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Hei Everyone,
I'm playing W40K a bit already but I wanted to jump in on the hobby including a community just now. So this is my first post, as well as my first real army list.

It's build for a friendly 1on1 with a Tau player, thats why i tried to leave flying things out.
My plan is to put the Dark Reapers and the Firedragons in the Serpant, Webway Strike the Guardians and use the rangers and illic to deploy around objectives but in cover.
The Nightspinner would try to be without LOS to anything to avoid the returning Riptide.

Functions: I want to footslog Ulthran into Psy range for Doom on his Riptide and Battlesuits, deploy the reapers out of LOS to most things and kill a lot of drones and pathfinder with Tempest Launcher and also shoot his Hammerhead or Riptide or both depending what he plays.
Once the drones are gone the Nightspinner would kill the battlesuits (here im struggeling and think of taking 2 Support weapons as the Nightspinner still needs 2 woundings with 2 dmg to kill 1 suit)
And once I'm in doom range i can always Guardian Bomb whatever needs removal (like the rest of his suits or RIptide, or whatever)

The warlock should put the reapers into constant -2 to hit (thats also why i did not choose to spam reapers for more tempest launcher). Also i only got 7 models.

so thats the idea behind the list, now to the list:


++ Battalion Detachment +5CP (Aeldari - Craftworlds) [46 PL, 788pts] ++

+ No Force Org Slot +

Craftworld Attribute: Alaitoc: Fieldcraft

+ HQ +

Eldrad Ulthran [8 PL, 150pts]: 1. Guide, 2. Doom, 4. Executioner

Warlock [2 PL, 55pts]: 1. Conceal/Reveal, Shuriken Pistol, Witchblade

+ Troops +

Guardian Defenders [9 PL, 190pts]: 20x Guardian Defender
. Guardian Heavy Weapons Platform: Shuriken Cannon
. Guardian Heavy Weapons Platform: Shuriken Cannon

Rangers [3 PL, 60pts]: 5x Ranger

Rangers [3 PL, 60pts]: 5x Ranger

+ Elites +

Fire Dragons [12 PL, 144pts]
. 5x Fire Dragon: 5x Fusion Gun
. Fire Dragon Exarch: Fusion Gun

+ Dedicated Transport +

Wave Serpent [9 PL, 129pts]: Twin Shuriken Cannon, Twin Shuriken Catapult

++ Battalion Detachment +5CP (Aeldari - Craftworlds) [38 PL, 708pts] ++

+ No Force Org Slot +

Craftworld Attribute: Alaitoc: Fieldcraft

+ HQ +

Autarch [4 PL, 99pts]: Alaitoc: Puritanical Leader, Banshee Mask, Craftworlds Warlord, Forceshield, Reaper Launcher, Shimmerplume of Achillrial, Shuriken Pistol, Star Glaive

Illic Nightspear [4 PL, 80pts]

+ Troops +

Rangers [3 PL, 60pts]: 5x Ranger

Rangers [3 PL, 60pts]: 5x Ranger

Rangers [3 PL, 60pts]: 5x Ranger

+ Heavy Support +

Dark Reapers [13 PL, 209pts]
. 5x Dark Reaper: 5x Reaper Launcher
. Dark Reaper Exarch: Tempest Launcher

Night Spinner [8 PL, 140pts]: Twin Shuriken Catapult

++ Total: [84 PL, 1496pts] ++

Hey man, welcome to 40K! Eldar are a great army, and were my first army as well. I would honestly recommend truly starting at around 750-1000 points. This will give you more opportunity to get into the game and understand what elements of the army you like and want to focus on. The default popular opinion is Alaitoc, but there are strong veins of people who enjoy Biel-Tan or Iyanden even on these forums. The different craftworlds play differently and you may not want to commit right away. Also depending on your community, Alaitoc carries with it something of a reputation due to the sour taste many players have in their mouths of Alaitoc Reapers as the top tournament list recently. You may find people are less hostile if you declare a different craftworld. I'm not saying don't play Alaitoc, just giving you a heads up!

Anyway. As for the list,

One important thing is that you lose your Craftworld Attribute if the entire detachment is not from the same Craftworld. Eddy U is an Ulthwe special character and thus your entire 1st battalion would lose the Alaitoc bonus. If you want to run Eddy you should either switch that battalion over to entirely Ulthwe, or downgrade Eddy to a regular Farseer. The benefit of Ulthwe is that your Guardians deploying from the webway are typically at point blank range and don't benefit as much from the Alaitoc attribute, and can take advantage of the Black Guardians stratagem to make sure their alpha strike hits hard.


The other big thing I see is that you are too troop heavy. I feel that you would be better off with a single Battalion, and then one of either a Vanguard, a Outrider, or a Spearhead Detachment. I actually recently played a game against a nearly identical list with my Slaaneshi CSM. He had 2 squads of Avengers, 4 Squads of Rangers, Dark Reapers, a Reaper Launcher Autarch, Farseer, and 2 Warlocks. His spice however was a Ranged Wraithlord and webway striking banshees and Wraithguard. So while similar to your list, not identical. The main issue his list had is that while he had an incredible hate boner for my characters, and did kill them all, he lacked the firepower to stop the rest of the army which ultimately overran his position and wiped him out, his reserves came in and punched something hard, then got promptly overrun as well. I feel as though his list would have been far better served with fewer rangers and investing those points into bigger guns.

As an aside, you will quickly find that Rangers are not great objective holders. They are passable, but note that like all Snipers their damage output per point is fairly low, they also lack real mobility, meaning that if an opponent wants the objective they will take it from you and kill all your Rangers pretty easily. This means that while you will be able to have all of the objectives early in the game, you will quickly find them taken from you with little you can do to stop their basic troopers. A Ranger Squad or two is a great way to fill up a battalion and they are a solid unit, but they don't really cut the mustard as a main battle-line trooper.

Finally, most of your army is very static with the exception of a single webway strike and a single wave serpent. Be careful with this as one of Eldar's greatest advantages is excellent maneuverability. You can build a list that is faster than the Tau, but you will be very hard pressed to build a list that can out shoot the Tau- even with Reapers and Alaitoc. By sacrificing your mobility and the ability to redeploy to use line of sight blocking terrain to your advantage you may have a very difficult time!

For these reasons I would take one of Outrider, Vanguard, or Spearhead for your second detachment and use it to take more specialist troopers which can put pressure on your opponents vehicles and infantry instead of just their HQs. You want to make sure your army has enough punch to get the job done!

 akaean wrote:
Hey man, welcome to 40K! Eldar are a great army, and were my first army as well. I would honestly recommend truly starting at around 750-1000 points. This will give you more opportunity to get into the game and understand what elements of the army you like and want to focus on. The default popular opinion is Alaitoc, but there are strong veins of people who enjoy Biel-Tan or Iyanden even on these forums. The different craftworlds play differently and you may not want to commit right away. Also depending on your community, Alaitoc carries with it something of a reputation due to the sour taste many players have in their mouths of Alaitoc Reapers as the top tournament list recently. You may find people are less hostile if you declare a different craftworld. I'm not saying don't play Alaitoc, just giving you a heads up!

Anyway. As for the list,

One important thing is that you lose your Craftworld Attribute if the entire detachment is not from the same Craftworld. Eddy U is an Ulthwe special character and thus your entire 1st battalion would lose the Alaitoc bonus. If you want to run Eddy you should either switch that battalion over to entirely Ulthwe, or downgrade Eddy to a regular Farseer. The benefit of Ulthwe is that your Guardians deploying from the webway are typically at point blank range and don't benefit as much from the Alaitoc attribute, and can take advantage of the Black Guardians stratagem to make sure their alpha strike hits hard.


The other big thing I see is that you are too troop heavy. I feel that you would be better off with a single Battalion, and then one of either a Vanguard, a Outrider, or a Spearhead Detachment. I actually recently played a game against a nearly identical list with my Slaaneshi CSM. He had 2 squads of Avengers, 4 Squads of Rangers, Dark Reapers, a Reaper Launcher Autarch, Farseer, and 2 Warlocks. His spice however was a Ranged Wraithlord and webway striking banshees and Wraithguard. So while similar to your list, not identical. The main issue his list had is that while he had an incredible hate boner for my characters, and did kill them all, he lacked the firepower to stop the rest of the army which ultimately overran his position and wiped him out, his reserves came in and punched something hard, then got promptly overrun as well. I feel as though his list would have been far better served with fewer rangers and investing those points into bigger guns.

As an aside, you will quickly find that Rangers are not great objective holders. They are passable, but note that like all Snipers their damage output per point is fairly low, they also lack real mobility, meaning that if an opponent wants the objective they will take it from you and kill all your Rangers pretty easily. This means that while you will be able to have all of the objectives early in the game, you will quickly find them taken from you with little you can do to stop their basic troopers. A Ranger Squad or two is a great way to fill up a battalion and they are a solid unit, but they don't really cut the mustard as a main battle-line trooper.

Finally, most of your army is very static with the exception of a single webway strike and a single wave serpent. Be careful with this as one of Eldar's greatest advantages is excellent maneuverability. You can build a list that is faster than the Tau, but you will be very hard pressed to build a list that can out shoot the Tau- even with Reapers and Alaitoc. By sacrificing your mobility and the ability to redeploy to use line of sight blocking terrain to your advantage you may have a very difficult time!

For these reasons I would take one of Outrider, Vanguard, or Spearhead for your second detachment and use it to take more specialist troopers which can put pressure on your opponents vehicles and infantry instead of just their HQs. You want to make sure your army has enough punch to get the job done!

Thank you for the feedback.

My Idea with the ranger was to park them in cover and, I know he will be able to kill them. but with -2 to hit the main force of his army will need 6 and 3+ armor save should mean he would need to invest way more into killing them off the objectives. So the idea was that these rangers are his only targets and sponging his shooting.
I also did not want to bring to many Flying as Tau has access to anti fly support system negating my -1 to hit alaitoc trait.
The rule clarification with Ulthran definitely is something i did not know and will change.

Taking your feedback into consideration i would come up with that list:

++ Battalion Detachment +5CP (Aeldari - Craftworlds) [67 PL, 1141pts] ++

+ No Force Org Slot +

Craftworld Attribute: Alaitoc: Fieldcraft

+ HQ +

Autarch [4 PL, 99pts]: Alaitoc: Puritanical Leader, Banshee Mask, Craftworlds Warlord, Forceshield, Reaper Launcher, Shimmerplume of Achillrial, Shuriken Pistol, Star Glaive

Farseer [6 PL, 110pts]: 1. Guide, 2. Doom, Shuriken Pistol, Witchblade

+ Troops +

Guardian Defenders [9 PL, 190pts]: 20x Guardian Defender
. Guardian Heavy Weapons Platform: Shuriken Cannon
. Guardian Heavy Weapons Platform: Shuriken Cannon

Rangers [3 PL, 60pts]: 5x Ranger

Rangers [3 PL, 60pts]: 5x Ranger

+ Elites +

Fire Dragons [12 PL, 144pts]
. 5x Fire Dragon: 5x Fusion Gun
. Fire Dragon Exarch: Fusion Gun

+ Heavy Support +

Dark Reapers [13 PL, 209pts]
. 5x Dark Reaper: 5x Reaper Launcher
. Dark Reaper Exarch: Tempest Launcher

Night Spinner [8 PL, 140pts]: Twin Shuriken Catapult

+ Dedicated Transport +

Wave Serpent [9 PL, 129pts]: Twin Shuriken Cannon, Twin Shuriken Catapult

++ Outrider Detachment +1CP (Aeldari - Craftworlds) [18 PL, 356pts] ++

+ No Force Org Slot +

Craftworld Attribute: Alaitoc: Fieldcraft

+ HQ +

Warlock [2 PL, 55pts]: 1. Conceal/Reveal, Shuriken Pistol, Witchblade

+ Fast Attack +

Warp Spiders [5 PL, 98pts]
. 4x Warp Spider: 4x Death Spinner
. Warp Spider Exarch: Two Death Spinners

Warp Spiders [5 PL, 98pts]
. 4x Warp Spider: 4x Death Spinner
. Warp Spider Exarch: Two Death Spinners

Wasp Assault Walkers [6 PL, 105pts]
. Wasp Assault Walker: Bright Lance, Bright Lance

++ Total: [85 PL, 1497pts] ++

Created with BattleScribe



I leave the guardians Alaitoc because there will be stuff outside of 12" and i definitely intend to fire with them 2 times so Lightningfast Reflexes and The Aegis Stratagem will be burned if focused. (thats also why i intended to have 2 battalions to have enough CP). The hit might come through guiding as i do not know if any other shooting unit might need the support at the time of the strike.

I added Warpspiders and a Wasp Walker to bring some mehr moveability and heavy weapons.

Just one nitpick. Take Mark of the Incomparable Hunter on your Autarch. Giving his Reaper Launcher Sniper is what makes him great.

Puritanical leader is good, but sniping enemy characters with a rocket is the huge

Thank you for the help with my list, I will definitely report back after battle

I was thinking about potentially saving 2CP's on my reapers but you are right with all that snipers removed from my initial list, a character hunting autarch makes more sense.

Edit: as promissed reporting back now. I had to trade 1 warp spider package against a different fast unit and decided for Shining Spears, as 3 alone looked kinda dump to play I also replaced the Wasp Walker with another 3 man Shining Spears Team.

Summary, I won 8 to 1 Victory points by round 3, he conceited as i would have tabled him. I lost 2 Shining Spears 2 Guardians and 1 Ranger in total.
My experience from playing: the NightSpinner is definitely not worth the points its wielding, a additional tempest launcher would have been way better. Without reliable AP its just wasted to shoot Battlesuits with it ^^ maybe worth it against high toughness multi wound units but i definitely had the wrong targets available.

shining spears 2x3 is also not really sophisticated and a 6 man troop would have been better (but that 1 CP )

Guardian Bomb is the thing for "just" 4 CP you can really hurt your enemy 2 consecutive turns while also wasting his complete shooting phase. (good thing he is tau and did not charge).otherwise just 1 CP for a nice distraction.

alaitoc ranger in cover also soak up a fair amount of 0AP shooting and have a reasonable thread to enemy characters

was a fun play although if he had wielded more crisis suits it would have been different. (he played 1 Riptide 1 Hammerhead 3 Striker Squads 2 Pathfinder and the walking battlesuits with 5" move and no fly, forgot the name, 2 marksmen and 2 HQ's i don't remember)