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I play Eldar and did have to adjust my style when 6th hit, but they are by no means unplayable. It just takes a lot of practice and thought to win games. One also needs to have a very good weave between the units in your army. So yes, people still play Eldar

The advantage of the Eldar model line being old and rarely updated is that Ebay is positively filled with them, at least

Definitely. I personally love the 2nd edition aesthetic of the eldar models (maybe it's nostalgia), so my army focuses heavily on that. My wife bought me a 10-man Ranger collection off ebay for Christmas ( the leader has a power sword, and one is dual-wielding laspistols, ) and my Howling Banshees are all wielding Laspistols, too, .

Great comments guys.

Like all armies they can win using the right tactics and good unit selection. However, I genuinely think they are humbled now. I have four armies and the other three (nids, GK and CSM) seem to be ok still. I have noticed a definite weakening of the Eldar in 6th ed. You always had to use them like chess pieces, carefully matching units to opponents. However, this has become much harder.

Love the passive psyker idea. Eldar need a USP. DE have pain tokens, Eldar need something to make them different. They were the mobile army par excellence, now they are not. Nerfs for skimmers and fleet have hammered the Eldar's offensive capability. That leaves mostly short ranged shooting which is hardly ideal.

I am not bitching about the rules. I don't rage about anything. I just think that the changes have made life hard for the Eldar and they need a refresh to make them competitive again. They don't need a super makeover to make them the hardest top army but they do need some tweaks to iron out the problems. I also think the units and choices need some new blood and new choices. A flyer is urgent indeed and should not be long, I personally dislike the fudge of taking fortifications just to get hold of quad lasers, proper AA capability is required, Eldar not purloined human stuff.

Anyone who plays regularly with eldar becomes a very good player/tactician quite quickly. You have to due to their fragile but hard hitting nature.

These skills are easily translatable for other armies and believe me a space marine player who uses eldar like tactics with the right force is a true "Angel of Death"!

 monkeypuzzle wrote:
Anyone who plays regularly with eldar becomes a very good player/tactician quite quickly. You have to due to their fragile but hard hitting nature.

These skills are easily translatable for other armies and believe me a space marine player who uses eldar like tactics with the right force is a true "Angel of Death"!

I absolutely agree but then I am a tactician anyway, by which I don't mean I'm some genius I mean I prefer to play by tactical means than by picking the best units and spamming them. I enjoy the challenge of taking units that are generally poorly thought of (e.g. shining spears, biovores, etc) and making them work in a battle. I make extensive use of guardians and many people I know hold the attitude that you should never, ever use guardians!

Guardians represent!

So Eldar have a few problems at the moment:

- Units priced for two editions ago
- Didn't recieve any of the buffs 6th brought very well
- Lack of quality assault troops

Now none of these are completely unassailable but it does put them behind the curve. I was having this discussion IRL with one of our fellow dakkanauts recently and their biggest issue for me is the lack of assault troops. The lack of assault transports leaves their T3 asses hanging out in the wind and makes even counter assault tricky. Now the Eldar pitch has always been "Their arrogance is matched only by their firepower" but not having a solid assault presence hurts. Scorpions can pull their weight against light infantry like Ork's or Gaunts but i've never been sold on Harlies, their shrouded save helps get there a little but in combat a T3 5++ model doesn't last long. Banshee's are hardest hit by the new assault rules with no infiltrate, psi defence or assault transport as well as going AP3 and so have all but disappeared.

This leaves them with only one recourse, their "legendary" firepower. Shuriken catapults have been hit every update with a nerf since their glory days in 2nd Ed where they were superior to a stormbolter and that has sort of set the tone for the army. Eldar have generally been handed "superior" versions of weapons based on their advanced technology which in tabletop terms are simply worse than their Imperial counterparts. For this they pay high points costs and have low toughness.

The dex is in need of an update, it's special rule driven power has since faded with editions and the races strengths have fallen into ruin. You can still play them at the beer and pretzels levels, you're low tier even there but you can still play the arrogant fallen masters of the galaxy and win. At the competetive level however Eldar have fallen too far behind the times and exist now only to put psi defence on the table for those more capable races who call them Brother....

As an aside, adding FW products breathes some serious new life into them, adding flyers, some solid core troops, BS4 versions of their vehicles (Seriously GW, there is no tank aspect?) and generally giving them some bite back. The Corsairs and attendant add on's sadly create a far more Eldar feeling force than the codex does. It moves fast, hits hard and packs high tech toys.

So yes, people still play Eldar, we lurk in the dark spaces, biding our time, waiting for the strands of fate to come together that we may ascend again. I think however GW needs to be very careful, if this hopefully May did I see, update doesn't bring them back from the brink then one of the great and classic races could fall into the same play levels and obscurity as SoB. 6 years without an update is a long time, a lackluster release with a potential 6 more before update could do what Slaanesh could not.

Footdar is still viable everywhere except the WAAC level, just an uphill battle as people say.

Mechdar is only viable right now as allies. Farseers going around on jetbikes guiding my Firewarriors with markerlights puts da(sorry i just painted some orks for my youger brother) hurt on the DOOMED targets. Especially when they got some outflanking kroot or walkers breathing down their backs, and are going to be assualted by jetbikes next phase. Eldar and tau work well together, because tau doctrine dictates the elimination of targets in a methodical way, and eldar can't survive counterpunches, so the eldar can be used as a way of enhancing the abilities of the cadre, as well as diversionary units(just might make swooping hawks NOT god aweful)

I started playing again in 5th ed and collected an Eldar army, I have about 4k in points now and have everything in the codex. I enjoyed 5th ed, it wasn't without its problems but I am getting my arse kicked in 6th.

My opponents have GK and BA, the severe lack of half decent assault troops really hampers me. I didn't really take Wraithguard in 5th ed but they have become invaluble in 6th as they are the only survivable unit we have. Transports are useless and everything else dies unless hiding in cover. "Shoot them" I hear you cry, tried that but due to short ranged weapons, new assault rules and night fighting he was stuck into combat by turn 2 with very few casualties, tearing me apart piece by piece.

I have found that I'm using the same choices over and over, which disappoints me as there is such a colorful choice of units to choose from, but most are garbage due to the hits we've taken which have already been covered in the thread.

The only units I can rely on at the moment are Reapers (warlord with ignores cover makes them awesome), Rangers and Wraithguard.

I've only played a few games and got spanked on my first two and managed a win when team up with the GK player. They are still viable if you want to use the same unit choice every game, but I didn't choose an Eldar army to do that.

We can but hope that the new codex improves the army rules and brings the points cost down a lot. I still play with them as I'm not overly competitive and the fact I've spent a fortune on them and can't afford a new army

I still use my Harlequin army from time to time, but I don;t really care about winning and that sort of thing. Just getting a decent scenario sorted for the game is enough for me.

Noone plays Eldar at my club since 6ed as the army is almost as underpowered as Orks. I think Eldar and Dark Eldar should pick there table edge and if they will go 1st or 2nd

Mind War should be a Warlock power and Conceal should be a Farseer power and all Eldar unit ( but not Dark Eldar ) should have Embolden.
Wraithguard should have a power weapon or be 25pts ether would be good and Dark Reapers need there unit size change to 10.
Farseer should be 1-2 per HQ
just so you dont need to take Eldrad Ulthran in every game

I feel this would not fix the codex but make it playable in 6ed

Both of the most active Eldar players in my locale have switched to Tyranids.

I did hear Nids are playable again, but :( the best Nid player at my club sold his army after playing a few games of 5ed.

Having played against the space elves in their skimmer hayday I take no small amount of joy in there current stature. However I don't think there unplayable. They've always been an army that excelled at taking out small elite armys. Medium ranged, truly lethal firepower that's highly maneuvarable was always there specialty. Going ork crazy and rushing the enemy only worked when thier current codex was new.

Id say leave there points cost alone but jack up their power. An extra shot for the shooty stuff & a extra attack for the choppy stuff. Maybe another special rule here & there. They were always the "special" guys, but that's s.o.p. for elfs.

Oh & for gawd's sake will they please take the nerf hammer to the wraithlord? Its been 25 frckn years of those pieces of OP nonsense. The eldar are supposed to be agile BUT fragile. Squads of space elf MCs are BS.

You're kidding right? Wraihtlords were amazing in 3rd and even then a good general could deal with them, when rending came out in 4th it made them useless, and now everything and their mom is either poison or rending.

I saw an Eldar battleforce at a local store on sale the other day. They were trying to give it away by only asking $40US.

Even though I have and collect multiple armies (including DE) I still didn't buy it. Instead I picked up a Baneblade that will likely sit on my shelf forever (don't play apoc but it was a great deal and I impulse buy).

Now, why did I pass this over? Simple: the models look like ancient dated crap. Every single time I see those helmets all I can think about is the Coneheads.

As I am not gaming with the current Edition, my opinion isn't very valid, but as I see it, the latest Eldar codex was a perfect replacement for the 3rd edition Codex's hideously overpriced units, but has since been outstripped by the power creep and points value of the various armies since then.

Any of my 40K games are still set in the 4th edition era, and I like it for that (and no, I do not use skimmer-spam). But I can see my army getting torn a new one against 6e stuff, especially fliers, as I don't have access to Forgeworld.

Funny, everyone is switiching from to eldar to nids, i switched from nids to eldar. Nids have exactly 2 lists that are competitive and a total of about 10 units in the whole codex that can be played. I refuse to run tervigons due to the terrible fluff and mechanics they have, so therefore there is exactly 0 lists i can run.

Eldar have gone from a specilist army to an army of force multiplication. Gone are most of the specialist units and warlocks and harlequins are pretty much all that roam the field. GJB sometimes see combat, but spend most of the game hiding. War walkers and support platforms cower in the back, poking what they can. They need both a wargear buff and a cost reduction on a lot of units.

They need both a wargear buff and a cost reduction on a lot of units.

The bummer is that they already got that over the 3rd Edition codex. I remember 50pt Shining Spears and 35pt Guardian Jetbikes.

They were my first army and are still my one true love - but I haven't played them since early 5th ed - when the age of their codex was starting to show.

I wouldn't start them now - even WITH a new codex. As it is, they will be waiting for 7th ed at the earliest, and more than likely, will just be repurposed and renamed "ancient star-faring race of not-elves" for some other SF game.

clively wrote:
I saw an Eldar battleforce at a local store on sale the other day. They were trying to give it away by only asking $40US.

Even though I have and collect multiple armies (including DE) I still didn't buy it. Instead I picked up a Baneblade that will likely sit on my shelf forever (don't play apoc but it was a great deal and I impulse buy).

Now, why did I pass this over? Simple: the models look like ancient dated crap. Every single time I see those helmets all I can think about is the Coneheads.

If its still around ill buy it through you, depending on what it has!

 AegisGrimm wrote:

They need both a wargear buff and a cost reduction on a lot of units.

The bummer is that they already got that over the 3rd Edition codex. I remember 50pt Shining Spears and 35pt Guardian Jetbikes.

Been a long time since 3rd. Game has changed to the point of almost being a different game so many rules are different or added. Up to GK, eldar were decent but largely on the higher scale of cost. GK and Necrons were so undercosted for the power they upped the need for cost effectiveness to compete against them. Now with 6th eldar just got nerfed through rules changes. Points need decreased to compete with GK and crons, and the wargear needs changed to bring them into competition with the changes in 6th rules.

Just give me the 3rd ed codex with craftworld eldar built in and Im a happy camper.

Then again that would mean an army of fire dragons in crystal targeting matrix wave serpents armed with star cannons. But when comparing it to the insanity marines are getting today I wonder if it would be OP.

I think it would take a lot for Eldar to become overpowered in the current game climate.

They could start by giving them back the real Shuriken Catapult. So deadly it was that only half of the guardian squads could take it. That weapon alone made them killers in RT and 2nd ed. Find some way to make banshees and scorpions good again.

Their codex is just horrendously old. Almost everything is overcosted or just doesn't work properly. Add in the fact the majority of the range is finecast, and the sculpts are quite old.

I used to play them, but it's a very boring army. Half of the stuff is just unfieldable if you take interest in the actual game. The other half is still over-costed.

They really struggle for anti-tank too. It's almost impossible to get Str 8+ shooting at a reasonable price unless you're running Fire Dragons, who need an over-costed transport and end up being really expensive suicide squads. Most of the aspects are really bad: Scorpions don't have Anti-tank and the troops choices kill light infantry just fine, Howling Banshees need a Wave Serpent to not die before they get into combat, but not being able to assault out of one means they're going to die to bolter fire before they hit anything. Wraithguard are okay but very expensive, Swooping Hawks are one of the worst units in the game, Spiders are decent but suffer from a lack of wrange and Ap - on their guns, Shining Spears are just awful because they haven nowhere near enough killing power for an expensive elite assault squad, and Dark Reapers just don't put out enough shooting for their high points cost.

Griever wrote:
Their codex is just horrendously old. Almost everything is overcosted or just doesn't work properly. Add in the fact the majority of the range is finecast, and the sculpts are quite old.

I used to play them, but it's a very boring army. Half of the stuff is just unfieldable if you take interest in the actual game. The other half is still over-costed.

They really struggle for anti-tank too. It's almost impossible to get Str 8+ shooting at a reasonable price unless you're running Fire Dragons, who need an over-costed transport and end up being really expensive suicide squads. Most of the aspects are really bad: Scorpions don't have Anti-tank and the troops choices kill light infantry just fine, Howling Banshees need a Wave Serpent to not die before they get into combat, but not being able to assault out of one means they're going to die to bolter fire before they hit anything. Wraithguard are okay but very expensive, Swooping Hawks are one of the worst units in the game, Spiders are decent but suffer from a lack of wrange and Ap - on their guns, Shining Spears are just awful because they haven nowhere near enough killing power for an expensive elite assault squad, and Dark Reapers just don't put out enough shooting for their high points cost.

Doom and gloom!

Seriously, its not that bad. Its the Path of the Eldar; it's a different way of playing.

It is really quite simple. The eldar are a dying race who's soul is being devoured by slaanesh. Soooo GW decided to stop producing reasonably priced models for the army and not to update the "look" of the models.
This takes care of the dying but what about the soul? Well the rules changes in each edition and the faq nerf bat has now worked to turn the "fast" and "elite" eldar into a foot horde with a mix of walkers and large foot swarms of BS3 models. Not to mention every single unique thing the eldar had has now been given to another codex. Want psykers to "guide" units...SW libby with prescience. Want fast flyer/skimmer transports that deploy deadly plasma wielding death anywhere...IG with plas vets in vendettas. Want biker armies...C:SM or DA. Want S6 spam...Grey Knights (wait that is S7 so, er, better).

Honestly though the current GW eldar codex can be pretty competitive. However, there is really only variants on the warwalker build if you don't depend on allies to do all the heavy lifting. This combined with the lack of new/fresh models and no real "cheap" options has left the eldar players to die off much like the race they love.

Now FW has awesome eldar stuff that really does allow for a variety of different styles.

If GW just transferred the old craftworld eldar book to the current edition I would be estatic as that book had a huge number of options (some of which were ridiculous in that meta but would probably be subpar in the current meta).

I'm currently painting an Eldar army at the moment. When I am done I will play with it. If I don't like it, I may sell it

I mostly bought it for the banshees and harlies being cool models, and so I had an excuse to buy an Eldar titan at some point in the future

 AegisGrimm wrote:
I think it would take a lot for Eldar to become overpowered in the current game climate.

There is actually a very easy way to throw them back near the top of the food chain, just make them amazingly good at dealing with aircraft (which matches the fluff that they fly circles around everyone in the air) and they become a hard counter to a number of top tier build . Give them a flier which specialises in dealing with other fliers (think re-rolls to hit/no jink/arrive behind you etc) and let Hawks assault fliers and they will do pretty well imo.

 AegisGrimm wrote:

They need both a wargear buff and a cost reduction on a lot of units.

The bummer is that they already got that over the 3rd Edition codex. I remember 50pt Shining Spears and 35pt Guardian Jetbikes.

Um what? There were a few points changes and wargear nerfs (I don't think anything got better), but they still weren't enough. The current codex is a great example of a 'cut and paste' codex/army book that GW occasionally produced pre 5th edition - they tweaked a few points costs, double nerfed the stuff noob MEQ players complained about (i.e Starcannons) and added a single new shiny unit for people (Harlies) to buy then threw it out the door. Shining Spears are STILL terrible at 35pts apiece and Jetbikes still aren't overly impressive at 22pts apiece because they have no way to buff their Ld, have very short range primary weapons and can't get any special weapons to do some real damage.

The underlying issue for Eldar is pretty simple, they don't hit hard enough to balance out their terrible defense (same deal with DE really). Probably the only ones which do are Dragons, and unfortunately Melta isn't as useful in 6th. If you compare them to High Elves in Fantasy they don't get anything like the same level of help in bypassing their weak/fragile nature. In 5th and even 4th people largely bypassed this fragility by taking largely mech forces to hide all the sub par infantry, Serpents and Falcons were difficult to drop and could carry the rest of the list which largely did nothing. In 6th all the mech elements became much easier to kill with Hull points and assaults now reliably crushing them, but also the changes to the objective rules mean that Eldar infantry simply has to get boots on the ground at some point. This leaves Eldar with the bulk of the codex completely invalidated and relying on infantry/MC based builds and/or gimmick 2++ re-rollable stupidity.

At least there are fairly good odds that they will be getting updated within the next year, so I'm not too worried about things at the moment. I'm pretty happy with my Eldar/GK list atm despite it being completely different to what I played in the past.

If you want to play Eldar look for the corsairs rules,

BS 4 across the floor

The prince is a great unit that allows in 3 units that are part of your force to deepstrike with pretty much pinpoint acuracy, + you get a 1 shot void strike in the form of a lascannon pieplate lance, 1 turn of nightfighting, forgot the other one.

basic infantry can become Jumppack units (relentless) with 2 fusion guns and 2 eldar missle launchers persquad.

Wasp assault walkers for troops (lots of dakka)

Falcon's as dedicated transports (with bs 4)

and you get an amazing fighter and bomber on your list.