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So in 5th Edition I think Mech Eldar was king and foot Eldar not really that competitive in 5th edition. With 6th Edition, it seems like foot and bikes are really back and aside from War Walkers, it seems like to me that fire Prisms, Falcons and to a lesser extent Wave serpents got the punk. Holo fields Really aren't that great any more, Star engines yeah, Spirit Stones yeah. but the boats just seem so fragile to me... Just wondering if anyone has had a lot of luck with them and if so what are their tactics and formations, if they wish to share. I am eager to dig out my tanks, it just does not seem like they are really worth it.

On a happier note I have played my Dark Reapers more in this edition, than I ever did in 5th, but a nice Aeigis Defense line - EML, Fast Shot and Crack shot are all very nice...
I have even used an Exarch Fire Dragon with Crack shot to man my quad or Icarus cannons... ignoring cover is nice to alleviate the jink...

Effectively your skimmers got cheaper, as the upgrades are useless. Jink was a nice tradeoff, as the constant cover even in the open has proven very useful (especially if you choose to fortune it). With Skimmers and Jetbikes getting Faster, it just changes the way you can play an Eldar Army.

Basically Mech can do ok (I just built a Mech army before 6th ed started, and I've done ok with it; must playtest more, really depends on the opponent). Not as Resilient by any means, and you gotta hop out of your vehicles to hold objectives. Also, you can't assault from a vehicle, so some tactics might change. Dire Avenger Bladestorm Waveserpents are as useful as ever. Fire Dragons Suiciding out of Waveserpents are more useful than before. Fire Prisms got better because of template rules effecting vehicles with their full strength value, even if the center is off the hull now. There's pros and cons to be weighed.

So despite your vehicles being easier to kill, they can dodge some shots, and are more likely to keep firing (as shaken/stunned are a rarer result). I personally enjoy 1 Falcon, 2 Fire Prisms, with 3 dual Shuriken Cannon Vypers to add lots of shots for cheap. Add a serving of Jetbikes, a hearty helping of Waveserpent squads of choice, and a dash of Mounted Seer Council and, well that's pretty much my army list. How well it will do? Time will tell,still fully painting it before I get too many games in.

FYI, I think Star Engines were errated in the new FAQ to add extra 6" movement to the Flat-out movement of the Fast Skimmer (up to 24", I think). But yeah, the codexes need a new concept of Vehicle upgrades, in lieu of the new Hullpoints and Glancing rules.

I'm going to give it a try this weekend. I'm basically going to use my 5th ed list, but drop my 2 x Autarchs for a Farseer with four powers and see how it now plays.

One thing I've noticed locally is that armies have drastically changed and there is quite a bit more anti infantry shooting. I'm very curious to see if an armor 12 spammed army actually would fare well now as there is simply less threats on the table.

The big trick for the game, I suspect, will be getting my infantry out to hold objectives late game and survive.

It just seems like the vehicles took such a nerf, but may be worth giving another shot to them. I will have to try mech again, I just have stopped after my first couple games in 6th ed.

Well, I played Eldar in the 5th ed but shelved in the 6th (at least for competitive play). Tanks got seriously nerfed. I played one Falcon in a 2vs2 game against BA and a Predator (3 lascannons) glanced the Falcon to death within two rounds. Eldar tanks are more fragile than ever. Frankly, I'd either stay away from Eldar grav tanks or build a list with lots of tanks for target saturation. The latter might overcome this intrinsic weakness.

You forgot the new assault rules for tanks. Hitting on a 3+ no matter what if you moved is awful.

I quit playing my mechdar when I lost a fire prism to three stealthsuits....in assault....with no previous hull point loss.

Mechdar is largely dead in 6th. It can still work, but compared to 5th it is about 1/10th of what it use to be.

Pros:
- Jink
- 2 Movements for move, shoot, and move back to grant cover
- Falcons can now move 12" and fire 2 guns
- Can move 30" instead of 24"
- Prism/spinner's blast isn't halved if not under the hole

Cons:
- Vehicles can't contest (devastating)
- Troops inside vehicles can't score (devastating)
- Vehicles are now hit on a 3+ in CC no matter how far they moved (devastating)
- Holofields are now largely useless (devastating)
- Models can't assault the turn they disembark, even if you don't move the vehicle (devastating)
- Models can only disembark if you move 6" or less making it very hard to move over terrain and disembark
- Star Engines are now completely pointless
- Nightspinner can no longer negate FNP on a 6, negate armor via dangerous terrain, and can't target in night fight past 36"

In short, the cons not only outweigh the pros, but it decimates the Mechdar play style. Against shooting your vehicles became a little more survivable thanks to jink, but all the vehicles die to a strong breeze in CC. Eldar Heavy skimmer choices went from become neigh unkillable to being ridiculous pushovers that can't contest objectives.

That has been my feelings on it and I recently tried to play a few practice games for a tourney and gave up and went back to my Orks for Tourneys as even though their codex is old, they are not useless, I think mech orks took a hit as well as kans and dredds but foot and bikes are great. I feel the same with Eldar, the bikes are great now. The problem I have is being competitive, because their points are so freakin expensive. A sear council on bikes is great, an autarch with power weapons, 2 farseers one with invisibility one with old powers makes the squad nigh unstopable. But after having my falcons blown to crap in the first two games I played, I pretty much put them in the display case. I am not feeling better about this

6th has essentially killed taking transports purely to transport things around and keep them safe, with situational exception if they are dirt cheap (Trucks and Rhinos, but its not an across the board exception). Transports are now much closer to MCs in terms of durability and can be focused fired down very easily.

Essentially if your transports aren't bringing some kind of meaningful firepower or other major force multiplier (i.e Land Raiders for assault units or transports which are also fliers) then they really serve no purpose. Eldar are caught in an awkward middle ground in this regard, Serpents and Falcons have very respectable firepower but that firepower is just too expensive use it to get enough firepower into a list (particularly once you factor in the changes to contesting/capturing objectives and the fragile nature of Eldar infantry). To me this means that the pure mech build (3 Dragons, 3 Prisms, 6+ Serpents and DAVU for scoring) isn't really going to function in 6th, but that doesn't mean you should dump vehicles completely since the Eldar ones are still pretty solid. At the very least I think you are still going to be taking a couple of Serpents to transport Dragons, Prisms are still solid if you aren't taking Walkers, a Falcon can be a decent place to park a Seer (certainly a consideration as an Ally imo, Seer with Warding + DAVU Falcon) and you might still take Serpents for some of your scoring units as well (if you aren't just relying on Guardians and Jetbikes). I should also point out that Vypers are definitely a viable option now, when you combine the hull point rules with squadrons they come out slightly ahead (of where they were) in terms of durability and provide you highly mobile S6 shooting.

Here's to hoping an Eldar Codex for 6th will provide the rules necessary to show off how amazing their technology is by creating resilient vehicles...

Eldar needs a new concept for vehicle upgrades, and cheaper skimmers. I can see upgrades to certain vehicles, allowing to choose maybe ONLY ONE of the following: 1) Skyfire/Interceptor; 2) Assault Vehicle, or 3) capable of Scoring/contesting. Like, some Kind of Vehicle "Specialization" allowing Shooty vehicles to hunt Flyers, Assaulty units to get into assault, and Troop units to score. IMO this fits with the very Eldarish concept of unit specialization, and as one tank wouldn't be capable of more than one of the Upgrades, it wouldn't be unfair. People can still fear and hate the Eldar vehicles for their mobility and armor, though (the Energy Field on waveserpents is still very useful).

That, and amongst other things new armies appear to be receiving, such as new Psychic Powers with cards, and a custom Warlord trait page for their Army Type, we could see some awesome sneaky Eldar warlord traits.

Until then, the skimmers are still overpriced and too flimsy for as they're intended. That being said, they're still (IMO) fun to use and a tactical challenge to pull a win, which can be rewarding in a game.

I agree that Vypers are slightly better, it is just for the price of them compared to War Walkers, I still take the War Walkers

A boost to the tanks skimmers is unlikely in our next dex update. They will get cheaper, however the focus will likely centered around the Aspect Warriors and other foot options.

 BlueDagger wrote:
A boost to the tanks skimmers is unlikely in our next dex update. They will get cheaper, however the focus will likely centered around the Aspect Warriors and other foot options.

I'm okay with this, too. If Aspect warriors get their punch back, that will be helpful enough.

 evildrspock wrote:

 BlueDagger wrote:
A boost to the tanks skimmers is unlikely in our next dex update. They will get cheaper, however the focus will likely centered around the Aspect Warriors and other foot options.

I'm okay with this, too. If Aspect warriors get their punch back, that will be helpful enough.

I'm curious to see how GW will fix Eldar. Mech is dead as outlined by BlueDagger and Eldar on foot is too vulnerable and fragile with all those T3 models.

I played in a tourney today and got best general for a 1750 pt list.
I ran 2 Farseers - Doom/Guide/Fortune, other one with 4 powers always traded in trying to get invisible which is awesome with fortune, sear council with 6 bikes 3 destructor, 2 embolden/spears, 1 enhance /spear

3 GJBK 3 man - 1 shuri kannon
1 GJBK squad 3man naked

Vyper Squad 3 man - shuri kannons up and below

Swooping Hawk - 6 man exarch sky leap and intercept, sunrifle

Heavy
War Walkers squad #3 man x2 scatterlasers all

Tabled a Termie / bike army last round on turn 6

I really like the jet bike builds, I think outflanking war walkers and vypers are a good fast attack option

bit of a glass hammer army - troops weak, but reserved 2 turbo boosted around until last turns to take or contest objectives...

But I agree foot alone is too easy to pawn with IG and vehicles are easier to kill

 Eiluj The Farseer wrote:
I played in a tourney today and got best general for a 1750 pt list.
I ran 2 Farseers - Doom/Guide/Fortune, other one with 4 powers always traded in trying to get invisible which is awesome with fortune, sear council with 6 bikes 3 destructor, 2 embolden/spears, 1 enhance /spear

3 GJBK 3 man - 1 shuri kannon
1 GJBK squad 3man naked

Vyper Squad 3 man - shuri kannons up and below

Swooping Hawk - 6 man exarch sky leap and intercept, sunrifle

Heavy
War Walkers squad #3 man x2 scatterlasers all

Tabled a Termie / bike army last round on turn 6

I really like the jet bike builds, I think outflanking war walkers and vypers are a good fast attack option

bit of a glass hammer army - troops weak, but reserved 2 turbo boosted around until last turns to take or contest objectives...

But I agree foot alone is too easy to pawn with IG and vehicles are easier to kill

Good job on your success. I agree, Jetbikes are a very effective, albeit expensive ($$$) option for Eldar right now. You had some expensive Farseers there! Mounted Seer Councils can be difficult to wield correctly; they succeed at surviving lots of firepower, but have to choose the right targets. This is my favorite build right now, too. How did your Swooping hawks handle? I've never been entirely impressed with them myself, although I did use them last edition. If you use skyleap, good luck on getting to assault on a vehicle to make use of the haywire grenades ... to me, they've always been mediocre at best. I hope they become awesome with a new codex, as I really like the models.

Hawks excel in 6th due to wound allocation. Their grenade drop when they land is great for sniping out specific models now and reserves always being on a 3+ means you can really capitalize on the Autarch or save the point by leaving him at home. Taking an Aegis wall with comms means they are almost assured to come in each round.

Only land them if you are in desperate need as hawks have a bad habit of evaporating when on the board. Also you should be taking 5 man units as there is no real benefit to that 6th.

Run 3 packs of 5 hawks w/ skyleap, Baharroth, and Aegis with Comms. you'll get quite a laugh out of you opponent's anger.

 BlueDagger wrote:
Hawks excel in 6th due to wound allocation. Their grenade drop when they land is great for sniping out specific models

Nope, it is not a Barrage weapon.

Not as much a test yesterday running my mech vs another player. We're both figuring out 6th with our respective armies. He ran a foot slogging Chaos army w/ Demon allies. I took Eldrad, 4 x DA/Wave Serpents, 2 x FD/Wave Serpents and 3 x WW w/ Scatterlaser. I rolled for 4 Divination powers and found Prescience/Misfortune to be quite effective with the amount of S6 shooting I had.

Unfortunately, the game was a huge mismatch as the two units he had to really shoot I stopped quickly. I was able to get Fire Dragons into position, disembark and finish off a unit. Then, get back into a vehicle, move again and disembark to go after another unit. Basically, all I lost was my War Walker squadron, but my 6 Wave Serpents went unscathed.

He based his army on getting to grips and winning assaults on objectives and mine was pure shooting, so this game definitely was not a testament how mech performs in 6th. This was more of a testament how much of a shooting game 6th is now as opposed to assault.

Yeah, this edition really favors shooting armies. The person I tabled yesterday, had a bike unit a lanspeeder, but the rest were termies CC but had tempest launchers in each which did hurt some.

My list is HQ top heavy, but to really have my sear council survive shooting and CC I need that invisability and fortune, which I can not take on one farseer

My Hawks did take out some things with the grenades, I did finish off a vehicle with one hull point by throwing a haywire grenade.

They actually when I positioned them to stay on the board, did a decent job shooting, just there S3 was really only great against the demon player and his pink horrors I shot up. I really do like that sunrifle 6 shots pinning (which all the opponents I had yesterday - chaos marines, chaos, and dark angels were all fearless so it did not matter)

I agree the bikes are really expensive, but I find that if I give the opponent the big juicy sear council to try to kill, they ignore my war walkers and vypers which really do a lot of the killing with shear number of fire and take the flyers as I had no aricraft or AA guns. Cheers all

 Eiluj The Farseer wrote:
I played in a tourney today and got best general for a 1750 pt list.
I ran 2 Farseers - Doom/Guide/Fortune, other one with 4 powers always traded in trying to get invisible which is awesome with fortune, sear council with 6 bikes 3 destructor, 2 embolden/spears, 1 enhance /spear

3 GJBK 3 man - 1 shuri kannon
1 GJBK squad 3man naked

Vyper Squad 3 man - shuri kannons up and below

Swooping Hawk - 6 man exarch sky leap and intercept, sunrifle

Heavy
War Walkers squad #3 man x2 scatterlasers all

Tabled a Termie / bike army last round on turn 6

I really like the jet bike builds, I think outflanking war walkers and vypers are a good fast attack option

bit of a glass hammer army - troops weak, but reserved 2 turbo boosted around until last turns to take or contest objectives...

But I agree foot alone is too easy to pawn with IG and vehicles are easier to kill

Well, my local meta is very strong, with SW (cavalry, Long Fangs) and Necron flyers so that this army will be a bit squishy.

I find a 7 man Jetbike squad to put out an amazingly reliable amount of firepower on wounding infantry. With 4 TL Shuriken Catapults, 2 Shuriken Cannons, plus the Singing Spear, you can threaten any target and pump out lots of mobile shots. Eldar Jetbikes are definitely at top choice right now with 6th edition.

Now when it comes to dealing with Necrons, I have no idea as I usually get squished by them, no matter the army I bring. But, that's another conversation ...

Yeah, I played in a 2000pt tourney where I ran 2 sear councils and 2 war walkers and 4 naked jetbike squads. I did great until I came up against necrons, I lost but by 1 point. Necrons are hard for any army right now. My guess is once chaos marines come out they will be powerful... However we are talking about Phil Kelly and he tends to write more balance lists, with the exception of maybe wolves, but they are not as good in 6th and no flyers.

Well, for me, Mech Eldar isn't dead. In fact, Mech Eldar is still great!

When almost everybody is going infantry heavy, I decided its the right time to stick with Mech heavy list. It pays to be different than everybody else, making your army unique & refreshing. 5+ jink-cover sv plus Fortune really help a lot. And by playing hide and seek behind buildings/ruins almost ensure 4+ cover svs for my skimmers/Prism.

Serpents have fewer shots than Falcons, but their forcefield reduce the effectiveness of S9+ weapons, which is great in my opinion. I still use Falcons & Prism though & keep them cheap so that I wouldn't feel too bad if they are blown away.

Full squadron of Vypers will deliver a lot of fast-mobile firepower. I must say that I like them better than war walkers mainly due to their speed, mobility & smaller size. Currently they are my #1 fast attack choice.

Sure, vehicles took a beating in the 6th ed, but if you play your mech-eldars tactically enough & not being too gung-ho, then its gonna be very rewarding indeed.

About GJBs, What not to like about them! I'd even say that they are the best Troop choice unit for Eldar!

 MarshallDin wrote:
Well, for me, Mech Eldar isn't dead. In fact, Mech Eldar is still great!

When almost everybody is going infantry heavy, I decided its the right time to stick with Mech heavy list. It pays to be different than everybody else, making your army unique & refreshing. 5+ jink-cover sv plus Fortune really help a lot. And by playing hide and seek behind buildings/ruins almost ensure 4+ cover svs for my skimmers/Prism.

Serpents have fewer shots than Falcons, but their forcefield reduce the effectiveness of S9+ weapons, which is great in my opinion. I still use Falcons & Prism though & keep them cheap so that I wouldn't feel too bad if they are blown away.

Full squadron of Vypers will deliver a lot of fast-mobile firepower. I must say that I like them better than war walkers mainly due to their speed, mobility & smaller size. Currently they are my #1 fast attack choice.

Sure, vehicles took a beating in the 6th ed, but if you play your mech-eldars tactically enough & not being too gung-ho, then its gonna be very rewarding indeed.

About GJBs, What not to like about them! I'd even say that they are the best Troop choice unit for Eldar!

Yeah, this is pretty much my playstyle too, though I still need to learn how to be more defensive, I get too aggressive with my tanks and get blown up. I gotta resist the urge to rush in for the kill ... Eldar are a more delicate blade to wield, requires precision and care like a surgeon: wield them like a chainsaw and the blade breaks, very easily.

Agreed. They are very unforgiving.

 MarshallDin wrote:
Well, for me, Mech Eldar isn't dead. In fact, Mech Eldar is still great!

When almost everybody is going infantry heavy, I decided its the right time to stick with Mech heavy list. It pays to be different than everybody else, making your army unique & refreshing. 5+ jink-cover sv plus Fortune really help a lot. And by playing hide and seek behind buildings/ruins almost ensure 4+ cover svs for my skimmers/Prism.

Serpents have fewer shots than Falcons, but their forcefield reduce the effectiveness of S9+ weapons, which is great in my opinion. I still use Falcons & Prism though & keep them cheap so that I wouldn't feel too bad if they are blown away.

Full squadron of Vypers will deliver a lot of fast-mobile firepower. I must say that I like them better than war walkers mainly due to their speed, mobility & smaller size. Currently they are my #1 fast attack choice.

Sure, vehicles took a beating in the 6th ed, but if you play your mech-eldars tactically enough & not being too gung-ho, then its gonna be very rewarding indeed.

About GJBs, What not to like about them! I'd even say that they are the best Troop choice unit for Eldar!

Sure they are a great in a pure fire fight, except now 5/6 missions are objective based. When you now have to get out of your vehicles to score, can only move 6" before you disembark, and you vehicles have toe eventually get in range of a CC... yeah not so good. Skimmer spam would be a great anti-meta with everyone going troop heavy except that people plan for anti-flyer now and our skimmers get the added bonus that anti flier stuff works great against our tanks too :/

That is the difficult thing about vehicles is that to contest or take objectives you have to be out of them and the movement restrictions to get troops out does hinder you a bit as well. I have pretty gone completely away from them except war walkers and Vypers... If I could use IA forgeworld at my local games I would be using wasps and hornets too, but I can not

Well, like I said, that is why GJBs are superb Troop choice since they don't rely on vehicles, super fast, more resilient that the other Eldar Troop choices & fit the mech-Eldar army theme quite well.

Currently, the only units that I put inside Serpents are the Firedragons. D.Avengers are usually put in the Falcons which normally do not go anywhere near enemy deployment zone. Yes, they have to disembark in order to claim objectives, which is why they are meant to claim obj in my own deployment zone only.