help from any eldar players :)

[hivefleetcurinus]

hey,

i have just started with eldar and was wondering if anyone had any particular tactics for them or models that are worth getting hold of
what i currently have is

eldrad, can be used as a farseer
avatar of khaine
6 fire dragons
5 dark reapers
10 dire avengers
5 rangers

i think that this is a good start, im considering for my next buy a wraithlord and falcon for the fire dragons, or some jet bikes.

cheers

[Deleted]

You should look into the Wraithlord HQ in IA 2nd edition. I'm not an Eldar player but when I saw his page in IA 2nd my jaw dropped through the floor!!! I don't have the book with me atm but I'll post about him tomorrow. He is brutal and extremely cost effective, plus, 40k approved.

Oh, and RoW. If I played Eldar I wouldn't leave home without it, it is a massive advantage in 6e.

[milkybarnid]

I dont play eldar, just faced them many times but my opinion is that Eldrad is always going to be a good choice, the avatar is pretty good but he is a bit pricey and slow to move around. Fire dragons usually get into a falcon disembark and kill X unit (usually Tank or MC) they die in return. Rangers and dire avengers are good troop choices, upgrade the rangers to pathfinders, expensive but if they roll a 5 or 6 there shot counts as ap1. Dont use the dark reapers, they are not veru durable and their range doesnt help this, you are much better off using a fire prism or a wriathlord.

@60mm thats the wraithseer you are talking about, it is a very good model but it is forge world.

Just my opinion, Good luck

[Deleted]

Sept 10, 2012 7:42:08 GMT milkybarnid said:

@60mm thats the wraithseer you are talking about, it is a very good model but it is forge world.

It is 40k approved though, fully legal.

[zephoid]

Wraithseer is pretty bad. He does not count as an HQ slot, meaning you have to take another HQ, D-cannon costs 50 pts, and is only mediocre in combat with only 3A and WS5.


HQ:
*Yriel and Eldrad are simply incredible. Both are very point efficient with eldrad pulling the duty of 2 farseers in 1 guy. Yriel is the most effective combat character in the game.
*The avatar is also amazing, but eldar struggle to actually synergize with him. Most of the time he wanders around the board and absorbs fire before going down before getting into combat. At 155 points he is a great fire magnet however and can shred most things in melee if he ever gets there.

*Of the elite choices, only fire dragons and Harlequins are actually viable. The rest are overcosted or are simply inferior to other choices.

*harlequins are insane. with stealth and shrouding, you can get a 2+ cover save off any bit of terrain around you. With a farseer in the squad, thats a 2+ with reroll from fortune. Harlequins cannot be killed at range unless the attack ignores cover. In melee they are decent on their own, amazing with doom from a farseer. 40 rending attacks on the charge at WS5 S4. With inv saves, they are also great at taking on opposing deathstars. Dont underestimate 5++ with rerolls. Hit and run also means you can break out of melee and charge again to get the most out of furious charge.

*With the nerfs to vehicles in 6th and the hugely expensive vehicles from 4th, wave serpents should be kept at a minimum. Only used for transport on fire dragons imo.

Troops:

* Guardian Jetbikes are always useful. They dont put out much damage and are vastly overcosted, but they are great at objective games. With the ability to turbo 48", you can cross 60" in one turn. This means you can hide the jetbikes in an objective game or rush behind a lone enemy tank in KP games. Also gives easy linebreaker. Always run in units of 3 to make it harder for enemy to prioritize targets. I run 2 squads of 3 in almost every list.

*Dire avengers are mediocre. They do good damage, but dont last long. I keep a squad of 10 with exarch, bladestorm, 2x catapults in reserve so that i can come on and stop enemy flaking maneuvers. You can also go the other route and spam 3-4 squads of DA. At 12 points it is very easy to put a lot on the board for smaller point value games.


FA:
*Warp spiders are insane in 6th. I didnt realize how good until i played a guard player and a squad of 6 killed almost 500 points of vehicles and units. S6, 2 shots each, jump inf with a longer range jump pack, and one of the few units with a cost efficient exarch. Deepstrike them behind vehicles, then jump them behind cliffs, buildings, or terrain in the assault phase to stop them being shot. T3 3+ is not very hard to kill and they are expensive.

*Forgeworld Nightwings are amazing. 2 bright lances, 2 cannons, so not a whole lot of damage for 145 points, but they have agile AND shrouding meaning any evade grants a 2+ cover save. Vector dancer makes them hard to avoid and with the quantity of fire it puts out it can destroy vehicles easily with rear armor shots. Also the only way to get cost-effective brightlances. I modified a Razorwing fighter into mine.

HS:
*War walkers are king here. With either 2x scatter lasers for 8 S6 shots at 36" for 60 points or 2x cannons for 6 S6 shots at 24" for 40 point, they are incredibly cost efficent and the backbone to any eldar gunline. 9x war walkers, aegis defense line, eldrad+ farseer, and you can outshoot anything but guard at long range. With Cannons they become great outflankers, able to hit side armor at a decent range with good quantity of shots. Cheap enough to be expendable too. I almost never leave my war walkers out of a list, no matter the point value.

*Fire prisms have been replaced by Warp Hunters from Forgeworld. Not only are Warp Hunters only slightly more expensive, but they come with the fire prism turret too!. Warp hunters just do everything better however. Wound on 2+ large blast AP2, 3-4 glance 5-6 pen on vehicles. And they can also barrage to deny cover saves with that AP2. Also have a 2ndary flamer template attack that is still AP2 2+ to wound and it is boosted out 6" from the gun. Rules are in IA11 or IAA: 2nd edition (not IAA2, the naming here is really confusing).

(dont use Dark Reapers, they are vastly overcosted and very squishy)

Currently, eldar are one of the least competitive armies in 6th, down around vanilla SM. In 5th they were hard to use, but eldar gained almost nothing from 6th. The nerfing of hoods helped, but overwatch on T3, nerfing of fleet, specialized units (ability to shoot and gain fleet bonuses helps generalized units more), cant assault from outflank (war walker assault, Scorps), vehicle nerfs, damage table changes hurting holofields, and being unable to assault out of stationary transports all put a big dent in eldar. Most of the time you will see eldar as allies in 6th simply for Runes of Warding.



~17k points of eldar

[daboss]

while the vehicle rules gave them a serious hit, I still find mech-dar a viable army. That is what I have, I just zip around with SS on all my serpents. I use only dire avengers, never seen guardians used effectively. just go from cover to cover in WS, and drop out and bladestorm w/ avengers. Pathfinders are a pain, put in a ruin for 2+ save, and get AP 2 shots on 5-6. Also can pick out targets on a 6. And they pin. 2 squads help up an entire flank in one game.

Fire Dragons are boss. I love.

Warp spyders are pretty good, I like vypers with starcannon/ scatterlaser

Eldrad is the best

I still find dark reapers effective, use the tempest launcher. Wraithlord is nice for fire sponge.

[wisdomseyes1]

I dont know exactly what is "good" but I have a harliquin and Farseer fetish. If I ever get around to making an eldar army (which wont happen, likely, till long after their new book comes out sinse I amd currently reassembling my nidz AND assembling daemons AND playing Magic the gathering AND have College full time and work on the weekends meaning I only have fridays off) I want to make a Harly/ seer council list

Dont judge meh X(

[apaosa]

Ignore IA/Forgeworld unless you know for sure that an upcoming tourney is allowing it. Even if they do, expect every other to not allow.

Eldar may be considered an uncompetitive army, but I don't think this is accurate for 6th. It is an unpracticed army, even for the eldar dedicated. They play it one or two ways, and I have yet to see someone build a true 6th Ed list.

I've been raving about Support Batteries.... Take em, but ignore Vibros.

[Algaron]

Ive been working my way through the eldar codex with 6th edition in mind, and they can do some fairly nasty things in the new rules.

Take a farseer for example, give him runes and stones, then look at divination. Hmm this here squad of rangers fires overwatch shots at their FULL BS and rerolls, sorry about your charge there... The only drawback to diviniation over Eldar powers is the loss of fortune. So be careful there, or run a farseer and edlrad, or 2x farseer.

Another tactic ive been using is haveing a Fire Dragon Exarch manning a Quadgun, he has Tankhunter, and Crack shot, means against vehicles, reroll pens and no cover saves. against infiantry reroll wounds, no cover saves, and hes a character so he has precise shots.

Not to echo Zephoid too much here, but Warwalkers and Warp spiders are simply amazing.

[zephoid]

apaosa: thats because 'true 6th edition eldar' does not really exist. 6th gutted the viable eldar units down to a very small core. Of that, most of the units lost viability rather than gained it. If you have an idea for a list that you think would be good in 6th, i would like to see it.

Some tournies do not allow forgeworld, but eldar minus forgeworld stand so small of a chance of winning that it is almost irrelevant. Forgeworld fills in a lot of the gaps that the codex has. Lack of cost-effective long range AT, lack of AA, lack of anti-2+ beyond short range or melee (Starcannons are vastly overcosted).

and support batteries? Really? T3 because majority toughness, high point cost, mediocre damage output, mediocre range.

Algaron
Tank hunter and crack shot do not stack. Exarchs chose 1 power to cast a turn. Therefore vehicles can still use cover saves or he can re-roll pens.



I do want to include a list of units that should not be taken also. Probably more useful for a new player:

Autarchs: Expensive, poor weapon options (they should have the exarch weapons at this cost), still S3, expensive upgrades. Only use i have for one is on jetbike, mandiblasters, laser lance for 6 S6 power weapon attack. Just take yriel 9/10 of the time. 4/10

Pheonix Lords: Simply too expensive. They have no inv except for 230 point asurmen (And only 4+ there), only S4-6 except Karandras who has a fist but no regular power weapon (I7 wasted), cant use powers in other aspects, and dont provide anything significantly better for their own squad. At 200+ points, you can get a whole squad and more for the point cost. The squad is worth it 9/10 of the time over the lord. 3/10, fuegan 4/10

Banshees: Now AP3 even on the executioner makes them no longer the terminator killers they were taken in 5th for. They cannot assault from transports meaning they are walking up the board. Fleet got nerfed, overwatch kills their "first hit" strength, and they still require doom to kill meq but psychic powers got more valuable with the new tables. 3/10

Scorps: T3 3+ is not very tough. They try to be, but its not enough to counteract the lack of fleet. The old way to use SS was to outflank them and wreck a flank while having enough staying power to survive the retaliation. Now you cant outflank and assault, so thats pretty useless. Lack of power weapons besides a S6 fist on the exarch (waste) really hurts. Even just the ability for the exarch to get a S4 power weapon would have been huge. They can still function, but lack speed to get into combat in a meaningful time. 5/10

Wraithguard: What do these guys do that Fire Dragons dont do better. Sure, T6 3+ unit with conceal is cool, but 400 points into a unit that gets obliterated in melee while having a 12" range is a silly poor investment. Armies built around them are poor, but able to counter some of the shooty armies like necrons pretty effectively. 4/10 (vs crons 7/10)

Rangers: one of the most overrated units of the codex. Do the math ppl, 5 man pathfinder squad is 5 shots, 2 AP 1, 1 more hit, 1 AP1 wound, .5 regular. After saves (probably cover) you are looking at around 1 wound for 120 points. That is one of the most inefficient use of points you can find. With the nerf of general cover saves to 5+, you now generate 3+ saves rather than 2+ which is a huge nerf. Ruins are still 2+, but rangers still have all the vulnerabilities they had in 5th. Flamers, melee, or anything that can ignore cover (sternguard). I loved them, my eldar are exodite world themed, and used them a lot with the craftworld 3rd codex(they were far better for the same cost). I have around 30 of them well painted, but even i admit they are bad. (5/10)

Guardians: 8 pts guardsmen with an even worse weapons, no upgrades, and no orders. Yeah, no idea why people try to take these guys. Nothing good coming from them. DA are always better. 2/10 defenders, 3/10 storm


Vypers: 6th gave then a slight boost with the double cannon build and 5+ jinks, but bolters still obliterate them easily. Open topped, AV10, expensive. Not worth running when war walkers can outflank and get better results with more weapons for less points. 4/10

Swooping hawks: Warp spiders just do everything better. Heck, they are using S3 weapons at that point cost, that should tell you what type of unit these are going to be. 3/10

Support weapon teams: T3, 5+, very expensive, BS3, mediocre weapon choices, HS slot. Pretty much the worst options in the codex 1/10

Dark reapers: 35 points for a model better get you one darn good model, especially when the whole unit is made of these guys so no embedding heavy weapons here. Damage is good, but at this point value T3 3+ is nowhere near enough. More than double the point cost of SS who had a problem with survivability. With the exarch costing >75points in most builds, this unit costs upward of 150 points easily. It puts out nowhere near the fire to justify that point cost. 4/10

Falcon: less survivable than a WS, holo fields got nerfed, BS3, expensive weapon upgrades, and HS slot. Really no reason to be taking these. They get shot at because they have high str weapons so using them as a transport makes shooting them down even more appealing for enemies. They get to kill 2 birds with 1 stone. 3/10

[coredump]

Sept 10, 2012 8:10:27 GMT @60mm said:

Sept 10, 2012 7:42:08 GMT milkybarnid said:

@60mm thats the wraithseer you are talking about, it is a very good model but it is forge world.

It is 40k approved though, fully legal.

If you can find a rule from a 40K source, then they are legal. Otherwise they are not. Forgeworld saying they are legal is not the same thing.

[zephoid]

Such a silly argument. We shouldnt use microsoft updates because they are produced by another development team from the OS. Forgeworld is owned by GW. Do you really think they would allow on team to insert units into their game, using all their IPs, formatting, fluff, and then give it a "approved for 40k" stamp and have it not be legal in the game? Come on, thats stretching plausibility. Buying Forgeworld was GW's answer to infrequent codex updates. There is really no other reason to buy FW unless GW wanted to produce alternative units for their own IP.

[brucelich]

I don't own an Eldar army but have played with my brother's many times (or battled them often enough).

With that being said, I think Zephoid has covered the key points. So let me just reinforce what he said about one Eldar choice that im particularly fond of.

War Walkers.... So cheap for what they can achieve. My brother used to have only three models. Until he decided to proxy 6 more for a few games... He bought 6 more shortly after. The amount of high str shots that comes out of these guys is simply amazing. Couple that with Guide (i believe that's what its called) and all of a sudden, your BS of 3 doesn't look that mediocre anymore.

Whenever i play against my brother's Eldar, his walkers are always a priority for me or at least, a big concern. That is true for both my necron and tyranid lists

[Deleted]

I still stand by the Wraithseer after looking at it again. S10 T8 W4 3+/5++ psyker MC reduces cover saves against its shooting, lets wraithguard/lords ignore wraithsight, reroll all failed hits, +1 damage vs vehicles sounds pretty awesome. Sure, they may only have A3 but consider that they get a S10 HoW, so on a charge you still get 5 S10 hits. Even though Wraithseers don't fill the mandatory HQ slot, there is nothing keeping them from being your Warlord. Have fun getting Slay the Warlord against one!