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.

My first love has always been Eldar, so last year I picked up the new book, dusted off my old 2nd ed metal collection and got a BOX FULL of metal Eldar off a mate. Nice.

I got as far as base coating a handful of old favourites then sort of went on a hiatus.

Now, having had a nightmare playing WHFB recently, I’ve decided to get back to 40k. I excitedly searched for ‘Eldar 40k’ to see what’s what, and was pretty dismayed to see so much pishing and whining about how ‘broken’ they are.

From what I can gather, some unsporting types spam the Wave Serpent. But doesn’t every army have a vehicle/unit/weapon that gets spammed to feck?

I’m not a waac or power gamer (far from it, I’m rubbish) and this is pretty demoralising. I was hoping to start going to the NWGC for a few practice games but I don’t want to turn up with THAT ARMY and be THAT GUY. I have the following, with access to quite a bit more gubbins:

20 DA (2 x 10), 6 DR (2 x 3), 10 SS (2 x 5), 7 WS (with exarch), 5 FD, 1 Wraithlord.

That’s not so bad is it? I still need an HQ but I think that seems a fair little amount. I will eventually be adding Jet Bikes.

I don’t particularly care what strangers think, but in a social atmosphere it’s good to feel a part of it. Especially in our seedy little corner of humanity!

TL;DR – Will I be hated for playing Eldar?!

Thank you for reading. Apologies for length.

Nah, you'll only be hated if you turn up for your first game with an internet spam list.

People in real life are a lot less reactionary than people on the internet.

No, just dont be a pain about it. I find even with a rubbish eldar list my army still puts up a tough fight and I feel bad a lot but its just a really power codex i think. Either way you will find out whats too good and whats not and you can work out how to not be "that guy". Its all in the attitude really (and you seem in the right mindset.) so dont worry about it.

So.....

Stick with whatever army you like. Eldar were a difficult army to learn with, so expect to lose a lot, to begin with. There are a lot of rules to get a grip of. Starting with the units you list should be OK.

20 DA (2 x 10), If you can, get the exarch with the shield. Invil saves are handy.
6 DR (2 x 3), Keep them in cover, and use them to force units to stay out of LoS of them. Use Focus Fire when you can. Against lots of SM armies, I'd run them as a 6-man squad.
10 SS (2 x 5), Scorpions? I'd keep them as 1 unit, and outflank with them. Or, if there is a lot of area terrain, run them up one side of the table instead.
7 WS (with exarch), Run the exarch without upgrades, except maybe Fast Shot. The twin-link is nice for snap-shots, but he hits on 2s anyway.
5 FD, These need a transport to work well. But you could keep them back to deal with drop pods, etc.
1 Wraithlord. The sword is very good, for the points. I run mine with a twin-flamer, and either BL and ELM if you can spare the points or Starcannon. If you come to like it, run them in pairs, or grab a Wraithknight to go with it.

For HQ, I like the Spiritseer these days. It buffs the unit is it with, like Warlocks used to.
Or, if you're getting GJB later, make one of them a Farseer. Fast and useful, and fairly cheap.

But, don't listen to me. I still lose a lot

Thanks for the fast responses folks - I feel much better now!

Furyou - I tend to only go for things I like the look of, and that I feel fits the fluff of whatever I'm fielding. A WS transport or 2 isn't out the equation, but 3+ is. Likewise Jet Seer council... It won't fit with my Eldar's back story.

Swastakowey - Cheers. Yep, I just need to grind a few dozen losses out, and see what works for me!

Skinnereal - Thanks for the pointers.

My Wraith Lord is an old metal one, modelled with a flamer, a shuriken catapult, scatter laser (by the old Gods and the new, that is an UGLY bit of kit) and star canon.

However, I love the 'new' plastic kit so I expect I'll be picking one up at some point.

Perhaps when my Oldar (see what I did?!) make it off the warp storm ravaged rock they've been stranded on, they can start picking up new Eldar tech...

There are 3 things that annoy me about Eldar,

1) basic troops can kill elite units with relitve ease, made worse by 6th being shooting heavy.
2) wave serpent is cheaper and much more effective compaired to other races transports/IFVs
3) A farseer with fortune makes a wave serpent pretty op. Ok you do have to roll that power but when you do you get a tank that's very hard to kill m, equipped with TW lances it can pick apart any armour and live through most firestorms

I have been playing eldar since 4th edition, and enjoyed them greatly. Now I feel that I am being a bit of a dick by bringing them out in friendly games, even with a less than optimal list (I do field dark reapers and warp spiders and the like, but only one unit of each and only 2-3 serpents at the most).

It has almost got to the point where I don't want to play them as some people get upset at the power of their new codex, plus I now see so many eldar players around when before hardly anyone would touch them, so it's kinda annoying to the players like me who have had our armies for ages and weathered the times with a bad codex.

Sorry if I sound negative here, I still love my eldar but my chaos marines (with no heldrakes!) are getting more game time nowadays.

What makes a TFG is the player, not their army.
If people know you only play Eldar because of the power of the codex, they'll think badly of you. Spamming powerful units will have a similar effect.
But, mix it up with lots of units and little cheese, you'll be fine.

 rohansoldier wrote:
I have been playing eldar since 4th edition, and enjoyed them greatly. Now I feel that I am being a bit of a dick by bringing them out in friendly games, even with a less than optimal list (I do field dark reapers and warp spiders and the like, but only one unit of each and only 2-3 serpents at the most).

It has almost got to the point where I don't want to play them as some people get upset at the power of their new codex, plus I now see so many eldar players around when before hardly anyone would touch them, so it's kinda annoying to the players like me who have had our armies for ages and weathered the times with a bad codex.

Sorry if I sound negative here, I still love my eldar but my chaos marines (with no heldrakes!) are getting more game time nowadays.

I feel your pain man, I've had eldar since the 3rd ed book! During 5th ed my eldar were infamous, which I was always proud of because everyone thought eldar were sub par. But with the new book, and so many people collecting them now, I don't feel special or different. People see my eldar and think 'another band wagon', but most of mine are metal models I've had since 2004 when the 4th book dropped heh.

But ah well, it was gonna happen one day.

OP: get what ya like, but maybe avoid banshees

Von Chogg

 monders wrote:
My first love has always been Eldar, so last year I picked up the new book, dusted off my old 2nd ed metal collection and got a BOX FULL of metal Eldar off a mate. Nice.

I got as far as base coating a handful of old favourites then sort of went on a hiatus.

Now, having had a nightmare playing WHFB recently, I’ve decided to get back to 40k. I excitedly searched for ‘Eldar 40k’ to see what’s what, and was pretty dismayed to see so much pishing and whining about how ‘broken’ they are.

From what I can gather, some unsporting types spam the Wave Serpent. But doesn’t every army have a vehicle/unit/weapon that gets spammed to feck?

I’m not a waac or power gamer (far from it, I’m rubbish) and this is pretty demoralising. I was hoping to start going to the NWGC for a few practice games but I don’t want to turn up with THAT ARMY and be THAT GUY. I have the following, with access to quite a bit more gubbins:

20 DA (2 x 10), 6 DR (2 x 3), 10 SS (2 x 5), 7 WS (with exarch), 5 FD, 1 Wraithlord.

That’s not so bad is it? I still need an HQ but I think that seems a fair little amount. I will eventually be adding Jet Bikes.

I don’t particularly care what strangers think, but in a social atmosphere it’s good to feel a part of it. Especially in our seedy little corner of humanity!

TL;DR – Will I be hated for playing Eldar?!

Thank you for reading. Apologies for length.

Eldar lists are tough. No way around it. but who cares? i tabled or beat the last three SpamDar lists i fought. With Night Lords. Yes, i said WITH Chaos Space Marines. And my opponents, sadly are pretty damn good around here.

So just play them. Whats happening right now is that GW kinda screwed up with the new Stronghold and Escalation rules. people are pissed and others are pissed that people aren't letting them use that stuff. so now there is this (totally irrelevant) schism between guys like me who are BASTARDS for not letting my enemy use Revenant Titans against me and the guys who...Well... they wanna plasy with their Reveneant Titan!

Stuff like that and also the SUPPOSED "death" of melee armies has caused the Blood Angel croud who routinely rolled everyone in 5E to be angry that they cant just roll people anymore. Melee had grown so oppressive in 5E and they fixed it. Made it a little more realistic. And people hate GW for that too.

So all this GW hate is landing on the people themselves. It has turned personal. There is a serious swirl here about all this and how to deal with it. I got told that I was a DICK for using the Black legion Codex...Against Eldar. Lol. The irony is thick in the air.

I mean there's no winning is there? i cvan't even play a middle of the road codex, win, and have my opponent say "Ya got me" without a damn discussion about how the world is ending at GW. It's tiring.

Anyways, just play. Seriously. Its a fun game.

I don't think you'd be labelled as anything unpleasent if you pick a list your comfortable playing with and enjoy the models..

I don't know what a reasonable number of wave serpents is...

I would say if your someone who has heard they are overpowered, instantly bough 6 boxes based on this then people will be likely unenthusiastic about playing against you.

 Elgrun wrote:
I don't know what a reasonable number of wave serpents is...

Three max...and if you want more mech, lean onto some heavy grav tanks.

That's what I do and my opponents (at least appear to) enjoy games against my army. (Even when they're losing.)



My List
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/579225.page



You can make Eldar your own, make them fun, and avoid being hated.

 monders wrote:
...my Oldar...

Hurr.


Eldar are still intriguing, require brainworkings to play as, and have great lore and psychics. As I read on here a few days ago... If you're worried about being TFG, you're not TFG.

Eldar are fine. Just design a nice fluffy list and model your army towards that and nobody will complain.
Just don't use waac internet lists.

 Von Chogg wrote:

 rohansoldier wrote:
I have been playing eldar since 4th edition, and enjoyed them greatly. Now I feel that I am being a bit of a dick by bringing them out in friendly games, even with a less than optimal list (I do field dark reapers and warp spiders and the like, but only one unit of each and only 2-3 serpents at the most).

It has almost got to the point where I don't want to play them as some people get upset at the power of their new codex, plus I now see so many eldar players around when before hardly anyone would touch them, so it's kinda annoying to the players like me who have had our armies for ages and weathered the times with a bad codex.

Sorry if I sound negative here, I still love my eldar but my chaos marines (with no heldrakes!) are getting more game time nowadays.

I feel your pain man, I've had eldar since the 3rd ed book! During 5th ed my eldar were infamous, which I was always proud of because everyone thought eldar were sub par. But with the new book, and so many people collecting them now, I don't feel special or different. People see my eldar and think 'another band wagon', but most of mine are metal models I've had since 2004 when the 4th book dropped heh.

But ah well, it was gonna happen one day.

OP: get what ya like, but maybe avoid banshees

Von Chogg

Imagine how I felt when the Necron codex dropped. Necrons were my first army in 1998 and I got accused of bandwagoning.

Play whatever you want, with whatever units you, in any quantities you want.

The people who would make a stink over the codex you play are not the people you'd want to play with anyways.

OP play what you want. there will always be a very vocal minority that dominates the internet. this group does not represent the vast majority if 40k players. you never hear people at tournaments whining about lists. play what you enjoy, ignore the internet idiocy.

sand.zzz wrote:
OP play what you want. there will always be a very vocal minority that dominates the internet. this group does not represent the vast majority if 40k players. you never hear people at tournaments whining about lists. play what you enjoy, ignore the internet idiocy.

People at tournaments are also taking the craziest lists possible usually, so they cant complain, especially since so many of them play tau and eldar...

In general people do dislike getting destroyed buy an army all the time, which is easy to do with eldar especially.

I agree with the internet being "slowed" but its still a problem to be addressed.

 Blacksails wrote:
Play whatever you want, with whatever units you, in any quantities you want.

The people who would make a stink over the codex you play are not the people you'd want to play with anyways.

Alternatively - don't be "That Guy" and be civilised about it.......

Talk to your mates - I assume thats who you are playing with and want to have fun with - if they are very compeative and you like that sort of game - match them -

BUT if they are not and you are not then play that sort of list. If you are opposites - try and talk it through to find a middle ground so EVERYONE gets to have fun.........................

 Swastakowey wrote:

sand.zzz wrote:
OP play what you want. there will always be a very vocal minority that dominates the internet. this group does not represent the vast majority if 40k players. you never hear people at tournaments whining about lists. play what you enjoy, ignore the internet idiocy.

People at tournaments are also taking the craziest lists possible usually, so they cant complain, especially since so many of them play tau and eldar...

In general people do dislike getting destroyed buy an army all the time, which is easy to do with eldar especially.

I agree with the internet being "slowed" but its still a problem to be addressed.

Really its not. There has always been a path of least resistance in this game. And if you take a look at other tabletops they have metas and tiered lists too. If it wasn't baron/seer council/serpent spam it would be something else. Thats how it works in a game with hundreds of different rules and units. Show me an edition of 40k that didn't have a few lists that were a cut above the rest. Protip: you can't.

sand.zzz wrote:

 Swastakowey wrote:

sand.zzz wrote:
OP play what you want. there will always be a very vocal minority that dominates the internet. this group does not represent the vast majority if 40k players. you never hear people at tournaments whining about lists. play what you enjoy, ignore the internet idiocy.

People at tournaments are also taking the craziest lists possible usually, so they cant complain, especially since so many of them play tau and eldar...

In general people do dislike getting destroyed buy an army all the time, which is easy to do with eldar especially.

I agree with the internet being "slowed" but its still a problem to be addressed.

Really its not. There has always been a path of least resistance in this game. And if you take a look at other tabletops they have metas and tiered lists too. If it wasn't baron/seer council/serpent spam it would be something else. Thats how it works in a game with hundreds of different rules and units. Show me an edition of 40k that didn't have a few lists that were a cut above the rest. Protip: you can't.

Huh? I never said anything about balance etc? I just said tournament players are taking whats best, so of course they dont complain.

Eldar are powerful, its a pain, thats all i said, then I agreed that the internet is not worth listening too, but I do think that eldar being powerful is a problem that players need to work out.

In short i just repeated my last comment, I have no idea what you are on about...

GW made the problem - they should have fixed it, however Indivdual players/groups make it propogate......thats the problem with being too RAW focussed - it removes the possibility of inteliigent discourse and compromise....

IMO

The land of SHOULD is a lonely place. NO ONE lives there and very few pass through.

If we were all crucified for not doing what we SHOULD, there would be no one left. I think the hate on GW is...pretty harsh. I am no fan of Stronghold and Escalation and I certainly am no fan of allowing Battle Brothers, but... This game is fun. The models are kick ASS and until recently the player base bountiful.

Cutting off ones nose to spite ones face is probably not the route I'm going here.

 Jancoran wrote:
The land of SHOULD is a lonely place. NO ONE lives there and very few pass through.

If we were all crucified for not doing what we SHOULD, there would be no one left. I think the hate on GW is...pretty harsh. I am no fan of Stronghold and Escalation and I certainly am no fan of allowing Battle Brothers, but... This game is fun. The models are kick ASS and until recently the player base bountiful.

Cutting off ones nose to spite ones face is probably not the route I'm going here.

They aren't people, they are a company with people working for them.

You should absolutely crucify a company that consistently presents it's consumers with a poor product, however the average consumer isn't actually this astute - hell I prove to you simply by posting here I'm not myself - to ignore the company enough to show significant profit losses. I'm working on turning myself away from them as a company and trying to get people I care about to invest less in the games they develop until such a time as they are worth my money and this is absolutely what a good consumer should do.

I mean, their core product (which is the game, I should add) has been broken for more than 20 years.

Pfft, I love my Eldar, and I am not worrying about being labelled as TFG, because nothing about my army is what is screamed about on the net. I only field two grav tanks at the most, which are able to be setup as either Falcons or as old Forgeworld Wave Serpents with starcannons. I only have one squad of any type of Aspect shrine (and one 10-man Ranger squad), and don't have any wish to spend $80 for a Wraithknight.

My army is very traditional, with a good smattering of Guardians (even a squad of HtH guardians), and 10 jetbikes, spread across Guardians, two Warlocks and an Exarch.

Not much to complain about, but I have fun playing it.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
Pfft, I love my Eldar, and I am not worrying about being labelled as TFG, because nothing about my army is what is screamed about on the net. I only field two grav tanks at the most, which are able to be setup as either Falcons or as old Forgeworld Wave Serpents with starcannons. I only have one squad of any type of Aspect shrine (and one 10-man Ranger squad), and don't have any wish to spend $80 for a Wraithknight.

My army is very traditional, with a good smattering of Guardians (even a squad of HtH guardians), and 10 jetbikes, spread across Guardians, two Warlocks and an Exarch.

Not much to complain about, but I have fun playing it.

Similar to me, I have one of every aspect (except my dire avenger troops), no tanks and the crimson hunter. No farseer or any magicy dudes. Keeps me happy and nobody has complained yet.

Play whatever you want. As long as my opponent is playing an army from core 40k (no escalation unless we both agree beforehand that we want to play escalation) then I really don't care. If someone wants to play the nastiest, grimiest, netlistiest list they can, then awesome. I wouldn't look down on them for it. I like to try to find the absolute best lists possible for any army I play. That's part of the fun of it. Refining and tweaking a list until its extremely killer is one of the ways to enjoy this game over time. If you actually enjoy the mechanics of this game, then you WILL get bored playing the same exact army time after time. You'll tweak and refine ad nauseam.

Here's the rub: this game is expensive, and it is a tough sell to dumb down an army that you want to play simply because it is "overpowered". Also, this game is about so much more than overpowered armies. People like to say things like "all else being equal, List A will ALWAYS beat List B." Thing is, all else is NEVER EQUAL. I have been playing 40k for about fifteen years now, and I am not an amazing player by any stretch of the imagination. I can say one thing though. Army FIT is waaaaay more important than army LIST. I promise you, if you're playing an army that you love to play (the models, the tactics, the units, etc.) you will do much better than your opponent, regardless of whether either one of you netlisted your army or play an OP codex or whatever.

The only, and I mean ONLY thing that is a foolish mistake in this hobby is to pick an army you want ONLY because it's powerful.You know why? Because before Eldar people said Tau were OP. Before them Necrons were OP. Before them Grey Knights were OP. Before them Space Wolves were OP. Before them Ork Nob Bikers were OP. Before them Tyranids were OP. Before them Chaos Marines were OP. And so on and so on and so on. Armies will fluctuate in power and every army will have its day in the sun when it is declared OP.

Except for Dark Angels and Sisters of Battle.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
Pfft, I love my Eldar, and I am not worrying about being labelled as TFG, because nothing about my army is what is screamed about on the net. I only field two grav tanks at the most, which are able to be setup as either Falcons or as old Forgeworld Wave Serpents with starcannons. I only have one squad of any type of Aspect shrine (and one 10-man Ranger squad), and don't have any wish to spend $80 for a Wraithknight.

My army is very traditional, with a good smattering of Guardians (even a squad of HtH guardians), and 10 jetbikes, spread across Guardians, two Warlocks and an Exarch.

Not much to complain about, but I have fun playing it.

I play with no tanks. Gotcha beat!

Ha, well, I need the tanks to transport the models that aren't on jetbikes basically. My army is based similar to Saim-Hann, but with more of a "Corsair" feel.

In general, unless you bring a netlist, or a very spamy one, using any army is fine. and to be honest, in my experience its only a minority of players who can afford to bandwagon whenever a new codex with broken units rolls round. the TFG where i play has a chaos army he has 4 hell turkeys for. he runs a Jetseer council plus wave serpent spam, alternated with jetseer and wraithknight spam. has 5 riptides and alternates between Tau/Tau and Taudar. he was also the person to get a Revenant as soon as escalation dropped and called foul when people didn't want to play him. also in his collection is draigo wing, longfang and runepriest spam, and a 5 tervigon tyranid army from before the new codex dropped.
Guess how much of it is painted.....

Now, if i wanted i 'could' do likewise, since i have a fairly well paid job, and a wife who understands my hobby, and i'm quite a competitive soul. however there are things i like spending money on more.

The kicker is, though, if you are new to a group, and bring in what is seen as being the latest 'broken' army, you will be seen as a bandwagoner. The same thing happened to me when i got back into the hobby, and after buying a load of new necron units, and painting them, i got called out for choosing a broken army. i responded by taking all my newcrons off the table, replacing them with originals, and since the monolith i had wasn't built, i had just happened to take the monolith i scratch built before the model was even released (a very bad hurried job for a tournament back in the day!
some people just need to have it rubbed in their faces for effect that your models are in a lot of cases older than they are!