Eldar In 6th Edition

The bad, worse, and ugly (ok and I guess a little good too)

So as you probably know, unless you live under a rock (a very large one), 6th edition is out and in full swing. Lots of people may wonder "what does this mean for our pointy eared friends?" Well over the last week I have read as much as I could about the new rules and just this weekend have played 2 games with the new rules.

The first game I got to play was Eldar(myself) and Necron(my girlfriend) vs Vanilla SM and Tau. It was 1500 pts a person so a 3000 pt per side game. This turned out to take all afternoonand was only in turn 4 when the store closed at 10pm. Hindsight shows that smaller games work better when rules have to be checked all the time :-/. I fielded a typical 5th edition jet council with seer and 6 locks, eldrad and Dire avengers in a serpent, dragons in a serpent, 2 groups of 3 guardian jet bikes, and 2 fire prisms. Not a great list, I was rushed in creating it and forced my council into the list which I should not have done. Necron took a 20 warriors blob with res orb lord, 12 warriors blob with res orb lord, 5 imortals, 5 deathmark, 5 lychguard, 2 destroyers, and 2 monliths. SM's took 2 of the new flyers, a land raider with termys, 5 scouts, 2 rinos with 10 man squads in and that might be it give or take a tac squad. Tau had 3 tanks with rail guns, a 3 man crisis suit team, hq crisis suit, group of 5(?) stealth suits, pathfinders, 2 grouop of 10 kroot each and a transport with 10 fire warriors.

This is how it is supposed to be. But boy do I love having them on my team.

Eldar/necrn go second. The table is played the long way with the shot sides being the back of our deployment. Very narrow. Even harder with a 3000 pt game. I have necron make a wall of metal to hide all my eldar behind as to not get shot up the first turn. SM and tau spread out across their half of the board evenly to cover the most angles for shooting. First round of shoot goes off. About 7 warriors go down and 5 get back up. I lose a fire prisim to a single lascannon at max range on some super lucky rolling from a SM. Necron move forward firing gauss all over the place, knock off hull points on land raider and kill a few units here or there, i move up behind the metal wall and do basically nothing. SM fliers come in and shoot all over the place slowing down a monolith and trying to dwindle numbers of warriors. Tau blast away at fortuned eldar and get no where. Necrons took out the Land raider and a flier with glances on 6's gauss. I make the termys inside run with a shot from my fire prism. I continue to move behind in congo line fashion. Lots more shooting from tau and lucky fortuned rolls for eldar. 2nd monolith deepstrike and telaport the lychguard out of its warp. my seer council charges with witchblades and cant penetrate armour anymore. The game ended without much else exciting happening due to the store closing.

What I learned...

• The hull point system makes gauss an incredible power so necron players be happy. The new rules for rapid fire (move 6 and still be able to shoot 1 shot at 24) make them very mobile. They have a 24 inch bubble (30 including movement) that ALL vehicles should be afraid of.
• 2 monoliths are scary for anyone.
• flyers are really hard to take down if you have no sky fire (or unless you are a 20 man squard of necron warriors)
• Tau are more viable with the boosts to shooting this edition.
• Dont ever allow yourself to become markerlighted  by a squad of pathfinders
• eldrad has 3 wounds and a 3+ invulnerable save, so dont hide him the whole game.
• witchblades dont do what they used to against vehicles. 6th edition =(S3+2D6) vs 5th edition=(S9+D6)
• Can never have enough destructor warlocks with the new overwatch rule(you can snap fire flamers with a D3 autohit) instead of dealing with that BS1 stuff.
• Trust your fortuned saves and use that eldar mobility to get behind the enemy lines
• Jet council can STILL take one hell of a beating.
• Snipers are good now. Rapid Fire snipers are ever better (deathmarks), it seems I need some of my own rangers/pathfinders

All in all, the 1500 pts of Necron beat the combined 1500 of SM and 1500 of Tau. And then 1500 pts of eldar just flew around and did nothing. I could go on and on about how awesome Necron got in 6th, but this isnt a Necron blog. So I will stop. Ok no one more thing. 5 hull points for ghost ark?!?!! UGH. lol

I also played another game just today and it was Eldar/Dark Eldar vs Vanilla SM each side had 1500 pts. We had 750 each for both eldar and dark eldar. I tried our some wraithguard with a seer in a serpent, a fire prism, and 2 squads of GJB's. Dark Eldar had kabolites in a raider, wyches and archon in raider, incubi in venom, and 4 reavers. The entire eldar race performed very well. I wont go int huge detail as the other game but ill make a few points.

What I learned...

• Dark Eldar can still assault pretty far
• Reavers went from good to Incredible (jink+skilled rider= if unit moves then it has a 4+ cover, if it turbo's it has 3+ cover) it also goes through difficult and auto passes dangerous. Also benefits from rapid fire rule change. They also can take haywire guns which glance on 2-5 and pen on 6. Bye Bye hull points.
• Splinter racks in a kabolite filled raider is very useful
• Once again, watch out for those overwatching flamers! Can really mess up a high(bad) armour save unit.
• Wraithguard are sweet with their wraithcannons and the glancing or even penetrating. and the AP2
• Veteran Sternguard are TOUGH

This is going to happen A LOT as you charge into battle

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Im going to try and do a run through of the Eldar army and say a comment or two about their units and how they are better or worse or even the same in 6th....

HQ

Avatar- He gets all the new bonus's for Daemons while retaining his 4+ invulnerable. No more auto wounds from the fearless guys.He benefits frm th new MC rules like halving his attacks to hit at double strength. Overwatched flamers cant hurt him!!! all in all he is really making me want to swap him out for one of my seers now. Havent done it yet but we will see.

Farseer- Still just as good if not better. Can take their own psychic powers or swap them out for the new ones in 2 of the fields. Now have the ONLY save against a perils attack in the form of their ghosthelm. Not even invulnerable saves can work with perils now. They have IMO the best physic defense with the runes of warding. Doom guide and fortune still work wonders. You can now use them on tau and dark eldar units too :-) Witchblades got hit pretty hard. They still wound on 2+ which is great but dont have as high of an average AP against vehicles. Singing spears still work the same.

Warlock- Stayed about the same. No new powers available. But nothing wrong with the old ones. Witchblade nerf.

Autarch- I dont know too much about taking them in 6th. The reserves rolls are easier now so his master strategist rule isnt that much use. He is still OK, but I cant ever seeing myself not taking 2 farseers.

Eldrad- He is just as amazing and even better now. He just seems like an auto take in any list 1000 or over. He can generate 4 new powers from the new power charts that Eldar get access to. Bad thing is that witchblade nerf and his staff isnt a singing spear. But his staff isnt called a power weapon, it states that it ignores armour saves. So it didn't get the AP3 power weapon nerf.

Prince Yriel- I dont own the model and have never used him before. He seems to be the same power as in 5th. His spear ignores armour saves so thats good, no nerf there.

Phoenix Lords- They are all about the same use as before. They may be good at being a general that goes around and challenges other IC's. But once again, I almost always have 2 farseers.

Troops

Dire Avengers- They didnt so much as get worse, they just got outclassed. New Rapid fire has made their assault2 18" range weapons not an advantage anymore. They are outshot by the average bolter. Having the exarch take his power weapon isnt as good due to it now being AP3 since it's just classed as a power weapon. They went from being an average unit that could do ok with support to a sub par unit that can be average with support.

Guardians- They were ok when used for back line objectives or at low point games for cheap heavy weapons and obj. grabbers, but now rapid fire outclasses them COMPLETELY. I cant see myself fielding them anymore at all. Maybe not even storm guardians because they can get overwatched on the charge really hard. But on the other hand, the flamers storm guardians get can help deter getting assaulted. But still, they just dropped off the usefulness chart. Especially with the rise of rangers (see below)

Rangers- Snipers are now OK. This makes eldar snipers GOOD. We can move and at least still snap shot (shoot at BS1) our guns when changing cover potions. 366" range is great. Wound on 4+ and a roll of 6 not only counts as AP1 like usual, but also in 6th will allow you to choose your target model. Upgrade them to patfinders for even more joy. *goes off to purchase rangers

Guardian jet bikes- These guys got better. Jink cover save of 5+ just for moving. 4+ for turbo boosting. Always 4 toughness now so no S6 insta kills on them. Then can move 12 shoot and move anotehr 2D6 or not shoot and move up to 36" more for the turboboost. So a total of 48" move. Thats nice. At least thats how I read the movement for jetbike rules section. It lends itself to a wide range of interpretation sadly. But still, move shoot move is still great.

Elites

Howling Bansees- They are being put on the shelves this edition. Unless you face a ton of marines with 3+ armour, they cant hit like they used to. Even in 5th they had to be set up pretty well for their glass cannon effect. Now they just dont pack the same punch. Mirror swords "ignore armour saves" so they got better, but thats not a reason to take a unit.

Fire Dragons- Pretty much the same. Meaning still awesome :). Only downfall is that the serpent they ride in can be shot down a little easier. Tank hunter allows re roll of your armour penn rolls AND a re roll of your vehicle damage chart roll if you get any penetrating hits. you can even score a glance and try to re-roll for a penn but you must take the second roll. It also may be worth it to take the DBFlamer with the exarch with the new overwatch rule especially if you can re roll failed wounds from crack shot.

Striking scorpions- The age old question of Banshees vs Striking scorpions is very easily resolved in 6th. The scorpions win hands down. They havembetter armour and can shrug off overwatch on the way in. Even taking armour saves against heavy flamers. The scorpion claw is still a power fist so its AP2, I1, and x2 Str. I wouldnt say we now have a go-to CC unit, but if you like them then it cant hurt to take them.

Harlequins- So These guys either stayed about the same but will now be played with slightly different tactics OR they are the BOSS of CC and basicly impossible shoot at. In the new Eldar FAQ it states that under the shadowseer's veil of tears article to replace the second and third sentence with "it gives her  and her unit stealth and shrouded" Second sentence reads something about her power is like a warlocks, always active. The third sentence is some fluff thing. I believe they meant to say second and third PARAGRAPH, not sentence. Second and third paragraph explain the cant be shot at unless you are 2D6x2" or less away stuff. But as the rules currently read, we get stealth (+1 to cover save), shrouded(+2 to cover save and auto 5+ cover if in open), AND the 2D6x2 spotting range. This would make them get in close combat with little to no losses. I can only hope. Also the Death jester is now more viable. Before he was dumb to take due to Harlys always running in the shooting phase. Now if you run you CAN NOT assault. but re-rollable 2D6 assault range helps out. So Death Jester can shoot and charge with them. Harly kiss's giving rending to get those AP2 hits are killer as well now with the lack of AP2 out there.

Wraithguard- after playing with only a squad of 5 of these guys today I think that I will be playing with them in 6th. Not sure if 10 as a troop or groups of 5 in serpents. But they sure do pack a punch. The hull point system makes their wraithcannons better due to the 3-4 for glance and 5-6 for penn. Wound on 2+ is great as usual but the AP2 really is great. Star cannons still arent quite useful so wraith cannon may be the answer. Only downfall is mobility. So a Fortuned Serpent flat out into enemy teritory. Then next turn 6 inch move with serpent, disembark 6 inches from serpent, and have a 12 inch bubble from there. Works pretty well. They aren't the cheapest unit for eldar but since when do we get cost effective units?

Fast Attack

Swooping Hawks- I thought that they may be our solid answer to taking out flyers and an ok way to get some haywire grenades on the field but NO. Flyers almost never can be assaulted (if ever). So no 4+ to hit a flyer in assault with the intercept rule and slapping haywire grenades to its hull :-(. Otherwise they still pretty much are over priced and dont do much.

Warp Spiders- Now that Hull points allow a vehicle to be glanced to death, S6 shots en-mass is even better. AP- now doesnt give a -1 on the damage chart. So i believe I will fill a Fast attack slot with some spiders. The exarchs power blades "ignore armour saves" so no AP3 nerf, and also give +1 attack giving the exarch 5 attacks on the charge that can punch 2+ saves. So these guys went from good to better.

Shining spears- Im not quite sure if the laser lances got nerfed. There is an entry in the rulebook referring to power lances, and if the laser lance is considered a power lance then it is now +1 to S and AP3 on charge and user S and AP4 when not charging. If this is true then shinging spears are even worse. If not then the people who used them in 5th will probably use them in 6th again. Otherwise, I wouldn't take them.

Vypers- Alot of people didnt like vypers in 5th and probably still dont think they are worth it in 6th. They have been given 2 hull points which seems about right. But the good part is now they can take shuriken cannons on their belly and fire that and their main weapon on a move of 12". So If your heavy slots are filled up and/or you like more speed with your heavy weapons, then I say give them a try.They also get the new jink saves which help survivability.

Heavy

Falcon- Some people will say that it is time to put falcons on the shelf. Im on the fence here. They have 3 hull points and can fire pulse laser and their heavy weapon at full BS and snap shot their belly weapon on 12" move. Or 6" move and fire all at full BS. Spirit stones arent worth taking anymore because any shot that penetrates will probably have at least AP2 making their be less chance of a crew stunned result. And glancing hits no longer even roll on the chart. Holo fields are also over priced now as the damage chart gets rolled on half as ofter. Troops inside of a transport cant capture objectives so DAVU is hurting as well. So it's kind of a toss up here. I dont take them, but that is because I love fire prisms.

Fire Prism- I think that they are just as good as in 5th. So pretty much they stayed the same. Taking holo fields and spirit stones dont seem worth it anymore so that frees up points but it makes the fire prisms seem more vulnerable. But at the same time, a glancing hit will just give you a hull point instead of making you amazing gun not shoot.

War Walkers- These guys still are the cheapest bang for the buck we get. Unless you like having an allfast skimmer list I say run these bad boys. They only have 2 hull points but who cares. They wont get stunned as much now. Also in a vehicle squadron, an immobilized model will get left behind and will become a singe unit. So no more immobilize causing death. The only anti air defense I see us having is 3 War walkers all with scatter lasers. Thats 180 pts. 24 S6 shots at 36" range. Flyers get hit on 6's. So guide those bad boys. When guided they will land (24x1/6) + (20x1/6)= 7.3 hits. On the stormtalon gunships they have AV11 so then 5 glance and 6 penn. 1.2 shots glance and 1.2 shots penn. So there is 2 hull points gone. Bye Bye Gunship

Dark Reapers- With shooting being more prevalent in 6th, mayyyyybe you can give up a heavy slot for a group of these guys. If you know who your playing and they dont really take anyone with 2+ saves then these guys may not be bad. But i'd still rather have a fire prism. for basicly the same amount of points.

Wraithlord- Wraithlords are still viable for footdar armys. Lots of shooting going on here now so A wraithlord fits right in. Two flamers got better. IF someone wants to charge this guy they better watch out. MC's also get the new Hammer of wrath rule. This gives them an extra one attack for charging that is resolved at base Str, I10, and AP-. So the lack of attacks tat a wraithlord gets is helped out a little by this if he charges.

Transport

Wave Serpent- The serpent seems to about stay the same. It has 3 Hull points so it can take a few glancing hits before it dies instead of getting shaken or stunned. It can also fire both its turret gun and belly gun on a 12" move. Being a fast skimmer it can move 12" and flat out another 18". It also has the Jink special rule now.

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So Overall...

What I have seen from 6th edition I have enjoyed for the most part. Time will tell more. Every game is now a learning experience more so then usual. FOC's have much tweaking to do and to GW's pleasure, more models must be bought :-/. The book itself is VERY high quality and yea its expensive but compared to other books of its quality, content, and volume of pages, I find it a great deal. Compared to what I payed for text books in college and the use I got from them at least. It seems Eldar got some good things to look forward to in 6th and have some bad things that need to be worked around. Hopefully this list helps some people out. If you have read to this point I thank you very much as this is my first post. I hope to post more as I learn more. Please comment and tell me what you think about the new 6th rules and how it effects our eldar.