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I'm getting the Battleforce and I have the 6th edition Codex. Just wondering if anyone has suggestions on how to expand my army from the battleforce. I've heard people say choose a model/unit and use that as the base of your army and have considered that. I definitely am going to get some of the Characters like Eldrad Ultrhan, Prince Yriel, and Illic Nightspear, and maybe an Avatar of Khaine. But what I'm really looking for is suggestions on things such as Dire Avengers over Guardians and the different vehicles. Any help will be appreciated. Thanks for your time!

You can't go wrong with either Avengers or Guardians... Eldrad is great to start out with and helps a lot. Depends on what meta you play as far as what aspects you want to explore. I love fire dragons and I want to start getting some warp spiders. The Dark reapers with an exharch and night vision absolutely destroy things with their ap 3 rounds.

Guardians are meh so far. One-trick pony and then die horribly. Not worth it.

Dire Avengers are good.
Jetbikes are great
Reapers are great
Warp Spiders are awesome

Vehicule-wise Wave Serpents are the clear winners of the codex but Fire Prism are now way better than they were.

My heavy slot is usually 2 Fire Prism, 1 Squad of Reapers with Aegis and Lascannon.

Reaper exarch with fast shot on Lascannon is very efficient.
2 S9 AP2 shots that hit on 2 and no jink save.
You can severely damage or bring down most flyers easily.

 Erik_Morkai wrote:
Guardians are meh so far. One-trick pony and then die horribly. Not worth it.

Dire Avengers are good.
Jetbikes are great
Reapers are great
Warp Spiders are awesome

Vehicule-wise Wave Serpents are the clear winners of the codex but Fire Prism are now way better than they were.

My heavy slot is usually 2 Fire Prism, 1 Squad of Reapers with Aegis and Lascannon.

Reaper exarch with fast shot on Lascannon is very efficient.
2 S9 AP2 shots that hit on 2 and no jink save.
You can severely damage or bring down most flyers easily.

I agree with you on the wave serpents. Would you say a Wave Serpent full of striking scorpions would be a good tactic or should I stray away from assault with the Eldar?

Stray away from assault. Scorpions shouldn't be in WSs anyway. You can't assault out of them. Scorps can infiltrate anyway. Assault Eldar is sadly, simply, not as good as other Eldar stuff.

Eldrad isn't as good as he used to be. Too many points for just a bit more bling.

These are all good units to expand your army with

6 jetbikes
swooping hawks
dark reapers
warp spiders
dire avengers (get 5 more)
fire prism (look up a magnetising tutorial, its always good to have a fire spinner or night prism.)
shining spears are very fun but arguably not that good

I don't like wraith stuff.

Fire Prisms are a really, really flexible fire support unit. They will easily counter MEQ infantry, TEQ just after a deep strike, and heavy armour.

Wave Serpents are good enough to use even if they're not transporting something - don't be afraid to some as a dedicated transports for a units you just leave in your backfield.

Vypers and War walkers are both pretty good, performing the role of lighter fire support platforms. The general trade-off between them is that Walkers get the option of more firepower in exchange for more maneuverability on Vypers. Both can also put down enough massed S6 firepower to seriously threaten fliers if needed.

Warp Spiders are a fantastic unit for picking at the enemy backfield. Don't forget you can use Battle Focus to adjust position and get those S6 hits on rear armour.



As a general rule you don't want to be in melee at all with this codex, there are so many options for obscene firepower at all ranges there's no real need. With careful use of Fleet and Battle Focus you can dictate range much of the time and avoid melee, or at least seriously weaken units who attempt to do it.

I love Eldrad, people will tell you 2 farseers are better, but they are also 2 HQ choices. So because my eldar are an allied detachment I want one great HQ,and Eldrad is that person. He is my best chance at fortune for trolling my Archon with a 2++ invul and Eldrad also is surprisingly great in combat. IN my last few games he has killed an Avatar, a mawloc and the Swarmlord (Un iron-armed) all with his force weapon. So the way I see it, get Eldrad if you want ultimate psyker superiority as well as including a 2nd HQ. Dif between GU and DA are that DA go better in wave serpents and can go without character support, while GU work better in big units camping in cover with character support such as guide or conceal.

Jetbikes are still the best troop choice you can get. However they are expensive.

Wave serpents are the new black. They are good, but a bit overrated. Still worth having 2.

Most people are advocating Fire Prisms. I still find Falcons with scatter lasers to be more effective until you go over 36".

Grabbing a pheonix lord or two is always good. Find the two you like the best as i have found them all to be pretty good.

Stay away from reapers, vypers, war walkers, and harlequins until you have experience. They are all glass cannons that depend on circumstances to do well.

Guardians with a warlock are better than Dire Avengers or rangers when it comes to infantry.

Warp spiders are quite overrated. if they dont kill their target, they very often get killed in return. I find hawks at least have a chance of surviving with Blind on the sunrifle.

 Erik_Morkai wrote:
Guardians are meh so far. One-trick pony and then die horribly. Not worth it.

All of the Troop choices are one-trick ponies, but then again that's all Troops are meant to be.

 zephoid wrote:
Jetbikes are still the best troop choice you can get. However they are expensive.

How is 17pts for a Marine with a built in cover save and 48" move a turn expensive?

 zephoid wrote:
Grabbing a pheonix lord or two is always good. Find the two you like the best as i have found them all to be pretty good.

The PLs add very little to most armies and are usually just spending 200pts+ for much of the same of something you already have. For the price of any PL you can get two Farseers; that says it all.

 zephoid wrote:
Warp spiders are quite overrated. if they dont kill their target, they very often get killed in return. I find hawks at least have a chance of surviving with Blind on the sunrifle.

That only happens to Warp Spiders when used by a bad player. You drop them or move them just in range, and jump away too cover. It's not that hard to shift a full squad in cover or if part of them are out of LOS, which is often the case. The fact that many top tournament Eldar lists are using them probably indicates that they are in fact not overrated.

As for Hawks, you are highly overrating Blind (majority of opponents are I4), and while they may survive from it, their survival is based on luck rather than skill like the Spiders' is, and furthermore Hawks' killing power is rather paltry against most opponents.

A second battle force

Provided you're going mechdar or footdar anyways. Two of them give you a nice base to do stuff.

I started by getting 2 Battle Forces and two far seers, and that gives you a really strong 1k list. Then I picked up a few options to swap some things out (prism, spiders).

I'm not that experienced with footdar, but having the basic troops would be useful.

On the other hand, if you want to go ranger-heavy, a second battle force might not help. If you want to go with lots of jet bikes or wraithspam or something else, the battle force might not be great.

One other point - a Divination heavy farseer (or Eldred) can be downright nasty in a 10man DA squad. 2 Seers plus 10 DAs fit in 1 wave serpent...

Footdar Point of view: The more bodies on the ground the better. I run 2 blob squads of 15 Guardians with warlocks and 2 squads of 10 Dire Avengers. Then you pick whatever flavor of the rainbow you want... Iyanden has some great rules and I've always been a fan of wraiths.

2 seers are better than Eldrad, you get powers at 2 locations.

My 1850 list is as follows:

Spirit Seer

10 Dire Avengers (Exarch, Shimmer Shield)
Wave Serpent (TL Scatter, Cannon, Holo)

10 Dire Avengers (Exarch, Shimmer Shield)
Wave Serpent (TL Scatter, Cannon, Holo)

5 Wraithguard
Wave Serpent (TL Scatter, Cannon, Holo)

6 Striking Scorpions (Exarch, Claw, Crush)

6 Fire Dragons (Exarch, Pike, Fast Shot)

6 Dark Reapers (Exarch, EML, Flakk, Fast Shot, Night Vision)

Falcon (Scatter, Cannon, Holo)

Falcon (Scatter, Cannon, Holo)

I've won every game with them, so far.

Nothing in the codex is bad, I'd even say Banshees are OK if you point them at the right target. So I'd get things that work with the play style you envision. Do you like tanks? Load up on Wave Serpents, Prisms, Spinners, Falcons,etc. If you like the idea of Aspect Warriors (like me) get a bunch of them and put together combos that may work for you. A fan of Guardians? Get a few piles of them, some Vaul's Wrath Batteries, War walkers, Vypers, etc. The only unit I've been underwhelmed by has been my Rangers. I used Pathfinders in almost every game last codex, and I can't stand how mediocre the Rangers are, now that even my lowly guardians can wound anything on a 6 as well. Good luck to you, sir!

Jetbikes are expensive to buy, not to field. Especially when you need 9+.

Farseers are much, much less reliable this edition. Guide on BS4 is normally pretty meh. 15% increase in wounds is pretty poor for support. Mind war and executioner are just bad powers. Fortune is still great, but i find MSU to be the name of the game in 6th, vastly decreasing the necessity to fortune something. Doom is really the only top notch power that i would still want from the eldar chart, and none of the brb charts have consistently good powers to be relying on the farseer. If farseers were still part of the seer council from 3.5 where you could get multiple for one HQ slot though they were stuck in one unit i would take them. However, solotarch is so good that i can never see taking 2 farseers.

Thats where PL come in. Karandras gives shrouding to the unit he joins. Thats pretty huge since its not a cast, like warlocks or spiritseers, and is one of the biggest beatsticks around. Fuegan is great on a icarus and serves as a great support to a gunline where he can act as a wound sink, a counter-charge monster, and mid-ranged weapon (or long range on the lascannon). Asurmen i have had no luck with, though Jain Zar has supprised me more than once in counter charges. Bharoth is still on the wall for me. On one hand he can blind whole armies on the deepstrike, and can deepstrike alone right next to a squad and join it in the movement to give you a bit more tactical flexibility. On the other, S4 power weapon, no defensive gear or inv, and mediocre shooting are a bit of a letdown.

Warp spiders arent precision deepstrike. You drop them 10" away from your target and you could pretty easily scatter outside the fire range of some or all. Or scatter into the wrong arch of a vehicle you wanted to be shooting rear on. Also, very few maps have large areas of terrain that block LOS that cannot be moved around easily. If the enemy can see you, dont expect to keep the unit. T3 doesnt last vs bolter or lasgun fire, despite the 3+. Then you have the threat of being intercepted via tau, quad gun, firestorm, or probably with this new SM AA. Warp spiders rely an a lot of chances to work, and one failure in deepstrike location, bad saves off interception, inability to jump out of LOS, or being assaulted by faster units all make the unit less useful. That tourney players are using them means little. The codex is still new and when the chaos codex was new, helldrakes were considered bad.

Hawks precision deepstrike and can do just as much as warp spiders off the drop vs inf. Between the grenade pack, plasma thrown grenade, and lasblasters+sunrifle. You can keep hawks out of range of doubletap due to the precision drop, stay out of interceptor LOS reliably, then can reliably blind two of the biggest tourney armies, tau and crons (admittedly not riptides because of those free black sun filters... of course they would have them free). In following turns they turn into tank hunters. In small 6 man squads you minimize their target significance. If only 2 or 3 survive they still kill vehicles. Yes, they also die like warp spiders, but are much, much less reliant on a whole series of rolls to go right to do well. There is also the hilarious chance of blinding enemies on overwatch, which has saved my hawks more than once. Just call up the local solotarch and watch that combat break.

First off, battle forces are not the best way to start out with. Especially the newest one. If you haven't bought it yet, buy stuff that works well. Generally that vyper won't ever be used, and if you don't use it, then your actually wasting money buying the battle focre, and not saving any. I would recommend starting with a sear, gaurdians or dire avengers, warp spiders, war walkers, and some serpents.

That way you will actually use everything you buy.

Hope it helps,
Ninja

So, I've been reading more into the codex and I discovered Illic Nightspear. What do you all think of him and the Rangers?

Illic is a stylish edition, but his proportional effectiveness makes somewhat subpar. Rangers are always welcome in my army , I would recommend one squad.