on the all guardians are former aspect warriors front, how accurate this is, I don't know, but lexicanum disagrees:
http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Eldar_Guardian

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Hmm strange. No mention of it in the current Codex. You're right Irisado.
I could have remembered the bit about the Storm Guardians.

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I had problems with the original proposal to remove spirit stones, because that left the Eldar slightly under-powered IMO. The main issue being their inability to shed BMs, which reduced the activation rate of most formations to 2 in 3. This coupled with my usual activation rolls meant that large parts of the army tended to be static - most un-Eldar like. There are some simple answers:-
1. Make your strategy and tactics fit a more static game, keep formations together, use long range shooting etc.
2. Make better use of cover to minimise the enemy shooting potential and the potential impact.
3. Ensure you have several formations of a given type to ensure at least one will behave as required.

I welcomed the return of SS at 25 points as that does allow some use, though really limited to EOV and 4+strong formations. Like others I questioned why it was not applied to Guardians and Aspects, not least because I felt that extensive application would reduce activations. However you can work without it.

I would prefer that the Eldar be given a -1 if doubling or marching to better reflect their mobility.

My other gripe is that the 'inferior' formations argument is not applied more extensively in other races, why are there so few races with 2+ initiative, and equally why do other races have better abilities to remove BMs?

The Leadership special ability and it's affect of removing blastmarkers is representative of a formation's ability to ignore casualties and push on through opposition and, as such, is very unEldar-like.

Giving Eldar an activation bonus when there's no evidence any of the lists are underperforming is a crazy idea.

taking the army lists as groups:

Space marines have 1+ init and easy access to leaders which, given their background as elite heavy infantry specifically intended for aggressive and decisive strikes is perfectly in keeping in character.

Imperial Guard have 2+ init, their core choices (the companies) have a leader and a 3,000 point army will have 6 extra leader characters to distribute amongst the army. Overall same initiative as Eldar (with only access to 1+ init from the allies section) and greater ability to shed blastmarkers, balanced against the probability of them receiving more due to the larger, more unwieldy formations. Again, perfectly in keeping with the background where you'd expect an Imperial Guard army more able to push forward whilst under fire than an equivalent Eldar one.

Orks have a 3+ init which drops down to 1+ for Engage and Double actions, and very good access to leaders, but only in their main infantry formations and no access for their more specialist formations (Kults of Speed, Blitz Brigades etc etc). Orks get a bonus to rallying as a counterbalance to their poor base init, but that only works for large formations which again adversly affects their specialist formations. If anything a more convincing argument for Orks having greater access to leader could be made but I don't think anyone seriously is.

Chaos marines technically have a 2+ init but in actual gameplay terms is really 1+ like their loyal equivalents. All the same points apply to them as to loyal space marines.

Lost and the Damned. 2+ init and worst access to leaders. Very fitting for what is meant to be a disorganised rabble.

tau, init 2+ other than Crisis suits 1+. Access to leader restricted to Crisis suits and Fire Warriors

Tyranids Init 2+ with +1 to engage and rally. Extensive access to leader and ability to greatly reduce blast marker accumulation. Tyranids are the archetypal horde army that charges through any incoming fire, heedless of casualties (the exact opposite of Eldar!) and so easy access to leader is very fitting.

and finally, they haven't really been round long, but Necrons 1+ init with easy access to multiple leader. The fact that they're space zombie robots and blastmarker removal ties in with their resurrecting again perfectly justifies the amount of leader.



The amount of Space Marine armies played probably skews the result slightly, but to claim Eldar are somehow virtually alone as a 2+ init army is stretching the truth.

I don't disagree - so why not pay 25 points to give the Farseer or Exarch the 'leader' ability which is much more in line with the rest of EA. Better still would be to add a 'leader' character to all formations for the 25 points rather than 'Spirit Stones' which cannot be targeted . . .

I disagree here, though it is not about 'underperforming' as such. The main way to shed BMs becomes Marshalling, with a 1/3 chance of failing and having to stay put when 'Holding'. It is this which makes the formations static, which is against the highly mobile nature of the Eldar. An alternative might be to make Marshalling easier, which would be more in keeping with Eldar traits about self-preservation etc. Note I am not arguing to make rallying easier, which would be out of character.

I like your summary of the various races, the only comment being the number of leaders available to other races, which is a significant advantage over the Eldar. However, I now accept that there are strategies that can be adopted to minimise the impact of the reduced initiative, as I explained earlier / elsewhere.

The vast majority of my games are between 3k and 4k.

I play against all opponents, but the more recurrent ones recently have been Tyranids (EUK) and Steel Legion. I also play several other armies.

With Eldar, I have 2 typical lists which ia alternate and modify at whim:

1) An air assault build (2 Vampires, 2 Falcon/Firestorms, 2 Void Spinner, 2 Aspect fms, 2 Rangers, then whatever suits my fancy).

2) A Storm Serpent build (2 Storm Serpents, 1 Aspect fm, 1 Wraithguard+Lord Guardian fm, 2 Jetbikes, 2 Falcon/Firestorm, 2 Rangers, 1 Wraithgate, then extras).

Sometimes I take 1 Vampire in the Serpent Army, sometimes i take Swooping hawks in either.

I have played some land-based builds but I find them too brittle against most armys.

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Eldar should play like that - very fragile and susceptible to BMs. When everybody had spirit stones eldar could behave too aggressivley and were too resilient as they were too good at removing BMs.

There are plenty of eldar special rules particularily to represent their mobility

Very few races have 1+ intiative or the plethora of special rules, specialist units and units with so many special characteristics (inspiring, disrupt, first strike etc)

IIRC the issue EUK tried to address was that the small vehicle formations - prisms and night spinners, were relatively unused as they break very easily and then never shed all their BMs. After the original annoying Spirit stone rule that removed too many BMs having no mechanism for them was too far the other way. To an extent this affected the more widely used vehicles - falcons, EOV as they couldn't ever remove all BMs if broken. The affect of this was exarcebated with them being shooting formations so BMs degraded theit effectiveness a lot.

It simply wasn't called for for rangers, guardians (who should be affected by taking casualties, not underpowered as they are) or aspects (1+ anyway, not underpowered, should be degraded if they take casualties).

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MikeT - Guard Commanders do not have "leader". Only the SC and commissars do.

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Steve, a very good summary of the thought processes and postition regarding the fragility of Eldar formations, and the impact of BMs. However these do not really address my 'gripe', which is that this has drastically affected the mobility of the Eldar, who should at least be allowed to get out of the way.

As it stands, Eldar formations with BMs have a 1/3 chance of failing to activate, which rises to 1/2 or 50% of the time when there are enemy nearby. Broken formations fare worse and often fail to rally at all, although that is probably characterfull.

The thing I am unhappy with is that the action of trying to remove half of the BMs from unbroken formations often ends up leaving the formation static while also still having BMs as well. It is the failure to activate that is the issue rather than the number of BMs that are ultimately removed.

I had two thoughts to redress this by allowing Eldar to double or march better, and/or to Marshall better, both of which restore some of the lost mobility while not impacting the opponent.

Oh, and before people mention "2nd class troops" etc, there are Farseers on the table who can help with communications and planning etc, so a possible option would be to tie this into the presence of a Farseer . . .

Would you house rule spirit stones in friendly 6k+ games?

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Eldar are about as good as it gets at 'getting out of the way' with their 15cm consolidate move....A clever clipping assault followed by diving into nearby cover is pretty textbook, Steve used it around 3 times in our game the other night

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Oh, the hit-&-run rule shows the Eldar mobility as it should be.

My contention is that Eldar are too prone to fail to activate when trying to 'get out of the way' rather than when doing something more aggressive as you describe here.

Hence the suggestion to give them Either

• -1 when trying to March or Double
• -1 when trying to Marshall.

If considered OTT, then make this option valid only while there is a Farseer on the table.