Dave wrote:
I've played 2 5ks with Eldar, not exhaustive by any means but nothing was readily apparent.
If I had to guess, maybe the fact that they're glass cannons coupled with less places to hide with more troops on the table? Or more stuff getting shot at earlier with more enemy activations?
Yes, this is pretty much it I’ve found, but in detail:
Over 4K you start to run out of null deployment options and places to hide, and there are too many enemy formations to keep suppressed or hit with a triple activation alpha strike.
Eldar BTS options don’t get any better as points go up as their formations have very few upgrade options. As the BTS remains a bit small and fragile all the other activations do too.
Special rule wise, the single opportunity to double retain is less useful and effective the more options your opponent has to respond. The single Avatar is also less potent in big games. Farsight is great to use once or twice a turn in smaller games, but in larger games you can’t really use it any more as your opponent is more likely to be actually able to use an activation advantage.
The Warlock Titan is a 0-1 option, and while spacecraft are always 0-1 the Eldar one is particularly useful and becomes less so in bigger points games.
Eldar have very few units with “Leader” and like everyone else only get a maximum of one Supreme Commander which is very vulnerable. In bigger games, the difference between how many BMs the Eldar army as a whole sheds each end phase in comparison to the opposition really shows.
Eldar units only activating on a 3+ become a much bigger liability when your opponent has lots of options on how to capitalise on a failed activation.
It’s worth keeping in mind that the lists are only really designed and balanced to go up to 5k, this is particularly acute for Eldar who would greatly benefit two Army Detachments.