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Hello everyone,

So my friend (the Necron one if you've read my previous posts) invited me to a local game store tourny this weekend. Neither of us knows the local meta as it will be our first time playing with any frequent visitors to the store. He's not too worried because, hey, he's Necrons and Necrons don't afraid of anything. I, however, am somewhat more perplexed as to how to make an all comers list when I don't know who or what will be attending.

I think (not sure) that we will only have one list. The Tournament will be 3 rounds as follows: 1) Dawn of War with Purge the Alien, 2) Relic with Hammer and Anvil, and 3) Crusade with Vanguard Strike. We're allowed to proxy models, but within reason (assuming this means using models of the same base size and race)

Here's what I have available:

2 tanks (1 wave serpent 1 falcon, neither have base, paint or turret as they are WiP)
2 vypers (as yet unassembeled but I can fix that rather quickly)
5 swooping hawks and 1 hawk exarch with hawks talon
1 Swooping Hawk Phoenix Lord (consolation thrown in when purchasing a lot from a guy because he knocked the hawks on the ground while handing them to me)
25ish Dire avengers, with 4 exarchs (all in various degrees of naked, primed, and painting in progress)
3 Warlocks
1 Farseer
2 War walkers
1 Wraithlord

I think that's everything... Any and all opinions welcome. I was thinking of definitely taking some harlies with a doom and fortune seer but beyond that I'm drawing a blank for a list with these limitations against so many variables.

First off, you should take a farseer as your HQ. If you run the seer in a serpent with a unit, take rulebook powers as you cant cast eldar powers in a transport per recent FAQ. Regardless of powers, you should take runes of warding. This will hinder any army that uses psykers.Also, consider a second seer(you can use a warlock) I would give them each singing spears to help with AT, as you lack at pretty badly.

Next, max out your heavy support. 2 war walkers(scatter lasers or outflank with shuricannons and the wraithlord(2 flamers, EML, lance) are a good call.

Your only troops are dire avengers, and they will need to be in wave serpents. 10 man squads with bladestorm exarches. Wave serpents with scatter laser tops chin shuricannons. If you have 10 that you could proxy for guardians, give them a scatter laser(just nominate which 2 are gunners, read your rules on how the support weapon works) and a warlock w/embolden to babysit the wraithlord and camp an objective.

It will be hard to proxy other infantary as you only have a mass of dire avengers. so it will probably not be okay if this dire avenger squad is harlequins, that one avengers, this one fire dragons, etc.

With what you have, I would go with something like this. You need to field basically everything you have just to make the points.

Farseer: Runes warding, 2 cheap powers to swap, singing spear, spirit stones

Farseer: 2 cheap powers to swap, singing spear, spirit stones

Dire AvengersX10: Exarch with dual cats and bladestorm. Wave serpent with tl scatter laser and chin cannon

Dire AvengersX10: Exarch with dual cats and bladestorm. Wave serpent with tl scatter laser and chin cannon

GuardiansX10: Warlock w/embolden, singing spear

Vyper:EML, chin cannon

Vyper:EML, chin cannon

Swooping hawksX5:Exarch with skyleap, hawks talon

War WalkersX2: Dual scatter lasers

Wraithlord: 2 flamers, EML, Lance

This is 1500 on the nose. Not really that competitive, but probably the best you are going to do under the circumstances.

 Dr. Serling wrote:
First off, you should take a farseer as your HQ. If you run the seer in a serpent with a unit, take rulebook powers as you cant cast eldar powers in a transport per recent FAQ. Regardless of powers, you should take runes of warding. This will hinder any army that uses psykers.Also, consider a second seer(you can use a warlock) I would give them each singing spears to help with AT, as you lack at pretty badly.

Next, max out your heavy support. 2 war walkers(scatter lasers or outflank with shuricannons and the wraithlord(2 flamers, EML, lance) are a good call.

Your only troops are dire avengers, and they will need to be in wave serpents. 10 man squads with bladestorm exarches. Wave serpents with scatter laser tops chin shuricannons. If you have 10 that you could proxy for guardians, give them a scatter laser(just nominate which 2 are gunners, read your rules on how the support weapon works) and a warlock w/embolden to babysit the wraithlord and camp an objective.

I like the Lord with an EML and a lance. He's got a blade on him that's glued, as well as a lance (bought used), but getting it to work with a EML shouldn't be a problem.

 Dr. Serling wrote:
It will be hard to proxy other infantary as you only have a mass of dire avengers. so it will probably not be okay if this dire avenger squad is harlequins, that one avengers, this one fire dragons, etc.

Because I have 9 as bare plastic, 12 or so as primed white, and then 4 painted, I was thinking of using the primed ones as harlies and sticking a fortune and doom seer with them. Honestly though it depends on how accepting they are of proxies as I've never played here. They could be as accommodating as allowing blank bases so long as they're distinguishable and the correct size, or they could be much much stricter. Sadly, I just don't know .

 Dr. Serling wrote:
With what you have, I would go with something like this. You need to field basically everything you have just to make the points.

Farseer: Runes warding, 2 cheap powers to swap, singing spear, spirit stones

Farseer: 2 cheap powers to swap, singing spear, spirit stones

Dire AvengersX10: Exarch with dual cats and bladestorm. Wave serpent with tl scatter laser and chin cannon

Dire AvengersX10: Exarch with dual cats and bladestorm. Wave serpent with tl scatter laser and chin cannon

GuardiansX10: Warlock w/embolden, singing spear

Vyper:EML, chin cannon

Vyper:EML, chin cannon

Swooping hawksX5:Exarch with skyleap, hawks talon

War WalkersX2: Dual scatter lasers

Wraithlord: 2 flamers, EML, Lance

This is 1500 on the nose. Not really that competitive, but probably the best you are going to do under the circumstances.

What if I took 1 fortune doom or doom guide seer (first to go with harlies if allowed, second to send with avengers), and 1 with more powers, maybe 3 or 4, and exchange them all for BRB powers for a chance at invisibility, which might help. Conversely, what if I used the seer as Eldrad? Or the Phoenix Lord as Yuriel?


ALSO! I forgot, I do have 3 Guardian Jet bikes and a squad of Guardians still on their sprues, complete with heavy weapon platform. The jet bikes are lacking bases, but maybe I could use 3 of them as a seer council and just hope he'll let me use my Farseer as a jetseer? I also have a 3rd War Walker, but sadly it's got no feet attached or base (the guy I bought them from had it walking over an upright armless headless legless Space Marine Torso with it's foot crushing it. It looks ridiculous. Tried to remove and it... well it went poorly.) so I don't think they'd let me field it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
By the way, Thank you very much for your suggestion. I know I've been posting here a lot recently looking for advice and I believe you in particular have been most helpful. Others have as well, and I wanted to take a moment to say thanks for the help. The skull's a little thick sometimes, thus my difficulty in dealing with the subtle nuances of Eldar list building.

Eldar are one of the trickier armies to build list wise and one of the steeper learning curves to play.

Serling is one of the best advisers I've found on dakka when it comes to space elves; and as a result both he and I end up posting very similar tactics/advice. Quite often if I post a list it's waiting for him to post back LOL.

Not to mention that if you state the theme and/or restrictions of the list he works within it instead of spouting net lists at you.

deathmagiks wrote:

What if I took 1 fortune doom or doom guide seer (first to go with harlies if allowed, second to send with avengers), and 1 with more powers, maybe 3 or 4, and exchange them all for BRB powers for a chance at invisibility, which might help. Conversely, what if I used the seer as Eldrad? Or the Phoenix Lord as Yuriel?


ALSO! I forgot, I do have 3 Guardian Jet bikes and a squad of Guardians still on their sprues, complete with heavy weapon platform. The jet bikes are lacking bases, but maybe I could use 3 of them as a seer council and just hope he'll let me use my Farseer as a jetseer? I also have a 3rd War Walker, but sadly it's got no feet attached or base (the guy I bought them from had it walking over an upright armless headless legless Space Marine Torso with it's foot crushing it. It looks ridiculous. Tried to remove and it... well it went poorly.) so I don't think they'd let me field it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
By the way, Thank you very much for your suggestion. I know I've been posting here a lot recently looking for advice and I believe you in particular have been most helpful. Others have as well, and I wanted to take a moment to say thanks for the help. The skull's a little thick sometimes, thus my difficulty in dealing with the subtle nuances of Eldar list building.

Running a fortune/doom seer with a phoenix lord in front(even as fail as Baharroth is) is pretty brutal. Fuegan and karandras work best for this stragety. Eldrad is a boss, and yriel can be too. Running a superpower seer for avengers is not worth it. Take two/three powers, call it a day. You get invis, cool. If not, you probably have something that works(but you can give their transport a 2+ jink!)

A small unit of guardian jetbikes make excellent objective stealing/ linebreaker dudes. A seer council needs numbers, even on bikes. If you can get the guardians put together, then you have your 10 bodies for the warlock and all. Overall, I avoid proxying (I understand you have limited models) for tournaments, even if allowed. It can bring up some really heated arguements and some people might try to accuse you of cheating/pulling a fast one. If you do, make sure you clearly label everything(have a written reference) and clearly explain to your opponent. Also, contact your store and let them know what you are working with.

Thanks for the compliment. I try my best.

syranas wrote:Eldar are one of the trickier armies to build list wise and one of the steeper learning curves to play.

Serling is one of the best advisers I've found on dakka when it comes to space elves; and as a result both he and I end up posting very similar tactics/advice. Quite often if I post a list it's waiting for him to post back LOL.

Not to mention that if you state the theme and/or restrictions of the list he works within it instead of spouting net lists at you.

This guy!

Syranas is good as well. He will probably tell you to go get every new eldar toy from IA11 and go to town. Granted, they are really good!.

Not all the toys... I just personally like some of them *cough cough Warp Hunter cough Shadow Spectres cough Wraithseer cough* but that's beside the point.

A seer council does indeed require numbers - usually the full 10 warlocks (8 can do in a pinch) with 1-2 farseers and then just being able to tarpit anything to death - the fact that with fortune up you are a T4 unit (on bikes) with 4++ rerollables and in CC you always wound on 2's. Not to mention dropping 6-8 destructor templates on people.

What Serling posted will be a halfway decent start of a list. By no means is it the most competitive list on the interwebs but it won't get wiped off the table turn 1.

Long term with Eldar you need to find a theme that fits your mentality, play style and potentially you fluff. There are a handful of units in the codex that are the signatures of the themes and they are:
Bikes
Wraiths (Guard, Lords, Seer)
Seer Council
Harlequins
Guardians (yes, yes I know)
Aspect warriors

Each has their own theme around them with varying levels of competitiveness at the current edition/FAQ/4th Ed Codex level. Outside of a tournament if you feel Eldar long term - try some friendly games where proxying isn't going to be too over the top to see what units you like then look at how their themes work for you.

Well I mostly play with the same group of friends every weekend, so this would be the first tournament setting I've been in. normally we kind of have an " anything reasonable goes" rule when it comes to using a proxy. I mean I've used tactical marines as Jet bikes and small plastic pumpkins as wave serpents before. lack of models plus still learning the race has a big impact on that fact. however, if it helps, Ulthwe is my craftworld. I typically have looked at aspect warriors to meet my needs but I've found them to have too many limitations to be relied upon confidently against multiple opponents given my level of experience. I'm still experimenting, haven't ever done a wraith focus or full council list though I've looked into them. I do see myself playing eldar for the long haul though.

I agree with most of what Sterling's information says.

Here are my additions of opinion:

Phoenix Lords at 1500 points, even with the necessary synergy backup to be useful, are still terribly expensive. I'd recommend sticking to 1-2 Farseers(maybe Eldrad) for your HQs.

War Walkers can also be proxies for Wasp Assault Walkers. They don't outflank but provide a faster reaction unit with substantial firepower.

If you can free up a tank to not Mech two squads of Dire Avengers, running one as a Warp Hunter is a great idea.

Just some ideas!!

As I've never seen a warp hunter in action, don't have it in battlescribe, and don't have any reference material on it, I might have to pass. I know I could look it up, but between working 50+ hours a week and trying to get a squad of guardians + 2 vypers built by Saturday afternoon I've not a lot of time left to research.

I've been looking into it, and I feel like if I don't have the variety to make the army flexible, I better find a way of making it durable. Here's what I've come up with:

+++ theoretical list (1494pts/1500pts) +++

+ HQ + (303pts)

* Eldrad Ulthran

* Farseer with Guide and Runes of warding + Singing Spear

+ Troops + (400pts)

* 2 squads of Dire Avengers x9 + Exarch with dual catapults, bladestorm, and defend

* Guardian Jetbike Squadron of 3 bikes

+ Fast Attack + (307pts)

* Swooping Hawks x 5 + an Exarch with Hawk's Talon, Intercept, and Skyleap

* Vyper Squadron of 2 Vypers with Chin cannon and Scatter Laser

+ Heavy Support + (484pts)

* Support Weapon Battery
* Support weapon x3 with D-cannon and Spirit Seer with Embolden

* Wraithlord x2 with EML and Wraith Blade

Heavy Support are the backbone, moving slowly up the field together while the dire avengers bubble wrap the front (hence defend). The farseer stays with the battery and guides it, Eldrad hangs out with the wraithlords and keeps them up and menacing, and the vypers pick a side and start peppering str6 shots where applicable. I know this list is all over the place, but... I dunno, unconventional enough to work?

The new list looks good. A bit of multiple personality disorder in it but it might work.

Support weapon platforms are ok. The D-cannons give you a 24" GTFO bubble in your DZ and to top it off if you get big guns they're scoring (i.e. dump an obj under them). In the long run they're by far not the best heavy support option available to the Eldar. Wraithlords, War Walkers, Warp Hunter's and Phoenix Bombers are much better and swallow the slot up. Dark reapers (Exarch with crack and fast shot on an icarus) is an insane AA option down the track, but again is competing with HS options (often the fire dragon exarch with tank hunter and crack shot on a Quad is better). Vibro cannons are fun and they have their moments of being hilarious. And shadow weavers slow the game down horrendously. My point is that they may work now but they will likely get shelved later on.

For future reference - a warp hunter is just *foams at mouth*... it's basically a fire prism grav tank but instead of a prism cannon is a 36" range D-cannon... large blast... barrage... AP2... oh and if people get close to you - it has an alternate fire mode - Aether rift - flame template up to 6 inches away from the gun (in any direction as long as the small end is closer than the big end... yes you can shoot around corners). All for 125 points.

It is the single most broken things from forgeworld at the moment.

Damn that sounds great. If I had a way of putting it into the list I'd toss it in there instead of the artillery. Just don't have access to the stat line and relevant info. Or what I'd do with the extra points...

Investing in a forge world book (namely Imperial Armour Vol 11 : Doom of Mymeara) will be a good idea long term to see the Eldar 40k and Apocalypse toys. Basically it will give you access to the following things in your army at the 40k level:

HQ:
Wraithseer - This is a 4 wound wraithlord with a 5+ invulnerable, with pyschic powers, a spear that gives re-rolls to hit and AP1 versus vehicles in CC, and can walk around with a D-cannon on its shoulder. If you want to go wraith heavy here is your 2nd HQ. To kit out with a D-cannon it is 225 points (185 base + 40 for the cannon) but the beast is near impossible to kill. It can be your warlord BUT it cannot be your primary HQ. You need another HQ to babysit it (Eldrad?)
Bel'Annath - A fluffy farseer that I love. He doesn't get runes of warding but he gets a S5 AP2 flame template weapon, 3 powers in divination, telepathy or pyromancy (yes pyromancy) but is a WS6, 2 attacks base farseer who due to a technicality has 2 attacks + 1 for 2 CCW. I like him but I love the Mymeara craftworld theme and stick with him. An extra perk is he has a slightly different force org that is 2 HQ, 2 Elite, 4 Troops, 3 FA and 4 HS...
Irillyth - OK bad spelling there, I know it's wrong but meh. He is the shadow spectre phoenix lord. Costs 225 points but has a 2+ save like all PL, a 4++, a S7, AP2, Heavy 3 relentless gun, has hit and run, and an in built executioner (+2 strength, ignore armour saves, not unwieldy)

Fast attack:
Wasp Assault walkers - war walkers that can't scout, are fast attack and get a 2D6 assault move in every assault phase that gives them a 5+ cover save - they are 5 or 10 points more expensive base cost wise
Hornets - these are AV11, not open topped and slightly more expensive vypers. Basically better and worth it. Not to mention that you can take 2 pulse lasers on them (!!) about 10 points more expensive base cost
Shadow Spectres - one of the most beautiful models ever; a hybrid anti-tank/anti-MEQ/anti-hoard unit that has rifle versions of the fire prism. Their rules take some reading but they're nasty as. Their guns are heavy but their jet packs mean that they can JSJ with relentless. Move 12", shoot, move 2D6. But a full squad of 6 with Exarch has the following firing options: Lots of S6/7 AP2/3 shots, lots of S4 AP5 blasts or a long range S10 AP2 blast with potential twin-linked due to Exarch powers. The S10 shot uses the Exarchs BS5 as well. (35 points per model; basically dark reapers with lasers)
Nightwing Interceptor - an AA air superiority fighter. Comes with 2 bright lances and 2 shuri cannons. ALSO it has a 4+ cover save at all times (Shrouded and Agile) and can evade to make this a 2+ (evading is the regular flyer jink move) no upgrades required for this bad boy to work, and it's a flat 145 points.

Heavy Support:
Warp Hunter - *foaming at mouth still*
Fire Storm Grav Tank - a twin-linked Heavy 6 skyfire and interceptor scatter laser on a falcon chassis. It's costly (180 points) and somewhat lackluster, but looks cool. Very situational. In a kin-war (DE/Corsair enemy) it will do wonders versus AV10/11 Flyers, AV12 it will struggle and AV13 it's toast.
Phoenix Bomber - haven't really looked this over much but its sweet. It's a great model and has some nice toys that come standard. However it is costly both in $ and at 225 points running naked. It comes with 2 shuri cannons, a pulse laser or bright lance (not sure) and inexaustable missles of happiness. Well of Eldar happiness.

It will also give you an alternate army for allies or just for fun - the Eldar Corsairs. This list bumps Eldar up to 3 armies total - Dark, Craftworld and Corsair.

At apocalypse you get lots more that are also covered in the 2-3 apocalypse books and the Aeronautica books.

hmm... might be a good investment. how much do they run normally? the price of a codex?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Slow day at work resulted in the following:

Wasp Walkers are troop choices?!?!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I know the above post said fast attack, but a few things I've read, including this battlescribe index, says they're troop choices. That can't be right...

They are troops for the Corsair list with 1 restriction - you need a 1 to 1 ratio of wasp squadrons to troop corsair squads. For codex Eldar they're fast attack

For anyone interested:

Lost first game 2-3. Played against new Dark Angels. Should have won, didn't focus fire to eliminate squads, forgot to roll for jet bikes to come in each round. Could have easily won it if I paid attention.

Won second game 3-0. Played against ultramarines. Hard fought, but some rolls definitely went my way and I capitalized on weaknesses

Lost 3rd game 12-0. Played against IG. The guy brought so much ordinance and rerollable las cannon shots I was tabled in turn 2.

Well done on your win. And bad luck against the DA.

As for the IG - gak like that happens; and there is little to do about it.

Like I said earlier - Craftworld Eldar have a steep learning curve and they punish mistakes horribly. Keep at it and stay tuned to see what the new codex has in store later in the year.

syranas wrote:
Well done on your win. And bad luck against the DA.

As for the IG - gak like that happens; and there is little to do about it.

Like I said earlier - Craftworld Eldar have a steep learning curve and they punish mistakes horribly. Keep at it and stay tuned to see what the new codex has in store later in the year.

Thanks for the encouragement, I really do appreciate it. I'm not too upset about the DA game, he played very well and I know exactly what I did wrong. I was too scared of the terminator squads, I had the weight of dice to bring them down if I just focused and didn't split my fire. It could have very easily been my game, just means I need to play more for the mission and less for my gut reactions to squad movements, or at minimum strike a balance between the two.

As for the IG player... I know my list was probably the least competitive one in the tourny, so I was expecting to get wiped out in at least one game, but after looking at his list (3 flyers, chimeras, a at least 5-6 Lascannon shots, 2 ordinance blasts) I'm not sure of what I could have brought to get around that. Based on what happened in the game, I'm not sure of what list would have countered his given the deployment (vanguard, he has all the cover, I have none of it) and the huge overabundance I had of scatter lasers and shuriken cannons.

Some of it was luck, him going first with such a lack of cover, knocking out my warlord, wraithlord, Jetbikes, and 1/2 my walker squad left me with 2 wave serpents full of dire avengers, 2 vypers, and a deep striking swooping hawks squad. I feel like the only thing that could have weathered that kind of firepower would have been a wraith list with Eldrad for fortune and an avatar for the invul save because even moving flat out 2 turns straight to try and get into position left me with 2 dead wave serpents, 2 dead dire avenger squads, and a dead vyper. I started my turn 2 with 1 vyper, a delayed deep strike hawk squad, and the 2 model remnants of a dire avenger squad booking it for my table edge.

Can't win em all though, right? And I did get a door prize of a starter paint kit. Granted I don't use any of the colors, but I'm sure I can find a use for them and the 5 dark angel marines it came with lol. Not a total loss by any means

deathmagiks wrote:

syranas wrote:
Well done on your win. And bad luck against the DA.

As for the IG - gak like that happens; and there is little to do about it.

Like I said earlier - Craftworld Eldar have a steep learning curve and they punish mistakes horribly. Keep at it and stay tuned to see what the new codex has in store later in the year.

Thanks for the encouragement, I really do appreciate it. I'm not too upset about the DA game, he played very well and I know exactly what I did wrong. I was too scared of the terminator squads, I had the weight of dice to bring them down if I just focused and didn't split my fire. It could have very easily been my game, just means I need to play more for the mission and less for my gut reactions to squad movements, or at minimum strike a balance between the two.

As for the IG player... I know my list was probably the least competitive one in the tourny, so I was expecting to get wiped out in at least one game, but after looking at his list (3 flyers, chimeras, a at least 5-6 Lascannon shots, 2 ordinance blasts) I'm not sure of what I could have brought to get around that. Based on what happened in the game, I'm not sure of what list would have countered his given the deployment (vanguard, he has all the cover, I have none of it) and the huge overabundance I had of scatter lasers and shuriken cannons.

Some of it was luck, him going first with such a lack of cover, knocking out my warlord, wraithlord, Jetbikes, and 1/2 my walker squad left me with 2 wave serpents full of dire avengers, 2 vypers, and a deep striking swooping hawks squad. I feel like the only thing that could have weathered that kind of firepower would have been a wraith list with Eldrad for fortune and an avatar for the invul save because even moving flat out 2 turns straight to try and get into position left me with 2 dead wave serpents, 2 dead dire avenger squads, and a dead vyper. I started my turn 2 with 1 vyper, a delayed deep strike hawk squad, and the 2 model remnants of a dire avenger squad booking it for my table edge.

Can't win em all though, right? And I did get a door prize of a starter paint kit. Granted I don't use any of the colors, but I'm sure I can find a use for them and the 5 dark angel marines it came with lol. Not a total loss by any means

I find MEQ to be fairly manageable, while fighting IG is an absolute nightmare. My friend who got me into 40k has played IG against me since 4th, and I still dread the matchup. You got the absolute worst of it; guard alpha strikes make quick work of eldar. Nothing else you could have done really. Against marines it is all about priority. Marines are good, but eldar are better specialized. In the right role, an eldar unit can beat a marine unit at its own game. Focus is key to break down how survivable marines are. They also don't come in huge masses, so you are on a pretty even foot number wise. You beat the vanilla marines fine, dark angels are not all that different.

So what would your tactical recommendation be for playing against IG? List focus? Anything really.

Against IG... pray...

Without list tailoring its quite hard. Of the 3 Eldar armies; Corsairs probably have the best toys to kill IG. A corsair prince gets a 1 shot, infinite range D6 + 6" blast template S4 AP5... it mops up platoon spam. Dropped it once in an apocalypse game and wiped out more with 2 of those (2 princes) in 1 round of shooting that our 2 stompas did. Managed to roll high and drop a 12" and a 10" blast template into the platoon hoards. But I digress.

Wraith-walls do ok against IG due to being T6-8. Shadow weavers and night spinners are a big up yours to them too. Getting a nightwing or 2 into the list helps versus vendettas. Again; Imperial Armour 11 has a lot of the extra toys and GTFO units that pull our 4th ed codex into the competitive realm. My shadow spectres are great at taking out IG blobs... and my warp hunter is a general jack-of-all trades pie plate of wounds on 2's glances on 3's pens on 5's.

Anyway back to the original dex... S6 spam is one of the safer things. Shuri cannons are the right AP to mince most guard and as for their tanks - dragons will melt anything, and (not a normal advocate of this) a dual fire prism combo would be a good versatile answer; just drop some serpents into the list with 10 avengers in them with blade storm to take the heat of the prisms and a jet council and you're good to go.

I played against IG for the first time this weekend just passed, and completely wiped the floor with him.

My biggest tip is to deploy 2nd, and limit what can shoot at you, deploy on one half of the board if you need to. Use terrain, and Spiders/Hawks to hit those heavy weapons squads, they mince them up.

And don't make the mistake I did. NEVER ASSAULT INTO FLAMERS AS ELDAR

LOL Belly... there are circumstances where you can assault into flamers. Most of these revolve around fortuned shadowfield allies taking the hits by being the first person.

All I know is that after 4 games, my storm guardians have inflicted a total of 1 wound in combat, when the surviving member stuck down a Vet in that IG game.

Swooping Hawks are made for killing Guardsmen and Tanks. That grenade they drop on arrival eats them up.

There's your problem... flamers vs guardians is not a fair fight. Charging your guardians in is fine, into walls of death; not so fine.

So it sounds like, for IG, fill up fast attack with 2 slots hawks, 1 slot spiders, get an autaurch for +1 reserve rolls. I do have a question though concerning hawks:

As I read the codex, I understand it to mean that each member of the hawks squad comes with a haywire grenade. Does this mean they can all throw them (5 man squad = 5 grenades thrown)? I see this being plausible as when the codex was written there were no hull points so it would make sense you wanted a decent chance at pen-ing a vehicle, and it would justify their point cost somewhat given their weapons are not especially amazing against anything but cannon fodder. I'd rather not cheat though, so if I have been, let me know.

I think you can only throw a single grenade with each squad... Though I'm not 100% sure

Thrown (shooting phase) you can throw 1 grenade per squad. In the assault phase if you charge the vehicle/walker you can ditch your normal CC attacks for 1 attack per model with the grenades. So if you want to decimate a land raider with 6 hawks you need to throw 1 grenade and then assault the badboy to get (with a 5 man squad) 5 haywire CC attacks total.

OH! Oh ok that makes a ton more sense! That totally explains why they have the option for the exarch to take a power weapon, they have to get into assault range lol. Since both hawks and spiders count as jump infantry, do they also get hammer of wrath attacks as per normal rules for said attacks?

At base strength yes. But that means S3... which can't hurt AV10. Hawks are best used like Dark Eldar Wytches when it comes to CC - get into CC with a vehicle and watch it go boom.

Otherwise, yo-yo them on and off the table using skyleap; dropping the swooping hawk grenade pack every turn.

Against IG, I would go all jetseer councils and GJB's, course I would probably do that against every army.