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Hey there!

I'm newly inducted into the world of the 41st Millenium (so apologies if I did that wrong) but was wondering if someone could kindly help with some list building-ness. I've been gifted the majority of the force I own, as it was previously assembled and used just unpainted. I've played several 750pt games and a handful of 1,000 point games too.

In the almighty box, I have around 30 guardians, 7 Dire Avengers, a War Walker, a box of Harlies, Rangers, Swooping Hawks and of course a Wave Serpent. In terms of units I'm thinking about adding / purchasing, this could be a wraithlord, some wraithblades, or even a Corsair conversion kit from FW (I'll explain in a second).

What I have is two list ideas (vaguely themed as I don't think I know nearly enough lore to put it all together) and ideally would like to keep it fluffy (right term?) so any relevant fluff I could use please let me know.

The first list idea is a 'Right hand of Isha' Ulthwe list. I know this is guardians, with fewer aspects.

HQ;
Farseer, with Spear - 105
Autarch, Scorpion Chainsaw, Banshee Mask, and Mantle of the Laughing God - 118

Elites;
6 x Harlequins, a Shadowseer, all with Harlequin Kisses - 162

Troops;
16 Guardians with a Scatterlaser - 164
10 Guardians with a Missle Platform - 120
5 x Rangers - 60

(729)

Heavy Support;
War Walker, Shuriken Cannon and Scatterlaser - 75
Falcon (Just wondering - as it's the same chassis, I'm presuming I can buy the falcon turret from a bits website and as the turret on the WS is not attached swap it out?) -145

Upgrades;

Holo-fields on the Falcon, which brings my total to about 960.

The thinking is, the idea of murderous overwatch would slightly deter charging the large guardians squads, leaving the harlies to sneak up with their veil of tears and rip stuff apart in CC as required. Falcon and War Walker stay back and use terrain and LoS to their advantage and try to remove any big nasty priority targets. Rangers sit on an objective or in the way, preferably in cover. It's amazing how often they're targeted for how cheap they are in comparison to other units.

Apparently there used to be a rule where an HQ couldn't join the harlies? Anyhoo, the plan was to run him with them, extra combat goodness, and adds stealth and shrouded which is conferred onto the harlequins, meaning their 5+ is replaced by the 4+ of Shrouded and Stealth.

The Farseer would hide in the large guardian squad, and perhaps take Prescience, roll for a Runes of Fate, if it's Death Mission, replace with Guide (as per rule book replacement thingy) and roll again.


My SECOND army idea was, after ogling the forgeworld models, and learning a little more about the eldar, a corsair army, which gives a great opportunity to convert models and just have fun with them.

Thinking, without figuring out the points just yet as an idea as I would like to explore the theme and idea;

HQ
Prince Yriel or a Corsair Captain

Elite
Striking Scorpions (0-1 taken from Codex: Eldar)
Harlequins

Troops;
2 x 5 Corsair Squads
War Walker (proxied as a Wasp Walker, although honestly I don't enough of a difference in the models. The people I play with don't mind this at all by the way)
(Jetbikes?!!!)

Anyway, any thoughts on this army would be greatly appreciated, mainly on the first list.

Cheers very much!!

You can drop the rangers for a WS with SL and Shuri cannons. Holo fields also recommended. Shoukd bring you to about 1010 points. WS are cheesy though with the new codex upgrade. If you believe it or not Falcons are not that effective on blowing up vehicles because they only have one shot. WS has D6+1 S7 AP4 plus SL (4 S7 AP4 shots) which gives you a better chance of either glancing your opponent's vehicles to death or even pen them and has the ability to kill infantry with ease. WS all the way

Awesome, completely forgot that serpent shield goodness could actually take down armour. That's awesome!

Would you recommend a unit in it? Or would that just make it priority on the board and wiped out 1st turn?

Sounds good. Thanks!

For starters there are a few things I would recommend for every eldar army: Jetbikes. You need at least 6 to run 2 squads of 3 so that you can grab late game objectives, or contest. Its a game changing unit. This means you absolutely as your first purchase should buy 2 of the $45 boxes of 3 Jetbikes

Now onto just super Highly Recommended for having a solid backbone to your army:
Another Wave Serpent
2 boxes of Warp Spiders (winding up with 10 models total) ( eventually you want to have up to 20-30, but for now 10 is fine, while you see what units you like...plus you might not even like spiders, so its good to start at 10)
either more War Walkers or a Wraithknight. Preferrably both. (need at least 3 War Walkers in a squad with 2x Bright Lances or a basic Wraithknight with Heavy D-cannons for enough Anti Av 14)
A Jetbike Warlord (either farseer or Autarch, or one that can double as both depending, so that you can play with which one you like better)

Good Idea stuff that I would recommend after you get all that other stuff:
Another 3 Walkers or an additional Wraith Knight (just trust me run 2 squads of walkers or 2 wraithknights, not one of each. It changes the focus of the list and style you play too much if you do that)
a Nightspinner

After that stuff, you'll have a pretty good idea of what you like, and what is natural for you to use, so gravitate towards that stuff. Oh and pick up the 6 walkers or the 2 Wraithknights, whichever ones you didn't buy.


Other thoughts on what you have:
Also hawks are great, and they are not as versatile as Warp Spiders, but more effective at some things than Spiders, so using them in tandem might be good.

I personally like Guardians x10 in my Wave Serpents and bringing 2 to like just drop them on people really quick, have them dakka then Battle Focus away.

Thanks for the advice, will definitely look into some jetbikes to bring some speed and extra mobility into the force.

Love the look of warp spiders, would have to experiment to see how I could use them.

Thanks again for all the sweet advice!

I second getting more walkers, another serpent and maybe a wraithknight/spiders for bigger games. For 1k the models you have should be fine for general play.

Farseer is always a solid choice. Always take your first roll on runes of fate, trying for fortune or doom. Eldritch storm is ok sometimes, drop anything else for guide. Once you take guide stop rolling on runes of fate and go to divination. Misfortune, forwarning, and maybe perfect timing are good. Prescience is always a great power if you need the default. once yyou take prescience go to telepathy. Hallucination, invisibility, puppet master, and sometimes the fearless one(and fearless remover) are good. Psychic shriek is amazing as well.

The mantle of the laughing god prevents your autarch from joining units as the bearer loses ic status. You could run a cheap autarch with the harkies or drop the autarch altogether. The autarch is really best for modifying reserve rolls, or on a jetbike with the mantle or with a squad. Another farseer(which is much more ulthwe themed)or saving the points for another foc slot is your best bet.

Harlies are ok, not great not terrible. You generally want a full unit if your going to run them.

Guardians are good. The missile launcher is a bad option though. It is too expensive and generalist. Specialize with one of the other weapons. You can mech up your smaller guardian squad in your serpent (weapon platform optional). Wave serpents are stupid good, and the scatter laser+holo field loadout is the best. Shuriken cannon on the chin is optional.

Rangers are decent. Bikes are generally better but not always.

Swooping hawks are really good, and you should try to shoe them in. Six stock, maybe an exarch with sun rifle. They are great for surgical removal of camping units, or anything hiding in a hard to reach spot. They require some finesse but once you get the hang of them they are a lot of fun and dead effective.
A lone war walker is an easy target, so you probably want to get it some friends. Consider using outflank to get it into position and ensure it gets the first shot. Scatter laser+shuriken cannon is good for cheap. Other good builds are dual scatter, dual shuriken, scatter star, and dual lance.

Falcons are not bad, but they compete with better heavy support choices and wave serpents, which are awesome. I would avoid them, and stick to prisms or night spinners if you want a heavy support tank.

For your corsair list, always take a corsair prince over yriel. A prince can be given a better loadout for about the same cost, and has some great special rules.

Some of the information you're being given about Wave Serpents is incorrect. They are awesome, but none of their possible weapon choices are S7 AP4 except for single shot Flakk missles, which you don't ever want to equip on anything, ever.

The body of the Falcon tank is a bit smaller than the body of the Wave Serpent, so they aren't perfectly interchangeable. But, a lot of opponents wouldn't really notice that. They will notice the lack of the shielding antennae on the front however.

My advice general advice would be to buy what excites you, either from a gameplaying persepective or a modeling perspective. Some core units remain more or less equally playable across edition and codex updates, but some do not. Buying 30 Warp Spiders might be awesome now, but I'd bet money they're going to get worse again after the next big change. Howling Banshees are terrible now, but I bet they'll be good again some day. Etc.

Other than that, everything Dr. Serling said is sound advice.

Cheers for the advice. I've been painting and mulling over this recently.

Yeah I went back to check my codex about the WS. They're good don't get me wrong, but S7 AP4 didn't ring a bell.

Thinking about running 2 squads of 10 x guardians, (one potentially as a storm guardian squad) with some warlock assistance instead of the Autarch.

Drop the falcon for a WS, stick a guardian squad in there, and pick up some jetbikes.

The war walker does seem to be lonely, so if the points are spare I'll give him a buddy.

I really like the harlequins but they're very expensive, which is a shame as I'd like them to be the centrepiece to the army.

Note on the corsair rules - they are now badly left behind by the new eldar codex. I love the idea and background/modelling potential as well, but the FW rules I would leave alone for now. They should eventually release an updated corsair list for 6th edition, with everything brought in line with C:Eldar. For the moment, jet pack corsairs make good swooping hawk models!

I agree the corsairs are cool, but need an update. I like Wraithknights far better than lords. I agree, though in 5th edition I loved the falcon, in 6th new codex - it has been left in the dust with the wraithknight, shadow weaver and fireprism. I like guardians usually naked in a serpent for objective grabbing or 5 DA naked in WS with TL SL, holofields and shuri cannons. I know some of you do not like the 10 points for the shuricannon - however if a serpent moves 6" or less it can fire everything at Full BS and sometimes if I move 12" I may want to save my shield for downgrading pens so I may want that shuricannon to pop things - With me I do not leave home without them, I think they are a great asset to the vehicle but this is MO and I usually used them in 5th ed and old codex too.
Harlies used to be my favorite unit - they were my first love and first army back when you could just play harlies, however with the 6th ed Eldar codex I do not think they are what they used to be and I think other units leave them behind. The problem with 6th edition is that it does not favor close combat. With T3 generally for Eldar it already leaves them at a disadvantage with I5 this helps but usually with lack of ap2 things most of our CC units really kinda suck. The only exceptions to this are the Wraithknights, Lords (which are slow), and wraithblades with axes. The problem is that most of these units are really expensive and thus eat up points. With lack of invulns except for Wraithblades with axes they die easily to anything that is strong and has a power weapon... With Eldar unless you are going wraith which is not that competitive, you really need to run serpents with troop or a lot of bikes

Purple Saturday wrote:
Some of the information you're being given about Wave Serpents is incorrect. They are awesome, but none of their possible weapon choices are S7 AP4 except for single shot Flakk missles, which you don't ever want to equip on anything, ever.
.

Well the serpent sheild isnt an upgrade and it istn ap 4, but it is s7 with ignores cover.

OP a wave serpent is great at taking down av up to 12, and with enough serpents even 13.
4 tl scatter laser shots, 33 tl shuiken cannons shots (TL because scatter lasers) and 2-7 s7 TL shots with ignores cover. I believe the math was 2 point something hull points a turn with 1 wave serpent. Wave serpents are amazing.
Honestly a waveserpent would be a much beter choice than a falcon, as they are better and cheaper points to.

side note, eml on gardians is a waste. BL,scatter, or star.

Right, so hows this revised list sounding?

HQ

Farseer, with spear - 105

2 x Warlocks - 70


Troops

10 x Guardians, Scatter Laser, Warlock - 110

10 x Guardians, Bright Lance, Warlock - 110

Rangers - 60

Jetbikes - 51


Elites

6 x Striking Scorpions, Exarch with Scorpions Claw, and +1S Exarch Power - 152



Heavy Support

Wraithlord, Flamers, Scatter Laser, Bright Lance - 165


Transport (For the SL Guardians)

Wave Serpent, Scatter Laser turret, Shuriken Cannon, Holo-fields - 140


This leaves me with enough points to bring an extra two bodies to the scorpions, or drop a heavy weapon on the wraithlord and bring some more jetbikes.


This would mean my first purchase being jetbikes all the same!


Thoughts?

Not bad for a starting force, I have never been a fan of 2 heavy weapons on a wraithlord, just my preference there are die hard eldar players who swear by it. For that price 2 walkers with 4 brightlances would be better, IMO.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
oh forgot

I don't think you'll get much love from the striking scorpions, however the small size may work to your advantage. Your opponents might ignore them.

Replacing the wraithlord for 2 walkers sounds a good deal - I just wanted something tough potentially guard / distract from the scorpions.

Without the lord - I'm thinking replace the scorpions with a 6-man swooping hawk squad, sunrifle and all.

HQ

Farseer
2 Warlocks

Troops
10 x Guardians, SL, Warlock - 110
10 Guardians, BL, Warlock - 110
5 x Rangers - 60
3 x Jetbikes - 51
3 x Jetbikes - 51

Transport
1 x Wave Serpent, SL, SC, Holo-fields - 140

Fast Attack
6 x Swooping Hawks, Exarch, Sunrifle - 121

Heavy Support
2 x War Walkers, SL + BL, 2 x BL

It's a toss up between that and the other list. When I grab some jetbikes I'll be sure to report back!

whats with the war walkers wargear? scatter laser and bright lance on one walker, and x2 bright lances on the other? first thing, dont go for scatter laser and brightlance, its a mixed role and not great. x2 bright lances on both is what you need.

jbelgian wrote:
Replacing the wraithlord for 2 walkers sounds a good deal - I just wanted something tough potentially guard / distract from the scorpions.

Without the lord - I'm thinking replace the scorpions with a 6-man swooping hawk squad, sunrifle and all.

HQ

Farseer
2 Warlocks

Troops
10 x Guardians, SL, Warlock - 110
10 Guardians, BL, Warlock - 110
5 x Rangers - 60
3 x Jetbikes - 51
3 x Jetbikes - 51

Transport
1 x Wave Serpent, SL, SC, Holo-fields - 140

Fast Attack
6 x Swooping Hawks, Exarch, Sunrifle - 121

Heavy Support
2 x War Walkers, SL + BL, 2 x BL

It's a toss up between that and the other list. When I grab some jetbikes I'll be sure to report back!

This is a very nice list. At 1500 Points I'd add Another Wave Serpent and then really whatever what you want whether that is another Wave Serpent with Dire Avengers inside.

Well the reason one was carrying a SL was just to get more S6 shooting in, and of course twin link the bright lance. I will be using prescience or guide on them but making sure that at least one bright lance hits will sweeten the deal.

In terms of playing this army, I'd have one guardian squad in the serpent, the other advancing, 1 squad of jetbikes dancing about and the other in reserve.

Rangers sit backfield or on an objective, or wherever the hell I choose a la infiltrate.

If it's a legal move, skyleap the hawks first turn, so they return 2nd turn (rules of ongoing reserve) and get their grenade pack. They can go armour hunting or horde killing, picking on lower initiave models for a blind check (just a thought - do vehicles who count as initiative - automatically fail their blind check or are they immune? Blinding the driver, etc. sounds hilariously good fun.

War walkers can battle focus in and out of cover, shooting away - if they're going to be a primary target maybe bring them in from reserves.




At 1,500 points, I'd look at bringing another wave serpent, an elite unit like Harlies or Scorpions, and another heavy support. Wraithlord or some support batteries spring to mind. I'd love Dark reapers if they weren't so damn expensive. Maybe even bolster the rangers by a few men so their output is more substantial?


Cheers for the help!