Post hiatus: Allies and Eldar

[Saulus]

I've been out of the 40K loop for a bit now. I've read through the 6th ed. book a couple times, but like many other things there is a large disparity between reading and doing. I have yet to play a game of 6th, although I have watched a few.

I mostly feel overwhelmed by the best way to go about doing things, most importantly, allies. The second time through I read a lot more slowly, but I still feel as though I am missing something. Nids are easy, I also have my IG and BA, so they can be allies, but should they be. Is there really a benefit to mixing armies besides a few clutch units (giving my BA a hydra for example, or giving my guard vanguard veterans)? I do believe that sanguinary priests for example do not give guard units their buff, which is fine, but is there any instance of where allies work as one army instead of one large army with a detachement? I am guessing allies really are just sort of a flavour thing and I'm looking too far into it.

As well, after the first glance, many armies seem to have more or less stayed level, but the changes to armour really have me fearing for my Eldar. Alright, a rhino or razorback gets popped easy, they always have. But now my waveserpents seem like a terrible, but necessary, investment. I mean I need mobilization but they are going to get shot up so bad. Also, I love Falcons, transport heavy versatile, but now holofields basically do nothing to increase longevity and they will fall just as fast (or faster really) than waveserpents!. 

Eldar no doubt would make good allies I assume, as specialists such as farseers and pathfinders are often good additions. I mean that's great as an option, but I'm worried that fielding my 100% Eldar force (largely mechanized) will crumble in this new environment.

[Charistoph]

I know a lot of Eldar and Dark Eldar players have looked at using each other for Allies.

[Chicop76]

With allies you get some stuff like this

1. Jacobs in large 50 man squads which now have +1 attack and feel no pain.
2. Psyker Battle Squad
   A. Lower leadership to allow fear to work.
   B. Lower leadership for a more powerful mind war.
   C. Allow certain str 8 weapons that wound on leadership to wound on 2s causing instant death, done this to a nid death star which was a hive tyrant, warrior prime, and 3 hive guard which I lowered to leadership 2 and flamed the squad killing them all. Funny part about the whole experance he was wondering why I lowered them to 2 while they was fearless until my Calladius burn them. Some Necron models can do the same as well.
3. Everyone but Nids can take Vendettas and Hydras.
4. Chaos Daemons and Marines Benefit with Tally man wih Nurgle Marks.

The possiblities can go on and on. At first I looked at it as single armies. Than looking at my codeices I noticed nice powers which would be nice if I can lower leadership for example, which guard can do.

However the armies that really benefit from alliance seem to come from older books. Although guard is probably the best ally to take with anyone.

[Arguleon-veq]

Whilst you by no means need to take allies they are a great help for many armies. Later books like Necrons and GK are still doing fine on their own, in fact Necrons and Daemons are dominating without the use of allies at all.

Your guard and BA will be great with each other as it will let you take a guard horde and join to it a libby which gives the unit 'and they shall know no fear' and boost them with psychic powers.

Eldar really do not cut it with mech anymore, virtually the only way to win with them now is running the old bike council and adding a second bike seer with every power to try for the invisibility power for a 2+ re rolled cover on them. Back this up with war walkers, scoring bikers and fire dragons with an exarch on a quadgun for anti air and you have a pretty effective eldar arny.

Its really a mixed bag with allies and depends what you have. My wolves and guard are allied whilst my chaos are on their own. My orks also go it alone.

[Saulus]

Don't have any DE, and I don't know this Jacobs guy, but named characters are exceptionally uncool. Also apparently GW decided for more price increases, so I really will not be expanding any forces (should be fine, with the amount I have). It's great that Guard makes such good allies I suppose. I mean, sounds like theres a few neat combos, but really the best allies for Guard are Guard sort of.... wait is that possible?

Seems psyker augmentation is the main theme of allies. Have an army that needs a certain flavour of one, throw 'em in!

I never got around to making a bike council, don't know if I really want to. I guess I'll just start to think about blurring the lines between armies, something that I now realize I never even considered.

[Chicop76]

Don't have any DE, and I don't know this Jacobs guy, but named characters are exceptionally uncool. Also apparently GW decided for more price increases, so I really will not be expanding any forces (should be fine, with the amount I have). It's great that Guard makes such good allies I suppose. I mean, sounds like theres a few neat combos, but really the best allies for Guard are Guard sort of.... wait is that possible?

Seems psyker augmentation is the main theme of allies. Have an army that needs a certain flavour of one, throw 'em in!

I never got around to making a bike council, don't know if I really want to. I guess I'll just start to think about blurring the lines between armies, something that I now realize I never even considered.

Jacobs come from the Witch Hunter Codex.

Guard and Daemons make a good combo. Take a couple of psyker battle squads to lower leadership to 2. All Daemons have fear which will lower all ws to 1. Next take Skarbrand which allows everyone within 24" to re roll to hit in combat. The desired result will let you re roll to hit on 3s while the opposing player re roll to hit on 5s.

Psyker Battle Squad and the changeling will stop units from shooting or you get to re direct shooting some where else.

[knightperson]

Jacobs come from the Witch Hunter Codex.

Guard and Daemons make a good combo. Take a couple of psyker battle squads to lower leadership to 2. All Daemons have fear which will lower all ws to 1. Next take Skarbrand which allows everyone within 24" to re roll to hit in combat. The desired result will let you re roll to hit on 3s while the opposing player re roll to hit on 5s.

Psyker Battle Squad and the changeling will stop units from shooting or you get to re direct shooting some where else.

You, sir, are EVIL! Those combinations sound disturbingly effective.

[Irisado]

You don't need allies to win with the Eldar, and providing you're not playing at some silly 'top tier tournament', or against power gamers (the two tend to go together, but not always), you can field a wider range of units than those Arguleon-veq alluded to, and still win.  The difficult part is adapting to the missions, as it's still the same old story as it was in fifth, of trying to keep Eldar troops units alive, unless you manage to roll one of the missions in which other units become scoring.

If you want to go down the route of allies, Dark Eldar are a good pairing, but then so are various Imperial forces, so there is flexibility there.  Just don't feel compelled into going down this path if you don't want to.

[Chicop76]

I agree. Although guard do work really well with eldar, they work really well with anything. Besides the anti air they can do fine without taking allies.

[Arguleon-veq]

Why a 'silly' top tier tournament? Just because you dont like that way of playing the game doesnt give you a right to call that way of playing the game 'silly'.

Its not really the same old issue as 5th because Eldar had plenty of ways to make the most of fairly sub-par units, most of that has been taken away from us.

Saulus has asked if his usual Eldar force would crumble in this kind of enivironment and even in a friendly gaming group the answer is yes or at least far more than they would have in 5th.

Your main issues are that you cant even score from inside your transports if they do survive [av12 skimmers still arent super easy to kill but they arent what they were].  That leaves our very vulnerable guys out in the open for a turn unless you get lucky in going second and the game ending turn 5 but then we lose jink in their turn one.

You do have a few other options that may help. Wraithwalls work just like they did, which also means they still have the same glaring weaknesses but they do provide you with solid, durable scoring. I actually quite like the idea of shadow weavers staying cheap and out of LOS and small reaper units [3strong] also staying out of sight and going for barrage options, sniping the models you want with barrage and ignoring cover from interveneing terrain is nice. Rangers are still decent but im struggling for many more choices that arent a big points sink. Vypers with double shuricannons can do the war walker job just fine and have the added benefit of jinking too.

[Saulus]

Yea, at a hardcore tournament I assume that I will need more flyer protection now a days. But really, I never use my Eldar for tournaments, being a new acquisition (relative to my ancient BA).

Eldar are still paying for oldschool fleet (from 4th). But in 5th and 6th, Guardians with fleet make no sense (storm guardians w/e, I don't have any).

In making my new list, I still am going to use what I have, and what I have is a lot of armour. But I stripped the vehicles down to floating guns that transport. This actually led me to having a lot of extra points lying around. I fit in a large squad of guardians. It will be a different playstyle no doubt, but it's not winning any 'ard boyz.

Also, I can't score from within transports?! Man, GW really does not want the great mech armies of 5th persisting at all huh! The Vyper point is intriguing! I do have Vypers with Starcannons, was thinking they might still be useful, but the mobility / jink with cheap SC support is far nicer. As far as Wraithguard, I only have 5 at the moment, another 5 would somewhat railroad my army into support them. My current list I don't actually have them in there (something I could do what with the extra points). I'll give my guardian/avenger heavy army a playtest against some non-comp games (no flyers, my friends are considering just using 5th ed rules, we don't like change).