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Alright so i have been playing and trying eldar out for a while, and have been trying to make a cc hq.
Without the over priced avatar, and pheonix lords,
1.what is our best CC hq?
2. What is the most survivable option?
3. What unit would you put him with?

(pleas don't give the Mantle, jetbike, autarch, with lance.(its not as good as everyone says, and while it has survivability, once in cc=dead. and not that damaging.)

I'd say the mantle, jet bike, fusion blaster Autarch with the Shard.

Not the Lance.

No Avatar and no Phoenix Lord?

That doesn't leave much if we're not allowed to say Autarch. You can tool up a Spirit Seer if you'd like to waste some points, or perhaps a Farseer and hope for the deathwish power, but neither are very good. You still have Prince Yriel who is pretty good and over priced. Illic can be good depending if your group lets you deploy in B2B for the turn 1 assualt. A tooled up Autarch is pretty much all you have for a CC HQ if you want to save some points for the more important units.

The build that you referenced is pretty much the most cost effective option for taking out targets cheaply. It has good survivability, mobility, precision high strength attacks. Add in a fusion gun and it becomes a very cheap all around tough nut to crack that can answer a lot of problems. It will not tank hits with T4, but if that is what you're looking for why are you playing eldar? They don't tank in CC fairly well. As mentioned above the shard can be fun to try and jet over and challenge important targets for potential killing blows, but anything I'd feel okay engaging with a Autarch a lance will do a lot cheaper. I guess maybe the flaming sword if you want to try something fun?

I'm not sure what you are expecting to get as responses here - there are there are 4 choices other than Phoenix Lords and the Avatar that Eldar can take as an HQ, Farseers, Spiritseers, Autarchs and Illic. Farseers (including Eldrad) and Spiritseers are support characters, and Illic is a sniper who at least comes with a Power weapon.

That just leaves the Autarch, and as a T3 character without Eternal Warrior you don't have many options. You can't make him a tank and the most punchy weapons he can get are only S5-6. No matter what you do you get crushed by proper combat units/characters. This is part of the reason why you put him on a Jetbike instantly, because T4 is a bit more workable. Once you are on a Bike you either ride with a combat unit - so maybe Shining Spears or a Jetcouncil (Scorpions Infiltrate, Harlies don't work well with different movement types, Banshees are just bad), or you just buy the Mantle. The thing to remember is that you still aren't a punch combat character, the Mantle + Jetbike lets you get whereever you need to go and pick of smaller units, with the bonus of knowing that you can jump away from fights you don't want to be in.

Realistically your best bet for a combat character are the good Phoenix Lords, they can hide in a unit and can actually hit combat. They are expensive but realistically that's what you pay for a proper brawling combat character - the top end guys like Abbadon are high 200s so the decent Phoenix Lords compare fairly well point for point with those guys. Karandras can just wreck thing with S8 I7 Power Fist attacks, Fuegan can go crazy if you can get the Warlock regen power, Asurmen can get silly with the right Warlord traits.

Autarch, Gun of choice, Shard of Anaris, Unit of your choice.

Run him at the warlord, hit usually on 3s or 4s, wound on 2+ in a challenge, laugh as the enemy warlord dies from 1 wound (or cry as he survives and kills you next).

My autarch has killed many enemy characters in combat by striking first and hoping he fails one save, but he has also failed many times. Its all about luck but he can claim many lives.

 Swastakowey wrote:
Autarch, Gun of choice, Shard of Anaris, Unit of your choice.

Run him at the warlord, hit usually on 3s or 4s, wound on 2+ in a challenge, laugh as the enemy warlord dies from 1 wound (or cry as he survives and kills you next).

My autarch has killed many enemy characters in combat by striking first and hoping he fails one save, but he has also failed many times. Its all about luck but he can claim many lives.

If you wanted to use him as a Warlord assassin you definitely need a Banshee Mask as well, since it guarantees you hit first.

Powerguy wrote:

 Swastakowey wrote:
Autarch, Gun of choice, Shard of Anaris, Unit of your choice.

Run him at the warlord, hit usually on 3s or 4s, wound on 2+ in a challenge, laugh as the enemy warlord dies from 1 wound (or cry as he survives and kills you next).

My autarch has killed many enemy characters in combat by striking first and hoping he fails one save, but he has also failed many times. Its all about luck but he can claim many lives.

If you wanted to use him as a Warlord assassin you definitely need a Banshee Mask as well, since it guarantees you hit first.

I have yet to come across an enemy that strike me first. Once I had to fight death cult assasins but my banshees did have masks. But I normally just add the scorpions mask for that extra one hit that wounded someone once. As i said I use him all the time and he works so no need to change him, I like him as he is.

My favourite is put him in a unit of dire avengers, but he has been effective in a unit of wraith blades as well. Where you put him and what you give him is up to the OP but shard of anaris is most important in my opinion.

Daemon Princes, Avatars of Khaine, GK with Halberds. Bamshees mask is very, very good for the points, especially if he's with a squad.

Simply put.

BEST

-Solitaire
-Asurman and Karandras
-Fuegan
-Avatar (he goes higher depending on your meta and taking shooting into account)
-And then you can make some arguments for Jain (not in a banshee squad), baharroth, footarchs, and even eldrad
-But maugen ra, spiritseers, general farseers, and yriel are at the bottom of the barrel.

WORST

You have to take a variety of factors into account, ease of access to combat (mobility and delivery), damage output, survivability

Asurman can get dropped off and live to get there with his warlord traits and standard wargear, Karandras infiltrates, has stealth and a unit of 3+...but the solitaire always gets there and always kills something (he just takes a little finesse because if you take on the wrong unit/character you're done)

Fuegan is very similar to the above lords but lacks their utility and damage output.

The Avatar is fantastic, but the army has to form around him to an extent.

Put Eldrad and a Spiritseer with a unit of D-Scythe Wraithguard in a Wave Serpent. AP 2 flamers are great to thin the heard on your way into CC. Also, they will keep you safe from enemy charges with an AP2 wall of death. Dont forget to save a warp charge on eldrad to activate his force weapon on those pesky multi-wound HQ's. This Unit is expensive, but has worked pretty well for me recently. Also, it is scorring!

Well, neither the Autarch nor the Farseer is a monster in cc. The Avatar or an appropriate PL are the better choices.

Karandras is the kill-yest of the P.Lords by far. Those I 7 S 8 attacks are scary as anything to all but the biggest characters. Yes Asurman and Jain Zar are better character killers, but they miss out on Karandras's utility as AV and the ability into insta-death multiwound characters. I have tried out most P.Lords and Karandras has done the best, I had him charge into a unit of Paladins and Draigo with a unit of prescienced Harlequins. It was slaughter, I fed the TM to Draigo as Karandas preceded to flatten 4 Paladins (Including the Banner/Apoth with a prescision strike) on his own! 2 Turns of combat and all of the Paladins where dead and Draigo on one wound, I then hit'n'run out of there and shot him to death.

Harlequins are the best unit to put a CC beast with in my opinion (DE Harlequins preferable because they grant stealth+shrouded) because they are fast, complement there killy-ness with their own and with at 2+ cover save or veil of tears they become effective sponges.

The most survivable CC character is Asurman with his good invul save and possible access to re-rolling 1's on his save, but he lacks the punch against basic infantry. He has enough attacks to be scary to characters, but not enough to swing combats invariably in his favour like Karandras and Jain Zar can.

I think you guys have forgotten soulshrive, +1S for every model killed in combat and AP2 run him into a large squad of whatever probably with shining spears, kill a few things let say 3 then have a S6 monster trucking around who will only get worse.

In my experience of playing Shining Spears, they won't get that many assaults in the course of one game, by the time he gets to decent S, game is already over. Shard gives his squad Fearless AND is ID in a challenge. Coupled with Monster Hunter from the Exarch, that dude is a MC nightmare. Especially the TMC.

 Araenion wrote:
In my experience of playing Shining Spears, they won't get that many assaults in the course of one game, by the time he gets to decent S, game is already over. Shard gives his squad Fearless AND is ID in a challenge. Coupled with Monster Hunter from the Exarch, that dude is a MC nightmare. Especially the TMC.

And flesh bane in a challenge... and +2 stregnth... Personally I think the shard is better over all.

 extremefreak17 wrote:
Put Eldrad and a Spiritseer with a unit of D-Scythe Wraithguard in a Wave Serpent. AP 2 flamers are great to thin the heard on your way into CC. Also, they will keep you safe from enemy charges with an AP2 wall of death. Dont forget to save a warp charge on eldrad to activate his force weapon on those pesky multi-wound HQ's. This Unit is expensive, but has worked pretty well for me recently. Also, it is scorring!

That's not a terrible idea. Hiding Eldrad in a unit of Wraiths is already a solid idea just because majority toughness ablative wounds of T6 protect him a lot better than most other footslog options in the codex.

Also, don't forget what happens when you twin-link template weapons. D-Scythes that reroll their failed wounds are absolute murder and let you reliably blow up higher toughness models, even ones normally you'd never attack with an S4 weapon. You mean my rolls of 6, which are all I can roll to wound a T6 model, instant-kill it? And I get two chances per wound to roll that? Goodnight, sweet Riptides, I hardly knew ye. *om nom nom souls*

I wouldn't really consider it a "melee beast" option, but I mean it is a thing I can see being usable in a great number of games.

 SRSFACE wrote:

 extremefreak17 wrote:
Put Eldrad and a Spiritseer with a unit of D-Scythe Wraithguard in a Wave Serpent. AP 2 flamers are great to thin the heard on your way into CC. Also, they will keep you safe from enemy charges with an AP2 wall of death. Dont forget to save a warp charge on eldrad to activate his force weapon on those pesky multi-wound HQ's. This Unit is expensive, but has worked pretty well for me recently. Also, it is scorring!

That's not a terrible idea. Hiding Eldrad in a unit of Wraiths is already a solid idea just because majority toughness ablative wounds of T6 protect him a lot better than most other footslog options in the codex.

Also, don't forget what happens when you twin-link template weapons. D-Scythes that reroll their failed wounds are absolute murder and let you reliably blow up higher toughness models, even ones normally you'd never attack with an S4 weapon. You mean my rolls of 6, which are all I can roll to wound a T6 model, instant-kill it? And I get two chances per wound to roll that? Goodnight, sweet Riptides, I hardly knew ye. *om nom nom souls*

I wouldn't really consider it a "melee beast" option, but I mean it is a thing I can see being usable in a grea number of games.

The reason I consider it a "melee beast" is because by the time you make into combat against most things, there wont be much left to attack back. Even if the flmaers roll bad, and you are left fighting a unit that is still mostly alive, there are some nasty psychic power combos you can get with the Spiritseer + Eldrad to help swing the tide. I rolled Fortune and Protect one game for some nasty 2+ rerollable goodnes. Doom+Prescience+Misfortune, is another troll combo.

 SRSFACE wrote:
Also, don't forget what happens when you twin-link template weapons. D-Scythes that reroll their failed wounds are absolute murder and let you reliably blow up higher toughness models, even ones normally you'd never attack with an S4 weapon. You mean my rolls of 6, which are all I can roll to wound a T6 model, instant-kill it? And I get two chances per wound to roll that? Goodnight, sweet Riptides, I hardly knew ye. *om nom nom souls*

Prescience and Guide don't actually Twin-Link the weapons, they just grant a similar ability to weapons that roll to hit, so they have no effect on Templates.
Doom works though!

I said prescience for the rerollable in CC

Why aren't we allowed to say Pheonix Lords? I'd say that Feugan is the best combat character available. Stick him at the front of a unit of choice (preferably a fortuned one), and tank hits with his 2++ and FNP, LOS'ing the AP1 or 2 hits. If he takes a wound, no big deal, as he gains +1A and +1S for the rest of the game. Once he hits combat, he's AP1, with all the other perks of being a Phoenix Lord.

Avatar has been nerfed massively due to the 50 point increase AND invulnerable save nerf to 5+ in 6th