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So this is a 1500pt list that is designed not to get hammered on comp and work effectively as an army.

Farseer: Doom, fortune, runes of warding + spirit stones

Avatar

10 Dire Avengers: Exarch, defend, shimmer shield + power weapon

10 Dire Avengers: Exarch, defend, shimmer shield + power weapon

10 Guardians: Warlock w/ Conceal. EML platform

x2 Fire Prisms (naked)

8 Harlequins w/ Shadow seer and kisses

Wraithlord w/ BL and EML

There are about 150pts left.

With the remaining points I am considering either a 6 man unit of bikes (no lock), a Wave Serpent with EML and Shuri-cannon, another squad of defender guardians or a min squad of Warpspiders. I am open to other suggestions however.

The army will move as a whole and it requires all units to remain close together in order to be fully effective. Now it is a list built with composition points in mind. I cannot take a bike-council or tank spam mech army. Therefore please don't criticize in that mindset!

Guardians screen, DA's tarpit, Avatar and Harlies counter attack. I know you have seen this format before and will be familiar with how it advances together within the fearless bubble. The requirement that it stays together does seem dis-advantageous and requires careful objective planting, but it also means I will not get slammed on the 25% comp allocation.

So what do you think and how would you alter it. I know somone will suggest a maxed wraithguard squad and I have considered swapping out the DA's for them. I just think that that would seriously harm my anti horde capability and reduce my model count as well as scoring units. With that in mind could you provide some further argument as to why I should include them?

Swap out guardians for another basic DA squad. Those guardians aren't going to do much with that BS3 EML, nor with those 12" bolters... I mean... whatever they are. Better horde control, and you'll just have to depend on linked Fire Prisms and your Wraithlord vs vehicles.

A fusion pistol in the harlies or a singing spear on your seer would be nice if you could fit the points in, just the help with anti-armour.

Remember that DAs lose all of their effectiveness if tied in combat, and Defend only barely makes them survivable. They can easily make their points back with their firepower, but survivability is their liability.

Dont forget to use blade storm + guide on your DAs.

Looks quite good as a hammer & anvil army. Keep it.

A couple of things. Fist off, your dire avengers are in for a rough ride. Without blade storm, they don't hit all that hard and they are very poor in hand to hand. Giving the exarch all the hand to hand upgrades only keeps them alive in hand to hand longer, it doesn't make them any better at killing the enemy. Doing actual damage is going to be the job of your quins and the avatar. If you really want to complement this force, I think the best thing to do would be to beef up its ability to hit hard and counter charge. You can do this in a couple of ways. I would strongly recommend giving the dire avengers blade storm. This will up their offensive capabilities by 50%. In addition you'll want to pack in some extra hand to hand potential. You could do this in the form of more quins (either beefing up the squad to 10 or splitting it into 2 squads of 5 or 6 or whatever you have the points to work out). The other option would be to include a squad of striking scorpions. They have good hand to hand abilities and they have armor that's tough enough to survive a couple rounds of shooting if the enemy decides they need to kill them.

Ok well the guardians are there to give the army a 4+ save. Thats why they have conceal to get a 5+ save. They are a meat shield, expendable, fearless (at least while the avatar is around) and protect the rest of my army in the shooting phase.

The DA's with defend and the shimmer shield are there to absorb charges and hold until the avatar and harlies can counter. Now I wonder whether the DA's could do the same thing without the defend and shimmer shield. Against horde armies the defend power can deflect quite a few attacks. Perhaps the shimmer shield is slightly less effective. I do want to test it though and then test the standard bladestorm/dual catapults.

In NZ it is starting to look like 1750pts might become slightly more common. In 1750pts I think I will put the remaining 130pts from 1500pt army into the serpent with EML and shuri-cannons. Then put a 10 man storm squad (x2 flamers) and a flamer warlock into it. Then with the remaining points ill add a 6 man jetbike squad with 2 cannons.

Now in that 1750pts with a whole load more squads I will definitely just take blade storming DA's.

Just to examine tarpit DA's: against 15 orks (im assuming I can kill 10-15 with catapult fire before taking the charge). Now im not completely sure but I believe DA's will strike first, furious charge will still only make orks I3 right? So 9 from normals, 4.5 hits, 1.5 wounds. Then the exarch, say taking that total up to 2 dead orks. Then the orks strike: they get 39 attacks, that goes down to 26 due to defend. 13 hits. 7.4 wounds. 3.7 dead DA's. Then the nob: 4 attacks, 2 hits, 2 wounds. 1.33 dead DA's? So 5 dead DA's. So I lose by 3. So 1.5 more dead DA's. So ill hold but have very few left, perhaps 3. With fortune the story might be different..

So ill test this tarpit configuration out, but It probably won't last to long. Oh and I know the stat's above were a bit dodgy, it was done quickly but i think it does give an idea of how it would go.

Just for interest I might see what will happen shooting those orks with bladestorming DA's. Now ill assume they don't get 4+ cover, but do have a Kustom force field for a 5+ save. If i can't lure them out of cover before they charge me I must be pretty useless. Ok so 30 shots, 20 hits. Ill also assume doom because my seer has it. So 15 wounds. 10 Dead. hmm...

garinator wrote:Ok well the guardians are there to give the army a 4+ save. Thats why they have conceal to get a 5+ save. They are a meat shield, expendable, fearless (at least while the avatar is around) and protect the rest of my army in the shooting phase.

What is the EML for then, if they're supposed to be screening? IMO Eldar don't make big enough armies to waste models like that, though I've personally never tried it.

garinator wrote:
The DA's with defend and the shimmer shield are there to absorb charges and hold until the avatar and harlies can counter. Now I wonder whether the DA's could do the same thing without the defend and shimmer shield. Against horde armies the defend power can deflect quite a few attacks. Perhaps the shimmer shield is slightly less effective. I do want to test it though and then test the standard bladestorm/dual catapults.

dualcats are well worth another model's worth of shooting. Bladestorm is great for Waveserpent tactics, but not as necessary on foot. You could save the points - try it on.

garinator wrote:
In NZ it is starting to look like 1750pts might become slightly more common. In 1750pts I think I will put the remaining 130pts from 1500pt army into the serpent with EML and shuri-cannons. Then put a 10 man storm squad (x2 flamers) and a flamer warlock into it. Then with the remaining points ill add a 6 man jetbike squad with 2 cannons.

I've had terrible experiences with Storm Guardian template squads, except as one-shots in transports - like regular guardian, the 5+ save / T3 makes them bolter-bait. They're of good use against greenskins though. Good luck with those jetbikes.

garinator wrote:
Now in that 1750pts with a whole load more squads I will definitely just take blade storming DA's.

Just to examine tarpit DA's: against 15 orks (im assuming I can kill 10-15 with catapult fire before taking the charge). Now im not completely sure but I believe DA's will strike first, furious charge will still only make orks I3 right? So 9 from normals, 4.5 hits, 1.5 wounds. Then the exarch, say taking that total up to 2 dead orks. Then the orks strike: they get 39 attacks, that goes down to 26 due to defend. 13 hits. 7.4 wounds. 3.7 dead DA's. Then the nob: 4 attacks, 2 hits, 2 wounds. 1.33 dead DA's? So 5 dead DA's. So I lose by 3. So 1.5 more dead DA's. So ill hold but have very few left, perhaps 3. With fortune the story might be different..

As you've demonstrated, most likely you'll lose that combat, have to take a morale test at something like -3 to leadership, and probably break. Also note that your mathhammer missed the orks will be S4 on a Furious Charge, making it 8.66 wounds from 13 hits.

garinator wrote:
So ill test this tarpit configuration out, but It probably won't last to long. Oh and I know the stat's above were a bit dodgy, it was done quickly but i think it does give an idea of how it would go.

Sure won't last long against orks. If they're your expected opponent, don't expect to last too long in combat. You're better off retreating and shooting, which you can do quite well with 18" Assault 2.

garinator wrote:
Just for interest I might see what will happen shooting those orks with bladestorming DA's. Now ill assume they don't get 4+ cover, but do have a Kustom force field for a 5+ save. If i can't lure them out of cover before they charge me I must be pretty useless. Ok so 30 shots, 20 hits. Ill also assume doom because my seer has it. So 15 wounds. 10 Dead. hmm...

See why shooting is the sockss?

garinator wrote: ....or a min squad of Warpspiders.

My experience is that small squads of Spiders break too easily. I love them but recommend taking them in numbers.

Cheers

The EML is there because its only another 20pts and it gives me some additional anti-infantry capability that against larger squads, is rather accurate. It seems silly to buy a squad like that, for a very legitimate purpose (to screen my other infantry squads) and not to give it that additional capability. As to not wasting models I think this list will really suffer unless it has a screening squad. If the enemy decides to waste shooting a fearless unit and not the more valuable squads like my DA's, all power to them.

On bladestorm on non-serpent DA's: It might be good to remember that being able to shoot 30+ shots one turn and then run the next turn will be valuable if you are trying to shoot and retreat. Especially if you have two squads that can do this. Are you suggesting this because mounted DA's have to hit hard because they only will hit once, while foot based do not need it as they will have the chance to strike multiple times? Is this how it will pan out against armies that can run? Im not so sure. If they are moving on average 9" as opposed to your 6 can you really say that you will be able to shoot multiple times? Im not sure about this, id have to put more thought into it.

Are you a bit of a guardian hater? You don't like defenders, you don't like jetbikes (I think) you dont like stormies? With such a hammer and anvil army it will be useful I think to have faster units that jump around the anvil, I think warpsiders could sub in for bikes but I have the bikes painted (and they score). Being able to continually fire with jump in jump back and seems useful. As to the stormies they are there for anti-horde which this list lacks somewhat. They will annihilate small bugs, orks and guard. In a serpent theyre not bolter bait.

Again im going to try tarpit DA's, the swap back is easy enough.

garinator wrote:The EML is there because its only another 20pts and it gives me some additional anti-infantry capability that against larger squads, is rather accurate. It seems silly to buy a squad like that, for a very legitimate purpose (to screen my other infantry squads) and not to give it that additional capability. As to not wasting models I think this list will really suffer unless it has a screening squad. If the enemy decides to waste shooting a fearless unit and not the more valuable squads like my DA's, all power to them.

Fair enough, it's your strategy, so try and make it work for you.

garinator wrote:
On bladestorm on non-serpent DA's: It might be good to remember that being able to shoot 30+ shots one turn and then run the next turn will be valuable if you are trying to shoot and retreat. Especially if you have two squads that can do this. Are you suggesting this because mounted DA's have to hit hard because they only will hit once, while foot based do not need it as they will have the chance to strike multiple times? Is this how it will pan out against armies that can run? Im not so sure. If they are moving on average 9" as opposed to your 6 can you really say that you will be able to shoot multiple times? Im not sure about this, id have to put more thought into it.

The serpent trick makes retreating a non-issue, as first turn you jet forward, unload, Bladestorm, and then re-embark and fly away during the round you can't fire. Every other turn, disembark and repeat. The transport protects them from shopting in general. I know that's not the list you're playing, but that's how it works. Remember that Farseers can still use most of their powers from inside transports as well.
You end up getting more shots off if you shoot normally every round, since you can move the 6" anyway. Assault troops are always going to give you problems I guess, but that's what doom/guide is for.

Are you a bit of a guardian hater? You don't like defenders, you don't like jetbikes (I think) you dont like stormies? With such a hammer and anvil army it will be useful I think to have faster units that jump around the anvil, I think warpsiders could sub in for bikes but I have the bikes painted (and they score). Being able to continually fire with jump in jump back and seems useful. As to the stormies they are there for anti-horde which this list lacks somewhat. They will annihilate small bugs, orks and guard. In a serpent theyre not bolter bait.

Again im going to try tarpit DA's, the swap back is easy enough.

Hater? That's a strange thing to say. I did feel that the jetbikes were a little misplaced in this list, but the Storm Guardians aren't. They are terribly fragile, though, as I said, and I've never had a great deal of luck with them. They're simply not as good all-round, and serpents seem to be the only viable way to deliver them. My serpents usually provide my Shuriken cannon fire for me too - twin-linked makes a helluva difference on BS3.

I have stated before that I have little confidence in Eldar assault-based armies, because too much is hinged on the Avatar unless you've got a nice fat block of fortuned Warlocks. You will do better against armies that have to come for you, though, because you'll almost certainly lose a strong shooting match. You could use a Wraithlord - they're good shots, they're awesome tarpits and it's something else to draw fire. Having multiple MCs makes it difficult for many players to prioritise when they don't have a strong shooting game.