Which is the best Eldar Troop Choice?

[YorkNecromancer]

Well?

For me, it's probably Wraithguard. A scary, scary statline. Kabalites are a very close second; so many Poisoned shots, and with excellent special weapon choices.

[Katharon]

You should have put a definitive line between Dark Eldar and Eldar. They are not the same armies. I personally hate the direction that the Allies Matrix has made, where there is a fogging over of the true, lore-backed tensions and hatred between the Dark Eldar and the Craftworld Eldar.

Best Craftworld Eldar Troop Choice
Iyanden Craftworld Wraithguard

Best Dark Eldar Troop Choice
Wyches

[Sainhann]

Well depends on Edition as well.

There was a time (many years ago and before the great Eldar nerfing by GW) when the lowly Eldar Guardian was the best.

But then they got nerfed by GW and well they have sucked petty bad since then.

But to get Eldar players to play with Dire Avengers GW gave back 6" on their range. But in 8th Edition GW double the cost of them.

Just got to love GW.

[Sly]

I take it that Wave Serpents are not a choice? :p

Without Wave Serpents considered, the Jetbikes are clearly the best. With other troop choices opening up access to Wave Serpents, it's a lot tougher choice.

[knas ser]

You should have put a definitive line between Dark Eldar and Eldar. They are not the same armies. I personally hate the direction that the Allies Matrix has made, where there is a fogging over of the true, lore-backed tensions and hatred between the Dark Eldar and the Craftworld Eldar.

Best Craftworld Eldar Troop Choice
Iyanden Craftworld Wraithguard

Best Dark Eldar Troop Choice
Wyches

I don't know - I like Eldar and Dark Eldar being able to ally well. Family is family even if you don't get on and they share a lot of the same needs and enemies. Chaos is a threat to both of them, they just have different ways of dealing with it and non-DE Eldar are not necessarily 'good', they just restrict themselves from excess out of a need to stop their own destruction. I know they fight in some if the fiction, but the division seems as much one of approach to life as it does bad blood and conflicting aims.

Edit: Oh yeah - DAs, Guardians (not Storm) and WraithBLADES.

[Pssyche]

Ten Dire Avengers, preferably but not exclusively, in a Wave Serpent every time.

I have to agree that the Dark Eldar shouldn't be included in a poll about Eldar, after all you wouldn't ask the same question about Space Marine/Chaos Space Marine.

As a footnote, in my experience, Rangers are awful.
The only reason I ever field them is that I really like the models.

[Katharon]

I don't know - I like Eldar and Dark Eldar being able to ally well. Family is family even if you don't get on and they share a lot of the same needs and enemies. Chaos is a threat to both of them, they just have different ways of dealing with it and non-DE Eldar are not necessarily 'good', they just restrict themselves from excess out of a need to stop their own destruction. I know they fight in some if the fiction, but the division seems as much one of approach to life as it does bad blood and conflicting aims.


They should be "Allies of Convenience" not "Battle Brothers." Being able to ally is fine, but they are not bosom buddies.

[YorkNecromancer]

You should have put a definitive line between Dark Eldar and Eldar. They are not the same armies.

No.

This is 6th edition. Ignoring Allies is a personal choice, not how the game is played.


I personally hate the direction that the Allies Matrix has made, where there is a fogging over of the true, lore-backed tensions and hatred between the Dark Eldar and the Craftworld Eldar.

Your personal hatred is not mine. I really like it. The Democrats may hate the Republicans unto death and vice versa, but they all celebrate Thanksgiving.

Me against my brother. My brother and I against my father. My father and I against my uncle. My uncle and I against the stranger.


They should be "Allies of Convenience" not "Battle Brothers." Being able to ally is fine, but they are not bosom buddies.

They're not. The game is the game. Like it or don't, but the rules say they're Battle Brothers, so that means the voting is valid.

I'm running my Dark Eldar Haemonculi coven with Wraithguard allies; seems a perfect match to me - zombie horrors and necromancy. If other people wanna be running Space Elves, fair enough. I'll have my Cavalcade of Nightmares.


There was a time (many years ago and before the great Eldar nerfing by GW) when the lowly Eldar Guardian was the best.

You DO know that the Eldar are a top-tier codex now? That the Wave Serpent is amazing, Karandras can butcher Terminators without breaking a sweat, and that the codex overall is well beyond nerfed? Even Swooping Hawks (Swooping Hawks!) are awesome now, after being complete garbage since their inception.

This is before you add Dark Eldar...

[DarkLink]

And their last codex was full of cheese, until the edition change left them in the dust.

[Ursa]

Have to say 1st threw third edition regular guardians. 4th threw current Dire Avengers. I've lost entire squads of Marines to Blade storm.

[Weidekuh]

Jetbikes >> Dire Avengers

Same average hits per point.
t4 vs t3
3+ vs 4+
Eldar Jetbike vs Foot
12" range vs 18" range
ShuriCannon upgrades vs Exarch

[TB0N3]

Corsairs in Jetpacks (take 10, with 2 missile launchers and 2 fusionguns)

[Beamo]

Wraithguard... oh gods wraithguard. an ap2 flamer template that comes out of a wave serpent? Dire Avengers are a cost effective means of getting decent troops, and bikes are still nippy and irritating, but a T6 model with an ap2 flamer thats ID on a 6 to wound, and has the potential to get a 2+ rerollable save (from protect and fortune).

[DarkLink]

Jetbikes >> Dire Avengers

Same average hits per point.
t4 vs t3
3+ vs 4+
Eldar Jetbike vs Foot
12" range vs 18" range
ShuriCannon upgrades vs Exarch

More expensive, and you can't hide them in a wave serpent.

[Katharon]

No.

This is 6th edition. Ignoring Allies is a personal choice, not how the game is played.



Your personal hatred is not mine. I really like it. The Democrats may hate the Republicans unto death and vice versa, but they all celebrate Thanksgiving.

Me against my brother. My brother and I against my father. My father and I against my uncle. My uncle and I against the stranger.



They're not. The game is the game. Like it or don't, but the rules say they're Battle Brothers, so that means the voting is valid.

I'm running my Dark Eldar Haemonculi coven with Wraithguard allies; seems a perfect match to me - zombie horrors and necromancy. If other people wanna be running Space Elves, fair enough. I'll have my Cavalcade of Nightmares.



You DO know that the Eldar are a top-tier codex now? That the Wave Serpent is amazing, Karandras can butcher Terminators without breaking a sweat, and that the codex overall is well beyond nerfed? Even Swooping Hawks (Swooping Hawks!) are awesome now, after being complete garbage since their inception.

This is before you add Dark Eldar...

Seems like I touched a nerve with how strong and/or combative your response is. And I accept that you have your opinion and I have mine, however mine is backed up by years of lore. Read the new Paths of [Insert whatever DA or E warrior name]. The author of the Path of the Renegade even spells it out at one point, saying "allies of convenience." This, combined with conversations I've had at Game Days, leaves me to believe that there are still many people that aren't happy with the Eldar and Dark Eldar being battle brothers.

By all means, please continue to enjoy your cavalcade of nightmares. Just know that I will powerlessly squint the evil stink eye at in from the corner of the room and grumble just loud enough to be ignored. ;)

[YorkNecromancer]

Not a nerve regarding the Eldar particularly. I just love the allies rules, because they're fun and fluffy, and I don't play tournaments, so have a lot of fun with them.

Also, I really, REALLY despise the whole fantasy trope that says "race X always behaves in this way"; it's lazy thinking, and bears little resemblance to how societies work in the real world. If I was to make a blanket statement along the lines of "All Americans support the right to...", I guarantee we'd get a massive discussion about how inaccurate that statement was on a state-by-state basis, and that's just once COUNTRY I'm talking about. The Eldar have multiple WORLDS; are we to believe this ancient, subtle, and complex race are all universally opposed to another faction based entirely upon arbitrary delineations? Especially given that Eldar have always been shown to believe that the life of an Eldar is universally worth more than the life of any other sentient being?

I just think it sells the Eldar short.

Yeah, there's plenty of reason for the two factions to hate each other, and lots of stories to back it up. However, if you assume Battle Brothers means 'shared strategy, tactics, and cultural values that enable enhanced co-operation" rather than "bestest best buds forever", it makes a lot more sense - just because the Eldar and Dark Eldar work together perfectly doesn't mean they don't hate each other - it's more a testament to how sophisticated they are as a race that they can function with such perfect fluidity even when they actively despise each other.

Especially if you consider that the Farseer has already seen the end of the campaign and knows that if she co-operates perfectly with her hated enemies, that Archon who's been giving her such trouble? He dies at the end.

For his part, the Archon knows that if he greases enough palms and plays it just right, he can turn the Farseer's own men against her through careful politicking and gameplay.

So, they work together like a well-oiled team, every part in perfect synergy, both plotting the absolute destruction of the other all the while.

The Eldar? They aren't the Imperium; they do things differently.

[Weidekuh]

More expensive, and you can't hide them in a wave serpent.

But you can hide them in reserve or easely behind terrain.
They are more expensive but if you take the same amount of points, for example 221 (17 Dire Avengers vs 13 Jetbikes). On average you will hit 11.5 shots on average with both. Jetbikes are twinlinked. And you could argue that jetbikes have better range due to 12" ignore intervening cover move on top of 12" gun range.

If you count in the power of the serpent, than 5 Dire Avengers win it all by far. But that's cheating. :P

Anyway, i love both Dire Avengers and Jetbikes. They are hard to compare anyway, since they are usually used for completely different things.

Nothing in 40k beats 51 points eldar jetbike late game objective taking / contesting. And only few things compare to a 5 DA squad inside a scatter-holo-Serpent in sheer firepower, survivability and possibility to score an objective.

[Katharon]

We're getting into the definition of what a "battle brother" type alliance means now? I think we'll just stop this train wreck here. We can talk about it in another thread. Sorry for derailing this one as much as I did.

[Archon Charybdis]

I like to think of Eldar and Dark Eldar along the lines of Catholic vs Protestant, Sunni vs Shi'ite, (I like the mention of Democrat vs Republican). More than happy to war and despise and kill each other for being heretics and the scum of the earth, but boy howdy if some foreign infidel sticks their nose into their business--there are bonds of solidarity underlying the rancor.

More on topic I'd say GJBs by a mile. They're super-shooty, tough, and very fast. I personally use Dire Avengers since I play Biel-tan, and while they're not as good as the GJBs I think they're still pretty good.

[DarkLink]

Each unit has its purpose. Mostly Dire Avengers and Jetbikes, but regular Guardians and even Rangers are potentially useful. Just not Storm Guardians.

[-Tom-]

Each unit has its purpose. Mostly Dire Avengers and Jetbikes, but regular Guardians and even Rangers are potentially useful. Just not Storm Guardians.

I agree, massed shuriken fire can be really nasty, especially vs things with good armour saves. When a 10 man squad of guardians drops a deep-striking Terminator squad to 1 remaining man with one round of shooting, they're going home with 'men of the match'.

Similarly, rangers, could be ideal in a situation where you've got some high toughness stuff to deal with, because the high T is of no benefit vs the sniper weapons. Plus their ability to hunker down in cover and survive for ages.

Maybe they're of less use in a generic build for a tournament where you need 1 list to take on all-comers because you don't know if you'll be able to make good use of what they're good at or not. But when someone says "Do you fancy a game with your Eldar vs my <x>" you can decide whether either will be more beneficial in that case.