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Been thinking about this for a while now. It's been a year or so since the Eldar codex was released.

During this time I've seen people in both my usual gaming clubs who regularly used Eldar slowly start to bring less and less Eldar until slowly moved onto other armies and mained them instead. I know one guy brought Scatter lasers bikes and Wraithknights at 500 when it first dropped and then just stopped playing them or at least, for casual events.

I'm curious, how popular is Eldar in your area? I imagine that it's probably going to be more popular in competitive based metas so I included a poll encompassing hopefully all possible answers but please tell me if you think I missed one out.

I'm in a casual meta and really the only Eldar player. This was the case before the current codex though.

Eldar seem to be a victim of their own success, beause of Wraithknights, Scatterbikes and Warp Spider spam there's a huge amount of hate out there for them but if you don't run those units you're left with a lot of good but not OP units that can make for fun games.

Only one active Eldar player in my area, and he refuses to play them until they are balanced against the other codices. Until then, he is playing Tyranids. Dude's a freaking hero in my book.

There are 2 in my area. The first one is me the second started them recently because he wants to win all the time. I eagerly await the results of his army change.

Of the three people in my area that have them:

One's more of a ork/nid player (and hasn't played 40k in awhile much less eldar).
One mostly plays tournaments (and space marines/tau/grey knights mix ups more so then eldar).
And I haven't used mine much since 7th dropped.

It’s been a while since I’ve seen any Eldar. Although the guys who play in the tournaments a bit south of me say there are at least two who always show up there.

Last two tournaments I went to had 12 players and 14 players show up respectively, each one had 3 Eldar Players (Same guys in both) and guess who won 1st 2nd and 3rd place with almost the exact same lists as one another? actually one of them placed horribly in one of those tournaments, he finished like 10th or something, but that was because he sucks at the game and unfortunately had to play against the other 2 eldar players who are better at the game then him.

In the local META I am in now, (Haven't played a single game yet) the owner of the store said that they have 2 or 3 eldar players and a community of around 14-16 regulars. so around 1/5th of the community plays Eldar.

 Imateria wrote:
I'm in a casual meta and really the only Eldar player. This was the case before the current codex though.

Eldar seem to be a victim of their own success, beause of Wraithknights, Scatterbikes and Warp Spider spam there's a huge amount of hate out there for them but if you don't run those units you're left with a lot of good but not OP units that can make for fun games.

Same for me. I have only seen 2 other Eldar players besides myself in the last 2 years, and neither of them show up often.

I have been playing Eldar since their lackluster 4th/5th ed days. I cannot "refuse" to keep playing them as they have always been my favorite army. However, I rarely play full Eldar, often supplementing 1/3 of my points with GKs or DE. I even have multiple "levels" of lists so that if an opponent doesn't want to face a bunch of Scatterbikes, or a WK, I can swap them out for Shuricannon bikes and some Tanks

I have not seen an Eldar player in my limited forays into looking into the local meta. I know that I was a little interested in them, but was turned off by the fact they are worlds better "just because" and depending on the type of army I wanted, I would be overpowered through no fault of my own.

Casual meta, rare sight... and it's me. Is modelling and lotr now, mainly for the job and distance. Aspect warriors 0-1 each list, some guardian to spice, transports

On the other hand, a group nearby one of our players pays with, has 1-2 scatterbike wraithbone spammers

Before the local non-GW LGS closed up shop, we had mostly a hardcore ultra competitive meta, so naturally there were mainly just various flavours of Eldar/Tau/Marines/'Crons and then the rest of us lowly mortals who weren't into a penis measuring contest over little plastic soldiers. (note: this state of affairs was too biased towards guys in general!)

Most of the Eldar players though would be fine with dialing their lists down for anyone who didn't want to constantly face Wraithknight/Scatbike spam, Warp Spider festivals, etc... You just had to open your pie-hole and offer a small compromise in return.
For example;
little 'ol me: "Hey man, here's my Tzeentch Daemon list, as you can see, it's a fluffy bunny list & I really can't handle your 5 units of Scatbikes + Wraithknight? Would you mind maybe not bringing Mr.Wraithknight today, and we go back to the previous rules of 1 per 3 Scats on the Bikes?"

Eldar player: "Sure, how does a pair of Wraithlords sound instead?"

little 'ol me: "Sounds good! How about if I agree to re-roll the Herald-making power on my lone Malefic caster here, and I won't take Divination on my Chicken because Precog will make him really busted?"

Eldar player: "Sounds good, and thanks for not playing a Clown Car!"



The Tau players could be hit and miss, as a couple of them only care about 'Winning'.
Our best Tau player though moved away a good while ago, which was sad because he had about 15000pts or so of Tau, including a gak tone of their Forge World units. It would be fun to play against some of that stuff once, just to have a laugh at how gakking insane half of it was, but he'd readily agree not to take any of it outside of competitive Tourneys and/or League games.

The most numerous though were Smurfs, and the majority of them would only play Gladius or Superfriends Deathstar type lists.
I had a lot of fun games against a Dark Angel friend, and there was a Salamanders & 'generic' Marine players who were cool. (most of the Marine players though would respond to requests to tone their lists back a bit by just parroting the old "L2P/GitGud" BS.)

For the most part, Tyranids, CSM's & Orks were completely non-existent.

We did have a Sisters player though, except he was the mother of all donkeycaves.
I made him rage-quit for well over a year when I worked at the local GW store, back during late 4th edition, using pure Drop Troop doctrine Guard of all things. (and a Culexus Assassin that afterwards he claimed was the single most abusive & broken model in the history of 40! )

Only one person in my local meta primarily plays eldar, plays the most competitive build more or less.

In my casual meta, there are only 2 eldar players. One has not been around (school) and the other swapz between eldar and nids/gs cult. As well as not using wraithknights and scat bike spam.

True story: I forfeited another game against dual WK, 25 scatterbikes again. My psychological burnout with these guys is getting me in trouble with my gaming group, because I'm supposed to actually play whom I'm assigned to play.

My local meta is extremely competitive, with our local tournaments sometimes having GT-level lists being played. We have a couple of Eldar players around, plus one who plays Eldar with Dark Eldar allies. And yes, they all heavily use Scatbikes, Wraithknights, and Warp Spiders.

There is only a couple Eldar players in my area. One is a great guy, no cheese, super nice, yada yada. The other two are total TFG, run dual Wraithknights, sometimes Tau thrown in just for power level shenanigans, and get upset if you start to beat them. To be fair, I bet those two could play any army and still be TFG.

Only one dude I know. He's a chill guy I'd like to hang out with, but he regularly brings scatbikes, warp spiders, those tanks I can never remember the name of, etc. I don't begrudge him for it, since I get the idea he really likes the army for reasons other than winning.

Eldar and Orks are my two favorite armies. Most the local players have at least 3-4 armies. Of those probably half of them play Eldar as one of their armies. I mostly play elder now, but I tend to leave the scatter bikes and wraith knights in the box unless somebody wants a competitive game. I usually will still run 2 squads of 3 bikes but with 1 suri cannon not scatter laser and the rest DA troops and guardians. I Also never unleash the warp spiders unless one really wants a tournament power list to fight. instead I will bring things like swooping hawks, and vipers or even ally with DE or harlies to tone them down further.

I am the only Eldar player in the area but I don't get to play a lot of games. I don't like the local game store here so i don't head out there to play. I usually play against my friend and co-worker who plays Necrons.

There was a game store that opened up closer to me but they went out of business about 9 months after they opened as they couldn't get any suppliers and, of course, nobody wanted to share information with him about suppliers.

On the other hand, as I don't go to play at the game store, there could very well be another newer eldar player out there now.

I do hope that when I move to a new location there will be a better scene and a more friendly store.

 Imateria wrote:
I'm in a casual meta and really the only Eldar player. This was the case before the current codex though.

Eldar seem to be a victim of their own success, beause of Wraithknights, Scatterbikes and Warp Spider spam there's a huge amount of hate out there for them but if you don't run those units you're left with a lot of good but not OP units that can make for fun games.

But then you get good ol' gladius-terrain moving 2++ rerollable marines calling you op still. Sadly even though the most popular army is now one of the best in the game, eldar will always be complained about as op, even if you were to run guardian footspam.

 cosmicsoybean wrote:

Sadly even though the most popular army is now one of the best in the game, eldar will always be complained about as op, even if you were to run guardian footspam.

Because the logic would be: "it's OP for your basic Troops to have guns that can wound anything with the potential for AP2" regardless of the fact that those guns are almost never in range of the units they want to shoot at before EVERY other armies basic guns splats them with AP5 guns

 cosmicsoybean wrote:

 Imateria wrote:
I'm in a casual meta and really the only Eldar player. This was the case before the current codex though.

Eldar seem to be a victim of their own success, beause of Wraithknights, Scatterbikes and Warp Spider spam there's a huge amount of hate out there for them but if you don't run those units you're left with a lot of good but not OP units that can make for fun games.

But then you get good ol' gladius-terrain moving 2++ rerollable marines calling you op still. Sadly even though the most popular army is now one of the best in the game, eldar will always be complained about as op, even if you were to run guardian footspam.

Ooooooo, just wait for Chaos to get overhauled. Remember the giant clusterfeth that was the whole, "ZOMG!SUMMONING IZ SO BROKENZZZ!11!!!NERF!1!!11!"

Heck, there were even a few Eldar players jumping in on the "40k is ruined forevah! 12 dice WC cap is the only way to make the game playable!!!" nonsense.

 Imateria wrote:
I'm in a casual meta and really the only Eldar player. This was the case before the current codex though.

Eldar seem to be a victim of their own success, beause of Wraithknights, Scatterbikes and Warp Spider spam there's a huge amount of hate out there for them but if you don't run those units you're left with a lot of good but not OP units that can make for fun games.

Hrm, even a lot of the other units stand clearly head and shoulders against equivalents from other books. Fire Dragons and their "AP0" versus just about anyone else's melta units for anything near the same cost, Rangers getting Shrouded instead of just Stealth like Scouts and Ratlings, etc. I mean, damn near everything in that book is amazing.

Casual. I'm the only person with Eldar in my meta. I don't use them because the games are not fun. I may sell them in the near future.

 Galef wrote:

 cosmicsoybean wrote:

Sadly even though the most popular army is now one of the best in the game, eldar will always be complained about as op, even if you were to run guardian footspam.

Because the logic would be: "it's OP for your basic Troops to have guns that can wound anything with the potential for AP2" regardless of the fact that those guns are almost never in range of the units they want to shoot at before EVERY other armies basic guns splats them with AP5 guns

Your right that is very true, your potential AP2 weapons with a range of what? 18 are far weaker then my 12in S4 AP6 Pistols, which is what comes standard on my boyz.

Keep complaining about everyone complaining about your army The fact is that with a few exceptions almost every unit in the eldar codex stands head and shoulders above equivalent units in other armies.

Martel732 wrote:
True story: I forfeited another game against dual WK, 25 scatterbikes again. My psychological burnout with these guys is getting me in trouble with my gaming group, because I'm supposed to actually play whom I'm assigned to play.

The fact that you are assigned your opponents actually explains a lot. I'm sorry bout that, sounds gakky

Casual meta; three players who play variants of Eldar. (Two of us play Eldar unity lists with Harlequins and DE included, one player plays straight Eldar, although he doesn't play often.)

I just picked up a rather large eldar army, as a change of pace from my CSM. I hardly get to play because of work, but even then I'm against using bikes, Wraithguard, and Warp Spiders. I know there is at least 1 or 2 other Eldar players on the area, but I always hear that SW, SM, IK, and sometimes KDK are what usually top the local leagues or tournaments.

Surprisingly, most players pick up CSM as a side army because they're less competitive and much more fun to kit bash/paint/have better lore.

I have been playing them since 3rd, was always my favorite army to play. I was also the only elder player.

Then 6th came out and 3 other guys got them and bought complete meta lists for tourney's, and then when 7th came out did the same thing again. now playing elder is stale and old. thanks to a few WAAC guys in my area.

Outside of that I offer any and all, a toned down list game (no WK, scatbikes, highlander list) Then when I win I get the bitch session. "see everything I your 'dex' is OP"

Yeah cause scorpions, banshees, warwalkers, and wraithlords are so hard core meta. It cant possibly be 10+ years of experience with them!

None in the 2 clubs near my place.

The one nearer to me is quite casual, around 4 regular eldar players before 7th, but they were very obnoxious long before then. When 7th dropped, none refused to tone back even the least bit. Lots of "for experts only" claims about eldar, and how crap we were as players. People stopped coming due to their obnoxiousness (They were left without games pretty quickly, so they stood by our sides and called us noobs constantly), so the organisers banned all eldar armies, period. 1 attempted to come back with Tau, lost 8 games in a row and rage-quit.

The one further away from me is very competitive and roughly 1/3 the playerbase were eldar. Don't know when they got kicked, but I just saw an email for a tournament going around, which basically said take anything but eldar. Apparently there were a few fights and a broken warhound, which lead to the outright ban. Not overly familiar with the people there, so not sure if they swapped armies or just quit.

The atmosphere is much better though. Eldar has got it coming to them the longest time ever. Guess 7th was the straw that broke the camel's back.