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I am starting a goody goody Eldar force to go along with my Dark Eldar. The reasoning behind this is that my mate and I are planning to enter a Doubles torny next year. He collects Tau and we were going to ally untill we saw that you cant use the two together. We both quite like Eldar and so we are buying a 500pts force between us for the torny. What sort of things should we include to stand a hope in hell?

jet bikes

No JET BIKES except mabey a unit of shining spears or a seer counsle on bikes.

depends on the style you want

war walkers and a farseer to start out of course

What kind of force organization restrictions do you have for a 500 point tourney? Honestly... I can't think of an Eldar build that could do well at that points level.

No jet bikes please , because OP plays DE and im sure he would want to play something different o_o

war walkers, 9 of them!!

LunaHound wrote:No jet bikes please , because OP plays DE and im sure he would want to play something different o_o

war walkers, 9 of them!!

Hah... hard to fit that into 500 points...

9 dual shuricannon walkers are 360... So I guess that leaves room for a unit of 5 dire avengers and a farseer

Hehe, i just love war walkers.

3 armed with scatter lasers would be nice and solid choice.

I prefer EMLs, but at 500 points I just do two. The problem with low-points games with Eldar is that your troops are honestly not killy enough, and Farseers have zero killiness for their points and HQ slot, but are needed to keep the army working at all.

I would replace far seer with an Avatar.

I love the Avatar, and I think he's a great buy, but if you go 3 SL warwalkers and an Avatar, you have 165 points for two troops choices if you're using a standard FoC, which with Eldar troops honestly doesn't leave many good options... hmmmm minimum units of rangers and dire avengers could fit, but I honestly don't think they'd be worth much.

Im thinking the rangers can pin anyone attemping to assault them while warwalker just kill everything.

avatar will go on his own little tank hunt ( he still have ranged melta weapon )

I like EMLs on Walkers also, the versatility is just awesome.

I don't know what style eldar you would go for. Though at such small points I only think Rangers would be effective.

LunaHound wrote:Im thinking the rangers can pin anyone attemping to assault them while warwalker just kill everything.

avatar will go on his own little tank hunt ( he still have ranged melta weapon )

Yeah, it would cover a few bases, but honestly pinning isn't super effective, and rangers don't do that much damage. I'd think they'd be usable simply to say "hey I'm a troops, shoot me" then go to ground when that happens

The Avatar does do well in a lot of cases, and basically makes a 12" radius "come into this area and die" zone around him, especially in low points games.

I'd think at 500 points Avatar two war walkers (probably separately rather than a squadron) with scatter lasers (since EMLs are much more effective when you have Doom! on the board) and then beef up your troops a bit more (either larger squads, or pathfinders rather than rangers) and you have a workable 500 point list.

yani, could you give us some more information about the tournament? Like, do the both of you get 500 points to spend on an army each? Do both of you need to fill the compulsory troops and HQ slots?

Warp spiders rule in games of less than 800 points, especially if combat patrol rules on armored vehicles (nothing over AR12) are in use.

They zap all over the board and blow the crap out of everything, and nothing at that point level is mobile enough to catch them or shooty enough to snipe them. I've won a number of combat patrol tournaments with warp spider lists.

Take your required troop unit (minsized ranger squads are good) and fill the rest of your list with a Warp Spider exarch with dual spinners and withdraw, then fill the rest of the points with as many spiders as you can squeeze in. Nothing will be able to stand up to you.

I do love warp spiders. I think that powerblades are a must-buy upgrade too, though.

I love the Avatar. I've had him take six krak missles hits and shrug them off. he's only failed to kill a vehicle once. for 155 points, he's a miracle.

Thanks for the advice.
The Force organisation chart is quite abstract, You must have 1 HQ and 1+ Troops. Then you can have 1 of each of the other slots. If you can fill all these slots then you can have an additional Elite/HS/FA. And its 500 points each.
I was thinking about an infantry based army with a unit of Harlies (cos I love the models ). Based on the advice so far it looks like an avatar and a couple of war walkers as well. Gahh I've left my codex at my friends house.

If you're going to foot-slog Harlies with a Shadowseer and a Avatar is very potent. Recommend either Wraithlord or War Walkers to give you some decent back line fire.

Is the Avatar still 0-1 on the FOC? The new codex leaves me to believe I could take two...

Oi oi yani, i will be seeing my uncle some time at the start of the summer, so will get the jet bikes then, still uncertain of how many though but know it is at least three.

Guardians w/ warlock (conceal) + Scatter laser. Unnaturally hard to kill at range, especially if you hide them behind a hill (you only need one member to be in line of sight to shoot the laser).

yani, there are a few good Eldar tourney builds out there, but most of them are very points-intensive. At 500, you will probably want to take an advancing shooty army with a countercharge threat. For that approach, you will want units with flexible options, not dedicated specialists. Here's how that could translate:

The single unit of 2x Warwalkers with EMLs mentioned earlier would be a good firebase, providing anti-horde and anti-tank fire. Two units of Guardians with scatter lasers will provide both long-range anti-troop or anti-transport fire and good short-range fire. Do not underestimate the power of shuriken catapults at close range.

To round out your force, an Avatar will make a decent countercharge threat, and double as anti-tank (but only if the vehicle is closing on you- do NOT run your Avatar off to chase tanks unless the troops he is making fearless are all dead or not threatened). An Avatar is a bigger threat in games of this size than a Farseer will be, as the Farseer just magnifies your other troops rather than being challenging himself.

On a completely different note, you COULD go with a hand-to-hand force like you described, Harlies etc. I find that they die too easily to small-arms fire in small games. There will be lots of bolters or lasguns in light vehicles, and they erase Harlies quick. Also, you just won't have enough mobile troops to win anything with objectives. But if you were gung-ho about playing a CC army, you could indeed do min-sized Ranger squads and a large Harlie squad, then sit back and watch the carnage. There will be a lot of rocks to your scissors, but it could be fun in the meantime.

Also, there's the possibility (fluff-based, but who knows...) that harlies might be in the new DE codex. So paint 'em black!

Well the list I have eventually gone for is
Farseer with doom and guide
2x War Walker with 2x scatter lasers 2x EML
3x Jetbikes with shuricannon
5x Dire Avengers with exarch with dual cats and bladestorm
5x Dire Avengers with exarch with dual cats

The Farseer may be swapped out but is quite useful usually casting Guide on the War walkers.
The War Walkers take out light vehicals and can murder infantry.
Both squads of Dire Avengers kick out a lot of firepower and attempt to capture objectives in the middle of the board. The Jetbikes provide the ability to threaten the opponents objectives.

The tau's role is to hold objectives with FW, threaten tanks with a railhead and two deep striking suits (both have fusion guns, the comander has an airbursting frag thing and the normal suit has a plasma rifle)
Is this compleatly the wrong direction to take?

yani, that's a decent start. Not what I would have suggested, but it's a nice complement to the Tau forces you describe.

The main thing I'll point out is that each of your units is a bit fragile, being min-sized. May I suggest less Exarchs and more bodies in the DA squads? In fact, you may do best by rolling the DAs into one squad with no Exarchs and putting all those extra points into more bikes. More bodies is always a good thing, both in CC and in absorbing incoming fire. Unless the Exarchs are adding something the squad doesn't already do at all (like a power weapon), then more bodies is usually the better choice.

Also, if you don't have stones on your Seer, you won't be casting both powers. Pick one (I like Doom better, as it improves _all_ your units shooting at a single target, and encourages focused fire) and ditch the other. Use those points to increase your bikers or Avengers- probably the bikers. Between the points saved from two exarchs and the Seer power, you have another 3 bikes including shuricannon easily, plus a bit for, say, Mind War or some Runes on the Seer- or upping the WW to all EMLs.

The tau forces you have chosen look like good 'uns, too. Do be ready to bail out those FW with your bikes or Avengers if fast enemy CC troops head towards them.

The Seer does have stones ATM and shooting a guided unit at a doomed unit is rather fun
I hear what you are saying about the Avengers. I still think in 4th ed ways where MSU> big units. I will have a listing session and post what I can come up with


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Ok
Farseer with doom and guide and spirit stones
2x War Walker with 2x scatter lasers 2x EML
3x Jetbikes with shuricannon
3x Jetbikes with shuricannon
8x Dire Avengers.

Presume this is the same type of tourney as was described in white dwarf recently? This might be one of the few places where taking a singing spear for the farseer might make sense, I would expect to see a few IG team ups where both players run heavy armor.

We havent held one of these tourneys locally yet, but the talk is all about pushing the build in some way to create a force that most small armies cant handle. Leman Russ + sentinels/ or hellhound; Predator + Dread; or the other extreme of orcs + orcs horde style.

For this small of a force I would be extremely tempted to take a WL, hardest to kill unit in the eldar list and can be both shooty and tough in cc. As another plus, hes immune to melta

If at all possible, scrape up the points to give the farseer mind war as well. Nothing will swing the game faster in a small points battle than a well timed mind war.


Sliggoth

Sliggoth wrote:Presume this is the same type of tourney as was described in white dwarf recently? This might be one of the few places where taking a singing spear for the farseer might make sense, I would expect to see a few IG team ups where both players run heavy armor.

We havent held one of these tourneys locally yet, but the talk is all about pushing the build in some way to create a force that most small armies cant handle. Leman Russ + sentinels/ or hellhound; Predator + Dread; or the other extreme of orcs + orcs horde style.

For this small of a force I would be extremely tempted to take a WL, hardest to kill unit in the eldar list and can be both shooty and tough in cc. As another plus, hes immune to melta

If at all possible, scrape up the points to give the farseer mind war as well. Nothing will swing the game faster in a small points battle than a well timed mind war.


Sliggoth

The Avatar is immune to melta. Wraithlords are not.

With the list restrictions that you've provided, you really have incentive to try to fill all the slots so you can spam something.

Farseer + Guide
5x Dire Avengers
Outflanking Scorps maybe for elites, or min fire dragons
3x Warwalkers with Scatter Lasers (+ guide will decimate anything)
Warp Spiders to flit around and add S6 pain

EDIT:

No one else is going to really be able to spam anything since they have to fill all their slots before they get another choice, so you shouldn't see too much AV14.

@ whitedragon
Well apart from up to 6 Leman Russes from an allied IG force
The only way you could spam stuff would be if they were troops.
Hey wait a min
You could take an Avatar and a unit of ten wraith guard for 500 points. Could be fun but is probally a bad choice.
The only problem with the list I posted a bit ago is that I dont know if it has enough cc back up (having Tau as allies and all)