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Hi i still think it is opponent situational but I am beginning the think the eldar avatar is considerably better now.

He gives rage and furious charge and "gets" them too.

I have used him in two battles recently and I suspect vs armies that have to "come to you" like space wolves and orks I think he can be possibly the most stupidly over powered unit for his points:

I put one amongst wraithguard (not with swords or axes, wraithGUARD) and they charged at str 6 with 3 attacks each.. and couldn't be counter charged because of dscythes.. quite insane for a shooting unit to be that good in close combat

Anyway that avatar is boasting str8 on charge with 6 attacks.. after shooting it with a melta gun..ap2.. then he always wins if they flee (init 10) and can consolidate 6 inches ( a free move) pretty beyond crazy really. And he can charge flamers with no over watch

Can eldrads warlord trait be used on the avatar?

Yes the warlord trait works on the Avatar.

He is much better now, yes. He still needs protection getting upfield, but once he gets there he will beat face in the worst way.

He can be avoided at the beginning of the battle.
Then he will get shot down before he can do some substantial damage.
I'd stay away from him.

The avatar is pretty good now. My imperial knight learned the hard way, don't mess with khaine. Nearby banshees also get pretty strong with him on the table.

He can be avoided but most people underestimate him, and remember he cannot be avoided by *all* armies. orks or space wolves spring to mind. Terminators too. Their job is to deal with the likes of him.

I had not thought of banshees, but I know he turns storm guardians into the worst nastiest ball of 9 pts in 40k... 4 attacks str4 25% ap3 (if you use formation to get free swords) fearless.. all for 9 pts.. if you put Jain Zar as warlord in the stormies from that formation they run 9 inches.. so 15 inches on turn one.. gulp!

He is vastly better than he was before. However the assertion that he cannot simply be shot down before he does anything useful by all armies is incorrect. All of the codexes have shooting options that can bring an avatar down in a single turn and cost less than 300 pts. In fact any army that doesn't would struggle to deal with transport's of any type as the avatar is about as survivable as 2 rhinos.

Still he can do some pretty great stuff when supporting a foot based CWE army. His fearless bubble is fantastic for pulling GtG shenanigans.

I disagree that it is inevitable: I can think of loads of games where they've had a bead on him and he's shrugged it off... If you took an army of ork bikers you would struggle to shoot him down at BS 2 (or BS1 if they jinked) if you took an army of salamanders with melta.. there are loads of examples where he isn't massively at risk, note that I am also talking about the opponents NORMAL way to DEAL with eldar: he is expecting to close the gap and assault you . .i.e. this is what your opponent is trying to do an as such the avatar is an excellent choice because his lack of mobility becomes almost irrelevant and he remains a solid counter counter to such assaulting armies

The Avatar keeps scatterbikes on the map. I'm just sayin'.

I can think of worse things for my opponent to shoot at than a T6 3+/5++. Especially in Footdar armies.

ConanMan wrote:I disagree that it is inevitable: I can think of loads of games where they've had a bead on him and he's shrugged it off... If you took an army of ork bikers you would struggle to shoot him down at BS 2 (or BS1 if they jinked) if you took an army of salamanders with melta.. there are loads of examples where he isn't massively at risk, note that I am also talking about the opponents NORMAL way to DEAL with eldar: he is expecting to close the gap and assault you . .i.e. this is what your opponent is trying to do an as such the avatar is an excellent choice because his lack of mobility becomes almost irrelevant and he remains a solid counter counter to such assaulting armies

Don't get me wrong. I think that the avatar is very useful. Especially if you take an imperial strong point with an ADL and a bastion. Hide the avatar behind the bastion out of LoS and outside his 12" fearless but so that any failed morale checks run into his bubble. Then put the ADL in front so all your footdar can GtG behind it turn 1 to reduce the opponent's alpha strike. It makes for a very very effective beta strike list, especially when the vaul's wrath unit is a unit of D cannons.

The problem with the avatar is that he is trivially easy to dispose of for any list expecting to see a wraithknight or multiple wraiths and a spyder. In fact the avatar has a lot in common with the wraiths and spyder example as the spyder is harder to kill and like the spyder the avatar is a synergy unit usually best disposed of first. I am not saying the avatar is a bad unit but he is a difficult unit to integrate appropriately as he is fragile or his points, slow, and has relatively few meaningful buffs to his durability.

BTW I like him best in the craftworld warhost as the 6" move + 6" run makes him reasonably speedy. He also works best accompanying slower but with a good punch units like foot seer council, guardians, and even wraithguard. It would seem on paper that he is a no brainer to work with banshees and scorpions but he cannot keep up with either of those units; the banshees are moving 6" further than him a turn and the scorpions start the game on the other side of the board.

As for windrider units. You could make some case for them. However you really cannot depend on a lone avatar to be your morale control especially without a LoS blocker to keep him alive. There is also the fact you are spending a huge chunk of pts on this limited morale control where you could have just gotten 3 more units of 3 scatbikes instead. Additionally his aura is not that big, scatbikes take up a lot of room unless you bunch them up and leave them out in the open and/or run massive units. All of which are bad options. There is also the fact that an avatar staying with scatbikes is not going to accomplish a lot more.