Mics eldar list is in my opinion the best available build, considering our meta, mics ability, and the feflexibility and redundancy inherent in mics build.

I know a lot of people have spoken about how some of the options mic selected are sub par, or easily targeted - i see the issue being the quantity of the overall quality of troops and the ability for the eldar list to dominate the flow of the battle.


I ran minervans with
3 SHT formations (1 shadowsword and 2 storm swords in each)
2 manticore formations.
2 hydra formations
Death strikes
Salamamders
Warhound

Our game was 1-0 825-850 at the end of the third turn. Mic having the 1 vc.
And that was after i had a dream run of activations at the start of turn 1 and 2 which knocked out 1 of his void spinners and broke the other. And next turn i broke one of his his scorpions and i think killed the other.

Mic still had heaps of activations though and managed to work shinning spears into some fabulous aslts for the end of turn 2 and start of turn 3.

Guardians and rangers and falcons arent that great. But i didnt have enough to kill all of the hordes of eldar mic was throwing at me. And if i did risk moving up my units to shoot at his dross it exposed me to said fabulous aslts.

I'm not saying the eldar list mic ran is unbeatable. I won 4-0 2700-450 against a very similar build in the same tourney with my same list. Different table. Different player. I see the issue as solveable through just some small tweakings to points and maybe list structure.

Mic had to work hard for almost all his wins. It wasnt necessarily that eldar are an unbeatable list. Just a list that could use a small tweek or maybe even a twerk.

Also Im a much better player and lover than mic. So it really grinds my gears...

Cheers
Jim

How is the list in need of tweaking if you beat "virtually the same list" 4-0?

Because of all the previously stated issues...

@JimXII would you say your 4-0 win over a similar list was a freak occurence? was it one of those games where everything went right for you and wrong for the opponent or did it come down to your being a more experienced player?

I'm also very interested to see some of the proposed changes to the list

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Hey KiC,
Yeah things went well for me, his list lacked some of the redundacy of Mic's list, and i am a more experienced player than the fella running them. Although he is a great gamer and a great guy. He wasnt able to set up the same 'horns of dilemna' that the old wily kent mic did.
Some of the guys have been discussing the merits and need of some of the proposed changes, but ill let Greg et al discuss those as they are still relatively gestational.
Cheers
Jim

Epic UK TK sons. Knock out the rhinos early doors and kill the Warphounds to deny them mobility and if you can, prep, assault and break the retinues before they can summon daemons as you'll almost certainly kill the non fearless sorcerers through hack down meaning the unit no longer has demonic pact.

Black legion. Same with the rhinos and scout titans and in general getting your assaults in on units before they summon daemons. Trouble is they have pact as a unit characteristic so even one stand can bring in daemons plus death wheels are very much more resilient than Warphounds and dreadclaws give them more alpha strike options while chosen can scout screen you.

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Hey guys

So I ran the Iyanden then finished 3rd at this years Cancon my only loss was to Jims list above and that was because he was able to do what has been mentioned he used his artillery and long range weaponry to snipe my storm serpents and take my list out at the knees. But that is because my list does not have the ability for the redundancies like BT can weave into their list

I also agree that Eldar as a list require a more skilled user to get the most out of them but they are also the list I feel with the highest skill cap - what I mean a skilled player can get much more tricks plans combos and what not out of Eldar then other armies because of the special rules the army has

Like jim said I feel a few tweaks can be made

Iyanden have a 1:2 force organisation chart with units starting at cheapest 225 to unlock two other units which you usually spend on wave serpents or vampires to deliver the wraiths which is fine with me

But the BT list is 1:3 with cheap guardians at 150 points. Now i know they are guardians and what ever people's thoughts are on them you don't really need to spend additional points on them and it allows you to spend all your points on 3 cool or more useful options

So maybe looking at this as a change could work

Other small tweaks can be worked on and I'm happy to test if a structured plan is worked out as I don't think wide spread changes are needed.

I do also understand that we are debating our own side of this topic by using our own personal experiences, metas, terrain etc so I think it will be hard for everyone to come to a common footing. But if we test a small point here and there correctly who knows what we can achieve

Anyway that's my two cents hope it made sense and please take it with a grain of salt I don't claim to be any kind of messiah when it comes to list design haha

Cheers

Hes not the messiah! Hes, a very naught boy!

depends on who you ask

If Biel Tan were to get a change, I think it'd need to be handled as a series of small steps. Eldar are very weak if caught flat-footed, so small changes can have a much bigger impact than anticipated. It's also much more common for things to be nerfed than buffed, so if a nerf sees Eldar spiral into the rubbish bin they'll probably not recover for a very long time.

I think it's also pretty telling of the Biel Tan list that the core is so predictable- that gives the best hint at where changes may be needed. Shining Spears catch my eye, as they are clearly the best Aspect available (followed by Swooping Hawks, then probably Warp Spiders).

Personally, I'd recommend one of the following changes:
1) Reduce Shining Spears to having a 5+ save. This makes their assaults more dangerous, and emphasises the fragile nature of the Eldar.
OR
2) Reduce the Firefight of Shining Spears to 6+. This means they're relying on their likely initial +4 combat resolution when it comes to firefights, as casualties caused will be very few. If they want to improve the odds they must get into base contact- effectively reducing their assault range to 35cm, and making Skimmer less useful. Fluff-wise, this suits the fact that they are more of a close-combat oriented Aspect.

If other Aspects competed better against the Shining Spears we may see more diversity in what gets taken- and once other Aspects are out there, new issues arise for the Eldar player, like how do you transport them or protect them? You may see valuable points and support slots being taken by Storm Serpents, Vampires and Wave Serpents- which tend to be rare sights in Biel Tan armies.

If one of these changes isn't enough, try the other, or make another subtle change. Just please don't be ham-fisted about the process.


I was this unfortunate Eldar player, and I don't think the game can be seen as much of a sign of anything other than my tournament inexperience. As one example, I mis-identified area terrain at the start of the game, causing the loss of half of a mounted Guardian formation without Jim needing to raise a finger. I followed that up with a rather rash move to try and save the day, banking on getting Turn 2 strategy- which I promptly failed and was heavily punished for. The game was a rather rapid decline from there. I hope to have the opportunity to face you again, Jim, to give a better showing.

For what it's worth, this is again something that appears to be heavily meta-dependant. Shining Spears are barely used in the UK.

Go to http://epic-uk.co.uk/ukepicachampionship/albyr.php and pick Biel-Tan in the drop-down menu. This shows 132 BT army lists used in Epic UK tournaments.

Out of 200 Aspect Hosts in those lists, a bit of text searching* finds:
Fire Dragons appear in 110 of the Aspect Hosts.
Dire Avengers in 89.
Dark Reapers in 75.
Swooping Hawks in 51.
Warp Spiders in 35.
Shining Spears in 33.
Striking Scorpions in 20.
Howling Banshees in 9.


*This has some minor errors because a small number of the army lists don't show the composition of the Aspect Hosts

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And thats the key issue I feel is that yes we are in different metas.

I do think we need an epic world championship
Would be a great way to get first hand experience of the different metas and we could all learn a thing or two from each other.

Personally I would like to see marines played as described in this post as when I play them I usually do ok with them but happy t learn new tricks.

And yes Geep if we make changes do playtests first and crunch the result before making any permanent changes were made.

In my experience, and the meta in the UK, shining spears are very much in the weaker rarely used bracket alongside Cobras and phoenix bombers
Aspect wise I'd have the FF infantry aspects (avengers, dragons and reapers) in any combination as the best option in wave serpents or vampires.
Striking scorpions I sometimes use to make a BTS aspect formation tougher and not so vulnerable to CC.
Banshees come into their own in a vampire especially in the smaller formations in other lists.
Warp spiders are ok but are very situational.
Hawks are useful in their speed, teleport and ability to use cover buy don't really have much offensive power.
Shining Spears are similar in power to the hawks and spiders but even more situational and have the massive drawback of being unable to use cover.

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shining spears are probably the most situational aspect type around, if they get a chance to get stuck in to the right target such as a tank company or gorgon full of dudes (and if you leave your gorgon full of dudes <35cm away from a shining spear formation you deserve everything you get!) then yes they're going to perform well, however against a black legion retinue with summoned daemons or a guard infantry company in cover, they become quite pillow-fisted and really, most other aspects would be superior, in fact when discussiing the cancon winning list, a few comments from my group suggested that swapping the spears for swooping hawks would make the list stronger, certainly in the UK meta, due to their superior FF capabilities both for direct engagements AND supporting fire in a 'rolling assault', their ability to use cover without risk, and the ability to teleport to the right location

this is a big point about local metagames, if your group tends to use moar tanks and big war engines, then shining spears have more targets and seem very powerful, but if they come up against swarms of infantry and non-RA vehicles, they are going to seem like a waste of points....

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Personally I think that Shining Spears get brought out so often simply because they allow your Supreme Commander to be on the board from the get-go without having to spend 200 pts on Wave Serpents.

As I don't have Shining Spear or Jetbike models at the mo I've been rolling with an Aspect Warhost of 4 Banshees, 4 Dire Avengers and 4 Wave Serpents. With the Sup Com and extra Exarch it's costing 600 points! I could Storm Serpent them in but wth my atrocious luck in activating formations I need him on the board, and deploying unmounted Aspect Warriors seems a big waste of potential.

Mind you the unit can pack a big punch if they don't get collared on their way to their target. The Wave Serpents give 5+ reinforced protection to the Banshees in the assault and the Dire Avengers provide a lot of firepower to back 'em up. They even managed to wipe out to a man my mate's Noise Marine Fearless BTS in one assault, pretty much the only time i've managed to wipe out one of his Retinues recently.