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So, I've been itching to get back in the game again, as the semester is coming to a close and I'll be going back home, where there will potentially be some opponents. I don't want to spend too much (as it may not be worth the effort, depending on the players left)
so I've decided to try and put together an effective army list out of what I have left from my beginner 3rd ed Eldar. I don't have the codex( no game stores around here either), so any help would be appreciated in constructing this list.

This is what I recall having

4 Warp Spiders
4 Dark Reapers
6 Banshees with Executioner Exarch
Falcon
Wave Serpent
30-ish Guardians w/platforms
7 Dire Avengers
Old Warwalker
2 Vipers
Farseer

So, I've been thinking, get Fire Dragons for the Falcon, another Fire Prism, fill out the Aspect Squads I have, and maybe go Mechanized, using Wave-Serpent borne Dire Avengers as guided Bladestorm missiles against hordes, 2x Fire Prisms to help either thin out hordes with large blasts or go anti-tank, and maybe do something with the Guardians and Farseer as a home quarter holding, heavy weapons tote.

What do the more experienced, and more importantly, up to date Eldar players think?

sounds sexy.

You are going to want to make sure you get your points worth out of your Farseer. Going in with guardians is a good plan, fortuned conceal or reapers + ld10 and guide or doom.

Hey man, i would highly recommend if your getting another fire prism to magnet the top and try and find a waveserpent sprue (top) so you can switch it out...and harlequins are well worth the investment...every all purpose eldar army should have a unit of them

Cy

You could build a really good army with what you have, other than the odd model (say one more warp spider and 3 more Dire Avengers).

You don't NEED harlies since you have banshees already, and truthfully with all the armor you seem to want to have flying around full of DA and Banshees you don't NEED dark reapers.

Farseer- hdqs

2 big guardian units with two platforms (or 3 of 10 with platforms) - 10 is the minimum size now- troops
Dire Avengers (in a transport maybe) troop


Warp Spiders fast attack
vypers - run as one unit or two - fast attack

Banshees in a transport elite

one falcon or prism - heavy support

Build from there with the units you got.

By July the "5th edition" of the rules is supposed to be out - GW actually advertised it in the latest White Dwarf. Apparently, troops are much more important since they are the only scoring units. Skimmers are not quite as good in some ways, but better in others. All cover saves are supposedly 4+ as well. So it should be interesting.

Railguns wrote:4 Warp Spiders
4 Dark Reapers
6 Banshees with Executioner Exarch
Falcon
Wave Serpent
30-ish Guardians w/platforms
7 Dire Avengers
Old Warwalker
2 Vipers
Farseer

To make all the units you have here useful, this is what you will need...
2 Warp spiders (or 1 and an exarch).
1 Reaper exarch.
1-3 Banshees (they work well in groups of 8-10).
2 Dire avengers and an exarch (the exarch is required).
2 War walkers (if you are fielding them, you must field them in groups of 3, however if you are planning on getting a fire prism, you won't have the heavy slots to put them in along with the prism, reapers, and falcon so you'll have to chose what you are going to drop).
1 Wave serpent (banshees and avengers both need one)

All in all, you have the makings of a decent balanced eldar list. Warp spiders work well as mobile multi purpose units. They are tough and are decent at killing most units out there. Reapers are excellent long range anti heavy infantry support. Banshees work well at killing heavy infantry in hand to hand, but are kind of shackled to a wave serpent to be effective. The flacon is a good support tank that can also transport units. Putting fire dragons or harlequins in it would be good if you get either. If you decide to get both, put the dragons inside and have the quins walk. Guardians are good for setting up a solid backbone for your army. Enemy units will think twice about showing up in your deployment zone when there are 3 heavy weapons and 30ish shuriken catapults pointed at them. War walkers provide more long range fire power than any other single unit in the game (1 squad, 6 heavy weapons). Vypers provide mobile heavy weapons platforms that can get around to just about any location you need them. Just be sure to keep them as far from enemy shooting as possible since they are very frail. You should also keep them as separate units (so long as you have the fast attack slots to do so…and you do) that way a single multi shot unit can’t kill both in one go. Your farseer has a lot of options for what he can do. The first thing is to figure out what unit(s) he can best support. The primary candidates for that would be the banshees, dire avengers, or war walkers. In this case, it’s best to put the farseer on a bike and have him follow the units around. Give him doom and have him cast it on whatever the banshees or avengers are going to be attacking that turn. You’ll probably want to avoid using fortune or guide on either since those powers must be cast at the beginning of the turn. This means that the banshees and avengers will still be in their transports and thus not be eligible targets for the powers. In addition, you don’t want to have the farseer in the transport because you can’t cast psy powers from inside. If you want to support the war walkers, guide is the way to go. Nothing can match the raw death dealt out by a squad of guided war walkers.

The plan that you give in your first post is a good one. Your purchase plan sounds solid, and is pretty optimal with both the current rules and the rumored new edition. Pheonix's recommendations for purchases to fill out your Aspects are also good. I'll rank the order I would buy in below, as you're trying to do it on the cheap.

About the Dire Avengers: DAs are a great backbone for either a foot or mech army. Two units will do you well, and since you need to add to the one you have you might as well spring for the second unit. Purchasing a unit of 10 will give you the bitz for an extra Exarch and an extra trooper to fill out your existing squad (which will need Guardian legs, but that's easy). That will give you one unit of 9 and one unit of 10, both with nifty new Exarchs. Should you decide to go mech, just add in a second Serpent, and you've got your mobile anti-infantry core. If you can magnetize the arms on the Exarchs, do so. If not, I recommend the power weapon/shimmershield setup for both squads.

Converting a Farseer on bike is also a very good idea, again as Pheonix recommends. With that added mobility and two units of Dire Avengers with the shimmershield setup, Fortune is a useful power to give him, although Doom is probably better if you are fielding Banshees. They're much more effective with it, even against T3 troops. Doom also has a decent range, so if you haven't got your bike Seer converted yet, Doom is probably your best bet. It's also nice in that it can effectively enhance several of your units rather than just one.

The Spiders-you will probably want to try running 6 Warp Spiders with no Exarch before investing in the Exarch. He's a bit expensive (points-wise) in units of 6, better in 8. That's probably a later expansion for your army.

The Banshees will indeed need the Serpent. You will either need to buy two more Serpents to mount DAs (mounted DAs are best when two units can be used, as they can wipe out whole Marine squads with shooting, and the redundancy insures that at least one unit will reach their target), or just let your second unit of DAs walk with the Guardians and play catch-up. Either way, Banshees don't live through walking to their target, so mounting them is key. Having them not be the only thing in a Serpent is also key: having another similar target often helps distract the enemy from your most serious CC threat.

Boxes of Fire Dragons come with 5 troops and an Exarch. This is unfortunate, as the Exarch is often overkill. 6 basic Dragons in a Falcon is usually the best setup, but the extra 12 points for the basic Exarch upgrade isn't a very big deal. Just don't waste points on powers of a firepike: 6 basic fusion guns will already do for killing most anything on tracks.

Your army will work well as a hybrid foot/mounted like it is now. While it sounds like you want to head for mech, do try out what you've got thoroughly before making too many more purchases. While Prisms are fun (and having more tanks increases the survivability of the ones that you already have on the table through safety in numbers), foot troops are less fragile when you're learning (or re-learning) the game. An experienced opponent can neutralize a mech force's shoting pretty easily, and can mess with your assault ability by blocking your exit ramps. Picking the game back up with a mix of mounted units for mobility and Guardians for resilience may give you a better chance to learn without getting stomped a lot.

So, a good buying order for filling out your army with few purchases:

Banshees (two blisters, four models)
1 box Fire Dragons (6)
1 box Dire Avengers (10)
1 Wave Serpent
2 Spiders (or a box including Exarch)
another Wave Serpent (lower priority than the one above, mainly to mount your second DA unit)

After that, you're functional and kicking butt with what you've got. Expansion with Prisms etc. will be fun, but what you've got now plus these few extras will be enough.

A final note on forward-compatibility for the upcoming (july 11) new edition in your modelling choices: Under the current rules, upgrading your shuriken catapults on your vehicles to shuriken cannon is a good idea. They're 3 extra S6 shots that don't cost much or slow you down. Under the new 5th ed. rules, they will either slow your vehicles down to fire them or be wasted points, as the strength of defensive weapons (which can be fired on the move) will drop to 4. BTW, most Eldar players are pretty pissed about this, but whatever. Anyways, if you attach that shuriken cannon bit to your vehicles, either magnetize it or don't glue it on, as you will probably want to be able to switch it out. This is a minor thing for tanks, which may survive being sitting gun platforms, if they are hull down in cover (which will give them a cover save like infantry get, under the new edition rules). But for Vypers, this is very bad news. Many folks run 2-shuriken cannon Vypers or scatterlaser/shuriken cannon. This won't work well anymore- so don't convert your Vypers to carrying an underslung shuriken cannon unless it's removable. Sadly, I had to learn that one the hard way...

Good luck with your new and improved Eldar!

EML is a great fit on Vypers, go for that side shot on armour or plunk at infantry.

Thanks guys. Some of the fundamentals of playing Eldar are coming back as i think about it, like Vipers as single units, guiding warwalkers with 2 starcannons each under 3rd ed was nasty. I learned double quick never to walk Banshees at anything.

Exarch wise, I'm thinking if I get the box of Dragons, would it be a good idea to give the Exarch the heavy flamer type weapon? In that case, would I not have a fairly effective secondary purpose to the unit?? I don't know how the new Exarch powers apply.


As for the Banshees, well, the executioner has served me well in the past so I don't think I'll change it.

What about the reaper Exarch? That Tempest launcher sounds like it would help significantly in the anti-infantry department, and it would complement the Reapers purpose as a squad well. However, I may need more anti-tank with this set-up, so the fast shot ML is tempting.

The fire prism is BS4 now, right? I remember being frustrated with the thing back in 3rd, as the only way I'd ever hit with it was to have it fly circles around my Farseer while he guided it. I'm thinking two would ensure that I get at least one hit per turn for my investment without having to dedicate a Farseer to them, while also giving me the option to bank shot just in case I need to.

As for heavy weapons in guardian squads and vipers, I'm not sure really. My vipers have brightlances, as their speed helped mitigate the relatively short range when Whirlwinds were shooting my guardians to death. One shot at Bs3, yeah, but at least I had 2. I'm thinking scatter lasers for the guardians though.



EDIT: I totally forgot, I also have the Fuegan and Jain Zar Phoenix lords.

Exarch wise, I'm thinking if I get the box of Dragons, would it be a good idea to give the Exarch the heavy flamer type weapon? In that case, would I not have a fairly effective secondary purpose to the unit?? I don't know how the new Exarch powers apply.

It's what I'm doing with mine, but it depends on your opponents I'd think. Me? I'll be going against two Tau, two Orcs, Carapaced Guard, and Sisters. 5 out of 6 opponents fielding 4+ SV troop squads? Why yes, I think I shall take that AP 4 heavy flamer that rerolls failed wounds.

If you fight mostly MEQs, keeping the fusion gun might be a better bet for you.

DBF is good even against MEqs. Touch a measly 5, kill 1.5. Not bad at all.

I'd say get DBF + CS if you're getting an Exarch. If not, don't bother taking an Exarch in the first place. There is no need for a BS5 melta shot in a squad that already has 5-6 BS4 ones, no need for more range with a grav tank delivery, and no need for TH with melta pen.

Railguns wrote: Exarch wise, I'm thinking if I get the box of Dragons, would it be a good idea to give the Exarch the heavy flamer type weapon? In that case, would I not have a fairly effective secondary purpose to the unit?? I don't know how the new Exarch powers apply.

The fire dragon exarch is mostly a waste. With a fusion gun he does what every other member of the squad does, just with a slightly higher chance to hit. With a fire pike he does what every other member of the squad does, just at a range that renders every other squad member useless. With a flamer, he tempts you into shooting at targets that are a waste of the rest of the unit's fire power. All in all, I would say just stick with regular dragons and save yourself some points and some headache.

What about the reaper Exarch? That Tempest launcher sounds like it would help significantly in the anti-infantry department, and it would complement the Reapers purpose as a squad well. However, I may need more anti-tank with this set-up, so the fast shot ML is tempting.

When combined with crack shot, the tempest launcher is great. Fast shot isn't very good with it though, so keep that in mind (rerolling wounds leads to 50% more kills, going from 2 shots to 3 leads to 33% more kills...and ignoreing cover saves is uber). As far as giving the exarch a missile launcher...what are you thinking? Why would you ever waste 8 S5 Ap3 shots on a tank that they can't hurt when they could be killing something else? It's a travisty. There is simply no good reason to ever give the exarch a missile launcher. If you need anti tank, put it somewhere else in your army (guardians or vypers would be much better options).

The fire prism is BS4 now, right? I remember being frustrated with the thing back in 3rd, as the only way I'd ever hit with it was to have it fly circles around my Farseer while he guided it. I'm thinking two would ensure that I get at least one hit per turn for my investment without having to dedicate a Farseer to them, while also giving me the option to bank shot just in case I need to.

Sounds like you are quickly running out of heavy support slots. While 2 prisms are good, it means you have to strip down the rest of your heavy support. Keep that in mind since the majority of the eldar's long range killing power comes from those coveted heavy slots.

As for heavy weapons in guardian squads and vipers, I'm not sure really. My vipers have brightlances, as their speed helped mitigate the relatively short range when Whirlwinds were shooting my guardians to death. One shot at Bs3, yeah, but at least I had 2. I'm thinking scatter lasers for the guardians though.

What weapons you mount on the vypers and guardians isn't so important. Just make sure you have enough anti troop and anti tank power between them. One thing to keep in mind though is to never mount shuriken cannons on vypers. Getting them that close to the enemy is just asking them to be shot down.

Ah- sounds like you already know how to play well, even if you're unfamiliar with the new edition. I'll quite lecture mode, then

Addressing Pheonix's point about the Prisms and your HS slots, in a list with skimmertanks more is better. More tanks, more target selection quandaries for the opponent. The Prisms will mean more tanks for them to choose from. And rumors about 5th suggest that Warwalkers may be less mobile than they were, firing only one weapon on the move (possibly at all, but likely fire both if they stand still). Meanwhile, blast templates are getting nastier. I say the Prims are better for mobility and hitting power, overall. They are pretty easy to shake, but them's the breaks with vehicular shooting. The range helps avoid that.

Railguns, Prisms are indeed BS4, and better yet, they can combine their shots to make one of them both twin-linked and hit harder. This gives you good flexibility to choose either separate targets for both, or one hard target (that's very likely to get hit) for them combined. Nowadays they are less useful to Guide than many other units are.

As for the Reaper exarch, I feel the same way about him that I do about the Firedragon exarch: the points are better spent elsewhere, like on more basic Reapers. The extra shots just about balance out vs. the higher BS/powers/etc., but the extra body to take bullets is often more useful.

That said, the tempest launcher is going to get way meaner in 5th, particularly in the hands of a Reaper exarch. He'll pretty much never miss.

t-C, why take Crack Shot at all? The flamer already has a high strength and ignores cover. Save the points for more Guardians, etc. No Fire Dragon exarch and no Reaper exarch could mean another Vyper. More bodies, more bullets are always a good thing.

Crack shot's only 5 pts. If it was a bigger cost like some of the other powers I could agree, but I'll gladly spend the 5 to let me reroll all failed wounds from a shot that should be hitting a bunch of guys.

Thanks again guys. Once I get back home in a couple of weeks Ill go about putting a list together and update.

Phoenix:

With a flamer, he tempts you into shooting at targets that are a waste of the rest of the unit's fire power.

I can never really buy such arguments. I mean, don't you trust yourself to make the right decision?

There are also a number of instances where you don't waste any firepower. If you're shooting at anything 3+ or 2+, then both the DBF and the fusion guns are being put to good use. It's also possible sometimes to shoot at a tank and have the DBF clip a nearby squad for some bonus kills.

Savnock:

t-C, why take Crack Shot at all? The flamer already has a high strength and ignores cover.

5 points to reroll what is usually a 3+ seems worthwhile to me. It's (usually) better than another point of Strength.

The dragon exarch with DBF seems to be a luxury item, but it's only 12pts. The Eldar codex can be hard to max out with points, so having a 12 pt swing around is useful. I'd never cut anything I want to buy it, but I wouldn't consider it a waste by any means.

tegeus-Cromis wrote:I can never really buy such arguments. I mean, don't you trust yourself to make the right decision?

While I trust myself to make the correct decisions, I don't trust everyone else to do the same. Regardless, the flamer puts the temptation there even for me. It is easier to just not put it in and spend the points elsewhere than it is to resist the temptation to justify its presence when its on the field.

There are also a number of instances where you don't waste any firepower. If you're shooting at anything 3+ or 2+, then both the DBF and the fusion guns are being put to good use. It's also possible sometimes to shoot at a tank and have the DBF clip a nearby squad for some bonus kills.

Against 2+ save targets, the flamer is only marginaly better than the fusion gun (assuming you hit 5 models with it). Against 3+ targets, I would argue that you are wasteing the fusion gun fire since there are likely to be more efficient heavy infantry killers in your army than the fire dragons, but that is a matter of opinion and armybuild. The "bonus kills" for nailing a squad that happened to be too close to a tank is the best way to use the flamer in my opinion, but I find that the number of times that situation arises is fairly low and that the points could be better spent elsewhere. If you encounter it more than I do, by all means, take the flamer.

I've been thinking about it, and I know that Eldar are all ultra specialists, so there is a presumption against building dual purpose units. However, here is my breakdown.

The primary target for a six man FD squad is a vehicle, right? Does a sixth fusion gun add signifigantly to the abiliyt of the squad to damage vehicles? (at a guess, I'd say a little, but I don't actually know).

The secondary target, of course, is monsterous creatures. Here, a fusion gun would be preferable to the DBF.

The tertiary target are termies, where the DBF is a push.

For all other targets (light vehicles, MEQs, and light infantry) the DBF is hands down superiour.

I think the key bit of analysis needs to be to determine how much better against heavy vehicles and MCs a sixth fusion gun is to the DBF. For 12 pts, a player can unlock some pretty nice firepower against some very common targets.

Pheonix:

While I trust myself to make the correct decisions, I don't trust everyone else to do the same. Regardless, the flamer puts the temptation there even for me. It is easier to just not put it in and spend the points elsewhere than it is to resist the temptation to justify its presence when its on the field.

A fair point. It's definitely not an an auto-pick.

Against 2+ save targets, the flamer is only marginaly better than the fusion gun (assuming you hit 5 models with it).

Not true when you consider that 2+ usually comes with a 5++ attached. Hit 5 Termies and the DBF averages twice as many casualties as a fusion gun in the hands of a normal FD. That's not marginal.

Against 3+ targets, I would argue that you are wasteing the fusion gun fire since there are likely to be more efficient heavy infantry killers in your army than the fire dragons, but that is a matter of opinion and armybuild.

You're right, but what of it? If you fight Marines and find no tanks and no Termies (as is hardly uncommon), what're you going to do? Put the FDs back in their case? No, you're going to make the most of them, and that means killing MEqs. FDs shooting at Marines may not be the ideal situation, but it is a common one and far from a waste of fusion gun fire given how effective it is at killing them (regardless of the fact that it's even more efficient at killing other things).

The "bonus kills" for nailing a squad that happened to be too close to a tank is the best way to use the flamer in my opinion, but I find that the number of times that situation arises is fairly low and that the points could be better spent elsewhere. If you encounter it more than I do, by all means, take the flamer.

Well, it happens mostly against SoB (the only army currently forced to Rhino rush, more or less), Tau and other Eldar. Against other armies, it is likely to happen not at all, but against these three, it is pretty much guaranteed to come up at some point in the game (although of course one may not always be able to exploit it properly).

A similar situation can arise with Nidzilla and the fex/stealer shieldwall.

Polonius, it is IMO a fallacy that Eldar are "specialists." GW can say that all it likes, but it doesn't make it so, any more than any army with two wounds has a lot going for it. Falcons, Prisms, Harlies, Guardians, jetbikes, DAs, Eldrad, Avatar, Maugan Ra, Scorpions, Wraithlords--which of these are specialists? All things considered, Eldar are about as specialised as Marines are.

I would agree, however, that FDs are fairly specialised, which is all the more reason why a 17 pt. re-rollable heavy flamer can sometimes be a good addition. I think of it as insurance in the event I come up against an enemy with few/no heavy vehicles and/or more horde than the rest of my army can handle. It gives you an out in those situations where the FDs themselves turned out to be a bad idea.

Eldar have specialized MODELS. That's it.

tegeus-Cromis wrote:Not true when you consider that 2+ usually comes with a 5++ attached. Hit 5 Termies and the DBF averages twice as many casualties as a fusion gun in the hands of a normal FD. That's not marginal.

1 fusion gun shot from a normal fire dragon at a terminator = .37 kills on average

1 heavy flamer shot from a fire dragon exarch (no crack shot) hitting 5 terminators = .56 kills on average

1 heavy flamer shot from a fire dragon exarch (with crack shot) hitting 5 terminators = .74 kills on average

You forgot 1 fusion gun shot from a exarch.

You're joking, right, Stelek? (I'd guess so from the smiley, but you use that aaalll the time.) Why would anyone field a fusion gun Exarch?

Phoenix, I meant an Exarch with CS, as I see no reason to field him without. My bad.

I consider the fire dragon exarch with DBF and crack shot to be a good buy. Every now and then it can do something fun like hit a squad in between the fire dragons and their armored target, but the real value comes when fighting a horde army that just doesn't have any good targets for fusion guns. I may only use the DBF for something good one game in six or even one in ten, but when it is useful it's *very* useful, and I'm happy to have it. Giving up the extra fusion gun shot, on the other hand, doesn't seem like a big deal. Against vehicles, the dragons' usual target, five shots are almost always sufficient.