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I have a ton of Eldar that my dad used to have that I've inherited since his passing. But the army was nearly entirely Guardians, Aspect Warriors, War Walkers, and Wraithlords, with a smattering of Jetbikes, and one Falcon. I took the plunge last week and bought the Eldar codex.

So now I'm left wondering... Is a mostly infantry Eldar army viable? It seems to me it could be, especially given that Battle Focus givens them increased mobility on foot. But nearly every Eldar list seems to include Wave Serpects like crazy.

Some of the ideas I've had include taking squads of 20 Guardians with twin brightlances or starcannons, and using a Farseer with Prescience and Guide to twin-link the heck out of those suckers and splatter tanks and pretty much any infantry that comes in range (rerolling to hit with 36 shots should net plenty of hits, and with them basically being Rending against troops on a to-wound of 6, they can shred Marines and Terminators even). Back it up with some Wraithlords to scare people, various Aspects that act out their own roles in the fight, Warlocks to try to protect the Guardians with Conceal... It seems like it could work, at least in theory. Maybe not as in-your-face stompy, but I kind of like not being totally abusive.

I'll be trying them out this weekend in an escalation league (increasing points, not Lords of War). I also have an Imperial Knight that I can toss in there to help kill tanks and scare people from firing at the Guardians and Wraithlords.

Wave Serpents are simply better. Footdar can be decent.

Wave Serpents are certainly better since mobility and hard to kill armor trumps T3 troops any day. However, a foot based Eldar army can certainly work. Artillery batteries are great, Shadow Weavers and D-Cannons for horde and some anti-tank, Vibrocannons for ranged anti-tank. If you take a Guardian blob of 20, toss a Farseer with the Shard of Anaris in there for fearless along with the psychic powers. Also, a Avatar works wonderfully in a foot list because of the Fearless bubble he provides.

Although technically vehicles, War Walkers are great mobile "foot" options. Wraith-whatever are also great as tough to shift models with good mobility (in the case of the Wraithknight). Base T6 or T8 just increases their usefulness.

As for Aspects, Warp Spiders, Swooping Hawks, Dark Reapers, Harlequins, and Striking Scorpions all have their places in a foot Eldar list, but need to be deployed tactically to get the most use out of them as they require a bit more finesse to use effectively due to T3, weaker armor saves, and higher than average point costs.

An Aegis is probably a good idea, especially given that some Exarches (Reaper and Fire Dragon I think) as well as Phoenix Lords (2 or 3?) and the Avatar have access to Fast Shot and high BS, making either the Quad-Gun or the Icarus pretty awesome at taking down incoming flyers.

Pretty much everyone here will tell you that you should be playing Wave Serpents because they far outpace anything else in the codex. But I play foot Eldar and I like it just fine. Do I always win? No. Do I and my opponent always have a good game? Yes. Can I say that if I were to bring 5-6 Wave Serpents? Certainly not. In the end it boils down to what play style you like, the models you have/want and how much you value winning vs. having a mutually fun game. Unfortunately this is part of the current problems with 40k in general these days, fueled mostly by forums such as this espousing that there is only 1 "right" list to play and everything else is crap.

I'll get off my soapbox now and fully encourage you to play FootDar!

Cheers.

There's also Iyanden.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
...there's only one unit that Eldar players will universally agree is bad. Who's going to be the one to say it?

A lot of eldar units can work on foot, but most people take wave serpents because of how insanely good/broken they are. They are outright deadly for the points, and great transports to boot.

Before somebody comes along and says"Well, footslogging is a slow way to die" you can run a mostly foot eldar list or at least mostly footslogging. Most non mech eldar is wraith or bike heavy, in the form of seer councils, dual knights, wraithwalls etc.

The 20 man guardian blob+farseer is a great core foot unit. This bunkers your seer in, while providing long ranged support. Anything that gets close is cut to ribbons with shuriken fire. Wraithlords are great for support and soaking up fire, while war walkers have always been a classic unit for providing dakka.

For a core, I would go farseer+20 guardians+2 lances, 2 lords with dual lances, dual flamers and ghostglaives if points allow, then 3 scatter walkers. To round out scoring, dire avengers do quite well on foot, exarch with shimmershield depending on your playstyle and meta. Warp spiders and swooping hawks are fantastic at their respective roles; warp spiders soft counter everything but Av14 and hordes, hawks hard counter AV14 and hordes. Shining spears are decent, and even scorpions can be okay. Rangers and jetbikes can round out your scoring by hiding in reserve and turbo boosting/outflanking. Reapers are okay, but be careful with the. Avoid banshees like the plague; harlequins are not much better.

Fragons are a bit too expensive to footslog, better off with wraithguard and a spiritseer. Any form of guard/blade is good except dual swords, as many as possible on foot, and a spiritseer to make them scoring.

Jetseer councils are outright disgusting, if you have enough psykers on bikes to field them.

One unit to consider are support batteries; they are dirt cheap for the damage they can deal. Generally you want shadow weavers, vibro cannons are ok if you guide them and take 3, but they fill a very specific role most lists won't need. D cannons are too expensive for what you get, as the prime selling point for support batteries is points.

The biggest issue with eldar on foot is the lack of firepower in its troop slots. Outside of 12-18" you're not doing anything spectacular with them. Then you're list just looks like any other eldar list. You end up taking walkers to make up for your lack of fire power. You take spiders to make up for your mobility. Then you take wraith knights to make up for your toughness. Most foot lists always end up looking the same.

2+ blobs of guardians with lances + avatar + farseer + aegis

3 walkers with scatters

1-2 wraith knight/lords

1-2 spiders

or

1-2 hawks

and last but not least random 3 man units of bikes to grab/context objectives late game.

Its fun for casual games and you can start bringing in the weaker units from the codex, but overall its a weaker army.

Well, it's mostly going to be for "fun games." If I want to curbstomp people in tournaments, I have Space Marines for that, which work surprisingly well even without Centurions.

It's kind of a situation of "I want to have fun and just try something different" and also I don't like buying a bunch of $45 models at the moment (because, well, I don't have that).

Given that I also just bought an Imperial Knight, my "Let's try this for S&G's" 1250 point list for Escalation league right now is:

Farseer
12 Guardians, lance, Warlock with spear
11 Guardians, lance, Warlock with spear
10 Dire Avengers (Exarch with power sword)
Wraithlord with lance
Wraithlord with lance
Knight Paladin

Farseer can automatically take Guide *and* Prescience and use that to just make any firepower in the army certain to hit (exception of the Knight, can't cast on him).

I might drop the Avengers for more Guardians.

In larger points, I'll take the Guardians to 20 each with two lances, add a second lance to each WL if I can figure out how to model it (I have older models mostly), toss in two or three War Walkers (two assembled and painted, I have another in a box), and some Warp Spiders. Assault troops seem like a wash in any army at the moment.

I'd like to throw an Avatar into the mix in time, but hate $40 for the same old model now in brittle warping resin (Florida heat). I might go either Forge World or try to find one on eBay or something. I just prefer buying through the local GW shop to help the manager. A Wraithknight will be in the mix in time because I like the model and he's still technically on foot. Ditto Wraithguard, though I'm still not sure why I don't already have some (I know my dad used them in the past).

Thanks for the comments! Plenty to digest there.

 ErikSetzer wrote:

I'd like to throw an Avatar into the mix in time, but hate $40 for the same old model now in brittle warping resin (Florida heat). I might go either Forge World or try to find one on eBay or something. I just prefer buying through the local GW shop to help the manager.

The dark elf cauldron of blood has a "statue of Khaine" on it that needs exactly zero conversion work to be used as a Avatar.


It's also ~$17 cheaper then the forgeworld one, and that's before you consider the fact that you can always sell off the bloodwrack bitz.

About the avatar idea, find a dark elf player, find his coldrun of blood, when hes not looking take the avatar off of it.

As to the list, the WL can take 2 shooting weapons which you should do, and since its for fun games proxy the guardians as avengers, 3 units of 10, the warlocks in a small council, they can cast powers on the WLs.

I've considered using that piece from the Cauldron of Blood for an Avatar, I'd like to find a Dark Elf player using the non-Cauldron model and get the bit from him, but maybe eBay will have one of those available through a bitz seller.

No need to proxy Guardians as Dire Avengers, I have a unit or two of them already assembled and good to go, plus a bag with something like thirty old metal DAs (not replicas bought online or anything like that, just a bunch of old blisters that we decided would fit better by taking the models out, putting them in a Ziploc, and labeling it with a Sharpie).

Also, I thought a Warlock could only cast spells on itself and its unit? If so, they're not actually able to cast on Wraithlords, right?

 ErikSetzer wrote:
I've considered using that piece from the Cauldron of Blood for an Avatar, I'd like to find a Dark Elf player using the non-Cauldron model and get the bit from him, but maybe eBay will have one of those available through a bitz seller.

No need to proxy Guardians as Dire Avengers, I have a unit or two of them already assembled and good to go, plus a bag with something like thirty old metal DAs (not replicas bought online or anything like that, just a bunch of old blisters that we decided would fit better by taking the models out, putting them in a Ziploc, and labeling it with a Sharpie).

Also, I thought a Warlock could only cast spells on itself and its unit? If so, they're not actually able to cast on Wraithlords, right?

If I remember right, Renewer can be cast on a friendly Wraith.

They can also maledict enemies.

Well, yes and no all powers are cast on the psyker, except renewer which is any model within 18" so it helps WLs.

Also their maledictions can help WLs as well indirectly.

"As for Aspects, Warp Spiders, Swooping Hawks, Dark Reapers, Harlequins, and Striking Scorpions all have their places in a foot Eldar list, but need to be deployed tactically to get the most use out of them as they require a bit more finesse to use effectively due to T3, weaker armor saves, and higher than average point costs. "

^^^Agreed, but I gotta say a Swordwind-style foot list is fun as hell to play, too. It's unforgiving when you screw up or the dice turn on you, but a foot army of aspect warriors with exarchs can be tactically rich and complex and are never boring to play. Each aspect has a role and needs to coordinate closely with the others...if you get wrong-footed it can be hard to get your guys where they ought to be, but when it works, it REALLY WORKS!

 Dr. Serling wrote:


The 20 man guardian blob+farseer is a great core foot unit. This bunkers your seer in, while providing long ranged support. Anything that gets close is cut to ribbons with shuriken fire. Wraithlords are great for support and soaking up fire, while war walkers have always been a classic unit for providing dakka.

For a core, I would go farseer+20 guardians+2 lances, 2 lords with dual lances, dual flamers and ghostglaives if points allow, then 3 scatter walkers. To round out scoring, dire avengers do quite well on foot, exarch with shimmershield depending on your playstyle and meta. Warp spiders and swooping hawks are fantastic at their respective roles; warp spiders soft counter everything but Av14 and hordes, hawks hard counter AV14 and hordes. Shining spears are decent, and even scorpions can be okay. Rangers and jetbikes can round out your scoring by hiding in reserve and turbo boosting/outflanking. Reapers are okay, but be careful with the. Avoid banshees like the plague; harlequins are not much better.

Fragons are a bit too expensive to footslog, better off with wraithguard and a spiritseer. Any form of guard/blade is good except dual swords, as many as possible on foot, and a spiritseer to make them scoring.

Jetseer councils are outright disgusting, if you have enough psykers on bikes to field them.

One unit to consider are support batteries; they are dirt cheap for the damage they can deal. Generally you want shadow weavers, vibro cannons are ok if you guide them and take 3, but they fill a very specific role most lists won't need. D cannons are too expensive for what you get, as the prime selling point for support batteries is points.

We always seem to have the same advice Serling.

A 20 man guardian blob with 2 BL's, Farseer and Conceal Warlock is a very solid base for this list. Don't be tempted to push forward with them, just score your home objective and maybe get an Aegis for them.

Use Dire Avengers to push the midfield, and jetbikes to contest. Vauls Wrath with Shadow Weavers can take out enemy troops, while things like Wraithlords, Swooping Hawks, Spiders do all the other jobs around the field.

Also, Wraithguard/Blades can be really useful and are hyper resilient to small arms fire.

Aegis is amusing to me because of the pairing of Conceal with it giving Guardians a 2+ invulnerable save (except to certain things that ignore cover). Heck, even a Wraithlord is looking at that kind of save if you can get Invisibility off on him.

What about the rest of the Seer Council, the remnants after you assign them to squads? Seems they'd form a unit of their own? So you can either pair them with the Farseer or maybe another IC, or just run them around using their powers to create havoc? I know that might be a bit of a "noob" question, but the book doesn't seem to be that clear, unless it's hidden on a page somewhere (like the platforms getting Relentless).

It's funny how your list building is going exactly how I said it would go....footdar is a fun army for casual play, but it tends to be one dimensional.

The aspect army is something different though. You really need a casual game, but its a lot of fun to actually use them in a game. I just recently picked up 10 man units of all the aspects and I hope to start using them in lists even though I know they will get destroyed.

 ductvader wrote:
There's also Iyanden.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
...there's only one unit that Eldar players will universally agree is bad. Who's going to be the one to say it?

Howling Banshees

 ductvader wrote:

...there's only one unit that Eldar players will universally agree is bad. Who's going to be the one to say it?

he he he....
Falcons


coudnt resist

 ninjafiredragon wrote:

 ductvader wrote:

...there's only one unit that Eldar players will universally agree is bad. Who's going to be the one to say it?

he he he....
Falcons


coudnt resist

THIS GUY


Automatically Appended Next Post:
...extremefreak wins

I like power swords, but not expensive models wielding power swords that can't assault out of a vehicle and die to small arms fire.

I'm liking more and more the idea of setting up things like support weapon batteries behind an Aegis with a Warlock for a 2+ cover save.

On the more "WTF?!?" side of things... I noticed Illic's updated Rangers more than double their price, so 25 points a piece. Sure, they'll have a 2+ cover save in the woods, and all of them can allocate where their wounds go to, and Illic has an AP2 gun that he can allocate hits with... but wow, that's not cheap. I guess if I ever need to take out annoying AM commanders, they'll help with that, but Illic seems better suited to taking out characters. On the other hand, sniping out heavy weapons...

 ErikSetzer wrote:
I like power swords, but not expensive models wielding power swords that can't assault out of a vehicle and die to small arms fire.

I'm liking more and more the idea of setting up things like support weapon batteries behind an Aegis with a Warlock for a 2+ cover save.

On the more "WTF?!?" side of things... I noticed Illic's updated Rangers more than double their price, so 25 points a piece. Sure, they'll have a 2+ cover save in the woods, and all of them can allocate where their wounds go to, and Illic has an AP2 gun that he can allocate hits with... but wow, that's not cheap. I guess if I ever need to take out annoying AM commanders, they'll help with that, but Illic seems better suited to taking out characters. On the other hand, sniping out heavy weapons...

Yeah, do this instead...buy Illic and a single squad of rangers that he goes with...do not pay for upgrade...they get stealth and shrouding this way. I often use Illic with my Dark Reapers.

Remember, normal rangers still choose targets on a 6 to hit.

 Arbiter wrote:
Remember, normal rangers still choose targets on a 6 to hit.

OT: Giving a ranger relentless in Kill Team is hilarious because he can then make use of battle focus.

 Arbiter wrote:
Remember, normal rangers still choose targets on a 6 to hit.

Yeah, being able to pinpoint each shot seems a bit like overkill, especially at the points. I'm not a huge fan of sniper weapons anyway given that you need to get lucky for them to get through someone like a Space Marine's armor, but at 25 points each... yikes. Pairing them up with Illic would work, they have Stealth and he has Shrouded and IIRC the two will combine as long as one model from the combined squad has each, so 2+ inv., he's got Split Fire... still a nice little group of snipers.

Still not sure if I want to do that or go with two Farseers so I can Prescience and Guide two units of Guardians and two Wraithlords (or a Vaul battery or two once I get the models) each turn. I just love the idea of twin-linked brightlances everywhere.

Illic is for fun...not for being competitive.

I often take him for dark reapers and split-firing a dcannon in vaul's wrath.

This type of list can work. You would have so many foot soldiers that you opponent would have a hard time. Just make sure to bring a lot of bright lances for tanks.

Did a couple of games this weekend...

First one, 1250 points Escalation league, I wanted to use my Imperial Knight I'd just finished painting.

List was:

Farseer with Runes of Witnessing
14 Guardians with Brightlance, Warlock with Singing Spear
14 Guardians with Brightlance, Warlock with Singing Spear
Spiritseer
Wraithlord with two Brightlances
Wraithlord with two Brightlances
Knight Errant

My opponent had Dark Angels, I'm still not 100% familiar with their newer codex so forgive the lack of "proper" names:

Commander with power sword
5 Terminators with Assault Cannon, one guy with Thunder Hammer and Storm Shield (who he placed in the front to soak up incoming fire)
10 Tacticals with plasma cannon
10 Tacticals with plasma gun
3 Black Knights
Land Speeder with multimelta and typhoon missile launcher
Land Speeder Vengeance

Given what he had in models, that was meant to be an "all-comers" list and I can see it hurting Marines, but with the Wraithlord and Knight, well...

I used the Farseer to cast Prescience and Guide on units to shoot better, and the Spiritseer got lucky with Protect so I attached him to a Wraithlord and kept using Conceal and Protect on it to give it 2+ armor and 5+ cover. My opponent got first turn, used Deep Strike to drop Terminators who scattered close to one Guardian squad and killed over half of it. The plasmas mostly bounced off the Knight, one got a Glancing Hit but the shield saved it. The smaller Land Speeder unloaded on the lone Wraithlord and did two wounds to it. In my first turn, I moved the Knight up, shredded the Vengeance with melta-cannon, assaulted the bikes and tore them apart. The remainder of the Guardian squad shot at the Terminators and knocked out all but two of them, then I charged in with them and the Wraithlord, killing one Terminator. One of my other brightlances managed to knock a hull point off the small Land Speeder but between poor rolling and nice jink saves it survived. Second turn, plasma gun couldn't hurt my Knight, plasma cannon blew himself up, Land Speeder zipped behind the Knight, got two penetrating hits... but I'd directed the shield that way (figuring plasma wasn't worth worrying about as much as melta and krak), and the shield saved both. The combat between Guardians and Terminators saw no harm done to the Terminators in a fit of unlucky rolling, then the Terminator took the last wound on the Wraithlord and the Guardians fled. In my turn, they rallied, and used Guide to fire a bunch of shots, along with the second Wraithlord, taking out the last Terminator. The Knight stomped over, melta'd a Tactical Squad (and came two inches from scattering back onto himself), then assaulted and squished all but two of them (who promptly fled off the board). The second Guardian squad couldn't bring the Land Speeder down with its brightlance so I unloaded all my shuriken catapults into it, got five glances, and it couldn't save them all... wrecked. Since he only had a Tactical squad left, we called it at that point. The mission was "Big Guns Never Tire" and I could have wiped out that squad as well and was holding two objectives already and could have run my remaining Wraithlord to a third.


Later in the day, some of us did a four-way match (1000 points each) using the old "Carnage 2" mission for four players: Set up in corners, objective in the very center, closest model to it at the end wins, dice off for first turn and it goes clockwise after that. I brought:

Farseer with Runes of Witnessing
8 Dire Avengers with Exarch
8 Dire Avengers with Exarch
4 Dark Readers with starshot missiles
4 Dark Readers with starshot missiles
Wraithlord with 2 brightlances
9 Warp Spiders with Exarch (with twin-linked death spinner)

I mainly just wanted to try all Aspects. I was facing an Imperial Guard force with a lot of infantry and a Leman Russ Punisher; a Chaos Marine force with two squads in Rhinos, a small Terminator squad, and some Death Korps allies with thudd gun (or the equivalent, anyway); and a combination of Tyranids and Orks (Ork player had about 600 points, was a new player so he joined with another player. The Orks and Nids were on the same side of the table as me, we made a tentative alliance (as the Chaos and IG players did) not to attack each other until dealing with the other two armies.

Luckily, I got first turn. Wraithlord didn't need Guide, hit with first shot with both brightlances, two penetrations on the Punisher, both explosions. Some Dire Avengers had range, took out seven Guardsmen from one platoon, Dark Reapers took some out of the other.

Trying to recall all the details would just be long and might have some inaccuracies, so I'll switch to more general: I moved my army toward the IG and decimated them with shuriken catapults and Warp Spiders jumping everywhere and even assaulting at times. Then I went for the Chaos, shredded a squad, its Rhino, and the Death Korps (the other Rhino had been surrounded by Nids and Orks who then blew it up with passengers trapped inside). Terminators Deep Strike'd in behind the bugs, got a big bug and Warrior Prime (nasty version of Warrior?) to go after it. I took out the Nobz mob with krak missiles and used Warp Spiders and Avengers to shred Termagants and Grots. The only thing left on the table was an Ork mob that finally took out the Death Korps gun, and the two (now wounded) bugs who finally ate the Chaos Lord. I mowed down the Tervigon, the Prime managed to get into assault with my Wraithlord (who had suffered an earlier wound from a meltagun), and couldn't get a 6 to wound while my Wraithlord finally did the two wounds needed to kill it. The Orks hung back so I wouldn't just shred their faces off, but if they'd come close to the objective, they likely would have died. Sadly, I lost my Farseer very early to the thudd gun hitting him with a S6 round (that was trying to hit my Wraithlord), he failed his save and was insta-gibbed. At the end of it, I still had six Avengers, both units of Reapers, and the Wraithlord. Should have still had most of my Warp Spiders (though I think three of them died to the warp), but I thought I could tie up the Prime and keep it from the objective... stupid, I should have shot it up and stayed back (did no wounds, he killed two or three, and higher Initiative meant the Spiders were run down). But in the process, the Eldar destroyed an entire IG army, half of a Chaos army, and over half of a Tyranid/Ork army.


At the end of the day, people seemed more ready to call Eldar cheesy. I just left with an appreciation for how fun and potent they can be without Wave Serpents and "must-have" stuff. The Battle Focus was insanely useful, letting me get more guys into range at times, reposition my army better, and just generally makes the infantry a LOT better. I fell in love with the Warp Spiders' maneuverability, they seriously covered an insane amount of real estate. Using a Farseer as a way to give two units "twin-linked" per turn is a very effective tool.

I want to get an artillery battery now, some Wraithguard (maybe two units, as Spiritseer makes them Troops so they're scoring), and some kind of anti-air. Likely an Aegis line with its gun emplacement. I might do the flyer, even though I'm trying to stay mostly on the ground, but I feel like I want to see what 6.5/7E might do with flyers, if anything. It does look awesome and can wreck other flyers.

Pretty interesting games. As a side note for your fist game, Independant Characters cant join a Wraithlord.

Why is that?

 extremefreak17 wrote:
Pretty interesting games. As a side note for your fist game, Independant Characters cant join a Wraithlord.

Well, I had a question on that, because I've never had to try it before, what with playing Orks, Space Marines, Chaos Marines, Dark Eldar, Daemons... No MCs as a separate unit in those cases (except MCs who are also ICs). So I asked the usual "rules question default," the manager of the store (GW store, so hey, might as well ask the GW employee, right?), and he said yeah. It makes some sense, especially in the case of a Spiritseer. I can't find anything about it in the FAQ and I see Tyranid players joining their ICs to MCs. It seems to me the MC is a unit of its own; whereas Nids can get MC units of up to 3, the Wraithlord is a unit of 1, but still a unit nonetheless.