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.

Can someone give me a summary of the fundamentals?

I like playing the IG, but I'm considering starting a new army, and I want to know if my impressions of the Eldar are correct. I'm looking for an army that is fast and threatening. Initially I was looking at marine armies, because they're tough and pretty badass, but the more I look into marines, the less interesting I find them. They are expensive to field, and although they specialize in certain things, your basic marine is pretty generic as for what they can do, so they're pretty boring to play (low numbers, painfully generic stats). I don't find anything in the marine books that sacrifices one stat to boost another stat, they're just good at everything, and sometimes better than good, so everything feels the same to me. I like the Eldar because the only way to win is to recognize where to apply the strengths of your units, and protect their weakness. That's the challenge that I face with the IG.

From what little I know, the Eldar have all these mega power HQ choices that got nerfed in their 6th ed codex. I'm actually fine with that, because I prefer to give power to support units rather than have it concentrated in 1 model. So I'm glad the Eldar have leveled out their concentration of power a bit.

Does this sound right? Tau also has a lot of the qualities I'm looking for, but lacking in melee assassins, which I'd really like to have (Tau are mostly a shooting army). What's it like to collect and play Eldar?

Thanks.

You can't afford to make mistakes in battle.

However, as long as you don't make any (and, I mean, who does), you are almost unstoppable.
also fun to model and paint

Eldar are an army of extreme specialists. If you get your game plan right they can seem unstoppable but if you mess up they are less forgiving than nearly any army. You can think of them somewhat like extremely mobile CCS squads where the entire squad has the same gun to perform the same task.

With battle focus they are probably the most tactically mobile of any army. They can move, shoot, move almost to a man. This is great as you can pull some fun shenanigans.

The new army book is probably the best internally balanced dex I have seen in this game, ever. There are not really many bad choices in the codex but there are better choices.

They also have a wide variety of builds with one of the fastest armies possible (saim han jetbike army), probably the highest toughness army possible (Iyandan wraith army), or the most specialist army I know of (Biel-tan aspect warrior army). The new scorpion's claw is a pretty decent CC assassin as the basic exarch has a very good chance to beat anything but a major CC HQ in a challenge.

Can't speak especially to playing them as they're usually a one-dimensional afterthought allies FOC to my Dark Eldar (I should change that as the new dex is fantastic, and has way more potential than DEs 5e book), but as far as COLLECTING goes, they've had beautiful models since like 1988 and even after the codex drop they're pretty cheap to pickup. A lot of old-timers will have a basement full that they don't use. I happen to LOVE Rouge Trader space elves, more than just about any other model range. How can you go wrong with some War Robots?

Playing Eldar is interesting. Everything you have does a specific thing, and does it almost to the exclusion of anything else. Tactical blunders will see your army turned into rainbow colored confetti, but if you can get the right parts of your army to fight the right part of your enemy's army, you basically win.

Por ejemplo: Dark Reapers murder MEQs like nobody's business, but if you want to deal with swarms of Tyranids or Orks, Striking Scorpions are where it's at. A Crimson Hunter will kill or cripple an enemy flier every turn. Fire Dragons will erase any vehicle they get in range of, and can deal with TEQs in a pinch, and Dire Avengers are excellent at general anti-infantry duty. Howling Banshees bring mass power swords to any party involving MEQs.

There are a few units that serve more than one purpose: Swooping Hawks excel against light infantry, but will also erase any vehicle they assault, period. Warp Spiders are good all around, but best perhaps against monstrous creatures and light vehicles, and so on.

It's very much like a puzzle; trying to deploy and move in such a way that unit X meets its target unit Y before unit Y does too much damage to whatever you have that can't deal with it.

I've found that the best strategy is to force your opponent to spread out to deal with all your threats, then use your superior mobility and firepower to gang up on individual units piecemeal.

Well, Eldar is all about synergy. All parts of the army need to work perfectly together so that the sum is more than the parts. In mathematics, this is perfectly reflected by the math theory of sheaves. If you don't know math, don't bother.
In the previous editions I often played mech Eldar. Here the Lanchester square law comes into effect. Roughly, if you double (2) the number of Serpents, the enemy has to increase the number of anti-tank weapons by four (2^2) times.

Remember, Eldar isn't SM where one unit does everything for you. Each unit has it's specialities that must be used the best way possible. If your tactic is to assault marines with DA and rip tanks with Scorpions, you have the wrong army.

The thing with Eldar is often boosting a lot of scary units, and make the enemy decide which one is scariest.

If you play your cards well, he'll make a wrong choice and you shall win.

 soomemafia wrote:
Remember, Eldar isn't SM where one unit does everything for you. Each unit has it's specialities that must be used the best way possible.

Thanks soomemafia, that's why I'm looking at Eldar over Space Marines. As I said in my original post, space marines are impossibly boring the more I look into them. They're fun because they can jump in and adapt to a number of roles, but boring in that they aren't actually that good at any one thing. Of course the counter argument to that is that are marines who are are actually amazing in CC, or highly mobile, etc. Ok, fine, but it takes a lot of points to get them on, and by the time you combine all the cheese together, you get an OVERpowered character, so your concentration of power is in a single model. Or maybe you use Death Company in a really smart way, or Longfangs, whatever. You could argue all day, but nobody will deny that the marine stat line is consistent among all marines, and if you play marines you're always going to get some bolters on a S4 T4 3+ Armor save model, every single list, regardless of what color their armor is. So even with some specialist marines on the table, you're still fielding some grunts, who despite their expensive T4 3+ Armor save, still die, and don't actually do that much. At least in the IG the useless grunts are only 5pts per model, and can man a heavy weapon or a carry a plasma gun.

I'd love to start a thread about this, just to see the marine players lose their minds. I don't hate marines, I'd even play a marine army if someone bought if for me. I'm just bored by them, I see them everywhere, and it's exhausting to look at them.

I hold a different view from most of the other players here. Eldar are generalists. What Eldar have that other armies don't have is SPEED, and in the case of wraith lists crazy durability.

Eldar are not specialists because contrary to what Games Workshop says on their site, and what 90% of forum goers will tell you, all of the best Eldar wargear and units are generalist units.

This is primarily evidenced by the amount of strength 6 firepower in the Eldar Codex. By its very nature Strength 6 is a generalist strength in the codex. It has high volume of fire and wounds infantry on a 2 making it an effecitive ani infantry weapon, it also has enough strength to pen/ glance most vehicles making it effective against most tanks as well through hull point drain. Furthermore the new codex granted the Bladestorm and Monofiliment rules, which give pseudo rending to Shuriken Cannons and Death Spinners two of the prevalent s6 platforms and making them even more dangerous against elite infantry.

Units like Warp Spdiers are excellent because they can deal with anything from medium vehicles (monofilimint granting s7 and high volume of fire), infantry (wounds most things on a 2+ and punches armour on a 6)

Dire Avengers which previously were more specialized became more generalist when their Catapults gained the ability to rend through terminator and marine armour.

Wave Serpents pack heavy heavy generalist dakka in the form of a 4 shot twin linked scatter laser providing laser lock for the d6+1 s7 shield burst and the 3 shot shuriken cannon. This is the epitome of a unit designed to kill most everything except the heaviest armored targets.

What separates Eldar from the other codexes is the mobility. Warp Spiders are a prime example of this. They are one of the fastest infantry units in the game, and have weapons which can threaten almost every part of the opponents army. Furthermore their armour is just good enough that the opponent will need to divert real effort to destroy then. So what units like warp spiders do is use their mobility and ability to engage most targets and target weak points in the opponents line, wherever and whatever they might be. Essentially engaging back field fire support with Eldar front line units. Eldar should never be going front line to front line with most enemies (although they can do that to an extent with the new codex).

Yes there are specialists in the Eldar book. Fire Dragons are a prime example. But Specialists serve a very specific role in the army. Fill in the gaps that our generalist weapons cannot handel. When you've got an army armed to the teeth with s6 fire power, the 1 thing you cannot handle are heavy tanks like Land Raiders. By including a squad or 2 of Fire Dragons (in generalist wave serpents of course) you have a unit that can open up targets that you otherwise could not hurt. For instance those Fire Dragons can pop open a land raider, or throw some instant death on meganobs, etc. At which point you can continue drowinging your opponent in decidedly generalist s6, and s7 spam.

Ultimately I hold that the Eldar army plays with multiple, highly mobile, generalist units. Which often attack independently, and focus on tying up and engaging the opponents fire support while leaving the opponent's durable hammer units woefully un-engaged.

@ akaean

Even tough most of what you say is true, you are missing something.

Howling Banshees. Good unit versus MEQ, but hopeless against tanks or tough infantry such as Termies.

Dire Avengers. Generalist unit? No, period. They can shoot and with Bladestorm they can threaten heavy infantry but still they can't beat few marines with charge.

Scorpions or Hawks against MC's? Again, hopeless.

Enough examples?

Actually no,

Howling banshees are just bad and should not be taken. No grenades, armour 4, and no good assault transports. Banshees suck against the targets they are meant for.

Dire avengers have guns good for killing infantry, heavy infantry, and monsters- especially with doom. Their only blindspot are vehicles.

Scorpions have an i6 ap2 s6 attacks from the exarch. That can handle mist anything. Hawks suck against mcs, but they have anti infantru guns and anti tank grenades giving them a wide arrayof targets

Re: Generalists

Contrary to popular belief, there are more Eldar units than just Wave Serpents, Dire Avengers, and Warp Spiders. And while Dire Avengers can be used against anything that has wounds with at least some possibility of success (only on a wound roll of a 6), that hardly makes them the generalists you claim them to be.

Warp Spiders also are explicitly not generalists. As far as infantry go, even accounting for the fact that they go to AP 1 on a wound roll of a 6, they still struggle to reliably kill anything with an armor save better than a guardsman, lacking unrealistically lucky rolls. It gets better if you take the spinneret rifle for the exarch, but even then, you've got better things to shoot at. In my opinion, unless they have nothing else whatsoever to shoot at, they're far better used teleporting and/or battle focusing into the back armor of a vehicle or putting the hurt on a monstrous creature than they are firing at a squad of infantry.

Oh, and you're right about Wave Serpents. They're awesome. Probably undercosted for what they do, too. But they're also not aspect warriors.

I'm going to have to agree with Akaean.
Most tactical marine squads can't kill a land raider. Does that mean that tactical squads are not generalists?

It's not a matter of putting the right eldar on the right target, because you have several good target options.
It's about not putting the Right Eldar modal on the Wrong target, and "Wrong" target is limited to typically 1 unit type.

-Matt

 akaean wrote:

Dire avengers have guns good for killing infantry, heavy infantry, and monsters- especially with doom.


Scorpions have an i6 ap2 s6 attacks from the exarch.

Putting DA against MC's is relying on a luck. A good luck, because every other roll you make isn't a six.

And yes, Exarch does have AP2 attacks. 3 of them. Not enough to make them competitive against tougher targets.

I also agree with Akaean. This whole "specialists" and "synergy" thing is an overrated cliche.

How is a unit of Fire Dragons more specialised than 4 Trueborn with Blasters?
How are Jetbike Warlocks specialists? They are great against vehicles, good debuffers and decent in melee.
What about Swooping Hawks? Volume of shots against infantry, Haywire against vehicles. No specialists here.
How are Guardians any more specialised than Guardsmen, Kabalite Warriors or Ork Boyz?
How are Rangers more specialised than any other sniper unit in the game?
Warp Spiders have already been mentioned.
Eldar melee units are just as specialised as melee units of other armies. Yes, some are better against GEQ, some against MEQ and some against TEQ. That's true for all melee units of all armies.
Fire Prism are among the most versatile vehicles in the game. Compare it to a Ravager or a Vindicator...

I think, the "Eldar are specialists" argument just has been repeated so often, that peple believe it, without looking at the facts. You got an army book full of generalist/multi-purpose units. Eldar may be more specialised than marines, but those are supposed to be allrounders to begin with, so its not really a surprise. Compared to other xenos armies, Eldar are nothing special in that regard.

 Marsyas wrote:
Warp Spiders also are explicitly not generalists. As far as infantry go, even accounting for the fact that they go to AP 1 on a wound roll of a 6, they still struggle to reliably kill anything with an armor save better than a guardsman, lacking unrealistically lucky rolls. It gets better if you take the spinneret rifle for the exarch, but even then, you've got better things to shoot at. In my opinion, unless they have nothing else whatsoever to shoot at, they're far better used teleporting and/or battle focusing into the back armor of a vehicle or putting the hurt on a monstrous creature than they are firing at a squad of infantry.

Can you give an example of what you consider a generalist unit?

I don't argue about what akaean is saying, I just think he's exaggerating by saying that " Eldar are generalists".

They have some units (many of them) that can threaten multiple kinds of enemies, but they do also have strict specialist units and it's not logical to claim DA to be "generalists" because of few lucky rending shots...

 CaptObvious wrote:
Can someone give me a summary of the fundamentals?

I like playing the IG, but I'm considering starting a new army, and I want to know if my impressions of the Eldar are correct. I'm looking for an army that is fast and threatening. Initially I was looking at marine armies, because they're tough and pretty badass, but the more I look into marines, the less interesting I find them. They are expensive to field, and although they specialize in certain things, your basic marine is pretty generic as for what they can do, so they're pretty boring to play (low numbers, painfully generic stats). I don't find anything in the marine books that sacrifices one stat to boost another stat, they're just good at everything, and sometimes better than good, so everything feels the same to me. I like the Eldar because the only way to win is to recognize where to apply the strengths of your units, and protect their weakness. That's the challenge that I face with the IG.

From what little I know, the Eldar have all these mega power HQ choices that got nerfed in their 6th ed codex. I'm actually fine with that, because I prefer to give power to support units rather than have it concentrated in 1 model. So I'm glad the Eldar have leveled out their concentration of power a bit.

Does this sound right? Tau also has a lot of the qualities I'm looking for, but lacking in melee assassins, which I'd really like to have (Tau are mostly a shooting army). What's it like to collect and play Eldar?

Thanks.

The most I can think of is guardsmen blobs with WS4, rending weapons and the ability to do stuff

re: what I consider to be a generalist unit
Tactical marine squad. You can give it whatever weapon loadout you feel best rounds out your army, tool it for whatever role is required.

Storm Guardian. Get passable assault capability and add either flamers or fusion guns to shore up whatever capabilities you think your army needs more of. You can also throw in power weapons to help against MEQs, though whether it's worth it or not is debatable.

Guardian Defenders. Get a bunch of short range dakka, supplement with the heavy weapons platforms of your choice, according to the needs of your army.

re: what makes Rangers specialists compared to other snipers
You can give other weapons to a squad of Marine scouts according to the needs of your list. Rangers have one option: sniper rifles.

edit: I should probably mention, when I talk about Eldar being specialists, I'm mostly talking about Aspect Warriors.
In very broad strokes:
Banshees for dealing with elites in melee
Dark Reapers for long range fire support
Striking Scorpions for dealing with mobs
Fire Dragons for short range anti-vehicle
Swooping Hawks for deep striking harrassment
Warp Spiders for deep striking anti-vehicle/monstrous creature
Shining Spears for fast flanking attacks
Crimson Hunters for dedicated AA

There are exceptions, to be sure, and some units can serve more than one role. Swooping Hawks have two specific roles: light infantry harrassment and anti-vehicle. The fact that Fire Dragons wield fusion guns also makes them good against Terminators and Monstrous Creatures. Warp Spiders can do almost anything if they have to (which, I suppose, does make them the generalists of the bunch, my own previous insistence otherwise notwithstanding). Crimson Hunters can also serve in an anti-tank capacity. Yes, there's more to the story than the 'specialist army' meme. But I'd thought this was more a thread for giving a general sense of the Eldar than getting into every possible application of every unit in the army.

In support of the idea of Eldar as generalists, I submit the following:

On a point-for-point basis, a squad of Jetbikes with a Shuriken Cannon is really good at killing pretty much any infantry. In fact, they are better than Ravenwing Bikers with the Standard of Devastation at killing MEQ and TEQ, and not bad at killing GEQ either.

They are also pretty durable, and of course extremely fast and thus good at grabbing objectives. And with the Shuriken Cannon, they also threaten light vehicles.

As examples of generalists I would like to point out ork shoota boyz with a PK nob. This unit can do well against almost anything and has the bodies and fearless to stay on the board.

IG infantry squads have the bodies to stay on the board (if you get cover) and can be tooled up to do anything.

Dark eldar actually specialists I will not deny that. Though due to some poor adaptations to 6ed they have lost their effective TEQ killers.

Tyranids have MC that do all the heavy lifting in their codex and the gaunts tarpit both are tough to remove in their own way.

Tau riptides are probably the best example of a great generalist. There is exactly one target they are not great against (AV14) and they are tough enough to survive to do the job even if they are not the most suited to it.

When I talk about specialist vs generalist I normally am talking about if the unit can perform a task it is not suited for and survive long enough to do decently at it.

Look at both eldar varieties and you are correct in that the new codex made many of the eldar units better generalists. I understand what you are getting at but the difference is none of the units that are good at shooting are any good in CC (bar perhaps the warlocks who are a relatively poor unit in general now). There is also the factor that you cannot throw an eldar unit at a sub-optimal target because they simply do not have the extra bodies to absorb the price in casualties you will inevitably pay. I can afford to loose 3-4 SM from a squad to kill a troop choice as long as those are not my 2 meltaguns (SW). I cannot afford to loose 3-4 fire dragons (who are easier to kill) as this leaves me a 1-2 man unit and possibly a single meltagun. The interesting thing is that most eldar weapons force their units to get within charge range yet those units almost never want to charge. Kind of amusing actually.

Additionally I find it funny when people talk of ShuCats as if it were so much better than bolters now. They are still half the range, true bladestorm made them much more useful but 12" vs 24" is still huge.

 ansacs wrote:

When I talk about specialist vs generalist I normally am talking about if the unit can perform a task it is not suited for and survive long enough to do decently at it.

Additionally I find it funny when people talk of ShuCats as if it were so much better than bolters now. They are still half the range, true bladestorm made them much more useful but 12" vs 24" is still huge.

I think ultimately we are disagreeing about the basic definition of Specialist vs Generalist. I posit that the role is determined by the damage a unit can do. While Dire Avengers are not 10 Grey Hunters with 2 Melta Guns and Wofly bells, the Grey Hunters are probably the most generalist unit in the game. But Dire Avengers have a huge range of targets that they can engage they have the volume of fire to handle hordes, and volume of fire + bladestorm gives them some leverage against elite infantry and terimators. I get that it only gains ap2 on a 6, BUT I cannot count how many times I would guide + doom + old bladestorm and use that dakka to wipe out space marines, terminators or MC with volume of fire. Now Dire Avengers do that better.

Its rare to see an Eldar army that has different units for anti infantry, different units for anti heavy infantry, different units for anti Monster, different units for anti light vehicles, and different units for anti heavy vehicle. That is what in my mind a specialist army would look like. Instead most eldar armies have units which are effective against a wide swath of enemies, with a few very specialized units to patch any holes (usually Fragons).

It is true that Eldar are pretty bad at trading fire, toughness 3 and usually somewhere around 4 or 5+ armour does not do well in fire fights. But just because Eldar benefit greatly from maneuvering around, and focus firing down flanks to limit return fire doesn't mean that they are specialized. Just that they can focus their fire power which tends to be effective against a wide variety of enemies more effectively.

As for the Bolter vs ShuriCat point you made, consider this. Dire Avengers have an 18 inch range, they can hop out of a Blast you with their assault 2 guns, then battle focus backwards. This means that they will be more than 18 inches away from you which is conveniently just out of move + Rapid Fire Range. So they are firing 2 shots into a squad with Bolters, and the Marines are only able to fire a single shot back. Also remember since casualties are removed from the front it is possible for guardians to do something similar, but its less likely.

At the end of the day, I argue this. Eldar are NOT an army of specialists. Eldar win by using mobility to focus a larger % of their army against a smaller % of their opponents army. In this way gaining local tactical advantages and limiting return fire.

shurcats are better than bolters, except the salvo banner.

With fleet battle focus will roll a 4+ about 75% of the time

75% of the time guardians have a 22" double tap threat range.

Dire avengers have 18+6+battle focus. They can start the turn out of single tap bolter range and double tap.

jetbikes have 12+12 for range, and can fall back 2d6 in the assault phase. Bolters have a single tap advantage of a 36" threat range on a bike, but jetbikes can double tap with a reasonable chance of not being in assault range next turn.

shurcats are assault weapons. Sure none of the units that carry them are assault troops, but they are high I and opportunistic in nature. If their target is near dead after shooting they still have the option to assault.

Ill touch on a couple points that have not yet been covered.

Eldar are I5 across the board, and I4 for the wraith units. This is huge, as it means you strike first against most enemies. Even if you get steamrolled, you at least get to roll some dice and throw out some S3 slaps before you die. Should you survive and break, high I will allow you to escape slower enemies. Should you win combat, eldar will generally sweep.

Your army relies on cover saves. Jink protects your skimmers and jetbikes, cover for your T3 4 or 5+ units, and even wraith need cover as they lack an invul save. Template weapons are bad news as well as vector strikes. Unlike other armies, you don't have the sheer numbers to survive lots of ignore cover. Markerlights, psykers with perfect timing, noise marines and helldrakes are all very dangerous and top priorities to kill.

@akaean
I understand your definition and accept it it is a valid view. I still believe a generalist should be able to do a good job against a large variety of enemies and in a large variety of situations.

The shucat is not really better the troops they are on are better at using them. You cannot compare dire avengers to tac marines and not compare elite bolter units ie sternguard special ammo. Jetbike units are the same and should be compared to RW bikes. They suddenly seem less impressive. Not that they are not a nice upgrade but they are not the bolters are garbage people keep saying.

Admittedly, i've never played another race. I've only been playing for ~6 months now too.

But I find Eldar highly enjoyable to play. The movement, shooting and tactics are the reason I play competitive 40k, and Eldar do those the best. In Eldar, you have a highly fragile force that can put the hurt on your enemy more than any other race. You've got special rules out the wazoo, and the tools to become the most frustrating player your opponent has ever faced.

You've also got an army full of expensive T3 models. Most of them with crappy armour saves. You've got nothing above AV12, and your flyers die to bolter fire.

Beware, that although your wins will be enjoyable and close, your losses will be devastating

Eldar are a great army for list building and meta-gaming. You don't really have units that are outright terrible. Most unit's aren't taken because they are overpriced (Wraithknight/lord), or other units in the codex do what they do but better (banshees, night spinners, and falcons are strictly worse than reapers, support batteries, and wave serpents for example). I can however envision strategies to use every unit (except maybe banshees, nightspinners, and falcons) effectively.

Wraithlords and Knights would be very good using the Iyanden supplement to get as many spirit seers and warlocks with the renew psychic power as possible, any tough multi-wound models that you can take as battle brothers would be great with this.

With all these tools you can easily tailor a list for your particular metagame.

 ansacs wrote:
@akaean
I understand your definition and accept it it is a valid view. I still believe a generalist should be able to do a good job against a large variety of enemies and in a large variety of situations.

The shucat is not really better the troops they are on are better at using them. You cannot compare dire avengers to tac marines and not compare elite bolter units ie sternguard special ammo. Jetbike units are the same and should be compared to RW bikes. They suddenly seem less impressive. Not that they are not a nice upgrade but they are not the bolters are garbage people keep saying.

If you have to be able to do a "good job", we have very few generalists in the game. Tactical marines do a slightly above average job against most things, but don't really do a good job against very much.
Try killing a Russ, or a Carnifex with a tactical squad. It CAN be done, but they aren't all that good at doing it.
My idea of generalist is you have to have a decent shot at getting the job done. I used to run Dire Swords on my dire average exarchs with blade storm. People would tell me all the time it's a waste. But what I found was that when 2 or 3 squads charged the remains of what I just shot, those dire sword attacks paid off. 8 to 12 S3 power weapon attacks at WS5 and Init6 could finish off a carnifex, or take out what's left of a grey hunter squad. 10 points per unit added a lot of generalist target options.

-Matt

 ansacs wrote:
@akaean
I understand your definition and accept it it is a valid view. I still believe a generalist should be able to do a good job against a large variety of enemies and in a large variety of situations.

The shucat is not really better the troops they are on are better at using them. You cannot compare dire avengers to tac marines and not compare elite bolter units ie sternguard special ammo. Jetbike units are the same and should be compared to RW bikes. They suddenly seem less impressive. Not that they are not a nice upgrade but they are not the bolters are garbage people keep saying.

Since you asked:

Resiliency:
It takes 50 Bolter shots to kill 100 points of Ravenwing Bikes, and 45 Bolter shots to kill 100 points of Jetbikes.
It takes 133 Lasgun shots to kill 100 points of Ravenwing Bikes, and 90 Lasgun shots to kill 100 points of Jetbikes.

Shooting:
Against GEQ, assuming the Ravenwing Bikes have the Salvo banner, they kill 44 points, while the Jetbikes kill 34.
Against MEQ, with the same assumption, the Ravenwing Bikes kill 35 points while the Jetbikes kill 47.
Against TEQ, same assumption, the Ravenwing Bikes kill 44 points while the Jetbikes kill 49.

Assault:
On the charge, the Ravenwing kill 19.2 points of GEQ, while the Jetbikes kill 19.4.
On the charge, the Ravenwing kill 19.8 points of MEQ, while the Jetbikes kill 17.8.
On the charge, the Ravenwing kill 24.7 points of TEQ, while the Jetbikes kill 22.2.

So, both units have pretty similar raw damage, with the Ravenwing Bikers being somewhat tougher against small arms on a point-per-point basis. Against Helldrakes, it's about a push, as the Jetbikes are cheaper but the Ravenwing get wounded a bit less often. The Ravenwing have a longer range, but the Jetbikes have Assault phase movement shenanigans.

The big thing in favor of the Jetbikes is that they are 100% plug-and-play. They don't need a special HQ to unlock them as Troops, and don't rely on another unit to increase their listed firepower. They do have force multipliers available, but they can compete without them. Plus they have better mobility.

So, in my opinion at least, they are an amazing generalist unit. They have effective shooting against any infantry, including stuff like Monstrous Creatures. They are durable, except against their hard counter, which also happens to be a hard counter to anything that doesn't have 2+ armor, multiple wounds, or an AV. And they are one of the best units in the game at grabbing objectives. Thus they qualify as a generalist unit in my opinion, as they are effective at several important roles (Killing infantry, grabbing objectives) and decent at others (Killing light vehicles, holding objectives).

 MrEconomics wrote:
Since you asked:

I don't think he did....

But none-the-less i'm pretty impressed that a nice general thread about a codex turned into the typical neckbeardy mathhammer i'd hope for. Good job dakka.