New to Eldar

[Brotherjames]

Hi I'm thinking of starting an Eldar force so i have a few questions
Are the eldar still a competitive codex?
Is there an army they are horible against?

I haven't bought my codex yet (still at work) but i would like some close combat elite army maybe a full unit of Howling banshees and Scorpions then a small unit of warp spiders supported by a night spinner and some war walkers (are scatter lasers good)

I'm just looking for some pointers thanks

[w7west]

Hey there! I don't play eldar, I play dark eldar, but my close friend who the majority of my games have been against plays eldar.

No matter what style of eldar you want to play, eventually you will be getting some wave serpents. I would suggest getting a serpent at least for each elite you would like to use. Banshees are a very good unit, although to reach their full potential you will want a farseer with doom and fortune either in the unit or nearby.

Scatlaser warwalkers are a pretty solid choice when you are starting since str 6 is a nice value for multiple targets. Walkers are cheap as well in a book with very few cheap options for firepower so they help add a bit of bite. That said, eldar grav tanks with holofields are one of the most powerful units in the codex. Holofields will make your falcons, prisms, and spinners all but invulnerable. Along with the upgrade to boost 36", you have three guaranteed contested objectives at the end of the game.

Eldar is a tricky army to pick up, but if you make sure to invest in a transport for your key units you will be off to a good start. Eldar's vehicles really do most of the heavy lifting and then the squads disembark at crucial times to eliminate key units.

Once you get into bigger point levels there are a lot of very powerful squads, with the seer council on bikes being most useful.

warp spiders are actually an amazing unit but can be very tricky to use. I would say use them though, and keep using them even if they are not earning near their points back. If you play enough games with them you will figure out how best to use them and then they can become one of the most useful on foot squads in the army. (plus they are fun to use!) Storm guardians with 2 flamers and a warlock with enhance & spear in a serpant is my suggestion for solid troops. With doom this squad actually hits very hard for troop.


One last note is that eldar are not the type of army that wins by inflicting more damage than they recieve. While they may have some of the most durable transports in the game, they lack any real heavy spammable weaponry. Instead what they have is a massive amount of s6 shots which can stun and immobilize most vehicles, and the ability to be anywhere in a given movement phase. Going second is your friend, and contesting / tank shocking is what it is all about.


edit: to answer some of your first questions:

Are eldar competative?: Yes they are. There are some builds that are extremely effective (nothing but min sized fire dragons in serpents, min avengers in serpents, seer council on bike, 2 holofield prism/spinner, holofield falcon with more firedragons) But that doesn't have to be what you play to be effective. If you are just playing with friends eldar are a great army with a lot of fun and competative options to use. In tourneys you will need to pick one of the eldars main strengths and try to make everything about that strength. In most tourney eldar lists this means maximizing the amount of grav tanks and cheap meltas you can field. Fritz has some nice alternative lists such as his harlie / wraithlord army that take a different approach to eldar strengths.

Are there any armies eldar suck against?: Yes, there are. Fortunately though, everyone sucks against mech guard. Eldar are actually pretty good against mech guard compared to most other armies, since you can play the reserve game and even guard does not have enough shots to take down all of those grav tanks. Also, being av 12 is huge since the majority of guard winlaser will only glance you. If you get good with eldar you will be able to force a draw against almost anyone thanks to the sheer awesomeness of contesting power for your vehicles. The eldar winning strategy is vastly different than any other army, and so you will be able to "turn 5 i win" surprise uppercut many traditional point shoot derp derp armies and pull sneaky wins.

Scatlasers: Yeah they are good. Just make sure you have a few eldar missile launchers are fire dragons in serpants as well since str 6 will have a hard time popping transports. That being said scatlasers do a huge amount of work and are a big part of most eldar armies since they are useful no matter what they shoot at. (except landraider I guess)

Scorpions are pretty good, although they are designed to be used against hordy armies like orks, nids, and low toughness armies like dark eldar and guard. Against 90% of armies (ie marines) you will be wishing they were banshees most of the time. Try them out though and see which you prefer. Having one of each would certainly help round out your army.

Farseers are crucial to eldar. Doom, fortune, and runes of warding are mandatory. You may have heard of force multiplication, the definition being "this is what farseers do". They make the rest of your army so much more effective. I would suggest sticking a seer with the banshees to keep their transport fortuned up while it turboboosts around, and to doom and fortune when the banshees assault. Not much survives being doomed and hit by banshees. Not much survives being doomed and hit by scorpions either except perhaps plague marines and termies.

A nice unit to have is a farseer on jetbike with doom, fortune, guide, and runes of warding. Add this guy to a 6 man guardian jetbike squad with two cannons and you have a scoring, ultra mobile, doom / fortune/ guide toolbox wherever you need it.

[Image]

Hi Brotherjames!

I'm a relatively new player to Eldar, but otherwise have been in the hobby for over five years. My personal experience has been that against several armies, Eldar are still viable and exceptionally competitive, but it takes a bit more work to realize this than if you were to use one of the newer codexes. Honestly, some units are great while others are a bit more lackluster due to point cost or underwhelming output.

I certainly think Eldar can pull off the elite assault army you're considering, but you'll want a farseer (or, more likely, Eldrad) to offer Doom to your CC target. Bringing three wraithlords with wraithswords (100 points per!) can create a really nasty, hard-to-deal-with flank as you rush them forward. I might also suggest an avatar who offers fearlessness to your units with 12" and is still quite strong in CC, especially backed by Fortune.

Warwalkers, as mentioned, are a great unit as it offers a cheap option to spam scatter lasers which are, quite frankly, amazing weapons. Sure, against AV12-13, they're practically useless, but with their scout rule, they can outflank and go for juicier AV10-11 vehicles or any variety of troop. :) Scatter lasers are fantastic weapons, especially in multitudes.

I wouldn't say that there are any armies they're horrible against, but that depends on the list you build. IG, I found, are a tough opponent as the quantity of quality fire they can put against your vehicles will slow you down incredibly. Then, being outnumbered and outgunned, will cause it to be an uphill battle. Careful deployment and effective use of psychic powers and movement should help mitigate that somewhat. But, you should be nervous of any fight that spam a lot of S7-8 weaponry.

Good luck with the army! It's still a pretty beautiful range and an enjoyable force to paint up. As well, victories are truly rewarding as it requires a lot of careful consideration. Eldar is certainly an army that will challenge you, but that's what keeps the army so interesting. :)

[w7west]

*the ability to refer to all other players as foolish mon-keigh in and out of the local gaming store is certainly reward enough to pick up the eldar.

[Rissan4ever]

I play Imperial Guard. Here are the Eldar units that I fear:


Dire Avengers in a Wave Serpent. A 10-Elf squad using Bladestorm puts out 30X S4, AP5 shots. That murders my infantry.
Fire Dragons in a Wave Serpent. They fly up and blow up my tanks at close range. Very bad.
Wraithlords. T7 can't be hurt by lasguns, and with 4 Wounds, they make me waste all my heavy weapon fire that I could be directing at those darn Wave Serpents.
Striking Scorpions and Howling Banshees in Wave Serpents. Specialist close combat troops make me wet my fatigues.

You'll notice that, other than the Wraithlord, all the above units are in Wave Serpents. Footdar are a tough nut to crack, but MechDar are the ones who can fly around and grab objectives. The Eldar rely on maneuverability, close range firepower, and assault in the fluff, and it works effectively on the table, too.

[DarkLink]

I recently started Eldar due to a series of discounted options and trades that made themselves available. Bladestorming dire avengers out of a waveserpent is fun, and farseers are essentially required. The trouble I've had it trying to pop enemy tanks at range. Fire dragons are great up close, but may not survive for long afterwards.



Wraithlords. T7 can't be hurt by lasguns, and with 4 Wounds, they make me waste all my heavy weapon fire that I could be directing at those darn Wave Serpents.

You do know that Wraithlords are T8, 3 wounds, right:p?

[Defenestratus]

I wish my wraithlords had 4 wounds... but I'm really glad that they have an 8 toughness :)

[Rissan4ever]

I recently started Eldar due to a series of discounted options and trades that made themselves available. Bladestorming dire avengers out of a waveserpent is fun, and farseers are essentially required. The trouble I've had it trying to pop enemy tanks at range. Fire dragons are great up close, but may not survive for long afterwards.



You do know that Wraithlords are T8, 3 wounds, right:p?

AAAAAAAAAARGH! I hate them sooooooo much!

[Brotherjames]

Thanks guys I can't wait to get started this will be a nice break from my blood angels and kantor marines last question
How are witchblades on a farseer? Gw has an awesome direct mini that I liked

[DarkLink]

Farseer himself is not so great in CC, but for 3 points you can get a possible str 9 shot against vehicles. I'd say that's worth it.

But unless you've got something that can actually do something in cc with the farseer, he should stay back and use his psychic powers.

[w7west]

Always spear the seers and warlocks. It is 3 points for a lascannon shot in close range. ALWAYS!!

[Silver Drakes Legion]

I have to disagree with the spear comments though a decent option. Most of the time you will want the extra close combat attack than a strength 9 spear. At least in jetbike squads or jetbike seer councils you can have one or 2 but having more attacks that wound on a 2+ are more important. If you need to pop a transport it's better to blow it up with fire dragons, a WS, warwalkers, or fire prisms.

Eldar have the capability of being competitive but our units are not very flexible. We can build armies that would destroy others but an all comers is difficult to play since if you make a mistake it can cost you the game a lot more then with marines. Don't plan on wiping the opposing army out but more denying them options and killing key units. Also moving flat out with empty transports or stunned fireprisms to contest objectives from across the board or even pushing a enemy unit off the objective by landing on it and tank shocking them can be very fun.

[DarkLink]

I have to disagree with the spear comments though a decent option.

It's not like the Farseer is exactly potent in CC anyways, one attack isn't going to matter much. Being able to kill a tank, though, is potentially game-winning.

[eldargal]

The Singing Spear can be useful for a little bit of cheap extra anti-tank in smaller games where points are at a premium. Don't underestimate the damage a Farseer can do with a Witch Blade though, mine has taken down Abbaddon, Thraka and Kharn with it. Never rely on it though.


Eldar are still competitive, but there are a lot of less than stellar choices in the list. Oddly enough these tend to vary a bit depending on who likes what.:rolleyes:
I'm not going to go into unit by unit breakdowns of the list (I recommend Craftworld Lansing blog for this), but I will say you have to use units together, keep them supported and ALWAYS thin unit numbers with shooting before a charge. I am convinced one reason people don't like Banshee's is they forget you can shoot with the pistols before an assault. Even one or two dead Marines makes a difference.

[Defenestratus]

I'm in the never spears - always blades camp.

Always with an enhance warlock though.

[fuzzbuket]

right eldars

for HQ a farseer is a must stick him with you most deadly squad and he is murder, avatars are well spoken of and phienox lords are amazing but pricey! (warlocks and jetbikes are apparently VERY good!)
elites
dragons aka supervetsquadsinpowerarmour- 5-10 meltas that can have a flamer or 18' gun
wratihguard: pricey but very killy!!! (read T6 kills on 2's glances on 5/6 pen on 3/4)
scorps: good infaltraiting tough CC wariors
banshees: anti terminators!/ hordes
troops
10wraithguard+ seer : about 400PTs but Ihmo the best hammer unit with a pimped out farseer!!
10 DA/ twin catapults (34shots, run, 34 shots) shootytastic! (or you can have a sarge with power weapon or diresword aka powerweaponforkilling low LD charecters
fast
spiders super speedy S6 gunz :D
wraithlords: OMONOM your army
war walkers w/scatter lasers 24 S7? ap 4 shots
fire prisims if you take 2 FUN FUN FUN
night spinner: new overlooked legal unit, anti infantry!


as you can see the problem with eldars is FOC HQ,ellites and heavy are all heavily contended whilst fast is near worthless :(

for eldar to win its like some blood angels, pick a target kILL it even overkill is possible move to next target
BTW for objectives missions rangers are nice :D 2+ cover saves!

thanks for reading

-fuzz

p.s. ASURMEN 320pts of win that game!

[Brotherjames]

I'll have to check out the lansing blog eldargirl and thx for all the insight so far all I've picked up was the codex, karandras and a box of scorpions but I'll be adding some serpents and a farseer soon as well as a army box

[scadugenga]

BrotherJames:

First off: I'd say that "competitive" is more about the player than the 'dex. That being said,

Welcome to the show! Eldar have been my primary army since before they had an army list, and even through the dark, horrid days of 3rd edition, they're both fun and challenging to play.

The "Pro's" of the eldar army: Speed. Firepower. Skill. Versatility.

Speed: Bar the Dark Eldar, the eldar are going to be the fastest, most maneuverable army out there. The majority of your units are fleet. You have arguably the best (if pricey) dedicated transport in the game.

Firepower: Fire Dragons are the only unit I've seen (IIRC) that get meltaguns as standard weapons. Both the FD Exarch and DR Exarch have the crack shot skill upgrade, which not only ignores cover saves, but also lets you reroll to wound--which, when you roll that critical "1" to wound on your ID weapon, is always a nice surprise to get to reroll. You have a plethora of lance weaponry, which helps deal with that pesky AV13+ Armor. Pathfinders are sniper weapons with AP1 on a 5+ roll to hit. Dark Reapers are St5 AP3 Heavy 2 48" MEQ killers when you finally pry them out of their cans.

SKill: The eldar are an elite army. That means you're almost certainly outnumbered in just about every battle. (The more so facing 5th ed codices with their general points reduction over 4th ed.) The flip side of this is that you're going to out BS/WS most horde armies, and be neck and neck with other elite armies (IE MEQ). What you have that they don't? Exarchs. Exarch skills generally give you a nice edge to balance out the numbers in horde armies, and the extra "oomph" to one-up those annoying MEQ lists.

Versatility: Oddly enough, I don't mean within a particular unit. Eldar are actually almost achingly set-in-stone within a particular unit entry. You don't have options they way you do in other armies. What you do have, however, is an overabundance of unit choices that fit your basic army needs: Ranged Combat, Close Combat, etc. and there are no really "bad" choices. (People will argue about Swooping Hawks, though. That's a tough call.) You want close combat? You have Scorpions, Banshees, Storm Guardians, Seer Council, Shining Spears & Harlies. That's six options for one role. And I"m not even tossing Wraithlords into the mix.

The Cons: Fragility. High Points Cost. Shuriken Nerf. HQ slots

Fragility T3 is the name of the game with Eldar infantry, and you won't find anything with a 2+ save. The majority save seems to hover somewhere between 4+ and 5+, so cover (or being meched up) is the name of the game. The Eldar used to have the Wraithlord as a fallback "tank" unit, but with the new DE dex rocking the poison love, WL's are right up there with Tyranid MC's on the endangered species list. :)

High Points Cost Elite armies cost more than their horde brethren. Elite 4th edition codices widen that gap further. Your Scorpion, Banshee, Dragon and Harlequin are all more expensive per person than a Marine. Guardians, the eldar equivalent of IG infantry, are 60% more expensive than IG troopers. A Marine player can get 3 Rhinos for the cost of 1 Wave Serpent (with more than just dual SC's.)

Shuriken Nerf This is more an issue to the more established eldar players. The shuriken catapult used to be the premiere basic weapon in the game in 1st & 2nd ed--better than the bolter, and arguably better than the storm bolter. Then came 3rd ed. where they shortened it to 12" and made it an assault 2 weapon. A short ranged basic weapon is not a good idea for fragile armies. Even this wasn't too bad, since back then, rapid fire weapons could only shoot once @ 12" if the bearer moved. Then 4th ed screwed the Cat further when they let rapid fire weapons shoot twice @ 12" even if they moved. 4th ed eldar codex (at the latter side of the 4th ed timeline) fixed the Cat somewhat for the Dire Avengers--a unit that prior to the 4th ed codex, was rarely, if ever used.

HQ Slots There will be no surprises to your opponent with the eldar HQ options. You don't have much variation. If you're looking for non SC/Unique HQ choices, your limited to just 2--the Farseer and the Autarch. Of the two, the Farseer is much more common.


Playing Eldar

The eldar army is a synergistic one. Units need to compliment and support each other to win. It's a thinking person's army--if you're not planning on what to do/what might happen, you're going to experience just how painful the sharp end of the stick is.

I'm not going to tell you to take X unit or Y exarch power, debate on whether or not Witchblades are better than Spears (here's a hint--they both work well.), what unit is a "must have" or pontificate that Eldrad is an auto-include in all eldar armies. To quote from Buffo and Defenstratus' first vidrep: "The internet is retarded."

The 'dex is full of good choices. Making an effective army isn't that hard: 1) Decide what you want your army to accomplish. 2) Pick units that allow you to succeed at point #1. Trial and error will let you know which units are most compatible to your play style.

Above all--have fun.

The one thing I don't suggest, is that you look for the "Hammer" unit in the eldar 'dex. You won't find one. The eldar are not a hammer/anvil army. That way of thinking will not make you happy with the eldar as an army. Think of the eldar as a scalpel, and you'll go a long way.

Good luck, and welcome to the Path!

[Defenestratus]

BrotherJames:

First off: I'd say that "competitive" is more about the player than the 'dex. That being said,

Welcome to the show! Eldar have been my primary army since before they had an army list, and even through the dark, horrid days of 3rd edition, they're both fun and challenging to play.

The "Pro's" of the eldar army: Speed. Firepower. Skill. Versatility.
<snip>
The Cons: Fragility. High Points Cost. Shuriken Nerf. HQ slots
<snip>

Playing Eldar
<snip>>
Above all--have fun.


+1 Agree wholeheartedly with this. And yes, as a player from the RT era, I hate what they did to the shuriken catapult. Tragedy.



The one thing I don't suggest, is that you look for the "Hammer" unit in the eldar 'dex. You won't find one. The eldar are not a hammer/anvil army. That way of thinking will not make you happy with the eldar as an army. Think of the eldar as a scalpel, and you'll go a long way.


The only hammer-esque unit is the mounted seer council - however, they exist at the bottom of the hammer-unit rankings. If they run into any other hammer, they're gonna get withered down.