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I'm fielding a 1000pt Eldar force for the second local mini-tournament, which I think had twenty-three participants last time...

I fielded Eldar last time too. The list I used follows:

Farseer 120
Doom, Guide, Spirit Stones

5 Fire Dragons 80

Falcon Grav-Tank
Brightlance, Holo-Field 180

9 Dire Avengers + Exarch 252
Blade Storm, 2 Shuriken Catapults, WAVE SERPENT w/ linked shuriken catapult
9 Dire Avengers + Exarch 252
Blade Storm, 2 Shuriken Catapults, WAVE SERPENT w/ linked shuriken catapult

Fire Prism 115
999

It worked brutally well, except against a bugzilla list with the old Winged Tyrant.

This time around it's actually going to be played on 4"x3" tables... which is just bizarre. I'm used to having the open space with my mech eldar, and the assault armies will have their work cut out.
The list I'm thinking it foot oriented... not a big a killwhore as the previous, but still with a good offensive power.

Off my head,

Farseer Stones/Doom/Guide
3x10 Dire Avengers, no bladestorm (not jump-shoot-jumping, so not too bad)
5 Fire Dragons in Falcon w/Brightlance (might downgrade brightlance to Scatter or EML?)
Fire Prism, basic
Wraithlord, basic, withstanding assaults.

Any comments? Could take off Falcon's holo-field or even drop FP altogether for more points, but please make suggestions. Would a second wraithlord even be feasible?
I'm expecting Daemons... I'm pretty boned against a good Tau gunline though. Ah well.

The problem with this list is that it's slow and frail. The bulk of your army is T3 with a 4+ save. While that's fine for fodder troops or long range units, dire avengers are neither. Your last army worked well because at 1000 points, it is difficult to pack in enough anti tank power to deal with all the skimmers you had flying around. Now, without all those skimmers, I think you'll just find yourself being picked apart.
If you are planning on sticking with the core of dire avengers on foot, you may want to put a real hand to hand unit in with them to bail them out when the enemy gets close (and with 18” range weapons, if the enemy doesn’t get close to you, you’ll get close to the enemy). While the dreadnaught you have is powerful, they don’t really do all that much damage in hand to hand since they have a very limited number of attacks. I would drop the dreadnaught and pick up a squad of striking scorpions or maybe harlequins.
As far as the falcon goes, I would drop the bright lance. The reason for this is that if you have the lance, you have to move 6” or less in order to fire all your weapons. If you are moving this slow, you’re not getting your fire dragons into position and are thus wasting your transport ability. On the other hand, if you just take a shuriken cannon, you are missing out on a good opportunity for heavy weapons. I would suggest you take a missile launcher instead. This will allow you to move 12 and fire all weapons (if you shoot the missile launcher on frag) or you can move 6 and fire 3 shots at S8.

I agree with taking the EML on the Falcon. I also see a hole in the CC aspect of the list. The core as already described is not meant to take the brunt of attacks, but rather to bait the enemy or support other units. You have a lot of good shooting but if I took outflanking genestealers or a winged tyrant or gargoyles I'm guessing you'd have your work cut out for you.

3 squads of 10 is great but who is going to support them if they get into CC? Also, what would you do with Rhino spam or trukks? The Avengers would die in droves I think against a hail of rapid fired bolters.

Having only one wraithlord also makes me nervous... I can guess who's going to take half the AT the other side has to offer. With a 3+ save and no one else to hide behind I'm not sure he'd last long. Also, is there going to be someone to help out the dead walker in terms of wraithsight? You KNOW he'd roll a 1 the second you need him to charge in and defend the avengers. Could you bring a squad of guardians to be in front with a warlock to keep the wraithlord from spazzing out, or will the farseer do that... I can't remember.

What, exactly, was wrong with the first list you played with? Problems with tyrant MC's = Guided transported dragons should be unable to step-off, unload and annhilate a hive tyrants 4 wounds - along with the heavy 2 ap2 pulse laser.

If you want a foot-slogging force, get some CC orientated dire-avengers a shimmers-shield + defend makes it a pain for any dedicated CC unit trying to attack it (add in a fortuning farseer and its down-right worrying) but ofcource you'd need a decent counter-charge unit. Yes that could be a wraithlord. Give it shuriken cannons & a scatter laser (or a scatter laser + a sword - making it half decent in assaults) so it can actually do somthing while it stands there watching the DA's shoot away.. dual flamers are a must.

Yes people will shoot lascannon rounds at it but as a MC it can walk through diff-terrain easily enough (just hope the terrains concealing enough) but every lascannon shot at the lord means one less shot against your two other tanks.

Defo downgrade brightlance to an EML. Youve got a prism & 5 dragons for strong armor, one lance weapon wont help plus as people have said, firing everything using the plasma missiles is always a good thing.

Drop the falcons holo-fields for points if need be. A nacked wraithlord (being such a nice BS4 heavy weapons platform) is such a waste. Id suggest a shimmer-shield & defend for atleast 1-2 of your DA squads.

The first list was, as a I said, a great one. The one i've just suggested isn't even a scratch on it. It lost to Bugzilla because of a stupid mistake, but I know it could have taken it down easily.

I just don't want to rock up with the exact same list again, and actually try non-mech Eldar... have some fun. It's an all ages event. The sub-standard table size will be useful against deepstrikers, and hopefully I can stay in cover. Assault armies are going to be trouble, so that's want I want to be able to deal with. There's not much out there that twenty doomguided DAs can't handle, and ten more gives me some flexibility. I'm considering Defend on one squad, but wouldn't waste my points on any shimmershields.

The Wraithlords are still a big ball of if. Dualflamers+scatter or shurican - they're mainly for holiding up opponents that can't hurt them, but wraithsight may be a problem. I don't really have any assault oriented Eldar models yet... heh heh. 1000 points isn't enough to field a big warlock squad anyway. Scorpions are viable. Harelquins also too expensive for this scale.

I agree on the EMLs... I'm still tempted to drop the Prism though. It doesn't make much AT difference. We'll see...

Could you pair up the farseer with the wraithlord and have just one or two warlocks be seers? They're both moving the same until they hit difficult but could you do that?

And do you really want to tie up a s10 wraithlord with things that can't hurt it? That seems like a waste of such a sweet model and great statline. He just seems perfect for armour and elite units... But again, how to keep him alive on the way up the field.

Scorpions seem like a better candidate for holding things up with their high number of attacks and good I and armour, but you say you don't have the models yet. I like the defend power on the DA squads like you mentioned. They're not great but like you said, could probably handle most hordes decently well. Might you pair one defend squad with one bladestorm squad for a nice 1-2 combo?

When looking at defend and/or shimmershield on your dire avengers, make sure you understand one important thing. Those powers make the squad tougher in hand to hand; they do not make them stronger. Those dire avengers are still S3 with 1 attack each (2 for the exarch). No matter what kind of powers or gear you give them, they are still stuck with IG style hand to hand abilities. So while the powers will make them last longer, all that does is postpone your inevitable loss. If you want to win in hand to hand, you need to get a unit into the fight that can actually do damage (like scorpions or quins). The lone dreadnaught is simply not enough there.

If you want a scary h2h force of foot-slogging guys I suggest an avatar & 3+ squads of minimal guadrains, two as stormies with 2flamers and one h.flamer destructor power each. The back sqaud will just end up hitting the others sp instead give it an EML/scat/shuri cannon. A fearless horde that wont go away and can unleash alot of firepower turn after turn.

In assaults support the avatar with (well, some will say a farseer with fortune but thats 85pts helping a mere 155pts. Although then its helping All of the guardains so could be a possibility) a wraithlord. Make them pick which MC to shoot at. 4+ invunerable avatar @ T6 or 3+ save lord w/ T8 - Immune to small arms.

A seer council could also provide the H2H punch.. small squad along with the avatar. You can fortune the avatar until they get into combat - as an idea.

Prisms are just too awesome being blast weapons. If you get a clear shot you could wipe out a termie chappy & 5man deep striking termie squad with ONE shot. What else in your aresenal can boast that kinda death? Anti-tank sure its alrite but dont under-estimate its anti heavy troop slaying power.

So true about the DA abilities. But I assume you have some support in mind for them so they're not on their own. I really like the idea of a seer council with avatar. If the avatar can reroll hits that makes him dangerous and with all the witch weapons that's a pretty good elite/MC killing unit. But still, what about hordes? I agree with keeping the prisms to that end... Nothing else is that good with as much versatility. It's your AT/Heavy infantry/horde killer, so I'd keep it as that seems to be your only real viable option for killing infantry.

Razerous wrote:If you want a scary h2h force of foot-slogging guys I suggest an avatar & 3+ squads of minimal guardians, two as stormies with 2flamers and one h.flamer destructor power each. The back squad will just end up hitting the others sp instead give it an EML/scat/shuri cannon. A fearless horde that won’t go away and can unleash a lot of firepower turn after turn.

Two points here. The first is that doing something like this would completely change the army the original poster was looking to work out and that's really beyond the scope of this discussion

The other is that I question the viability of such a force. The reason for this is 2 fold. One part is that the guardians (even storm guardians) are still not that good in hand to hand (they are not terrible though). This is because of being S3, T3, and having only a 5+ save. The fact that they have 2 attacks (1 base, +1 for 2 weapons) is the only thing that keeps them from completely sucking. Fortunately they are fairly cheap. The other part is the corollary of them being fodder troops, they tend to lose combat a lot and when they are fearless, that means they start taking a lot of extra wounds that their weak armor isn't going to save them from. So the formation will probably hold against non specialist units but if they end up in hand to hand with assault troops, they are going to fold.

This is where I disagree (you may be right about Mr.Ra even I dont wana hear it) about the relevance of my suggestion - The OP merely suggested he was thinking of a foot orientated army with a suggestion off the top of his head, hardly a defining requirement.

The storm-guardies arent there to assault but merely provide the best amount of fire-support with the ability to become fearless. For 127 points will dire avengers get more shots in? Perhaps & also at greater range. The idea for the S-guardies is to have the front 3 as a flamey hub with the other 8 models kept behind, with the avatar leading the way and any nessicary counter-charge. A wraithlord Is a good pair to match with this dude as (hes immune along with the avatar with those errant flamer templates and virtually immune to str 5 templates) he will draw fire, stomp good and fire back.

Keeping Dire avengers alive on foot could prove to be tricksome. I could simply be overly worried about whirlwinds. 2x10 dire avengers squads supported by a vanguard of a farseer led seer-council is always an option - but basically you need a hardy, hitty squad/unit (without a hardy speedy tank) to back up most eldar foot troops.

Lose the fireprism for an avatar... HTH tough, makes the rest of your on foot army fearless. Change guide for fortune and the avatar will be a hard kill for most 1000 pt armies. Doesn't hurt he packs another melta weapon either.

Razerous wrote:This is where I disagree (you may be right about Mr.Ra even I dont wana hear it) about the relevance of my suggestion - The OP merely suggested he was thinking of a foot orientated army with a suggestion off the top of his head, hardly a defining requirement.

The storm-guardies arent there to assault but merely provide the best amount of fire-support with the ability to become fearless. For 127 points will dire avengers get more shots in? Perhaps & also at greater range. The idea for the S-guardies is to have the front 3 as a flamey hub with the other 8 models kept behind, with the avatar leading the way and any nessicary counter-charge. A wraithlord Is a good pair to match with this dude as (hes immune along with the avatar with those errant flamer templates and virtually immune to str 5 templates) he will draw fire, stomp good and fire back.

Keeping Dire avengers alive on foot could prove to be tricksome. I could simply be overly worried about whirlwinds. 2x10 dire avengers squads supported by a vanguard of a farseer led seer-council is always an option - but basically you need a hardy, hitty squad/unit (without a hardy speedy tank) to back up most eldar foot troops.

I definitely agree with this... Templates from the storm guardians are invaluable in softening up targets before they get charged. They're not meant to stay in combat by themselves but rather support bigger guys. With 14-18 extra attacks and the attacks from avatar or wraithlord the whole melee would probably go in your favour. They are weak but aren't meant to go it alone under any circumstances.

Well, I haven't really been listening to any of you , but then I intended to pile all of my avengers into this list one way or another.

Pretty much NO combat backup, but I did manage to fit a pair of bargain tanks in there. Here 'tis:

FARSEER; doom, guide, spirit stones, witnessing, singing spear 133
10 DIRE AVENGERS; exarch, dual catapults, bladestorm 162
10 DIRE AVENGERS; exarch, dual catapults, bladestorm 162
10 DIRE AVENGERS; exarch, defend, diresword 167
7 FIRE DRAGONS - exarch, crack shot, dragon's breath flamer 129
WAVE SERPENT; linked eldar missile launcher, spirit stones 130
FIRE PRISM 115

998

I'll be playing with this list today, so I'll let you know how I go... I've never used defend, diresword or non-mech eldar in general, so it'll be good for me.

That one looks pretty good. At 1000pts 30 dire avengers aint bad. Add in the two tanks and its looking quite balanced. Doomed & guided blade-storms will just be nutz.

I played the following games with following results:

Pitched Battle, Kill-Points
vs Corner Tau; 2:3
LOSS

Pitched Battle, Single Objective
vs. Khorne / Tzeentch Daemons; Massacre
WIN

Dawn of War, Triple Objective
vs. Pure Khorne Daemons; Massacre
LOSS (but close!)

Pitched Battle, Kill-Points, Most Valuable Unit worth 2 KP
vs. Gunline Eldar; 5:1
WIN

Nothing great on my part, but the event was very good. 36 players turned up. Had great fun... will put battle reports up eventually.

Anything learned about how to use the avengers most effectively? I'm looking for some tips for mine...