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I'm new to the Eldar and this is my first list. I don't play against Eldar so I'd like come criticism and advice as I'm not sure if this list will function.
Farseer joins the Shining Spears. Warlocks on jetbikes join the windriders. Warlock on foot joins the support battery.

HQ
Farseer
Eldar jetbike, singing spear, Mantle of the Laughing God

Warlock council
2x Warlocks w/singing spears & eldar jetbikes
1 warlock w/witchblade & sp

Elites
4x Firedragons
1x Firedragon exarch w/fast shot
1x Wave Serpent w/TL scatter lasers, holofields

Troops
4x Dire Avengers
1x Dire Avenger Exarch, Disarming Strike, Shield of Grace, sp & diresword
1x Wave Serpent w/TL scatter lasers, holofields

7x Windriders

7x Windriders

Fast Attack
4x Shining Spears
1x Shining Spear Exarch, Star Lance, Monster Hunter

7x Swooping Hawks
1x Swooping Hawk Exarch, Sunrifle, Hit & Run

7x Swooping Hawks
1x Swooping Hawk Exarch, Sunrifle, Hit & Run

Heavy Support
1x Fire Prism, holofields

Vaul's Wrath Support Battery
3x D-Cannons

If you give the Farseer the Mantle, ha loses the ability to join squads. He also doesn't directly add much to the unit in terms of combat prowess, any Blessings / Maledictions you are wanting to use can be cast from one of the other Jetbike units.

In a unit of only 5 Dire Avengers, pimping out an Exarch is a waste of points, you'd be better off adding more basic DA instead - more firepower, more wounds.

With the points from Mantle, add Shuriken cannons to the Guardian Jetbike units, getting the entire unit within 12" will leave it vulnerable so the extra range is useful.

D-Cannons are really short ranged, and can be tricky to use, you could down-grade them to Shadow-weavers.

What a let down about the Mantle. I misunderstood what losing IC means.

I like the idea of a unit of Shining Spears as a hunter-killer squad and the Farseer as their leader using his psychic powers to augment them. I suppose without the Mantle I still have a 50% chance to roll up Invisibility on the Telepathy table, which is even better than the effects of the Mantle. I could drop 2 warlocks and the Mantle and add another Farseer on bike with a spear, which gives me a 75% chance of rolling up Invisibility but the rest of the powers might not be that useful. I'm not sure if I should abandon this plan or not, but it sounds fun to play.

The Farseer with a Singing Spear is a bit of an augment to the Shining Spears, isn't it? The Str 9 weapon is going to come in handy for busting transports as it's the highest strength weapon in the group. Once the transport is busted, the Shining Spears can charge the occupants. If I can get Prescience, which is only a 12" range, it will make the Shining Spears charge that much more deadly.


The support battery is bait. The D-Cannons make it a threat and it's the only thing that can't zip across the board away from a threat. Can you explain what you mean by D-cannons being tricky to use?

If you have some warp spiders, you should definitely run them. They're just too good. Drop a unit of Hawks and you should be able to grab 6-7 basic spiders, no exarch necessary. They're great for killing just about anything in the game up to armor 13. They're also insanely fast: 2d6+6" in the movement phase, d6" rerollable battle focus in the shooting phase, and another 2d6" in the assault phase. Basically, despite the fact that they only have a 12" range, you'll pretty much always get where you need to be and they'll never be stranded. They are the kings of JsJ. I'd be inclined to swap both units of Hawks for Spiders.

If you're using the Shining Spears as your big hitters, you'll need a few more I think. They only get 1 attack each (2 realistically, on the charge) and really need to do most of their killing on the charge.
For that reason I'd recommend Hit and Run, it's much more valuable on them than the Hawks.

I can see your point about the Farseer with the Spear, but you could be busting the transport with other units instead. The lack of an AP value will mean not adding much to the killing in combat. Prescience is good, and Psychic Shriek from Telepathy is a good Primaris since you're going for Invisibility. If you do go with 2 'Seers for more chance at Invis, you don't have to join the other to the unit and could go off with one of the other units.

For the D-Cannons, I meant tricky because of the short range. Without Guide, shooting at units out of LoS can mean a scatter of half the weapon's range. The Warlock would imply hiding them in cover to increase survivability, but then you're limited by needing a suitable piece of terrain near the front-center of your deployment in order to maximize the threat bubble. I can see the strategy of hammer-and-anvil with the rest of your army being really mobile.

Astro's comment about Warp Spiders is true, they are really rather good.

So, suggestion from original list:
-Mantle, DA exarch, one unit of Hawks, Hit&Run from other Hawk exarch, one Windrider.
+second Farseer (inc. Jetbike), 4 Shuricannons for Windriders (2 per squad), 3 extra Shining Spears, 2 extra Dire Avengers (for a total of 7), Hit & Run on Shining Spear Exarch.

Loses you one squad of Hawks, but gets you a second HQ and beefs-up other units.

D cannons are also tricky in that Vaul's Wrath Batteries are Artillery. Which means they cannot shoot if they have moved. The range on D-cannons almost always necessitates moving them forward for at least one turn.

Also regarding the comments about hawks vs spiders - Warp spiders are good. There's no denying that. But that does not mean that hawks aren't good. If you are playing this list because it seems fun to play then keep the hawks. They will still perform well, and Blind is surprisingly good against a few lists. You've got D-cannons, a fire prism, and a squad of fire dragons to take care of enemy vehicles, with hawk haywire to back them up, so you don't necessarily need the S7 from the spiders.

I'm into Swooping Hawks for 3 reasons.
1. Nobody will call my army cheesy if I run with two squads. It ruins my fun when people complain about my list.
2. My main opponents are Necrons, IG, Dark Eldar, Orks, Daemons and CSM. In the majority of those lists, the grenade packs will be very effective at thinning out troops. The sunrifle will be useful against most of them and so will the lasblasters and haywire grenades.
3. Heralds of Victory and Skyleap. Turn 1 they skyleap. Turn 2 they DS, grenade pack and blind. Turn 3 they do whatever they can. Turn 4 they skyleap. Turn 5 they DS to contest objectives and blind. Two of the objectives my opponent has claimed will be instantly under threat. I can threaten a third with my Shining Spears. That leaves my windriders and DA to claim uncontested objectives. They may not hit hard but they're good strategically.

Lots of good advice overall. You have a good selection of units, but I support the previous comments to overhaul weapons and wargear, plus some.

The farseer can run with a mantle, or in a squad. Farseer's are not CC beasts, and the spears will be getting into the thick of things. Most buff's can be applied safely from another squad or behind something if your going with a mantle.

Give your jetbikes shuricannons if you want six or more. Only take them in groups of three to unlock the cannons.

Avenger exarch's are only needed for a full squad of 10, and then you generally want shimmershield and power weapon. Disarming strike, the diresword and battle luck are all great for casual games, but not for tournament play.

The spear exarch needs hit and run, as they are worthless after they charge. Hawks can live without it.

D cannons are very expensive on a unit that functions primarily by being cheap. The weavers are very strong for the cost, with better range and barrage.

Why seven bikes? It seems like such an oddball number... take the 6 for two cannons, but the seventh has no effective point.

Hawks make fantastic harassers, but once again, why seven? You take the 6 for the large blast, but the seventh one is just stuck on the end with no purpose.

Why Monster Hunter on the Spear Exarch? Realistically a pointless ability for someone with so few attacks, and they NEED Hit and Run and Skilled Rider. Those two are much better choices.

I'd say dump the Battery. It's a cumbersome unit that needs support to be effective, and your 'High Speed, Low Drag' army will leave them in the dust and feeling useless. I'd use the points for a third team of 6 Windriders with 2 Cannons.

With all of the points cleared up, slap H&R and Skilled Rider on the Spears, and put 2-3 more bodies in the team.

As a Nurgle Marine player for over a decade, 7 usually seems about the right number in a squad.

This advice is very helpful! I'll post later with a revised list for more tweaking.

I like the farseer with mantle. 2+ refillable cover and a moving tl giver/ psychic shriek caster. Seems you could use both refills to hit on artillery and prism. I like it but the bikes as said best in 6 and the dire avengers usually best to only exarch if getting 10

 Will1541 wrote:
Why Monster Hunter on the Spear Exarch? Realistically a pointless ability for someone with so few attacks, and they NEED Hit and Run and Skilled Rider. Those two are much better choices.

I'd say dump the Battery. It's a cumbersome unit that needs support to be effective, and your 'High Speed, Low Drag' army will leave them in the dust and feeling useless. I'd use the points for a third team of 6 Windriders with 2 Cannons.

With all of the points cleared up, slap H&R and Skilled Rider on the Spears, and put 2-3 more bodies in the team.

Agreed on the number 7 being very odd for Eldar, but I'd like to adress some of the things you said...

Spears have Skilled Rider from the get-go. And Monster-Hunter is amazing on any unit with TL shuriken catapults and on a squad with S6AP3 melee weapons, it's murder for anything both in shooting and in assault. To top it all off, it's 5 points, lol. Well worth the cost, Shining Spears excel at hunting MCs and vehicles. And since the only other worthwhile power is Hit and Run, you can have both, AND Skilled Rider and Outflank(which all Spears have by default).

I agree that D-Cannons aren't an obvious choice for his army. Shadow Weavers are different, because they're just 90 points, have 48" range and doesn't need LOS. So it's not such a big deal to just drop it somewhere and kill troops all day long. It could even be used to hunt Predators, Chimeras, Vindicators, etc.

Also, I play with jetbikes a lot. One of their problems is the massive footprint that the models leave. Usually I have around 15 jetbike on the table and the board is already somewhat crowded. For a unit that lives and dies by its mobility, you should make sure that you'll have a place to escape, which could be tricky if you have 20+ jetbikes on the table.

Here is the revised list with most of the suggestions made included.

HQ
Farseer
Eldar jetbike, singing spear

Farseer
Eldar jetbike, singing spear

Warlock council
Warlock w/singing spears & eldar jetbike
Warlock w/witchblade


Elites
4x Firedragons
1x Firedragon exarch w/fast shot
1x Wave Serpent w/TL scatter lasers, holofields

Troops
9x Dire Avengers
1x Dire Avenger Exarch, Disarming Strike, Battle Fate, sp & diresword
1x Wave Serpent w/TL scatter lasers, holofields

6x Windriders, 2x shuricannons

6x Windriders, 2x shuricannons

Fast Attack
5x Shining Spears
1x Shining Spear Exarch, Star Lance, Monster Hunter, Hit & Run

5x Swooping Hawks
1x Swooping Hawk Exarch, Sunrifle, Hit & Run

5x Swooping Hawks
1x Swooping Hawk Exarch, Sunrifle, Hit & Run

Heavy Support
1x Fire Prism, holofields

Vaul's Wrath Support Battery
3x Shadow Weavers

Swooping Hawks still have Hit & Run. I decided I wanted to keep this so that I could disengage if I get caught in assault so I can Skyleap turn 4 if I want. That way I can DS to contest objective on turn 5.

I've changed Shield of Grace to Battle Fate so I can get more than 1 attack with the Dire Sword. Let me explain my reasoning on the Dire Sword. My opponents generally have some pretty nasty HQs and Monsterous Creatures. The Diresword is a threat. I know the odds are very low that an enemy multi-wound model will be removed as a result of this squad, but the chance is there, and those chances are far better with the Diresword than they are with any power weapon available. He will probably die in a challenge against these models, but there is the chance that the heroic DA Exarch will pull it off and slay a Greater Daemon or Necron Overlord. Not only is that a really cool story, but it will makes this unit a potential threat.

I'm still planning on putting one Farseer in the Shining Spear squad. Regardless of the Farseer's combat prowess, I still think it's a good idea. If I charge a Monsterous Creature Character, and a lot of them are, they'll nerf my charge by issuing a challenge. With the Farseer, I can refuse the challenge with the Farseer and my Exarch with the Star Lance will still get to fight. Also, since my goal is to roll up Invisibility, if the Farseer is in the squad he can benefit from the awesome cover save as well. And he can still throw his powers around just like if he were with one of the windrider squads.

I replaced the D-Cannons in the support battery with Shadow Weavers. I'm not really happy with this switch. Both weapons are barrage. Both are small blast. The Shadow Weaver gets 24" longer range but with a huge cost in strength. The Shadow Weavers are certainly cheaper, but they aren't as effective and not any more survivable. I'm thinking about taking the advice to scrap the support battery and add a 3rd squad of windriders or finding another way of getting some D weaponry on the board. My Necron opponent plays a Mech list. What would I use to get past all that AV13?

Also, what do Eldar players do to deal with Heldrakes?

I like the 2nd list better. A couple of points:

Your Hawks should always have 6 models for the Large Blast version of their grenade pack. This grenade pack is amazing, S4 AP4, Ignores Cover makes it great against Necron warriors and anything without a 3+ save, which is a lot of basic troops in the game and especially good vs Tau Pathfinders and Fire Warriors, Eldar Rangers or SM Sniper Scouts. So take away their H&R and grab a 6th member. You'll rarely get charged by something with their mobility and while H&R is invaluable for when you do(and survive combat), you'll benefit from that Large Blast profile every game.

D-cannons aren't Barrage. That's one of the reasons why the much-cheaper Weavers are a better choice in a TAC list. If you really want to crack vehicles with the Vaul's Wrath Battery, take Vibro cannons instead and Guide them every turn for a likely 3 S9 AP2 hits for just 90 points.

Heldrakes are a big problem for Eldar. Luckily, we have the best way to deal with them - Crimson Hunter. While this flier is fragile, it is particularly effective vs Drakes because Drakes have no way to retaliate or to hide their rear armour(unless they waste turns trying to outmaneuver the CH, which won't happen because if Vector Dancer rule). It's a nifty little jet, but it's hard to use, so prepare for some epic disappointments at first.

What am I missing on the D-Cannons? The codex says Barrage, Blast, Distort.

I should make a note on list format. I have 5 Swooping Hawks plus one Swooping Hawk Exarch for 6 total in the unit. The same convention is used for all entries.

There is no need for a fire dragon exarch or fast shot. Its a point click unit anyways, (except vs super heavies and the like, but then one extra melta shot wont help) and so paying 20 points for one extra shot is quite... meh.

 Warmaster Phthisis wrote:
What am I missing on the D-Cannons? The codex says Barrage, Blast, Distort.

I should make a note on list format. I have 5 Swooping Hawks plus one Swooping Hawk Exarch for 6 total in the unit. The same convention is used for all entries.

My mistake on both accounts. Looks like D-cannons are Barrage, which does give it an edge, but I'm still not sold on it because of the short range(24" is a massive difference in range, mainly because once you get within 24", a great majority of the weapons in the game can reach you), but I often use "odd" unit choices in my lists too, sometimes I even evolve entire strategies around those units and often it works very well for me.

FD Exarch isn't necessary, but isn't a bad buy if you want that 6th melta shot. It is cheaper than adding another member and with higher BS.

If I wasn't going to ride a Farseer in the 2nd WRJ squad, I'd split them into two different squads instead for a number of reasons. First is leadership 8, which gets bumped to 10 when there's an HQ in there. LD8 is bad. During the game, you're likely to fail at least once with it and Jetbikes fall-back 3d6". For a squad whose purpose is to capture and contest objectives, it can be disastrous to fail that game-changing morale check, which you will, if you're anything like me(reason why I always take a Shard of Anaris if there I run any squad worth more than 150 points), A 6-man squad is as likely to fail as a 3-man squad, is worth double the points and the enemy has to split fire on two different targets. They're also a lot smaller, so much easier to hide. And they never have to roll to regroup, as they never fall below 25% squad strength.

Speaking of the Farseer, how about an alternative, as two Farseers are often an overkill, as you're likely to end up with a few useless spells and a few duplicates. Unless you need a specific spell for your list to function, like Fortune in a Seer Council, one Seer will get you through most of the time. An alternative would be:

Autarch with Eldar Jetbike, Banshees Mask, Fusion Fun, Laser Lance - 110 points for a BS6 melta gun, 5 S6 AP3 attacks, -5 initiative on the charge(that way you can charge even a DP with impunity) and because the Spears have no nades, at least most enemies will strike at I1 as well. Outside of combat stats, you get +1/-1 to your reserves, which you can individually assign to every unit you want or don't want arriving for reserves, after you already rolled the dice. It's great for keeping those min jetbike squads in reserves and it's absolutely essential if you decide to run a Crimson Hunter, as you need it arriving precisely when you mean it to(they're kinda like Wizards in that way), else it won't do anything except probably die a horrible crashy death due to his parchment armour.

 Araenion wrote:


Spears have Skilled Rider from the get-go. And Monster-Hunter is amazing on any unit with TL shuriken catapults and on a squad with S6AP3 melee weapons, it's murder for anything both in shooting and in assault. To top it all off, it's 5 points, lol. Well worth the cost, Shining Spears excel at hunting MCs and vehicles. And since the only other worthwhile power is Hit and Run, you can have both, AND Skilled Rider and Outflank(which all Spears have by default).

My humble apologies, I haven't run a squad since 5th ed and obviously misread some things.