Manouverability

[Mal]

avengers have their uses... espically if they are lucky enough to catch a CC choppy unit in the open after they killed something...

I've had a unit of wyches left high and dry after rolling a 1 for my consolidation move after killing off an avatar and a small unit of banshees... they promptly got bladestormed, I was lucky that my opponent couldn't roll a successful hit to save his life... but even so they put out enough shots that I only had 2 regular wyches left alive... ofc when he charged in I beat him in combat and run him down when he broke... but they were doing well up until then

[Cyberscape7]

I notice a few mentions of harleys. Now tbh, I have nothing against them! They ARE good! however buying them would break my rule. Until the GW see sense and built plastic models I will not buy any more of the following boxes:
Rangers, Harleys, Hawks and wraithguard.
They should be plastic.
Now I like fuzz's idea of trial and error. I think the next time I can get a game in with my eldar I'm going to use my favourite list and try and understand all the pros and cons of it.
In fact I was doing a test game and (I'm a BIG DoG fan) one thing I have learned NEVER to do;
DoG with a wraithlord, never ends well...

[lowdog]

avengers have their uses... espically if they are lucky enough to catch a CC choppy unit in the open after they killed something...

Absolutely. Even worse/better with Doom. I've seen Avengers bladestorm doomed squads of gaunts and orks of over 20-30 models and wipe them off the table.

[slobulous]

You missed the whole debate over footdar lists, didn't you. As Tynskel said, they can actually be really nasty, and have actually done pretty well in tournaments lately.

No, they can't be REALLY nasty. Not even kind of nasty. I don't care about online debates, only actual experiences on the tabletop. I have played against Eldar many times in my 12-year WH40k career, against most of their different builds and playstyles, and one thing has been very consistent; Guardian squads on foot have always been ineffective point sinks for a number of reasons that are apparent just by looking at their unit entry in the codex. They were more viable in 4th, but only marginally so, and in 5th, they are a comparatively garbage Troops choice to more recent codexes. Granted, I have not ever played against a pure infantry Eldar army with 6 full squads of them, but I have gone against 3 full squads of them plus some other things, and they got steamrolled real bad. I would assume taking away the other units to add more Guardians would just make the situation worse. If someone plopped down 6 full squads of foot guardians with heavy weapons and warlocks and the whole 9 yards, I would feel like I already had the game won. They just don't put out strong enough or accurate enough firepower, can't sustain much damage (especially when the right weapon is used against them like heavy flamers), they get slaughtered in assault, and they are as slow as any other foot infantry, so easily manouvered around. To top it all off, they are massively overpriced. No amount of attempted manouverability or fancy tactics will make up for all of their glaring weaknesses. I simply cannot respect a footdar list trying to be competitive in this edition of the game because it's a silly idea that goes against what the Eldar are supposed to be good at. It's like Tau taking tons of Kroot and trying to win in close combat.

[Mal]

Each to their own, I personally have faced some truely talented eldar players who have a preference for footdar lists... and as good as I am (I place in every event in my area), they can still make a decent fight of it...

This is not to say they don't have their weaknesses, every army does, even mechdar does. The whole point is learning to cover your weaknesses as best as you can while exploiting your opponents.
Then add in the fact that the vast majority of armies bring AT fire power over AI weaponry... and well, you just don't see all that many flamers about. Yes yes there are exceptions.. there are always exceptions, but the exceptions are not the norm.

[Lupercal]

Until the GW see sense and built plastic models I will not buy any more of the following boxes:
Rangers, Harleys, Hawks and wraithguard.
They should be plastic.

Out of curiosity, what is the issue with metal models?

You should know that economic and codex considerations will most likely preclude plastic wraithguard, rangers, and hawks. Plastic harlequins seem likely at some point, however.

Have you thought about a full squadron of War Walkers? Arm them with dual Scatter Lasers and put a Doom/Guide Farseer between them. If you Doom their target and Guide the War Walkers, you've got 24 S:6 shots which reroll hits and wounds at a range of 24". Against marines, you should average 17 wounds with the squadron at full strength. That's five dead marines, maybe six. At that point the War Walkers may not live long, but you will have whittled down the enemy and bought some time for the rest of your army. Just a thought.

[Mal]

I know why people like plastic, its easier to build, glue and convert than metal... but nothing paints up quite as nicely as metal does.

[AbusePuppy]

@'Scape: You forgot your Vyper mate.
@Abusepuppy: I completely disagree with the point on lists. There is no such thing as a bad list so long as you have a decent chance of killing everything in the game, or you want to win a competitive tournament.

Let me try and rephrase that: "There's no such thing as a bad list, as long as it's good and you don't care if you do well with it."

Does that not sound absurd to you? I realize not everyone is aiming for max competitiveness; I'm fine with that. He wants to play Footdar, and while I think that's a huge mistake, it's his decision and I tried to keep my advice within the bounds of that decision. But don't lie and convince yourself that it's "just as good" as the alternatives. When I build a Pyrovore list or an all-melee list for my Tyranids, I know I am handicapping myself; I don't pretend that I'm doing other than what I am. I think the same applies here: if you want to play a foot version of a codex that isn't really able to field a lot of "good" options, that's fine, but realize what you're doing before you dig that hole.

Out of curiosity, what is the issue with metal models?

You should know that economic and codex considerations will most likely preclude plastic wraithguard, rangers, and hawks. Plastic harlequins seem likely at some point, however.

I think I can guess: they are (especially in the case of Eldar) horribly unbalanced and impossible to assemble or keep stable. I loathe metal models with the very heart of my being because of this (GW loves to put melee units in the "leaning forward 90% over the edge of their base" pose) and because converting them in any way is a pain in the a** and potentially fatal to the modeler thanks to slipping blades, metal shavings and dust, etc. Metal models can burn in hell for all I care.

I would expect that Wraithguard and Harlies get plastic boxes if/when the new Eldar 'Dex gets released; plastic for nearly everything is largely becoming the standard these days, although there tend to be some number of metal releases mixed in for things.

[Mal]

Metal is generally being limited to special characters and the like, which makes sense since you can get a better cast from a single metal cast mold than you can from pressurised plastic molds.

Personally I like the metal, even for conversions, it may be harder and more dangerous (I have literially hundreds of scars on my hands from slipped blades), but they always come out looking really amasing. I've don;t some cracking plastics conversions, but im always happier about a well finished metal piece.

But thats my personal preference.

As for the note on the footdar list not being as powerful as other builds, yes this is true... but from what I gather, the OP isn't after a major tournament winning army, but rather something he can have fun with.
When you really get down to the bare nones of it, there are not actually all that many ultra competative army builds out there. Almost all have inherant weaknesses and flaws, lack of balance or synergy... you get the idea... few are 'perfect'...
Hell i've been writing competatie lists for well over a decade and i've yet to get one to the point where i'd call it ultra competative, granted I can cover the weaknesses well with strong tactics, but its just not the same.

[AbusePuppy]

When you really get down to the bare nones of it, there are not actually all that many ultra competative army builds out there. Almost all have inherant weaknesses and flaws, lack of balance or synergy... you get the idea... few are 'perfect'...
Hell i've been writing competatie lists for well over a decade and i've yet to get one to the point where i'd call it ultra competative, granted I can cover the weaknesses well with strong tactics, but its just not the same.

I would disagree. Every 5E book has at least three major competitive builds in it; BA, SM, and IG have significantly more than this. Every other book, except for Necrons, contains at least one "functional" build and for all codices except Daemons, Chaos, and Orks contains at least one "strong" build, in my opinion. (Chaos and Orks both work reasonably well, but are noticably below par compared to the other books. Daemons are simply poorly designed and will only work if your opponent is bad or luck swings your way.)

Of all of those, I would rate about a dozen of them as being sufficiently close to each other that it is, for all intents and purposes, impossible to tell which is "the best," if there even is a clear winner to be found.

With regards to metal models, I know some people say they prefer painting metal, but I can't for the life of me imagine why. Different strokes, I suppose.