Insight on Eldar Vehicles, vehicle upgrades, special wargear and their points costs:

Floating around the web is one of the preview pages for the Eldar Codex  that has the available vehicle options and wargear options with their points costs. I'll post that picture here and we can guess what it means for our Eldar vehicles and characters.


The picture:

So what are we looking at here? For starters, there are a lot of new and seemingly random pieces of wargear. We also have all of our available Eldar vehicle upgrades with everything from the previous codex still there along with a new option and the return of an oldie but a goodie...

Wargear:
These rumors are basically compiled at 3++ but for completeness sake, I'll paste them here...

-The Spirit Stone of Anath'lan (15): Allows a Psyker to reduce the cost of a power by 1 warp charge to a minimum of 1, If he does it he can't use the Runic armour Invunerable

-The Pheonix gem (25): When model dies roll a d6, on a 2+ place a large blast marker centred over the model, All units take a number of hits equal to the number of models under the template, a S4 Ap5/3, any unsaved wounds and the model gets back up on one wound, this is a one use only thing.

-Uldanorethi Long Rifle (25): 120" Sx Ap 3 Heavy 1 Sniper

-Faolchu's Wings (30): Run up to 48" in the shooting phase, can't shoot, charge into combat or cast shooting psychic powers. reroll failed cover saves until the next turn

-FireSabre (30): combat weapon, +1S ap 3 Soulblaze, Wildfire

Wildfire; whenever soulblaze inflicts an unsaved wound it arcs to all units within 6 on the roll of a 6

-Mantle of the Laughing god (40): IC loses IC rule but gains Hit and Run, Shrouded and stealth and can reroll failed cover saves

-Shard of Anaris (40): combat weapon, +2S Ap- Rending, Vauls Work, Vauls Work.

Vauls Work = bearer has fearless, In challenge bearer has Fleshbane and Instant Death

Ultimately, all of the items seem kind of meh and this reads more like an ecclectic collection of left over/rejected items from the recently released High Elf book. Some seem useful, some seem like they are a gag gift from Phil Kelly...Time will tell how useful these options are.

Vehicle upgrades:
Below you'll find the available upgrades for our vehicles. Most seem reasonably priced and we can only speculate what they do at this point. Interestingly enough, only the Ghostwalk Matrix comes with the restriction that if taken by one vehicle in a squadron, all vehicles in that squadron must also take it which implies that the rest can be mixed and matched. This means that if you get a Vyper squadron, you can put Holo-fields on just 1 or 2 Vypers and just keep the Vyper(s) without the upgrade in the rear or something like that which ultimately saves us points.

-Ghostwalk Matrix (10): I have no idea what this does but since every vehicle in a squadron must take it if it is taken at all, I would guess that it has to do with seeing through Nightfight?

-Spirit Stones (10): This is the Eldar equivalent of Extra Armor and its nice that it has stayed the same points cost rather than go up to the 15 points  Imperials have to pay. I wonder if it will be changed in any way? Perhaps allow Shaken to be ignored on a 2+ and Stunned to be ignored on a 4+ like Demonic Possession?

-Holo-fields (15): In the current rules, these things are pretty worthless but I hear these will be increasing a vehicle's cover by 1 so that our Jinks basically become a 4+ and Flat-Out movement Jink becomes a 3+. Pretty nifty for 15 points and a price we can stomach (35 points before was a bit expensive).

-Star Engines (15): Currently, this is a complete waste of points as it doesn't really do anything useful, our tanks are fast enough as it is. Hopefully this adds more than a stupid 6" move or perhaps provides a more meaningful movement speed boost in that you can move 12" and then unload? Who knows...

-Vectored Engines (15): Always a solid upgrade for avoiding the damage from an Immobilized result. I hope it does more or is changed to perhaps make a vehicle an assault vehicle?

-Crystal Targeting Matrix (25): This used to allow our tanks to move shoot then move again in the movement phase...It turned our tanks into Jet-Pack infantry in a sense which was pretty broken in the 3rd/4th terrain/Line of Sight rules. Now, it allegedly allows a set of weapons to Twin-link a vehicles other weapons if the initial weapon hits. Not sure if that is accurate or anything but I am hoping for something more substantial then that since most people spam Wave Serpents and those weapons are generally Twin-linked anyway.

Conclusion:
So there you have it, our special Wargear and Vehicle Upgrades...

 I am hoping that all of our ICs already have great generic wargear options that we don't have to rely on this list to make the characters viable/potent. Still, some silly and fun items to make a fluffy Autarch/Farseer if you really want.

I am also hoping these vehicle upgrades really make our vehicles a resilient, unique and potent force on the battlefield. We already suffer from high cost, Hull Point nerf and apparently it is as easier to hit a Wave Serpent going 48" than it is to hit a Tau Fire Warrior taking a nap... Perhaps some vehicle upgrades will fix some of those issues in making our vehicles more survivable and harder to hit?

What do you guys want to see happen to Eldar Vehicles and what do you hope these upgrades will do for our tanks?