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So, I have an issue with a player in our group. He is a returning veteran that used to be an eldar player, with an army old enough to give you lead poisoning and large enough bend a cheap gaming table.

He returned because league of votan was very appealing to him, and he has been doing rather well with them.

With all the updated aspect warriors, he now tried to revive his eldar, but is struggling. A lot. Any time he plays his eldar he essentially get completely stomped, both VP and unit wise, even against a fairly weak player. Obviously, he is super frustrated about it. And the thing is, no one really knows what exactly he is doing wrong.

He is trying to run a "traditional" eldar army with psykers, aspect warriors, skimmer tanks, war walkers, maybe some wraith constructs. His collection has pretty much everything that's not harlequins or ynnari.

Our gaming group also isn't super cut-throat, and there usually are plenty of ruins around to do movement shenanigans with. He still feels like his models have no chance of survival and he isn't able to kill the things that need killing.

So how does one do that?
Which detachment should he pick? Which enhancements? Are there game changing stratagems?
Are there some must-have/avoid units?
Where do you put which leaders?
Is there any reason to not always opt for bright lances?
How do eldar stop something like a forge fiend, daemon prince or LRBT?

This is my main dilemma, having similar models to those you said he has:
"Which detachment should he pick?" The detachments require a limited type of play, suggesting a need to duplicate certain models and units.
Traditional armies are not going to fit any one detachament, and we're being made to pick a playstyle to be able to get the benefits, and be able to use the stratagems is allows.
Bright Lances are not good against horde armies.

Looking at recent eldar tournament placements, those lists look fairly "traditional", except the all bring a metric ton of warp spiders, hawks and/or rangers, I assume to grab objectives.

Is that what eldar are currently doing? Deep striking units onto objectives for VP until they've won?
The models don't seem to be the problem.

Oh, and none of the eldar heavy weapons are good against horde armies.

 Jidmah wrote:
Looking at recent eldar tournament placements, those lists look fairly "traditional", except the all bring a metric ton of warp spiders, hawks and/or rangers, I assume to grab objectives.

Is that what eldar are currently doing? Deep striking units onto objectives for VP until they've won?

There are other Eldar lists, but Aspect Host seems to be the most successful in tournaments at the moment.

There's a bit of variety - but as you say its mainly Spiders/Hawks/Rangers for objective play/blocking movement.
Maybe a warlock skyrunner or two.

Then you seem to have a choice from a few hammers that actually kill stuff.
Fuegan and 10 Fire Dragons, probably with a Wave Serpent.
Asurmen and 5 Dire Avengers, possibly in a Falcon.
Jain Zar and either 5-10 Banshees.
Lhykhis
Shining Spears
Dark Reapers

Do aspect warriors need phoenix lords to function?

edit: Maybe badly worded. I noticed a lot of phoenix lords in lists, are those required to have functional hammer-unit? Because that by itself might explain why he is struggling so much. He doesn't run any because his "named characters = bad" veteran mindset.

Need is a strong word but it probably helps.

Banshees are good on their own. But Jain Xar and ten is going to get over certain hurdles that a five man squad will bounce off. (And you can lose a few bodies along the way etc).

Asurmen gives his unit move/shoot/move which adds something significant. Naked Dire Avengers are not typically considered great.

There were arguments over Fuegan and Fire Dragons but it seems putting all your eggs in one basket and watching that basket has won out. The additional range helps a bit and wiping the whole squad plus killing Fuegan twice can be hard. (Especially if you need to pop a Wave Serpent too.)

Lhyklis is just good. Baharroth is probably optional but uppy/downy adds to the objective game. Maugan Ra isn't great imo but then some people value Dark Reapers much more highly. Just as some people use Shining Spears and others don't. I think local meta probably plays a part here alongside preference.

I’m pretty new to eldar but find that Phoenix lords make aspects go from pretty good to very good.

I like Baharoth a lot, his ability to drop in 6 inches makes the free grenade strat a lot easier to use.

One issue I’m finding with eldar is the amount of choice is hard, so many units and many things do similar jobs it hard to find the best thing for the job and be confident in it.

Also find them a lot less forgiving than other armies. Marines or ORKS (that I also play) you can make mistakes and maybe get away with it. Eldar are fragile as, if you mis-move a unit or something they can be gone.

But as I say, I’m very new to them and will watch this thread hoping for some advice.

Generally speaking, it's less that phoenix lords are *needed* to make their aspects function and more that they *change* how their aspects function. Banshees can kill stuff without Jain, but Jain makes their threat range much more reliable and ups their offense significantly. Swooping Hawks are decent action monkeys/objective grabbers on their own, but Baharroth allows them to sucker punch with their grenade special rule, helps them trade-up against high-toughness targets, and gives them an exit strategy. Lhykis turns her unit into a melee threat. Ditto Fuegan for dragons.

As Skinnereal said, most of the detachments encourage you to focus on a subset of units rather than a "vanilla" army. That said, the Warhost detachment works pretty well for vanilla armies and is also one of the easiest to use alongside aspect host.

In general, 10th edition eldar are all about having a mix of sacrificial scoring units and a handful of hammer units whom you protect by hiding them where the enemy can't touch them. So some units that I tend to use frequently in my lists:

* Rangers/Scorpions: These are sacrificial scoring/speed bump units. You basically just infiltrate them forward to either movement block an enemy melee threat and try to bait said threat out into the open, or you hide them near objectives so you can score with them. Scorpions are more versatile and survivable thanks to Scout and *can* be used as a melee bully if you get first turn. Scorpions can also become a genuine hammer unit with an autarch attached, but that's not how I tend to use them.

* Spiders and Hawks: Mainly just taken as fast scoring units, but they have the potential to be hammer units if you take them in large squads or attach their respective phoenix lords.

* Windriders with shuriken cannons: Cheap enough to be a mobile action monkey, but with surprisingly good offense that is effective into pretty much any target thanks to Lethal Hits + hit rerolls.

* Dark Reapers: You keep them in the back and either use Skyborn Sanctuary (warhost/aspect host) to hide them in a transport, or else use Fire & Fade (warhost) to hide them in a transport or behind a wall. We have less long-ranged anti-tank than you'd think, so these guys are great for providing that.

* Fire Dragons: Hide them in a transport using the same strats mentioned for dark reapers, but you have to get the unit close to deal damage. It's pretty common to see these guys with an autarch so they can pop out of a serpent, bbq a target, then hop back in the transport for 0CP each turn.

* Falcons: Makes whatever rides inside them better while being an okay source of shooting in their own right. Weirdly doesn't synergize with dragons because dragons brought their own rerolls. It is always tempting to deepstrike these but rarely wise to do so.

Our tactics are kind of matchup dependent, but it's not uncommon for me to spend the first two turns focusing almost entirely on damage rather than scoring. Then, once I've put a dent in the enemy army (ideally clearing a flank), I switch to scoring mode.

“ * Fire Dragons: Hide them in a transport using the same strats mentioned for dark reapers, but you have to get the unit close to deal damage. It's pretty common to see these guys with an autarch so they can pop out of a serpent, bbq a target, then hop back in the transport for 0CP each turn.”

That’s exactly the little helpful nugget I was hoping for in this thread. Thank you.

Thanks guys, those are definitely very helpful.

Adding phoenix lords and taking better care of his dark reapers and fire dragons are definitely things he can improve on.