Here are 18 things you will find EXCITING about Eldar if you have been one of its many dust covered army owners:
1. Shuriken Weapons rend (but not against vehicles)
2. Eldar can shoot AND run or RUN and shoot. Wowa. FAST
3. Warwalkers cost twice as much but are pre-fitted with standard Shuriken Cannons. They get all the same cool movement and do all the same things as before. Weapon options cost less but overall the unit is slightly more in the end. The interesting Twin-link mechanic the Scatter Lasers have makes them somewhat attractive.
4. One Standout unit was the Crimson Hunter Fighter. It can get an Exarch as a pilot to raise your BS to 5 for 20 points. 4 STR 8 shots, and has an especially NASTY ability to take out anti-air: re-rolls on failed penetration rolls! It is AV10 all around, so even more fragile than the Tau Fighters. However, the Crimson Hunter is a good counter to WraithKnights. It and the Hemlock both have VECTOR DANCER!
5. Wraith Knights are 240-300 points depending on options. Took us a WHILE to figure out why you'd take the Suncannon, but finally it dawned on us. If you fire a Scatter Laser, and it hits, it twin-links the models second weapon. In this case, the SunCannon. Handy but very expensive combination. The Wraithknight itself is a Toughness EIGHT beast with 4 attacks AND JUMP INFANTRY. Fast and deadly. Hope you got a fearless tarpit for him to munch on. Twould be a good thing to have against it. Three of them, while ridiculously expensive, would be difficult kills. Gotta kill 'em fast.
6. D-Cannons are still awesome. Only now they are more awesome. STR 10 AP 2. Yahoo! Also has the distortion quality. Distortions is the new rule that makes it cause Instant death on a 6 to wound.
7. Bikes are still troops. They cost a LOT less and they will see FREQUENT use as allies. Like 6 points per bike less.
8. Guardians cost MORE...But...EVERY Guardian and indeed everything in the codex is BS 4 AND WS 4 now or better! The guardians also get Plasma Grenades. Obviously they have shuriken weapons and thusly again mini-rending. All in all a FAR more potent short range solution but not cheaper.
9. Illic, the new special assassin type character makes a unit of Pathfinders into sniping monsters. All that units shots are precision shots, as hers always are. She also ignores the 12"/18" infiltrating restriction. A unit of Pathfinders can DS within 6" of her without scatter. Way cool character if she can stay alive. She's pretty good in melee too (str 3, but a lot of attacks).
10. HEMLOCK FIGHTERS ARE FEROCIOUSLY AND DECEPTIVELY DANGEROUS. Hemlocks force Re-rolls on Leadership within 12". This coupled with their STR 4 AP 2 blasts PLUS they get the Terrify psychic power. So in a turn they can make you take two LD saves and have to re-roll successes! Imagine the potential bubble they can create and how that would affect a sniper heavy force. The Hemlock was VERY interesting. There is another power that can drop LD by 3 which can be taken by other Psykers in the army, creating a very scary synergy with the Hemlock.
11. Mandiblasters got downgraded to their 3rd Edition equivalent, firing a STR 3 attack at INIT 10. It does mean the Exarch will get to pile in on INIT 10, which could matter once in a while. Overall the unit got better. The Scorpions Claw is a powerfist that doesn't go last. Yahoo! Karandras carries this weapon...
12. Shining Spears got a lot better. They pack a shooting whallop and they dropped the cost by 10 points a model which was really significant. Their hit and run will be very painful to enemies as their short range 6" shot is nasty. By and large they got better and cost less. I'd definitely take them now.
13. Warp Spiders are fast, and can now CHOOSE to Warp or choose to move back as normal Jetpacks. The net result is that you add 6" to the Jetpack move at the risk of losing a guy to the warp like before. Cost went down 3 points a model too. They gained fleet which is a big deal i nthis new codex because of the Shoot and Run mechanic called Battle Focus which a vast majority of units have
14. Vipers are 5 points more and come with the standard weapon the Shuriken Cannon but upgraded weapons are less than before, considerably. The INSANE overall price of the Vipers is much better in this edition and people might ACTUALLY field them now if they're not fond of the Fighters and perhaps have managed other means of Aerial Defense.
15. Swooping hawks are way cheaper, their gun fires THREE times now and the grenade packs are kinda interesting. They show it in a bad format in the codex so you kind of have to read a little, but basically they drop EITHER a small blast or a large blast weapon, now only 24" range, when they deep strike and this is determined by the number of Hawks in the unit. Makes sense! They are tank killers as before with Haywire grenades standard. Overall a FAR more impressive unit and FAR less than their generally accepted overpriced current status.
16. The Avatar is indeed more powerful. BS 10 is BACK, and it now has five wounds and 5 attacks. His 3+ save comes also wit hte Daemon Rule. Otherwise it is extremely similar and didn't change much. He is more expensive but you get more. He's a VERY viable and lower cost alternative to a WraithKnight, though the WraithKnight is obviously faster and tougher. Still, if you're squeezing points and need the hammer, you could do much, much worse and the Avatar isn't 300 points decked out. The Avatar IS able to take some upgrades but none of them looked incredibly necessary to make the monster work. Still, a couple of nice little options to add to him if you want to.
17. The Psyker powers available are crazy. Too many to go over here but man... A lot of Psyker firepower available. The biggest thing to note is that the Warlocks from the Seer Council can be handed out to other units as was advertised but it can only be to, essentially, Guardian based units like Guardians and Heavy Weapons Batteris (or Vauls Wrath Batteries as they soon will be called).
18. Autarchs are about the same, but notable is the access he has to "Remnants of glory" which is the name of the Special Issue Wargear the army has for its upgradable leaders. There are two incredibly useful items I would watch out for. The Faouchaos Wing (I forget its first name, but it kinda sounds like that) is just an awesome end game tool that lets you sacrifice shooting for a 48" teleport. The other is one that can bring your leader back to life and makes him dangerous to kill By dropping a large blast template on him when he dies. If it causes any unsaved wounds o nthe enemy, he comes back to life with one wound! I was blown away by that one. Kinda like an explosive St. Celestine.
Please post other observations you have made about them here as well.