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Newish SW player. My second game of Wolves vs new Eldar. I'm running a pretty bog standard list - a pair of Rune priests, two ten-man Grey Hunter squads with Rhinos, five man Longfangs, a pair of predators with bolter side sponsons, and a ten man pack of blood claws in a nice cozy Land Raider. 1250 points. Casual game. First eldar skirmish went pretty well, fought to a tie. I hadn't run predators or blood claws before, so it was an experiment on my part.

The second match was a slaughter. A pair of wave serpents hopping around the board, some wraithguard and a bunch of bikes. Now, admittedly, I didn't have nearly as many power weapons as I should have and that will be fixed later, but the mobility and jink saves are murder. I'm not sure how to deal with an enemy who can repeatedly hop over me and blow up my rear armor. Bikes that can back up and fire on my unit, then hop away when it gets hot.

Having my rune priest stab half a unit to death under the effect of hallucination isn't fun either.

So how does a poor, mangy wolf deal with a hoard of jink saves, mobile troops and eldar trickery?

I myself am an Eldar player and my brother runs Space Puppies so maybe I can give you some tips.

1) If you're running full squads of Grey Hunters, I would advocate Drop Pods over Rhinos. They allow you to get closer on a more reliable basis and will offer better protection than Rhinos if you go second. Run either Meltas for anti tank or Plasma for a more rounded offensive.

2) Bloodclaws are terrible. They cost the same as Grey Hunters who also have two weapons giving them 2/3/3 (charge/counter) attacks vs 2/4/3. Sure they're great on a charge but at WS 3 they are easier to hit, hit less often and if you lose the charge you are kinda boned. Especially facing Eldar who will be going first at Init 5 or better. Granted unless its a melee focused Eldar unit (which will open you like a can of sardines), most anything beats Eldar in melee so I guess that's a moot point, but just my 2 bits.

3) Cover(Jink) is always beaten 1 of two ways: Volume or Ignoring it. Eldar Jetbikes have the same saves as regular SM Bikes. Their biggest weakness is low numbers. Drop a pod next to them and they kinda evaporate. Being Wolves, you're best way to kill Eldar is in close combat. You tangle us up and we're as good as dead (unless you decided to showdown with our melee specialists, then good luck.)

4)Rune Priests are possibly the best anti Psykers in the game. As long as they're in range of the enemy Psyker they always get a 4+ DTW. Its badluck that you got Hallucinated but the odds are definitely on your side.

Well, eldar have always been good against marine armies, and even more so in this edition. Basically every small arm carried by our troops can drop space wolves easy.

However, wolves have rune priests, which are amazing due to the denial stick. Your priest tripping out on lsd was bad luck and not typical results.

As you learned, serpents are bad news bears and will ruin Christmas everytime. The best way to kill them is assault if you can catch them. Otherwise shoot them in the ass so their shield can't negate a pin.if the shield is down try your high s guns for a pin.Or glance em down. Bikes are annoying, but at the end of the day they are just marines when it comes to getting shot.bolter Dakka works fine to kill them. If they have good cover don't waste low ap shooting on them.

Rhinos and even predators are easy picking for eldar s6 spam. With mobility and volume they will be glanced down. The s6 also drops your troops left and right. Land raiders are immune, but watch for lances, wraith guard and melts guns.

Try bringing mobility to fight mobility. Pods are good to get troops to critical points, and thunderwolf cav are very good against eldar. Their speed and dead lethality in assault are a major threat and my #1 priority if I see them, moreso than long fangs. They hit like trains and with rending and volume of attacks thunder wolves will shred most eldar easily.

As far as assault, eldar strike first but don't hit very hard,and generally don't take a punch well. Power weapons are ok, but not really needed except against bikes or wraithguard. Grey hunters standard should win against non cc specialists with just bare hands. Wolf standard and mark of the wolf will swing the odds heavy in your favor and are better than any power weapon you can buy. A wolf guard leader can have one, but the squad should go stock. What special guns are you taking for your hunters? Plasma sounds like your best bet, but double flamers work well on troops( space elves burn like old Christmas trees). Use your shooting and just have melee as a backup.

Trade out that Land Raider and Blood Claws for 2 units of Grey Hunters. For the Wave Serpents you going to want to either focus fire them down with heavy weapons. If you can hide out of LOS, you'll force him to maneuver and/or get close enough to you that you can attack them.

Eldar are dangerous, no denying that, but they're also extremely fragile outside of Wave Serpents. If you can get them in the open, you can probably kill them. Also, no need to buy power weapons for your Grey Hunters, a Mark of the Wulfen should be more than sufficient.

I'd thoroughly recommend drop pods

I play Eldar and my friend SW. He drops 5 pods in, three with dual meltas and two with duel flamers.

He gets to drop three in at the start of his first turn, this eitehr results in a melty tank or flame grilled scouts


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I'd thoroughly recommend drop pods

I play Eldar and my friend SW. He drops 5 pods in, three with dual meltas and two with duel flamers.

He gets to drop three in at the start of his first turn, this eitehr results in a melty tank or flame grilled scouts

Are any of the other HQ choices worth taking at this point level? I always find myself wanting to pull out grimnar or njal, but i have a large bias for mass blocks of basic units over anything with a high point cost.

I actually own both armies, and have played both

extensively. my suggestion? Unless he's rolling a bunch of

S10 stuff, or ID stuff,

break out a thunderwolf lord w/a storm shield, and fist, and

stick him with 3 shielded thunderwolf cavalry and you can

catch anything, and kill almost anything.

I'd say missile spam couldn't hurt, it's like 140pts for a five

man w/missiles. Or heavy bolters, they are like 115,

and are worth every point. A funny trick is to take Bjorn/w

lascannon, let him get blown up(expensive I know), and you

have another objective. Most games I've played are

objective based, so if that happens, he has to come to you,

or sit back and eat heavy bolter/missile shots.

Get some lone wolves in there, and send them in. You can

kit them out pretty cheaply. I think you're best bet would be

dropping in 3-4 melta wolf guard behind the serpents, and

blowing them up, or having a thunderwolf lord Falcon punch

them though.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 kazian wrote:
Are any of the other HQ choices worth taking at this point level? I always find myself wanting to pull out grimnar or njal, but i have a large bias for mass blocks of basic units over anything with a high point cost.

Very smart thinking on passing on the expensive hq's, Grey hunters really are our bread and butter, x2 melta, rhino, maybe a HK missile for some extra anti-tank, and roll forward. I think 4 rune priests with LL is the best for those serpents though. Like the others said, either ignore the

serpents, or strip hull points off. dreadnought spam might not be bad either if he's low on AT. I'd run them cheap though.

I have been playing a with Thunderwolf Calvary lately. And agree with bobamus. If they can catch Tau, they can catch some eldar transports.

Is it worth while to give thunderwolf cavalry any weapon upgrades? Or just stick with shields and call it good?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
A possible list posted http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/546547.page

 kazian wrote:
Is it worth while to give thunderwolf cavalry any weapon upgrades? Or just stick with shields and call it good?

Good combinations for TWC are: Wolf Claw/PF (5 attacks, choice of AP3 Init 4 or S10 AP2 Init 1), Bolter/SS (4 Attacks, provides you something to do on turns you are to far to assault in. Do note that Cavalry do NOT have relentless) or Stock( 5 attacks, you get your rending). Mark of the Wulfen is a gamble. Best used on a Stock TWC, you'll get a total of 3-8 attacks vs the normal 5 attacks (I'm including the bonus attack from having 2 weapons) and you already have rending. Its a 1/6 Chance to attack less times, 1/6 Chance attack the same amount and a 2/3 Chance to attack more times. Worth the investment imho.

 Krug001 wrote:
I have been playing a with Thunderwolf Calvary lately. And agree with bobamus. If they can catch Tau, they can catch some eldar transports.

As an Eldar player, I really have to disagree here. Firstly due to the fact that Eldar are infinitely more manoeuvrable and quicker than Tau. A good Eldar player will usually be more than able to negate the Wolves' damage until around turn 3.

Secondly, I actually prefer to face a Space Wolves army with a TWolf Cavalry-Star. This is due to:

3 x Wave Serpents at 1500pts

3 x Scatter Walkers at 1500pts.

2 x Wraithguard Squads at 1500pts.

With such high-quality and relatively high strength shooting, I have no problem whittling down the TWolves once they reach the 42" mark. When it comes down to it, they die like regular marines to Serpent shields, are wounded on 3s by Scatter Lasers and will die with every failed save against Wraithguard. Ultimately, it just becomes a case of "How many 3+ saves can you make?".

Iranna.

Gapow wrote:
I'd thoroughly recommend drop pods

I play Eldar and my friend SW. He drops 5 pods in, three with dual meltas and two with duel flamers.

He gets to drop three in at the start of his first turn, this eitehr results in a melty tank or flame grilled scouts

Unfortunately, this is very risky for a couple reasons:
1) If there are any D-scythes in there then they'll destroy your deep strikers and you'll have no where to hide from them.
2) If you're going for Wave Serpents, you opponent can be crafty and reserve them or park them "ass-to-ass" to keep serpent shield functioning.

 Krug001 wrote:
I have been playing a with Thunderwolf Calvary lately. And agree with bobamus. If they can catch Tau, they can catch some eldar transports.

I agree that TWC might be our best option to shred Wave Serpents, but I have a hard time justifying their cost and working them into a list.

 Andilus Greatsword wrote:

Gapow wrote:
I'd thoroughly recommend drop pods

I play Eldar and my friend SW. He drops 5 pods in, three with dual meltas and two with duel flamers.

He gets to drop three in at the start of his first turn, this eitehr results in a melty tank or flame grilled scouts

Unfortunately, this is very risky for a couple reasons:
1) If there are any D-scythes in there then they'll destroy your deep strikers and you'll have no where to hide from them.
2) If you're going for Wave Serpents, you opponent can be crafty and reserve them or park them "ass-to-ass" to keep serpent shield functioning.

 Krug001 wrote:
I have been playing a with Thunderwolf Calvary lately. And agree with bobamus. If they can catch Tau, they can catch some eldar transports.

I agree that TWC might be our best option to shred Wave Serpents, but I have a hard time justifying their cost and working them into a list.

What would you suggest instead?

Pods can work certainly, but again they can be countered. I actually prefer Rhinos myself, I know they've gone "out of style" with a lot of people but they have a lot more flexibility I find. Anyway, I like Rhinos and lots of Long Fangs. If possible, stick to cover and/or out of LOS. It's a bit hard to have a catch-all solution since there's a couple pesky Eldar builds that can give us trouble (various forms of Serpent Spam and Jetbikes being the 2 most obvious to me).

Being an Eldar player, Eldar get some downright ridiculous Jink saves. Short of a Rune Priest with the right power on the Divinition Table, it's going to be hard to make anything of some Eldar Jetbikes running around the board with 3+ Armor and likely 3+ Jink on their standard movement with a Warlock in the squad casting Conceal. (5+ Cover at 0-12", +2 from Shrouded) or a 2+ Jink at anything past that. (4+ Jink +2 Shrouded). Then give that the Wave Serpents can take Holo Fields for around 15 points or so, they can get a 4+ just for moving 0-12", and a 3+ for 12-30", and any hits that get through that can be negated to a glancing blow on a 2+.

Your best option is to play prediction, and fortify the areas where he might jump to, with some terminators, and assault it, or Thunderwolf Cavalry. Or take a Rune Priest in a squad of Long Fangs, and use the Divinition power that negates a cover save, and force him to be careful. But remember, if he rolls well on his Runes of Battle table, he can also work up a 2+ Armor save on those bikes, and a 5+ Jink at speeds he can shoot you, and a 4+ Jink at speeds he can't.

A smart Eldar player would probably go the safe route at Primaris'ing his roll on Runes of Battle for the bike squads into Conceal, for an effective all-around 3+ armor/3+ jink, which is harder to negate than most things.


As for taking out the Wave Serpents, hope he does something stupid with it, and charge it. The way I've lost my Serpents the most is being charged because I got ballsy and tried to move too close to Space Marines. If not that, take a couple of Rune Priests, hope you roll well, stick them with long fangs and tactically snipe out the vehicles and bikes.

That's my two cents, for what it's worth.

Drop pod GH with 2 meltas behind serpent. Laugh as it explodes. No serpent shield at the rear. And for an extra, you can glance it to death with bolters. Plasma also works. Skip landraider and bloods, take more GH instead and some TWC. They can eat what remains of hes army. If you go first, he wont have juicy cover saves either. Roll for Ignore cover withRP and have a 50/50 chance of getting it. If not you can reroll to hit.

 knightofkob wrote:
Drop pod GH with 2 meltas behind serpent. Laugh as it explodes. No serpent shield at the rear. And for an extra, you can glance it to death with bolters. Plasma also works. Skip landraider and bloods, take more GH instead and some TWC. They can eat what remains of hes army. If you go first, he wont have juicy cover saves either. Roll for Ignore cover withRP and have a 50/50 chance of getting it. If not you can reroll to hit.

It's laughably easy to stop Drop Pods getting in behind Wave serpents for rear armour Melta shots. Aside from just parking the Serpent on your table edge, you can just put 2 or more Serpents end-to-end, making it impossible for you to get a rear armour shot.

Iranna.

True that but then the second will take it, or they will be in a weird posistion.

 knightofkob wrote:
True that but then the second will take it, or they will be in a weird posistion.

It might work, IF you sieze the initiative OR you get the first turn, assuming THEY didn't sieze the initiative. After that, it's 4+ Jink all day, any day. 3+ If they really want to get around. Which is the issue he was discussing. What to do once they get on the table, reliably.

3 rune priests, and njal do wonders, really strike down their own psychic moves

Exalbaru wrote:
3 rune priests, and njal do wonders, really strike down their own psychic moves

This was most certainly true last edition, however since the new codex dropped, I find myself not relying on my psychic powers. Of course, it's great to have them, but with a BS4 majority and Serpents being Twin-Linked with Scatter Lasers I find myself not needing Guide/Prescience until turns 2-3 when my reserves come in, which gives my Farseer plenty of time to Turbo-Boost out of your 24" Rune Priest bubble when they get out of their pods.

Iranna.

Most Eldar lists are hurt by two things that SW can bring. The first is Rune Priests. They are HORRIBLY GOOD against Eldar, so always max out on them. Whenever I play SW with my Eldar I prioritise the Rune Priests and ruthlessly take them out before I even think about anything else, similar to markerlights in Tau.

The second thing is anything that is faster than standard Infantry. I can keep my Eldar units (even Infantry ones) a comfortable distance away from your Infantry whilst tearing them to shreds. As soon as you start having a 12" move, or a re-rollable charge distance, that becomes a lot harder. Even the threat of the added manoeuvrability will cause the Eldar player to have to make a lot more decisions, mostly tricky ones, which will lead to more mistakes.

 Iranna wrote:

Exalbaru wrote:
3 rune priests, and njal do wonders, really strike down their own psychic moves

This was most certainly true last edition, however since the new codex dropped, I find myself not relying on my psychic powers. Of course, it's great to have them, but with a BS4 majority and Serpents being Twin-Linked with Scatter Lasers I find myself not needing Guide/Prescience until turns 2-3 when my reserves come in, which gives my Farseer plenty of time to Turbo-Boost out of your 24" Rune Priest bubble when they get out of their pods.

Iranna.

You don't take them for psychic powers, you take them for psychic defense

Farseer - I cast fortune on my unit
Rune Priest - No you don't.
Warlock - I conceal my unit.
Rune Priest - No you don't.

Space Wolves have some of the best anti-psyker defence what with a 24" bubble of deny anything (including blessings).