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So every year my FLGS runs a Championship in February to crown the champion for the year, and the prizes are RIDICULOUS (things include possible thunder hawk, full forces, books, etc.) so this year I'm going to show up with my best shot at trying to crack some skulls with Eldar cheese balls. Before I show the list quick run down of (the usual, could change this year) comp system;

0-1 LoW
0-1 Superheavy/Gargantuan Creature
Max 12 WC per phase
FW 40k approved is good to go

So, for me Eldar at this wonderful 2000 point set I'm thinking of this;

CAD

Farseer
-Jetbike
-Spirit Stone of Anath'lan
-Singing Spear

Farseer
-Jetbike
-Singing Spear

4 units of 4 Scatter Bikes

2x Fire Prisms
-Holofields
-Spirit Stones

Wraithknight
-Ghost Glaive & Scatter Shield
-2x Starcannon

Aspect Host (+1 Ballistic Skill)

Fire Dragons x5
-Exarch
-Wave Serpent
--Twin Linked Star Cannon
--Holo-fields

Swooping Hawks x6
-Exarch

Warp Spiders x5
-Exarch
--Twin Linked Deathspinner

Comes out to 1998, want to start playing with it now to get it well used and broken in before the tournament, as well as convince myself to paint all of it. For psychic powers I'm going to take prescience and guide to twin link all the bikes (gives me enough fire power to take down even AV12 flyers in one volley) and then one whatever power. I fear that I wont have enough WC because I need to channel at least 5 a turn to get all twin-linked shots. Biggest thing I'm wondering about is my Wraith Knight, should I consider having the two Wraith Cannons to deal with the fact that I will see enemy SH and GMC on the table so I can engage them with D at range, or maybe the Suncannon to add some extra AP2 that I feel is sorely lacking in this list.

Your wraith knight is there to get shot and die, keeping the rest of the army alive. Try Make him cheap as possible and dont forget, hes good with his stomps.

I normally take a Clan R. Chapter master with the GC and a small unit of grav bikes instead of the W.knight but that's just me.

Drop the Fire Prism and take 2 Warp hunters + a bastion ( I'd go with a conversion if you CBA buying them). Apperently forgeworld has changed the Distort rule on its main gun to just plain D. Get them to email you a written confirmation though.

Warp spiders over scat bikes any day, Take off 2 units and a farseer and take a 2nd aspect host with 3 units of warp spiders.

Finally replace your fire dragons for a unit of 5 reapers + star shot m. And an exarch carrying a temptus launcher + fast shot.
Place them in the bastion.

Any points left over ally in an inquisitor+ servo skulls or a Culexus. And beef up your Warp spider squads, remember abuse their rules to the max.

Decent but suboptimal in places:
1. No AA/cover - drop the prisms and get an anti tank loaded Crim Hunter.
2. Bikes into 5x3 units - 4 you still test on 25% casulaties and 5x3 gives more target sat and flexibility.
3. Get more of them.
4. Exarchs are terribly overpriced for what they bring - drop them all and bulk out the squads more.
5. Give the WK D cannons - hes decent enough in hth bar against dedicated units and D wins games hur hur.
6. No vaul Dplatforms? get 3-6 of them and sit behind a hill plonking away with D blasts.

I wouldn't bother with the starcannons on the knight, just a waste of points. I would go for 5 squads of 3 bikes over 4 squads of 4 to spread the shots out better and for better survivability. I would drop the fire prism and maybe take crimson hunters, great anti air and 8 S8 shots with 4 being lances are gonna do something against any GC or SHV. If you do that it might be a good idea to switch out a farseer for an autarch as you would have 4 units in reserve, and it will help you get the anti air when you need it.

@Ratius How are exarchs overpriced? for 10 points per squad he gets an extra wound and the entire squad gets +1BS. Also why are they not scatter bikes in your list?

While Crimson hunters are good, try not to go over board with anti - air. Swooping hawks perform adequately enough as anti - flyer units, if you're really concerned go with 2 units.

2 Hemlocks work well, very good psychic offensive and some nice ranged D.

@Ratius How are exarchs overpriced? for 10 points per squad he gets an extra wound and the entire squad gets +1BS. Also why are they not scatter bikes in your list?

BS+1 makes little real difference, you're talking about a single extra shot. E.g. If 5-6 standard dragons cant pop a tank, you;re probably not in the luck zone anyways
The Spider exarch really brings nothing to the table bar iron resolve which is situational anyways considering their abilities to avoid both shooting and combat.
Hawk exarch can be useful but Im trimming points to get the CHunter and vauls in.

Bikes have the mobility to get where they want to go i.e within 24" for Shuricannons. Prefer the ability to rend on a 6 than an extra shot from scatbikes myself. YMMV however.

I'm, the statistical upgrade from BS4 to 5 is the same as twin linked BS4

So how is paying 10 points for an extra shot to hit by getting an exarch worse than paying 22 points for an extra dragon?
Also your list has shuriken catapults on the bikes not cannons.

So, adjusting list based on advice thus far;

2 Farseer on Jet bike w/SS

5 units of 3 scatter bikes

2 Crimson Hunters

2 units of 3 D Batteries

Wraith Knight
-wraithcannons

Bastion
-Comms Relay

Aspect Host;
6 Swooping hawks
-exarch

5 Dark Reapers
-exarch

5 Warp spiders
-exarch

Provides with a fantastic amount of anti armour and air with crimson hunters and hawks. I also get 6 small blast strength d shots and 2 regular strength d shots. I have no fear of 3+ saves thanks to the reapers, and little fear of 2+ due to 8 s8 ap2 shots, enough to down even a unit of 5 paladins.

Also your list has shuriken catapults on the bikes not cannons.

Doh, stupid me!

So how is paying 10 points for an extra shot to hit by getting an exarch worse than paying 22 points for an extra dragon?

Yea fair enough, I just think 30 points spent on exarchs could go elsewhere in this list. If he going ubercompetitive the fat needs to be trimmed

You definitely dont need two CHunters Danny, one is fine saving some points.

Double CH is kind of supposed to make up for my otherwise lack of direct fire AP2, and for redundancies sake, hoping to be able to always bring those shots to bear but you have to expect losses in any game

You keep talking about trimming fat and then adding fat. You get more hits on average from the squad of 5 dragons where one is an exarch than with 6 regular dragons and you pay 12 points less.

Dman137...
Dman137...
Dman137!

I summon thee to endorse this Eldar Cheese list!

I think you're narrowing in on a much better list, but I have to say I'm unimpressed by Vauls' D-Cannons. While they're cheap and powerful, they typically have little impact on a game versus a clever opponent. The only way I've been able to make them viable is with the use of say Eldrad to provide a Scouting Warlord trait. The 24" is oddly limiting.

Personally I would invest your FW approved rules and pick up a heaping pile of Hornets with Pulse Lasers if you're committed to the cheese. This alleviates the argument for Crimson Hunters with more point efficient AP2 on the field freeing you up for more Spiders.

I really wis I could afford the hornet cheese (financiallu) but I don't think I'll be able to. I think the bIG thing for the cannons in this list is going to be for board control purposes, people simply don't want to walk through it to get to them and they can quite effectively cover a very large section of no man's land.

On the aspect host topic. #1 the exarch's perform better with bs6 from the buff (they're bs5 base) #2 you have access to exarch powers (fire dragons crack shot, reapers fast shot, spiders iron resolve...do I really need to go on?) AND #3 in the aspect host all of the aspect squads get to reroll failed morale, pinning and fear checks.

I liked your first list if I'm honest. Though I play yme-loc so I love the tanks. Fire prisms aren't really all they're worked up to be, unfortunately. I'd agree with dropping them for a crimson hunter. If you're going to bring d-cannon batteries, bring the battle host. With an auto 6" run on the guardians in it, their 12" guns now have a 24" range with 6" move and a 6" battle focus. They also get 1 free platform.

I run a unit of 5 scat bikes. 20 shots does the trick most of the time. If you are relying on scat bikes to take out flyers, my 5 bike squad does ~1-2 hp a turn against a flyer. With guide it goes up to ~2-3, but don't rely on them to kill flyers. They will however smoke most things they shoot at, drowning them in dice.

I like my WK running d-cannons and scatter lasers. With the extra scat lasers I can paint a charge that I need to make, while still shooting my d-cannons at the hard target.

Your original aspect host is perfect in my opinion. You could swap the dragons for reapers and get good results though. I run dragons, spiders and reapers, but that's because I don't have any hawks. Grenade packs and haywire grenades will take care of infantry and flyers/tanks well.

Now, on your psychic powers - I get guide, but I don't think you need prescience too. I would roll on telepathy and fish for invisibility. That certainly cranks the cheese up to 11, and keeps your WK in the fight for longer. Or your warlord's unit. Sometimes I'll leave the WK visible (but in cover) and he does fine. If you see a cent-star space marine army though, invis goes on the knight every turn. They're twin-linked, ignoring cover, AND rerolling 3's to wound. The one thing that the sword/shield helps with on the wraith knight is that you get that invul AND FnP against things that ignore your armor.

Sorry for writing a book. My 2 cents.

Hornets died with the new eldar, their good but get no more than 4 per army. 2hp and armour 11 weaps to scatter lasers and necron HD or at least it does in English meta. Having an autarch + scout from Hornets creates a good combo, but dont expect them to last long.

 iddy00711 wrote:
Hornets died with the new eldar, their good but get no more than 4 per army. 2hp and armour 11 weaps to scatter lasers and necron HD or at least it does in English meta. Having an autarch + scout from Hornets creates a good combo, but dont expect them to last long.

You can never base anything in the Eldar/dark eldar/harlequin codexs on how tough they are, that's like saying that Windriders suck cause they can be easily killed by sternguard, lychguard, or droppod flamed dreadnaughts......we rely on speed and cover to make our army survive, the hornet is no different. Hell, the warwalker is av10 2hp and open top, yet most of my opponents fear them for the flexibility and firepower they bring!

And the 5+ save they carry with them base, plus battle focus

??? No one said they suck, I said they were good but no one should take more than 4, just like no one should take more than 4 war walkers. 3-4 hornets are fine and help fill in gaps without taking too many points.