I'll be going to my first ever epic tournament in just under a month, using an army I have never used before and only having played one game of epic (or any wargame) in 4 years, recently versus MoK. Yey - fun times! I can has deep-end jumping :-)

Not having managed to have time to paint an army like I hoped sadly, I will be borrowing all/nearly all the models (depending if I get any of my own painted in time) from a couple of forum members who are kind enough to lend them and I plan to embrace the fact it’ll be a ragtag army as a background theme – low population Exodite world calls for aid, 3 craftworlds dispatch forces.

Of all armies my own Eldar army will be especially heavily themed and a bit limited, rather than being designed around the most competitive stuff. Even though I'll be borrowing others' models I'd still like to get used to using the same sorts of units as in mine, so that would be zero spacecraft, aircraft, striking scorpions, fire dragons, howling banshees or phantoms and roughly the sorts of units used below. I'd also prefer to try out a selection of different units, rather than lots of one type.

I'd hope the list will be reasonably decent though and am happy to tweak some and/or address particular problem areas. I'll try to get as many practice games in with it as I can closer to the time, but how does the below look for a draft army list?

4,000 points
13 Activations

Avatar - Free
Wraithgate - 50

8 Shining Spears - 300
Autarch - 75

Jetbikes – 200

Guardian Warhost - 150
3 Wraithguard - 150
3 Wraithlords - 175

Guardians, 3 Heavy Weapons - 150

5 Rangers - 125

5 Rangers - 125

War Walkers - 200

Void Spinner - 250

8 Swooping Hawks (possibly Dark Reapers or Warp Spiders instead) - 300
2 Exarches - 50

Guardian Warhost - 150
Wave Serpents - 200

Falcons, 2 Fire Storms - 250

Fire Prisms - 250

Warlock Titan - 850

Is that ok, or unacceptably few, activations for Eldar? Not too sure what I'd drop if so.
Do I have too much anti-air? Should I drop either the Falcons or Fire Prism unit?
Would a Storm Serpent be a useful inclusion or should I keep the points for fighty stuff as is and manage with the Wraithgate?
Swap the Swooping Hawks for Warp Spiders or Dark Reapers possibly?

Is that ok, or unacceptably few, activations for Eldar? Not too sure what I'd drop if so.

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When Ginger says a pair of storm serpents I think he means 2 formations of one serpent each! If you have lots of formations in the webway a lone serpent just screams kill me now!

If you do drop the swooping hawks for other aspects I wonder how you will deploy them? Walking aspects are next to useless!

My Britcon army only has 13 activations so I wouldn't worry about it too much. I think its only going to be Marines with the 15+ activations.

What you want are 12 war engines, 1 aspect host and 3 guardian formations and something else

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from my limited experience:

go for maximum tactical flexibility as I think this is really where Eldar shine. To that end, I try and kit out everything with transport (other than perhaps the blitz guardians), take at least one (or 2 separate, if pts allow) Storm serpents, plus wraithgate, and always make sure my SC is on the board from the get go.

I'm not sure I'm qualified to suggest a particular list, but these are things I like taking:
vypers - awesome for hit+run, harassment and supporting fire, never used for direct assault

guardians w/ wraith constructs - always underestimated by opponents, deployed out of a wraithgate/ Sserpent with the wraithguard/ lords up front to soak up hits they are absolutely vicious. With support from a Vyper formation, once wiped out an entire LR formation.

doom weavers - great for prepping an assault, cheap AA (if you're using those rules), don't expect them to be around for long

guardians w/ wave serpents - put the wave serpents up front to force FF and soak up hits, suprisingly effective if used in a clipping or prepped assault

storm serpent - awesome tactical flexibility, use them to fire off vypers into your opponents rear lines in early turns, then dump a tooled up guardian formation onto your opponent when and where you choose. Absolute fire magnet, so don't pin everything on it.

dire avengers - often as a Vampire load out with striking scorpions (though I know you don't want these), will easily wipe out most infantry formations and put a big dent in armoured ones. Some what predictable as a vampire load out as there are only so many places/ formations you can attack.

rangers - useful for protecting war engines from terminators, can't think of many other uses for them

swooping hawks - essential against IG to take out artillery, pretty useless against anything else and won't last long what ever you do with them

falcons - can lay down a blistering amount of short ranged fire power and useful for taking firestorms, but very fragile.

never had any luck with war walkers, too slow, fragile and short ranged. Same with Dark Reapers.

I'd personally think about taking:
2x vypers
couple of tooled up guardian fms (usually just guardians and wraithguard, always hard to get wraithlords into CC) plus one basic guardian fm to guard blitz
some long range artillery (at least 2 fms)
couple of storm serpents plus a wraithgate
aspects, either with wave serpents or air dropped (make sure your Autarch is on the ground though)
1x rangers
at least 1 lot of falcons/ fire prisms, preferably 2
then see what points you have left over.

Eldar aren't easy to play, but if you keep your opponent guessing where you're going to strike and then use overwhelming force (no piecemeal assaults, you'll get slaughtered), you should be fine Good luck!

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Somewhat more seriously, I am slightly wondering where the focus of the list is.
I tend to have a way of fighting, with redundancies for it.

Now the Warlock I don't think is that poor a choice. The 4000 point armies often tempt people into taking titans (though somewhat ironically its not that wise as often they face more threats that can cut them down) and the Warlock is a Titan killer par excellence.

You should try and fight one or two 4000 point battles before the tourny if you can. With increased troop density the mechanics change somewhat and 3rd turn wins are harder to pull off (and Eldar suffer in long games) as there are simply more men around swamping up the titan ankle joints.

13 activations is somewhat low for me at 4000 - hell I like to have 12 at 3000!

One way of thinking about the list is how you would deal with specific threats. So how to chop a great gargant. How to deal with a drop pod assault followed up with landing craft. How to crack a siege line. What to do against several SHT companies. How will you fight hordes?

You have a lot of core vs support. I would suggest dumping a guardian formation, getting that other exarch and also thinking of getting something that can support your main thrust (Guardains on foot can rarely do that).

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Cheers for the responses thusfar, been helpful! I'm choosing my army from a bit more of a limited a palette than usual, but keep on changing my mind considerably what to take within that and what to try to do with them. My list above just went for a little of lots of different units, without much of a plan. I need to get some games in really.

My own Eldar's proxy themeness normally prevents me having Vypers too unfortunately (or Jetbikes thinking about it), so I'd prefer to build an army without them. Lots of Shining Spears and Swooping Hawks though and maybe I could use Falcons instead for similar things.

Can an Eldar army manage without Storm Serpents and a minimal or maybe even no web presence? Or is that too tactically limiting and 2 Storm Serpents should be pretty much mandatory? Not sure which way I'll go yet, but just wondering.

How good are the different super-heavies? Another possible army I'm toying with involves building an army around multiple individual Void Spinners (I have models to field up to 6 of them) with suitable support, no titans, perhaps minimal or no web presence. Any good?

Can an Eldar army manage without Storm Serpents and a minimal or maybe even no web presence? Or is that too tactically limiting and 2 Storm Serpents should be pretty much mandatory? Not sure which way I'll go yet, but just wondering.

How good are the different super-heavies? Another possible army I'm toying with involves building an army around multiple individual Void Spinners (I have models to field up to 6 of them) with suitable support, no titans, perhaps minimal or no web presence. Any good?

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I rarely use Storm Serpents, but I almost always take a Wraithgate.

If you've got fast formations, then you don't "need" a Wraithgate.  I like it to hold a Warp Spider Aspect Warhost and maybe a single formation of Windriders... acts as a deterent for the enemy to get close, but they certainly aren't necessary.

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2 formations that I've found to be well worth their points-

Vampire - empty-used for going after small or isolated formations. A great ground attack unit.

Rangers - Really cheap, a formation of 6 in cover can be a real problem to shift, also good as a blitz guard on OW

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I'm all for the SHT list, tis one I've been toying with for a while.

Flak wise you said no aircraft, how many firestorms can you have?

And are you sure about absolutely no aircraft (fighters, vampires) and spacecraft?

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Thanks again for the comments!

I suspect I’m more likely to go for a more conventional army, but your super-heavy army could be an interesting possibility to think/test out TRC. I have access to these:

2 Storm Serpents
2 Cobras
6 Void Spinners (5 requiring putting together and painting, at least as far as 5 colours)
4 Scorpions

'fraid so too the no air/space too. I can have access to 33 Falcons and 8 Fire Storms, plus 3 Fire Prisms though.

I really need to finish my accursed Adorno essay ASAP so as to be able to get painting and playing...

Well I'm no webway fanatic. So screw the storm serpents

My grasp of points costs then reveals it would cost a minimum of 3600 points to field the rest. And remember you only need 3 colours (in fact you could have no colours thanks to the britcon rules, but it would look awful). So you could have...

000 Avatar
050 Wraithgate
400 Shining spears, Autarck, Exarch
150 Guardians
150 Guardians
150 Guardians
500 2 Cobras (BTS)
250 Void Spinner
250 Void Spinner
250 Void Spinner
250 Void Spinner
250 Void Spinner
250 Void Spinner
250 Scorpion
250 Scorpion
250 Scorpion
250 Scorpion
100 Rangers

A mere 16/17 activations of skimming, popping up, WE, mostly indirect, death. Plus teleporters aren't that worrying as you can skim above them

Now scorpions have suffered from the change to pulse, so best off swapping 2 out for falcons plus firestorms.

000 Avatar
050 Wraithgate
400 Shining spears, Autarck, Exarch
150 Guardians
150 Guardians
150 Guardians
500 2 Cobras (BTS)
250 Void Spinner
250 Void Spinner
250 Void Spinner
250 Void Spinner
250 Void Spinner
250 Void Spinner
250 Scorpion
250 Scorpion
250 3 Falcons, 2 Firestorms
250 3 Falcons, 2 Firestorms
100 Rangers

Or if you are keen on using that Warlock Titan there is

000 Avatar
050 Wraithgate
400 Shining spears, Autarck, Exarch
150 Guardians
150 Guardians
500 2 Cobras (BTS)
250 Void Spinner
250 Void Spinner
250 Void Spinner
250 Void Spinner
250 Void Spinner
250 3 Falcons, 2 Firestorms
250 3 Falcons, 2 Firestorms
150 Rangers
850 Warlock

Of course you may not want the cobra as well as the Warlock, so could do some other changes there.

Another advantage is WE armies are very fast to play

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'Abolish red trousers?! Never! Red trousers are France!' – Eugene Etienne, War Minister, 1913
"Gentlemen, we may not make history tomorrow, but we shall certainly change the geography."
General Plumer, 191x