@Rhyleth
Hampers performance? From everything I've heard, Eldar remained a top tier army throughout my hiatus (from early 5th to 8th). It sounds as though during 7th they almost approached the absurdity of 2nd Ed.
Specialisation is absolutely a huge advantage the way 40k rules have always worked, which is probably why Eldar have been so consistently strong throughout the game's history.
Disagree with both statements. But first let me emphasise one important thing: I'm looking at the game and army composition from the point of view of building so-called "all-comers" lists, because that's how you have to play in tournaments, and that's how most players I know of tend to build their collections. Tailoring a list for each specific opponent is not really an option for me or anyone I know - even if we disregard tournaments, still each time a person goes to a club for a few games, they can't really carry all of their units with them to create any list on the fly.
The way specialisation has always worked in 40k doesn't really affect this. Holding objectives has been a major part of the game since 3rd, and any successful army needs a mix of anti-infantry and anti-tank. The major advantage the Eldar have always had in this context is simply that they can concentrate more of each type for the points into dedicated units. The only downside is wasted points where this leads to overkill (10-man Dragon squads weren't of much use in older editions, for instance).
But what's most important here for the topic in question is that at all times when Eldar were indeed performing really well, they owed their success almost exclusively to certain units/weapons that were both really strong (sometimes OP) AND absolutely not specialised, or at least about as far from being "specialised" as it ever gets. Namely:
3rd edition: Starcannons, Wraithlords, Seer Councils.
4th edition: Falcons and Harlequins.
5th edition: Seer Council (the only thing that made Eldar semi-playable on competitive level)
6th edition: Wave Serpents (due to OP rules for serpent shield), Wraithknights
7th edition: Scatter-bikes, Wraithknights
I can't speak to 6th or 7th, and I think I may have quit before the 5th Ed. Eldar Codex, but the 3rd Ed. units you name are not 'unspecialised'. They're specifically anti-Marine and were as good as they were against all comers simply because 3rd was suffused with Marine equivalent armies (in this context the Eldar themselves qualify, as an infantry-based force with low numbers and high armour saves is exactly the army profile starcannons excelled against).
The Wraithlord was mostly a starcannon platform that happened to be unreasonably tough - it was all but worthless against horde armies, but those didn't really exist. Orks weren't competitive, Tyranids favoured Tyranid Warrior-and-Carnifex-heavy builds, Guard tended to be mechanised, Tau weren't yet a thing, and no one played Dark Eldar. The Wraithlord wasn't good against tanks either, but in the unlikely event it ever got into close combat with one it could at least do damage.
Seer Council rises and falls on the quality and type of psychic power available - as a combat unit its low damage output and few attacks makes it weak against hordes unless Destructor is good (which is what made it so good in 3rd).
As for 4th, I'm not sure what world exists in which Harlequins are not a specialised unit?
As you can see, all weapons and units in the list above have one thing in common: none of them was "specialised" because they all could handle an outstandingly wide variety of targets.
Hmm. Wraithlord can handle heavy infantry and is bad against everything else.
Harlequins are good mostly against Marine-type infantry and, while they'll massacre light infantry, so will any cc unit in the army - they're inefficiently-priced against any other target. Suggesting they aren't specialised on that basis is like suggesting Fire Dragons aren't specialised because fusion guns can melt Guardsmen. Sure they can do it, but they aren't the tool you want for that job.
Seer Council does little of anything without being able to concentrate magic flamers, which has always been a recipe for success (Exhibit A: 2nd Ed. Warp Spiders).
Scatter laser seems to have the same profile it's had since 3rd, which suggests to me it's mostly anti-horde with a sideline in light vehicles.
For example, an army of versatile units would be 5 SM Tactical squads with krak grenades and a meltagun in each one. The same thing but in "specialised" form would be an Eldar army of 4 squads of DAs (specialised anti-personnel) and 1 squad of 5 Fire Dragons (specialised anti-tank). The number of anti-tank guns in both forces is the same. Now tell me, against which of the two forces it would be easier to take out the AT section so that your vehicles would have pretty much free reign over the battlefield? I think the answer is obvious. But that's not all. Even if the Dragons do not get singled out and decisively destroyed in the first 1-2 turns, I'd argue that the SM force would still have comparatively easier time dealing with the enemy force that includes several vehicles, for that very reason: every SM squad has some AT capability, while Dragons are just one unit and they can't be in several places simultaneously, nor can they threaten more than 1 vehicle per turn.
Which is why you wouldn't build an Eldar army that way. It's absurd to argue that specialisation - the advantage of which is being able to concentrate more of weapon type X and at a more efficient rate - is a disadvantage using an example in which the specialised army doesn't use any more of those weapons than the generalised force, and in which relative costs of those options aren't accounted for.
An Eldar force would more likely take two Dragon squads and three DA squads in this context and have points left over. Moreover it would be sure to protect the Dragons in a transport that will in most cases take the fire of multiple Marine squads to destroy (tying up their AP fire in the process and so being unable to take out surviving passengers).
From my perspective of a long-time tournament player, the only real problem of LR has always been the fact that LRs were way too easy to destroy for their huge point cost. E.g., by the end of 5th edition, when durability stopped being an issue for some time, there were several quite successful competitive SM builds featuring 2-3 LRs.
And was the default build favoured or more specialised Raiders like the Crusader?
Not sure what specific units you're talking about. As I detailed above, the most decisively game-making Eldar units were always the most versatile ones.
With a definition of "versatile" that corresponds to "best against Marines", sure, but that's not what I'm meaning by versatile. I'm thinking in terms of units like Guardians that duplicate the weapon distribution of other armies' core units.
As for bases to cover, they are not too numerous, but there still are a few:
- Anti-horde
- Anti-heavy infantry
- Anti-tank
- Anti-air (although this one has largely mingled with anti-tank in 8th)
- Objective control
Any experienced tournament player would tell you that the most valuable units are invariably those that can double-up in two or more different roles.
There's no such thing outside FW as a dedicated anti-air unit so that can be written off as irrelevant for a start - any AT unit will be an AA unit by default (save in 8th, where any flamer unit is an AA unit by default, or any flier - which incidentally covers a lot of Eldar units with other roles). That really leaves three bases to cover with an entire army's worth of units - plenty to add redundancy.
Objective control is an incidental function of most Troops units - specialisation isn't what's kept 'objective control specialists' like Warp Spiders (which have utility against hordes and light vehicles, and are adequate against heavy infantry, and so by your lights are a fairly generalised unit) from seeing play.
It reads to me not that specialisation is the issue but that you simply aren't adding enough redundancy in terms of multiple units with a similar specialisation in your own builds.
Imho, the problem of an army taking some crippling damage on turn 1 just because it lost the first turn to the enemy has always been there. 8th edition mechanic has greatly emphasised it though.
It's always been there to an extent, but in past editions movement was shorter, fliers weren't a thing, and high damage output armies like Eldar were short-ranged. With fliers, superheavies, turn 1 deep strike, and armies that combine high damage output and long range like Ad Mech, it's more than "exacerbated" in 8th. The game's reached a point where the turn system is no longer a sustainable way to play and the rules really should be changed so that players alternate moving individual units (something long proposed but never as necessary as it appears to be now).
I agree that the change to the game structure has hurt Eldar in numerous ways. As well as the one you mentioned, the loss of the initiative stat means that Eldar close combat options will mostly be a thing of the past, and now that mass firepower can achieve most things and AT specialists lack the damage output (as in, the literal damage stat) to reliably one-shot vehicles even in units of 5+, things like Fire Dragons and cannon-armed Wraithguard become much less attractive.
