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I'm looking through the 40k Army Lists thread, and talking to people at my local store, and everyone is using jetbikes for everything.

While I do understand how awesome jetbikes and skyrunner seers became, does anyone know a competitive Eldar build not using jetbikes that could stand up to an Eldar list using them?

Any list is compettative with the new dex. Just the windrider route is even stronger

Well, there is the now immortalized TFG serpent spam list, come to think of it. But footdar lists just don't seem to stack up anymore. This all of course could just be a viewpoint that I have developed from seeing how powerful jetbikes got and watching the rest of the codex stay the same.

actually the best optimum I found is storm guardians without transports, you get 24 (or anywhere up to 60) of them and get 6 melta guns free and 6 get power swords, that auto run 6 inches, not a bad deal. for 216 points

To make them work you need an Avatar but that doesn't seem bad. It is still barely 400 points.

#i know the avatar is a points sink, but the potential is there

I wouldn't say the rest of the codex stayed the same. All the aspect warriors and the wraithknight got substantial buffs, for example, as did the other various wraith units. You could make an effective army just running 3 or 4 of the Aspect Host formation and have an entire army of incredibly mobile and hard-hitting units with or without transports. Alternatively, you could make an incredibly durable wraith army with the benefit of battle focus and an absurd amount of strength d weapons to wipe anything off the table.

Formations buff the aspects, and the always-run-6 formation buff synergises with combat focus. I think footdar should be strong.not as good as bikes perhaps, but certainly worthwhile.

The problem with the codex isn't that units are too weak, but that they're nearly all weaker than Windriders. By itself Guardian Defenders, Swooping Hawks, Warp Spiders, Falcons and even Vypers seem pretty decent, but then you remember you have access to scatter Windriders and heavy wraithcannon Wraithknights, which is really the only units it makes any sense to take, from a competitive perspective.

I suppose, though, you could take a different Eldar list tailored to kill precisely those units. Warp Spiders, for instance, would Wraithknights on 2+, torrent Night Spinners tear through bikes like nobody's business, and Wraithguard, if you can get them in place, can deal with both bikes and monsters.

Wraithknight is I5 and Death Spinner is S6.

Warp Spiders wound WK on 3+

Ignoring the fact they are troops I could quite happily remove the 12 windriders from my list - there are plenty of other high power level units in the codex - guard for elites and vehicles at template range, spiders for anything at close-med, WK at whatever he damn well pleases.

What the bikes bring is ranged anti-spam/general purpose firepower and objective secured but they are not the be all and end all.

Footdar sans new formations is better than it was. It has a lot of amazing tricks, but is still short range t3 infantry. Good, certainly better, but not tourny-competitive.

My 1500pt Aspect list is now 1407, and mostly stronger.

With Formations, they can do some real work. Probably low-end Tourny-competitive.

Absolutely. 2 units of rangers only costs 120pts and opens up options for excellent units. Access to wraith units plus aspect formation. Serpents give the high ROF that is lost by the wind riders.

Mech can still do work.

Serpents aren't the workhorses they were, but are still hard to kill. Transport and battle tank simultaneously. Not a watered down hybrid. But you pay for both. Reasonable price tag.

Falcons pack a punch. Not a ton, but is reasonably survivable with good guns. These are your MBTs. Some transport cap for some shenanigans, but outside tailored lists, nothing to write home about. Only squadron if you're up for some shenanigans, most likely.

Fire Prisms are mostly unchanged (didn't need Holo last Ed., and you don't want to Squadron them), and are OK, but only one shot each round isn't great.

Night Spinners can still do things, only better now. Monofilament blasts might seem contradictory in optimal targets, but it can do things to most targets. And squadroning might actually be scary with these beasts.

For mech, each tank now seems to have its own place, which is awesome.

One tactic we'll probably see, that is very rock-paper-scisors, will be a 3-Falcon squadron, with 3 short-range units. Disembark, pop one target each with each squad (Wouldn't 6 Fragons burn an IK in 1 round?). Falcons clean up the one target that didn't die (or another target). Absurd points for it, but you're probably killing 3 IKs.

So Mech is back, replacing the Serpent Spam blandness/stupidity of the last dex.

Again, fun options. Effective options. But mostly nothing as stupidly good as WK or Wind riders.

i played against the guardian formation, a quick 750pt game but he had a free extra 100pts of weapon platforms.

I'd say yeah its valid

I just played a game as footdar with the storm guardian host and a melee aspect host. The only vehicles I had on the board were my walker/vyper requirement (and only 1 each).

Beat a Necron player pretty convincingly, although he had bad luck trying to shoot down my Avatar, and the Avatar is really the lynchpin of this army type...

Anyway, I'd never expect to win a tourney with that army, but it's not weak.

was the 6 inch run handy? how did you approach the game. What was the necron list like?

Better question is if there is an Eldar list that isn't at least mid-tier?

 casvalremdeikun wrote:
Better question is if there is an Eldar list that isn't at least mid-tier?

Storm guardian spam, perhaps?

As others have already pointed out, there are plenty of army builds in the new Eldar codex that aren't 30 Scatbikers and a Wraithknight. Most of the lists being posted are simply people coming up with tournament lists or simply creating the nastiest list they can. This is to say nothing of people jumping on the bandwagon of the most powerful codex currently available.

The new Craftworld Warhost detachment and its related formations provide several good starting points for Eldar armies. Guardians and Aspect Warriors are now much more powerful, along with our psykers. They may not be as powerful as Scatbikers or the Wraithknight, but they are still quite good on the tabletop. Plus, people won't have a reason to complain about you. If they do, they're TFG.

The real question what would a bad list look like? Is it even possible?

Hasn't that already been answer?

Lots of options for a not-great list. Pure footdar CADs. Storm Guardian core. Three squadrons of Fire Prisms. Large Jetbike units sans Heavy weapons. Wraithblades. An entire list of any one aspect.

There are lots of great options too. But not everything in CW Eldar is brokenly good.

As a good bolt-on; a exarch squad of Swooping Hawks? Deadly anti tanks, super super mobile, excellent deployment options, good harassment unit.

Never seems to come up but seems to be really decent?

Razerous wrote:
As a good bolt-on; a exarch squad of Swooping Hawks? Deadly anti tanks, super super mobile, excellent deployment options, good harassment unit.

Never seems to come up but seems to be really decent?

It is really decent, as are Warp Spiders, Night Spinners, War Walkers; even Striking Scorpions and Vypers. The problem is, Windriders are better. Just remove that damned unit and you'd have an amazingly well balanced Codex.

Okapi wrote:

Razerous wrote:
As a good bolt-on; a exarch squad of Swooping Hawks? Deadly anti tanks, super super mobile, excellent deployment options, good harassment unit.

Never seems to come up but seems to be really decent?

It is really decent, as are Warp Spiders, Night Spinners, War Walkers; even Striking Scorpions and Vypers. The problem is, Windriders are better. Just remove that damned unit and you'd have an amazingly well balanced Codex.

Quoted and Exalted for truth. Outside of Scatbikers, D weapons and the Wraithknight, Eldar are actually quite balanced internally and externally.