What makes Eldar so powerful every edition?

[chapter master 454]

Some interesting notes there. I would like to comment that considering their melee units weak kind of points to your early statement regarding answers really. They are weak because their prey is few. Banshees will go through marine infantry like toilet paper with little issue, even contending against terminators with little issue and other special melee units of other armies while also being a terrifying threat to midrange gunlines with overwatch negation. Through in Jain Zarr and you have a potent bully unit that demands answering.

 

Striking Scorpions excel at being light infantry shredders. While not the power armour carving powerhouse banshees are, a solid block of guardsman would slow them to a crawl. Scorpions with Kanradras with them will see to it that those units are gone and while some may argue their mandiblasters push them towards dealing with heavy infantry, those mortal wounds are more a nice extra that helps against those targets but really are just another form of relentless attack on top of their natural one given by Karandras. Coupled with their deep strike and a quick warlock jog, you can easily get them into combat.

 

Fire Dragons make sure tanks stay dead and monsters don't last long ether, falling prey to mass melta fire. To be fair, they have prey no matter where they go as while tanks may not be powerful, they are an excellent Aux. that can do massive damage from nowhere and the dragons see to them being dealt with. Then monsters ask if they may be excused or are found promptly saying "Can we not and say we did".

 

Dark Reapers right now are just unloading onto the most notable prey: Modifier armies. The Ynnari rule is what makes them so broken as otherwise we would see specialist melee units jump down their throat with little issue but because Ynnari never stop taking their turn you never get a chance.

 

Also yea, waves are super good. Personally just run around with triple shuricans and strap Vectored Star Engines for rapid field crossing deployment that is a pain in the butt to deal with (for me, they have to deal with the -1, the Wave shield then Ulthwé rule!)

[Purifying Tempest]

The specialization "bug" that large swaths of Eldar units suffer from edition to edition does hurt their melee in 8th, for sure.  Banshees are the "armored infantry" murderers, and Scorpions are the "chaff" clearing unit with their attacks having no substantial AP.  And you would think in 8th, there would be a need for units that can clear these sort of targets, as armor pays a premium for those protective numbers and hordes are incentivized by virtue of them being worthless throw-aways that can still contribute (aka: infantry is usually more efficient than armor in 8th).

 

But, all of this points to a few of the problems within the Eldar codex:

 

Dark Reapers can engage anything from heavy infantry to heavy armor without much of a change to their efficiency.  Which is fine.  They still aren't GREAT versus stuff like Guardsmen, and it is about the same effectiveness as shooting a lascannon and a tactical squad - it'll work when there's nothing better to do.  But they should pay a bit more of a premium for that right.  And honestly, I don't think Dark Reapers are deserving of a tax right now... just a check in what they can do in Ynnari lists.

 

The real problem there is that our infantry is a bit over-costed for what it can actually do.  I think it is largely suffering from the stigma of being balanced around what it CAN do.  Which means our force multiplication from stuff like Runes of Battle are no longer force multipliers, but instead required to bring those models in line with their cost.

 

5 Banshees without buffs or an exarch will throw 10 attacks at a squad, hitting roughly 7 times.  Against a hard target (Space Marine), they'll wound 2-3 times, and kill probably all of them, unless it has some kind of invulnerable of course.  Meanwhile, a Chaos Chosen squad with power swords will hit 5-6 times and wound+kill probably 3-5 of that.   Points-wise, you're probably coming out the same.  And that is fine.  Chaos Chosen with Power Swords are certainly not the all-stars of their Codex, just another unit that kind of middles around.  But, insert the Dark Reaper issue: 3 Dark Reapers will probably kill the same amount of Chosen in 1 volley (6 Shots, 4ish hits, 2-3 wounds with some AP).

 

Using 3 Dark Reapers is far easier than figuring out the space and timing required to make use of the Banshees, and the point difference is there, but you get the flexibility of being able to wreck tanks and heavier infantry (Plague Marines and Primaris for example).  So while the Banshees are fairly balanced and okay, they're just not that efficient for what they require points wise and skill wise.  And the upside for the skill isn't so phenomenal that you can make them studs compared to the Reapers for good play.  So why are we using Banshees, again?  Right, many competitive lists are not... and they're my favorite unit, easily.  Though, you can flip this a little by adding support (Quicken, Doom, Autarch/Guide, Empower) - but that also increases the investment.

 

And that is probably something that hasn't, at least I haven't, been addressed: Psykers.

 

I think Eldar as an army now pays for this privilege, because it is expected to be there in 8th, and it feels like a lot of units are balanced around certain buffs: oh hi again Banshees and Scorpions.  Eldar psychic powers can bring some units, Guardians, from "meh" to "my god".  Guardians shooting at a tougher target (5-7) that has been Doomed is almost a death sentence... well, if you use the 20 guardian blob webway striking in.  My Chaos friend always repeats some of the same critique when playing my wife's Ynnari: the psychic disparity is felt.  She typically plays with Farseers, in addition to Yvraine.  But the psychic focus seems to be a prevailing concept in Eldar armies.

 

So we get specialized things to counter any prevailing meta, and some psychic support to amplify it.

[Indefragable]

I heartily agree on the veteran player angle as well: compared to a relatively plug-and-play army like vanilla SM, Eldar will be a finesse army. And by their nature, finesse factions/tools/abilities always draw experienced folks looking for a deeper challenge.

 

For me, if i  had my druthers, I would like to make Eldar even more specialized. I've always thought of them as the Special Rule faction: each Aspect Warrior class has some fancy special rule that lets them do a single job insanely well.

 

Fire Dragons, for instance, would nuke vehicles off the table better than any other....but they would be only good against vehicles. Much easier to execute in 7th, since now in 8th melta is great against anything with multi-wounds, including characters.

 

Windrunners would be one of the fastest units in the entire game....but be literally Guardians on bikes stat-wise.

 

Howling Banshees would be the MEQ chopper-uppers, but patently worse against most other things. Maybe they have "grav swords" in that sense that they are really good at taking on things like MEQ, even TEQ, and Necrons, yet GEQ surprisingly stand a chance...that's what Striking Scorpions are for.

 

Maybe Dark Reapers have Conversion Beamer style rules where they get worse the closer an enemy gets.

 

(saying all of the above in a vacuum, ignoring fluff or other factors simply to illustrate my point)

 

In essence, up the Rock-Paper-Scissors element to them. Just like the challenge of playing my Blood Angels has and pretty always will be "how to get the Charge I want," so playing Eldar should* be "how to get my extremely specialized unit that is good at one thing and one thing only and sucks at everything else exactly where I want it." 

 

I think extreme specialization could be a way to "even" out the Eldar a bit. Where the things certain units are good at become much narrower and thus the designed drawbacks become even more pronounced. That would also help prevent skew lists/spamming just a single type of Eldar unit since if you ran all Howling Banshees or such, then the entire army would have such a glaring weakness that it could be just as easily exploited.

 

Just some thoughts. I don't play Eldar (and probably never will), but just mentally chewing on the matter.

 

 

*for the purpose of my post here

[Dr. Clock]

So... basically the problem is one or two unbalanced units (Reapers in this case IMO) and the introduction of Ynnari which was just poorly thought-out.

 

I'm not saying Eldar aren't powerful, of course, just that I think alot of the persecution comes from a 'less than friendly' experience vs. people with more Dark Reapers than sense.

 

Cheers,

 

The Good Doctor.

[chapter master 454]

Ynnari are in my opinion the least balanced part of the whole equation. Effectively they are allowing a unit to act at 2x their allowed actions and in the case of dark reapers this is further amplifying their massive power. By turn 2, a dark reaper squad will have already fired twice and will have done so always on turn 1 because of soul burst meaning that they have already fired the most critical shot (the first one) followed by the most decisive (the second shot).

 

In 40k, the first shot is critical as it will dictated the rest of the battle. The losses from the first turn will echo down through the following turns and everything starts from there (whether to one players advantage or not) and so this will make a big impact. The 2nd turn of shooting is important as now the units with targets are ether about done with their targets or things went hell in a hand basket for them, the crackback being cruel however if a unit does get a 2nd round this follow-up will ensure any damage done is driven home and collapse the target unit or even another target. In this case, Reapers get to have their First shot with a follow-up with very little time allowed to defeat them, in fact nearly none. If you don't get first turn, then you better make sure the first battle round removes those reapers otherwise they will now have fired a minimum of 4 volleys. That is 4 turns worth of shooting done within 2 turns, the most critical turns of a game, normally by turn 4 the unit is ether dead or now struggling to maintain any sense of threat and purpose and before that turn 3 happens where most games are allegedly ending which means reapers would of had 6 turns worth of shooting at near full strength or above 50% squad size (due to how hard eldar players will defend their all star carry).

 

On their own, Dark Reapers are indeed scary however I wonder how much of it comes from their own power. Yes, they pack a mean punch but like more eldar units once you get your mittens on them they are going to die, they do NOT take to bullets and swords very well (just like all eldar infantry). Their perceived power stems from the fact that soul burst allows them to react to a new threat INSTANTLY, one that wasn't even present when they first fire meaning they can actually break the rules of 40k however this is a power of the ynnari, not dark reapers. They could for all intends have T1 and still be this wrecking machine of destruction people see them as, because as I have once said elsewhere: Eldar have the best armour, they hit first and hard and thus don't need to take hits. If there is 0% of the enemy left then you can be 1% tough and still be equal to 100% invincible because you don't get hit if nothing shoots/swings back.

 

I personally would like to see Dark Reapers thoroughly examined by themselves within Aeldari lists, no Ynnari allowed to see if they really do have as much power as tournaments make them out to be or is it the Ynnari power amp that makes them so terrifying. Granted, those guns look amazing but on their own I don't think they cut the mustard against horde armies (again unless they get to double tap with ynnari).

 

It is also possible that dark reapers are just the strongest at what is meta right now. While it may take a while, people are fairly clever at finding ways around issues. Fighting Games show that it is possible for nothing to change and new tech to appear that defeats these units and retains viable tactics outside of the counter match. However that's a discussion for another day.

[Marshal van Trapp]

So far I've played 3 games against eldar, 2 with marines and 1 with tau. The only game I won was a small 500pt game where I brought a patrol detachment and loaded it with inceptors which dropped in and murdered 2/3 of his army in the first turn. In both the other games (1500 marines and 1000 tau) he just had way too many guns for me to be able to do anything, he just sat on his objectives and shot my forces to pieces, my tau would have won if I had 1 more turn but we were playing on a time crunch (although I have a feeling that now that the codex is out that army will perform better)

 

The strength of eldar is 100% their synergy, if you don't know how to put your units together properly then you are going to fail. That said put a unit of dark Reapers in cover with a warlock to buff them and it can be impossible to remove them (it took my entire tau army shooting at them to bring to down to the last model) and if you don't dig them out they can just shred your units. The fact that they are so survivable, super accurate, and not over costed is what makes them such a staple eldar unit.

[CrystalSeer]

Ynnari are in my opinion the least balanced part of the whole equation. Effectively they are allowing a unit to act at 2x their allowed actions and in the case of dark reapers this is further amplifying their massive power. By turn 2, a dark reaper squad will have already fired twice and will have done so always on turn 1 because of soul burst meaning that they have already fired the most critical shot (the first one) followed by the most decisive (the second shot).

 

In 40k, the first shot is critical as it will dictated the rest of the battle. The losses from the first turn will echo down through the following turns and everything starts from there (whether to one players advantage or not) and so this will make a big impact. The 2nd turn of shooting is important as now the units with targets are ether about done with their targets or things went hell in a hand basket for them, the crackback being cruel however if a unit does get a 2nd round this follow-up will ensure any damage done is driven home and collapse the target unit or even another target. In this case, Reapers get to have their First shot with a follow-up with very little time allowed to defeat them, in fact nearly none. If you don't get first turn, then you better make sure the first battle round removes those reapers otherwise they will now have fired a minimum of 4 volleys. That is 4 turns worth of shooting done within 2 turns, the most critical turns of a game, normally by turn 4 the unit is ether dead or now struggling to maintain any sense of threat and purpose and before that turn 3 happens where most games are allegedly ending which means reapers would of had 6 turns worth of shooting at near full strength or above 50% squad size (due to how hard eldar players will defend their all star carry).

 

On their own, Dark Reapers are indeed scary however I wonder how much of it comes from their own power. Yes, they pack a mean punch but like more eldar units once you get your mittens on them they are going to die, they do NOT take to bullets and swords very well (just like all eldar infantry). Their perceived power stems from the fact that soul burst allows them to react to a new threat INSTANTLY, one that wasn't even present when they first fire meaning they can actually break the rules of 40k however this is a power of the ynnari, not dark reapers. They could for all intends have T1 and still be this wrecking machine of destruction people see them as, because as I have once said elsewhere: Eldar have the best armour, they hit first and hard and thus don't need to take hits. If there is 0% of the enemy left then you can be 1% tough and still be equal to 100% invincible because you don't get hit if nothing shoots/swings back.

 

I personally would like to see Dark Reapers thoroughly examined by themselves within Aeldari lists, no Ynnari allowed to see if they really do have as much power as tournaments make them out to be or is it the Ynnari power amp that makes them so terrifying. Granted, those guns look amazing but on their own I don't think they cut the mustard against horde armies (again unless they get to double tap with ynnari).

 

It is also possible that dark reapers are just the strongest at what is meta right now. While it may take a while, people are fairly clever at finding ways around issues. Fighting Games show that it is possible for nothing to change and new tech to appear that defeats these units and retains viable tactics outside of the counter match. However that's a discussion for another day.

 

Mostly agreed. When I place my reapers down, in order to make them decisive, I need to form the rest of my line around defending them. I give them a prime spot, form guardians around them. Likely support them with a spirit seer and Yvraine. This adds up to around 700 pts, before adding in Eldrad to cast Doom / Guide.

 

Yes, this is extremely powerful, but it is also a huge chunk of the army dedicated to a single purpose.

 

Reapers solo basically have one issue. They're great at taking out light infantry, heavy infantry, flyers and tanks. They're cheap and engage all targets effectively, at ranges longer than most armies can match. They are the quintessential easy button.

 

That being said, they are not that difficult to kill if you have the range or mobility to do so.  T3 with 3+ save. You beat these guys in phasing. Deep strike / shoot / assault early and these units will go down. These linchpin units serve as the center of gravity for the army, and once you kill them, you can mop up the rest. Beat them through reserve mechanics; He shoots once, maybe twice, and then gets hit by a drop podded squad, or DotW, or Webway, or Drop Assault, or Da Jump, or Necron teleportation, etc...  If you do not have a way to target a unit in the back field, that is a problem with your list strategy, not the rules.

 

Synergies are the strength of Eldar, but they are also the weakness. All those supporting squads become useless without the right units to support.

 

So far I've played 3 games against eldar, 2 with marines and 1 with tau. The only game I won was a small 500pt game where I brought a patrol detachment and loaded it with inceptors which dropped in and murdered 2/3 of his army in the first turn. In both the other games (1500 marines and 1000 tau) he just had way too many guns for me to be able to do anything, he just sat on his objectives and shot my forces to pieces, my tau would have won if I had 1 more turn but we were playing on a time crunch (although I have a feeling that now that the codex is out that army will perform better)

 

The strength of eldar is 100% their synergy, if you don't know how to put your units together properly then you are going to fail. That said put a unit of dark Reapers in cover with a warlock to buff them and it can be impossible to remove them (it took my entire tau army shooting at them to bring to down to the last model) and if you don't dig them out they can just shred your units. The fact that they are so survivable, super accurate, and not over costed is what makes them such a staple eldar unit.

 

Tau are about to get a whole lot stronger. In addition, eldar can mitigate enemy shooting through stacking -1 to hit bonuses. This is an exact hard counter to what Tau do. As for the rest, please see above.

[USNCenturion]

Phil Kelly. He makes eldar powerful every edition

[Xenith]

Clearly defined roles for each unit makes rules writing very easy. Each unit is supposed to be the 'best' at that type of warfare, then when you put them into an army together you get a bunch of broken cheese. 

 

It's very easy to make fire dragons the best anti tank unit, it's very difficult to position a unit of marines as a 'jack of all trades'.

 

Space marines are going in this direction, with Primaris, with each unit having a very specific, designated battlefield role. 

[Charlo]

So I just sort of caught up on Reaper launchers in 8th and what the actual  ...?

 

Why did they get a Pseudo-Krak Missile mode? That was never their MO.

 

I can understand the S5 -2AP D2 mode as that feels like the old rules but the other one? Makes no sense to me. Exarch can have a missile launcher and that should have been the end of it.

 

Honestly I think Eldar are broken because as others have said, generalists don't often win. There is certainly merit in the ability to perform well in a variety of situations, but such a unit is never going to excel on it's own. Eldar have the specialists to pay the bills that are a point-and-click play style. I don't think it requires as much finesse, planning or execution when you have so much mobility, accuracy and power that whatever you looks at dies. The advent of 8th with multiple damage and the like has only gone on to make Eldar even stronger too.

 

I suppose the only thing Eldar can't do is field a horde - but then again Guardians are cheap right? And have one of the best basic weapons in the game, especially when buffed psychically too.

[Szadek_117]

So I just sort of caught up on Reaper launchers in 8th and what the actual  ...?

 

Why did they get a Pseudo-Krak Missile mode? That was never their MO.

 

I can understand the S5 -2AP D2 mode as that feels like the old rules but the other one? Makes no sense to me. Exarch can have a missile launcher and that should have been the end of it.

 

Honestly I think Eldar are broken because as others have said, generalists don't often win. There is certainly merit in the ability to perform well in a variety of situations, but such a unit is never going to excel on it's own. Eldar have the specialists to pay the bills that are a point-and-click play style. I don't think it requires as much finesse, planning or execution when you have so much mobility, accuracy and power that whatever you looks at dies. The advent of 8th with multiple damage and the like has only gone on to make Eldar even stronger too.

 

I suppose the only thing Eldar can't do is field a horde - but then again Guardians are cheap right? And have one of the best basic weapons in the game, especially when buffed psychically too.

 

Reapers have the S8 shot since 6 ed ( dont know if they got in 5ed ) I used them so much in 7ed . They are strong ok , but they had practically the same rules and cost in 7 and 6 ed.

[Skaorn]

How about all those Eldar units that are pretty pointless to use compared to the good ones? Everyone always seems to forget to ask why Eldar players aren't using swooping hawks.

[Brother Tyler]

Dark Reapers have had frag and krak missiles since 1st Edition. So the perceived problems with them in 8th edition are not them - it's the larger system rules. The Dark Reapers just happen to make the best out of those new rules.

[Jorin Helm-splitter]

I don't feel like melee is really an elder weakness, most 8th edition armies stink at it. You need a critical mass of assault units to make it work, because its very easy to retreat from it. Units like scorpions were more useful in the past because they could be your lone melee unit, and at the very least tar pit a good ranged unit. Now that doesn't work.

 

As far the answer to what makes Eldar so powerful every edition, its that they've always had an OP unit/weapon or crazy supplement.

 

3rd starcannons were amazing, holo fields, and craftworld supplement allowed for some stupid stuff.

 

4) wave serpents, null deploy 

 

5 No codex, pretty rough edition

 

6) wave serpents, wraith knights

 

7) formations, scatter bikes, wraith knight part 2

 

8) dark reapers, stacking -1 to hit

 

[Withershadow]

Fanboy authors. That is all.

[Xenith]

Dark reapers have always been a premier MEQ killing unit.

When you know that >>50% of the armies you face will be power armoured, they're an absolute no brainer choice.
 
A very good piece of advice I read probably over a decade ago is that:
 

Since power armour is the most common army type, if you weren't building your army to be able to wipe units of power armour, then you're doing it wrong.

 
I don't remember Dark Reapers having access to Krak/Starshot missiles beyond the exarch in the 3rd and 4th ed codex. They could upgrade to fire star-shot in 6th ed for like +25pts per model, I think.
 
People are also willing to let Eldar change and evolve. You saw the feedback when GW tried to change marines to make them more powerful. 
 
This kind of keeps Astartes in stasis.

[Gentlemanloser]

4th Edition was the Flying Circus.

 

1: Unkillable Falcons due to Holofields (if you penetrated their AV you then rolled twice on the damage *and took the lowest*).  Which were also able to Tank shock you off of objectives.  And basically ignored shaken/stunned as well.

 

2: Harlequins.  You couldn't shoot them (veil of Tears).  They ignored Cover, so sitting in cover didn't slow them.  They had Rending on To-Hit rolls, which meant that they mostly ignored both your Toughness and Armour.  And they could consolidate from the unit they just killed into another unit, to hide from shooting.

 

You couldn't shoot them, you couldn't out CC them, you couldn't tarpit them or slow them down.  They just hit your lines and rolled right through you.

 

 

 

Reapers have been the bane of Marines for as long as I can remember.  AP-3 Missiles.  Cover?  Exarch just hits you and ignores cover.

 

Now, they have flat Damage 3 missile, which is absurd.  They are literally shooting thunderhammers at people.

 

 

I think people have hit the nail on the head above.  It's specilaised units over Generalists.  Reapers are specialised shooting units and you're hard pressed to out shoot them.  OK, so CC them.  Well ignoring that can't be done this edition now (Thanks ruins) Eldar players had other specilaised units to styme your ability to actually get into CC.

 

 

So to boil it down, Eldar have dominated for two reasons.  A handful of shockingly OP units each Codex.  And game bias towards specialised units over Generalists.

[Lord_Caerolion]

Definitely agree, Gentlemenloser. It's certainly not helped by GW's apparent bias towards valuing generalists over specialists. They seem to run on the logic of "stab the shooty ones, shoot the stabby ones" being as easy to implement in game as it is to say.

[Jorin Helm-splitter]

 

.....

So to boil it down, Eldar have dominated for two reasons.  A handful of shockingly OP units each Codex.  And game bias towards specialised units over Generalists.

 

It has a lot more to do with the hand full of broken units than a bias towards specialized units. If you look at Eldar through out the history of the game most of our units are specialists, and for the most part 80% of the codex does not see play. Some of that is due to overlapping roles but mainly its because a lot of those units are not very good. I mean its a win when swooping hawks are considered viable, same for banshees.

 

I think it has more to do with the fact that its easier to compare generalist units with each other and point them accordingly. The specialized units are harder to compare so GW either makes mistakes pointing them or didn't sell many reapers for a couple of editions and makes them to cheap to sell some.  

[Gentlemanloser]

It's not the other Eldar units aren't good, they all kinda are (Rangers or the old Pathfinders were far better than SM Scouts).  It's just they're always overshadowed by the couple of hideously OP units.

 

Why take Scorpions or Banshees when you can take Reapers or Wraithknights or Harlequins?

[Jorin Helm-splitter]

It's not the other Eldar units aren't good, they all kinda are (Rangers or the old Pathfinders were far better than SM Scouts).  It's just they're always overshadowed by the couple of hideously OP units.

 

Why take Scorpions or Banshees when you can take Reapers or Wraithknights or Harlequins?

 

Well mainly because scorpions and banshees effectiveness depends on what your opponents have. Banshees are great vs. MEQ and pretty lackluster vs. the rest. Scorps are my preference because they can infiltrate, but they do better against low save models, and the new retreat rules hurt them both. For the most part those units appear better than they are because either your running what they're good against, or the overpowered stuff is forcing you to ignore them.

 

 Which is fine and a lot the reason of why I just don't see specialist bias being a real thing, they just have more variance in how they point them.  

[Simiel]

Too me, it's always pretty much been about manoeuvrability and decent fire power.

5th was rough for me, I didn't have much mech back then ( which were only BS 3 ).

6 & 7th well ... you know :P

8th were good, but the changes in the wound table have brought our massed S6 shooting under control.

[Shiboinky]

I'll preface with an apology for the wall of text.

 

I always figured that the Eldar's success had more to do with having a few grossly undercosted units each edition (well, at least as far back as 6th when I started playing). However, I just played in a "Gentlemen's tournament" yesterday that required that lists be built out of a single battalion, did not allow LoW, did not allow spamming of any notorious units, etc. There were 4 eldar players including myself. None of us used the Alaitoc trait, and the most dark reapers/ shining spears in a single list was a guy who ran a single 7 or 8 man unit of each. Despite these limitations, all of the Eldar players did fairly well. This leads me to believe that this question may have a better answer than poor pointing.

 

I have always much preferred generalist units. Especially in an edition where we can split fire, target one unit and charge another, etc. In fact one of my favorite units at the tournament was my wraithlord loaded up with all shurikan weapons. He could do a number to infantry squads and then smash the vehicle that they were protecting (...well, he would have smashed them much faster if If quantum shielding wasn't a thing). Additionally, I used about 20 dire avengers who were quite effective against infantry, but also were able to help finish off tanks with their blamestorm shots. My wave serpents were loaded up with starcannons which were pretty effective against most targets. And of course the shinning spears were effective against nearly all targets. I believe that in past editions our strength lies in our hyper specialized units. However, in this edition, I believe that it is more dude to the fact that people have built lists to kill things as quickly as possible which we have learned to be good at avoiding with strategems, positioning, etc because we have always been very fragile. I believe it is the fact that we can bounce back from such things and be fast enough to still reach objectives or hit hard enough to avoid such damage in the first place makes us powerful.

 

In effect, most armies nowadays play a bit like eldar usually do: "I'm fragile so I need hit fast and hard". We were just built to do so.

[Feral_80]

That is a myth. Eldar are certainly fast. They certainly hit hard.

 

They just as certainly are NOT fragile.

 

Especially spammed/broken units are not fragile at all for their pts cost - they are actually so broken because they are mobile, absurdly powerful offensively, AND absurdly good defensively. Some armies cannot literally harm certain Eldar units.

 

If they were really fragile as they are supposed to be, they would not be broken. But they are not at all...I honestly cannot see where the Eldar weak point is supposed to be.

[Shiboinky]

A WAAC competitive list that used the -1 to hit trait and spammed the undercosted units horrifyingly durable for the points, I agree. But our bog standard infantry using any other trait goes down quite easily. Even using the Ulthwé trait leaves us with infantry that is more fragile than something like death company which are bemoaned on the Blood Angels forum as being super easy to kill off.

I mean, give dire avengers or guardians a dirty look and they crumble.

 

Like I said though, I believe that part our strength is that we have ways to counter that fragility. For example, we have the lightning fast reflexes strategem that I believe is part of our book because it is "Eldar-y". When writing the rules they probably envisioned a squad of infantry ducking into cover and dodging an attack. It's because that is how an eldar avoids getting blown away as a opposed to a marine, for example, who would take the hit and keep going. The issue is that the marine way of doing things is much less effective this edition.

 

I guess that that was the long way of saying that I completely agree. Eldar are not fragile compared to other factions, but that is simply because all other factions are also quite fragile. We gained/maintained tools from previous editions that we needed to survive that other factions do not have as their armor, toughness, etc is meant to do that.