Another Eldar thread about pick-up games.

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**Bharring**

For OP,
To me, it seems like the formations are going to be another 'wtf' for opponents.

I plan on sticking to the CAD, because those buffs are obscene.

But yes, if you aren't cheesing, it'd be optimal to play other non-cheese. Although that line is incredibly subjective.

**Master Crafted**

zerosignal wrote:
We're only just at the start of the 7th codex cycle. People need to calm down.

Look at a recent batrep on youtube - the necron player absolutely savaged the eldar player who had 2 wraithknights.

Thanks for the view! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mct8KsqEsYM

**Massaen**

Martel732 wrote:
Which are those? Because I've already beaten all the BA formations in mirror matches using the CAD. Oh noes! Don't assault me with your tac squads from overcosted flyers! OMGZ whatever will the high tier codices do? The Vanguards with power weapons are particularly amusing, because of the cursing from the opponent when I shoot them to death. It's almost like a vacation compared to fighting Wraith, who have real defenses. Giving Vanguads power weapons is cute, but futile because they are still just meqs.

You don't get it then - the raven formation is not about 30 tactical marines charging you - its about the death punch from 2+ vanguard units arriving turn 1 via drop pods and assaulting you via multi charge before you can do jack about it. Substitute death company or dreadnaughts or what ever BA assault units you like. The 30 tacticals are there to mop up what survives the angry marines with WS, S, I 5 and many attacks each

**Bharring**

And if you aren't afraid of getting charged by Tacs, you aren't playing Eldar.

Granted, its really hard to get said charge, but still.

**Martel732**

Massaen wrote:
Martel732 wrote:
Which are those? Because I've already beaten all the BA formations in mirror matches using the CAD. Oh noes! Don't assault me with your tac squads from overcosted flyers! OMGZ whatever will the high tier codices do? The Vanguards with power weapons are particularly amusing, because of the cursing from the opponent when I shoot them to death. It's almost like a vacation compared to fighting Wraith, who have real defenses. Giving Vanguads power weapons is cute, but futile because they are still just meqs.

You don't get it then - the raven formation is not about 30 tactical marines charging you - its about the death punch from 2+ vanguard units arriving turn 1 via drop pods and assaulting you via multi charge before you can do jack about it. Substitute death company or dreadnaughts or what ever BA assault units you like. The 30 tacticals are there to mop up what survives the angry marines with WS, S, I 5 and many attacks each

I foiled those units as well. There's not enough points left for a viable force after you pay the Stormraven/tactical squad tax. Been there, done that. It's another formation that initial deployment that hoses.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Bharring wrote:
And if you aren't afraid of getting charged by Tacs, you aren't playing Eldar.

Granted, its really hard to get said charge, but still.

Small detail there.

**SilverDevilfish**

Massaen wrote:
Martel732 wrote:
Which are those? Because I've already beaten all the BA formations in mirror matches using the CAD. Oh noes! Don't assault me with your tac squads from overcosted flyers! OMGZ whatever will the high tier codices do? The Vanguards with power weapons are particularly amusing, because of the cursing from the opponent when I shoot them to death. It's almost like a vacation compared to fighting Wraith, who have real defenses. Giving Vanguads power weapons is cute, but futile because they are still just meqs.

You don't get it then - the raven formation is not about 30 tactical marines charging you - its about the death punch from 2+ vanguard units arriving turn 1 via drop pods and assaulting you via multi charge before you can do jack about it. Substitute death company or dreadnaughts or what ever BA assault units you like. The 30 tacticals are there to mop up what survives the angry marines with WS, S, I 5 and many attacks each

Why did the Eldar player bunch up together?

It's not hard to stop 8-9 models from getting a multi-charge by spacing out. You did remember the bold text under Move Initial Charger on page 55, right?

**Massaen**

Martel732 wrote:
I foiled those units as well. There's not enough points left for a viable force after you pay the Stormraven/tactical squad tax. Been there, done that. It's another formation that initial deployment that hoses.

Huh?

How many points are you playing because at 1850 you can make a perfectly viable TAC death punch list with this formation.

**Martel732**

Massaen wrote:
Martel732 wrote:
I foiled those units as well. There's not enough points left for a viable force after you pay the Stormraven/tactical squad tax. Been there, done that. It's another formation that initial deployment that hoses.

Huh?

How many points are you playing because at 1850 you can make a perfectly viable TAC death punch list with this formation.

1850. I crushed the formation list, actually. I forced him to assault a bunch of Rhinos and razor backs. My counter fire/assault crushed him. I wouldn't call less than 850 pts of actual army "TAC" in any way. Spending 1000+ on six units that aren't that good is a recipe for disaster, imo.

**Massaen**

with 3 SR, PotMS and MM/LC I fail to see how you still had Av11 vehicles on the table. Also - I almost never see a TAC tourney list with rhinos or razorbacks these days - YRMV

With one of the BA detachments you can keep it to a single cheap troops or take the DC dreadnaught character then still get 2 very good assault units along with 3 pods and either mephy or a couple of mid level heros like chaplains or priests.

**Bharring**

BA crushed a BA list doesn't mean the OP would crush the same list.

You made his T1 charges kill transports at 35 pts base. Try the same thing with Eldar and you lose 110pts base each. Which is substantially more.

And then, your jucy parts are still Marines. Non-Wraith Eldar jucy bits die much, much faster when attacked.

**Martel732**

"with 3 SR, PotMS and MM/LC I"

Because AP 1/2 got nerfed. SR aren't that reliable at killing anything anything anymore. Even if the vehicles die, they are still physically blocking assaults. Because explodes almost never happen anymore. And even still, they are getting to assault my throw away tacs. It's a lose/lose/lose/lose for the formation list.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Bharring wrote:
BA crushed a BA list doesn't mean the OP would crush the same list.

You made his T1 charges kill transports at 35 pts base. Try the same thing with Eldar and you lose 110pts base each. Which is substantially more.

And then, your jucy parts are still Marines. Non-Wraith Eldar jucy bits die much, much faster when attacked.

This is the world's smallest violin playing for the Eldar. You'll just have to have some OP unit bail you out in the miracle that a marine manages to touch one of the precious Eldar units.

**Bharring**

How are guys getting out of Rhinos then charging you?

Automatically Appended Next Post:
So, in the context of this thread:

Q: "If I use a reasonable list from the Eldar 'dex, is it reasonable to think it wouldn't be fair to go up against tue most broken non-Eldar things in the game?"

A: "No, because BA will lose to you, because you'll field the most broken stuff in the Eldar list!"

Is that what you're saying?

**Martel732**

Bharring wrote:
How are guys getting out of Rhinos then charging you?

Automatically Appended Next Post:
So, in the context of this thread:

Q: "If I use a reasonable list from the Eldar 'dex, is it reasonable to think it wouldn't be fair to go up against tue most broken non-Eldar things in the game?"

A: "No, because BA will lose to you, because you'll field the most broken stuff in the Eldar list!"

Is that what you're saying?

The guys getting out of the Rhinos shoot. The jump infantry hiding behind the rhinos assault. And the fragnoughts show up and frag their faces off.

I'm saying that a random sampling of Eldar units curb stomps a random sampling of BA units. I'm saying that a constructed Eldar list curb stomps the BA even worse. Across the board, Eldar units make the BA look stupid. That's what I'm saying. If I had infinite time and money, I could visit and meticulously show every Eldar player how to curb stomp BA pretty much every time. Without access to the toys of real space marines, the Eldar codex as an entity is OP for the BA. There is no "reasonable".

**Bharring**

But in this context, that isn't the question.

Eldar have some stupid things they can do now. The OP (and many other Eldar players) really want to know how to have fun games.

That usually involves not cheesing to the max for most of us. Eldar can certainly cheese better than most, but its not the only cheese. So if he (or I) drop down an Aspect CAD, is another player dropping down Cent Stars or Decurions or Adamantium Lances or Invis on us reasonable? Any more reasonable than if we had taken Scatterbikes and WKs in the first place?

The question isn't optimised Eldar vs optimised BA. Its if fluffy/reasonable Eldar lists vs other Dex's should be facing the non-Eldar stupidly good stuff in the game.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
(My Tau list from last night is an empirical display of Reasonable. Mostly short ranged non-Suit infantry, plus tank support. Just because its subjectively defined doesn't mean it doesn't exist)

**Martel732**

Bharring wrote:
But in this context, that isn't the question.

Eldar have some stupid things they can do now. The OP (and many other Eldar players) really want to know how to have fun games.

That usually involves not cheesing to the max for most of us. Eldar can certainly cheese better than most, but its not the only cheese. So if he (or I) drop down an Aspect CAD, is another player dropping down Cent Stars or Decurions or Adamantium Lances or Invis on us reasonable? Any more reasonable than if we had taken Scatterbikes and WKs in the first place?

The question isn't optimised Eldar vs optimised BA. Its if fluffy/reasonable Eldar lists vs other Dex's should be facing the non-Eldar stupidly good stuff in the game.

I honestly see no reason to ever put on kid gloves against Eldar. I don't think you realize what a struggle most lists will have against a even "reasonable" Eldar list. They are that good. They were solid before across the board and EVERYTHING got buffed,except the WS. Yay.

**Bharring**

"Do reasonable Eldar lists exist?" is a valid question.

I would say undeniably so.

Your argument is that, because you face brutal lists from all factions where you need to do your best to have a snowballs chance, and you rarely, if ever, beat Eldar, no reasonable Eldar list exists.

I would argue that (1) your sample is horribly biased, and (2) asserting something doesn't exist because any finite sample doesn't see it is just bad logic.

Consider a more concrete list. I haven't adapted points to the new Dex yet, but that would mean swapping the Serpent for a Falcon, plus upgrades, and maybe another DA or two (and model count could be off by 1):

CAD
HQ:
Asurmen
Troops:
10 DA
+ Exarch
++w/ShimmerShield/Lance

5 DA
+ Exarch
++ TL catapult

5 DA

Elites:
6 Scorpions
+ Exarch
++ Claw

6 Fire Dragons
+ Exarch
++ Firepike
+ Serpent
++ SL
++ SC
++ Holo

FA

6 Hawks
+ Exarch
++ Sun Rifle

5 Spiders
+ Exarch
++ TL Deathspinners
++ Blades

HS
5 Reapers
+ Exarch
++ EML

That's about 1500. Is that not a "reasonable" list?

If not, why not?
If so, then does that not prove they exist?

**Martel732**

Now put that up against a "reasonable" BA list. I think the Eldar win going away. Again, non-optimal Eldar crushes non-optimal BA.

**Suite**

Yes, we know already. It's all good. We mourne for BA. If you took 150 Rangers you'd win against me/us/all of them nasty Eldarz wielding a BA tournament force.

**Martel732**

Suite wrote:
Yes, we know already. It's all good. We mourne for BA. If you took 150 Rangers you'd win against me/us/all of them nasty Eldarz wielding a BA tournament force.

I didn't say that. I was comparing random to random and optimized to optimized. One could also argue there IS no BA tournament force.

**Bharring**

One could argue that, but they were in a recent #2 list, but I don't really keep track of that.

You might be comparing 'random to random' and 'optimised to optimised', but this thread is about 'reasonable to reasonable'.

The list above is very organized (literally one box of each Aspect chosen + more troops + the first Phoenix Lord).

The open question is, does there exist a reasonable BA list against which the above list wouldn't clearly dominate regularly?

**Suite**

But you miss the point of the thread. Since BA don't appear to have very strong units like the OP mentioned in the first post, you have a life without sorrows then

**Orock**

Sidstyler wrote:
Yay, another Eldar thread. We really needed one.

Crimson Devil wrote:
No game is better than a bad game.

That's what 40k has devolved into, apparently; bunch of people sitting around not playing the game and either crying or screaming at each other, pointing fingers and laying blame for things that are ultimately GW's fault, all the while continuing to buy massive amounts of models from GW inexplicably.

This is the "hobby" now, there's no game left. Even if you were willing to play you would never find anyone else that would want to.

Pain4Pleasure wrote:
There is no justifying why it's good... It just is a poster boy lover boy to gw so they drool over making its units overly viable. .

GW's poster boys wear power armor, make no mistake about that. Two Eldar books don't suddenly erase nearly two decades worth of favoritism.

Orock wrote:
Perfectly fair, since a lot of us will just be straight up refusing to play eldar entirely.

And you should give yourself a big, fat pat on the back, for doing your part and assisting GW in making sure that 40k as a tabletop game dies a slow, horrible death. Good job.

Because as we all know it's the Eldar player's fault, and they should all be shunned and ridiculed for their crime of picking an army with really cool models. That'll fething teach them to play something other than Spehss Mahreens, and it'll totally show GW that the fanbase won't put up with their bullgak...you know...just as soon as they start giving a feth what the fans think.

Well thats just too bad. Its not my job to subsadize someones fun at the expense of mine. I dont have the time in the week to waste it on a game that wouldnt be any fun for me. And it wouldnt bother me one bit if GW went under. The IP would be picked up, because its too profitable, then the people responsible for the crap decisions over the last 4 years would be out on their ass, You are worried the next people in charge will be worse than the current ones. Well when you have already hit rock bottom, change can be a good thing.

And I have no sympathy for eldar players. They have been OP for the vast majority of their existence. They have been criminally underpriced for a long time, and now that people have had enough of their easy mode books, they call foul because nobody is willing to sit there and let them beat on them with an uneven playing field.

**Yoyoyo**

Martel732 wrote:
I honestly see no reason to ever put on kid gloves against Eldar.

Because you're playing a player, not simply rock-paper-scissors with abstracted lists. Even modifying the missions and terrain has an impact. Eldar have good units but they don't have Necron-level defence. So in pick up games, just scale everything to the experience of the player.

Imagine you're not fighting an optimized list. Maybe it's not how your meta rolls but people do still play this game without trying to leverage every edge to win. Even in taking "never take" units.

Not every thread should be about your struggles in your specific meta Martel. And if your opponents are somewhat abusive in exploiting imbalance, you need to solve that locally.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Orock wrote:
And I have no sympathy for eldar players. They have been OP for the vast majority of their existence. They have been criminally underpriced for a long time, and now that people have had enough of their easy mode books, they call foul because nobody is willing to sit there and let them beat on them with an uneven playing field.

I'm sure an Eldar player going heavy on the Rangers and Guardians might resent that characterization.

Having a codex doesn't obligate you to exploit the most abusive and undercosted units. If you're not playing "for fun", don't be surprised if you don't have any. I don't get everyone's obsession with making 40k as cutthroat as possible at the expensive of personal enjoyment and a positive social environment.

**Akiasura**

Yoyoyo wrote:
Martel732 wrote:
I honestly see no reason to ever put on kid gloves against Eldar.
Because you're playing a player, not simply rock-paper-scissors with abstracted lists. Even modifying the missions and terrain has an impact. Eldar have good units but they don't have Necron-level defence. So in pick up games, just scale everything to the experience of the player.

In pick up games, you do not know the experience of the player. It's a pick up game, not something you planned weeks in advance.

Yoyoyo wrote:

Imagine you're not fighting an optimized list. Maybe it's not how your meta rolls but people do still play this game without trying to leverage every edge to win. Even in taking "never take" units.

Not every thread should be about your struggles in your specific meta Martel. And if your opponents are somewhat abusive in exploiting imbalance, you need to solve that locally.

I agree that martel focuses too much on his local meta, but his points usually carry over to any competitive meta. I usually find myself agreeing with him.

Yoyoyo wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Orock wrote:
And I have no sympathy for eldar players. They have been OP for the vast majority of their existence. They have been criminally underpriced for a long time, and now that people have had enough of their easy mode books, they call foul because nobody is willing to sit there and let them beat on them with an uneven playing field.

I'm sure an Eldar player going heavy on the Rangers and Guardians might resent that characterization.

Alaitoc wasn't OP, but it wasn't a fun list to play against for the most part.
Guardians and rangers are bad in the eldar dex, but would be pretty good in most dexes. I'd take them in CSM, at least rangers, for the anti-mc aspect.

Yoyoyo wrote:

Having a codex doesn't obligate you to exploit the most abusive and undercosted units. If you're not playing "for fun", don't be surprised if you don't have any.

That's absurd. Everything I do in my leisure time is for fun. I have fun by playing competitive games with my friends and not having to handicap myself.
This is no different than how it worked in 3.5 DnD. You had tiers, and as long as everyone was playing in the same tier, everyone had a good time. But throw a Wizard, Cleric, Druid, and Fighter together, and the fighter stops having a good time.
Very few armies are on the Eldar Tier, or can rise up to meet it.

**Yoyoyo**

You think it's "absurd" not to exploit the most undercosted and abusive units?

Different strokes for different folks I guess.

**Martel732**

Yoyoyo wrote:
You think it's "absurd" not to exploit the most undercosted and abusive units?

Different strokes for different folks I guess.

Choices are legal or they are not legal. The social contract approach fails when it is scaled up to a large player base, I think.

**Bharring**

That gets said about every social construct. But I haven't been knifed by a coworker for the cash in my wallet.

Once again, you're claiming that 'reasonable' doesn't exist. So I direct you, once again, to previous examples of 'reasonable' already mentioned in this thread.

Large player base may seem to make it unwieldy, but would actually offer the chance to have subdivisions amongst what constitutes 'reasonable' in the group.

**Martel732**

Bharring wrote:
That gets said about every social construct. But I haven't been knifed by a coworker for the cash in my wallet.

Once again, you're claiming that 'reasonable' doesn't exist. So I direct you, once again, to previous examples of 'reasonable' already mentioned in this thread.

Large player base may seem to make it unwieldy, but would actually offer the chance to have subdivisions amongst what constitutes 'reasonable' in the group.

Maybe. It's an awful lot of work to be heaped on the players, though.

**Bharring**

Formal divisions, sure, lots of work.

"Maybe I'll ask Steve for a game, because Bobby likes his netlists" isn't much work at all.

**Akiasura**

Yoyoyo wrote:
You think it's "absurd" not to exploit the most undercosted and abusive units?

Different strokes for different folks I guess.

They don't need to abuse the most under costed units to make them unfun. A lot of the weaker units are strong enough to do so.
But they shouldn't have to handicap themselves