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I foresee a few possibilities coming from the new book:

Vehicles that don't have innate invul (daemon) or cover (jink) becoming quite scarce
Knight titans becoming less powerful as a whole
Other LOW options becoming more more accepted (looking at you AETAOS’RAU’KERES)
High wound models with poor saves or models that rely on armour saves will become significantly weaker
Bikes and portals galore being seen over serpents

Anything else you predict will be affected by the new book?

Serpents will definitely take a backseat. Windriders will probably be the default troop choice, although once people get accustomed to them, I think Dire Avengers will still make a strong showing.

Combined Eldar Freakshow lists are set to take off in a big way if I understand the new Hemlock rules correctly.

I think it largely depends on a single branching decision path for TO's like the Frontline guys in the ITC.

-do they make eldar stick it out with the 6e dex until a few other things can compete with them?
-do they just sit back with the ranged D ban in place, and watch eldar dominate despite having several units banned?
-do they just throw their hands up and allow the whole eldar book as is?
-do they get down into the mud and try to fix the book with their own errata?

Option A, obviously, would be a lot like now. Eldar champs would be the most common kind of tourney champ still.
Option B, will most likely lead to jet bikes, melee WK, and fire dragons galore, with the occasional firebase support ally.
Option C, oh dear god no.
Option D, the one I would hope for most, is hard to say. I'm willing to bet a group of people commonly following the tourney scene could fix the codex up quite a bit. There'll always be people that disagree FERVENTLY with whatever changes they make, of course, so it's not an easy route.

I think the new eldar will force people to accept D weapons. it'll be grudingly but I just can't see it not being a thing.

instead we're gonna see calls for "answers" for the other factions. although really if you lump the army groupings based on battle brothers right now the Tau and 'nids alone lack a super heavy

Presence of D and loss of the serpent means more opportunity for horde.

I think that this will only serve to alienate eldar players more than before with them getting even less pickup
games at flg's and their going to be even less fun to play against than before as essentially this shuffles the deck a little but the cards in the deck haven't changed really beyond the numbers of each card type.

I think that if everyone else agrees to do what I do in regards to eldar and just refuse to play them anymore gw will be forced into an intervention.

 Cieged wrote:
Presence of D and loss of the serpent means more opportunity for horde.

Massed scatterlasers, detachments which give Shuriken weapons Shred, etc however do not

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Cieged wrote:
Presence of D and loss of the serpent means more opportunity for horde.

Massed scatterlasers, detachments which give Shuriken weapons Shred, etc however do not

Squadroned vehicles and +1 BS Swooping Hawks w/ an Exarch (BS 6 for those rerollable grenade packs) also say hi.

Eldar players using Eldar will pretty much get less and less pickup games as people constantly lose to them.

If ITC wants to ban several key units in the eldar book, that's fine with me. There's plenty of non ITC tournaments that would love to have my entry fee money. I would assume TOs are much more rational people than all these chicken littles on the Internet crying before they even get a game in. Is the eldar book one of the strongest in the game? Yes, without a doubt. Is it beatable with a good list and a good general? Also yes. As for pickup games, if you don't want to play me that's fine. There's plenty of people in my meta who would rather challenge themselves than expect everyone else to leave their favorite toys at home because they don't know how to build a good list.

Well as far as Tournament meta goes, I can see a lot of things from their codex being banned in the immediate future.

Other than that I can imagine slapping D-Weapons on regular units is going to be a continuing trend if the Transcendent C'tan, Insensate Rage and now whatever Eldar units are an indicator.

I can imagine people are also going to be encouraged to use more cover and terrain.

 Toofast wrote:
If ITC wants to ban several key units in the eldar book, that's fine with me. There's plenty of non ITC tournaments that would love to have my entry fee money. I would assume TOs are much more rational people than all these chicken littles on the Internet crying before they even get a game in. Is the eldar book one of the strongest in the game? Yes, without a doubt. Is it beatable with a good list and a good general? Also yes. As for pickup games, if you don't want to play me that's fine. There's plenty of people in my meta who would rather challenge themselves than expect everyone else to leave their favorite toys at home because they don't know how to build a good list.

I will be more encouraged to go if they DO ban several key units, so I guess we balance out.

Potentially changing IK and deathstar armies. For those who still want to play deathstar competitively, invisibility will be key. Cent-stars already plan for this and I don't expect them to disappear.

I think some folks will try bike spam and realize their army is too one dimensional and counters quickly evolve.

More players will accept that this is 7th edition, not 5th and play the game rather than shoehorn FAQs that get outdated every other month due to the GW release schedule.

The best Eldar armies may be the ones that actually look like a TAC list. This codex appears to be written by folks who really understand what exists in 7th edition.

I am looking forward to adding to my Eldar collection, despite having 20,000 points already painted. Hawks look very cool and they have been my favorite Aspect. Dragons will finally get some play time, which are my second favorite. And the the jetbikes are beautiful, despite me having 20 old ones painted, I will be picking more up.

 Sarigar wrote:
Potentially changing IK and deathstar armies. For those who still want to play deathstar competitively, invisibility will be key. Cent-stars already plan for this and I don't expect them to disappear.

I think some folks will try bike spam and realize their army is too one dimensional and counters quickly evolve.

More players will accept that this is 7th edition, not 5th and play the game rather than shoehorn FAQs that get outdated every other month due to the GW release schedule.

The best Eldar armies may be the ones that actually look like a TAC list. This codex appears to be written by folks who really understand what exists in 7th edition.

I am looking forward to adding to my Eldar collection, despite having 20,000 points already painted. Hawks look very cool and they have been my favorite Aspect. Dragons will finally get some play time, which are my second favorite. And the the jetbikes are beautiful, despite me having 20 old ones painted, I will be picking more up.

Some tournaments already nerf invisibility, though. Similarly, I don't think Ranged D will be allowed, so that's not really an issue.

I agree that the best Eldar armies will be highly flexible rather than spammy -- which is a good thing. I don't think 40+ bikes makes for a winning army, at least not on a 6x4 table; bike spam is definitely a losing proposition on a high point game, IMO. That being said, I think Eldar are becoming more like Space Marines in that they have many tools, and this too is a good thing. In the end, their win ratio may be disproportionately high, since some stuff does seem overpowered or undercosted. Time will tell.

I have 15 of the old bikes, picking up 3 boxes of the new ones to start Just because they are beautiful models, and I would like to add them to my collection, even though I doubt they'll get any play time, any time soon.

I have always liked fire dragons. One of the best Finecast kits, IMO -- but I really wish they would be made into an MPP plastic kit :( And Aspect Warriors... And Guardians... And...

Mostly, I don't play Eldar, because I can't motivate myself to paint the models I'd need in order to play a current, proper list -- I would just rather paint my Dark Eldar models instead :(

Will it shift the meta some? Sure. But look -- people said the sky was falling with Imperial Knights and Decurion, too -- but that didn't happen, right? Even though Decurion is very good (and maybe I've lost to it slightly more than old Necron), it hasn't impacted my fun in the least. One thing that new codex is always nice for is that you see a lot of models that have been shelved a while as the cycle of buffs and nerfs turns.

If we are lucky, this mess of a book will force a widely accepted comp system to be set up for 40K like we saw in Fantasy.


The sky may not have fell with Knights, but that one model redefined the meta, with locally even Nid players adding a knight to their lists.

Yeah, Knights have certainly caused some sky-cracking even if not outright sky-crashing.

That said, again, the stuff that's allowed in the game now was the stuff of pure internet hyperbole a couple of years ago that nobody would ever have considered remotely balanced and would have outright laughed anyone who suggested it out of the room, but when GW prints it many change their tune, no matter how silly it may be. Overall, the game is in many ways kinda falling apart, and I certainly haven't seen house-rules/comp so widespread in...well since 4th edition.

The Imperial Answer wrote:
Well as far as Tournament meta goes, I can see a lot of things from their codex being banned in the immediate future.

Other than that I can imagine slapping D-Weapons on regular units is going to be a continuing trend if the Transcendent C'tan, Insensate Rage and now whatever Eldar units are an indicator.

I can imagine people are also going to be encouraged to use more cover and terrain.

Really? The Transcendant Ctan? It's a piece of gak now compared to any super heavy. Hell, compared to a regular 6th edition Wraithknight it's terrible. They could've kept it as a GC for us to have some sort of reliable Apoc unit, but no. Eldar on the other hand.....

 krodarklorr wrote:

The Imperial Answer wrote:
Well as far as Tournament meta goes, I can see a lot of things from their codex being banned in the immediate future.

Other than that I can imagine slapping D-Weapons on regular units is going to be a continuing trend if the Transcendent C'tan, Insensate Rage and now whatever Eldar units are an indicator.

I can imagine people are also going to be encouraged to use more cover and terrain.

Really? The Transcendant Ctan? It's a piece of gak now compared to any super heavy. Hell, compared to a regular 6th edition Wraithknight it's terrible. They could've kept it as a GC for us to have some sort of reliable Apoc unit, but no. Eldar on the other hand.....

I meant the fact that one of its attacks I believe can have D-Strength (unless I am mistaken).

Tournament wise I don't know cause I've never attended one. Otherwise - in my local group by next week my mate will have 2000 points of eldar. Which he will claim he always meant to buy. The internet bitching of "grey knights, tau, eldar, necrons, eldar have broken the game" will continue to dominate dakkadakka. I will continue to read this with no idea why. I will still never win a game.

The Imperial Answer wrote:

 krodarklorr wrote:

The Imperial Answer wrote:
Well as far as Tournament meta goes, I can see a lot of things from their codex being banned in the immediate future.

Other than that I can imagine slapping D-Weapons on regular units is going to be a continuing trend if the Transcendent C'tan, Insensate Rage and now whatever Eldar units are an indicator.

I can imagine people are also going to be encouraged to use more cover and terrain.

Really? The Transcendant Ctan? It's a piece of gak now compared to any super heavy. Hell, compared to a regular 6th edition Wraithknight it's terrible. They could've kept it as a GC for us to have some sort of reliable Apoc unit, but no. Eldar on the other hand.....

I meant the fact that one of its attacks I believe can have D-Strength (unless I am mistaken).

You are correct. 250 points for T7, non-gargantuan, with less wounds, lower init, lower strength, less mobility, and the strength D weapon is random (1 in 6 chance, after you've chosen your target). Balance, my friend. Balance.

 krodarklorr wrote:

The Imperial Answer wrote:

 krodarklorr wrote:

The Imperial Answer wrote:
Well as far as Tournament meta goes, I can see a lot of things from their codex being banned in the immediate future.

Other than that I can imagine slapping D-Weapons on regular units is going to be a continuing trend if the Transcendent C'tan, Insensate Rage and now whatever Eldar units are an indicator.

I can imagine people are also going to be encouraged to use more cover and terrain.

Really? The Transcendant Ctan? It's a piece of gak now compared to any super heavy. Hell, compared to a regular 6th edition Wraithknight it's terrible. They could've kept it as a GC for us to have some sort of reliable Apoc unit, but no. Eldar on the other hand.....

I meant the fact that one of its attacks I believe can have D-Strength (unless I am mistaken).

You are correct. 250 points for T7, non-gargantuan, with less wounds, lower init, lower strength, less mobility, and the strength D weapon is random (1 in 6 chance, after you've chosen your target). Balance, my friend. Balance.

I never said it was balanced.

I just said its part of a trend I'm starting to notice.

The Imperial Answer wrote:


I never said it was balanced.

I just said its part of a trend I'm starting to notice.

I also would say I've noticed trends with the other 7th edition codexes......

That GW has ignored with Eldar.

 krodarklorr wrote:

The Imperial Answer wrote:


I never said it was balanced.

I just said its part of a trend I'm starting to notice.

I also would say I've noticed trends with the other 7th edition codexes......

That GW has ignored with Eldar.

I think they've ignored a lot of things at this point.

Common sense perhaps being one of the bigger things.

 screaminskull wrote:
Tournament wise I don't know cause I've never attended one. Otherwise - in my local group by next week my mate will have 2000 points of eldar. Which he will claim he always meant to buy. The internet bitching of "grey knights, tau, eldar, necrons, eldar have broken the game" will continue to dominate dakkadakka. I will continue to read this with no idea why. I will still never win a game.

in a friendly enviroment if people just refuse to play TFG then they will stop trying to play friendlies as they get the cold shoulder. Problem fixes itself

The Imperial Answer wrote:

I think they've ignored a lot of things at this point.

Common sense perhaps being one of the bigger things.

Agreed. Sad thing is, I feel more sorry for a friend of mine who plays Eldar than the people that have to play against them. He likes running wraith themed lists and Jetbikes and the like. And now he'll probably feel as if he can't, and thus, the game is ruined for him.

 krodarklorr wrote:

The Imperial Answer wrote:

I think they've ignored a lot of things at this point.

Common sense perhaps being one of the bigger things.

Agreed. Sad thing is, I feel more sorry for a friend of mine who plays Eldar than the people that have to play against them. He likes running wraith themed lists and Jetbikes and the like. And now he'll probably feel as if he can't, and thus, the game is ruined for him.

Well given there are other weapons options for those units, wraiths and bikes aren't exactly locked into a permanent cheese build are they ?

The Imperial Answer wrote:

 krodarklorr wrote:

The Imperial Answer wrote:

I think they've ignored a lot of things at this point.

Common sense perhaps being one of the bigger things.

Agreed. Sad thing is, I feel more sorry for a friend of mine who plays Eldar than the people that have to play against them. He likes running wraith themed lists and Jetbikes and the like. And now he'll probably feel as if he can't, and thus, the game is ruined for him.

Well given there are other weapons options for those units, wraiths and bikes aren't exactly locked into a permanent cheese build are they ?

Absolutely right. My friend is well aware of this, and does his best to make sure his opponent also has fun (props to him for being awesome). But he'd be limited to not taking any heavy weapons, or just 1 per 3 (so intentionally gimping himself), he wouldn't be able to take Wraithguard at all, and he's be able to bring one variant of the Wraithknight, which is still ridiculously undercosted. So, he can't really get away from it, without just not playing those units.

Cheese spam.

The rules so far aren't looking very positive (unless you play eldar!). I would expect any company other than GW to realise the error and perhaps reduce the number of Scatter lasers jetbikes can take to 1 in 3 or some such quick fix. However given GW's track record, i don't hold up much hope.

The issue isn't the scatter lasers themselves, or Jetbikes which even without SL's are a staple troops choice in many eldar lists given their excellent qualities, but combining the two in such quantities.

Assuming people don't flat out refuse to play against new eldar, and its everyones right to do that, its your time after all...

I can see that the amount of cover will start to increase, which will mitigate the eldar range advantage, they will have to close to do damage, and leave them vulnerable to counter attack, more cover will also mean that concentrating fire will be harder, and while under ideal circumstances an eldar player will want to fire everything, with lots of cover you can deny that option.

With the support options available to an eldar force, i can see that players will concentrate on the support, and then just turtle up inside AV-14 boxes, assuming they survive the D weapon spam that is sure to accompany bike spam.

I think people will try to come up with ways to alpha strike units of bikes, a farsight bomb would likely do the trick to several units, a potential 28 twin linked plasma rifles with ignore cover, with some marker light support to boost BS could i think manage to kill 20 or so bikes in one go, but would then be at the mercy of whatever is left, and is a massive point sink, i'm sure their are lots of better options however.

Concentrating on deepstriking could be an option, a marine army could launch a drop pod assault and hope to do enough damage. past that, using optional movement strategies to get close to the bikes will i think begin to gain traction. things like the Dreadknight and their shunt will see more use.

I can also see the psychic phase become more prominent, and people concentrate on getting invisibility, that combined with high toughness and a good save will reduce the amount of casualties.
For example an invisible unit of centurions will take just over 2 wounds from 120 scatter laser shots (on average)
Invisible honour guard will take 3 wounds

A jetbike heavy meta will probably see the death of MSU, and more investment in deathstars, and units that can survive such massive amount of firepower

Now, i hope that the bike rules are changed to be not so horribly broken, but i'm not overly optimistic

Given that the new jetbikes come with both SLs and SCs for every bike in the kit, don't expect them to ever change to 1 in 3 until a new model drops in 20 years.