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Hello Dakka! I'm someone who's entertained the idea of coming back to the hobby and picking up my old favorite race, Eldar, for a long time. I used to run an Ulthwe list in 4th edition, which should let you know how far I am behind the curve. However, here seems to be a common consensus that Eldar are at the top of the heap this edition, even without ally shenanigans.

Therefore, I've been thinking of making a fluffy Eldar list that should be fun for the opponent and myself and not be brokenly strong. I settled upon Aspect Host, because in terms of aesthetic and style they seem to be the most different from my old Black Guardian/ Seer Council footdar list. Instead I'm thinking of many small elite aspect units, probably housed in Wave Serpent or DSing in. Is such a list balanced, too weak, or strong in the general meta? I haven't started gaming at a location yet so I don't know what the local meta looks like, but the idea on paper doesn't seem too broken with vehicles being nerfed. I'd obviously like to avoid spamming Spiders and having that be my only Aspect unit, but also would probably want to avoid doing the GW codex BR plan of taking one of everything and having the list be pretty weak. Something in the middle would be preferable.

So, anyone here run Biel-Tan style lists with any success, or perhaps too much? I'd like to know .

I love eldar aspects. I think they all have fun rules and are balanced quite well (bar warp spiders and banshees)

Dark reapers are awesome at the role, but are still very squishy. Swooping hawks are very fun, I love dire avengers as a troop choice and striking scorpions are super underrated. Crimson hunters are pretty strong so I'd stay away from those.

Warp spiders are way too good and howling banshees are kinda terrible, but everyone else is awesome and perfectly fine in a friendly game I think.

The aspects are specialized, but very good at their jobs. I like them a lot

No actual game experience with them, but I do wonder whether making Deathspinners S4 would go a long way to fixing their broken-ness.

As for Banshees, they're not competitive but I've heard of someone actually using them half-decently. Rather than using them like a standard Hammer CC unit and just throwing them in the enemy's face, they used min-squads with an Exarch as footslogging flank defenders/harassers. They're killy enough to be a threat, and they're surprisingly quite with their extra 3" move. Plus, they're actually dirt-cheap

Crimson hunter is fine.

Eldar units are almost universally solid, but there a few that are beyond the pale good.

1) Scatterbikes/shuricannon bikes
2) Wraithknights
3) Warp Spiders
4) Hornets

Everything else at least has a draw back or weakness or is costed appropriately.

Most Aspects are actually pretty good but how effective they'll be depends on how much support you can give them. The only Aspect that isn't too good is the Banshee's sinc ethey lack any realistic means of getting into the fight, a footslogging T3, 4+ unit just dies and no Eldar transports have the Assualt Vehicle rule so you're always going to end up spending a turn in the open waiting to die. Warp Spiders might be the strongest of the Aspects but as long as you aren't spamming them in the Aspect Host formation where they can have BS5 then nobody should complain about one or two squads of them on the board.

Thanks for the replies guys. It's good to know it wont be a broken army as long as I stay away from Warp Spider spam. I still will probably take one as they're simply too good to pass up and I still want a decent list until I see what kind of meta exists at the local shop.

The next question is what on earth I have to buy. 40k has gotten so confusing now with all the supplement spam. In addition to the main rules, would I just buy the Eldar main dex and the Craftworld dex? I don't plan on adding allies just yet.

The Craftworld Eldar dex is the main dex (and is the current Eldar dex). You should be fine with just the core rulebook and the Craftworld Eldar dex.

Eldar are awesome in that way, all you need is the 'Eldar: Craftworlds' codex and a core rulebook.

It gets more complicated if you want allies or Ynari or the such, but that doesn't seem to be your thing so its moot.