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Hey guys, if you guys have seen me around, you know I love me some Necrons, and play Tyranids for fun as well. However, about a week or two ago, I played with a bud of mine at my local store, and he has an Eldar army. He wanted to try out a new Dark Eldar list with a small Eldar ally force. I said, "I'll play you." But, for the lolz, I asked if I could play his Eldar against him (I wanted to prove a point, plus I didn't feel like hauling my stuff out of my car). So, I made a list, barely knowing what Eldar even do. I've played against them twice, and I've read over their weapons and things a bit, but overall I've never touched the book from a playing standpoint. So I just asked him here and there what this unit did, and what this gun was, and so on. I like to think of myself as a decent player, but I wanted to see what would happen when I made an Eldar list, as I, personally, hate the Eldar book (For generic reasons, sure, but for my own personal reasons as well).

So, this was the list that I came up with. 2000 points:


Farseer with Singing Spear (I think it's called Singing? Maybe Shining? I dunno)

Spirit Seer

10x Guardians with Bright Lance platform (Farseer was with this unit)
- Wave Serpent (Scatter Laser, Shuriken Cannon, Holo Field)

10x Dire Avengers
- Wave Serpent (Same loadout)

5x Wraithguard with D-Scythes
- Wave Serpent (Same loadout)

5x Fire Dragons (Spiritseer was with this unit)
- Wave Serpent (Same loadout)

Fire Prism

Wraithknight with Heavy Wraith Cannons

Wraithknight with Scatter Laser, Suncannon, Sun Shield thingy

(I was okay with bringing the Wraithknights because he was playing Dark Eldar, a.k.a Poison)


His list comprised of a bunch of Raiders with Kabalite Warriors, 3 Ravagers, 2 with all Dark Lances, a Falcon, Fire Dragons, Farseer on bike with Guardians jet bikes, an Archon in a raider with Howling Banshees, a Venom, and a Razorwing jetfighter. Something along those lines.


During that game, I lost 1 wave serpent, my firedragons and spirit seer ran off the board, and he killed a Wraithknight because I failed a good bit of armor saves. That was pretty much it. I tabled him during HIS turn of turn 6, when his *Doomed* Archon charged a squad of *Guided* Guardians. Like, come on man. It was such an unsatisfactory victory. I felt bad, even. I wanted to prove a point, but I feel I proved it too well. That Eldar, mainly the Serpent shield, needs a tone down. Yes, I know there are plenty of threads about the SS being OP, that's not what this is about. I just wanted to share my experience of using Eldar for the first and probably last time. I seriously feel like if I always wanted to win, I'd just sell my other armies and get Eldar.

Feel free to discuss. Tell me I'm a jerk, I understand. Let me have it, for real. I just can't help but despise Eldar.

So you had no prior experience to playing with Eldar, little experience playing against Eldar and faced off against someone who had played with them a lot and had no doubt gained a lot of experience knowing which units are dangerous.

And you lost what, 8 models?

Kinda says it all about the Eldar Codex to be honest. Point and click - and Wave Serpents are too good *cue morgoth*.

Played one, won one and youre quitting playing because theyre OP? Or you perceive them to be?
Bit ott imho.

 Ratius wrote:
Played one, won one and youre quitting playing because theyre OP? Or you perceive them to be?
Bit ott imho.

Well, I wasn't planning on actually investing into Eldar. It was a one-time "Let's see what this does" kind of thing. I'm fine with Nids and Crons right now.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Frozocrone wrote:


Kinda says it all about the Eldar Codex to be honest. Point and click - and Wave Serpents are too good *cue morgoth*.

Lawlz.

My general procedure when playing against Eldar as anything else than IG:

http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Anal_circumference

Even though it was your first time playing Eldar, you obviously remembered a strategy that you had suffered against in the past and you were able to mimic it back (obviously quite a powerful strategy). Remember, it was also your opponents first time trying out his DE idea. He might not have had such a clear vision of how he was supposed to win as you did.

I know there have been times (not just in 40k) where have lost games to a strategy that just seems too cheap and unbeatable to be fair. Usually I will moan about this for a while and use the same strategy to maul other people (to confirm my suspicion) -- but eventually I'll try it in a situation where it loses horribly and come to realize that maybe it wasn't so good after all and that there is a whole slew of stuff that beats it.

 Smacks wrote:
Even though it was your first time playing Eldar, you obviously remembered a strategy that you had suffered against in the past and you were able to mimic it back (obviously quite a powerful strategy). Remember, it was also your opponents first time trying out his DE idea. He might not have had such a clear vision of how he was supposed to win as you did.

I know there have been times (not just in 40k) where have lost games to a strategy that just seems too cheap and unbeatable to be fair. Usually I will moan about this for a while and use the same strategy to maul other people (to confirm my suspicion) -- but eventually I'll try it in a situation where it loses horribly and come to realize that maybe it wasn't so good after all and that there is a whole slew of stuff that beats it.

I'm not saying Eldar are unbeatable, no. The second game I played against them was 2000 points, and they were only using 3 Wave Serpents. I ended up winning by a large margin because of objectives. It's just, the sheer lack of strategy involved with most Eldar lists that I see. It hurts me. So much.

 krodarklorr wrote:

 Smacks wrote:
Even though it was your first time playing Eldar, you obviously remembered a strategy that you had suffered against in the past and you were able to mimic it back (obviously quite a powerful strategy). Remember, it was also your opponents first time trying out his DE idea. He might not have had such a clear vision of how he was supposed to win as you did.

I know there have been times (not just in 40k) where have lost games to a strategy that just seems too cheap and unbeatable to be fair. Usually I will moan about this for a while and use the same strategy to maul other people (to confirm my suspicion) -- but eventually I'll try it in a situation where it loses horribly and come to realize that maybe it wasn't so good after all and that there is a whole slew of stuff that beats it.

I'm not saying Eldar are unbeatable, no. The second game I played against them was 2000 points, and they were only using 3 Wave Serpents. I ended up winning by a large margin because of objectives. It's just, the sheer lack of strategy involved with most Eldar lists that I see. It hurts me. So much.

That sounds like the problem lies with people not the codex.

Sounds like you need opponents who can better test your skills.

 BlaxicanX wrote:
Sounds like you need opponents who can better test your skills.

Yes, there is so much skill in choosing an army....


I had a similar experience as Krodarklorr. I got an eldar army for free when the 6th codex dropped from a friend who didn't play anymore. It only had 2 WS and I more often than not forgot that you could even use the Serpent Shield as a weapon. I had no Wraith Knights. After a couple of games I put them on the shelf because it just wasn't fun anymore to win before list were even built. I started selling the Eldar army off piece by piece now and have no regrets, they army is so out of balance that it just isn't fun to play against or with.

With that said, we all know that you CAN beat Eldar but the point is that their mediocre units are better than some armies best units. Eldar at their best are just absurd, Eldar for fun are extremely powerful, Eldar at their worse still aren't bad. That is a major problem in game design.

Arbiter_Shade wrote:

 BlaxicanX wrote:
Sounds like you need opponents who can better test your skills.

Yes, there is so much skill in choosing an army....

Auto-losing against Eldar lists every time says more about you than your opponent's army-choice.

 Zewrath wrote:
My general procedure when playing against Eldar as anything else than IG:

http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Anal_circumference

This is what it is like for every game I play against my buddy who has Dark Angels and I field Orks.

I can't even remember when Eldar were a under powered army. Like in every single edition.

OP, i think you're a bit overreacting. Yep, serpent spam is an easy and overpowered and you don't need much to play with decent results with it. Noone argues here. But it's not at such an extreme degree as you depict.

Let's say, it's not like a grown up man with a bat fighting vs a 5 year old. It's more like a grown up man with a bat fighting vs a teenager. You still need to practice with a bet to beat an unexpectedly well-trained teenager 100% of the time.

 BlaxicanX wrote:

Arbiter_Shade wrote:

 BlaxicanX wrote:
Sounds like you need opponents who can better test your skills.

Yes, there is so much skill in choosing an army....

Auto-losing against Eldar lists every time says more about you than your opponent's army-choice.

Way to ignore absolutely everything in my post except for one line in order to take a shot at me for no reason other than you feel the need to defend a games balance when it is commonly accepted that the balance in this game is awful.

Why do people get so defensive when an army gets called out on being OP when everyone seems to accept that the game is a mess of unbalance and poor rules?

Not everyone agrees that it's so bad as depicted by haters. It's not perfect but a few bad examples don't make the whole system worthless. Eldar are just a bad example of game ballance. Cause of the policy of 6-th ed power creep. It's also due to GW's unwillingness to introduce stat-changing updates between codexes and FAQ's...for some reason. Maybe cause their eldar, tau and daemons sales are so high.

 koooaei wrote:
Not everyone agrees that it's so bad as depicted by haters. It's not perfect but a few bad examples don't make the whole system worthless. Eldar are just a bad example of game ballance. Cause of the policy of 6-th ed power creep. It's also due to GW's unwillingness to introduce stat-changing updates between codexes and FAQ's...for some reason. Maybe cause their eldar, tau and daemons sales are so high.

But it's not just a few bad examples, it's a lot and most of them are easily fixable if GW cared to spend a few moments to read their own rules.

 MWHistorian wrote:

 koooaei wrote:
Not everyone agrees that it's so bad as depicted by haters. It's not perfect but a few bad examples don't make the whole system worthless. Eldar are just a bad example of game ballance. Cause of the policy of 6-th ed power creep. It's also due to GW's unwillingness to introduce stat-changing updates between codexes and FAQ's...for some reason. Maybe cause their eldar, tau and daemons sales are so high.

But it's not just a few bad examples, it's a lot and most of them are easily fixable if GW cared to spend a few moments to read their own rules.

If they fixed it a la Blizzard Entertainment, they'd overcompensate on each army list as they "fixed" them, and either nerf-bat or overbuff each army as they got to them... but this doesn't seem to be the case. If they did that, I think people would (fairly?) accuse them of boosting sales for FOTM armies.

At least Tyranids are getting a decent boost. I am considering buying into 'em now.. .the only problem is, it will be 11th edition before I get around to painting them :\

 MWHistorian wrote:

 koooaei wrote:
Not everyone agrees that it's so bad as depicted by haters. It's not perfect but a few bad examples don't make the whole system worthless. Eldar are just a bad example of game ballance. Cause of the policy of 6-th ed power creep. It's also due to GW's unwillingness to introduce stat-changing updates between codexes and FAQ's...for some reason. Maybe cause their eldar, tau and daemons sales are so high.

But it's not just a few bad examples, it's a lot and most of them are easily fixable if GW cared to spend a few moments to read their own rules.

Yep, that's a huge drawback of playing GW games on the whole.

I played Eldar back in 5th ed when DAVU was a thing (how times change...). Bought the codex, Iyanden supplement and Wraithknight on release but haven't played them. I just enjoy playing my Blood Angels too much.

After BA being slightly too much of an uphill struggle lately, I pulled out my Eldar.
First game my opponent conceeded, I'd lost one model (Spiritseer had perils'd himself into the warp).
Second game my opponent also conceeded. I'd lost three models (Dire Avengers after I'd got them out of their Serpent for kicks). In this second game my opponent had gone unbound and with forgeworld units in a tailored list.

You look at Serpents on paper, and think - they're a bit powerful. Your read on the internets about all the complaints.
It's only until you play them that you realise how stupidly broken the Serpent is.

It's not really that complicated.

Serpent spam is a top tier tournament list.

Games against crap tier casual battle force armies are going to suck for everyone involved.

It's no different from any other hardcore list.

Arbiter_Shade wrote:
Why do people get so defensive when an army gets called out on being OP when everyone seems to accept that the game is a mess of unbalance and poor rules?

Dunno. Why do people blame their poor performance on others?

The Eldar codex having a super-minority but widely used handful of overpowered units is self-evident. The claims as laid out in this thread, however, are just whining and indicative of L2P issues. If you're casually wiping your opponents to the point where your wins don't feel legitimate, and your list has only two or three serpents and no wraithknights, then what that means is that your opponents weren't very good or took poor lists.

One's not playing eldar for fun. One's playing eldar TO MAKE THEM SUFFER!

But in all seriousness, if you try out something like a footslogging list with an avatar, and stuff like wraithlords, it's all fine. Things start to break when you start spamming broken units. Which in this codex are of easy access. And they're so good, you don't need other units. You don't even need to make tactical decisions sometimes.

 BlaxicanX wrote:

Arbiter_Shade wrote:
Why do people get so defensive when an army gets called out on being OP when everyone seems to accept that the game is a mess of unbalance and poor rules?

Dunno. Why do people blame their poor performance on others?

The Eldar codex having a super-minority but widely used handful of overpowered units is self-evident. The claims as laid out in this thread, however, are just whining and indicative of L2P issues. If you're casually wiping your opponents to the point where your wins don't feel legitimate, and your list has only two or three serpents and no wraithknights, then what that means is that your opponents weren't very good or took poor lists.

Didn't the last heat in UK had 13 placments in top 32 ?Doesn't that kind of a prove that they are better then other armies.

 BlaxicanX wrote:

Arbiter_Shade wrote:
Why do people get so defensive when an army gets called out on being OP when everyone seems to accept that the game is a mess of unbalance and poor rules?

Dunno. Why do people blame their poor performance on others?

The Eldar codex having a super-minority but widely used handful of overpowered units is self-evident. The claims as laid out in this thread, however, are just whining and indicative of L2P issues. If you're casually wiping your opponents to the point where your wins don't feel legitimate, and your list has only two or three serpents and no wraithknights, then what that means is that your opponents weren't very good or took poor lists.

His list had four serpents and two wraithknights. Looks like a pretty strong list without being super optimized.

Dont know all the hate about serpents... Last Time i played against 4 in a list they got Shot by 3 barracudas, Fusion suits and overcharged rippis Not to forget 18 seeker missiles in the beginning

 Blacksails wrote:

 BlaxicanX wrote:

Arbiter_Shade wrote:
Why do people get so defensive when an army gets called out on being OP when everyone seems to accept that the game is a mess of unbalance and poor rules?

Dunno. Why do people blame their poor performance on others?

The Eldar codex having a super-minority but widely used handful of overpowered units is self-evident. The claims as laid out in this thread, however, are just whining and indicative of L2P issues. If you're casually wiping your opponents to the point where your wins don't feel legitimate, and your list has only two or three serpents and no wraithknights, then what that means is that your opponents weren't very good or took poor lists.

His list had four serpents and two wraithknights. Looks like a pretty strong list without being super optimized.

That was kind of my plan. I didn't wanna run nothing but Serpents, as I wanted to use other things, but I still feel 4 was too many with the firepower they put out. >.>

4 Serpents + a WK is the core of most competitive Eldar lists.

Try playing them with neither? It is a very different game.

Lets assume someone does play without WK or WS. What would the list be build around? jetbikes and falcons full of WG with IG ally to get ignore cover from wyverns or jetbikes and WG and knights instead of WK and WS.

When one compers that to other books armies without the good stuff, the eldar are still very un for fun.

Makumba wrote:
Lets assume someone does play without WK or WS. What would the list be build around? jetbikes and falcons full of WG with IG ally to get ignore cover from wyverns or jetbikes and WG and knights instead of WK and WS.

When one compers that to other books armies without the good stuff, the eldar are still very un for fun.

Or it could be built around lots of Eldar footslogging. Which is much more fun.