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So, I was just curious and thinking for a bit, Can Eldar be fun to play, And face, If the eldar player uses no wave-serpents and no wraith units?

Well it would bring them more in line with med tier armies such as Tau and GKs, so yes.

What you mean an army like this:

HQ: 2x Farseer, Warlock Council
Troops: 3 squads of Guardian Defenders, 3 squads of Windrider Guardians
Fast Attack: Crimson Hunter
Heavy Support: Night Spinner, Vauls Support Wrath Battery, (with D-cannons), War Walkers

I was thinking many diferent Aspect Warriors, Maybe some guardians, No spamming of any units. Dont have a eldar codex so I dont realy know whats good or strong, Other then Wraith units and wave serpents.. XD

Merellin wrote:
So, I was just curious and thinking for a bit, Can Eldar be fun to play, And face, If the eldar player uses no wave-serpents and no wraith units?

a jet seer , triple WK build?

The Wraith Knight is a Wraith unit and I did say no Wraith units, That means no Wraith Knights, Wraith Lords, Wraith Guard or Wraith Blades. And I dont want seer council spam either

30 warp spiders. Troops as jetbikes.

A Falcon full of fire dragons
Warp Spiders
Swooping Hawks
War Walkers
Jet Bikes
Crimson Hunters
Hornets

yeah you could still make a pretty solid army with those units.

What are Hornets? Dont know of that Eldar unit..

Merellin wrote:
What are Hornets? Dont know of that Eldar unit..

It's a Forgeworld thing, from Imperial Armor 11. Like a Vyper, only better.

 Happyjew wrote:
What you mean an army like this:

HQ: 2x Farseer, Warlock Council
Troops: 3 squads of Guardian Defenders, 3 squads of Windrider Guardians
Fast Attack: Crimson Hunter
Heavy Support: Night Spinner, Vauls Support Wrath Battery, (with D-cannons), War Walkers

With some minor adjustments (switch the Spinner for a Prism, roll the windriders into one big squad and add in some Fire Dragons and/or Warp Spiders), that's the list one of my regular foes uses to play with. He also has a Wraithknight -heavily converted and painted to almost Golden Demon standards. The guy's an artist- and some serpents, but rarely if ever fields them.

Intresting, They look cool. ^_^

Using just Jetbikes as troops, or using Corsair army lists or Dark Eldar allies to give atleast some sort of Dedicated Transport, absolutely. The Corsairs are very War Walker and Jump Pack heavy which is a very fun alternative. Falcons are expensive Dedicated Transports, and Dark Eldar units are allowed as well, and Warp Spiders. Just not many of them. It's not set up for the points values of 7th, but some vehicles have had updates in IA: Apocalypse, so it's not all bad and overpriced. It would be an interesting alternative if you want to make that restriction on yourself.

I play Swordwind all the time.

Usually one box of each Aspect I want, plus some more DAs. Usually a Falcon or Serpent for the Fire Dragons, but people usually dont have a problem with one.

Mostly, if you just take one unit of each thing you like, and possibly more troops, CW Eldar can be a lot of fun for both players. Not tourny-ready unless you fine-tune it, but matches most players I've met.

Merellin wrote:
So, I was just curious and thinking for a bit, Can Eldar be fun to play, And face, If the eldar player uses no wave-serpents and no wraith units?

Such an army was quite viable in the 5th or earlier editions.
Those armies were often based on Eldrad, an Avatar, Harlies for intercepting fast moving enemy units threatening the front ranks, Warwalkers and Dark Reapers.

Another approach which seems to me more viable today is a Jetbike army with one or two Jetcouncils doing the dirty work.

I play a Swordwind force. One unit of each aspect (2 for Dire Avengers), and a couple Falcons. It's fun, but very easy to have everything go wrong quickly. I also don't bother with Banshees, because obvious reasons.

Wave Serpents aren't OP if the player decides not to use the serpent shield offensively throughout the game. And if he does, then 1 Serpent per 1000 points in the army using it isnt too bad either.

Wraithguard arent overpowered unless they are D-scythe Guard riding in Wave Serpents buffed by a conceal Spiritseer upon disembarking.

A single Wraithknight in an army larger than 1500 points is fine by me as well.






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 Tannhauser42 wrote:
I also don't bother with Banshees, because obvious reasons.

TBH Banshees on foot, lead by Jain Zar are pretty neat. She spearheads the unit and tanks all wounds except AP2 ones which she passes onto the girls; their speed means they will have crossed the table by turn 2 and can make it into assault on said turn...

i am building a footdar army atm. I'll let you know how it goes.

The wraith units aren't that bad. Even wraithknights are easy to kill. They only have a 3+ and it costs 40 points to give them a 5++ which also makes them sacrifice shooting effectiveness. Every list should have enough AP1-3 to take down a couple WKs. Wraithguard are expensive, D scythes cost another 50 points. They only have 1 wound and a 3+, not that hard to put 5 wounds on them. Serpents and other grav tanks are what make eldar scary.

Wraiths units are not a must have in an Eldar army but their D scythes could be really deadly.
Fire Dragons can usually get the job done as a proper substitute for Wraiths.
But on foot they are rather unreliable.

Absent Wave Serpents and Wraiths I'd expect Jetbikes to be the order of the day in Troops since they're the least dependent on their transports, self-mobile Aspects (Hawks, Spiders, Spears, and to a lesser extent Scorpions), the entire rest of the motor pool (Falcons, Fire Prisms, Vypers, War Walkers, etc) and ground artillery (Vaul's Wrath and Dark Reapers) could all be made to work. Your HQ would probably have a Jetbike, a Farseer is more likely than an Autarch but both are possible.

This hypothetical army you've put together is a long-ranged static firebase with a hypermobile element used to grab objectives, it's sort of schizoid but it's functional. Character-wise this is sounding like you'd call it either Saim-Hann or Ulthwe.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 wuestenfux wrote:
Wraiths units are not a must have in an Eldar army but their D scythes could be really deadly.
Fire Dragons can usually get the job done as a proper substitute for Wraiths.
But on foot they are rather unreliable.

That's why we're pretending it's 4e and sticking them in a Falcon.

SGTPozy wrote:
Well it would bring them more in line with med tier armies such as Tau and GKs, so yes.

Mid tier? I'm afraid to ask what you consider low tier. And in any case, the OP asked what's fun, not what's the easiest way to win a game. This is general, not tactics.

As to the OP, the eldar codex contains 31 different units (not counting special characters). Anyone who only uses 2 of them either REALLY likes wave serpents and wraithknights, or else they seriously lack creativity. You know, the kind of creativity required to be successful without high-power crutch units.

I use a small jet council (seer and 4/5 warlocks), a unit of aventers in a serpent, some jet bikes, warp spiders, fire dragons in a falcon, dark reapers and a fire prism. Sometimes 5 d-scythes. It's not massively over powered, but I still win with it, and have used basically the same army since 5th edition it's fun, and has enough variety to not be boring. You'd be surprised how many people have no idea what my units do though. They're just not read up on things that aren't serpents and wraiths

Von Chogg

 Ailaros wrote:

SGTPozy wrote:
Well it would bring them more in line with med tier armies such as Tau and GKs, so yes.

Mid tier? I'm afraid to ask what you consider low tier. And in any case, the OP asked what's fun, not what's the easiest way to win a game. This is general, not tactics.

As to the OP, the eldar codex contains 31 different units (not counting special characters). Anyone who only uses 2 of them either REALLY likes wave serpents and wraithknights, or else they seriously lack creativity. You know, the kind of creativity required to be successful without high-power crutch units.

yes and in every sport or war the opposing side take handicaps and face each other only with the exact same units/weight mass/skill etc.


You can replace WK with imperial knights instead of 3 WK you could take 2 knights. better in melee and good support for jetseers, but slower with less shoting.

It's good to hear there are fun builds for Eldar without spamming the Wave Serpents or Wraith stuff. There is a eldar player in my gaming group, He dosent spam serpents but he does normaly play a Wraith heavy army, Mostly just Wraith Guard, Wraith Blade (Sometimes in a serpent or two) And 1-3 Wraith Lords. They are painful to face.. XD Luckily he only uses his Wraith Knight in big matches and apocalypse as it is no fun to face.. XD He's fun to play against though, Good guy ^_^

Personally as long as the eldar player has jetbikes that can move 48 inches, especially if one of them is his warlord with a 2+ re-rollable cover save, then the game will never be fun.

After Serpents and Wraithknights, I would think jetbikes would be next on the fun-killer list. They are also not necessary, but in small numbers can be a blast. A 3-man Shining Spear unit makes for a fun game. 4x 3-man Wind riders is going to be frustrating.

The list i typically run at 1500 points is something like:
Farseer on a bike
+6 jetbikes

6x dire avengers x2 in wave serpents
5x fire dragons in wave serpent + foot farseer

8x warpspiders x2

2x war walkers

the bike seer rolls 3 times on telepathy and the foot seer rolls 3 times on divination.

is 3 wave serpents at 1500 douchey im sure some people think so. but eldar need to move around and infantry isnt that survivable. regular opponents run a massive outflanking ravenwing army, a drop pod/sternguard army or a maxed out thunderwolf army.

Bharring wrote:
After Serpents and Wraithknights, I would think jetbikes would be next on the fun-killer list. They are also not necessary, but in small numbers can be a blast. A 3-man Shining Spear unit makes for a fun game. 4x 3-man Wind riders is going to be frustrating.

Well, and you can do them in an interesting way that doesn't suck the life out of the person you're playing with.

If you ran a saim-hann list with just jetbikes and wave serpents, you might have a list that, on the surface, looked cheesy. But if instead of playing them as a mech gunline, only darting the bikes out briefly to snag objectives, but instead bum-rushed your opponent and threw a bunch of banshees out of those serpents and used your bikes to chase down his fast stuff, then you'd have a much, much more interesting game.

Likewise, three wraithknights hiding invincibly in cover taking pot-shots is boring, but three wraithknights with swords sprinting forward towards all your stuff would a a very different kind of affair.

Only no one would do that. jetbikers won't chase down even IG and banshees never get to charge as long stuff with shoting weapons are alive. So your keep them in WS till it is safe to charge out, which means they are never leaving the serpents. Now the jetbikers who can't do melee themselfs, have no targets to chase down, so they start to hit and run, like they normaly do. So in the end the game only changes on one level, and that would be the level of can it win with a non FD handicap.

 Ailaros wrote:

SGTPozy wrote:
Well it would bring them more in line with med tier armies such as Tau and GKs, so yes.

Mid tier? I'm afraid to ask what you consider low tier. And in any case, the OP asked what's fun, not what's the easiest way to win a game. This is general, not tactics.

As to the OP, the eldar codex contains 31 different units (not counting special characters). Anyone who only uses 2 of them either REALLY likes wave serpents and wraithknights, or else they seriously lack creativity. You know, the kind of creativity required to be successful without high-power crutch units.

Low tier armies are DA and BA. Most codices are balanced except for the top 5 which are Eldar, SM, Ik, Daemons and Necrons. I said this as since it would bring the power level down then it would be more enjoyable for the opponent to play against.