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I'm about to play my first game of 40K this weekend.

For my army I've chosen the Eldar. I have no idea what I'll be up against.
Just recently made it through the rules and I gotthe basics down pretty good.
The game will be with 500 pts armies, and I'm leaning between a couple of lists.

Eldar + 500 + v1

Hq - 120
Farseer
+ Singing Spear
+ The Spirit Stone of Anath'lan

Troops - 145
Dire Avengers
+ 5 Dire Avengers
+ Exarch
+ Twin-linked

Troops - 84
Rangers
+ 2 Rangers

Heavy Support - 150
Fire Prism
+ Holo-fields
+ Shuriken Cannon

Total - 499

Eldar + 500 + v2

HQ - 120
Far Seer
+ Singing Spear
+ The Spirit Stone of Anath'lan

Troops - 270
Dire Avengers
+ 5 Dire Avengers
+ Exarch
+ Wave Serpent
+ Twin-linked Eldar missile launcher (plasma/starshot)

Troops - 110
Guardian Defenders
+ Scatter Laser

Total - 500


And that's how far I've gotten. Leaning towards v1.
If you don't mind I got some questions.

Which list do you prefer, why? Any minor changes?
Can the vehicles fire both the primary and secondary weapons in one phase?
Does a desicated transsport count as a seperate troop choice? Can it score on it's own?
Rangers are equipped with a rifle and a pistol. In a melee do they get 2 A? (1 for basic melee + pistol) (My guess is no)

Cheers

edited for specific point cost*

Welcome to Warhammer 40k!

To awnser a few questions:

Can the vehicles fire both the primary and secondary weapons in one phase? Yes if it doesn't move/ No if it moves.


Does a desicated transsport count as a seperate troop choice? No it doesn't.

Can it score on it's own? No it cannot.

Rangers are equipped with a rifle and a pistol. In a melee do they get 2 A? (1 for basic melee + pistol) (My guess is no).
They will only get 1A each because they lack 2 CCWs
(the pistol is 1 and the rifle is not).

But the rangers can shoot either weapons (pistols if they move unless you snap fire rifles, If you do not move you can fire either one at no disadvantage.

As for the lists i like no.1 better some changes i would make are:

1) Farseer
take away spear +5
give him jetbike and MotLG -55

2) keep rangers at x5 +24

3) take away cannon from prism +10

4) take away exarch from avengers +15

And that brings you to 500pts exactly, it gives you the ability to keep your seer alive the whole game and to kill stuff and support as you see fit. As for what powers i normally go 1 divination and 2 telepathy I always take the primaris power for telepathy because it kills stuff.

Hey, just a small note, but you need to remove the individual points costs for wargear options. It's against the forum rules because Dakka can get in trouble with GW if they let people post full price breakdowns. Instead you shoulod just have something like this:

10 Dire Avengers, Exarch with Twin-Linked - 145

That way the exact cost of the individual upgrades isn't immediately apparent.

As far as the lists go, I slightly favour list two because you have more bodies. I think you could trim a little more fat, like the spirit stone (not worth it at this points level IMO) and hull shuricannon if you use the Fire Prism. My 500 point eldar list fields 41 models, and while that it an unusually large number (especially for Eldar) I think your second list could easily gain a few bodies. In particular, dropping the Singing Spear, Spirit Stone and maybe the DA Exarch would let you fit another 2-3 guardians in the squad - a fair few at this points range. You could also potentially fit 30 Guardians if you dropped some upgrades and switched the Farseer to a Spiritseer/Autarch and switched out the Dire Avengers. Something like a naked Spiritseer, Wave Serpent with Scatter Lasers, 20 Guardians with two Shuricannons and 10 Guardians with a Shuricannon gives you a lot of firepower, some resilience due to numbers and a good damage spread, unless the people you play tend to use Land Raiders. You could also run a naked Autarch in the big squad and use his 3+ save to reduce the amount of damage they take from shooting.

Thanks for your answers! They are a great help.

Just a clarification:

* a Fire Prism can move & shoot it's Prism Cannon fue to it being F, S right? Assuming combat speed.


I have a hard time justifying spending 55 points on making a 100 points HQ more dificult to kill & more mobile.
I don't feel like the Feer Seer would be able to accomplish much after the units starts to wither.

I do understand that you want as many troops as possible for scoring.
And I agree, trimming some fat to invlude another troop choice would be good.
However to be brutally honest, playing a game with 30+ Guardians seems very dull.
And with the bigger units I would get limited scoring capabilities anyway.


Thanks to your advice I'm leaning towards this list now:

Eldar + 500 + v3

Far Seer - 100

Dire Avengers - 130
+ 5 Dire Avengers

Rangers - 60

Wind Rider Jetbike Squad - 68
+ 1 Windrider Guardian

Fire Prism - 140
+ Holo-fields


Runes of Fate seems to be a very useful discipline andd that's the main reason I want a Far Seer for HQ
Dire Avengers seem to be able to deal with everything. Not surr how I'm going to keep them alive.
Rangers will infiltrate into a good cover position next to a objective close to my side. And hopefully hold it.
Windrider Jetbikes, depending on enemy armament, will eaither try to lastsecond contest objectives or activly harass.
Fire Prism just looks awesome on paper, jack of all trades tank.

How likly does it seem for the Avengers to survive until they get in range?
Would it be worth it to swap the immence fire power of the Fire Prism for a Wave Serpent?

Cheers

Arschas wrote:

Would it be worth it to swap the immence fire power of the Fire Prism for a Wave Serpent?
Cheers

Good question, the reality is they're good against different things. The Fire Prism is much scarier against well armoured infantry, the Wave Serpent is much better against vehicles and poorly armoured infantry. The Wave Serpent is also much much tougher, which is a boon in a low point game as your opponent is likely to be lacking the weight of fire to take it down.

That said, going from the lists you've put up, I'd say the best you could put together would be:

Far Seer - 105
+ Singing Spear

Guardian Defenders - 210
+ Wave Serpent
+ Twin-linked Scatter Laser

Rangers - 60

Fire Prism - 125

Total - 500

That way you've got two armour 12 tanks for your opponent to deal with with plenty of firepower, but still for filling the minimum requirements.

Runes of Fate seems to be a very useful discipline andd that's the main reason I want a Far Seer for HQ

Actually its a bit of a mixed bag, I mean some of them are really good (Fortune, Doom), but the Witchfires are rather unreliable and weak. Often the best thing to do is grab the Fate Primais, then roll twice on Divination, hoping for Forewarning and switching the worse power you roll for the Primais, that way you can give two units re-rolls to hit, which is quite powerful. Alternatively, you can roll everything on Telepathy because theres some pretty nasty powers in there and most of them have a decent range.

Good luck!

I would personally recommend you switch the Gurdians to Storm Guardians for 500 pts.

You'd be amazed how easily you'll get rolled by a horde at this point level.

Or turn the Prism into a Nightspinner.

I find it amazing that I've received, basically 4 fundamentally different suggestions from you guys. With other words : there are as many lists as there are players. And many seem reasonably competetive.

Again thanks for your advice. My thoughts on them are as follows:

Guardians do seem like a solid choice, however as a beginner, they do seem to be quite dificult to play, on paper atleast. It would be dificult to get them within fire range without being in charge range or rapid fire range.
How do most Eldar players deal with this/ use their Guardians?

As for Far Seer powers, I don't feel like having two re-roll hits powers will be that useful with this list. The only unit that really benefits from it are the Dire Avengers. As it doesn't seem like the powers affect template weapons.
So maybe: Roll once on fate, if something cool keep it, and then pick up the fate primaris and roll once divonation. Otherwise Fate Primaris into two rolls on divonation. Is this reasonable or am I missing the core of the double re-rolls?

I dont think I'll pick up Storm Guardians this time around. Was hoping the large blast of the Fire Prism would be quite effective against hordes? Or would a Wave Serpent indeed be better? To me the Dire Avengers seem very solid against melees, which is one of the reasons I choose them over regular Guardians.

Cheers