Editing Warhammer 40,000/5th Edition Tactics/Eldar (section)

===HQ===
*'''Farseer'''
The standard Eldar HQ choice is the Farseer. He starts pretty cheap at 55 points, but he has a whole menu of wargear and psychic powers that greatly increase his cost and determine his role on the battlefield. Every Farseer has a few basic pieces of wargear: a Ghosthelm, which protects against Perils of the Warp; a basic shuriken pistol, which isn't useful against all that much; Rune Armour, which gives a very nice 4+ invulnerable save; and a Witchblade, a scary little close-combat weapon that always wound on a 2+ and counts as strength 9 against vehicles. He also has a few other upgrades:
*A Singing Spear is a Witchblade, but the Farseer can also throw it. Not always that useful, considering its 12" range, but at 3 points it's so cheap that it's almost always worth taking. 
*Runes of Witnessing let you take Psychic tests on 3d6, discarding the highest. You must always use the lower two, so it can screw you over if you happen to get Perils on a double 1. It's okay if you have the points, but not absolutely necessary. 
*Runes of Warding interfere badly with each and every enemy Psychic test all over the table. These can summarily melt an Ork psyker on round 1.
*Spirit Stones allow the Farseer to use two powers every turn. You love Spirit Stones. You will take Spirit Stones. 
On top of this, the Farseer must choose at least one of these psychic powers.
*Doom, a 24" curse that zaps a particular enemy unit and allows you to reroll all wounds against it that turn
*Guide, a 6" buff power that enables a particular Eldar unit to reroll all shooting
*Fortune, another 6" buff that allows an Eldar unit to re-roll armor saves
*Eldritch Storm, a large blast AOE psychic shooting attack with an 18" range: S3 is low, but it does cause Pinning and spins vehicles around randomly, 2D6+3 Penetration gives it a 1/36 chance of penetrating AV14.
*And finally Mind War, which is a nasty brain-zap assassination power, limited to 18" and Line of Sight, capable of hitting ANY unengaged MODEL, so you can pick out the sergeant in a Space Marine squad and kill him with this bad boy.

So, as you can see, you will have to decide how you like to use your Farseer before you go and deck him out with these 20 and 30 point goodies. The Farseer's ability to buff friendly troops is singular, straightforward, and usually fairly effective. One popular option is to kit them out with Stones, Guide and Doom and have them run around with your War Walkers and Dark Reapers or jump on a transport with your Dire Avengers re-rolling everything and making your opponent hate your shooting phase. More Christmas-ruining options include giving him Fortune and sticking him with some Wraithguard. The Farseer can take a pack of Warlocks as bodyguards, which sounds simple but can get really complicated (see below).

*'''Warlocks'''
25 Points stock with a pistol, Witchblade and rune armor. Warlocks are Eldar junior officers and psykers. In regular use, 'Locks are part of the magic that turns Guardian squads from shitty to remotely useful. One other option is to add one to a 10-pack of Wraithguard, causing it to become a very big fat mean expensive Troops choice (see below). Finally, a group of Warlocks can accompany your Farseer as a bodyguard unit called a Seer Council. This whole squad can even mount your Farseer and his Warlock buddies on jetbikes, and people will call you cheesy, but that's only due to the wetness soiling their trousers. The Eldar didn't get any gifts from Heaven in the Blood Angels and Grey Knights codices, so don't take any shit about it. We cover the details of the Jetbike Seer Council in the Blue Chip Units section.

Warlocks choose a power from the following list:
*Destructor, a *PSYCHIC SHOOTING ATTACK*!!!! that is basically a heavy flamer
*Enhance, which buffs the Warlock's squad with +1 WS and Initiative
*Conceal, which gives the team a rolling 5+ cover save
*Embolden, a Leadership buff


*'''Autarch'''
70 Points stock. An Autarch is an Eldar that tried out a few different warrior aspects and decided to [[Blood_Ravens#Blood_Magpies|just grab his favorite guns from each one]]. He's also supposedly a super-genius on par with Andrew "Ender" Wiggin which translates into him letting your reinforcements show up faster. Honestly though, his "tactical brilliance" is considerably less impressive than the orders rules that the Imperial Guard get. Yes, that's right, our centuries old tactical genii are worse at leading than a twenty-something mon-keigh. Ah well. Autarchs are essential to "reserves-style" army lists which count on getting lots of guys on the table reserves quickly.

An Autarch is basically built by picking four or five pieces of Aspect Warrior gear and sticking them on the same guy. They come stock with two grenades, a pistol, 3+ armor and a 4+ invulnerable save. The Autarch is characteristically fragile, and should not be relied on to run around on his own and score touchdowns. He will, however, bring a whole lot of extra stink to whatever squad of Aspect Warriors you stick him with. I like making him an honorary Warp Spider with a fusion gun, a banshee mask, and a scorpion chainsword for Strength 4 beatings. He can also be the thing you need to make Swooping Hawks a little less crap.

Remember that Autarch is Fleet even if he's with a squad of guys that aren't, and that his Haywire grenades and/or fusion gun will not really allow him to kill Space Marine dreadnaughts in the middle of a raging firefight.

*'''Avatar of Khaine'''
A long long time ago, [[Khorne|the god of war, murder, hitting, and bad manners]]... no, wait, not that one, [[Khaine|the Eldar one]]... got in a fight with baby Slaanesh and got smashed into a bajillion pieces across the materium... just like the C'Tan, at least in the new fluff. Eventually, the god-chunks made their way to Eldar craftworlds where they were each given a nice big room to collect dust.  Now, whenever the entire craftworld gets angry enough, the Eldar can sacrifice an Exarch known as the Young King to the statue which comes alive, walks towards the nearest battle field and start hacking stuff apart.

In game terms, he's a pretty decent monstrous creature, sort of like a rogue, somewhat gimped Tyranid monster leading your Eldar. He can crump tanks, and broadcasts fearlessness to your Eldar, but isn't as badass in a fistfight as some other army leaders I could mention. You can find him assigned an escort of Wraithlords in our Blue Chip Units section, and otherwise he can catch fleeing units within 12" and make them get back in the fight. The Avatard is a demon in game terms and therefore can get punked by certain weapons and psychic powers, but is immune to all Melta and Flamer weapons, so it's sort of a tie.

Important to remember is the fact that the Avatar has a Melta weapon(and BS5). This is VERY important to remember in his fight against vehicles and a good thing to know against infantry (since it's Assault and you can't fleet, if you can, might as well). A fun thing to do with this is to walk him up to a transport, Melta it open and then charge the Squad inside <strike>Except you have to charge the unit you shot at.</strike> Page 67 of the Rulebook: If the vehicle is destroyed (either result) the unit that shot it may assault the now disembarked passengers. Even if you fail to crack it, you can still charge the vehicle itself (and Avatars are reasonably good vehicle crackers in close combat). Remember, the Avatar is a durable and fairly brutal close combat specialist, so if you fail to crack the transport again, your opponent will probably not want to drop his squad right where the Avatar can get to them.

*'''Phoenix Lords'''
Fluff-wise, if Kaela Mensha Khaine was God, the Phoenix Lords would be his Jesuses. They are the founders of the various styles of war that have been reborn over and over. How? Basically, when someone puts on their armor, the armor possesses the wearer and puts the original Phoenix Lord's consciousness in charge. Most Eldar players never use them. They are generally considered over-priced for what they do, and they have some fluffy limitations which add to the problem. They have great laugh value if you are willing to accept that they might not be the most competitive choice in the codex.

Each Phoenix Lord is the most awesome example of one type of Aspect Warrior. They have super-powered versions of the regular equipment and have all the powers available to a respective Exarch, only more so.  Taken as a group, they pack awesome statlines with 2+ normal armor, Eternal Warrior, and cause a squad of their particular aspect to become Fearless. They are all Fleet, too, no matter their aspect.

**'''Asurmen''' (Dire Avengers)
230 points. Comes with an Assault 4 Avenger shuriken catapult, a diresword that can re-roll misses, both Exarch powers, and a 4+ invulnerable save. While expensive, he's another beatstick in melee, and he contributes handily to the Dire Avengers' already-impressive dakka. The problem here is that 230 points can buy you more infantry-shredding power somewhere else.

**'''Jain Zar''' (Howling Banshees).
190 points.  The mama Banshee, Jain Zar has an Executioner AND a S5 Triskele, giving her both a S5 AP2 Assault 3 shooting attack and S6 power weapon attacks in assault. She also has both Exarch powers and Furious Charge. Only the insanely tough, lucky, and/or well equipped will be able to withstand a charge by Jain Zar and a full squad of Banshees. Heck, occasionally you can just have her charge one unit, and let the bansheerinas hit something else.

**'''Baharroth''' (Swooping Hawks)
200 points. Probably the least useful of all the Phoenix Lords. Baharroth has all the standard Swooping Hawk gear, a Hawk's Talon rifle, both Exarch powers, and the Hit and Run rule (which he confers to the squad he joins). Hawks are one of the "iffy but fun" aspects and their boss man is no different.

**'''Karandras''' (Striking Scorpions)
215 points. Holy shit is this guy nasty. Gains +2 Attacks from his mandiblasters instead of the usual +1, comes with a Scorpion's Claw (and all the power-fisty goodness that implies), both Exarch powers, and the Stealth rule (which makes your sneaky Scorpions even more of a pain to kill). Good for krumping anything that your other Scorpions' chainswords can't penetrate, and could even punch out tanks if necessary. An excellent choice among Phoenix Lords.

**'''Fuegan''' (Fire Dragons)
205 points. Want to make your Fire Dragons even more ridiculously deadly against tanks? Not only does he come with a Firepike, both Exarch powers (seeing a theme here?) and Feel No Pain, he also comes with the Fire Axe, a deadly tool used by Eldar firefighters to- no, wait, it just gives him +1 strength and lets him fight like a monstrous creature in close combat. Still, awesome, right?! Also a good choice as far as Phoenix Lords.

**'''Maugan Ra''' (Dark Reapers)
195 points. This guy's weird, and is actually very different from the Aspect he rules. Instead of having some uber-powerful missile launcher, this guy instead has a fancy Assault 4 cannon that has pinning and rending, while also functioning as an executioner (+2 S power weapon) in close combat. He also has (you guessed it) both Exarch powers and the Acute Senses rule. This means he can choose to either fire five times, or ignore cover and re-roll wounds, making him a particularly nasty machine gunner in an army full of them. In the Blue Chip Units section, we couple him with some Harlequins for a magic machine gun troll squad.

**'''Irrllyth''' (Shadow Spectres)(Forgeworld)
225 points. This individual is just mean spirited. Maybe being lost on an alien world for thousands of years makes you develop a certain disdain for anything with a 2+ save. His list of special rules runs as long as my arm. The only stat he has that is below a "4" is his wounds (3), and anything that is not 4, is 7. Tough as a space marine, faster then a space marine, better armed then a space marine. His special weapon not only is a three shot version of the exarch weapon, but he decided to stick a power weapon on the end of it. His Holosuit gives him a 4++ save outside of 12 inches, and 5+ inside of 12 inches. He has both exarch powers, is fearless, fleet, and eternal warrior. You may be thinking "but hey! all exarchs have something special about them, a special weapon or power! Where is this guy's wooge?". Please observe the special rules for his Spear of Starlight. He can combine it with a ghostlight, making it BS7, re-rollable, and heavy 3. What a dick.

*'''Wraithseer''' (Forgeworld)
It's funny how Forgeworld makes units that require OTHER awesome units. It's not a hard choice to take Wraithguard, but this T8 bastard makes it SO much easier. Starting at 185 points, and the ability to equip a D-cannon for 30, and loaded with crazy powers... It's a godsend to an army that really needed a durable and powerful HQ choice. Don't get your hopes up for an "all wraithguard, wraithlord, wraithseer" army, you MUST take another HQ on top of it. As for special glitter, it has a 12 inch zone of "no wraithsight" all around it AND it reduces the coversave of anything being shot at by wraithguard or wraithlords by 1. It has a close combat weapon that lets it reroll missed to-hit rolls and adds +1 to any vehicle damage result that it causes, a 5++ save, and three psychic powers, two of which are designed to be used on wraith-units. One gives them fleet, the other gives them FNP. The third power makes units within 18 inches pinned if they fail an LD-2 check. Not jaw-droppingly awesome, but a great choice of you want a wraith-based army.

*'''Eldrad Ulthran'''
210 Points.  If a normal Farseer is a Jedi, then Eldrad is a tall Yoda. He's the big cheese of the Eldar army; he's basically got all the possible options for a normal Farseer wrapped together into one package with a nifty ability that lets you reposition your guys after deployment on top. He also gets to use up to three powers a turn instead of one or two and has a staff that works like a witch blade that you can throw and which also ignores armor.  

He is a very popular choice for an HQ in larger points games, and many people call him "cheezy." These people eat their own navel lint and bathe in squig piss. He, along with Yriel, compose the "wonder twins," which is to say, they can work together very VERY effectively.

*'''Prince Yriel of Iyanden'''
155 Euros. Once upon a time, there was a badass named Yriel who won a battle by using almost all of Iyanden's forces in an attack. This scared the guys in charge of Iyanden who said, "Hey! We could've gotten attacked while you were gone!" To which Yriel replied, "Yeah, but you didn't," to which they replied, "That's it! You're fired!" So Yriel went off to be a pirate for a while. While he was busy counting his loot, some Tyranids came and attacked Iyanden so the guys in charge were all like, "Crud! We wish Yriel was here to save us!" So Yriel comes back, gets a magic spear of awesome and saves the day, but now he's cursed and slowly dying as the spear sucks out his chi or something. Yeah, this guy needs his own anime show or something.

He gets the reserve rule the Autarch gets, but instead of buying aspect warrior war gear, he has a spear that somehow ate a black hole or something like that. It works a lot like Eldrad's staff - essentially a witchblade (wounds everything on 2+, S9 vs tank) that ignores armour saves as well. He also has a monocle weapon that let's him turn the area around him into a giant crater and turns all those puny marines surrounding him to ash, unless they have 2+ armor. Yeah, he's pretty cool.