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Hi all,

I've been circling around the idea of building an Eldar list for quite some time now due to owning a decent amount of models already. I've made my own craftworld (purple dudes with yellow heads who have beef with Dark Eldar. I'm all about that narrative). Thing is, I only play casual. No competitive play whatsoever. So if I want to make an Eldar list, I have to tone it waaaaay done. First thing I'm going to enforce for my lists is that there are no bikes. That's not to say I can't have some strong things like Warp Spiders, but I'm just trying to aim for well balanced games. Basically, though I'd like to win, I don't want to it to be totally one sided.

As I said I already have some models, and I wouldn't mind building upon them to make some lists. Here's what I have already:

1x Farseer
1x Spiritseer
10x Wraithguard
20x Guardians
5x Dark Reapers
1x Wave Serpent

I have bit of a budget so I can certainly get quite a few things. I've also been researching and just about everything seems good. Which is certainly a good thing, but I hope to differentiate between 'good' and 'OP as hell'. If you folks could give me a hand, it would be greatly appreciated.

Also, the meta in my area is 1750 point games. So I guess it's likely appropriate to aim for that at least.

Well, everything in the eldar codex is too good for the costs, but running aspects in CAD would be the non cheesy way of playing. shining spears for speed, hawks for deepstrike and haywire, basic troops with rending and reapers are good.

The great thing about Eldar is that there lots of great choices. Because you said you wanted to play casual games, and I'm guessing your opponents feel the same, its a good choice on your part to avoid scatter laser jetbikes. If you want to stay away from the OTHER units that can cause saltiness in other players, I would suggest you stay away from Wraithknights and Warp Spiders as well.

With that in mind, might I suggest a fun combined arms list that is fun to play and still really tough? Build a Guardian Battlehost detachment.

Core
Farseer with Spirit Stone and singing Spear
3 x Vaul's Wrath with Shadow Weavers and a Warlock
1 x Vyper with 2 Shuriken cannons
3 x War Walkers with scatter lasers
3 x 10 man Guardian Defenders with free Eldar missile launchers in Wave serpents with Scatter lasers

Aspect Host
2 x 5 man Dark Reapers with Starshot Missiles
10 man Swooping Hawks

Command
Autarch with wings, mask, and fusion gun

1750 on the nose. You don't need to buy too much more for this list. You can mix and match the aspects warriors to your taste. Feel free to change up the weapons on the War Walkers as well if Scatter Lasers prove to be too cheesy for your opponents.

Of course, you can also go with an all wraith army for a complete change of pace

cosmicsoybean wrote:Well, everything in the eldar codex is too good for the costs, but running aspects in CAD would be the non cheesy way of playing. shining spears for speed, hawks for deepstrike and haywire, basic troops with rending and reapers are good.

I already have a lot of those things so that certainly helps. Plus I was just looking for a reason to run Swooping Hawks. Such a cool looking unit.

Vashones wrote:The great thing about Eldar is that there lots of great choices. Because you said you wanted to play casual games, and I'm guessing your opponents feel the same, its a good choice on your part to avoid scatter laser jetbikes. If you want to stay away from the OTHER units that can cause saltiness in other players, I would suggest you stay away from Wraithknights and Warp Spiders as well.

With that in mind, might I suggest a fun combined arms list that is fun to play and still really tough? Build a Guardian Battlehost detachment.

Core
Farseer with Spirit Stone and singing Spear
3 x Vaul's Wrath with Shadow Weavers and a Warlock
1 x Vyper with 2 Shuriken cannons
3 x War Walkers with scatter lasers
3 x 10 man Guardian Defenders with free Eldar missile launchers in Wave serpents with Scatter lasers

Aspect Host
2 x 5 man Dark Reapers with Starshot Missiles
10 man Swooping Hawks

Command
Autarch with wings, mask, and fusion gun

1750 on the nose. You don't need to buy too much more for this list. You can mix and match the aspects warriors to your taste. Feel free to change up the weapons on the War Walkers as well if Scatter Lasers prove to be too cheesy for your opponents.

Of course, you can also go with an all wraith army for a complete change of pace

I actually really, really, really like this list. The only issue I see with it is the cost. I have a decent budget of around $500 CAD but I was crunching some numbers and the pieces needed for this list would be about over $600 CAD after tax. I might be able to pull it off, but there's certainly life expenses to consider haha.

The biggest thing to remember is that you don't need to go all in on the costs at once. I'm certain you can find some pick up games of 1000 or 1500 if you don't get everything at once.

Alternately, get the slightly cheaper options now and then, at some point down the road if you again have the spare money, pick up what you'd need to run an alternate list. You'd then have the benefit of being able to play around with what you run.

I certainly don't know what your long term intentions are with the game or if you're willing to spend more down the road, just some suggestions. For the longest time I just played kill team until I could slowly cobble together 1000 points, then didn't get the rest of my stuff until a good while later when I got a better job.

All options in the codex are good for its point cost.
Just pick whatever models you like and avoid all the formations to tone down the power lv of the models.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Things like the aspect host might seem harmless but are actually really op / nasty. It changes your 3+ to hit shots to 2+ to hit shots.
3+ -> 1/3 of all your shots miss
2+ -> 1/6 of all your shots miss
This is a dramatic free increase of fire-power on already point efficient models.

Everything is allowed, nothing is forbidden...

Take what you like the look of but for casual games you need to be careful, so to give you a basic run down...

Friendly units (lower powered units that will provide an interesting game in a casual setting, you can use any formation you want featuring these guys and people will be happy):

Rangers
Wraithblades
Howling Banshees
Shining Spears
Wraithlords/Wraithseers
Striking Scorpions
Windrider Guardians armed with Shuriken Catapults
Storm Guardians
Avatar of Khaine
Shadow specters

Medium powered units (most likely will be the mainstay of the force and will be useful, formations staring these guys are trial and error powerwise, so be careful)

Eldrad
Autarchs
Warlock Conclaves
Phoenix Lords
SpiritSeers
Vypers
Hemlock Wraithfighters
Guardians
Dire Avengers
Fire Prisms
Warwalkers
Nightspinners
Vaul's Wrath Support Batteries (non D - Cannon variants)
Dark Reapers (these guys are powerful but are a point sink)
Swooping Hawks
Wave Serpents
Windrider Guardians armed with Shuriken Cannons

Top tier units (needless to say, in a casual be very spartan when it comes to these guys, you can take them but avoid formations)

Warp Hunters
Crimson Hunters
Warp Spiders
Wraithguard
Farseers on Skyrunners
Nightwings
Lynx hover tanks
Wraithknights
D - Cannon support batteries
Windrider Guardians armed with Scatterlasers
Cobras
Scorpions
Revenants
Phantoms

You forgot the cheesiest of all, the undercosted
Hornet with pulse lasers.

Looking at what you have, you could build a decent 1,000 point list just plopping it all down on the table.

What to add depends a lot on what you like.

You mentioned swooping hawks. A unit of 6 is a bit over 100 points.

Another WS would not be bad idea. You can either move up a waithguard squad to kill things, or a guardian squad to hold objectives. Another +125 points

In the “fun&friendly” vein, I’d add a unit of DA in a Falcon. Should be useful 250 points of mobile AV fire with a ObSec troop inside. (A 10 man unit in a WS would probably be a little more competitive, but I’m a sucker for Falcons.)

Vypers are needed for most of the formations, 2xcannons put out a lot of dakka. +50 points

WS+Vyper+5xDA+10 guardians is the battleforce, so might as well add 10 more guardians to the list. +90

Depending on how you go with the upgrades that should put you around 1,750 points, and a reasonably friendly balanced list.

1 box hawks
Eldar Battleforce
Falcon

Should be a bit over $200 USD, not sure what that is north of the border, but should be easily under your $500 CAD

Other things to add:
Warlocks for guadian squads
Stuff to boost you to a warhost to take advantage of formations (war walkers, Vaul’s wrath)
More wave serpents
Another Vyper (just a pair of them puts out a TON of dakka)
Anything you like. It’s Eldar; it’s all good!

Just take bikes...that's it with farseers and warlocks and enjoy never loosing a model and destroying the enemy