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Hi there! I'm planning on returning to 40k with Eldar and I'm curious of their state of the game compared to all the crazy stuff that's out there now. It seems everyone's gotten some nice powerful bits and pieces here and there with all the supplements, data slates and stuff.

So...

1) How do they fair in the meta now? The locals here are very diverse which is awesome.

2) What does a competitive Serpent list look like nowadays? Not sure what supplements or synergizes well with them anymore. (I played them VERY early 7e/ late 6e but haven't played for quite some time)

3) What's good and bad in the codex as far as the changes with all the toys everyone else has now? Anything I should include in competitive tournament play? Anything I shouldn't?

Eldar are pretty OP. But, if that's what you have, you'll have to shrug off the hate and play them anyway.

1) Great
2) Spam
3) Howling banshees are still bad.

Everyone has something OP they can bring or do now a days with all the updates, ally configs, supplements etc. And most people at my locals make use of them Hardly anyone cries cheese or anything now a days because they themselves have a demon summoning spam army or 3x IKs haha It's good for our community as a whole and I like it!

Anyways, spam what? Serpents? Is that the bread and butter of the army?

How does the army specifically play? Losing a serpent seems drastically like a huge kick to the balls if that's all you have. Any advice would be great

(Remember I haven't played in a while. I'm trying to catch up!)

"Everyone has something OP"

Still looking in my BA codex.

Avoid Banshees and Harlequinns and you'll be just fine.

 syypher wrote:
Everyone has something OP they can bring or do now a days with all the updates, ally configs, supplements etc. And most people at my locals make use of them Hardly anyone cries cheese or anything now a days because they themselves have a demon summoning spam army or 3x IKs haha It's good for our community as a whole and I like it!

Anyways, spam what? Serpents? Is that the bread and butter of the army?

How does the army specifically play? Losing a serpent seems drastically like a huge kick to the balls if that's all you have. Any advice would be great

(Remember I haven't played in a while. I'm trying to catch up!)

There is ALWAYS some one crying cheese. heck Martel does it enough alone for eldar
Serpents are the bread and butter of any min maxed eldar list.
High ST in volume shooting that ignores cover is broken as well as the ablility to twin link it with scatter lasers. As a DT. With a wicked save if they need it. at 60" range ish. (forgot scatter laser range)
The army plays in the order of. shoot things till they stop moving. the WS can deal with 90% of your issues. the 10% can be covered by WK. T5-6 turbo boost your jetbikes into objectives and win. or do so throughout the game for maelstrom.

@Martel: DOH lol that's so new I haven't looked through it yet. Ok well everyone except BA, except you can do triple IK formation too.. so kind of like you can make a power list just with that sorta kinda SORRY!

...basically shoot and don't try to make an assault army and you'll be just fine.

The army tends to focus on serpents with scatter lasers backed by the heavy choices of your flavor...all heavies are good and you're doing it right as long as you max this FoC slot out.

But the best are WraithKnights and War Walkers (search for war walker loadout threads...you'll find approximately one billion)

I personally use vaul's wrath, a Nightspinner, and though everyone on here hates me for it, a falcon

Warp Spiders may be the strongest unit in the entire game.

Crimson Hunters are good.

Dragons are okay, but you could also take Wraithguard for arguably better results.

6 man Swooping Hawks are good...your choice if you want the sunrifle exarch or not

guardians or dire avengers...good on both sides

jetbikes are amazing.

welcome the mantleseer or solitaire or solitarch (farseer or autarch on jetbike with mantle of the laughing god...search threads for this too)

phoenix lords are still hard to play...but not awful.

 ductvader wrote:
...basically shoot and don't try to make an assault army and you'll be just fine.

The army tends to focus on serpents with scatter lasers backed by the heavy choices of your flavor...all heavies are good and you're doing it right as long as you max this FoC slot out.

But the best are WraithKnights and War Walkers (search for war walker loadout threads...you'll find approximately one billion)

I personally use vaul's wrath, a Nightspinner, and though everyone on here hates me for it, a falcon

Warp Spiders may be the strongest unit in the entire game.

Crimson Hunters are good.

Dragons are okay, but you could also take Wraithguard for arguably better results.

6 man Swooping Hawks are good...your choice if you want the sunrifle exarch or not

guardians or dire avengers...good on both sides

jetbikes are amazing.

welcome the mantleseer or solitaire or solitarch (farseer or autarch on jetbike with mantle of the laughing god...search threads for this too)

phoenix lords are still hard to play...but not awful.

Thank you! This is awesome info! Why do you have such high regard for Warp Spiders?

Because they're fairly cheap and fast...really really fast. And have an amazing S6-7 pseudo rending gun.

One other tidbit. With most armies, you choose an HQ and then build your army out.

Eldar kind of works backwards, figure out what you want and then find the HQ that makes those things better.

It'll be farseer on bike the majority of the time.

But I like to play outside the box and use the solitarch (autarch, mantle, fusion gun, laser lance, banshee mask, jetbike)

 Desubot wrote:

 syypher wrote:
Everyone has something OP they can bring or do now a days with all the updates, ally configs, supplements etc. And most people at my locals make use of them Hardly anyone cries cheese or anything now a days because they themselves have a demon summoning spam army or 3x IKs haha It's good for our community as a whole and I like it!

Anyways, spam what? Serpents? Is that the bread and butter of the army?

How does the army specifically play? Losing a serpent seems drastically like a huge kick to the balls if that's all you have. Any advice would be great

(Remember I haven't played in a while. I'm trying to catch up!)

There is ALWAYS some one crying cheese. heck Martel does it enough alone for eldar
Serpents are the bread and butter of any min maxed eldar list.
High ST in volume shooting that ignores cover is broken as well as the ablility to twin link it with scatter lasers. As a DT. With a wicked save if they need it. at 60" range ish. (forgot scatter laser range)
The army plays in the order of. shoot things till they stop moving. the WS can deal with 90% of your issues. the 10% can be covered by WK. T5-6 turbo boost your jetbikes into objectives and win. or do so throughout the game for maelstrom.

The synergy of a main battle tank transport and troops that shred MCs and teqs is still awe-inspiring to me. The amount of bases Eldar can cover with just their troop slots is awesome. High STR, high ROF shooting, check. Anti-MC, check. Anti-teq, check. Marines need a gravstar to replicate this, and then this locks us into a certain build.

 syypher wrote:


Thank you! This is awesome info! Why do you have such high regard for Warp Spiders?

They're extremely mobile. 12" move in movement phase. 6" run and shoot in shooting phase. 2d6" move in the assault phase. I think they're the only unit in the game that has a movement in every phase AND still gets to shoot.

On top of that, 3+ armour makes them fairly durable. Str 6 weapons that are AP 1 on 6s or Str 7 against vehicles and a high volume of fire.

AND they have hit and run.

There's almost no downside to this unit.

Zimko wrote:

 syypher wrote:


Thank you! This is awesome info! Why do you have such high regard for Warp Spiders?

They're extremely mobile. 12" move in movement phase. 6" run and shoot in shooting phase. 2d6" move in the assault phase. I think they're the only unit in the game that has a movement in every phase AND still gets to shoot.

On top of that, 3+ armour makes them fairly durable. Str 6 weapons that are AP 1 on 6s or Str 7 against vehicles and a high volume of fire.

AND they have hit and run.

There's almost no downside to this unit.

Besides price and T3 but thats minimal.

Interesting... so the best value/ bang for buck in the Heavy slot is the WK?

 syypher wrote:
Interesting... so the best value/ bang for buck in the Heavy slot is the WK?

War Walkers probably take that honor, but the WK is at worst a close second.

You should only use falcons and Vypers for vehicles

Oh snap, really o_o? War Walkers? I'm sorry... it's been a while since I've played with them. Last time was pre-Eldar Codex update and they were pretty trash LOL

They are good now? o_O??

 syypher wrote:
Oh snap, really o_o? War Walkers? I'm sorry... it's been a while since I've played with them. Last time was pre-Eldar Codex update and they were pretty trash LOL

They are good now? o_O??

Battle Focus made them a lot better. The ability to move out of cover, shoot, then run back into cover. This makes them much more durable.

 syypher wrote:
Oh snap, really o_o? War Walkers? I'm sorry... it's been a while since I've played with them. Last time was pre-Eldar Codex update and they were pretty trash LOL

They are good now? o_O??

War walkers were brutal in 4th/5th. Eldrad would fortune them and they'd park in ruins with a 4+++ rerollable. And shower your list with guided scatter lasers.

 syypher wrote:
@Martel: DOH lol that's so new I haven't looked through it yet. Ok well everyone except BA, except you can do triple IK formation too.. so kind of like you can make a power list just with that sorta kinda SORRY!

Serpent Spam can beat IK. They are maneuverable enough to get multiple angles and ignore shields, and 6-11 TL S6/7 shots (assuming you just take the SL) will strip hull points from AV12 very nicely. Plus, you can do the battle-focus fire dragons trick to get around the shield, after it's been placed.

 syypher wrote:
Everyone has something OP

That's why i bring dual reaver titans and win every match in 1 turn.