 1 per 500 points). Dire avengers go good on foot, decent in mech. Wave serpents are also insanely good, so if you want mech the build is strong. Guardian defenders go well on foot or mech, and jetbikes are fantastic. rangers are a novelty unit. Good for their cost, but you don't want to sink a lot of points into them.

Next, grab some heavy support. The support weapons are good for cheap/foot, fire prisms are great, wraithknights are good, and wraithlords and dark reapers are ok.

Then round out your list with more scoring, a second HQ, possible elite/fast attack. Warp spiders are fantastic, hawks, spears and crimson hunters are playable. Vypers are somewhat lousy, but not terrible.

Some things you absolutely cant go wrong with buying:
Wave Serpents
Guardians
Fire prism
Spiritseer/farseer
Jetbikes

I have to disagree with you calling the wraith fighter useless as it is good in a very specific role and if you build your army around its use is very effective but hard to pull off for somebody just starting out.

 Dr. Serling wrote:
Well, eldar are not the easiest army to learn with or use, but they can be incredibly effective if used correctly. With the new dex, there are plenty of viable units and builds, with only a few things you really need to avoid like the plague. Also, you have a few builds you can generally go towards:Mech, foot, hybrid and wraith. All have some uses, and for casual/semi competitive play you should do fine.

Unfortunately, harlequins are pretty bad in the new dex, so they are on the list of things to avoid. Other units to avoid are banshees, hemlock wraithfighters, and most of the named characters. A couple of the Phoenix lords are usable, but they generally cost too much for what they bring.

Next, grab some heavy support. The support weapons are good for cheap/foot, fire prisms are great, wraithknights are good, and wraithlords and dark reapers are ok.

Then round out your list with more scoring, a second HQ, possible elite/fast attack. Warp spiders are fantastic, hawks, spears and crimson hunters are playable. Vypers are somewhat lousy, but not terrible.

Some things you absolutely cant go wrong with buying:
Wave Serpent
Fire prism
Spiritseer/Farseer
Jetbikes

Agreed, these are all great units.

Jetbikes
wave serpents
fire prisms
farseers
warp spiders
wraithguard
warlocks

My approximate 2000 pt list, that ive never lost with yet. use different variations, maybe more jetbikes and less this or more that and less jetbikes

farseer jetbike
farseer jetbike
warlocks 8-10 jetbikes

guardian jetbikes in 3 man units x 2 or 3
dire avengers x5 in wave serpents x 2 or 3
wraithguard x5 with d-scythe in wave serpent

1 or two squads of warp spiders

2 fire prisms

You have a decision ahead of you. You are going to need to choose whether you want to run a mechanized in waveserpents, foot slogging, or jetbike. What you have right now is actually the starting ingredients in two of those forces and a decent addition to the jetbike force.

For your next purchase I would get either 5 more direavengers or a box of 10 guardians. If you like the jetbikes 3 of them would be good but that tends to be a more expensive army.

After this you could get some warpspiders and have an excellent unit that fits into any list.

Once you get this far you really should figure out what army route you want and start purchasing units in that category; ie if you want mechanized you will obviously be buying waveserpents for a while.

 ansacs wrote:
You have a decision ahead of you. You are going to need to choose whether you want to run a mechanized in waveserpents, foot slogging, or jetbike. What you have right now is actually the starting ingredients in two of those forces and a decent addition to the jetbike force.

For your next purchase I would get either 5 more direavengers or a box of 10 guardians. If you like the jetbikes 3 of them would be good but that tends to be a more expensive army.

After this you could get some warpspiders and have an excellent unit that fits into any list.

Once you get this far you really should figure out what army route you want and start purchasing units in that category; ie if you want mechanized you will obviously be buying waveserpents for a while.

I think I'd prefer going to foot soldier route. I just don't really like the idea of jetbikes that much, and if they're more expensive then I'd definitely rather not use them.

The new Eldar codex is really good. I jokingly tell my friend that he could randomly take units from the book and still win a lot of games.

Honestly, there are 'more competitive' choices in the book but not really a lot of 'bad' choices.

Honestly the Wraithknight is the best heavy support followed closely behind by the War Walkers. The Wraithlord is a cheaper smaller variant of the Wraithknight but without an invulnerable save it's easy to kill and with 3 wounds even cover won't help much. Dark Reapers are still useless because of their cost and MEQ specific weapons. The heavy weapon platforms are great against swarm but will be near useless against MEQ or anything with FnP.

If you take a Wraithknight, and I recommend it, you have some loadout options. 2 of the most popular are stock Wraithknights with dual Heavy Wraithcannons that give you 2 Str 10 weapons that auto pen/kill on a wound roll of a 6. The second option is more expensive, you take the Suncannon, a Scatterlaser and a Scattershield. With that you get 3 Str 6 AP 2 small blasts that are twin linked thanks to the Scatterlaser which itself gives you 4 Str 6 shots, and a 5++ save on top of its 3+. I take 3 in my army, one stock and two with the Suncannon, Scatterlaser, and Scattershields.

If you take a unit or two of War Walkers, which can supplement the Wraithknight/s very nicely, take dual Scatterlasers on all of them. It gives you 8 Str 6 shots which are good for killing swarm, MEQ, and even flyers.

*Edit: When I say 8 Str 6 shots, that's per War Walker so 24 in a squadron of 3!

Serpent spam is definitely the most noob friendly build

id take fire prisms and probably dark reapers before I took war walkers, possibly personal preference I just dont like them, too weak not mobile enough and not versatile in any way. Wraith knights... meh, 1 maybe 2 tops never 3.

 Chance77 wrote:

 ansacs wrote:
You have a decision ahead of you. You are going to need to choose whether you want to run a mechanized in waveserpents, foot slogging, or jetbike. What you have right now is actually the starting ingredients in two of those forces and a decent addition to the jetbike force.

For your next purchase I would get either 5 more direavengers or a box of 10 guardians. If you like the jetbikes 3 of them would be good but that tends to be a more expensive army.

After this you could get some warpspiders and have an excellent unit that fits into any list.

Once you get this far you really should figure out what army route you want and start purchasing units in that category; ie if you want mechanized you will obviously be buying waveserpents for a while.

I think I'd prefer going to foot soldier route. I just don't really like the idea of jetbikes that much, and if they're more expensive then I'd definitely rather not use them.

Right on. You need to read...Reecius batrepshttp://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/recentTopics/showTopicsByUser/0/2776/17.page he runs a very nice footdar army.

Your next purchase should probably be a box of guardians. Or wraithguard/blades if you want to do a footslogging iyanden style force.

After that I would recommend some long range HS units. Warwalkers is the universally best choice but you need to learn how to use and abuse the battle focus rules. Double BL, double SL, or SL/StarCannon are the best loadouts just don't mix and match in the same squad.
A wraithknight is a pretty good choice, keep him stock loadout. He will help you take out MC and vehicles, you will need to master board control and bullying tactics when you get a wraithknight.
Vaul's battery shadow weavers are an excellent addition to any list as with T7 against shooting and S7 against vehicles they can do good against hordes or light armour.
Dark reapers are a unit that requires a certain level of finesse and some board saturation to use well. I really like them and they hit extremely hard with star shot.

After 1-2 HS options I would look at warp spiders which are an incredibly high speed high damage unit. After you get a decent squad of these you will need to start bulking your army out but you will probably have a good idea of what you want by then.

@Sanguinis
Wow, that is a lot of points in WK. I am a fan of WK in base loadout but I would not take 840 pts in 2 S10 AP2, 6 S6 AP2, and 8 S6 shots. There are a lot of lists you do not have the firepower output to actually contest anything they try to do. Your analysis of warwalkers and dark reapers is totally out of touch and bad advice. Warwalkers are actually tough to kill if used correctly (battlefocus back behind cover after shooting) and dark reapers are some of the highest damage output in the dex once you put starshot on them.

So you want to play footdar eh? Here be the skivvy:

Dire Avengers are better than guardians on foot, but they are more ex$pensive by quite a bit. Take them in 10s with an exarch that has a shimmer shield and power axe.

Warwalkers are outstanding. Scatter/Star or Bright/Bright are exceptional load outs. Forgo them vehicular upgrades.

The single best unit in my opinion are the Warp Spiders. Take at least 10 if you can (*hint,* you can).

On foot, you're going to have to be very wary of the fact that you opponent can probably overwhelm a location on the board very quickly because transports are fast and many people use them. You need the spiders's mobility, and I also adore the swooping hawks as a 6-man squad.

Farseers are usually very powerful force multipliers in footdar armies. Learn to use them, learn to love them.

Wave serpents are very powerful, but only use them if you're going to take 2+, usually 3+.

Important concepts are :
Target saturation: having multiple valuable units so your opponent has a hard time deciding which ones to target
Objective focus: realizing what you need to do to win and prevent your opponent from winning, rather than accidentally focussing on killing units when you need to capture objectives.
Area of Influence: your faster units and longer range units have a large area in which to act. Don't forget to utilize this! Eldar have some pretty dang low AoI units (foot guardians) and exceptional ones (warp spiders).

Best of luck to yeh!