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Hey guys, so I want to start an Eldar army. Other than a codex, what's a good HQ and 2 troops to start with? Also, how do they play differently than other armies (only played SM and CSM so far)?

I find it easier with eldar to first pick a theme. All the Eldar players here have a theme they kind of stuck to and molded the list around.

One guy has a dying craftworld (the one that came out of the warp) that relies on wraith constructs and guardians to do the heavy lifting.

The other guy loves speed and has Hornets, all the flyers and just a bunch of guardians backed by all the psykers he can fit.

I had all Aspect warriors only and that was my theme.

So my advice is to first think of a theme and build your army from there.

My own theme is no Aspect Warriors. Rangers, Guardians and Jetbikes.

But good places to start are 10 Dire Avengers, 10 Guardians, a Wave Serpent or two and either a Spiritseer (cheap on points) or a Farseer and from there you can build in pretty much any way moving forward. You could replace the Guardians with 6 Jetbikes instead and get a little more experience with the fast side of Eldar too and again, have options to build however you like without models going to waste.

Step One- Buy 6 wave serpents, 20 Dire Avengers, and 2 boxes of Fire dragons.

Step Two- Make 4 squads of 5 DA each, and 2 squads of Fire Dragons.

Step Three- Put heavy weapon of choice on the Serpents.

Step Four- Get a Farseer, and stick him in the back wherever, or add him to a DA unit.

Step Five- Win.

My theme is "more wave serpents!" Basically what that guy said ^ Minimum dire avengers in serpents, fire dragons, Warp spiders or swooping hawks and wraithknights with a farseer HQ.

Well, Verviedi's advice comes close to a typical Serpent spam list. However, I prefer 10 men units do DA or guardians to be mounted.
I'd mount the Farseer on a jet bike for increased mobility and better support via psychic powers like guide or prescience.
Warwalkers with dual scatter lasers are great and one WK is also find. Take the stock one for pt reasons.

Farseer on Jetbike is good and DA all day!


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Verviedi wrote:
Step One- Buy 6 wave serpents, 20 Dire Avengers, and 2 boxes of Fire dragons.

Step Two- Make 4 squads of 5 DA each, and 2 squads of Fire Dragons.

Step Three- Put heavy weapon of choice on the Serpents.

Step Four- Get a Farseer, and stick him in the back wherever, or add him to a DA unit.

Step Five- Win.

Step Six - File bankruptcy.

Trollio14 wrote:
Farseer on Jetbike is good and DA all day!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Verviedi wrote:
Step One- Buy 6 wave serpents, 20 Dire Avengers, and 2 boxes of Fire dragons.

Step Two- Make 4 squads of 5 DA each, and 2 squads of Fire Dragons.

Step Three- Put heavy weapon of choice on the Serpents.

Step Four- Get a Farseer, and stick him in the back wherever, or add him to a DA unit.

Step Five- Win.

Step Six - File bankruptcy.

This entire army costs $500 retail straight from the GW website. I make that much in one paycheck AFTER taxes and retirement are deducted (and I pay taxes on my retirement contributions) and I don't even have a good job. What in the Emperor's name are you talking about? My Tyranids, retail, probably cost more than this and I'm not even close to being ready to play a game, let alone win frakking tournaments.

Step 1 - Get 6 WS and DA

Step 2 - Bacon

Step 3 - ????

Step 4 - Profit

Trollio14 wrote:
Farseer on Jetbike is good and DA all day!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Verviedi wrote:
Step One- Buy 6 wave serpents, 20 Dire Avengers, and 2 boxes of Fire dragons.

Step Two- Make 4 squads of 5 DA each, and 2 squads of Fire Dragons.

Step Three- Put heavy weapon of choice on the Serpents.

Step Four- Get a Farseer, and stick him in the back wherever, or add him to a DA unit.

Step Five- Win.

Step Six - File bankruptcy.

Step Seven - Find new friends to play with.

What type of list are you going for? Wraith? Guardians? Aspect Warriors? Mech?

 extremefreak17 wrote:
What type of list are you going for? Wraith? Guardians? Aspect Warriors? Mech?

Well, I suggest to go for a mech army anyway.
You can mount Guardians, DA, FD or Wraithguard in the Serpents.

anything n my list that isn't wraith or spiritseer is a ghost. themes.

Play what you like, but remain open to losing a lot if you do not run certain units. Happily most of the Eldar codex outside of the elite section isn't terrible.

Do not run an all wave serpent list. Outside of pick up games it isn't even that good, and at worst you will be bored inside a month of playing it.

Units really worth investing in?

HQ: Farseers, preferably on a bike. Avatars are cool and I own one, but I never play with it since Farseers are just so much better. Rest of the HQs are mediocre at best.

Elites: Fire Dragons are the only thing worth buying. If you're running Wraithguard then they are most likely being used as troops.

Troops: While Dire Avengers are generally taken its not because they are good, but because they are cheap enough to take multiple Wave Serpents. You will see a lot of people that take Guardian Bikes, but they generally only take minimum squads and leave them in reserves till turn 5. I actually like Storm Guardians as they are basically better than all of our elite assault units and they are cheap for a 10 man unit with 2 melta/flamers in a Wave Serpent.

Fast Attack: Swooping Hawks and Warp Spiders are easily the best units here, Warp Spiders are arguably the best unit in the entire codex. The rest of the FA are pretty pointless.

Heavy Support: The most contested slot in the Eldar codex since almost all of it is great. I'd say the only units here I would totally ignore are Wraithlords and Falcons since they are easily replaced by clearly better alternatives. Everything else is easily playable.

 Goldphish wrote:
. You will see a lot of people that take Guardian Bikes, but they generally only take minimum squads and leave them in reserves till turn 5.
How do you keep them in reserves that long?

pm713 wrote:
How do you keep them in reserves that long?

You generally don't unless you are taking a Autarch. They just hide somewhere on the field if you're unlucky enough to have them come in early.

Never buy guardians. They can be had for like two bucks for a dozen, nobody uses them, nobody needs them, don't buy them.

The problem with 1 troop and 2 HQ is that the HQ tax is horribly expensive AND useless as Eldar unless you go way up in points.

What I would suggest, is that you buy the following models:

Autarch on jetbike with lance (good to play a mantleseer)

2x5 Dire avengers
2x Wave Serpents (build with scatter lasers, shuriken cannon is optional)
1x Wraith Knight (so you have a good target for your invisibility with your mantleseer).

Don't listen to goldphish, he has no idea. Nobody in tournament spams Warp Spiders, and nobody plays fire prisms.
I played them in v7, they make you wonder if you should try a Falcon.
THAT bad.


Another way to make good lists at low points is to just pay the HQ tax and live with it, i.e. just one Autarch for reserve rolls or one Spiritseer for additional DTW dice, and nevermind those 70 points.

Fire Dragons are good but not mandatory, you can often replace them by two WK plus some S6/7 spam with the serpents / spiders or haywire from the hawks.

But please, for the love of god, do not buy guardians. Or buy them on ebay, $2 a dozen.


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 MWHistorian wrote:

Step Seven - Find new friends to play with.

Better even, don't play with players who like to whine about anything from Wave Serpents to LoW. Play the game, all the game, enjoy it and don't bother with the whiners.


Lastly, as you seem to be short on cash, focus on ebay, and do not buy real wave serpents, just use falcons as proxies. You can convert them to look more the part, and nobody wants them so they tend to be half the price (2nd hand anyway).

Welcome to Eldar, the best looking army in 40K by a very long shot.

and do not buy real wave serpents, just use falcons as proxies

Great Advice.

Use the total cheese units but don't even buy the actual models - sheesh

Do you want to ALWAYS win? Or do you want to give your opponents a chance of wining and having closer (and funnier) games? Never forget it is a game, people play to have fun, and if they feel like not having fun at all when playing against you be prepared to become "that guy" and run out of opponents.

Almost every unit in the game is usable and effective. You just have to use them against the right opponents. My advice is to play with lots of terrain (we do 1D3 terrain for every 1/6 of the table), this way you can safely use fragile units that you wouldn't use otherwise and adds more strategic value to the game that just seeing who rolls to go first.

Do you want to always lose ? In that case, don't start by buying the units that just do not work.

You'll have plenty of time to try new combos when you get to know the army, trust me don't buy banshees. they're also $2 for a dozen right now. There's a good reason, you can't win if you use them.

And don't listen to the hypocrites, most of them play armies that don't have horrible second or third choices like the Eldar codex has.

Do not buy Guardians?
Why not. Their shooting when guided can be devastating after hopping out of a Serpent.

In 6th I won two local tournies also using Guardians.
After this, I shelved my Eldar.

morgoth wrote:
Do you want to always lose ? In that case, don't start by buying the units that just do not work.

You'll have plenty of time to try new combos when you get to know the army, trust me don't buy banshees. they're also $2 for a dozen right now. There's a good reason, you can't win if you use them.

And don't listen to the hypocrites, most of them play armies that don't have horrible second or third choices like the Eldar codex has.

yeah total hypocrits - My Sisters armies have soooo many choices - not.

Eldar have the cheesiest army selection - full stop - we have a couple of bad choices - Howling Banshees - but what are they other ones that are so very bad?

Or is this just another WAAC Eldar player crying because people don't like playing huge hunks of cheese................

I am playing Eldar this weekend - but we have houseruled plenty so its not just a cheese fest.

Falcons are now DTs, Wave Serpents fire as a template, once,Howling Banshees can assualt out of Transports. Anyone can assualt out of transports if they have not moved etc.

A quick list of army types from a previous thread just like this:

Aspects,
Jetbikes and skimmers,
Guardians and WHP,
Wraiths,
Psykers and seers.

Starting from scratch, I'd get a Spiritseer and the battleforce box.
Then, grab a pack of the models you like the look of and build from there.

Eldar usually play fast and slicey, with Battle Focus to shoot and/or run, and shuriken to wound and rend on a 6.
There are tough-and-slow Eldar armies, but most dance around the table popping and shredding as they go.
They're not as slicey as DE, but Eldar get Wraiths, Psykers, and tough tanks.

morgoth wrote:
Do you want to always lose ? In that case, don't start by buying the units that just do not work.

You'll have plenty of time to try new combos when you get to know the army, trust me don't buy banshees. they're also $2 for a dozen right now. There's a good reason, you can't win if you use them.

And don't listen to the hypocrites, most of them play armies that don't have horrible second or third choices like the Eldar codex has.

Please enlighten me, which units besides the Banshees are terrible second choices? Because they all seem pretty good on paper to me and the ones I have used have performed admirably.

I don't always win the battle, but when a squad of Guardians take out a Wraithknight with Overwatch...that is a win in my book.

My list is not uber-competitive, but it still works fairly well (at least for me).

1-2 Farseers
8-10 Warlocks
3 10x Guardians with Bright Lance
3 3x Windrider Guardians
1 Crimson Hunter
1 3x Warwalker w/Bright Lance and Scatter Laser
1 3x Vauls Wrath
1 Night Spinner

Arnais wrote:

morgoth wrote:
Do you want to always lose ? In that case, don't start by buying the units that just do not work.

You'll have plenty of time to try new combos when you get to know the army, trust me don't buy banshees. they're also $2 for a dozen right now. There's a good reason, you can't win if you use them.

And don't listen to the hypocrites, most of them play armies that don't have horrible second or third choices like the Eldar codex has.

Please enlighten me, which units besides the Banshees are terrible second choices? Because they all seem pretty good on paper to me and the ones I have used have performed admirably.

Scorpions, Fire Prisms, Falcons, Vypers, Shining spears, rangers, Dire Avengers, Guardians (all versions), Phoenix Lords, Avatar of Khaine, any HQ that is not mantlebike or bare HQ tax.
I'm reserving my judgment on the Nightspinner as I'm currently testing it.

If they perform admirably, it's because your opponent is fielding bad units too, there's no way you can win with a footslogging Eldar against a semi-competitive list.


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 Happyjew wrote:
I don't always win the battle, but when a squad of Guardians take out a Wraithknight with Overwatch...that is a win in my book.

My list is not uber-competitive, but it still works fairly well (at least for me).

1-2 Farseers
8-10 Warlocks
3 10x Guardians with Bright Lance
3 3x Windrider Guardians
1 Crimson Hunter
1 3x Warwalker w/Bright Lance and Scatter Laser
1 3x Vauls Wrath
1 Night Spinner

That list would be quite decent if you removed the farseers, warlocks and guardians.

When your guardians overwatch'd a WK, you mean they hit with the bright lance, shot 18 shots, hit 3 times, rerolled the other 15, hit another 2 times, and then rolled 5 sixes out of 5 dice and a 2 for the BL ?
Yeah. other units tend to be ace too when you dice only 6 and have a 100+ point support character behind them.

Don't get me wrong there's a lot of mileage to be had from Eldar psykers as unit boosters, but in the end it's all pointless when you're fighting a half-decent list.

I don't think you'd stand a chance against a 1000 point competitive list, the only real threat is the WW and Vaul's Wrath, both of which could be dead or denied T1.

First, get the codex.
Second, look through it and decide what you like.
Third, post and we'll see if we can keep this thread on-topic.

I posted bout a lot of different Eldar styles in a similar thread:http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/614603.page#7193982

The post right after mine is also quite useful. Kind of an Iron Triangle of list building.

Until we know if you're looking to curbstomp people, or looking for more of a dynamic game, we can't tell you that much.

Outside Wraiths and Davu, Eldar are mostly specialists. Use the right tool for the right job, or you won't get too far. Use them right, and its a blast.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
I like Happyjew's list, myself. Definitely focuses on objectives, I bet, and can be nasty if the opponent doesn't realize the threats. Especially those Guardians.

morgoth wrote:
Scorpions, Fire Prisms, Falcons, Vypers, Shining spears, rangers, Dire Avengers, Guardians (all versions), Phoenix Lords, Avatar of Khaine, any HQ that is not mantlebike or bare HQ tax.
I'm reserving my judgment on the Nightspinner as I'm currently testing it.

If they perform admirably, it's because your opponent is fielding bad units too, there's no way you can win with a footslogging Eldar against a semi-competitive list.

That list would be quite decent if you removed the farseers, warlocks and guardians.

~

Don't get me wrong there's a lot of mileage to be had from Eldar psykers as unit boosters, but in the end it's all pointless when you're fighting a half-decent list.

This post and your previous posts leads me to believe you have little experience with competitive. When you come in and try to gak on everyone's advice please at least have an idea of whats going on. I mean did you just see Tony's list and decide that everything else in the book is bad even though there are numerous top 20 finishers using pretty much every unit in this book including foot slogging eldar?

corpions, Fire Prisms, Falcons, Vypers, Shining spears, rangers, Dire Avengers, Guardians (all versions), Phoenix Lords, Avatar of Khaine, any HQ that is not mantlebike or bare HQ tax.

What a load of crap - bad compared to what exacly - super cheese units

Well. The playable units are

Jetseer, DA, FD, Serpents
Wraith knight, Warwalkers, Jetbikes, Jetseer Council
Guardians, Wraithguard and variants
Rangers, Fireprisms.

Squeeze in Warpspiders somewhere.