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Been searching for a thread on this, couldn't find one. So I made it. Basically this is a tactical analysis of what happened to the Eldar with the new release. Please, don't jump on here to rage about how this isn't necessary because the 'Dar are OP. I hear it enough already.

Tournament Changes
From what I saw, one rule was tossed in for every Eldar death star to cripple it. The examples I'll use are the two biggest: Serpent Spam and Seerstar. NOTE: These aren't total hamstrings, but they did get nerfed at least a little.
Seerstars now must contend with the limit on teams of psykers. Only one ability may be cast per team now, meaning you can't toss 3 empowers on the team anymore, and rolling the same number multiple times for your psykers limits what they'll be tossing around. I doubt this will knock it from death star status, but definitely a blow to it's capability. A possible strategy I see to forgo this is tree dive with your farseers on different trees. And, for the lucky ones, obtain invisibility and Fortune to be entirely unstoppable. I'm not going much further into Seerstar tactics, because their are other threads about them.
Serpent Spam now suffers from a no-save issue. To gain the Jink that made these so dead hard, you now lose the firepower of the serpents to snapshots. I do believe this will end the old lists that hold 4 or more serpents in them, but Serpents are still doable. If you were to drop back to around 2-3 Serpents you'd have the table space to park them in cover for their save. This new Serpent strategy requires Ghostwalk Matrices rather than Holofields like before, and places to put them, and limits the number you take by space available. So, probably not Tournament normal anymore.

Changes to psykers
Personally speaking, I believe my psyker got a thorough beating by the nerf bat with new psykic powers because I only take one. This is an issue because i now have only 4-9 charge to use for powers that are rather expensive to guarantee success. However, overall I believe the new phase will greatly amplify the Eldar with the return of Ulthwe in force.Large numbers of warlocks now turn Farseers into wrecking balls, and Eldrad will be a god with so many charge to toss around. Notes to take into consideration, Farseer in squad of meat shields must have the SSA Remnant. With more book powers costing 2+ and competing with Runes of Fate, I anticipate many more rolls on these trees, and the SSA will be a force multiplier in keeping the Warp Charges flowing around to everyone.

Changes to anti-tank
This... Makes me sad. I was hoping that the "More durable vehicle" rumour would translate to a revamp of Hull Points. Instead, it nerfed my poor little Fire Prism. Ranged Eldar AT took a beating, with lessened chance of blowing them up on the table, Knights got a slight reduction, and Fire Prisms are no longer effective AT. Now, we still have solid ranged AT in the form of BL Walkers, but for those who believe av 10 is too squishy, get used to getting VERY close to kill tanks again. Good old times, right?

New Unit spotlights
With Serpents no longer being the attention whores they were, maybe we'll get to see the REST of the codex. Spiders and Hawks are going to be replacing the serpents as harassers and tank smashers (conveniently costing the same as a Serpent), and Scorpions and Shining Spears will be terrors with the change to Outflank in regards to assault.

These are what jumped out at me. If you have any additions, disagreements, etc. feel free to add them.

What change to outflank regarding assault?

 Will1541 wrote:

Serpent Spam now suffers from a no-save issue. To gain the Jink that made these so dead hard, you now lose the firepower of the serpents to snapshots. I do believe this will end the old lists that hold 4 or more serpents in them, but Serpents are still doable. If you were to drop back to around 2-3 Serpents you'd have the table space to park them in cover for their save. This new Serpent strategy requires Ghostwalk Matrices rather than Holofields like before, and places to put them, and limits the number you take by space available. So, probably not Tournament normal anymore.

I don't agree with this. The change means that Eldar players will just need to be more careful in their serpent placement. Sitting a Serpent behind ruins, with a holofield, confers a 3+ coversave. You don't need Ghostwalk. You can take a coversave from another Serpent for a 4+, you can take a save from an Aegis for a 3+. The change just means you'll have to play smarter, rather than just loading up on 6 serpents and shooting all the shields each turn. And they're scoring now. Super scoring.

Hawks and Spiders were already awesome. Eldar players just loaded up on Serpents and Wraithknights because the internet said so. My three squads of Hawks will be mandatory in my Tournament armies now. Deep striking to score objectives each turn is just too good to pass up.

On outflank - I don't have the rulebook, but are you insinuating they can charge from reserves now?

Outflanks are treated as reserves and reserves are not allowed to charge the turn they come on.

I agree Hawks just got really useful. Be hard to use Spiders over hawks due to that.

I played against Eldar last weekend, and where they've REALLY improved is in their ability to score objectives, particularly in the new missions.

Jetbikes are the obvious winners here - being insanely cheap AND crazily fast means it's almost impossible to win the VP game against them. Serpents now score, so what they lose in firepower they make up for in utility. Add in the plethora of other mobility options such as Swooping Hawks and Warp Spiders, and any almost any army is going to have trouble from a mission-based perspective.

And that's all BEFORE you take the high survivability and firepower of Eldar into account...

They got hit a bit in their own psychic phase, but they can still take enough warlocks to power up the farseers. However, this also given them enough dice to stop enemy psykers, even many blessings. A single lvl 2 psyker in an enemy force will have a very limited opportunity to get powers off against the number of dice an Eldar army can deploy.

Belly wrote:


I don't agree with this. The change means that Eldar players will just need to be more careful in their serpent placement. Sitting a Serpent behind ruins, with a holofield, confers a 3+ coversave. You don't need Ghostwalk. You can take a coversave from another Serpent for a 4+, you can take a save from an Aegis for a 3+. The change just means you'll have to play smarter, rather than just loading up on 6 serpents and shooting all the shields each turn. And they're scoring now. Super scoring.

That's sort of what I meant and I'm not saying no more holofields. However, with them relying on obtaining the saves rather than just having them the points would be better spent on GW matrix to prevent terrain checks while also opening up places to put them. As such, GW>HF in 7th ed.

On outflank - I don't have the rulebook, but are you insinuating they can charge from reserves now?
I thought they did. It used to specify in the outflank rule, and now it doesn't. Apparently I'm wrong though. *Sighs, and puts Scorpions back in their box.*

 Will1541 wrote:
Been searching for a thread on this, couldn't find one. So I made it. Basically this is a tactical analysis of what happened to the Eldar with the new release. Please, don't jump on here to rage about how this isn't necessary because the 'Dar are OP. I hear it enough already.

Tournament Changes
From what I saw, one rule was tossed in for every Eldar death star to cripple it. The examples I'll use are the two biggest: Serpent Spam and Seerstar. NOTE: These aren't total hamstrings, but they did get nerfed at least a little.
Seerstars now must contend with the limit on teams of psykers. Only one ability may be cast per team now, meaning you can't toss 3 empowers on the team anymore, and rolling the same number multiple times for your psykers limits what they'll be tossing around. I doubt this will knock it from death star status, but definitely a blow to it's capability. A possible strategy I see to forgo this is tree dive with your farseers on different trees. And, for the lucky ones, obtain invisibility and Fortune to be entirely unstoppable. I'm not going much further into Seerstar tactics, because their are other threads about them.
Serpent Spam now suffers from a no-save issue. To gain the Jink that made these so dead hard, you now lose the firepower of the serpents to snapshots. I do believe this will end the old lists that hold 4 or more serpents in them, but Serpents are still doable. If you were to drop back to around 2-3 Serpents you'd have the table space to park them in cover for their save. This new Serpent strategy requires Ghostwalk Matrices rather than Holofields like before, and places to put them, and limits the number you take by space available. So, probably not Tournament normal anymore.

Changes to psykers
Personally speaking, I believe my psyker got a thorough beating by the nerf bat with new psykic powers because I only take one. This is an issue because i now have only 4-9 charge to use for powers that are rather expensive to guarantee success. However, overall I believe the new phase will greatly amplify the Eldar with the return of Ulthwe in force.Large numbers of warlocks now turn Farseers into wrecking balls, and Eldrad will be a god with so many charge to toss around. Notes to take into consideration, Farseer in squad of meat shields must have the SSA Remnant. With more book powers costing 2+ and competing with Runes of Fate, I anticipate many more rolls on these trees, and the SSA will be a force multiplier in keeping the Warp Charges flowing around to everyone.

Changes to anti-tank
This... Makes me sad. I was hoping that the "More durable vehicle" rumour would translate to a revamp of Hull Points. Instead, it nerfed my poor little Fire Prism. Ranged Eldar AT took a beating, with lessened chance of blowing them up on the table, Knights got a slight reduction, and Fire Prisms are no longer effective AT. Now, we still have solid ranged AT in the form of BL Walkers, but for those who believe av 10 is too squishy, get used to getting VERY close to kill tanks again. Good old times, right?

New Unit spotlights
With Serpents no longer being the attention whores they were, maybe we'll get to see the REST of the codex. Spiders and Hawks are going to be replacing the serpents as harassers and tank smashers (conveniently costing the same as a Serpent), and Scorpions and Shining Spears will be terrors with the change to Outflank in regards to assault.

These are what jumped out at me. If you have any additions, disagreements, etc. feel free to add them.

I think you are wrong about the Serpent Spam. I actually think it is much stronger now. If you are running 6-8 Wave Serpents, not ALL of them are going to have to jink, only the ones in the open. The rest will still be firing at full effect. Also, they are far more durable with the new pen chart, and their own AT did not really suffer because they are mostly hull pointing out other vehicles anyway. I also believe that Holofields are still a better option than the GWM. While the GWM is a bit more usefull now, Holofields are even more a "must take." Holofiels allow you a 4+ from intervening models and a 3+ behind ruins. They also mean that you are Jinking at 3+ in the open if you decide to do so. do see GWM being taken more often, but never without holofields.

Why do you think the Fire Prism is worse now?
It's AP1 lance, which seems good now vehicles are slightly tougher.
Confused...

I am playing against Tau next weekend. I'm going serpent and fire prism heavy (he's running devilfish and hammerheads). I'll let you know how it goes.

zerosignal wrote:Why do you think the Fire Prism is worse now?

-It now has to roll a 7 after modifiers to explode a tank rather than a 6
-Skimmers now get 4+ jink saves against it if they choose rather than a 5.
The change made it so that vehicles will take more shots on average to destroy. The Fire Prism was good at single-shotting tanks, therefore it is less effective now. I don't think it is BAD, but I do agree that it is less effective now.

zerosignal wrote:
Why do you think the Fire Prism is worse now?
It's AP1 lance, which seems good now vehicles are slightly tougher.
Confused...

I am playing against Tau next weekend. I'm going serpent and fire prism heavy (he's running devilfish and hammerheads). I'll let you know how it goes.

They're worse off because now instead of a 1/2 chance to crack that armor in one shot, it's a 1/3. The points equivalent number of BL Walkers used to be equivalent in killing power, now they're better by a large margin because they'll sheer of the hull points.

One minor but not insignificant point about the changes to Jink: Wave Serpents can now get their Jink save even if the opponent goes first. I admit that I've always been overparanoid about getting first turn ever since 3rd Edition (when moving was the difference between Eldar tanks being either invincible or DEAD) but it's rather nice to know that even if I don't win the die roll there's a far better chance of my tanks surviving.

Maledictions and blessings are in psychic phase instead of before movement now so that's a big boost to most of the warlock powers

Theorius wrote:
Maledictions and blessings are in psychic phase instead of before movement now so that's a big boost to most of the warlock powers

In addition, because Witchfires are now done in the psy phase, instead of the shooting phase, a seer council can jet up on bikes, throw Maledictions and Witchfires at enemy units, and then Turbo Boost away behind terrain and out of charge range. I think that we might see some very cool uses for that.

 Magc8Ball wrote:

Theorius wrote:
Maledictions and blessings are in psychic phase instead of before movement now so that's a big boost to most of the warlock powers

In addition, because Witchfires are now done in the psy phase, instead of the shooting phase, a seer council can jet up on bikes, throw Maledictions and Witchfires at enemy units, and then Turbo Boost away behind terrain and out of charge range. I think that we might see some very cool uses for that.

Vortex of Doom minus the chance of it rolling over you the next turn.

 Will1541 wrote:

 Magc8Ball wrote:

Theorius wrote:
Maledictions and blessings are in psychic phase instead of before movement now so that's a big boost to most of the warlock powers

In addition, because Witchfires are now done in the psy phase, instead of the shooting phase, a seer council can jet up on bikes, throw Maledictions and Witchfires at enemy units, and then Turbo Boost away behind terrain and out of charge range. I think that we might see some very cool uses for that.

Vortex of Doom minus the chance of it rolling over you the next turn.

I... um...

Be right back. I need to make sure I take Sanctic cards with me tomorrow.

so much win! especialy when we can cast using the stone with less warp charges reducing the risk of perils, and even if we do perils hve the farseer burn a warp charge to eat the wound if you arent just sucked by the hoover.

How have serpents gotten worse?

is it because you have to snap-shoot to get your 3+ cover save?

Serpent spam still works en masse, your opponent can't force every serpent to jink every turn.

 Scipio Africanus wrote:
How have serpents gotten worse?

is it because you have to snap-shoot to get your 3+ cover save?

Serpent spam still works en masse, your opponent can't force every serpent to jink every turn.

Or they could park themselves in cover like every other tank.

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

 Scipio Africanus wrote:
How have serpents gotten worse?

is it because you have to snap-shoot to get your 3+ cover save?

Serpent spam still works en masse, your opponent can't force every serpent to jink every turn.

I understand this, but now you can't have 6-8 firing every turn, it's going to lessen the firepower by a large margin. They're not useless anymore. They're just considerably weaker than in 6th.

 Will1541 wrote:

 Scipio Africanus wrote:
How have serpents gotten worse?

is it because you have to snap-shoot to get your 3+ cover save?

Serpent spam still works en masse, your opponent can't force every serpent to jink every turn.

I understand this, but now you can't have 6-8 firing every turn, it's going to lessen the firepower by a large margin. They're not useless anymore. They're just considerably weaker than in 6th.

Considerably weaker? I wouldn't say so.
I play Eldar since the 3rd ed came out. Serpents are the best transport in the game. They always were. With the new codex, Serpents were simply overpowered. Now they are no longer. But they are more durable. I find that this is a fair trade.

 wuestenfux wrote:

 Will1541 wrote:

 Scipio Africanus wrote:
How have serpents gotten worse?

is it because you have to snap-shoot to get your 3+ cover save?

Serpent spam still works en masse, your opponent can't force every serpent to jink every turn.

I understand this, but now you can't have 6-8 firing every turn, it's going to lessen the firepower by a large margin. They're not useless anymore. They're just considerably weaker than in 6th.

Considerably weaker? I wouldn't say so.
I play Eldar since the 3rd ed came out. Serpents are the best transport in the game. They always were. With the new codex, Serpents were simply overpowered. Now they are no longer. But they are more durable. I find that this is a fair trade.

To have gone from "simply overpowered" to "no longer" sounds like getting considerably weaker. Perhaps I'm saying this wrong though... They are no longer the ultimate spammable cheese that crushed everything like they used to be. In the hands of a capable commander they still have their place. But with the new jink rules they've gotten weaker.

In return for getting slightly weaker in terms of shooting, Serpents are now scoring. Super scoring if they were bought for Guardians or Avengers (or troop Wraiths). A fair trade, I think.

Super-scoring Serpents is just wrong.

I think aside from scoring they were only slightly nerfed, but factoring in the scoring/superscoring, they're even "worse" now. Although with scoring and cover saturation, lists might have fewer of them, but they are still broken.

It needs a much bigger nerf before I'll put mine back on the table :(

(Also, Eldar skimmers can't use the cover a Predator can, quite often. In the one tourny I went to, my skimmers ate it big first turn as none of the cover on our side was tall enough to effect them. Getting an Aegis to block 25% of a Serpent isn't completely guaranteed).

I think Seer Star isn't broken anymore. Invis might be, but aside from that, stacking that many powers just doesn't work with the new Psyker phase.

I also think we'll see a lot more Warlocks attached to units, which is what I wanted to see!

Serpents need tactics to win now, they aren't just a point and click unit that gets saves for moving.

I think we needed a return of AP- being -1 on the damage table. then waveserpents would be fittingly anti-infantry rather than anti-everything. even so, they'll have to take a bright lance to be able to do a lot of good to tanks any more, as they can easily fail to glance a vehicle to death and can no longer explode one, especially if snap-shooting. I fear them a lot less than before, and I would happily sweep across a battlefield with shots to get them all to jink instead of focussing on one and blowing it up. as soon as it's snap-shooting, it's not a threat any more. A stompa with a supa gatla could ruin the day of any serpent spam army in one round of firepower with one gun, sweeping S7 shots across the whole army. a belly gun from a kill bursta would also do some good, as it can hit a 3' circle with S7.

Bharring wrote:
Super-scoring Serpents is just wrong.

I think aside from scoring they were only slightly nerfed, but factoring in the scoring/superscoring, they're even "worse" now. Although with scoring and cover saturation, lists might have fewer of them, but they are still broken.

It needs a much bigger nerf before I'll put mine back on the table :(

Agreed, I won't use them on principle

 Mr Morden wrote:

Bharring wrote:
Super-scoring Serpents is just wrong.

I think aside from scoring they were only slightly nerfed, but factoring in the scoring/superscoring, they're even "worse" now. Although with scoring and cover saturation, lists might have fewer of them, but they are still broken.

It needs a much bigger nerf before I'll put mine back on the table :(

Agreed, I won't use them on principle

But if you buy them for howling banshees is that enough of a give and take to make it balanced?

-Matt

 HawaiiMatt wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:

Bharring wrote:
Super-scoring Serpents is just wrong.

I think aside from scoring they were only slightly nerfed, but factoring in the scoring/superscoring, they're even "worse" now. Although with scoring and cover saturation, lists might have fewer of them, but they are still broken.

It needs a much bigger nerf before I'll put mine back on the table :(

Agreed, I won't use them on principle

But if you buy them for howling banshees is that enough of a give and take to make it balanced?

-Matt

Ahh my poor banshees :(

Objective Secured Scoring Serpents. No minor nerfs can compare to to this.

Yes Aeroents took a minor nerf with Jink and got more durable with the vehicle damage table, but Serpents can now comfortably fire their shield every turn and Jink against anything that threatens them.

Serpents are now hands down one of the best units in the game and the best scoring transport, though an Objective Secured BA Landraider would be awesome barring a terrible codex.

 some bloke wrote:
Serpents need tactics to win now, they aren't just a point and click unit that gets saves for moving.

I think we needed a return of AP- being -1 on the damage table. then waveserpents would be fittingly anti-infantry rather than anti-everything. even so, they'll have to take a bright lance to be able to do a lot of good to tanks any more, as they can easily fail to glance a vehicle to death and can no longer explode one, especially if snap-shooting. I fear them a lot less than before, and I would happily sweep across a battlefield with shots to get them all to jink instead of focussing on one and blowing it up. as soon as it's snap-shooting, it's not a threat any more. A stompa with a supa gatla could ruin the day of any serpent spam army in one round of firepower with one gun, sweeping S7 shots across the whole army. a belly gun from a kill bursta would also do some good, as it can hit a 3' circle with S7.

This change would hardly effect Wave Serpents. You aren't looking for "explodes" results with mass S6/S7 shooting. In fact, the result on the table really doesnt matter at all. Serpents wreck vehicles by stripping hull points.

As far as space elves are concerned in 7e, is there a viable daemon summoning list for Eldar? Something making use of cheap Farseers with runes of witnessing and the spirit stone of -1 warp charge required?

I have more than half a mind to use the new wood elf Treeman/Treeman Ancient/Durthu as summoned Greater Daemons for an exodite/wraith themed Eldar army. Drycha, Branchwraith as summoned heralds, dryads as summoned lesser daemons.

Would a 2+ detachment list that starts off with

Farseer, runes of witnessing, spirit stone of Anath'lan - 130p
Spiritseer - 70p
Farseer, runes of witnessing, spirit stone of Anath'lan - 130p
10x Warlock Council - 350p

To give you 18+d6 warp charges to work with be viable? Is this buying too much into the "daemons summoning daemons summoning daemons" hype? If this is at all not terrible I'd love to do a crazy Eldar worldspirit/infinity circuit "daemons" list with Wood Elf tree dudes.