So far I've managed to play 9 games of 10th edition against 9 different factions, and it wasn't until this week that I had the chance to play against the ultimate boogeyman: Eldar. A few caveats before I talk about my experience:

• We used a house rule that will be present at a local GT next weekend. Fate Dice can only be used once per unit per activation. Also, Fate Dice count as modified dice (particularly impacts Devastating Wounds).
• My opponent is a skilled player, but not an utter meta whore. His list ran 3 D-Cannons, but had no Wraithknights or Eldrad for the extra cheese.

With all that said, I definitely didn't taste of full-fat Eldar, and even so, they did an eyewatering amount of damage with positively no risk to themselves. For reference, here's the list I ran:

• Draigo
• Voldus
• Librarian x3
• Terminators 5x5
• Strikes 2x5

My opponents list was (from recollection):

• 10 Scorpions Karandras
• 5 Scouts
• 2x3 Scout bikes
• Troupe Master
• Solitaire
• 2x Fire Prism
• 3x1 D-Cannon
• Guardians Farseer
• Autarch Wayleaper
• The Yncarne

As you can see, this wasn't even close to as bad as it could have been. A nastier list would have had Eldrad and 2-3 Wraithknights for maximum Devastating Wounds oonga boonga.

Stuff that went well

Draigo is a Daemon-slaying gigachad - If you've fought an Yncarne before, you know they can be an absolute *menace* to deal with. Their teleportation shenanigans make them extremely difficult to track down and eliminate. That said, I just kept Draigo in Deep Strike until the Yncarne wasn't screened, went in for a hot lil One With the Warp action, and picked up the Yncarne in one swing with Radiant Strike. It honestly reinforces my opinion that "anti" and "Devastating Wounds" should NOT interact. It was gross. Use this approach against any scary Daemon targets, it's just too strong.

Tactical Missions are great - Even though I took devastating losses turn over turn into the D-Cannons, I was able to keep it a 10 point loss because Grey Knights are difficult to pin down and screen against secondaries. There was always something to score, and our superior mobility gives us a way to always be playing a mission. The extra CP from Tacticals is amazing too since our strats are great.

Librarians are our workhorses, but not everything - The terrain set we played on made it extremely challenging to get Librarians to get LOS on chunky targets to kneecap. I relied instead on the raw profiles of strike marines and terminators to fight everything they could reach, and they performed admirably. We're nothing crazy in combat like other factions out there, but we do have some convincing output.

Mists of Deimos is necessary to slow Eldar down - My opponent had a high level of paranoia about my units randomly leaving during his move phase. Sometimes I used it to dogpile a point, other times to leave D-Cannons without juicy targets, or to simply screen. You want to always have a CP for this in the back pocket against Eldar since so many of their weapons bypass your defenses. Truesilver is worthless into their most dangerous stuff, so make sure you have options for Mists every turn.

Stuff that is really just... wtf

Eldar MW output is a sin against humanity - I played against *nerfed* Eldar, and between Fate Dice and copious reroll access, I was *constantly* getting decimated every shooting phase. Our house rule on Fate Dice slows them down a lot, but it doesn't stop your opponent for fishing for a 6 from a D-Cannon and then maxing the mortal damage with a "6" Fate Dice. I had two separate turns where different terminator squads took 16 mortal wounds... from something that couldn't see me... that cost 85 points... that I couldn't reach... from 24" away. It's awful. Surely a Wraithknight is similarly awful to fight against.

Fate Dice Need Overhauling - Remember when Luck of the Laughing God made Harlequins impossible to beat? Yeah well Fate Dice are just better than any iteration before it in every single way. There's no two ways around it. IMO the only way to actually "fix" Eldar is by overhauling Fate Dice and killing Devastating Wounds. I think it would be healthy for a game that advertises "reduced lethality".

What do you do when you fight Eldar?

For now, not a lot. Even in the nerfed state we're playing locally, D-Cannons are still particularly oppressive. Wraithknights are still oppressive too, but not as bad with all the terrain options we have. Most ruins are completely boarded up, so Towering doesn't hurt as bad in our local scene.

Deep Striking is obviously a necessity to keeping stuff alive, so do lots of that, especially with Draigo. He's one of our best units into Eldar because of his "free" Deep Strike charge. I hate hinging a game on a 9" deep strike charge, but we don't have better options into Eldar. Not being on the table is the best defense into all their dreadful shooting.

Always be aware of your distance from D-Cannons. Your opponent will likely deploy them somewhere that is safe and out of LOS in their own deployment zone so they don't have to move and can benefit from Heavy. This means on non-diagonal deployments that you will always deploy further than 24" away (the max range of D-Cannons) since the no mans land is 24" across. Be extra careful on any diagonal map because they often have shorter gaps that can allow them for easier T1 bombardments.

Other than that, write your senators GW and let 'em know how you feel. The game is fabulously fun with 10th edition, but we have some glaring issues that would have even needed nerfing in 9th, and we need those fixed ASAP.

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All the doom and gloom aside about Eldar balance, my opponent and I had a great time and the game ended up a 63 - 73 loss, which was close despite the pummeling my army took. Keep in mind that it's a game and a winning attitude is better than a winning game. Cheers!