SDasher wrote:Wow, thanks
I'm really looking forward to using some vehicles, after playing Tyranids. I guess I want to go mechanized Eldar. Thanks a lot for the advice, I'll run over my codex and cash supplies, see if I can't shave a few more dollars off to run with some mechdar. Thank you all for the help, if you have more advice to give for running a mechanized Eldar force, I'd be happy to listen.
No problem mate.
With 300$, and a decent discount, you should be able to easily put together a 1500-1750 point mech army.
There are 3-5 specific Mechdar 'styles'. These different armies can be seen as generically shooty, or close-combat.
Shooty-
Dire avenger lists are usually pretty effective. Your core army will include at least one Farseer (with Doom), and 3 squads of
DA*
(1). Get 3 tanks, and stick them inside*
(2). Gear two of the
DA squads for shooty, and one for
CC. Shooty will include an Exarch w/ Bladestorm + Dual S. Cats (4, BS5 S4 shots is pretty awesome).
CC will include an Exarch w/ Defend + S. Shield/
PW(Defensive, great against things with PW/PK) -or- Pistol/D. Sword
(Offensive, sword can prove very useful against ICs, though unreliable in general)*
(3). Back this up with a squad or two of
FD (6 in a squad is more than enough), and a squad of Striking Scorpions*
(4) if you like. 2 Fire Prisms for heavy support, will put you solidly within 1750 points. Avoid
TL-shots as much as possible, two large blasts is the best thing you can pull out of your
FP, they are best as anti-infantry support.
FP are not particularly effective at shooting anything, besides very large tanks, with their small blasts.
(1)* You can mess around a lot with
DA, trying out new gear and such. Try mixing up the information presented here, and tailoring your troops to your liking. One squad of shooty, one squad of (defensive)
CC, and one minimized squad*
(a) for scoring purposes.
(2)* Equip your tanks generally with weaponry that your infantry is lacking. Eldar, unfortunately, have little access to long-range
AT firepower. Bright lances are good counters to heavy
AV (13-14),
EML do pretty well against medium
AV (11-12), and S. Lasers do well against light
AV (10-11). Mix and match until you feel you can deal with a minimum of one heavy
AV tank, and as many as five medium/light tanks. Eldar do poorly in this department, so don't spend to much time trying to customize your army. S. Lasers/ S. Cannons do well against pretty much all infantry, as they wound most everything on a 2/3+. You can take both, and bring seven S6 shots to bear
(4 of which are TL) against tough infantry.
(3)* I would suggest making the
CC DA squad defensive, and sticking your Farseer in it, to provide a bit of insurance on your Doom insurance. Like a car in your car, so you can drive your car in your tank... because we are Eldar, and re-rolls make us better.
Drop Doom on a large squad of Orks, or a nasty
MC, then blast them off the board with 64 S. Cat shots. You can even back that up with another 18 shots, and whatever else you have lying around. Spam of that magnitude is really hard to avoid getting annihilated by.
(4)* Striking Scorpions when combined with (defensive)
DA, will absolutely wreck Ork face.
There is no unit in the Ork codex that can effectively counter a focused assault of that magnitude. You will be taking away one attack from every squad your
DA are attacking (multi-assaults are neat!), and protecting your
DA with a 5++ save (
RR from fortune if you like), rendering
PW/
PK ineffective. Use your
DA to 'grab' the
PW/
PK units out of a squad, then bring in your Scorpions to own a flank. The only downside here, is that the odds of the Orks running away from an assault like this, are very out of favor. You're likely to end up standing there twiddling your thumbs, waiting to get shot/assaulted by anything nearby.
(a)*
Subset strategy-
You can minimize your costs, and just take advantage of the fact that your
DA are cheap enough, while not being quite as flimsy as Guardians to be used in super cheap squads. 5
DA walk into a transport, and they basically stay there all game. The transport (Falcons are actually pretty effective scoring units, they are good alternatives to
WS in this situation) is now scoring, and that is exactly what it does. You have to play pretty conservatively to make this an effective strategy, but 160 point scoring tanks are not particular expensive to lose in shooting.
Shooty Alternative-
This style basically revolves around pumping out as much
AV as Eldarly possible. You will still be using
DA to your liking, alternatively you can bring out a squad of Storm Guardians (Flamers,
HF Warlock) to weed out the units hiding in cover. Add in 2 squads of
FD, equip your tanks with a minimum of 2
BL, 2
EML, and a Scatterlaser if you like. After that, you are basically limited to using Warp Spiders, or Bikes to add an extra bit of S6 punch in. I am not a big fan of bikes, as they are one of the hardest units in the codex, to effectively use. Warp Spiders work well in medium squads (6-7, Exarch*
(!) w/ Dual D. spinners), and you can stick a WJJ/Fusion gun Autarch*
(!) into the squad for an extra bit of
AV.
You can also use Vypers to bring in more S6 shots, but they have the nasty drawback of being very good at dying on turn two. There are very few gaming tables that will accommodate Vypers in general, and they will have to rely on your tanks to avoid instant death. If you do choose to get them, equip them with two S. cannons, and use them in squads of 2 minimum. 10 points per shot is pretty good, and if you can get more than one round of shooting out of them, they will prove pretty useful.
(!)* You can choose to add in M. blaster/
PW to the Autarch, and
PW to the Exarch, but it is a waste of points
IMHO. They can reliably get one wound against
Tac SM, but they really should be shooting instead, as they excel at that.
------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ---------- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- ---
CC Primary-
There are many styles of assault list, but they all pretty much work the same way. Eldar usually hit first, and that is pretty much all you need to know. Banshees are a great example of how Eldar
CC works; they run in (hit first) and die. Scorpions are marginally better at not dying, but only against units that do poorly when assaulted (like Ork boys/Guard/Firewarriors). Harlequins CAN take a Falcon transport, but they shouldn't, and they really have very few roles in a mechanized army.
Striking Scorpions are the bread and butter of a
CC-Eldar force, Banshees are also pretty effective. Take two squads of Scorpions*
(1), and a squad of Banshees*
(2), then stick them all in tanks. Back this up with your choice of
HQ, Karandras, Jain Zar, and Yriel are good choices. You can bring a squad of Warlocks*
(3) to add a bit more potent
AV to your force. Storm Guardians (Flamers,
HF Warlock) are pretty good options for this style of army, as they are able to effectively pick out squads from cover. Stormies can also do decently well in
CC, as they will be striking first in a lot of situations.
(1)* Scorpions are best used in medium to large squads (6-10), and the Exarch is optional. The ability to confer scout abilities to a tank is great, especially if you have two or more of them. 3 squads of Scorpions is excessive
IMO, but it does have pretty explicit advantages when used well. Your Exarch should take a
PK, even though it is S6, which is mildly pathetic. You can take a biting blade as well, and it is a pretty good combo, but your going to end up pretty tight on points with a
CC force. The biting blade should be used if you are attacking units that have bad armor saves (5/6+), and if you are attacking transports, as you can get S8 attacks. Shadowstrike as noted is optional, but if you have the Exarch, there is really no reason to not get it. Stalker is a great upgrade
IMO, and it can definitely mean the difference between being useful and not such. Scorpions are bully units, and versus something comparable in nature, they really don't do all that well. They will be hitting first with a good amount of attacks, unfortunately S4 is not enough to get reliable damage on well armored units.
Tac marines are not fans of Scorpions, as they do reliably terrible in assaults, and will be forced to run away in most situations. Assault marines on the other hand, are going to do some considerable damage, even if they have to run away.
(2)* Banshees are really simple units, they have a limited variety of optimum targets, and they benefit a lot from Doom. They will strictly annihilate
Tac marines, and they kick Khorne Beserkers and the like, right in the nuts, even if they are pretty much guaranteed to die shortly after. The Exarch should always take the executioner, simply because a S5 Ini6
PW, is just too good to pass up. War shout can be useful, albeit unreliable, and acrobatic is probably not worth taking. Use Banshees in squads of 6-10.
(3)* Warlocks are good in large medium to large squads (6-10). You should take one Warlock with Enhance, two with Embolden, and a couple of
HF if you would like. Spirit spears are particularly effective when tank-bound, and your focus should be on
CC anyway. Attack tanks as your primary target, try to multi-assault as often as possible, while avoiding small arms spam. Mass lasgun shots can easily overwhelm your saves, which should be backed up by Fortune at all times. Getting a cheap Farseer with nothing but fortune, and sticking it in with the Warlocks is the best way to achieve this. Expensive
IC's can stay with the Warlocks to benefit from their tough nature.
Dark Eldar - 2000 ( 0% Painted )
Tyranids - 3500 ( 85% Painted )
Necrons - 1680 ( 80% Painted )
Dark Elves - 2250 ( 2% Painted )
Skaven - 5400 ( 8% Painted )
" I'm sorry, but after 7200 's that has to be the most annoying sign-off ever."