Eldar Codex: So, What Do You Think Of It?

[SeekingOne]

their elite army status just doesn't play well in this edition.

This.

BTW, in my experience it hardly played well before as well, this edition just emphasized the issues.

The so-called "Elite" army, as in "an army that is usually outnumbered but compensates for that with superior quality of units", only works reasonably well when it has a quality advantage in BOTH killing power AND durability. Eldar have zero durability advantage, which undermines the whole concept. The old codex worked reasonably well mostly because it had ways around the units' durability issues, with the most important of them being Fortune. The new codex has nerfed all of those to total unreliability, while simultaneously making most of the stuff more expensive. It just doesn't bode well... Unless updated Wave Serpents prove to be some kind of Unstoppable Weapon of Absolute Annihilation, I don't see anything that would help Eldar to survive attrition.

[cebalrai]

I have been playing Eldar from when they came out in WD 127.

My point is if you are putting 400 or more points into just six figures you are not going to have much else on the table.

This Codex increased the price of most Eldar units so that means we are putting less things on the table rather than more.

As Darklink has stated I also would not be afraid of my opponent running with a Seer Council because that would mean that I have less things to target.

Plus if you are running a Seer Council you are expecting that unit to win you the battle. But what happens when they don't do what you want?

All I am saying is that you are better off if more units than to count on one small Deathstar unit.

That would be 365, not 400 or more. And while that's still a lot of points the question should be whether or not it's worth it in the context of a list's greater strategy. I don't think dismissing it as "makes the rest of your list smaller" is a very complete analysis.

[eldargal]

This.

BTW, in my experience it hardly played well before as well, this edition just emphasized the issues.

The so-called "Elite" army, as in "an army that is usually outnumbered but compensates for that with superior quality of units", only works reasonably well when it has a quality advantage in BOTH killing power AND durability. Eldar have zero durability advantage, which undermines the whole concept. The old codex worked reasonably well mostly because it had ways around the units' durability issues, with the most important of them being Fortune. The new codex has nerfed all of those to total unreliability, while simultaneously making most of the stuff more expensive. It just doesn't bode well... Unless updated Wave Serpents prove to be some kind of Unstoppable Weapon of Absolute Annihilation, I don't see anything that would help Eldar to survive attrition.

I actually disagree completely. This codex is as good a representation of a non-Space Marine elite army as GW have ever released. Make them too durable and they become Space Marines (and thus, boring to play). We still have to be careful with our forces but we can field enough destructive capacity and have enough tricks to help us survive that we can take on most armies comfortably in the hands of a skilled player.

I'd give it 4/5, because there were still missed opportunities.

[cebalrai]

This.

BTW, in my experience it hardly played well before as well, this edition just emphasized the issues.

The so-called "Elite" army, as in "an army that is usually outnumbered but compensates for that with superior quality of units", only works reasonably well when it has a quality advantage in BOTH killing power AND durability. Eldar have zero durability advantage, which undermines the whole concept. The old codex worked reasonably well mostly because it had ways around the units' durability issues, with the most important of them being Fortune. The new codex has nerfed all of those to total unreliability, while simultaneously making most of the stuff more expensive. It just doesn't bode well... Unless updated Wave Serpents prove to be some kind of Unstoppable Weapon of Absolute Annihilation, I don't see anything that would help Eldar to survive attrition.

I don't think Eldar are more than "moderately elite. GK is elite, Eldar are less than that. I don't feel particularly outnumbered against most opponents....

[Learn2Eel]

This.

BTW, in my experience it hardly played well before as well, this edition just emphasized the issues.

The so-called "Elite" army, as in "an army that is usually outnumbered but compensates for that with superior quality of units", only works reasonably well when it has a quality advantage in BOTH killing power AND durability. Eldar have zero durability advantage, which undermines the whole concept. The old codex worked reasonably well mostly because it had ways around the units' durability issues, with the most important of them being Fortune. The new codex has nerfed all of those to total unreliability, while simultaneously making most of the stuff more expensive. It just doesn't bode well... Unless updated Wave Serpents prove to be some kind of Unstoppable Weapon of Absolute Annihilation, I don't see anything that would help Eldar to survive attrition.

Actually, High Elves in Fantasy are identical to Eldar in that sense; hit hard, die easily, small numbers. Different game system obviously, but they have made it work before. It just doesn't appeal to most gamers as it is obviously a difficult army to play well.

[Autarch]

This.

BTW, in my experience it hardly played well before as well, this edition just emphasized the issues.

The so-called "Elite" army, as in "an army that is usually outnumbered but compensates for that with superior quality of units", only works reasonably well when it has a quality advantage in BOTH killing power AND durability. Eldar have zero durability advantage, which undermines the whole concept. \

Gotta totally disagree with this. You can easily run an entirely MEQ Eldar list Autarch, Jetbikes, Shining Spears, Wraithguard, Scorpions, Warp Spiders, Wraithlords, Wraithguard, Wraithblades, Dark Reapers and Rangers when given decent cover. Also the tanks are super durable, skimmers, and become ridiculous when you give them holofields, and spirit stones.

While not as "WOW look at all the wargear" as say my beloved Dark Eldar codex, I never expected WS, BS boosts to all guardians, and all vehicles. All the free powers given out to units like Scorpions, Farseers, Dire Avengers, and even Swooping Hawks. As well as BIG points reduction for Rangers, Jetbikes, Shining Spears.

Thats not even figuring in Battle Trance which is going to have far ranging implications the more we play(shoot and scoot War Walkers anyone?), and the new Bladestorm rule which is fantastic.

Personally very happy. You had to dig through the book a bit to take it all in, but in my opinion the Eldar got a huge boost across the board in terms of stats, and free abilities.

[chicop76]

Eldar takes a brain to play and do well with for the most part. Similiar to dark eldar, but mostly more durable and have less numbers.

Eldar have had problems facing horde armies, but does well against marines, starcannons and dark reapers anyone. Anyway for the most part it's differant, but doesn't suck.

Against dark angels eldar should do rather well. Against Tau it should be a good match up. The biggest advatage Tau have over eldar is striping cover away. Both armies can dish out hurtful shooting attacks. All in all what it will boil down to is combat. The problem with eldar they can easily assult turn 2 and the whole army at 3. The advantage of both armies is they both dish out a ton of fire power, although tau should win out the sit back an shoot game.

What I think is funny is tau 2 months ago took away the sniper advantage of rangers from Eldar. Instead of giving Eldar that advatage back they basically are normal snipers or they all have percesion shots. Not saying pathfinders are bad, thouse upgrade characters are basically dead now. It sill is hard to kill of IC's.

Against chaos marines eldar should do well and against Daemons I would say Daemons probably got that.

Thining I like about Daemons is that army is more specalist that Eldar is. I still trying to figure out what made them drop daemon troops cost by half. It boosted slaanech to awesome levels and helped bloodletters as well. Nurgle and Tzeentench didn't benefit from that. The thing I like about Tzeentch now is to hide all the models, but one behind los blocking terrain. For the most part you will only be able to kill that one guy and you just replace him with another.


I always have said it takes a brain to play Eldar and a mindless monkey to play Marines. Heck when an 8 year old kid does well with marines it's nuff said,

[cebalrai]

The dice gods were on my side last night, but I managed to table a horde Ork/CSM army with the new Eldar codex. Dawn of War deployment and he was spread pretty thin after I deployed first in the middle of my side. Turn one my Vyper stunned his Nob Trukk which slowed his heavy hitters down, while the rest of my force moved flat-out hard left so that he had to come at me more or less single-file. From there 30 Dire Avengers took up defensive positions while Fire Dragons took out his Oblits... And his Vindicator lost its main gun to a Prism lance (Lol).

From there it was absolute meat grindage with casualties on both sides, but much higher for the Orks. And when he got close with one of his large units my Dire Avengers would just battle trance back a few inches to make sure he couldn't assault. Asurmen's unit eventually got assaulted by his late-arriving claw Nobz though which hurt. Counterattack for Asurmen and the Exarch though is pretty cool. All the DAs eventually died except one, but Asurmen emerged unscathed. I used the Warlord power that allows rerolls on 1s on saves which was nice.

One thing I discovered, Wave Serpent shield projectors are exceptionally good against Quad Guns. I took out his Quad Gun on turn 2 with just one Serpent's attack when it wasn't even in range with its' TL shuriken cannons. From now on when I bring a flyer I'm going to try to use this strategy in turn 1-2 to ace the gun...

[SeekingOne]

Actually, High Elves in Fantasy are identical to Eldar in that sense; hit hard, die easily, small numbers. Different game system obviously, but they have made it work before.

That's not true. They happened to make it work at times, and failed at that other times. For instance, HE and DE books in 6th edition of FB were both utter garbage. They actually had to errata half of the DE book changing point costs and stats all over the board, just to make it playable. In HE book only heavy cav units were playable - and that was true only because those were toughest units with best armour in the book that were also priced about equally to knights in other books (so no real 'eliteness' here at all).

[Learn2Eel]

That's not true. They happened to make it work at times, and failed at that other times. For instance, HE and DE books in 6th edition of FB were both utter garbage. They actually had to errata half of the DE book changing point costs and stats all over the board, just to make it playable. In HE book only heavy cav units were playable - and that was true only because those were toughest units with best armour in the book that were also priced about equally to knights in other books (so no real 'eliteness' here at all).

Um, I don't know if you pay attention to Warhammer Fantasy recently, but High Elves and Dark Elves are both very competitive books in 7th/8th Edition. High Elves were actually regarded as the top book in 7th by many until Dark Elves/Vampires/Daemons followed them. So yes, it is true - I didn't say they "always" made it work, did I?