Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

With the chances of GW doing Exodites currently in the realm of "you'll be lucky to see a token one appear in a specialist game" and yet teasing every now and then with a lore story on them; I'm toying with the idea of building a modest force of the Craftworlders. Especially as it seems that GW is going to start the process of releasing plastic aspect warriors to replace the finecast (a material I hate working with).

However functionally I know very little of how Eldar work on the tabletop and how they operate in terms of army composition and size. Right now my impression is that they are not a hoarding/swarming race and are closer to an elite force ,but not quite so far as, say, Custodes are.

I'm also noticing that even GW favours the wraith variations; dome headed mechanical suits powered and driven by soul crystals embedded into their bodies. More modern sculpts that clearly don't show the age of old plastic like the current Guardians. Infact outside of infantry whilst the Eldar do have a lot of older vehicles they appear to have stood the test of time well and their jetbikes have clearly been steadily updated with some new variations. They've also some great and very cool looking aspect warriors and vehicles over on Forgeworld (I must admit its things like the hornet and wasp walker are greatly interesting me - heck the wasp just looks flat out better than the more ungainly war walker)




So are there any tips, thoughts and impressions on the current Eldar that would be worth knowing. Have I made mistakes in my rough appraisal of the army; are there some huge pitfalls; is the army worth it?

As with every army decision; what's your end goal? People often decry the Eldar for being strong...primarily because of Soup, and a handful of very strong units from the book. 60% of the codex represents rather sub-par choices (often subpar to other Eldar choices, and even MORE subpar to many Dark Eldar choices).

The Dark Eldar book is quite a bit better in flexibility and depth.

GW "favours" wraith units because they're the only newish plastics they have on hand besides some flyers. When GW releases a get-started kit, or a "army" kit around Christmas etc., they're looking at maybe 6-7 kits. You get a combination of the same ones, every time (and even some of those you don't see - when was the last time you saw a Support Weapon in any combo box?).

Just off the top of my head, the stuff not in plastic:

-Avatar of Khaine
-All six current Phoenix Lords
-Striking Scorpions
-Howling Banshees
-Dark Reapers
-Fire Dragons
-Shining Spears
-Warp Spiders
-Storm Guardians (I think there is still a gakky finecast conversion sprue which is...awful)
-Rangers
-Yriel
-Warlock (an easy enough conversion, and oddly you can get one on a jetbike...)
-Several Autarch varieties (which are likely to disappear considering the kit is limited to one "type")
-Illic Nightspear

There are handful of other kits which are ancient, and often direct-purchase only so you can't find them at discount easily. Falcon and Vyper are really dated and the molds are going bad pretty quick. They need a revamp in a dire way. Basically the model line sucks complete ass, and I generally don't even advise new players to play Eldar. We may be about to start turning that corner, but right now it's an expensive headache to build a variety-filled Eldar army.

How do they play? Like most other things in 40K. To be competitive you take a handful of units, combine them into powerful combos and do your thing. The Eldar book is "old" for 8th edition. It was maybe the third book out, and it shows. Like the CSM and the recently replaced Space Marine codex, it's been hurting quite a bit. There are many units in the book that are so weak dick I struggle to even field them in casual games.

That being said, in a casual environment, Eldar can be fun. You just need to balance your good with your bad. So, what kind of gaming are you planning on doing?

PS: The Hornet is pretty fantastic. I have two and thoroughly like them. Not game-breaking, but they're miles better than a Vyper for little more investment (and they look soooo much better).

Must admit I hadn't considered the wear on the viper moulds, but yes old moulds will have more wear on them, esp if GW hasn't replaced them. It's sounding a little like waiting a year might be prudent to let GW clean the Eldar up a lot more.


Right now my core plan is Bonereapers, but I was toying with a 40K force as a potential small side project; esp since I've not yet had a return of my drive to complete my Tyranids. Eldar certainly give that lasers and mystical technology aspect to the lore that I've always rather liked with sci-fi (and something that often gets lost in a lot of more modern sci-fi).
The only real worry is if FW starts pulling sculpts from their line (which in typical GW fashion tends to happen with almost no warning and if there IS warning its normally only a day's worth of warning before its all gone).

Don't get me wrong...I love Eldar. Have 6,000 points painted, but to do so I went with 2nd edition metals (thankfully before 8th came out, when 40K was in a serious rut...). They're easily one of the best written lore/fluff armies, with one of the most logical existences in the game. In fluff/lore, yes they're super elite....but they suffer from Space Marine syndrome; being intentionally dumbed down to put more models on the table.

The core of most craftworld forces is indeed Aspect Warriors...the models which are $40 for 5-6 and made from gakky finecast. It's why, as an Eldar player, it's easy to laugh at people complaining about kits their armies lack.

There are heavy rumours that Forgeworld is more or less done with 40K for the time being and will be turned to concentrating on Specialist Games....so it is very likely you'll eventually lose the 40K stuff (but maybe not for a while?). GW has taken over rules responsibility for FW units for the future, so that's...a thing.

There are some companies making superb alternate Eldar figures, while resin...they're not FW resin nor GW finecast, so they're actually good. W. Artel miniatures for example. However at $50 per 5-6 models, they ain't cheap.

I never had problems with FW resin and at least most times one can get replacements parts without a problem; finecast is just a mess and far more likely that replacement kits can be as bad if not worse than the one one starts with. Plus I've found that whilst regular resins tend to get a bubble here and there and its only bad luck that one lands in a high detail spot - finecast tends to get a cluster of bubbles which obliterates whole areas of detail.

FW does seem to be in a very odd spot - whilst the specialist games are great I'd be sad to see many of the sculpts vanish entirely from their line - though GW doesn't do enough, honestly, to encourage their sales.

Hi Overread

Elbows has covered most of the sticky points when it comes to CWE, namely the gakky model range i.e. ton of fine cast and old kits. There are several builds that will perform in an average pickup game. On the whole the Eldar lean to be a very mobile army and tend to rely heavily on psychic support.
(Note: CWE suffer from very poor internal balance, and some strange point costs due to repetitive nerf because of Ynnari soup/soul burst. The fliers namely the Crimson Hunter Exarchs just being hands down best unit in the dex. Meaning from a competitive game perspective an auto include 500 points worth of units which really sucks)

But there are tools in the codex to build many different looking armies and still give other factions a good run for their army.
You can make anything from a heavy mechanised to an infantry horde type army.
The way missions work and objective scoring mean you can take most units because of the army synergy and mobility you can win or draw even whilst getting tabled. The eldar are always a dog in the fight. The book has been nerfed repeatedly and is an old book but there are some great units in there.

I'm really enjoying Eldar and am doing some mad scientist type builds(for example a heavy CC core with bunch of warp spiders and support weapon batteries) and having a hellota fun with it.

If you were looking to get an army off the ground realistically you would be looking at:

1 or 2 boxes of guardians - 20 is nice to have as you can deploy as a blob of 20 form the web way or as a 10 man blob to be meat shields for characters/troop tax.

About 10 rangers - These are sadly finecast and I really don't recommend them as mine have been appallingly bad casts... So maybe fish around for some OOp metals on ebay.

Maybe some Dire Avengers - These are plastic and although really not great can go down this route if you don't want to deal with fnecast.

Eldrad - Better than any farseer in the game and an absolute weapon and is a much nicer sculpt. Can be used as a normal

Farseer skyrunner kit - If you pin the head you can run as either warlock or seer.

A warlock/Spirit seer - You can pick up some very cheap warlock metals on ebay as they are very common.

Autarch/Bike autarch - You can convert your own or buy the winged model which is nice. These are nice but not a must have. Especially as their legacy index options are looking to be fazed out.

Wave serpent (or two... or three... ) - Our best vehicle is hands down the wave serpent. It is pretty tanky can be loaded out to be aggressive or with heavy weapons to be a backline camper and offer a hiding spot for troops/ characters so I would say a wave serpent is probably the most versatile unit we have.

With these being your core stuffs for making a battalion for CP generation you can then add whatever the feth you want to make up the rest of the army.
I personally really like wraiths and have magnetised mine so I can always find a job for them in my lists. The wraithlord is probably my favourite kit aesthetic wise and its not too shaby as a distraction carnifex.

Not going into FW rules wise:

Top 3 units - Crimson Hunter Exarch, Wave serpent and Farseer.

Worst 3 units - Vyper, Wraith knight, striking scorpions.

Obviously this is just my opinion.

I run Vyper squadrons in casual games with my friends pretty often and they're actually pretty solid. They're crazy fast (20" base move + 6" advance) and are usually not worth shooting at for your opponent so they always survive to bully enemy troops units off objectives. No where near as bad as some of the aspect warrior datasheets IMHO. Plus, the models still look sweet, especially in threes!

Do you play Kill Team?

If so, you can start with Dire Avengers- the Exarch is included as an option in the five model set. These are plastic, and fairly recent kits, unlikely to need or get an update. That's a 52 point Kill Team [I like the power glaive build on the exarch because of the +1 strength]. Ten shots, if you roll a 6 on the hit they get AP 3 and they hit on 5+ when they fire overwatch. They have 4+ armour, and 4++ for the exarch. Feels pretty good for 52 points.

The plastic Banshees will be out soon- not sure exactly though. The Community articles aren't 100% clear, but it sounds like the Exarch is an optional upgrade in the box rather than a stand alone kit. That's 61 points if you take the exarch with the executioner. Doing so gives you the only strength 4 melee attacks.

I think that the Wraithguard/ Wraithlord models look good, they are plastic, so I'd grab a box of those too. In Kill Team, they're deadly, but super expensive- a blade is 36 and a guard is 41, so you're only going to get one in your kill team.

3+ save, 3 wounds, toughness They are slow and they don't earn experience. The blade's attacks are great, but no ranged capacity. The guard options can bring decent firepower, but still slow, and the range on their weapon options is too short to mitigate the slow movement as much as you want it to.

That's 3 Elite choices all in good looking plastic unlikely to get updates. Add an HQ and you've got a Vanguard, and your entire army can fit in a Kill Team roster that will allow you to build a variety of Kill Team cominations to suit a variety of missions.

On the 40k side, a vanguard is only 1 cp, but there are a lot of special banshee rules coming with psychic awakening.

I think being open to converting and modding is the way forward for eldar at the moment. They're my most recent army, and I love playing with them, and slowly fleshing them out. You have at your disposal lots of fantasy elf kits, with pretty solid options. Dark riders, for instance, provide nearly everything you need to convert wind riders into shining spears. Shadow warriors make great guardians or storm guardians. Rangers can similarly be kitbashed from deldar and wood elf kits, etc. You'll end up with a unique exodite force that looks very different, but is still legal at GW events. Worth a ponder,

Eldar seem to have suffered especially badly from the transition to Finecast. I have been looking into getting small representative forces for all the main 40K factions to play Grimdark Future with. Space Marines, Orks and Chaos I have from starters. I bought a couple of boxes of plastics for Tyranids and will use my Space Hulk Genestealers. Start collecting plus an extra kit or two does for Tau and Necrons. Not sure if I will bother with Guard but if I do I will probably go for Wargames Atlantic not-steel legion and cheaper scale model military vehicles rather than the goofy looking guard ones.

So it was pretty easy to get something together for each faction. But when I looked at Eldar, the Start Collecting is all Wraith Constructs. That is really weird, as they had previously been a niche army. My impression of Eldar has always been a collection of hyperspecialised niche units in powerful grav tanks or riding jetbikes. It does not seem possible to easily collect a force like that that would produce a satisfying game for a player and demonstrate the look and feel of the Eldar. It is a shame. Elves have never really been my cup of tea, but two of my potential players are really keen on Elves in Fantasy and would probably really like the elegant designs and cool aloof nature of the Eldar.

The consensus seems to be find metals on the secondary market, then? That is a real shame.
The list I imagine is something like
- A Farseer or Warlock
- A Grav Tank (probably a falcon)
- A unit of jetbikers
- Some Pathfinders
- A unit of Guardians
- 2 units of Aspect Warriors (Howling Banshees and Fire Dragons probably?)

My advice after 10 years of play:

buy Wave Serpents.

 Shadenuat wrote:
My advice after 10 years of play:

buy Wave Serpents.

Heh. Second this.

Have wave serpents ever NOT been ridiculously good?

No transport has ever been as glorious as the Wave Serpent. Whether Epic 40k or Warhammer 40k, Wave Serpents have been the pride of the Craftworlds.

To OP: If you are into converting there are some options you can take with some of the elven AoS kits. Although some lend themselves better to a Drukhari look there is a nice selection of models that can be used to make all kinds of unique looking Aeldari units in the Aelf range.

Possibly the best army I've ever seen was an "exodite" craftworlds force featuring massive amounts of fantasy kitbashing to create falcon grav tanks made out of flying bird chariots and the like. Admittedly it looked stupidly fragile and a nightmare to make but it sure was pretty.

Personally my Craftworld Eldar force is my "history museum" army where I go to ebay and buy up all the most fun wonky old metal sculpts and lovingly paint them up. I've got about 3k points at this point, no finecast at all. The upside is, if you're not looking for the metal versions of the modern current sculpts, which I'm mostly not, they are a great deal cheaper by model than the current plastics and they make for a fairly competitive army.

I recognize not all people will have my nostalgia for the oldschool sculpts, though, and stuff like the old derp reaper rockethat guys would turn off a lot of folks. But its a fun army to slowly collect and accumulate over time.

I've never had a problem converting, but at the same time when one starts with nothing some conversions often wind up being quite costly, more so than I'd really like to spend on an Eldar force.

I'm thinking I'll let this moment of passion rest for a moment and let GW build it up as they tease out new models for the range whilst I cross my fingers we don't lose any FW models for the range. This just means all the more funds to be paid to the Bone Tithe!

Most 'competitive' Eldar list start with 3 Flyers (usually Crimson Hunters as whilst Hemlocks are good the rise in anti-flyer tech means their shorter range can leave them open to tricks) and a Farseer

then its the various Grav-tanks (not Falcons sadly), more flyers, some Rangers or Guardians, Reapers, Spears or Windriders to taste, with an extra psyker or two to taste

the other Aspects are a bit under-par at the mo (and gakcast), hopefully the Awakening might bring something, hopefully it'll be more than just Exarch love with the squad being nowt but bullet sponges which is the vibes I get from the, as yet incomplete, Banshee preview