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Ok guys I am new to eldar and was wandering if I could get some help making a 750 point list. I have a list made and own all the models except for (1) walker. Here goes:


HQ: Farseer = 123pts
--Doom, Guide, Spirit Stones, Singing Spear

Troops: [10] Guardians = 100pts
--EML Support Weapon

............[8] Dire Avengers = 128pts
--2x Shuriken Catapaults, Blade Storm

............[8] Dire Avengers = 128pts
--2x Shuriken Catapaults, Blade Storm

Transport: Wave Serpent = 130pts
--Twin Linked EML and Shuriken Cannon

Heavy Support: [2] War Walkers = 130pts
--Scatter Lasers x2, EML x2


Total: 739pts


I built this list with 5th edition's "troops only scoring units" rule in mind.

I am thinking of dropping guide or doom and and spirit stones off the Farseer to afford my guardians a warlock with conceal. I am not taking bright lances because at 750 points, who is taking a land raider or the like? Let me know what you think. Thanks!

I'm no expert on eldar, but what do you intend to do about tanks?

Mercurial wrote:I'm no expert on eldar, but what do you intend to do about tanks?

He's got a singing spear and 2 missile launchers in a 750 point army...that should cover him for tank busting. You can't exactly fit a lot of land raiders into 750 points and most reasonable armies will have 0-1 tank at this point level.

So, that aside, the list looks like a very good start. You have a good number of troops in decent configurations and a decent amount of support for them.

Now, to the fine details.
You have 1 wave serpent and 3 squads that could possibly go in it, which one are you going to put in there? I would recommend that you shift around some of your dire avengers so that you end up with one squad of 10 and one squad of 6. Put the 10 man squad in the serpent and give the exarch blade storm and twin catapults (unless you are married to the power weapon). This will give you a mobile unit that can pack a decent punch. 6 man squad can then be outfitted for hand to hand and used to screen off close range threats from the rest of your army. Just remember that nothing in your army is suited for hand to hand, so you'll want to avoid it whenever possible. To this end, when you move up your serpent full of avengers, makes sure to have them fire first in a round. If they don't finish off their target, you can always have the walkers or the guardians fire over there too in order to finish the enemy off.

You will need to decide what you want to do with your farseer as well. You could put him in the wave serpent with the dire avengers. This would allow him to doom their target as well a guide them. If you plan on dropping one of his powers to get a warlock, lose guide since it gives you less benefit than doom will against most targets (you want to re-roll the harder roll and with hitting on 3+ and wounding on 4+, the to wound roll is harder)...that and doom can benefit more than one of your units where as guide can only help one. On the other hand, if you plan on having the farseer be a back field unit (sitting with the war walkers) then stick with guide.

If you decide to get a warlock for your guardians, I would recommend you take embolden rather than conceal. Getting cover saves in this edition is fairly easy however you can lose your whole squad to a bad moral roll. In addition, conceal only gives you a 5+ save where as real cover is most likely going to give you a 4+. Also, if you do get embolden, you can put your farseer in the guardian squad and have him doom from there. Embolden will allow you to reroll any psy tests you fail and having the farseer with the guardians makes them leadership 10.

First off, I would like to thank you for taking your time and help me out because everyone just reads topics and moves on without saying a word and its frustrating.

I just cant see the extra two attacks per turn being a greater advantage than have a power weapon and shimmer shield. Plus i figured I would try and assault the same turn I used bladestorm, that could be pretty hard to sit at the enemy lines and weather a round of shooting. I chose two squads of eight because I didnt want the squad who didnt get a ride to be complete bolter bait and just get wiped out before I could do anything. However it does seem more benificial to blade storm with a full squad.

However if I were to give him the dual shuriken catapults than I could free up enough points for Conceal and Embolden on my warlock. I thought Embolden was Leadership only, so how would that help my farseer?

I plan on keeping Doom and getting a Warlock.

At 750, twin catapults and bladestorm should do sufficient damage to most things (esp. with Guide/Doom). I've never seen much point in gearing Avengers for assault. Most times they'll lose anyways without backup, and you don't have any counter-assaulting units. With their range, have them stick to shooting - they're good at it.

FYI, a Warlock can only take one psychic power.

Good catch!

Well if you want to look at how effective some things are, lets do some math-hammer.
I'll work out the results of average rolls here and you can compare them.

9 dire avengers shooting at marines => 2 kills
9 dire avengers with blade storm shooting at marines => 3 kills
1 exarch pistol shot at mareins => .14 kills
2 exarch catapult shots at marines => .28 kills
4 exarch catapult shots at marines => .56 kills
5 exarch catapult shots at marines => .69 kills

So in the shooting phase, a 9 man squad with a hand to hand based exarch will kill about 2.14 marines where as a blade storm setup with a shooty exarch will kill about 3.69 on average.

Now lets look at hand to hand ability. All the way round, dire avengers are just bad at hand to hand. They only have 1 attack each, don't have 2 weapons, are S3 and T3. Their armor is also only 4+ so that's only going to save them half the time.

9 dire avengers charge marines => 1 kill
9 dire avengers fight marines (no charge bonus) => .5 kills
1 close combat exarch charges marines => .9 kills
1 close combat exarch fights marines (no charge bonus) => .67 kills
1 shooting exarch charges marines => .22 kills
1 shooting exarch fights marines (no charge bonus) => .15 kills

So all the way round, you are going to do more damage in the shooting phase than you will in hand to hand regardless of how you equip the squad. In addition, don't forget that of the hand to hand upgrades, the only one that makes you do more damage is the power sword. Everything else just makes you die slower. Lets also not ignore the fact that the shimmer shield only helps you against power weapons and other things that ignore your armor save. So all in all, you are probably better off with shooty dire avengers than hand to hand ones.

As far as embolden helping with pys powers, ebmolden allows you to reroll any failed leadership tests. Casting a psy power is a leadership test, so embolden will allow you to reroll it if your farseer is in the same squad as the warlock.

I see your point(s).

I will kit them out this way now. I would rather charge a marine tac squad after I shoot the gak out of it than stand around to get rapid fired though; that was the reason for the pw/ss.

I feel like if my Farseer is with my gaurdians then I wont get the most out of him.

Going towards a 1000pt list what should i add? Fire prism and Wraithlord or go for elite fighting infantry?

camcam_HALO wrote:I feel like if my Farseer is with my gaurdians then I wont get the most out of him.

While it's possible that you are correct there, it's also possible that you're wrong. What do you want your farseer to do? That's really the question. Just because you put him in with a squad doesn’t' mean you have to use his powers on that squad (although the short range of fortune and guide make it difficult to affect other units if there are not very close). So let’s look at your options...

Your farseer has 2 main psy powers, doom and guide. Doom is most useful on enemy units that are going to be taking a lot of small arms fire (like from your dire avengers). Doom also has a 24" range and doesn't require line of sight, so you can use it from a safe distance and stay out of sight if you want. Guide lets you reroll missed shooting for a round. It only has a 6" range so you're going to need to have your farseer close to the target (or in the same squad) for this one to work well. The two primary targets you have for this power in your army are the war walkers and the dire avengers (with guardians coming in at a distant third). So lets do some math hammer here and find out how much guide really helps. Running the numbers, a 10 man dire avenger squad with a shooty exarch kills ~3.5 marines a turn and this goes up by another 1.2 with the application of guide. The war walkers kill ~2.2 marines a turn and this is increased by 1.1 with the guide, so you can see that the gains here are about equal for both units in terms of raw damage increase. On the more practical side, the war walkers will probably be in position to fire on the enemy from turn 1 on where as the dire avengers will have a much smaller window in which to shoot (probably not till turn 2 and then they will bladestorm and not be able to fire the next turn). So in the end, I believe that you will find guide to be more useful over all on your war walkers than on your dire avengers. Of course you can do some tricky stuff with the eldar and their powers. For instance, on turn one, you have to cast guide before you move. So you deploy your wave serpent full of avengers with the farseer inside and you put them next to your war walkers. You can then cast guide out of the serpent onto the walkers and zoom forward in the movement phase. On the next turn you can cast guide on the avengers, move the serpent, disembark the avengers (but leave the farseer inside) and have them shoot. On the third turn, you probably won't have a target for guide, but if you do, so much the better. In the movement phase, you can then zoom the serpent back to near the walkers and guide them from inside the serpent (or you can get out on turn 4 if you need the serpent elsewhere).

If that sounds like a bit much for you, you can simply put the farseer in with your guardians. Then have the guardians stand between the war walkers (about 5-6 inches forward) and the enemy. Then have the farseer guide the walkers and doom whatever the avengers are going after. You may need to move the formation around a bit every once in a while, but everything in your army has move and fire weapons, so you don't have to worry too much about it.

In general, the farseer is my favorite unit in all of 40k due to all the different ways you can use one. A lot of them are rather tricky but figuring out how to best make use of one is extreamly fun.

Going towards a 1000pt list what should i add? Fire prism and Wraithlord or go for elite fighting infantry?

Going forward, I would suggest that you fill out the units you have before moving onto other ones. Get both dire avenger squads up to 10 men and get them both in serpents. Then I would get another war walker to fill out that squad. After that, it’s kind of up to you what you want to do (and after playing this list for a while you will get a feel for what you need). Some hand to hand power would probably be useful. You could do this with some quins or some scorpions. Banshees are not really all that great if you don’t mount them and it doesn’t look like you’ll be able to at 1000 points. Adding warlocks onto your farseer is also a decent way to get some tough hand to hand power but it’s also expensive points wise so you may want to skip that one too. Adding on a fire prism or a dreadnaught would work well to help give you some more anti tank power (which you are currently lacking).

Sounds like a pretty good idea being sneaky with guide. I think im going to kit my WarWalkers with EML x4 and drop the pw/ss combos for two shuriken cannons on my exarchs who will both use blade storm. I still cannot decide for sure on whether dropping guide or doom and spirit stones off the farseer would be worth the warlock. The farseer will be in a wave serpent for sure. I want to maximize the Eldar missle launchers because it better suits the all comers theme and can still rack up kills like scatter lasers but for only 5 more points. Im worried my list wont hold up to a space marine list or MEQ lists.

Look at some possibly synergy here.. A 3 walker team with dual shuriken cannons will give you an extra vehicle, 2 more str 6 @ ap5 (good against hordey 5+ save troops unlike the ap6 of the scatter laser) but you loose 12" of range. All for the same points.

Dooms range is 24", the same as the shuriken cannons you could equip onto your warwalkers & your dire avengers could step into this 24" range with a 6" move & a 18" assault 2 shot.. Having the extra range is nice but getting that extra vehicle and a few more shots combined with the farseers support (Guide on the walkers.. methinks.. will have greater effect) is better IMO

Like pheonix said, try & fill out your squads (inc the war-walkers if you decided just to keep two @ 750)

I dont think it was mentioned before but that shuriken cannon can only be fired when the tank is travelling @ 12" (Crusing speed) if you fire your EML on its Plasma missile setting (the str4 ap 4) as it then counts as a defensive weapon. For the amount of tanks you will probably be facing, its not a bad loadout/firing pattern thinking about it. If you want to move 12" & fire the str8 krak missile though, you wont be able to use the shuriken cannon.

Another suggestion for when you expand to 1000pt & beyond - fortune. This could be used on your walker squadren to allow it to re-roll its cover save. This could make for a very hardy firebase, combined with a defender guardain squad to sit with the farseer. Espacially with the long ranged versitile EML load out.

Before any of the above is taken into account, OP : Good.

Like usual Pheonix is giving you sound advice, try out what he suggests and see if it works for you,


That being said here is what I would do:

HQ: Farseer (In WS) = 80pt
--Doom

Elites: [6] Fire Dragons (in WS) =


Troops: [10] Guardians = 90pts
--Scatter Laser Support Weapon

............[8] Dire Avengers (on foot)=
-- Blade Storm
-- 2X shurcat
............[8] Dire Avengers (on foot)=
-- Blade Storm
-- 2X shurcat
Transport: Wave Serpent =
--Twin Linked Shuriken cannon and Shuriken cat.
-- Spirit stones

Heavy Support: [2] War Walkers = 120pts
--Scatter Lasers x4

I don't have my dex on me right now but I believe that you will have a couple points to spare.

Basic Idea is that the Farseer never leaves the WS and dooms things for the DAs to shoot, the fire dragons first kill any tanks and then go about MEQ killing. Guardians and Walkers take out light vehicles and transports first then focus on tough units like plague marines.

I bought the other War Walker today. so my list is complete but it needs tweaking. I really appreciate everyones help.

I am afraid that if I dont give my walkers at least a 36'' range that they will quickly be taken out. I want them in the back laying down fire/ taking out light-armor. Due to the lack of bits i possess, I am equiping each walker with an EML and scatter laser(seems like a fairly effective mix). I want to tryout phoenix's method of guiding and then rushing forward with my DA squad in the wave serpent.

I feel like if I dont give fire dragons a transport, they will be useless unless fielded in large squads. I was considering getting some Strinking scorpions for counter-charging since I completely lack in the CC department.

If I foot slog my DA squad, will they be wiped quickly? I have been spoiled by space marine armor saves =). And are dark reapers worth the points? and would you guys suggest a fire prism or falcon(ANTI-MEQ)? Avatar seems like a good buy at 1500 points as would Eldrad. I am Ulthwe' BTW

I have revised the list so far and have eleven points to spare. Runes of Witnessing would ensure that my Farseer casts effectively so that is one way to spend those points. Another would be to upgrade to star-cannons, but that seems less effective than the EML. Or spirit stones on either both walkers or my wave serpent.

Stones on the serpent definetly.

Somthing I forgot to mention.. if you ever do face a landraider (its a tad expensive/risky) you can ram your wave serpent into it to get a full str10 hit.. again, also useful on monliths. You'd have to travel atleast 21"... 3"x7 ... to get that str 10 hit (which in addition to +2str for the front AV of 12 & +1str for it being a tank)

I still think three walkers would serve you better, simply by have the extra vehicle. Costs more real life points though.. £!

hahaha yea it would. 40k ins't the cheapest hobby.

im hoping that i never see a landraider at 750 points though it could happen.

The fear of being glaced to death by bolters keeps me from kitting out the walkers with shuriken cannons. plus going to upwards in point later on, the EML and scatter laser combo will still be effective for the points.

I cant understand why anyone would take an autarch. Am I not seeing something?

Counter argument for DA exarch with SS/PW:

While two that way are a waste, if you do go 10 man with SS/PW Bladstorm/Defend...

Not much benefit to a tactical squad but consider something like assault marines.

You bladestorm and charge after dooming AM and fortuning your squad:

27 shots/18 hits/13.5 wounds - 4.5 kills
charge
18 reg/9 hits/4.5 wounds -1.5 kill
3 PW/2 hits/1.11kills

7 average kills with 2.61 in HTH

So 3 assaulters left assuming a sgt with a PF - defend reduces their attacks to 1 each
2 reg/1 hit/.67 wounds - .167 kills
1 PF/.5 hit/ .42 wounds - .23 kills

Not only did you shoot the heck out of them you won the combat.

Do the same with TL Cats and only bladestorm:

32 shots/21.33 hits/ 16 wounds/ 5.33 kills

20 reg/10 hit/5.55 wounds/ 1.85 kills

So what you kill improves a bit but on average leaves the same 3 assault marines.

4 reg/2 hit/ 1.33 wounds - .34 kills
2 PF/ 1 hit/ .83 wounds - .83 kills

Hmm your 10-man unit is now almost letting 3 marines beat them in HTH.

Now to your other question... lets say we have an autarch leading them.
Mandiblaster, PW, Pistol, Fusion Blaster

add 1 8 Str shot that almost autohits and then almost autowounds.
hits .86/.83 kills
Then in HTH he adds 5 more PW attacks
5 att/ 3.33 hits/ 1.85 kills

Hmmm now you almost average killing the 10-man assault marine and really boosted your CC ability with Dire Avengers. Suddenly you can have a HTH unit without having a single elite on the board! Hard to do with eldar. Also at 750, you CAN pop a tank

Autarchs can definitely be worthwhile especially at low point totals.

So an idea at 750

Farseer: Doom, Fortune, Stones, Spear
Autarch: Mandiblaster, Pistol, PW, Fusion Gun

HQ 213

10 DA: PW/SS Defend & Bladestorm
10 DA: No Exarch

Troop 297

2 WS w TL EML 240

Small, mobile and with the autarch you could even reserve it all and use the +1 to reserve rolls to guarantee a jump on your opponent
and a reasonable expectation of getting both to show on turn2 or 3

Lots to say here...

camcam_HALO wrote:I am afraid that if I don’t give my walkers at least a 36'' range that they will quickly be taken out.

I agree completely. Range is the war walker's best protection. There are not that many weapons that can shoot 36". If you cut that range down to 24" there are a lot more guns that can be pointed your way and you cannot survive a lot of fire being poured into your war walkers. I favor scatter lasers over missile launchers simply because they are less expensive but both are very viable weapon choices. The extra bonus with the missile launchers (and in my opinion is much more valuable than the anti tank potential) is the extra 12" of range.

I feel like if I don’t give fire dragons a transport, they will be useless unless fielded in large squads.

Even in large squads, dragons are useless (or almost so) without a transport. No one is going to allow a squad full of T3 guys with 4+ saves to walk up to their tanks. It just won't happen.

I was considering getting some Striking scorpions for counter-charging since I completely lack in the CC department.

A fine option. Harlequins would work as well. It just depends on how you want to setup and run your counter charge unit.

If I foot slog my DA squad, will they be wiped quickly?

Keep them in cover and they will do fairly well, but if your opponent really wants them dead, 4+ saves (cover or not) are not going to keep them alive for ever.

And are dark reapers worth the points?

I love dark reapers. They pack a tremendous amount of fire power. They are a bit pricy but the exarch alone (with crack shot and a tempest launcher) can wipe out whole MEQ squads on a good day. It's kind of funny to watch. The presence of the ap3 reapers makes MEQ armies stick to difficult terrain test inducing cover to "keep safe" and then the exarch just goes and ignores those cover saves.

and would you guys suggest a fire prism or falcon(ANTI-MEQ)?

Depends more on how much money you have than on other considerations. Both are good anti tank units (or can be at least) but it depends on what you are going up against. 2 fire prisms cost the same amount of points as the falcon (roughly) and would be a better choice all around over a single falcon. However, this would completely fill your heavy support slots. So if you want to cram in more heavy support units (like reapers) then I would suggest going for the falcon rather than the prism. If you are ok with skipping the reapers, then the 2 prisms are what you want.

Avatar seems like a good buy at 1500 points as would Eldrad.

The avatar is good if you are going to be heading for a foot based army. If you are gravitating towards an antigravity army (hehe) then the avatar isn't going to be much more than a big lone target without much to support. Eldrad is a different story. I dislike fielding him due to the fact that he's a special character and I'm loath to field any of them. That aside, he's a great buy for his point cost vs his power, so much so that many players consider him a requirement in any army they make.

Oh yah, almost forgot...

Counter argument for DA exarch with SS/PW:
While two that way are a waste, if you do go 10 man with SS/PW Bladstorm/Defend...
Not much benefit to a tactical squad but consider something like assault marines.
You bladestorm and charge after dooming AM and fortuning your squad:

27 shots/18 hits/13.5 wounds - 4.5 kills
charge
18 reg/9 hits/4.5 wounds -1.5 kill
3 PW/2 hits/1.11kills

7 average kills with 2.61 in HTH

So 3 assaulters left assuming a sgt with a PF - defend reduces their attacks to 1 each
2 reg/1 hit/.67 wounds - .167 kills
1 PF/.5 hit/ .42 wounds - .23 kills

Not only did you shoot the heck out of them you won the combat.
Do the same with TL Cats and only bladestorm:

32 shots/21.33 hits/ 16 wounds/ 5.33 kills
20 reg/10 hit/5.55 wounds/ 1.85 kills

So what you kill improves a bit but on average leaves the same 3 assault marines.

4 reg/2 hit/ 1.33 wounds - .34 kills
2 PF/ 1 hit/ .83 wounds - .83 kills

Hmm your 10-man unit is now almost letting 3 marines beat them in HTH.

A few problems with this. The first is how do you ever plan on setting this situation up? Dire avengers move 6, can run 1d6 and can assault if they run. So you can move 6, run, and assault...or you can move 6, shoot and assault. If you are moving 6, shooting and assaulting, then you started the turn within 12" of the assault marines. Unless the marine player is just really bad, that isn't going to happen. If you were anywhere near them, they would have assaulted you last turn, that or they would have moved aroud to keep you out of that 12" zone. Now, if thery were 13-16" away and you made a good run roll, sure you make it to hand to hand, but you do so at the huge cost of the shooting casualties you mentioned. Further complicating this is the fact that you can't assault the turn you get out of a transport (assuming the transport moved before you got out) so you will have to rely on pure shooting to do damage. Baring that, you could zoom up, wait a turn, then get out (before the transport moved) but in that case, the marines will just take their 12" move to get away from you (and they can run too if they want). So in the end, this isn't really a good scenerio to look at.

The best option here is to shoot the marines with blade storm avengers and then simply finish the remaining marines off with the shooting from another unit (perhaps the war walkers).

i know my advice is probably going to be horrible haha but its worth a try

did you by any chance happen to have any extra models? maybe guardians? like you said, 40k isnt the cheapest hobby but i thought id just have a crack at a list to see if it helps

farseer with doom + guide + witchblade

guardians x 10 with Shuriken cannon

guardians x 10 with shuriken cannon

dire avengers x 10
bladestorm + 2 catapults
wave serpent transport
- twin linked EML

war walkers x3
3 EML, 3 SL

and you finish up around 750 (i think?)

now it kills me to change your list (swap out the dire avengers for guardians to get an extra war walker) and also understand that not everyone has a huge selection of models to choose from, but id thought id offer my two cents. Going through the changes, dropped the 8 dire avengers (it kills me, i love avengers!) for another guardian squad, so you dont have the half strength squad soaking all the bullets. This allowed another war walker with scatter laser and eml though the eml in your guardian squads swapped out for shuriken cannons. You still have the same amount of eml's (4) though i personally thought that being guardians with low BS, the more shots could help out seeing as they will be rallying objective markers and so on (wave serpent is twin-linked so higher chance of hitting). I know shuriken cannons are only 24 inch range, but i figured if enemy troops are hunting you down shooting, they are within 24 inches. The farseer is the same layout minus the spirit stones (not as flexible) though if your not convinced, drop guide or doom for say, SL in your guardian squads or something for the extra punch. The extra war walker provides another EML at a distance.

Not everyone will agree with the changes, and no intentions that you should change anything in your list as it is quite good, and also may not have models available but i hope these changes gave you other ideas, possibly in future battles. Its all about player preference though, EML are a good choice for troops (blast hit automatically) though when your limited for points, even slight changes can help your list in other places and with the increase of cover in the game (though this should definitely 'not' be assumed a model will have cover) i find that the extra shots could help rather than the better AP. I also like the ol' 6 SC war walkers guided but again, player preference (and availability of models)

Hopefully i helped out in any way, and if not, oh well...i thought id give it a crack anyway...i was bored. That being said, i really couldnt see any simple changes hence the need for a dramatic change.

happy gaming

I appreciate the help but i AM very limited in Eldar models. Space marines however...