I know most of you know me as a Grey Knight/Paladin player,
and I am! But what a lot of people don’t know is that I am also a hardcore
Eldar player. I was the originator of the foot Eldar build that was winning a
lot of tournaments back before anyone knew about it. Here was my first list
that I took to the Las Vegas GT all the way back in 2007:
I ended up on winning on table #2 at that GT, and a few
months later I scored 97 (out of 100) battle points for 2nd best
general at the Baltimore GT. I would have scored a perfect 100 but I was tired
and I misread the rules package. I thought that I had to keep a unit alive
when in reality I had to have it die.
Now I still play my Eldar since I took them to the Nova Open
and Duel Con last year, and I have been allying them with my Grey Knights at
events like the 11th Co GT and the So Cal Slaughter GT.
So now that I have my Eldar credentials out of the way,
let’s talk some Eldar!
I am going to break down the HQs like this:
Eldar HQs Part 1: Combat HQs
Eldar HQs Part 2: Farseers, Spiritseers, Warlocks &
Psychic Powers
Eldar HQs Part 3: Phoenix Lords
Eldar HQs Part 4: Special Characters
Part #1 Combat HQs
The Avatar
I use to love using this guy. He kept my guardians from
running and was a bad-ass in combat. Slap fortune on him and he was nearly
unkillable.
The Good
He received a stat boost. He is now BS10 (where was this
when I missed like crazy when he was BS 5?), +1 wound, and he went up to I10.
These are all great stats that you want, and need.
The Bad.
Point increase: He went up about 30 points
Pedestrian: In a fast army he is a slow foot slogger.
The Ugly
No longer being able to count on having fortune.
-1 Invulnerable Save
Summary
The Avatar use to be cheap for everything that he did. He
created a fearless bubble, was an awesome counter attack unit, and he took all
kinds of fire power that the rest of your army didn’t. Now the foot army works
a little differently. Everyone knows that mobility is at a premium in 6th
edition, and he is rather slow. The second is that fearless bubble is not as
good as it once was because the foot elder army now works differently than it
did in the past. With the old codex you needed to have your army all compacted
together not only for the fearless bubble, but because of the short range of the
farseer’s psychic powers. In 6th edition fearless is now bad for a
shooting army. First off you can't go-to-ground. When you have a lot of 5+ saves you want to hit the dirt from time to time to keep some models alive. Second, let’s say you get assaulted by some fast moving units. What
would happen in the past is that they would all die due to fearless/no retreat
wounds. Now what happens is that if you get charged and the whole squad does
not die (which your opponent can manipulate to kill as many models as they want
to) the unit stays locked in combat and then can’t be shot. Then the next (your)
turn they are safe from getting shot and they butcher the survivors and then gets free to cause mayhem in
their turn. Then the last part that made the Avatar so good is that he was such am awesome bullet
magnet. Since you can’t depend on getting fortune for him the dependability of his durability is
compromised. So all you are left with is him being a close combat monster which
will be enough for some people, but not me.
Final word
I can’t recommend him but if I was going to take him I would
just take him stock. The exarch powers are not worth it (Night vision on a 12" weapon?). Even disarming strike
is too many points especially since you should cut down anything in a challenge
that can hurt you with a special weapon.
The Autarch
I don't think that I have every used one, or faced one
across the table. You only saw them in an all skimmer list for the +1 to the
reserve roll, or you saw them used because they were the cheapest HQ slot.
Being taken because you are 50 points cheaper than a farseer is not a ringing
endorsement.
The Good
He is cheap and can take a lot of different movement modes.
Can still manipulate the reserve rolls up or down one.
The Bad
Farseers and Spritseers are much better
The Ugly
Strength 3 and Toughness 3 is not what you want from a
combat character.
Summary
The Autarch is still very disappointing. I thought that they
would get a little better (like the DE Archon) but they are still
underwhelming. The good news is that they are still cheap, and their options
are inexpensive as well. Some of their wargear is bad (Mandiblasters are horrible
now, but kept the same cost?). I have seen people trying to make Autarchs work
but I have not seen anything that I like yet. Yes, you can have them as a 100
point fusion gun caddie but you are better off taking a squad of fire dragons
at that point. They still have the ability to manipulate the reserve roll up or
down one, but that still does not make them worth it since reserves are very
different in 6th edition.
Where Autarchs are bad is in assault where
they have to be good. These should be the assault IC choice but they really do
not assault well at all. Their main problems are they are
Toughness 3 which means that anything with strength 6 doubles them out, but
their other weakness is that they only are strength 3. Strength 3 will not hurt anything that you want to kill.
There is some help with the new addition to the Eldar
codex of all the new wargear they get to choose from the Remnants of Glory
chart but what is there is still underwhelming. The Shard of Anaris is
probably the best choice because that does boost the Autarch with a +2 strength
and this is ok with Rending/Instant Death. The down side is that there is no
AP, and that it is expensive. That is ok if you are fighting a multi-wound
toughness 4 or less creature, but against anything with some numbers he will
struggle. I see everyone else talking about the Mantle of the Laughing God as
well. Since I am doing a harlequin themed army I wanted to like the piece of
wargear but all it does is give stealth, shrouding, Hit-and-Run and re-roll
cover saves for a lot of points, and at the cost of being an IC. Yes you can
put him on a jet bike to help out, but there are so many weapons out there that
ignore cover saves. Heck, just look at the primaris power for Spiritseers and Warlocks
and you can drop the cover save off of him right there. So if you want to get depressed just look at the
other CC ICs from the other top codexes that he will be dueling with (Destroyer
Lords, Demon Princes, Hive Tyrants, etc) he will be less points sure, but nearly
powerless against them.
Final Word
If I did take an Autarch I would arm him with a fusion gun
because that is always nice to have in an Eldar army, and I would mount him on an
Eldar jetbike for #1. Mobility, #2. Toughness, and #3. So you can take Laser Lance. With that build you can move fast and hit as hard as you can. Make sure
he is with a unit that has hit-and-run because if he gets stuck in combat he
loses all of his effectiveness.
Edit/Update: After thinking about how many MC there are running around these days in a lot of top armies I am starting to like an Autarch with the Shard of Anaris. With Rending/Instant Death this is a good way to take a lot of them out.
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