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Hi Everyone,

So I'm getting back into the hobby again after a very long time away, and am looking for some feedback on building an Eldar army. I would appreciate advice on both how to make a good but not table flip inducing army and for a min-max version, as I have friends who play on both ends of the spectrum and would like to be able to tweak my army accordingly for different occasions.

Thanks,

Albireous

My first stab at things:

Wind rider Host ( pts)
[] 1 Skyrunner Farseer w/ singing spear
[] 1 Vyper Squadron (vyper x1)
[] 1 Warlock Conclave: Skyrunner Warlock x1
[] Windriders x4 with Scatter lasers
[] Windriders x4 with Scatter lasers
[] Windriders x3 with Scatter lasers

Aspect Host ()
[] Dark Reapers x4 + 1 exarch w/ missile launcher
[] Dark Reapers x4 + 1 exarch w/ missile launcher
[] Fire Dragons x4 + 1 exarch w/ Wave Serpent w/brightlances

Aspect Host ()
[] Howling Banshees x5 +1 exarch
[] Howling Banshees x5 +1 exarch
[] Striking Scorpions x5 +1 exarch

Wraith Construct
[] Wraithknight w/wraithcannons, x2 Scatter laser

Wraith Construct
[] Wraithknight w/ wraithcannons, x2 Scatter laser

Total: 2000 pts.

One: edit away exact points costs as it violates GW's Intel. Property rights and gets Dakka in trouble.

Two:
Whacha plaayyin'? Garage games or tourney? Book missions or ITC stuff?

As is, the 2k list looks fine for GGs, but tourneys will have smaller points values.

Best units are Scatbikes, Hawks & WKs. Spiders if you own any.

Weaker:
a. the Wave Serpent Fire Dragons. FireDs can't match Hawks' vehicle killing power. It's mostly the range the Hawks have for simply doing Hull Points with their 18" Move and then 2d6 charge range with Haywires. For less points when you include the WaveS to deliver FireDs.
b. Banshees. The poor dears have no Open Topped Vehicles to assault out of, unless you get yourself some Dark Eldar Allies. The courtesan HQ, some Kabalite Warriors and then a Raider. Scorpions have Infiltrate to help them get to h2h faster, but not these girls. Because of eldar lacking a good delivery boat, unless you ally, they're at near the bottom of the *really* good cue of Eldar Units.
c. Scorpions - Infiltrate helps, and their exarch rocks with an init 6 Power Claw, but ultimately, you can populate your army with far better units.

Middle: Dark Reapers, with StarShot upgrade. Dire Avengers, Guardians (cheap with guns better than bolters!)

The Craftworld set up with full 6" Run is meh. Running a CAD grants the Jetbikes ObSec and thus more value in objective missions, and then you simply include the detachments, depending on build limitations in tourneys.

For a fluffier game, use the Highlander building set: Only one kind of unit per army. *Only* one unit of JBs, only one WK, only one unit of Hawks, etc.

The points per unit have lowered since 5e so that 2k game is gonna be 3 hours, longer if casual. With beer. Also, the game is longer because of a longer Psy-phase and more rolling, OverWatch, Hammer of Wrath and lotsa other little items that 5e didn't have. Arguably, 5e might have been the fastest 40k version.

I would make a list for 1500, 1750, 1850 and then your 2k long after/evening list.

Proxy your Warlock as a farseer. Dual farseers are likely to get the best powers, starting with Divination to get Prescience, which is better than Guide, and then hitting Runes of Fate for Fortune.

I'm a monthly tourney attendee, so I tend to powerful builds, as, well, 'fluffy' is just not really well defined. By Anybody.

Welcome back buddy.

Some relatively solid advice above. I think the power level of aspect warriors depends on your meta. If you see a shed load of bikes, Jetbikes and skimmers then suddenly reapers become top tier. Hawks are arguably better at stripping hull points. But dragons have always given me better tank hunting success. But when it comes to anti armour D-Scythe wielding Wraithguard have always smashed both for me.

Brothererekose is right, you'll get more mileage out of a CAD if your troops are bikes. All you lose is the ability to field dual wraithknights. But considering you're supposed to be avoiding 'table flipping' I wouldn't take 2 anyway. 1 is table flipping quite often. And a lot of tournaments that I'm aware of limit them to 1 because of their power level. 2 on the table is game breaking. People will struggle to beat them. Let alone with the rest you have. Objective secured on Jetbikes arguably makes them the best troops choice in the game.

On the topic of Jerbikes, you probably want units of 3 or 5. 4 is a bad choice. Lose one bike and it's a leadership check on ld8. Not reliable at all and with a 3D6 retreat it stings. A lot. 3 bikes still means a check on 1 casualty but you're losing less. 5 bikes means 2 need to die. I'd switch to a CAD. Ditch the vyper. Go for 4 squads of 3 bikes. I'd prob ditch the missile launcher on the reaper exarchs. They're poor and underwhelming. Then go from there. As it is you'll win with the Knights alone.

Thanks for the tips. So I would say that I am looking for is a good solid flexible army build and then the ability to transition it into a tourney build without having to buy too many additional units.

I have a couple of friends who will be playing GG with me, who range from min-max listers to more casual. I was asking them when I started building my list how careful I should be about min-maxing, and they basically told me that I should cause all their favorite lists are that way.

Hmm... interesting that banshees have dropped so much these days. I have many sad memories of them absolutely wrecking my guard army way back in 2005-6.


So maybe you guys can clarify things for me,

1. If I do drop the craft world set up and field my units as a CAD, am I still able to get the auxiliary formations? I say this because I did really like the benefits of the Aspect Host making all of those high shooting units BS 5, and I do have the two wraith knights already and would like to be able to field them.

2. Flyers are a new thing since I last played. What's the best tactic to deal with an army using them as Eldar? One of my best friends who I will be playing regularly is an Imp Guard player who apparently loves to use their flyer gunships, and I need to figure out how to best handle them. The other main min-maxer is a space marines player.

3. From what you both are saying, my aspect host unit for having a close combat capacity really isn't the best plan. What's your recommendation then for a good close combat engagement strategy for dealing with armies where I will want to close in?

4. Is the seer council formation any good in 7e? That's one of the options I've been tossing around in my head, but I'm still not sure how to build around it effectively.

5. If I decided to get rid of the banshees for hawks and warp spiders, what size squad would you guys recommend?

Ok, my thoughts

1) yes you can drop the host and still take auxiliary formations. Each formation counts as a singular detachment. You can have as many of these as you wish and still be battleforged. Note - a lot of tournaments limit them. In fact, I haven't seen one that allows more than 3.

2) Flers are strange. I tend to ignore them more often than not. Or field a poor attempt at dealing with them. But we do have some of the best anti flier that points can buy in my opinion. The only problem being that they're vulnerable. Hawks are very very good if you can jump over a flier. Though that's quite hard to do and situational. Crimson hunters are very efficient with vector dancer and sky hunter. But if the enemy flier comes on afterwards then that can be very problematic. The Crimson death formation almost guarantees you winning the aerial battle with all bright lances but at 440 points it's expensive. I'd argue you'd need an exarch too for reserves manipulation.

3) In 7th edition close combat is poor and lack lustre on the whole compared to shooting. Our combat units aren't bad compared to some, they're just bad compared to other units in our codex. The most efficient and competitive strategy is to not get into melee. Units like warp spiders will always outshine combat units and are normally fast enough to avoid them. Jetbikes are also very good at this. Scatter lasers meaning they can keep far enough away. And some times it's worth not shooting for a turn turbo boost a further 36" out of the way.

4) In my meta I haven't seen any councils. I love the idea and due to those two reasons alone I'm trying to put one in my list. I think it has a mass of potential and can be a lot of fun. But having not fielded it yet, nor seen it used, I can't comment on it really.

5) Units of 6-7 seem to be best. Small enough to deep strike effectively and to use cover well, but large enough to always dish decent damage out. Always take exarchs. Such a brilliant upgrade for 10 points. Makes marine sergeants cry when all they get is a +1 leadership.

Hope this all helps. Others may think differently.

Albireous wrote:
1. If I do drop the craft world set up and field my units as a CAD, am I still able to get the auxiliary formations? I say this because I did really like the benefits of the Aspect Host making all of those high shooting units BS 5, and I do have the two wraith knights already and would like to be able to field them.

I build lists according to a list building tournament (ITC) guideline. What you and your buddies do in the basement/garage is all up to you.

Albireous wrote:
2. Flyers are a new thing since I last played. What's the best tactic to deal with an army using them as Eldar? One of my best friends who I will be playing regularly is an Imp Guard player who apparently loves to use their flyer gunships, and I need to figure out how to best handle them. The other main min-maxer is a space marines player.

Be sure to play with Mysterious Objectives. With Scrier's Gaze, you can possibly bend one of these to be a SkyFire Nexus. Otherwise, Dark Reapers have an inbuilt reroll to shoot fliers. The S8 upgrade helps though.

Albireous wrote:
3. From what you both are saying, my aspect host unit for having a close combat capacity really isn't the best plan. What's your recommendation then for a good close combat engagement strategy for dealing with armies where I will want to close in?

The WraithK. is the main h2h champ for elves. I do know one GT winning player that employs 6 or 7 Wraithblades (axe and shield), Baharoth, and Farseers to psy-boost for a nasty h2h unit. Other than that, elves don't soil their mincy little hands touching anything but triggers.

Albireous wrote:
4. Is the seer council formation any good in 7e? That's one of the options I've been tossing around in my head, but I'm still not sure how to build around it effectively.

Jury is out on that. It takes a smarter player than me to use 'em well.

Albireous wrote:
5. If I decided to get rid of the banshees for hawks and warp spiders, what size squad would you guys recommend?

The LVO was won by a guy fielding 9 squads of 5 Spiders. I've been using 2 squads of 9, but deep striking was problematic. The smarter player than me won't DS at all, since spiders are so fast. I will be taking the LVO guy's advice (he chimed in on one of my threads) and break my units down in size.

Hawks ought to be 6. Big enough to gain the Big Blast for their grenade pack. In Maelstrom missions, they're really nice with SkyLeap.

Some very useful advice thanks guys! So with some of that in mind, here is a proposed revised list, swapping out the close combat forces:

1849 point version:

Windrunner Host:
1 Skyrunner farseer
1 Vyper
1 Skyrunner Warlock
Windriders x3 w/scatter lasers
Windriders x3 w/scatter lasers
Windriders x3 w/scatter lasers

Aspect Host 1 (+1 BS)
Dark Reapers x2 +1 exarch w/missile launcher (chose this to have an anti-flier capability)
Dark Reapers x2 +1 exarch
Fire Dragons x4 + 1 exarch, wave serpent w/ bright lances

Aspect Host 2 (+1 BS)
Swooping Hawks x5 +1 exarch
Warp Spiders x4 +1 exarch
Warp Spiders x4 +1 exarch

Wraithknight x2 w/heavy wraith cannons and x2 scatter lasers


The 2k version will probably just add in a few more wind riders or reapers depending on the opponent.

This is reasonably good. It looks a lot like what I've been doing for 6 months. Just play better than me and you might Win 2 outta 3.