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Not a bashing of the elves, I have a full Space Marine army and want to start a xenos army. I like orks, but dont want to paint a million boyz, and my buddy is playing Tyranids. So for me the only other xenos race I found appealing was the Eldar. I've heard a lot of good things about playing/modeling Eldar, but ive also read on here they are very specific and specialized in what they can do. Now im not slow or anything, but there's a reason I picked MEQs, they are easy to play and simple to memorize, but im also somewhat intimidated by a very complex force.

What I wanted to know is if my fears are justified in playing Eldar, or if the complaints are overblown.

So if any Eldar players or anyone else has some positives and negatives of playing/modelling Eldar id love to hear them, as I feel im psyching myself out of starting a new race before I know enough.

Thanks

The complaints are often overblown and backwards looking. Eldar are now a decent generalist army and fairly forgiving if you build an army-list accordingly. Gone are days when putting a serpent on the board slightly wrong leads to its immanent demise. Gone are the days that you have to cast a dozen powers on a unit of guardians to kill a single combat squad of marines. Dark Eldar seem to be taking the super-specialist glass-cannon role from them now.

That said; if you want to do well with them you should do a little research into them, but no more so than any other army you might start. A few key things to keep in mind if you do start them:

1) Their infantry ranges from moderately tough to fragile. If you use guardians be sure to remember that they are not marines. A single round of bolter fire into them, if they are in the open, from a full squad of marines is likely to kill them.

2) Do not let their vehicles fool you. With holo-fields their battle tanks, even if only armor 12, are fairly tough. Wave-serpents are even tougher. They are all also BS 4 with cheap and moderately powerful weaponry. Vipers and War-Walkers appear fragile, but are as tough as if not tougher (with a generally higher rate of firepower) than their Land-Speeder and Sentinel cousins.

Really if you are going to go xenos and are worried about having too much of an uphill battle the armies you should currently avoid are Dark Eldar, Tyranids, and Orks.

If you are worried about the fragility of Eldar, play an Iyanden Eldar army. Wraithguard/Blades/Lords/Knights are anything but fragile. Perhaps a bit slow, but very hard to kill and they can kill just about anything except horde armies.

In fact, it's very easy to understand what does each unit, and as usually they don't have too much equipment options (except maybe the Autarch), in a few games you'll get the essence of their playstyle pretty fast.

Alright, thanks everyone, they seem significantly less daunting now.

IF you were to field wraith forces would it be counterproductive to not be Iyanden?

What are some common ways to build Eldar forces?

I know ive heard Mechdar, which I get, anything else?

I really like the different paths EG- Banshees, Scorpions and whatnot, is it recommended to stick with one type or to have multiple?

Thanks

Bikes are very viable. I run two units of 6 with maximum cannons generally, but even more bikes is also good.

In terms of Aspects, fill in what you need for the army. I think the Fast Attack Aspects with packs are very good (Spiders and Hawks), Hawks are great support and harassment and Spiders are just really deadly if they get near.

Iyanden isn't that different to vanilla really. The default spell in vanilla is one you may not want to give up on a Spiritseer.

Each CC unit is stronger against different units, but as we lack assault transport and suffer from low T, often Eldar CC is relegated to deffensive positions.
I suggest going for general units, which can still be used later in a more tailored list. You can never go wrong with Jetbikes and guardians for Troops, Wave serpents as transports, a farseer as HQ and then expand to Warp Spiders and War Walkers, as they are pretty straight-forward units with easy rules but still represent most eldar units.
Weaponry options for instance are almost the same on every vehicle, so despite it's variety you'll get used to it soon. Same with not having anything better than AV 12. Once you get the frailty but high mobility of Eldar, you'll be ready to take the next step

I would say that Scorpions are your 'all round' close combat troops, and have Wraithblades with Swords for power armour marines.

Axe Wraithblades may work against Tactical Terminators, but Terminators are things I would avoid in close combat, choosing to shoot them instead.

Banshees are a bit fragile, and only kill Marines in the open a bit better than Scorpions. Marines in cover strike at the same time as them, which is problematic while Scorpions (who have grenades) will strike first. Which is a shame as Banshees are some of my favourites.

Big thanks for all the info everyone, I appreciate the input alot.

Final question- Dire Avengers, worth it or better to get an aspect like the Scorpions or Spiders?

Warp SPiders are fantastic now, S6 assault 2 and if the target has an Initiative less than 3 is gets +1 so S7 vs vehicles

They also have monofilament as a rule with is a semi-rending rule, on a 6 to wound its autowound at AP2 , and they are incredibly mobile

re: Dire avengers , they are great troops, they have an 18in range instead of the 12in of the Guardians , and with an exarch yu can get a 5++ invul save to the squad, GW dropped the prices on the box though, before it was 44 for 10, ow its 42 for FIVE ouch


The main reason I like iyanden is: if you take a spiritseer, Wraithguard and wraithblades count as TROOPS S5T6 ones at that . A good upgrade for WG is the d-scythe , it works great on clumps of marines as its AP2 . I wouldnt go wraithblades though, Id rather use harlequins with their 4 attacks on the charge with rending if you upgrade them

Spiritseers make Wraithguard troops in vanilla. Iyanden just grants a different primaris power, magic items, warlord chart and the option to take multiple Spiritseers per slot.

Also, if you go iyanden and take a spiritseer - Give him voice of twilight, the iyanden runes of battle primaris.

Gives all wraith stuff in 12" battle focus and furious charge. He can also spirit mark anything within 12".

So wraithblades with axes get str 8 ap1 axes on the charge and re-roll all ones to hit. I'm going to do this and add Jain Zar - on the charge she minus's 5 to both init and WS.

So it'd be wraithblades hitting on 3's, re-rolling 1's at strength 8 ap2 and only being hit on 5+'s with a T6 and a 3+/4++.

IME, Scorpions are ok but need supporting - especially with mandiblasters being a round of lasgun fire now rather than extra attacks. Banshees go first, but we can't guarantee to get doom from the psychic powers so they hit like a wet lettuce.Harlequins have been pushed back to 4th ed harlequins (2d6x2 spotting distance to be able to shoot them) so they don't survive as long.

I like shooty mech lists - wave serpents full of dire avengers normally. D-scythes should work very well like that too.

According to Eldar players at my club, they have a LOT of low AP weapons.

I dabbled with Eldar in 3rd ed, and the 6th ed release got me back into the game. Tried a few games against marines and space wolves.

The eldar have a lot of flexibility and power, the trick is applying it to the right area. You cannot hang around in the open since your standard 5+, 4+ elite saves are going to be ripped appart. I describe them as a mobile 'crit' based army. Nearly all your units can Run and Shoot on the same turn, which you need because most of your weapons are shorter ranged. A lot of your units are Fleet as well, letting you reroll that Run die.

Biggest thing I have seen to watch, many of your units are Strength 3. This means you only wound on 5+ in CC against T4 opponents. Furthermore, there isn't ever a "best" option of all opponents, you have to match your units up very carefully to what your opponent does. Thankfully, you have the mobility to accomplish this.

Lastly, bring some Dark Reapers when you play Marines. S5, AP3, 48", 2 shots. Each. Somewhat expensive, (30 a piece), but have a farseer nearby to give them to hit rerolls, and I was rountinely killing 5-6 marines a turn with 4 reapers. Additionally, they ignore Jink saves. I can't wait to use them against my friend's Ravenwing army.

Nightwolf829 wrote:
Really if you are going to go xenos and are worried about having too much of an uphill battle the armies you should currently avoid are Dark Eldar, Tyranids, and Orks.

People say this a lot about Tyranids, but from what I've seen in numerous games against them, Tyranids are nowhere near the bottom of the Xeno list right now.

Why play eldar? In my case it's what I still had a decent amount of when I was looking to play again. Tbh I asked myself what the appeal of the army is. Luckily the new codex came along and told me about rites of battle, bladestorm and monofilament. I'd call them the holy trinity of footdar

Now I haven't played much, yet, having, as I said just back into actual playing. But here's what I can say. Note that I'm a radical infantry player and thus commited to footdar. Some of my comments will be of little worth to mechdar:

As a general note, never forget your mobility. Almost every eldar unit has access to some form of movement shenannigans that are easy to overlook, might not matter much most of the time, butc an make a big diffderence nontheless. My favorite gamble is using rites of battle to enable the whole unit to shoot and then be just in charge range. The greater chance is that a melee unit taking the bait will fail and eats some overwatch.

The synergy of relyance of eldar is no great art and not to pronounced, but still there. Skorpions rushing headlong into the enemy die, Falcons landing right in the enemy formation do so even harder, a farseer by himself is a glorified runway model for funny looking helmets. Those skorpions should stop those nasty melee units that got into your formations, hawks go after units you isolated through focus fire, that your opponent carelessly kept by themself or land in support of more massed infantry, farseers make everything better.

Skorpions are nice. They are surprisingly durable for "frail eldar", with a 3+ and stealth. I use them as a countercharge/ambush unit, infiltrating into cover or, even better, out of sight (sometimes people actually forget there ever where skorpions!). I only charge with them when I feel the time is right. Rush them into battle unsupported and you find surprisingly tough eldar are still not as tough as a regular tactical marine. The skorpion claw exarch is nice, but shouldn't be overestimated. There's still plenty of beatsticks that will steamroll him and armor he can't do more than wave his oversized apendage at.

I can't praise reapers enough. They are way killy and very accurate. I upgrade mine heavily upgraded and imo they are worth that hefty pricetag. Never forget that they are slow and purpusefull and can shot on the move. Even if it's just some shuffling around in cover or those 2 inches to avoid getting charged the next turn, it's a great bonus.

Rangers are nice for camping objectives and keeping their head down. Just don't expect them to do much more. Sometimes they will deingn it worthy of their attention to take out an annoying special weapon or ping a wound of a monstrous creature, but mostly they sit on their lazy outcast bums, not being a part of the system and giving the finger to the mainstream, but not much else. They also tend to run or outright die when the wrong kind of attenttion comes their way.

I personally took a liking to guardians. They are a crappy unit, but a useful crappy unit. Let them hang around some more elite units. taking cover, holding objectives and taking the odd shot with that heavy weapon (I like the laser lance, but that's just me liking laskannons laserlances and simmilar). Hope nobody considers them a worthy target. Then you can laugh when an unharmed 20 man unit uses that 19-24 threat range to catch his elite units with 40 bs 4 pseudo-rending shots as they are making their way towards your more interesting units. Obviously they rarely do something amazing, but I think they are a nice defensive unit.

I can't really comment on warlocks. I used one in my very first game in over 10 years. His first psytest was my first action in that game, so of course he spectaculary fried himself. Didn't get to use one since then.

Farseers are awesome, but I guess almost everybody will tell you that. He makes your good units even better and makes enemies worse, that is his job. He might at times do other jobs with those nice toys he calls weapons, but if your farseer needs to do other jobs things are propably going badly. Most of the Runes of Fate powers are traps though. They tell your farseer he should do jobs you have pretty much the rest of your army to do. No matter how many fancy psy powers tell you something else, he's neither a space elf ninja assassin, nor a super sayan artillery piece.

I would love to talk about more units, but these are the ones I have measurable expirience with. Though I'm 95% certain warp spiders. I'm eager to try avengers, hawks, phantomlords, avengers and shadow weaver artillery, which all look good on paper to me.

Lastly, a comment on moddeling and collecting. Eldar can be a pain. There's very little plastic infantry for eldar, most is finecast or metal still. And theres a lot of fine fragile and fidly bits. Every unit has its own aestetic, kitbashing takes quite a bit of care. Eldar aren't very forgiving with sloppy conversions either.

So, if you're a converter, eldar are a far shot from pretty much every other army out there. They are certainly no orks or chaos, where even less experienced or talented modelers can get great results without fear that those precious and expensive little dudes get ruined forever. If you're confident or tend to model after the box, go ahead. Meanwhile I will curse at the sky about my aspects loosing parts faster than lepers and look sadly at my only 1% converted elder.

Love Eldar. Am struggling a bit on how the heck to mark all the darn powers I have though. I roll NINE times for powers and have to keep it all straight.

Im thinking a grease pen is a good way to go for the bases

undertow wrote:

Nightwolf829 wrote:
Really if you are going to go xenos and are worried about having too much of an uphill battle the armies you should currently avoid are Dark Eldar, Tyranids, and Orks.

People say this a lot about Tyranids, but from what I've seen in numerous games against them, Tyranids are nowhere near the bottom of the Xeno list right now.

Hell yeah to that! My little brother plays 'nids, and when you face 150+ gaunts, the swarmlord and full guard with biomancy, a few thropes and a tyranofex, it's pretty hard to beat. T9 swarmlord is not ok, and so many gaunts just soak up ungodly amounts of fire. And that's when he doesn't run the doom.

OP: Eldar are a great army. The most fun I have playing them is a fast paced army. It's great when it comes around to turn 3 and your opponent has taken up defensive positions preparing to assault his deployment zone But they are a pretty solid army these days, and having each unit for a certain goal is pretty good, I think.


Von Chogg

 Von Chogg wrote:

undertow wrote:

Nightwolf829 wrote:
Really if you are going to go xenos and are worried about having too much of an uphill battle the armies you should currently avoid are Dark Eldar, Tyranids, and Orks.

People say this a lot about Tyranids, but from what I've seen in numerous games against them, Tyranids are nowhere near the bottom of the Xeno list right now.

Hell yeah to that! My little brother plays 'nids, and when you face 150+ gaunts, the swarmlord and full guard with biomancy, a few thropes and a tyranofex, it's pretty hard to beat. T9 swarmlord is not ok, and so many gaunts just soak up ungodly amounts of fire. And that's when he doesn't run the doom.

The reason people think Tyranids are still bottom of the pile is they haven't played or seen a Tyranid army played that's designed for 6th edition. They're still stuck in the 'spam Hive Guard and Trygons' rut.