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Quit 40k a couple months back. I'm really thinking about coming back and possibly going Eldar. (I already have a couple models that I never got rid of) So I got a couple questions I'd really like answered if any experienced Eldar players or just generals out there that keep up with the competitive scene of 40k. I'm very aware at how fast the meta is changing and shifting power because of all these changes GW is pushing out...


1) I was wondering what is the state of the Eldar faction now? Are they still competitive? I'm fairly certain this is going to be a yes So....

2) How powerful Wave spam is now with Tau up in the charts. I used to play Tau before I quit (few months ago) and I would kill 2 Wave Serpents a turn easy. Sometimes 3 if it presented itself... this really neutered the Eldar armies I fought that did WS spam and I usually won those battles.

3) Is the seerstar needed to "keep up?" I'm assuming it's not mandatory. If it's not mandatory for Eldar to win, then how is Eldar building now a days? TLDR: What is a top competitive build look like for Eldar now?

4) How good is an 6-10x Eldar Warlock + 2x Jetbike Farseer "mini-deathstar" without the Baron from DE?

5) Any new armies/builds coming up in the ranks that threaten Eldar pretty hard?

6) Current top allies? Before it was all tau tau tau mostly...


Really looking forward to some answers. Thanks guys.

1) It's widely regarded as the strongest codex around.

2) Still pretty strong. Tau are a good counter to it, but the units that can go with Serpents (Wraithknights) are pretty good against Tau.

3) No, you can field a bunch of other Eldar stuff, without the Seer-star and be feared. It's the strongest list around, but isn't the only strong one the Eldar codex has within it.

4) Most councils include the Baron. I run one with him myself, and he's usually MVP with what he brings to the unit. H&R is very important, while his 2++ and grenades are very useful. You can run the council without him, but it's just not quite as strong. You're really relying on breaking out of combat by your turn at that point. Half the threat of the council is it's mobility to eat a unit/turn. If you lose a whole turn due to being locked in combat, it'll really hurt. And 6 warlocks + 2 seers isn't a "mini-deathstar" it's still 530 points, and needs ~100 points of wargear to be effective.

5) AM/IG looks kinda strong now. Between cover ignoring stuff and all their new gear, they look like that can play us well. Aside from that, the centurion star thing has done a number on me in the past. Tau is a hard matchup, and I always fear the drop-pod lists. Scars Bikers are pretty good too.

6) Allying in Tau is somewhat common. Getting some Skyfire/Interceptor mainly. Dark Eldar is allied for the Seer Council or Beastpack, other than that, you won't see them. Those two are our only Battle brothers, and have some great stuff we can pinch. Without being able to have mixed units, most allies are not useful, as Eldar codex stuff quite often trumps things they can offer.



A common expression i've heard regarding Eldar is that you can pick X points worth of models from the codex, and have a competitive army. Whilst a slight misnomer, there is some truth to it. We have strong selections in every slot, and a bunch of different workable builds which can be difficult to handle.

Units to stay away from (for competitive play);
Banshees, Vypers, Hemlock, Storm Guardians, Yriel

Units considered 'weak';
Avatar, Wraithlords, Scorpions, most of the Pheonix lords, Fire Prisms, Warlocks (for guardian units), Fire Dragons (too expensive), Rangers, Crimson Hunter, Autarch, Falcon

Units considered moderate;
Spiritseers, Wraithguard/Blades, Vaul's Wrath, Nightspinners, Dark Reapers, Shining Spears, Asurmen, War Walkers, Harlequins

Units considered strong;
Wraithknights, Farseers, Hawks, Guardians/Avengers, Eldrad

Units considered overpowered;
Seercouncil, Wave Serpents, Warp Spiders,Jetbikes

This is by no means comprehensive and i've just written it quickly now. I've based this on my own experience and my perceived 'internet consensus'. Play some games with different things, and see what you like. There's a huge variety of models and styles of play, Eldar are lucky to have such a varied and strong range of models.

Concur on most points. The perceived power levels of the Eldar units is pretty much the same that I hear as well.

Interesting. That's a really nice summary Belly thank you!

Brings up a few more questions though

1) What is the Centurion star? Must be something new that came up after I quit...

2) Wondering why you put the Wraithknight as still competitive/ strong? I thought they get really destroyed now by Centurions and all the anti-AV strong weaponry that is being brought to counter LoW and Escalation models?

3) On that topic, what is Eldar's standard Mech/WS lists doing to combat LoW and Escalation type behemoths? Those things look pretty tough to crack without Fire Dragons/ firepower designated for taking those super heavies out...

4) Anything in Forgeworld you guys would put into those categories of competitive/ strong/ moderate?


Thanks again!

1) Centurion Star is a squad of C:SM Grav Centurions with a Chapter Master w/Shield Eternal and typically on a bike. Some people like to add another Chapter Master, Tigurius and Coteaz for more cheese. Very durable and shooty unit, but not very fast unless it has Gate of Infinity.

2) Even if it goes down to high strength shooting, it's T8 which means it shrugs off more than its fair share of the opponent's army. It is also fast (or maybe can be fast, not sure) and has S10 shooting, which is difficult to find.

3) It depends entirely on the LoW - if it's AV13 like a stompa you can hurt it with Serpent Shield fire, otherwise you'll need to bring a lot of lances/dragons.

4) Not sure about forge world, sorry...

 rabidguineapig wrote:
1) Centurion Star is a squad of C:SM Grav Centurions with a Chapter Master w/Shield Eternal and typically on a bike. Some people like to add another Chapter Master, Tigurius and Coteaz for more cheese. Very durable and shooty unit, but not very fast unless it has Gate of Infinity.

2) Even if it goes down to high strength shooting, it's T8 which means it shrugs off more than its fair share of the opponent's army. It is also fast (or maybe can be fast, not sure) and has S10 shooting, which is difficult to find.

3) It depends entirely on the LoW - if it's AV13 like a stompa you can hurt it with Serpent Shield fire, otherwise you'll need to bring a lot of lances/dragons.

4) Not sure about forge world, sorry...

a fairly good side note is that most people don't use LoW... so make sure you know what your opponent or playing group uses for their normal games. While Escalation is part of normal 40k, most people avoid it.

Ya... MOST people. A majority of my LFGS however do not avoid it.... I'd prefer it if it was banned all together but the majority vote got that most players will be using LOW and escalation models.

So I need to come prepared enough to be able to handle those things when necessary because in a tournament environment, I know people will be dropping some on me.

 syypher wrote:
Interesting. That's a really nice summary Belly thank you!

Brings up a few more questions though

1) What is the Centurion star? Must be something new that came up after I quit...

2) Wondering why you put the Wraithknight as still competitive/ strong? I thought they get really destroyed now by Centurions and all the anti-AV strong weaponry that is being brought to counter LoW and Escalation models?

3) On that topic, what is Eldar's standard Mech/WS lists doing to combat LoW and Escalation type behemoths? Those things look pretty tough to crack without Fire Dragons/ firepower designated for taking those super heavies out...

4) Anything in Forgeworld you guys would put into those categories of competitive/ strong/ moderate?


Thanks again!

No problem, happy to help

1) As previously mentioned - adding Tigurius seems to be the norm in my local scene. He gives you a good chance at rolling up ignore cover, guarantees prescience, and gives you a chance at rolling Gate of Infinity, should you want it.

2) They do get destroyed by centurions, but then again, pretty much anything dies to a since round of shooting from Grav centurions. They are quite resilient to high str weapons though. Give them a coversave from area terrain, forewarning, or something like that and you're golden. I'm much happier seeing my Knight shot by a lascannon than one of my wave serpents. Melta only wounds on a 4+, so he can shrug a surprising amount of shooting from Melta. Poison and Sniper is what gets him.

3) Lances. Bright lances got cheap with the new codex. Give them to guardians, war walkers, anywhere you can really (but not wave serpents). Wraithknights are good with Str10 shooting, and can punch stuff in melee. They can also tank some Str D shooting (SOME). Wraithguard with Wraithcannons, Fire prisms with their Str9 Ap1 shot can pinch hit (if unreliable). Crimson Hunters actually get much better with a superheavy on the table. Also, Swooping Hawks can be great. Haywire grenades will scare the hell outta a superheavy. Getting them into combat with it is hard though. Assuming they come in on turn 2, they cannot assault it till turn 3, and will get shot to peices before that ever happens.

4) Hornets. 80 points gets you an Av11 skimmer with 4 Str8 shots (pulse lasers). Good against superheavies, and a squadron of 3 with prescience will murder flyers with 3-4 hits at strength 8. The Revenant Titan is absolute gold, but expensive (dollars and points), and will have players refusing to play you. I've just purchased a Lynx, but havn't played a game with it yet. Not a huge amount of strong Forgeworld stuff, our codex still trumps it. The small flyer is decent too. The name evades me at the moment. It's what the Crimson Hunter wishes it was.

Belly wrote:

 syypher wrote:
Interesting. That's a really nice summary Belly thank you!

Brings up a few more questions though

1) What is the Centurion star? Must be something new that came up after I quit...

2) Wondering why you put the Wraithknight as still competitive/ strong? I thought they get really destroyed now by Centurions and all the anti-AV strong weaponry that is being brought to counter LoW and Escalation models?

3) On that topic, what is Eldar's standard Mech/WS lists doing to combat LoW and Escalation type behemoths? Those things look pretty tough to crack without Fire Dragons/ firepower designated for taking those super heavies out...

4) Anything in Forgeworld you guys would put into those categories of competitive/ strong/ moderate?


Thanks again!

No problem, happy to help

1) As previously mentioned - adding Tigurius seems to be the norm in my local scene. He gives you a good chance at rolling up ignore cover, guarantees prescience, and gives you a chance at rolling Gate of Infinity, should you want it.

2) They do get destroyed by centurions, but then again, pretty much anything dies to a since round of shooting from Grav centurions. They are quite resilient to high str weapons though. Give them a coversave from area terrain, forewarning, or something like that and you're golden. I'm much happier seeing my Knight shot by a lascannon than one of my wave serpents. Melta only wounds on a 4+, so he can shrug a surprising amount of shooting from Melta. Poison and Sniper is what gets him.

3) Lances. Bright lances got cheap with the new codex. Give them to guardians, war walkers, anywhere you can really (but not wave serpents). Wraithknights are good with Str10 shooting, and can punch stuff in melee. They can also tank some Str D shooting (SOME). Wraithguard with Wraithcannons, Fire prisms with their Str9 Ap1 shot can pinch hit (if unreliable). Crimson Hunters actually get much better with a superheavy on the table. Also, Swooping Hawks can be great. Haywire grenades will scare the hell outta a superheavy. Getting them into combat with it is hard though. Assuming they come in on turn 2, they cannot assault it till turn 3, and will get shot to peices before that ever happens.

4) Hornets. 80 points gets you an Av11 skimmer with 4 Str8 shots (pulse lasers). Good against superheavies, and a squadron of 3 with prescience will murder flyers with 3-4 hits at strength 8. The Revenant Titan is absolute gold, but expensive (dollars and points), and will have players refusing to play you. I've just purchased a Lynx, but havn't played a game with it yet. Not a huge amount of strong Forgeworld stuff, our codex still trumps it. The small flyer is decent too. The name evades me at the moment. It's what the Crimson Hunter wishes it was.

Think Lance spam is good enough to handle escalation/LOW models? More an inquisitive question than argumentative. I honestly don't know or have played with them much. I just read about how unfair they are to the standard game often is all... I do like the Hawks suggestion though. I was planning on picking some of those up.

How does the Crimson Hunter get much better with a super heavy on the table? I don't understand.

Thanks.

I think what is meant with the Hunter is that if your opponent has a LoW, they may have less AA due to points restrictions. Most LoW can't hit flyers, and no D-Weapon to my knowledge can, so the hunter stands a decent chance of firing off a volley, and surviving subsequent turns. With a PL and 2 BL the Hunter stands a good chance of doing some serious damage (more so with exarch upgrade) to the opposing Titan, and taking little damage in return.

To an average av 12 titan, they will do about 2 hullpoints. Of course thats not counting all the defences they will surely have (Sky shield landing pad, void shield generators, void shields, 4+ invul, eldar titan holo fields etc....)

 rabidguineapig wrote:
1) Centurion Star is a squad of C:SM Grav Centurions with a Chapter Master w/Shield Eternal and typically on a bike.

A bike is a really bad idea.

As soon as they move, the bike gains a cover save due to Jink.
This means you can simply Focus Fire on the Centurions. Bypassing the tanking character altogether.

 grendel083 wrote:

 rabidguineapig wrote:
1) Centurion Star is a squad of C:SM Grav Centurions with a Chapter Master w/Shield Eternal and typically on a bike.

A bike is a really bad idea.

As soon as they move, the bike gains a cover save due to Jink.
This means you can simply Focus Fire on the Centurions. Bypassing the tanking character altogether.

Thank you for that tip! I had never thought of that.

Belly wrote:
6) Allying in Tau is somewhat common. Getting some Skyfire/Interceptor mainly. Dark Eldar is allied for the Seer Council or Beastpack, other than that, you won't see them.

Ally the beastpack? Since I'm just coming back I haven't heard of that before.. why do they ally the beast pack instead of Warlock bike squad? Is it a better deathstar? o_o

 syypher wrote:

Belly wrote:
6) Allying in Tau is somewhat common. Getting some Skyfire/Interceptor mainly. Dark Eldar is allied for the Seer Council or Beastpack, other than that, you won't see them.

Ally the beastpack? Since I'm just coming back I haven't heard of that before.. why do they ally the beast pack instead of Warlock bike squad? Is it a better deathstar? o_o

The beast pack is structured similiar to the council. You get the Baron, 2 Farseers on jetbikes, and a bunch of Beastmasters with Khymera. It's slightly cheaper, but not quite as killy. You get a bunch of plain S4 attacks (in addition to the baron/farseers). But you get a large footprint of fearless 4++ save gribblies. More useful for board control and tying things up than killing everything. It's not 'better' just different.

1) I was wondering what is the state of the Eldar faction now? Are they still competitive? I'm fairly certain this is going to be a yes So....

Still competitive.


2) How powerful Wave spam is now with Tau up in the charts. I used to play Tau before I quit (few months ago) and I would kill 2 Wave Serpents a turn easy. Sometimes 3 if it presented itself... this really neutered the Eldar armies I fought that did WS spam and I usually won those battles.

Serpent spam is highly competitive vs. Tau. Get rid off the markerlights in turn 1 and then the Serpents will rule.


3) Is the seerstar needed to "keep up?" I'm assuming it's not mandatory. If it's not mandatory for Eldar to win, then how is Eldar building now a days? TLDR: What is a top competitive build look like for Eldar now?

Well, depends on the enemy. A fast army focussing on cc like Daemons are a big threat for Serpent spam since once the Serpents are caught in cc they are gone. Therefore you need some units to battle those fast moving units. A Seerstar would be an option as are one or two Wraithknights.


4) How good is an 6-10x Eldar Warlock + 2x Jetbike Farseer "mini-deathstar" without the Baron from DE?

The Baron adds a lot of synergy to a Seerstar. A Seerstar can become more like a liability if you don't get fortune.


5) Any new armies/builds coming up in the ranks that threaten Eldar pretty hard?

Not really.


6) Current top allies? Before it was all tau tau tau mostly...

Tau, maybe Space Marines.

Belly wrote:

 syypher wrote:

Belly wrote:
6) Allying in Tau is somewhat common. Getting some Skyfire/Interceptor mainly. Dark Eldar is allied for the Seer Council or Beastpack, other than that, you won't see them.

Ally the beastpack? Since I'm just coming back I haven't heard of that before.. why do they ally the beast pack instead of Warlock bike squad? Is it a better deathstar? o_o

The beast pack is structured similiar to the council. You get the Baron, 2 Farseers on jetbikes, and a bunch of Beastmasters with Khymera. It's slightly cheaper, but not quite as killy. You get a bunch of plain S4 attacks (in addition to the baron/farseers). But you get a large footprint of fearless 4++ save gribblies. More useful for board control and tying things up than killing everything. It's not 'better' just different.

Dont forget those S4 attacks are rending. Thats what counts