Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Does the Codex have any glaring weaknesses that your opponent can use against you?

The only one I've seen so far was a Spiritseers being picked off by a Vindicare Assassin, which made the brick of Wraith sitting in the middle of the table slightly less awesome.


Banshees will also wreck Sisters too.

Well, the infantry is exceptionally squishy, to the point you probably don’t need to particularly focus your fire to do serious damage to a unit.

If an opponent keeps their units covering each other, it should be possible to really punish any mistakes made by the Eldar player.

We also seem to lack long range. It is there of course, but typically you should expect fisticuffs at shorter ranges. Which can help inform how you get your units to mutually support.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Well, the infantry is exceptionally squishy, to the point you probably don’t need to particularly focus your fire to do serious damage to a unit.

If an opponent keeps their units covering each other, it should be possible to really punish any mistakes made by the Eldar player.

We also seem to lack long range. It is there of course, but typically you should expect fisticuffs at shorter ranges. Which can help inform how you get your units to mutually support.

Between Fire Prisms and Dark Reapers, you definitely have range that is both mobile and varied enough in quality for fire support that you shouldn't be lacking in this category, and this isn't including war walker and shroud runner support providing ignores cover and additional AP.

It’s more the infantry. This means the Eldar player really needs to consider their movement and positioning. We can absolutely pour it on once in range. But a cunning opponent can use typically superior range on their own troops to frustrate plans.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
War Walkers are really nice though. Mobile heavy firepower is always useful. But when it grants an additional -1 AP to subsequent shooting against the same unit? There’s some really nasty stuff that gets enabled.

I don't know if its a weakness, but I think hero-hammer can be a trap.

Glancing through games online, a lot of people are running lists with 3+ Phoenix Lords, maybe Eldrad and some basic Autarchs too. I suspect we'll see people run that in person too - once they've got the models.

Individually I don't think any of these are especially overcosted - but if you are spending 25-30% of your points on characters, there's a danger you just don't have enough meat. A few big 10 man units of aspect warriors and wave serpents also very quickly add up.

I mean this is a stupid example but:

Asurmen, 10 Dire Avengers, Wave Serpent
Fuegan, 10 Fire Dragons, Wave Serpent
Maugan Ra (or Autarch), 10 Dark Reapers
Eldrad, 10 Guardian Defenders, D-Cannon
Lhykhis, 10 Warp Spiders. (Or 5 Warp Spiders and another unit of 5 Swooping Hawks).
2 War Walkers.

I think you'd have a bit of change left on a 2k points limit - but not much. I think "if everything works", this list could do a lot of damage. But I also don't think it would be hard for a lot of lists to bully you off objectives so you'd just lose on primary.

Not to mention there’s not a great deal of resilience in that list. A botched movement, combat or unanticipated deep strike could make for a very bad day.

I appreciate it’s a deliberately silly list to highlight, but if any of those units chokes? It’s not going to take the opponent very long to start knocking holes in it.

I do want to make it clear I’m not moaning about the squishiness in our Codex. Indeed I consider it strongly thematic, as Eldar lives are precious in the background, and now precious on the board. We need to consider the inevitable attrition, and how we might best mitigate that.

Hopping back inside a transport is all well and good. But not if your opponent then squelches the transport, potentially leaving the squad stranded, out of position, and just begging for a proper retribution kicking.

In short? Our obvious tricks are solid, but so, so painfully obvious I don’t think it’ll take opponents long to find ways to mitigate or outright counter. Onus is now on us to layer in tricks.

A couple glaring weaknesses:

People will adjust quickly to Fire Dragons. It will take all of one game to never allow them to get into a good position to shoot tanks. I expect Infiltrators, Imperial Agent model, and the Tau model that blocks Deep Strike within 12" to become more common.

Indirect Fire. People lambast it right now but Aeldari infantry are very susceptible to IF. Whirlwinds, Nightspinners, Shaodow Weavers, IG and other IF will modify Aeldari army builds.

Units get expensive pretty quick when trying to upgrade with multiple characters. Banshees are nice at 90 points but I will rethink my strategy if I also have Jain Zarr putting the unit over 200 points. Indo expect to see some bad lists emerge and players get blown right off the table as Aeldari are fairly fragile.

Sarigar wrote:
A couple glaring weaknesses:

People will adjust quickly to Fire Dragons. It will take all of one game to never allow them to get into a good position to shoot tanks. I expect Infiltrators, Imperial Agent model, and the Tau model that blocks Deep Strike within 12" to become more common.

So you're saying you expect the opponents to remember that proper screening is a thing?

Snarky comment aside, there have been times during this edition where screening in this fashion has been less impactful. The change from 3" to 6" deep strike is but one time when folks re evaluated screening strategies.

My opponent went from 1-2 Infiltrator units intil the deep strike change and the time he doesn't take Infiltrators, Fire Dragons removed two Whirlwinds in a single shooting phase. Now, an Infiltrator unit is back in the list.

I rarely faced anyone running the Tau model or Imperial Agent model that denies deep strike within 12". I expect to see more of that type of model show up in lists.

Tyel wrote:
I don't know if its a weakness, but I think hero-hammer can be a trap.

Glancing through games online, a lot of people are running lists with 3+ Phoenix Lords, maybe Eldrad and some basic Autarchs too. I suspect we'll see people run that in person too - once they've got the models.

Individually I don't think any of these are especially overcosted - but if you are spending 25-30% of your points on characters, there's a danger you just don't have enough meat. A few big 10 man units of aspect warriors and wave serpents also very quickly add up.

I mean this is a stupid example but:

Asurmen, 10 Dire Avengers, Wave Serpent
Fuegan, 10 Fire Dragons, Wave Serpent
Maugan Ra (or Autarch), 10 Dark Reapers
Eldrad, 10 Guardian Defenders, D-Cannon
Lhykhis, 10 Warp Spiders. (Or 5 Warp Spiders and another unit of 5 Swooping Hawks).
2 War Walkers.

I think you'd have a bit of change left on a 2k points limit - but not much. I think "if everything works", this list could do a lot of damage. But I also don't think it would be hard for a lot of lists to bully you off objectives so you'd just lose on primary.

I agree with this a lot as well. The list I am currently working on has 4 characters, but one is the Avatar which is really more monster then character. I think there are so many good character options that you can definitely have too many in a list. I think you need to think about what each character is doing and if you really need that for your game plan. My is a Farseer in the conclave, Asurman (who is almost auto include) and then a autarch leading a warp spider unit, that quite frankly I could easily drop but I have the old model with the warp spider pack, and really just want to field it. If I was going more competitive would definitely drop the Autarch, and mayber even the Farseer which would add 150 or so points, and with dropping another small unit I could add two more war walkers if I wanted.

I guess the balancing act is using characters to increase hitting power to better ensure any target goes splat in a turn, without reducing overall headcount to the point that even say, a couple of surviving Marines can give us a righteous kicking back.

Because I know that I’m sounding like a broken record, but we really don’t have many ways to mitigate Attrition, beyond flattening and wiping out everything within reach. Especially on our Aspect Warriors, which are pretty trivial for most opponents to kill with shooting.

This is also making me carefully consider squad size for Aspects. Whilst it’s true anyone can split fire to tackle multiple smaller squads, that’s still a risk as there’s every chance an opponent will fail to do enough damage in such a split.

I do agree that prioritising targets that don’t themselves need LoS is a decent idea. We need to force opponents to play our game, on our terms. And such weapons can foil that.

In brief and incomplete summary?

1. We need to be hot on target prioritisation
2. We need to do what we can to ensure a given target goes when we need it to
3. We need to dictate the flow of the game. We’ve decent tools to do that of course, but we need to use them wisely and as efficiently as possible, to minimise return fire.

Simply packing a list full of force multipliers won’t necessarily achieve that. And I worry that some may be false economies.

For instance? Fuegan. He’s good. He’s very good. But when it comes to slagging a tank in a turn? I’m not sure he’s required to achieve that. Fire Dragons have enough reliable oomph to arrange that as they are. Even a squad of five with those lovely re-rolls should be able to achieve that, provided we can get them in range whilst the squad is intact.

Jain Zar though? She brings a lot to Banshees through sheer volume of attacks (goodbye even horde infantry), and a real wallop against many enemy characters, which might otherwise stand to mulch the squad.

More than anyone, we need to make like a Seer and consider the future. To stick with the example, Banshees having a solid shot at deleting Power Armour squads is all fine and well. But not if it leaves them out in the open, scratching their porcelain cheeks, in the opponents next turn, no matter how tempting the recently deleted unit was. Because that’s how Aspect Warriors go splat.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The good news is, use cunningly and with malice aforethought, we can hit so hard and so reliably, we should be wiping out multiple targets in a turn.

Now, that in itself doesn’t solve our fragility problem. But there’ll be many an opponent flustered by such losses, they may squander their return fire, failing to stop and consider what we might be looking to achieve in our next and subsequent turns.

We may be able to use that. For instance, those Banshees again. Sure our opponent, if they’re caught in the open, can delete the squad pretty easily. And if they’ve just massacred an opposing unit that may be too tempting to pass up. But if we factored that in, and our future plans for those Banshees was “if there’s anyone left, get in and try to make another mess”, and weren’t a central pillar of the wider strategy? Maybe that’s to our advantage.

Hmm.

Do I understand it correctly (after the FAQ) that warlock conclaves can join guardians, and then you can still join a farseer (or Eldrad?) And then you could join a lone warlock too?

Also, a lone warlock is 45 points, but a conclave of two is 55... That's a quite significant bulk discount!

 Crimson wrote:
Do I understand it correctly (after the FAQ) that warlock conclaves can join guardians, and then you can still join a farseer (or Eldrad?) And then you could join a lone warlock too?

Also, a lone warlock is 45 points, but a conclave of two is 55... That's a quite significant bulk discount!

The lone one gives -2 charge range to assault his unit, the conclave just protects with a farseer?

I agree that the pricing is a little odd, but the same model has different rules depending on where and how it’s included in a list. Not a fan, but is what it is.

 Nevelon wrote:

 Crimson wrote:
Do I understand it correctly (after the FAQ) that warlock conclaves can join guardians, and then you can still join a farseer (or Eldrad?) And then you could join a lone warlock too?

Also, a lone warlock is 45 points, but a conclave of two is 55... That's a quite significant bulk discount!

The lone one gives -2 charge range to assault his unit, the conclave just protects with a farseer?

I agree that the pricing is a little odd, but the same model has different rules depending on where and how it’s included in a list. Not a fan, but is what it is.

Sure. But the conclave rules seems significantly better to me. Granted, it requires you to have a farseer, but I don't see much point in protecting a plain guardian unit with a warlock in the first place. It is almost half the cost of the unit for unreliable way to protect them from charges. Doesn't seem remotely worth it.

If you were pushing a blob with a D-cannon up the table? 2 inches charge range might be a difference.

Or backfield with a weaver platform in a squad, makes it harder foe a unit to DS 9” away and charge in, even with tricks.

Worth the points? Probably not. But might come up?

I’ve had to reappraise Swooping Hawks, as I thought their guns were only S3. But they’re of course S4 - with Lethal Hits.

And I’m thinking that Lethal Hits somewhat offsets their lack of native AP. And a handy shot from a War Walker can of course give some AP to them.

Add in their Grenade Pack, and they do have some decent usage.

Exarch I think is better off with the Hawk’s Talon, as that Damage 2 is pretty welcome.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I’ve had to reappraise Swooping Hawks, as I thought their guns were only S3. But they’re of course S4 - with Lethal Hits.

And I’m thinking that Lethal Hits somewhat offsets their lack of native AP. And a handy shot from a War Walker can of course give some AP to them.

Add in their Grenade Pack, and they do have some decent usage.

Exarch I think is better off with the Hawk’s Talon, as that Damage 2 is pretty welcome.

There is something to be said of just keeping the exarch lasblaster so the whole squad can shoot after an assault move. It also has twice the shots, albiet at half the damage.

The grenades is odd. I’ve always tried to keep my hawks at extreme range, as they are very soft elf bits, and do not enjoy rapid fire. That said, not sure how important that is with 10ths guns. Just theory crafting. On them.

It’s kind of handy that we can pop it off after most movement, albeit once per turn. And of course, we needn’t target the same unit as their Lasblasters.

Which…if you’ve a few squads doing some hasty, elegant murder in the same patch of board, can really help out.

Outside of a brick of Wraithguard, do the Eldar have any decent OC that can sit on an Objective and hold at all costs?

They are fast, kick out a ton of shots, and with lethal hits can in theory help against a lot of targets. Lack of AP puts them in the “spam dice and hope they roll 1s on their armor save” which works in high enough volume.

One thing to do is compare them to warp spiders. Similar jobs these days. Spiders are a little more expensive, and shorter range. But better armored. Don’t have lethal hits but get d6 shots with torrent and ignore cover, and a pip of AP instead of 4 shots ar twice the range.

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
Outside of a brick of Wraithguard, do the Eldar have any decent OC that can sit on an Objective and hold at all costs?

Guardian Defenders, basically.

But Eldar are striking me as an army to be wielded super aggressively. We’re pretty swift even on foot, and once in range can kick out an impressive volume of firepower. So when its Objectives? I guess I’ll be taking, over holding. And if I’m swift enough, you may not have a great deal left to go bothering my backfield Guardians.

I was thinking of the backfield deepstrikers. It seems most armies have at least one disruptor unit whose sole job is to appear in your deployment zone... (heck, I have a Deep Striking Crusader in my Knight list).

Do the Eldar have any Sticky Objective holders?

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
I was thinking of the backfield deepstrikers. It seems most armies have at least one disruptor unit whose sole job is to appear in your deployment zone... (heck, I have a Deep Striking Crusader in my Knight list).

Do the Eldar have any Sticky Objective holders?

Storm guardians.

War Walkers, and the armament thereof.

What are your thoughts on this newly rather useful unit?

I’ve a pair I built when the last Codex came out, and being a Sad Old Git when with the classic Bright Lance and Scatter Laser.

Overall, I’m happy with that choice, as the Scatter Laser should all but guarantee I get that tasty Extra AP for other units, whilst also having the S to get wounds in its own right. And the Bright Lance is always going to be useful, even if it’s not the best anti-tank in our arsenal.

But, I do wonder if someone yet to build, or that’s magnetised, might need to think further. Good as that Additional AP is, that being the only benefit for fielding a War Walker may be a false economy, as surely we want it to be killing a model or two on its own?

Two bright lances is obviously good shooting, but it kinda makes sense here to utilise the buff the unit gives. I think shuriken cannon has enough shots to be pretty damn reliable, but if you want to be sure the scatter laser is the the way to go.

Also, if you you have several walkers, it might make sense to give some of them double lances as you can apply the buff only once anyway.

Though for practical considerations, does the kit even come with two of the same heavy weapon?

I wish they had made the heavy weapons more balanced. It is a bit boring that bright lance is so much better than other guns and most time it makes sense to just spam them. Here at least there is some incentive to use the other options, though even now it is obviously given that at least one of the guns is the lance.

The new kit does, as each individual War Walker has its own suite of weapons.

I’m thinking they’re a unit very well suited to splitting fire. Scatter Laser or Shuriken Cannon to get Crystal Targetting Matrix (CTM) off, then probably a Bright Lance to at the very least chip away at big stuff. So I’m not sure I’d want to double up, as we can only CTM a single target per unit.

Mind you, I’m not at all persuaded to field them in squadrons. I may only get three going single choices, but the way I’m currently thinking, that maximises my CTM options, and gives me three more Bright Lances.

Also, they’re really not terribly tough, despite their 5+ Inv being welcome. So by not squadroning up, my opponent should have a harder time taking them all out.

Not a hard time, like. But a harder time. Possibly.

I’m open to discussion and persuasion on that one. Though I think if we go in assuming they’ll be casualties sooner rather than later, planning an aggressive first turn or two (three if we’re lucky or opponent is sloppy) could see us really carve through opposing units.

Missile Launchers I think do bear consideration, as they give us something of both worlds?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, it’s not often I’d assign such a status outside of Battleline?

But War Walkers absolutely are an Auto Include. They’re plenty flexible, and play really nicely with the rest of the army, more or less regardless what’s in the rest of the army. And I can’t see myself going to war without at least a brace, fielded as separate units.

As noted above, they don’t take much putting down, but with Scout and a respectable range, they can really help us take down critical targets.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Vypers also seem alright, but I fear a bit more situational. Forcing -1 to hit on an enemy unit is definitely useful, especially with our squishy nature.

But unlike the War Walker, we’ve only really one useful weapon it, as the option to upgrade the Shuriken Catapults is gone.

I think they could work well in more isolated areas of the board, perhaps backfield to help mitigate deep strikers. But I just don’t see the same ubiquity as War Walkers.

The ML also has the perk of 48” range, if you ever need to debuff something way over there.

The 24 on the shuriken might be a little short to ensure you are able to get it in range to get the job done. Now, if you are putting 3 in a list, one of them will probably be in range, so less of an issue. But if you are just fielding one or two, a scatter laser has a better range and the number of shots.

How lucky are you feeling? I think BL/SC is a safe combo. BL/ML is a little riskier, as d6 shots could fail you at a clutch time. I find the idea of 2xML intriguing, but I do like sticking BLs wherever I can.

My 2 walkers are magnetized, so less of a concern for me to make a decision. It’s a fairly easy job to mag them. Not a simple as the side mount guns, but still pretty easy.

Edit:
I do like the look of Vypers with the debuff. and thematically they fit better with how I want to play my army, so more likely to actually see the table then the WWs, who I agree are a must take.

Also looking at Shroudrunners.

Whilst their no cover debuff is only on the Long Rifles, they’re at least 2+ to hit. Their Scatter Lasers are of course a welcome further shots. Plus tasty 36” range and 14” move should mean few, if any, areas of the battlefield are entirely safe from their nonsense tricks.

But I don’t think I’d like to be objective campers staring down a War Walker, Shroudrunners, Dire Avengers and then perhaps a charge off Striking Scorpions or Banshees.

A hefty combo, I trust you’ll agree, but one presented solely as an example.

And a lot of these debuffs can be handed out at 36” range by fast units. So it should be possible to hand them out where needed from relative safety.

Yarp.

Of course, points wise we’ll need to be careful we’re not all pudding and no mains, as outside of the Shroudrunners the three I’m looking at right now aren’t going to carry the day on their own against a unit. And there’s little point being a force multiplier if we forgot to pack the force.

I’m thinking maybe a couple of War Walkers, unit of Shroudrunners and perhaps a single Vyper.

36” debuff dealers, all fairly swift in their own ways. Provided I can spot the right opportunity in a given turn, I should be hitting like a ton of bricks, with some flexibility in just how many units I can give a right proper kicking to.

I’ve no idea if Deathstars are a thing in 10th, but if they are? Feels like Eldar have some fun tools for a quick dismantling.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Turning to Rangers, and I’m somewhat on the fence.

Their guns are….alright, I guess? A squad full of Precision is damned handy for plinking away at characters embedded in squads, thus have a chance of breaking up an opponent’s own synergy, as well as sparing Aspects a horrible HTH kicking.

But they’re one shot each a turn, and only S4 AP-1. And despite the Dam 2, I’m not entirely persuaded they’re pokey enough to be a reliable threat. And the squad doesn’t really bring much else to the table.

Is my summary accurate? Not having in-game experience, perhaps a full squad would prove plenty in removing enemy characters?