Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Post your favorite Eldar tactics here.

Shoot stuff.

Step One: Field Eldrad in a WS.
Step Two: Laugh at my opponent's annoyance

I'm interested in starting an Eldar army myself, so I'd appreciate any elaborate input on this topic.

Wraith Guard as troop and take a warlock with conceal. Then take Krandras and join him to the unit, every one now has +1 to their cover save (till Krandras dies any way).

Then just walk across the board take shots. (while the rest of your army huggs cover and shoots from your side)

This is cheesy but to actually field this you will need to spend £95.15 ...

That sucks. Instead, have Harlequins in front - you have a 3+ cover, you have a CC unit so you won't die, it's more points effective...

Elessar wrote:That sucks. Instead, have Harlequins in front - you have a 3+ cover, you have a CC unit so you won't die, it's more points effective...

Yes adding the Harlequins in front would be novel but not cheaper ... unless you meant to just take WG with a squad of HQ in front but then that would only be a 4+ (only Krandras has stealth).

Meth some thing to think about any way.

Of course, Foot Eldar are Fail on many levels anyway.

I run a mech Eldar army.
If I go 2nd and the enemy is very shooty, I leave the army in reserve. An Autarch helps to bolster the reserve rolls.
Generally, my army rolls up a flank so that everything in front goes down, no matter what. Then the units move towards the center and repeat.

Take Tri's wraithguard + Karandas unit and then include Eldrad in your list. You then deploy the wraithguard unit back on your objective .... and then use Eldrad's redeployment after set up to redeploy them across the board dircetly across from your opponent's home objective. Worlds of fun. Especially if Eldrad is close enough to their new location to hit them with fortune for their first turn run.


Harlies work well as a cover screen, but better when followed by a unit of banshees (or scorpions if you are playing orc/ IG)

The basic eldar tactic tho is to just take a tank for each unit, mechdar does work.


Sliggoth

infiltrating scorpions, or guide+doom+bladestorm

statu wrote:infiltrating scorpions, or guide+doom+bladestorm

IMHO nether of these works very well. Scorpions that infiltrate will have at least one turn of being shot at and possibly being assaulted. BladeStorm is far to situational (personally I can find better places to spend 27pts)

Far more useful ...

Striking Scorpions in a Wave Serpent (ether with a missile launcher or Scatter lasers ... and a S.Cannon) Outflanking

Against IG I love to outflank a squad of War Walkers with twin Scatterlasers.....

or to really piss a Guard player off, take 2 Autarchs and 3 squads of Swooping (rubber) hawks with Skyleap
Its three Large blasts that only scatter 1d6 at S4 ap5, coming from squads that he cant shoot at, and when you do decide to leave them on the board you always out gun him with 24" assault 2 guns that wound on 4s..... and all the fun starts on turn 2 with a 2+ for reserves..... i feel so dirty lol

lol

Yeah, you outrange the Lasguns...while your Plasma Grenades bounce off his Chimeras. He sticks a single Heavy Flamer up your face, and you crumple and die.

Don't let them assault your shooty ones or shoot your assaulty ones.

Or give up, you'll never win more than you lose against them Templars.

Avatar, War Walkers, Wave Serpents and Fire Prisms. Go crazy.

Personally I run several variants, though the important parts are as follows:

HQs -
Farseers/Eldrad. Eldar psychic powers in combination with elite units are what gives eldar armies higher tier status.

Troops -
Dire Avengers in wave serpents or Guardian Jetbike Units. Eldar speed is crucial. If you run smaller GJB units, keep them in reserve as long as possible.

Elites -
Fire Dragons (5 or 6 man units) in serpents. Use these if you are not fielding Fire Prisms.
Howling Banshees (full squad... smaller squads are a waste) in serpent. Banshees work best to assist seer councils in a multi-charge, but Doom is necessary to make them effective.

Fast Attack -
Warp Spiders (5 spiders + exarch) very effective at putting down a lot of fire on light vehicles or small, units to force failed saves. 2 units in combo can be very effective support.
Vypers - tend to be too expensive for their lack of armor, but the speed can be used very well in jet bike style armies. I prefer EML/ShuriCannon builds with guide support to hammer troops.

Heavy Support -
Fire Prisms. Field at least 2 if you are going to run them, all with holo fields. Personally I prefer to run 3 if I am going to run them.
Wraithlords - wraith sword and 2x flamer tends to be amazing for the point cost. At 100 points per they either suck up a ton of fire or get into melee and tie up/kill nearly any unit vehicle. Shooting wraithlords are a waste, field war walkers or tanks.
War Walkers - double scatter laser tends to be one of the best variants as it allows anti-light vehicle and volume fire for killing infantry. I would not field more than 2 units of them and never run them solo, 2 or 3 per unit, prefer 3.
Falcons - not as much useful fire out put as other units, but they are as durable as a prism and can hold squads. I prefer running them in a fire torrent build (scatter laser with shuricannon upgrade) then putting 5 or 6 dragons in them for anti-tank. Another use is 5 DAs to use 60 points to make a scoring falcon, which is a pain to kill.

basics there.

Personal list tends to have a larger jetbike mounted seer council with a fortune/doom seer. Full DA unit with Eldrad, exarch has shimmershield/power weapon combo. Unit of banshees, large GJB unit as secondary trip, then either dragons or and melee wraith lords or prisms.

^^^^
Correct. Eldrad=awesome.

I've started to run my Eldar as Counts-As IG Air Cav since they do everything so much better and cheaper.

It just occured to me...if you are sure that your enemy will not field long-range anti-cover weapons and you want some resilient objective holders for your baseline...what about pathfinders with fortune? Rerollable 2+ save means 97,22% of saving a wound. I mean, it does simply not get better than this, only if you could cram FnP in there, too. The enemy would need 144 lasgun shots or at least 36 boltgun shots to kill a single model on average!

Does anyone use that?

Well, Pathfinders are a different story.
There are two big issues using them.
First, outflankers can eventually charge them.
Second, there is an increasing number of cover-save ignorning weapons out there in the 40k universe.

Granted, there is some bad stuff out there...Eradicator LR for IG, Whirlwind for SM, Sternguard ammo for SM, dark reaper exarchs for Eldar...hmmm...I'm not sure about other races and if there are cover-denying long-range weapons? I can't think of an Ork weapon, for example...

You forgot the thunderhammer cannon.
Against Orks, Pathfinders are rather useless.

I'm not that experienced of a player and I'll agree that they're not really anti-horde But howzabout trukk orks? Some AT weapon pops the fragile trukk, with a bit of luck one or two orks die in the process, rangers kill maybe two to three, orks are on "normal" leadership at this point and they have to take pinning tests - could stop them in their tracks, with a bit of luck

But you're right, if I know I'm up against orks, I probably would take something with a higher RoF.

Also don't forget our own humble Maugan Ra. He eats pathfinders for breakfast. Or the hellhound. Also anything that can deepstrike with a flamer is death to pathfinders.

Of course, I just use Maugan Ra as a counts-as for Straken nowadays. He's so much better in CC now.

Witzkatz wrote:I'm not that experienced of a player and I'll agree that they're not really anti-horde But howzabout trukk orks? Some AT weapon pops the fragile trukk, with a bit of luck one or two orks die in the process, rangers kill maybe two to three, orks are on "normal" leadership at this point and they have to take pinning tests - could stop them in their tracks, with a bit of luck

Well, Trukks can be easily taken down by long range S5 weapons or even by bolters.
Rangers do not work against mobz as they tend to be fearless if their size is large enough.
Against Orks, you need template weapons.
A fully kitted out Seer Council can take down a mob of 30 Orks in one round of cc.

Witzkatz wrote:Granted, there is some bad stuff out there...Eradicator LR for IG, Whirlwind for SM, Sternguard ammo for SM, dark reaper exarchs for Eldar...hmmm...I'm not sure about other races and if there are cover-denying long-range weapons? I can't think of an Ork weapon, for example...

Orks don't need long range cover denying weapons to kill Pathfinders. With a 24" scout move, Koptas can assault Pathinders turn one...say goodby to those snipers. Then of course there are Burnas outta BWs....

I actaully own 15 Pathfinders/Rangers...all are in the "bin" now :(

I also disagree with the poster who said that Shooty WLs are a waste.
I use 2 WLs with BL+EML in my Hybrid tourney list (Mech+MCs) and they do great. If you model your WSs on the shortest base, the WLs can walk behind the WSs, and still see over them (thus allowing the WLs to shoot). Even better, the WLs will be over 1/2 covered by the WS...thus giving the WL a 3+ cover save Shooty WLs also have the advantage of never being stunned, so you get 2 AT shots a turn unitl they are dead. Finally, they also help out in a counter assault role, if somone gets too close to your WSs holding onto objectives, something that a Prism just cannot do.

I know that everyone seems to loathe Swooping Hawks, but could their aerial assault template grenade be useful against orks? Wounding them on 4+ is at least something and the greater the mob the greater your chance to hit something...

Witzkatz wrote:I know that everyone seems to loathe Swooping Hawks, but could their aerial assault template grenade be useful against orks? Wounding them on 4+ is at least something and the greater the mob the greater your chance to hit something...

Swooping hawks are ... difficult to quantify. With an exarch and sky leap they can be dropping a template every turn (past 2nd if they have Autarchs) this can mean one unit is safe till turn 5-7 when you stop sky leaping. There guns are are also weak but not terrible, at 24" they can whittle down orks (just remember to doom them) odds are 80/216 & 100/216 (for the Exarch). The Exarch can boost his chances by taking a better gun ether str5 3 shot (if i recall correctly) or a str3 6shot.

...but personally i run them cheap just 5 man no Exarch. Start by deep-striking near a unit that I'm going to be targeting and start shooting. If they survive a turn I charge them at the nearest tank (19-24" charge range). Now often if pick the right spot to deep strike they often get ignored simply because every one thinks they are terrible (why waste the shots at them, when we could be aiming at x and y). At only 105pts this unit is so throw away that if it kills any thing or draws fire its done its job.

Still they're an odd mix of weapons which is why don't think every one likes them.

Alerian wrote:I also disagree with the poster who said that Shooty WLs are a waste.
I use 2 WLs with BL+EML in my Hybrid tourney list (Mech+MCs) and they do great. If you model your WSs on the shortest base, the WLs can walk behind the WSs, and still see over them (thus allowing the WLs to shoot). Even better, the WLs will be over 1/2 covered by the WS...thus giving the WL a 3+ cover save Shooty WLs also have the advantage of never being stunned, so you get 2 AT shots a turn unitl they are dead. Finally, they also help out in a counter assault role, if somone gets too close to your WSs holding onto objectives, something that a Prism just cannot do.

How do you get this 3+ Cover? It's not a vehicle.