Except Banshees are fodder similar to lowly Guardians and it is only the Exarchs that would stand a real chance to even out the likely number disparity between the other factions and the Eldar.
Or the Ultramarines as written by our spiritual liege? Or single tyrannids able to destroy entire craftworlds by eating the infinity circuit (despite said psychic circuit having defenses capable of taking out greater daemons). C'mon dude, fluff pieces like that are written to big up whatever race the writer thinks his audience has a chubby for in order to sell figures! Maugan 'one man army' Ra is just another example of badly written imbalanced fluff! It's the flip side of the same coin that had writers like CS Goto having kids YES KIDS, CHILDREN!! able to destroy falcon grav tanks, with sticks!! and generally treating the Eldar as cackling black hat bad guys for their 'heroic' heroes of heroism to treat as punch bags thereby to demonstrate the superiority of [insert faction name here].
Problem is, If I really want to strech it, aside of Banshees the next more common melee type aspect would be the Scorpions. Most of the eldar army is consisting of ranged units. Banshees, Harlequins, Striking Scorpoions, Warlocks, Farseers, Autharchs (to some extent...), Exarchs of said Aspects could be melee only. About 2/3 of the eldar army is ranged, they are amazing duelists in melee but they dont have the physical strength to back it up (hence why eldar is not a melee army in TT). Plus, their melee units mostly excel in hit-and-run or ambush tactics, since they are rather weak physically (not to mention, Eldar love guerilla warfare and ambush tactics overall :3). Ok, there are the Wraithlords but I highly doubt we can use them as a get-go base unit ^^; So I think Eldar will be more of a shooting type race, most of their units in TT cover that area as well (and they are quite deadly at that ) As for running from Tyranids... The Craftworld Iyanden stopped the Hive Fleet Kraken (though, arguably at a quite huge cost) on their own.
So Aspect warriors, who have practiced their art for many hundreds, if not thousands of years, are the same as citizen militia who have been given basic training, and a gun? EDIT: you know of the White Death. As a Finn, you have my respect.
Guardians are the "militia" so to speak x) Conscripted from the common citizens in times of war. Banshees are specialised melee warriors who practise their deadly art for hundreds of years. No they are not on the same league
In the hands of unskilled commander any unit would be just a fodder. If the best you can put Banshees to is running a long way to fortificated enemy lines - then that's what you get for your Imperium way of fighting. That's not how the Eldar handle it. Make them appear in the right place, from the right side in the right time - and the enemy will face swift and utter destruction. Eldar army is the army of specialists, you can't expect the specialist warriors to excel in any situation. You should combine your various specialists and create that situation in which they can shine. Sounds awful, but there is logic in that.
Banshees are not fodder. Currently in the mini game most people would call them that but its due to the changes to the edition and rules of power weapons more than the fact they are a weak unit. Consider this they still butcher most units armor 3 or less and in the hands of a good player can be used with deadly effect. The issue is this new edition they had out cover saves like they are candy or have full units of 2+ armor something a banshee unit used to take out cause power weapons ignored armor completely. I run a 2k list that uses 2 10 woman units of banshees who follow my Avatar. This makes the unit fearless and more than 90% of the time people see and unload the majority of firepower into my Avatar allowing me to have free reign of the battle field with a unit that 9 times out of ten will butcher any unit they hit in the first round of combat. Realistically and fluff wise you wouldn't run into entire armys of terminators like you see in a number of space marine lists but hey its a 2+ armor save and people feel better about thinking they are cheesing a list by getting to roll saves... But this is where a good commander has a valid mix of an army. This is what I have Distort Cannons, Wrath Cannons and Warp Hunters in my army to complement my banshees with.
I play PS2 a lot, and its not a balanced game in term of population numbers, yet the game is played out nice. I guess this game will follow in its foot steps, i hope they wont favor a particular faction over all others.
