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I had my first games with the new Eldar Codex today; lost both, and there were some silly dice situations in both, but they were close and I think I got a few good pieces of information out of it.

I ran with an Eldar CAD consisting of an Autarch, a Spiritseer, two three-model scatter-bike units with Warlocks, a Wraithguard unit with D-Scythes, a Wraithblade unit with axes, two Wave Serpents, a Hemlock, a Wraithknight, and an allied Dark Eldar detachment consisting of a Succubus to give the Wraithguard a Webway Portal, a Warrior squad, and a Raider.

My first opponent ran a Destroyer-heavy Necron Decurion, the game was Purge the Alien so I ended up castling up in a ruin on my side of the board while the Wraithknight, Deep Striking Wraithguard, and the Hemlock moved up to thin out the Necrons. Up in the center the Wraithknight got locked in with the Necron Wraiths and whiffed a lot of attacks and stomps against them before finally stomping his way out of the fight only to die to Destroyers; the drop Wraithguard and Wraithblades whiffed when they got in and ended up destroying very little before dying. The game ended ten to nine on turn six with my Autarch, the Hemlock, and the Dark Eldar Warriors my only living units.

My second opponent ran a Ravenwing list built around two Command Squads and MSU attack squad spam; his initial deployment was only an Ignores Cover Scorpius and a Damocles, the mission was Crusade with three objectives. The Scorpius killed my Autarch and an entire Jetbike unit on turn one, the rest of my army managed to kill the Scorpius but failed to kill the Damocles so the mass of Outflanking Bikes came on in one place. The Wraithknight got in with Sammael and wiped his squad with great rolls and spent the rest of the game walking back across the board whiffing with its starcannons, the Deep Striking Wraithguard wiped the other command squad but I ended up losing the attrition game and I ended up with the Wraithknight only against about nine bikes in different squads scattered across the board sitting on objectives.

I had a lot of fun, my opponents had a lot of fun, and a lot of the sky-is-falling problems never really materialized; I'm the first to admit I'm not a particularly competitive 40k player and this wasn't the strongest list I could have brought, but I do think it went pretty well. Top lessons learned:

Awesome Units: Jetbike Warlocks. The Runes of Battle Primaris Shrouds the Warlock's squad for one Warp Charge, they may be fifty points but 2+ jink saved my ass an incredible number of times. Renewer on a Wraithknight is incredibly obnoxious, the Necrons in game one had to do nine wounds to the Wraithknight before it actually died because I kept restoring it; they still suffer from their traditional weaknesses (one Attack, no AP on the weapon, weak saves, very high pricepoint) but I still like them a lot.
Wave Serpent. They may have gotten hit with the nerfbat, but they're still really tough for their pricepoint and tossing out the Serpent Shield in a pinch can still do a lot of damage. Mine didn't do a lot of damage but they also ended up absorbing a lot of punishment that could have gone towards killing more useful models, so they're getting the thumbs up here.
Wraithknight. Yeah, it's kind of silly. I don't think I'd put more than one on the table outside of a tournament. His weakness is the lack of ranged punch, I overcommitted him to one side of the field in game two and he spent the rest of the game trying to get back to the fight after wrecking Sammael's day. Going forward I'd keep them in the thick of things, they don't like being out of melee.

Underwhelming Units: Jetbikes. I will concede these weren't great matchups for scatter bikes, but I was shocked at how little they actually killed dumping firepower into Ravenwing or Destroyers. Lots of shots are all well and good but things with T5 and 3+/4+ or 3+/5+ don't really care.
Wraithblades. They're great...if you can get the charge. If they charge they hit like Terminators. If they don't charge you're looking at one Attack, and they're going to eat a lot of firepower ahead of time in a very S6/7-spam focused meta without the 2+ to protect them.
Wraithguard. The hype surrounding the D-scythes was incredible when compared to the sheer amount of damage they didn't do in these games. They wiped a Black Knight squad in game two with outstanding rolls (all six hits got 3+ to wound and my opponent failed four 4+ Inv saves), without those they would have done very little. The threat is short, it's easy to position to avoid the scythes, the weapons doing nothing on 1-2 really doesn't help if you're going to try and focus one vehicle or MC/GC target since the number of hits is so low, and if you run up against someone with really good Inv saves (the hypothetical Hammernator/Stern/Priest 2++ rerollable deathstar, for instance) you're pretty boned. Even more of an issue is that you usually can't get the whole squad shooting off one facing with Deep Strike deployment. I think if I'm going to field them in the future I'm going to bring more Wraithcannons and fewer D-Scythes (2-3 one way or the other, probably, depending on what I need to remove), and I'm considering putting them back in their Wave Serpent instead of Deep Striking them. The Wraith formation in the Codex would help immensely, running and shooting out of Deep Strike would get the D-Scythes into much better firing positions.
Combat Characters. The Autarch and the Succubus both did an incredible amount of nothing, since at S3 or S4 their rolls to wound against lots of T5 targets left much to be desired. I don't think I'm going to try to kit out either in the future, if I need the DE character a naked WWP Archon is 95pts and a naked Autarch for the reserves rolls I'm paying 60pts, it's a much better use of time and resources than throwing a hundred and fifty or two hundred points at a kitted out combat beast that can't scratch T5.
Hemlock. The dice are incredibly critical to it actually working; over the course of two games it killed just about nothing because it missed with both the D-Scythes and Shriek every time it tried to cast either. It's a hundred and eighty five points for a 10-10-10 with two hull points, it went down to bolter fire fighting army lists with no AA weapons in both games, and if you roll badly on three dice it's spent an entire turn doing no damage. I'm not sure if the issue was with the unit or the dice, but I do know it performed very poorly today and I will be reconsidering my opinion of it in the future.

It's looking to me like the Eldar aren't the point-and-click I-win button the hype promised; you can't just pick out a scary-looking thing and throw it at your opponent, you have to pay attention to what you're doing, build an effective list, and make sure to set up a situation in which your big scary-looking thing can shine; the specialization and right-tool-for-the-right-job character of the Eldar seems to have been preserved into this book, which I'm much happier about than I was before today.

I had a lot of fun, my opponents had a lot of fun, and a lot of the sky-is-falling problems never really materialized; I'm the first to admit I'm not a particularly competitive 40k player and this wasn't the strongest list I could have brought, but I do think it went pretty well.

Why did you not run farseers, and why did you run autarch, spirit seer, wraithblades and the hemolock? also 3 man scatter bike units seem to small. They don't do enough damage to hurt a single unit in one turn and are realy vunerable to losing models, taking 5 or bigger unit seems to be more sensible.

Also succubus

Tame list is tame.

Nice report but if the 'light at the end of the tunnel' is that your opponent might take some of the few bad units in the codex (wraithblades, autarch etc) instead of spamming the good stuff then the light is comming from a train headlamp.

Imagine that, you picked mediocre units against a Decurion and lost. The fact that you spent 500+ points on terrible units (autarch, blades, hemlock, succubus) and lost by 1 point to the second most powerful codex in the game says a lot.

wtnind wrote:
Tame list is tame.

Nice report but if the 'light at the end of the tunnel' is that your opponent might take some of the few bad units in the codex (wraithblades, autarch etc) instead of spamming the good stuff then the light is comming from a train headlamp.

So damned if you do, damned if you don't?

 monders wrote:

wtnind wrote:
Tame list is tame.

Nice report but if the 'light at the end of the tunnel' is that your opponent might take some of the few bad units in the codex (wraithblades, autarch etc) instead of spamming the good stuff then the light is comming from a train headlamp.

So damned if you do, damned if you don't?

Eh, he is just saying that if the Eldar player literally has to shoot himself in the foot to lose... makes it almost idiot proof.

EDIT: First game for me Sat.

Bikes and wraith constructs underperformed.

Those seem to mainly be what people are complaining about.

zerosignal wrote:
Bikes and wraith constructs underperformed.

Those seem to mainly be what people are whining, crying and generally throwing their toys out the pram about.

But, scrubs will be scrubs.

Underperformed? The wraithguard did exactly what they do, which is obliterate anything that gets close to them. I'm not up to date on my points with black knights, but they HAVE to be worth what the wraithguard are, atleast.
2x 3man scatter bikes won't do much anyways, if he had added either a few more squads, or beefed them up a few models, then it might be better.

But honestly, I agree with what others are saying. He took a tame list. He didn't spam the good stuff, and he took some of the rather "bad" units (well, bad for eldar).

zerosignal wrote:
Bikes and wraith constructs underperformed.

Those seem to mainly be what people are whining, crying and generally throwing their toys out the pram about.

But, scrubs will be scrubs.

Two 3 model Jetbike units... you can't expect 2 units that cost a mere 81 points each to be game changers any more than you can expect 2 5 man tactical marine squads to contribute much. The people complaining about jetbikes aren't stupid, they know you have to take more than 10% of your army as jetbikes while not wasting points elsewhere before they're going to become a problem.

Ravenwing black knights are 42 ppm, exactly the same as scythe guard.

Interesting report. Always good to see some actual results from pushing plastic around, rather then pure theoryhammer.

 Quickjager wrote:

 monders wrote:

wtnind wrote:
Tame list is tame.

Nice report but if the 'light at the end of the tunnel' is that your opponent might take some of the few bad units in the codex (wraithblades, autarch etc) instead of spamming the good stuff then the light is comming from a train headlamp.

So damned if you do, damned if you don't?

Eh, he is just saying that if the Eldar player literally has to shoot himself in the foot to lose... makes it almost idiot proof.

EDIT: First game for me Sat.

Oh OK. I just saw complaining that he COULD have taken something dreadful but didn't.

With my rolling, I could go all out with WKs and still finish 3rd out of a two man game...

Please be sure to report back with your findings

I would feel far more "comforted" if my last time playing a game I'd been watching an Eldar player and an Ork player try an experiment with Scatbikes and WKs against this guy's tournament-level ork list (centered around a green tide, VSG, and a few other things).

It was over by tabling at the top of turn 2. The ork player got a single turn to move and run up the board. Turn 1, a WK popped the void shields, the bikes removed 60 boyz with feel no pain from the board, the second WK exploded a battlewagon killing most of the tankbustas.. a majority of the ork army disappeared turn 1, before he even got to move. And on top of all that, with the 12" moves and JSJ on the bikes, the eldar player scored Domination (secure all objectives) on that exact same turn 1.

That's not whining, that's not theoryhammer. That's something that should NEVER EVER BE ABLE TO HAPPEN in a game of 40k. The problem is not that the eldar are too powerful, it's that they give up absolutely NOTHING for that power. NO gameplay flexibility is lost, everything they have can move and run and charge practically no matter what they do. Other races' heavy weaponry is static, other races mobile units are comparatively weaker to equivalent points spent on heavy weapons. The Eldar are mobile heavy weapon platforms that are heavier than everyone else's weapons and faster than everyone else's fastest units.

How was his list tame exactly? He took all the heavy hitters people are freaking out about. Scat bikes with warlocks, Wraithknight with D weapons, WWP wraithguard with scythes, hemlock with scythes, everything that's really good. He didn't spam anything though, so maybe that's what people mean when they say it's tame? But then he would need to lose something in return.

I'm honestly confused because it seems as though every time there's a battle report where Eldar don't roll all over the opponent someone shows up to say they have a "non-optimal" list.

zerosignal wrote:
Bikes and wraith constructs underperformed.

Those seem to mainly be what people are whining, crying and generally throwing their toys out the pram about.

But, scrubs will be scrubs.

This offensive, trollish language is not wanted in this community. I don't know if you've done it before but please don't insult people like this again. This is supposed to be a place for mature, reasoned debate, and not a place to insult those who don't agree with you with your first post in a particular thread. I'm just advising you against this before the MODs do.

confoo22 wrote:
How was his list tame exactly? He took all the heavy hitters people are freaking out about. , Wraithknight with D weapons, WWP wraithguard with scythes, hemlock with scythes, everything that's really good. He didn't spam anything though, so maybe that's what people mean when they say it's tame? But then he would need to lose something in return.

I'm honestly confused because it seems as though every time there's a battle report where Eldar don't roll all over the opponent someone shows up to say they have a "non-optimal" list.

Read the first reply by MakumbaMade. He lists the units that are tame.

Warlock + min unit of bikes I'd also consider quite tame, why not take either 10 with a warlock or 3 with no warlock (imo the preferred option). There is nothing wrong with fun fluffy lists but there is little argument so far in this thread that the list is tame. I am saying that drawing conclusions about the balance of a codex without making the most broken list you can (e.g. penta flyrants) is not as convincing.

"Oh, someone lost with the new Eldar." - "Lolololol was he drunk?" - "No, he actually took something else than Jetbikes and Wraithknights." - "Omg he should have known better. All Eldar players are supposed to do that or they have no idea how to play. If you lose then you have no "skill" but it proves the superiority of Eldar because Orks/Tyranids/Sisters/Unbound Gretchins would perform waaaaay worse than he/she actually did!"

@wtnind

I am saying that drawing conclusions about the balance of a codex without making the most broken list you can (e.g. penta flyrants) is not as convincing.

No. Nobody knows what the most broken list actually is because it depends on the opponents list. A conglomerate of supposedly broken units makes no broken list.

Ah, but I thought there "weren't any bad units" in the codex? Isn't it "idiot proof"? Make up your minds.

Like monders said; damned if you do, damned if you don't.

wtnind wrote:

confoo22 wrote:
How was his list tame exactly? He took all the heavy hitters people are freaking out about. , Wraithknight with D weapons, WWP wraithguard with scythes, hemlock with scythes, everything that's really good. He didn't spam anything though, so maybe that's what people mean when they say it's tame? But then he would need to lose something in return.

I'm honestly confused because it seems as though every time there's a battle report where Eldar don't roll all over the opponent someone shows up to say they have a "non-optimal" list.

Read the first reply by MakumbaMade. He lists the units that are tame.

Warlock + min unit of bikes I'd also consider quite tame, why not take either 10 with a warlock or 3 with no warlock (imo the preferred option). There is nothing wrong with fun fluffy lists but there is little argument so far in this thread that the list is tame. I am saying that drawing conclusions about the balance of a codex without making the most broken list you can (e.g. penta flyrants) is not as convincing.

From what I've been seeing people don't like to take 10 because if you have to jink or anything that lowers your shooting efficiency it does it for 10 bikes instead of 5 or 6 or whatever. Either way though, the OP hits all the high points and bring what people are widely talking about as the most OP units, which is what you expect from someone testing out their new codex. But I'd hardly call it "tame." If people's biggest issue is that he didn't bring a tournament level list, well, he doesn't seem to be playing tournament level opponents so what he has is a reasonable idea of what you would probably see at a local FLGS on league night or whatever.

I worded my statement wrong though, what sort of bugs me is this attitude that we should dismiss his report as not indicative of Eldar because he didn't bring the most melt your face awesome tournament list possible. Thing is, you really don't see those lists super often unless you're actually in a tournament. I'm not saying Eldar will be a cake walk and that they're not super powerful, but this report does somewhat dispell the idea that you're just going to get roflstompled in every match no matter what and that there's no point in even trying.

Similarly, if one were to bring an "untame" Necron list to counter Eldar, it would include like 3 squads of 6 Wraiths to tie up the Wraithguard and a whole bunch of Doomsdays or similar Necron AV13 wall that the Bikes cannot damage.

Not Damned if you do, Damned if you don't scenario. Assuming OP and his opponents aren't bad players, then the OP brought an unoptimized list and performed with it. Lumping all Eldar criticism together and saying it's all the same is false.

The OP would have to actually commit to scatter bikers, Wraithknights, and probably Fire Dragons over Wraithguard (I'm not sold on D Scythes and the total points cost of allies vs. a Falcon with FDs). Also not jetseer(s). You cannot say fears are assuaged by not taking or taking minimal of said items known to be scary. Plus, I foresee lists maximizing the incredible guaranteed fleet roll of 6" becoming the best along with Scatbikes and WKs.

Wait until tournaments. And calling folks scrubs isn't trolling if you use the actual definition. And if you pigeon hold yourself from using the best units for whatever reason, save possibly teaching/coaching new players, you're being a scrub. Scrub isn't a bad player, its a player enforcing unwritten rules on themselves/others to "play fair" meaning to against what's in the rules. GW rules writing fosters a community of scrub mentality something fierce.

Appreciate the feedback OP, but would much rather see a report featuring 700-1000pts of bikes, Wraithknights, Jetseers and whatever flavor psst that (Wraithguard, Dragons, Hawks, etc.).

I dont see multiple wraithknights. minimum bike squads are terrible. wraithblades, spirit seer, autarch. you took a very tame list. if this was a 2000 pt list you should have rocked it out. 2-3 wraithknights, farseer skyrunner, 6-7 man squads of scatter bikes, a single vyper (for the detatchment tax) and maybe throw in some crimson hunters or fire prisms in there. You took the mediocre units in the codex. I took 4 wraithknights in an 1850 list and stomped my way through games.

Bringing 4 wraithknights and as many jetbikes as possible to an FLGS isn't practical though. I understand what you guys are saying, that you can't see the true power level until you ratchet it up to 11, but the OP is talking more about what you're going to commonly see on a table at your FLGS. That's why I'm not personally too worried about it, because I know the Eldar players in my area will police themselves to a certain degree or will let you know to expect a more challenging list before you show up.

Will there be that guy who shows up with at big old kiss-off list like that though and laugh as you remove all your models by turn two? Absolutely. Will that buy be able to regularly find games with that list after the first couple of times he smashes through someone else's army? Absolutely not.

If you want to see what effect this will have on the tournament scene then you should follow Reece over on Frontline where he's set up a challenge for people to come and beat him at Eldar. He's purposefully taking more tourney style lists (and people are STILL saying he's sub-optimal) so that will give you a better idea of what to expect when you're paying money to play. But the OP here is showing us what you're more likely to see in a day to day match up.

 Jambles wrote:
Ah, but I thought there "weren't any bad units" in the codex? Isn't it "idiot proof"? Make up your minds.

Like monders said; damned if you do, damned if you don't.

This.

I'm not a big fan of this dex either, but you guys need to take a step back and breathe.

The issue is that a 'sub-optimal' eldar list can have a very decent chance at taking on an optimal list from almost every other dex. What if I want to play 'sub-optimal' BA or CSMs and take on eldar?

And whilst scrubs may not be an offensive word in some eyes, immediatly labelling people who don't agree with you, whiners, crybabys and 'throwing the toys out of the pram' (and much worse) certainly is. It's not really a nice community if we excuse behaviour like that. Behaviour, I must mention, that was rife amongst a small number of eldar apologists a week ago and went largely unchallenged and unchecked. Behaviour that is usually cracked down on here, but seemed to explode out of nowhere just because people said they were appalled at the power levels of the new codex. I've quite regularly seen the odd person do this on dakka before, but the extent it got to last week was disgusting.
There is a difference between insulting and rubbishing peoples opinions and theories compared to outright personal attacks.

Autarch with Wings is amazing. He moves 18". He may not kill everything, but he will definitely grab you objectives late game. Give him Falchblahblahs Wing for a late game objective grab.

I have to say, I am laughing at all of the Eldar hate. OP's list isnt bad, its just balanced.

You guys think you have to load up on one aspect in order to be competitive but its simply not true. Everything in his list has a role it can do very well.

You guys just don't want to admit the scary monster under the bed doesnt exist.

The eldar dex is pretty OP< but not nearly as bad as you guys say it is.

 TheKbob wrote:
Wait until tournaments. And calling folks scrubs isn't trolling if you use the actual definition. And if you pigeon hold yourself from using the best units for whatever reason, save possibly teaching/coaching new players, you're being a scrub. Scrub isn't a bad player, its a player enforcing unwritten rules on themselves/others to "play fair" meaning to against what's in the rules. GW rules writing fosters a community of scrub mentality something fierce.

This is just flawed logic.

The Eldar codex could be COMPLETELY fine and balanced, but have ONE game breaking combo, such as the good old 2++ re-rollable bullcrap, and TOURNAMENT players would be the ones to exploit it.

So saying that OP's game experience is INVALID because he didn't optimize his list to what you consider broken just doesn't freaking follow. You're committed to just complaining at this point in the face of reason.

So what if he took a few units that are sub-par like the Autarch? He also took all the heavy hitters that are supposedly completely broken! He didn't just take one of them... he took... *GASP* ALL THREE! (Wraithknights, Wraithguard, Scatterbikes).

I'm not arguing that there aren't likely broken combos in the Eldar codex. There likely are, and tournament players will find them. That doesn't mean that anybody who brings Eldar to the table is bringing a leafblower list, and that is what the OP was essentially saying. The sky isn't falling.

Tournament players will need to adjust to whatever freaking broken combo is discovered just like they've had to adjust to the LAST DOZEN broken combos that were discovered. You either netlist the last winning tournament list yourself, or you try and find a list that you think counters it. That's just how it works. If you haven't adjusted to Fliers, Wave Serpents, Farsight Bomb, 2++ Rerolling Demons, Imperial Knights, Flying Circus, and all the other crap, why is adjusting to the new Eldar codex so bad all of a sudden. Seesh.

Can we also remember there were a whole 6 scatter bikes in that list. It was MASS scatter bikes we have issues with. Same with MULTIPLE wraithknights.
Lets not pretend that people are worried about facing 6 scatterbikes.

Game design is entirely based on upon ensuring competitive choices out of all options. The OP chose known moderate to poor competitive choices and performed. You don't rate mods, units, or factions based upon their least optimal performance, but on their maximum. Stop drinking GW "Forge the Narrative" Kool-Aid and realize how actual balanced game play is designed. If you can crush everyone with a specific combo out of the book, there's literally no reason not to take that. When you start getting into "what you take to your FLGS" you walk I to Scrub territory. And you don't design games for scrubs.

If this was a PvE game, this would all be false. I agree. But GW is making a PvP game. You play with optimal lists because there's literally no reason not to. And the optimal Eldar list will trounce. Everyone is in agreement. Thus the codex is hot trash if everyone is going to ban play against it unless they somehow determine your list is "reasonable" which is the true WAAC mentality. Good players bring optimal lists. Bad players bring bad lists and then complain their opponents list is OP.