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I play Eldar but I only own 1 Wave Serpent and 0 Wraithlords. I also only have 3 jetbikes.

Without these, can I play an Eldar army without being called TFG? What else is there in the codex that makes people cry foul?

I don't like how some units can move 3 times in one turn, and shoot at some point of their choosing.

I wouldn't call someone using warp spiders TFG though. I just don't like it.

Honestly, I think the biggest strength of our codex is that it is less about how many bad things we have and more about tough decisions between all the good things. It is a solid codex with answers for most things. Serpents can be a pain if you field six, but people will still see you as "that guy" just got having Eldar even if you never use one. I like having so many good options and honestly wish everyone else did too, which is why I stopped playing tournaments and set up games ahead of time so the games are more fair/fun.

Wave Serpents, Warp Spiders, Wraithknights. Avoid using those (at least in any spammy fashion) and you probably won't end up being TFG. Oh and a jetbike farseer/autarch with a mantle is a pain in the butt. 2++ rerollables are something that should not exist in this game.

The only unit that is actually overpowered/undercosted in the codex is the Wave Serpant- it is hilariously broken, but using a few of them doesn't make you a TFG because, like it or not, they're the Eldar's only DT. So you kind of need to take them if you plan on using any units that don't have a 12'' move or long-ranged guns.

The Wraithknight's shooting is overcosted crap for 240 points. It's greatest strength lies in its native strength 10 ap2 and it's 12 inch move, but with its negligible shooting,240 points is fare for that mobility and damage.

Beyond that, not a whole lot. I do think that bladestorm is overpowered garbage and no army should have army-wide pseudo-rending for free on their primary ranged weapons. Battle-focus can be frustrating but it isn't overpowered.

The main source of hurt feelings with Eldar comes from Wave Serpents and the fact that they're highly mobile in an edition that greatly rewards high mobility. Being able to move a scoring unit something utterly insane like 48 inches in a single tun while ignoring all terrain along the way and getting a 4+ cover save (at worst) really just is not fair in this edition. As far as I'm concerned, no troops in any codex should have a 12+'' move.

Beyond that, many of the units in the Eldar codex are very strong and viable, but certainly not overpowered.

I dislike how their basic troops seem to be better than most elites from other factions as well as make Terminators redundant.

I seem to run my terminators at dark reavers rather than guardians or avengers

Main strength of the eldars are their mobility combined to a synergic firepower.

In Maelstrom of War games, those are a tremendous advantage to fulfill the right objective at the right time. That's why they are so feared in that particular point of view.

The fact they can easily have Objective Secured and highly mobile troops is also helping a lot (I'm also looking at you, jetbike guardians). The codex is just too good in V7, that's all. They need to have a true "V7" one, like the others...but we know it won't happen soon.

240 for 2 S10AP1 shots is not a bad cost.
A railgun hammerhead pays 125 points base to have a single one.

Its GREAT shooting, especially when piled on top of great CC abilities as "something to do will you get the main action going"



Back to topic-to purposely avoid being an eldar TFG you need to follow these simple rules:

1-do not take more than a single wraithknight if you do.
2-do not spam WS for everything, take it only when justified (fire dragons for example) as a transport, not as the actual unit with minimal troop tax.
3-do not spam a single unit type too much, most eldar units are totally fine when you got one or two teams, but annoying to face three or more of. jetbikes and spiders are heavy in this realm.

It can be pretty much joined into a single rule of "have a diverse army with little or no duplicate units"
Naturally its possible to avoid being a TFG even while taking such lists, but avoiding such lists pretty much assures you don't get there.

Honetly, I can't even imagine how long it'll be before Eldar get a new codex. This one is so in so many ways that I simply can't fathom what kind of changes they would have to make to the core rules to necessitate writing up a new codex. 6th Edition Eldar are now what the 4th edition Ork codex was, I think.

 Sir Arun wrote:
I play Eldar but I only own 1 Wave Serpent and 0 Wraithlords. I also only have 3 jetbikes.

Without these, can I play an Eldar army without being called TFG? What else is there in the codex that makes people cry foul?

Wave Serpents are the main problem - they are completely and utterly OP which is horribly compounded by being the only DT the Eldar have :(

We are currently houseruling (amongst other things like being able to assault out of a stationary transport) that Falcons are also DT's

In addition to Wave Serpents I'd like to add two things:

1) Psyker spam. Eldar can get tons of warp charge on the table fairly easily, which means lots of powers on offense and enough deny dice to shut down any non-spam army's entire psychic phase. If you find yourself throwing 20+ dice at invisibility or summoning unit after unit of demons then your opponent probably isn't going to be very happy.

2) MSU jetbikes. They're dirt cheap and can fly across the table every turn to claim objectives. If you're foolish enough to use the random objective cards MSU jetbikes are going to be claiming new cards every turn and running up an obscene point total, and even in normal games it's pretty easy to hold a squad or three back for a late-turn objective grab. And with the new FOC rules you can take an unlimited number of them, ally them into other armies for cheap scoring, etc.

 BlaxicanX wrote:
Honetly, I can't even imagine how long it'll be before Eldar get a new codex. This one is so in so many ways that I simply can't fathom what kind of changes they would have to make to the core rules to necessitate writing up a new codex. 6th Edition Eldar are now what the 4th edition Ork codex was, I think.

What makes you think the next codex release will be based on need, rather than just GW taking an easy opportunity to make you pay another $50 to keep using your army?

As said Serpent spam, psyker spam, msu Jetbike spam, pseudo rending troop guns, D scythes, Wraithknights with their toughness and fast movement, Fire Dragons, a units with melta weapons, Warp Spiders, and not to forget Warwalkers with their decent shooting can really be a pain for the enemy.
No other army out there has comparable capabilities.

if you play Eldar, people like those last three guys are going to hate you, pretend that your codex is the best, and pretend that the codex won, not you.

This guy has no idea about anything tbh and resorts to this sort of attack when people upset his warped world view. The vast majority of the community agree with the fact Wave Serpents are broken - he as apparently a WAAC player, likes to imagine they are not, odd that.

For instance he completely ignores that fact that I am an Eldar player

Look for the results of the last NOVA tourney and see how many Eldar armies made to the top 5.

That would be enough

morgoth wrote:

1. If people call you TFG, they are TFG. It's totally unacceptable to shun people for their unit choices or willingness to play the game to its fullest.

Plain wrong.
Saying someone is a TFG is being a TFG is silly, by that logic every player on earth is a TFG the moment a single one exists.

No, your unit choices do not automatically make you a TFG even if they are optimal, and there is a time and a place where being a WAAC (a subset of TFG) is the expected and proper behavior (tournament mostly), but going all-out in casual games is no healthy for the fun of the opponent unless its agreed and expected that you do-and fun is the most important factor in the end.
Once you go around not giving a damn about your opponent's fun-you are the TFG.

Eldar's supported overpowered features include:

Shuriken weapons are AP2 on a 6-to-wound, which wounds despite the T. It wouldn't be so bad, but everyone gets them, in various forms.
Their tanks are all 12/12/10, and the WS has anti-pen shields.
All vehicles are fast, with extras. Eldar Jetbikes are made better in the BRB profile.
Battle-focus lets most units run-&-shoot or shoot-&-run. Wraiths are exempt, but most others get it.

So, add all that together, and Eldar are very shooty, and even the basic units get a form of JSJ.
But, they're S3 and T3, so go down pretty fast if you can catch them.

 BoomWolf wrote:

morgoth wrote:

1. If people call you TFG, they are TFG. It's totally unacceptable to shun people for their unit choices or willingness to play the game to its fullest.

Plain wrong.
Saying someone is a TFG is being a TFG is silly, by that logic every player on earth is a TFG the moment a single one exists.

No, your unit choices do not automatically make you a TFG even if they are optimal, and there is a time and a place where being a WAAC (a subset of TFG) is the expected and proper behavior (tournament mostly), but going all-out in casual games is no healthy for the fun of the opponent unless its agreed and expected that you do-and fun is the most important factor in the end.
Once you go around not giving a damn about your opponent's fun-you are the TFG.

1. If people call you TFG for bringing any combination of untis, they are TFG. My bad if it was a bit short, but clearly in the case of the OP.

WAAC is NOT a subset of TFG, and is NOT proper behavior in tournaments.


WAAC is way beyond just playing competitively, WAAC is about Winning At All Costs, i.e. cheating, bluffing on rules, stalling for time and many other unacceptable behaviors.
Writing a good list and playing it right does not mean WAAC.

Competitive behavior as is expected in tournaments is perfectly sane and respectful of others.

And lastly, most of the TFG's are NOT competitive players, they're just donkey-caves with behavior issues.
That's entirely not compatible with competition which is based on honesty and respect.

Cheating is not WAAC, its cheating.
Bluffing on rules is cheating.
Stalling is cheating.

Writing an exemplary min-maxed loophole abusing RAW yet obviously not RAI legal list is WAAC, not cheating.




And yes, its entirely possible to be a TFG without playing remotly competetive, but it still does not mean that going all-in at a non competitive enviourment is not TFG behavior alert, and at the very least gets you too close to comfort there.

 Skinnereal wrote:
So, add all that together, and Eldar are very shooty, and even the basic units get a form of JSJ.
But, they're S3 and T3, so go down pretty fast if you can catch them.

This. When Eldar came out, I saw that they were glass cannons, so I figured they were fine. However, Wave Serpents negate this completely and make them nearly impossible to kill if your opponent is playing smartly. Make Wave Serpents fair and then the army as a whole becomes much funner to play against.

 wuestenfux wrote:
As said Serpent spam, psyker spam, msu Jetbike spam, pseudo rending troop guns, D scythes, Wraithknights with their toughness and fast movement, Fire Dragons, a units with melta weapons, Warp Spiders, and not to forget Warwalkers with their decent shooting can really be a pain for the enemy.
No other army out there has comparable capabilities.

These would be the supporting issues with Eldar which could do with toning down. However, Wave Serpents would be the most OP aspect overall.

 Mr Morden wrote:

if you play Eldar, people like those last three guys are going to hate you, pretend that your codex is the best, and pretend that the codex won, not you.

This guy has no idea about anything tbh and resorts to this sort of attack when people upset his warped world view. The vast majority of the community agree with the fact Wave Serpents are broken - he as apparently a WAAC player, likes to imagine they are not, odd that.

For instance he completely ignores that fact that I am an Eldar player

Yeah, someone is annoyed that people won't play him anymore... For the record, the top 2 armies at a tournament I was at on the weekend were Eldar Serpent Spam lists, and they won all 4 of their games, each (and 7/8 of those were by a margin of 4VP or more).

Can Serpent Spam adequately deal with Serpent Spam?

 casvalremdeikun wrote:
Can Serpent Spam adequately deal with Serpent Spam?

Sure, it depends on which one will push on the big red button first.

But seriously, Eldars have very good units in their codex (and quite obvious to see and exploit, honestly). Making them more "V7-like" would be quite easy, though. Just a few fixes here and there - and putting these damn jetbikes where they should never have left in Fast Attack choices. Same for marine bikers, by the way, but that's another debate.

After all, since now all units can take an Objective, there is no reason to give that precious Troop status to units that were never troops in the beginning.

 casvalremdeikun wrote:
Can Serpent Spam adequately deal with Serpent Spam?

Never had such a setup. Depends.
Both armies can (or cannot) deal with Serpents in the same way.
Supposingly a draw.

 Mr Morden wrote:

if you play Eldar, people like those last three guys are going to hate you, pretend that your codex is the best, and pretend that the codex won, not you.

This guy has no idea about anything tbh and resorts to this sort of attack when people upset his warped world view. The vast majority of the community agree with the fact Wave Serpents are broken - he as apparently a WAAC player, likes to imagine they are not, odd that.

For instance he completely ignores that fact that I am an Eldar player

Let's not forget this thread, written under the guise of Rules Disambiguation, that was really just an attempt at getting to get the community to "re-imagine" the rules unfairly in his favor.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/615151.page

Some gems from this thread include bending the rules regarding "jink" so now his Wave Serpents can jink even if they aren't targeted, and nerfing Tesla weapons.





As for the topic, it's not just the maneuverability problem with Wave Serpents, it's that they have arguably the best weapon of any DT in the game. Serpent Shield is hilariously overpowered. It should have been a Nova with a 6" range, not an ignores-cover weapon that covers the entire table. This, coupled with the changes to Jink, and the Serpent Shield's bonus if you choose not to fire it, your only real reliable way of destroying it is to cause it to fail 3 3+ cover saves and glance it to death. If it was AV10 or 11 this wouldn't be so bad, but it's AV12.

40k used to follow the rule: Cheap, Fast, Powerful, Durable - pick 2 or 3. The Wave Serpent gets all 4.

 Sir Arun wrote:
I play Eldar but I only own 1 Wave Serpent and 0 Wraithlords. I also only have 3 jetbikes.

Without these, can I play an Eldar army without being called TFG? What else is there in the codex that makes people cry foul?

Just don't spam the really good stuff. It makes me sigh and go, 'this again?' when I see a parking lot worth of wave serpents on the other side of the table that shows every point possible was devoted to adding the most OP stuff, but aside from edge cases like that, taking what you want in an Eldar army shouldn't earn you any scorn from reasonable opponents.

 Sir Arun wrote:
I play Eldar but I only own 1 Wave Serpent and 0 Wraithlords. I also only have 3 jetbikes.

Without these, can I play an Eldar army without being called TFG? What else is there in the codex that makes people cry foul?

I hear you just bringing a eldar army can auto label you in the first 5 seconds of a game. So, I have resently taken a hiatus on 40k. The new rules seem a tad bit better, except psychic phase In my opinion which are horrible. The inequality of codices is the shinning example of how bad the game has gotten. Again in my opinion it seems the uber tourney goer who is willing to spend $500+ on the new broken list is and will continue to ruin the game for others outside the grand tourney realm

Shiurken weapons are awesome so how do you avoid this, answer is you can't.

Stay away from:

1) Seerstar, while not very powerful in shooting or close combat, it is highly annoying to kill.
2) 4+ wave serpent, I've been told that 3 was too many go figure.
3) 2-3 units of 10 warp spiders again not OP but can be difficult to eliminate. they shoot, they run, then teliport and hide. Nothing make opponents more angry then having to deal with units that can shoot you and then completely hide behid terrain.
4) 2-3 Wraitknights most people will roll thier eyes when they see 2-3 of them.
5) Multiple units of D-flamers, one is powerful but can be dealt with, start spamming them and you'll get no love from your opponents.
6) Mass distort/wraith armies, however I think they are weak, too few models to be effective. People just don't like them so avoid.

Good Luck, we Eldar players had to endure years of having an poor to average codex, depending on which army we played. Then came 6th and now we're looking for ways to play the game without the label of TFG. I had to start all game conversations with "I've been playing them since 3rd edition and i only play one new unit the D-flamers".

What makes a unit good? Some combination of offense, defense, speed and points efficiency.

Normally if a unit is points efficient they will excel in one or two categories with a weakness in thw other(s).

Eldar possess some of the best units in the game because they are strong in all three categories while being very cheap comparatively.
Wave Serpents
Wraithknights
Warp Spiders

And the units that don't tick every box are still very good and well priced for what you get.

My only complaint with Eldar, is that my non-competitive fluffy list apparently won't stand a chance against a competitive army.

Or so I've been told.

My issue with Eldar is the fact that they are essentially Space Marines, with a crazy amount of good wargear, options for anything, good psychic powers, fast units, ext ext. They are overall a very strong codex that really doesn't lack anything.

However, the reason they are considered overpowered and why I consider their book very poorly balanced is the Wave Serpent. Every other unit has a specific role, or job, that it does well, and relies on other things to do what it cannot. Their dedicated Transport is more powerful and versatile than their Heavy Support options. Fast, crazy amount of strong firepower, and very survivable. Hence, people just spam them, because honestly, why not?

The combination of excellent firepower, above average durability (reliant on Serpents on psychic powers), and good statlines; S3 T3 is their only weakness, and on a something with a 2+ re-rollable cover save, it really doesn't matter.

It really is the synergy between stupendous mobility and incredibly powerful codex psychic powers which makes eldar broken. A dire avenger or a guardian is very powerful and cost effective, but on a bike with 2+ re-rollables or in an indestructible skimmer, it becomes broken.

It's actually useful to consider Daemons in comparison; their units are all extremely well equipped or have superb statlines, but they lack anywhere near the same mobilty as Eldar, and can only ever make one unit stupid durable using the Grimoire of True Names, rather than any unit within range or joined by a psyker, as such, Daemons have some weaknesses; they're still a very powerful army, but if you yourself are sufficiently mobile or have enough volume of fire, you can stop them. Nothing but a tailored list can really stop Eldar without damned good luck, or an ideal combination of mission and table.

 BoomWolf wrote:
240 for 2 S10AP1 shots is not a bad cost.
A railgun hammerhead pays 125 points base to have a single one.

240 points to knock an average of one hullpoint off an AV 12 vehicle a turn is not a good cost.

Hammerheads are considered a lackluster unit for a reason, and even then you can at least reliably buff it into BS5, ignores cover etc.