Editing Warhammer 40,000/7th Edition Tactics/Eldar (section)

==Why Play Eldar==
The Eldar are all about elegance, efficiency, finesse, style, and precision, and are basically alone in this aesthetic among the races of ''Warhammer 40,000''. As such, they're often denigrated as not being manly enough for the setting. Much of 40k is concerned with the simple romanticism of the uncompromising, hard-as-nails hero, the pure wickedness of the unnatural, hideous villain, or the gleeful brutality of the amoral barbarian, which is fine. But the Eldar are unique in that at one time or another in their long history, they have been all of these things; the race as a whole knows each of these motivations well, knows each one's strengths and follies, and they have already learned and moved on from them. Above all else, the Eldar are an experienced people, and this is reflected in their culture, their attitudes, and their goals. Their technology, too, has been refined to a razor-sharp point, with all unwieldiness and ruggedness cut away. They have seen and heard (and been) it all. Guess how much they concern themselves with the opinions of younger races who think they're pansies.

As far as making an army of [[Your Dudes]] using Craftworld Eldar, the only thing you really have to keep in mind is that their primary themes are elegiac (el-uh-JY-ic), which means they are mournful and long to return to a bygone golden age by regaining something that was lost. In their case, that something is most of their race and a galactic empire, as well as salvation from a ravenous Chaos god who would eat every one of their souls if given the chance. It's a tall order, and the Eldar often have conflicting ideas on how to go about it, so this is a good place to start. What opinion do Your Dudes have on the matter and what are they willing to do about it? (War, alliances, deceit, Eldar HERESY?) Whatever you decide, remember you can use all of the Eldar's accumulated perspectives, wisdom and experience to shape who Your Dudes are and what they stand for.

In the game, the Eldar are a fast army with great guns, awesome toys and mediocre resilience. Each unit plays a very particular role. Usually, everyone in a squad has the same gun and the squad as a whole aims for one goal, as opposed to squads of dudes each toting a different gun for a different kind of foe. This can help new players by not forcing them to keep all of a squad's weaponry in mind, but it also requires you move the right squad for the job to the right place, which can be tactically challenging. An ill-positioned Eldar squad has a greater chance of doing nothing than those of other armies. Some units, like Jetbikes, overcome this disadvantage with superior speed and mobility. This is huge in a game where most of the missions are about capturing objectives. If you are the kind of elf [[Just as planned|who likes it when a plan comes together]], you might be tactical enough to lead the Eldar to their victory upon the battlefield.

With their new, updated codex, Eldar are given a firm footing in the game to compete with or dominate their numerous foes through their increased special abilities, units’ tactical applications and general ability to put shurikens into things and make those things fall down. The newer codex makes units even more point efficient in doing their job. Tactical blunders will see your army turned into rainbow confetti, but if you can get the right part of your Eldar army fighting the right bad guys, you can ruin Christmas every time. 

Eldar are almost universally Fleet, pack high Leadership, high Initiative and good overall stats (apart from defenses, with some notable exceptions, such as Wraith constructs), their accuracy is good, their special abilities are rich and useful and their armies need never run the same trick twice. With the Battle Focus ability they can choose to take a run action either before or after shooting, for free, a benefit that allows them to become more mobile than the competition by far. Almost all of their vehicles are skimmers or flyers; those that aren't can Deep Strike or outflank, and they have three different flavors of jump troops and fast-as-hell Jetbikes. Eldar look good when they fight and often kill their enemies in style.

In summary:

'''Pros'''
*The codex is brand new and it is even more [[Awesome|powerful]] than before. Eldar are widely considered the easiest army to win with without using net listing/formations.
*They're fast as hell, and they can secure objectives faster than anybody.
*They're also dodgey as hell and have multiple ways to stay out of range and to generate cover saves.
*They have the best movement in the game.
*They have some of the best [[Dakka|shooting]] in the game, with with an amazing number of AP3 weapons or better, the quasi-Rending rules Bladestorm and Monofilament, and specialized laser weapons for every situation.
*They have some of the best [[Choppa|close combat]] attacks in the game on Wraithknights. 
*D weapons. [[Warp_Weapons|D weapons everywhere]].
*You can't match [[Magnus the Red|certain Chaos characters]] for sheer psychic dakka, but unless you're up against Daemons or CSM, [[Anal circumference|you own the psychic phase.]]
*Exarchs (unit champions) can solo [[Space_Marine|MEQ]]s and [[Terminator|TEQ]]s with little effort.
*This is not a horde army, so you [[Awesome|don't need to paint and buy as many models]]. This makes them perfect for tournament play.

'''Cons'''
*Most Eldar are as tough as wet paper.
*If you don't have a strategy or your plan gets ruined, it's hard for your specialized units to adapt.
*The Eldar are a dwindling species, so they don't really have cannon fodder or meat shields.
*Eldar vehicles are lightly armored and instead rely on gadgets and mobility to stay alive.
*They suffer under Fear more than other armies. 
*The old Eldar codex has a reputation of being [[Cheese|powerful]] and the new codex buffed a lot of units. This was[[Rage| not well received]] by some players. 
*Some [[Orks|players]] [[Tyranids|with]] [[Dark Eldar|weaker]] [[Imperial Guard|codices]] may not be that [[Anal_circumference|happy]] to play against Eldar.
*You're at risk of being banned from casual games entirely at your LGS, purely because of how insanely overpowered your codex is. Play Eldar at your own risk!

All that needs to happen now is a showdown between Necrons, Tau, and Eldar to see which Xenos army can bring the biggest stack of gooey cheese! Just do the community a favor: if you're playing casual games, don't be a cheesemonster. Yes, the new formation says it's legal to bring five Wraithknights in a 2000 point game. Don't do that. Don't show up with 30 Windriders, all packing scatter lasers. You can win without doing that.