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Hey all. I recently played my first game ever against an IG army. This was the list I was using.

Farseer - 130 points
55 base + 25 Doom + 20 spirit stones + 30 fortune

9x Dire Avengers - 140 points
Exarch + Bladestorm + dual shuriken catapults

9x Dire Avengers - 140 points
Exarch + Bladestorm dual shuriken catapults

Wraithlord - 155
Eldar Missile Launcher + bright lance + 2 flamers

Fire Prism - 140
Holo Fields

Avatar - 155 pts

6x Harlequins - 178
Shadowseer, Troupemaster, kissx5

1038 pts

We were playing a 1050 point game.

I dont have his exact army list, but he fielded a valkyrie with a vet squad inside, 1 leman russ, 1 Hellhound tank, and a lot of shooty hw type infantry.

He had some very lucky rolls, I had some very unlucky rolls, and by the end of turn 1, he had blown up all 6 harlies with the valkyries hellfire missile, whiped out one of my squads of DA's which was in the other corner and slightly in view with the Leman's main weapon, and blown off the Fire Prisms main gun with the assorted infantry squads despite it being in cover. By the end of the game it was one of the worst losses I have ever sustained personally.

I think there are a couple mitigating factors to this fight, one being I let him set up the terrain and it was very sparse, particularly in the center of the map, and he won the roll for zones, and all the ruins were on the side he ended up deploying in where my side just had some forests and then some open plains. On top of that, of his 6 or so shots with ordinance weapons, 4 of them were direct hits and 1 scattered one inch. Also, I was/am very inexperienced playing against guard, and made several large tactical mistakes such as doom VS GEQ is not all that necessary.

That being said, I don't think my list as it stands has a good chance against that army even if some or all of those problems were rectified. As it stands now, I was really making this army with MEQs in mind, and do not have much experience vs GEQs. I definitely think this army I faced would suck in CC, and replacing the avatar with some WS and getting up in his face ASAP would help.

In the end, I am wondering if I can get some advice for facing the new IG army as Eldar.

Remember this, guide on a bladestorming DA squad, equals alot of dead guard, their armor save is negated by the AP of the avenger shuriken catapults and you get about 21 hits from a 10 man squad, of which about 10 will wound, thats one squad down

When placing scenery, do it piece by piece, taking alternate turns. Then between the random side deployement & mission type, it promotes fairly fair & generalised placement of terrain (I find).


Guide & doom (unless you have fortune, use that. Somwhere), on a large blob squad, from a fully equipped DA squad.

28.89 hits (roughly). Doomed, 25 wounds. No saves (unless theres cover).

Fairly effective way to take down a blob squad. Combine this with any shooting thier wave-serpent transport can put out & you have a dead squad.

Without guide OR doom, one bladestorming squad can easily take-out 11 guardsmen.

Yeah. I just went and got 2 wave serpents, so hopefully the next time I can get in his face and start wiping out some of those squads. My only issue is, because of the way platoons can split up, I can drop out a squad of DA's, fire into one of his squads and probably wipe it out. However, the turn after, he probably focuses about a third of his infantries firepower towards me and wipes it out in turn. Then my 140 points squad has killed a 70 point squad, and in turn died itself. of course there is still the WS there to cause some havoc for them. And maybe I could take Star engines and move forward after I kill his squad to give myself some mobile cover.

your list lacks any form of focus, seems to me you've bought models on what seems cool rather than how it'll play with your other models.

First you need to decide what type of of army you want to play.

your list lacks any form of focus, seems to me you've bought models on what seems cool rather than how it'll play with your other models.

First you need to decide what type of of army you want to play.

Combo hit the nail on the head with this one. But putting that aside playing against gunline Guard just requires that you get in CC with it. That being said I don't think your list really would have done well in anything but the best of circumstances.

Basically, if you're trying to *walk* towards a firepower-heavy guard opponent and counting on getting there, you're in trouble. If the plan is to CC him, you need some transports/bikes/something.

I disagree with the lack of focus comment. My army was never intended to be a pure powergaming type army, but that doesn't mean I had no synergy intended behind it. The avatar was there to make the troops fearless, and to take the front lines with the Harlequins. The harlies had Veil of Tears, so couldn't be shot until enemies were getting very close to charge range unless they got some very good rolls. The avatar was fortune by the farseer and would soak up a majority of the early game fire. Dire avengers and the WL were behind them getting cover saves, and mowing down lighter troops or performing an Anti Tank role respectively. The Fire prism was in the back usually behind whatever cover I could find performing either AT or AI as needed.

I found this army did well against assault based armies. And my lack of mobility didn't mean as much there because I didn't need to move 24 inches a turn because both armies were basically charging towards the middle. The harlies, and avatar have performed very well so far in CC. And I had usually thinned their numbers somewhat by the time they got into combat.

That being said, I realize that this build is not particularly good against a gunline IG army, or even an IG army in general. However, when I designed the army, the only people I knew who played did not play IG, so it wasn't a huge factor in my armies composition. Since then I have gone and gotten a couple Wave Serpents so that I can have the option to go more mechanized to give me a little more versatility.

As a side note, 2 of my squads were wiped out by lucky rolls of the hellfire missile, including the Harlies. I have since found out that the hellfire missile is not a blast weapon, and thus should have killed 2 models, instead of 15. The mobility of a str 8 ap3 large blast weapon absolutely decimated my forces last game, particularly when he was able to move 36" in the first turn and basically ignore Veil of Tears on the Harlequins.

Hmmm...

Your list is built to be a shooty list with some counter assault, which is not a bad way to play Eldar, but when you run into IG, you have a problem.

They excel in medium to light infantry clearing (which you are). To combat this, most people tend to star moving toward Mechdar.

I'd trying mounting a couple units. Pretty much anything in the Eldar list will trump IG in hth, so you need to figure out ways to get close and personal.

You need more stuff and less upgrades.

You need to realize that the Valks hellfire missile is not a large blast. Ordnance means that it's the only gun it can fire if it chooses it, and it means that it rolls 2d6 and picks the best for armor penetration. It's only ordnance barrage that defaults to a large blast if the blast is not mentioned at all. The multiple-rocket-pod does have a large blast, however.

Well, 1050 is pretty small. But your army is very small indeed I find. Less than 30 models in 1000 points. I just can't see it going too well, and I'm not an uber competitive player, well, at all. My main aim in list building is 'avoid having stupid stuff if possible.'

I'm just looking at the army and seeing.
Fire Prism AND Avatar AND Wraithlord AND Farseer.

I've recently faced a similar 1000 point army. It had the Avatar, Wraithlord, 2 Dire avenger squads, Dark Reaper squad and a similar harlequin squad.

Guard, and old guard for that, just ate them. Ratlings gunned down the avatar/wraithlord, lascannons and leman russ ate the rest.

One big problem my opponent had was, we ended up playing the Capture and Control scenario. - That was one of his 2 infantry squads, and a third of his army out of commission for the full game, just baby sitting his objective. This let his only other infantry squad get bombarded and killed at the end of turn 1.

Now, some things I did learn from 'the other side' - The Avatar is as cheap as chips, I cant really see a reason not to include him for what he does. I'm less convinced about the wraithlord for a small point game. It seems to me to be one or the other, both is just a waste.

I'd suggest something stabby in a wave serpant, I'd say banshees, but with me not being hugely familiar with harlequins, that might be a bit too much duplication for small points games - Scorpions maybe? heck, what are storm guardians like? Crap but cheap I assume.

The thing to remember with the harlequins, is that yeah, it might only need a few left alive to maul a squad. But once your in the fight with them, if even a couple of guys survive to fight back, which will likely include the sergeant.... The harlequins are for all intents and purposes... Guardsmen. - So its best in my mind to see them as a 'wun hit wunda.'

But aye, the valkyrie stuff does tend to confuse people. Just look for the blast in the summary!

Is Spirit Stones and fortune needed? You could bulk up your squads with those instead. To be honest, I'm not even sure the Farseer is needed in the first place at 1000 points - You could have another Dire Avenger squad instead.

For small point battles the Eldar must be very careful. You will often have your forces all on their own, and so must not let them get caught outside their element.

In the Eldar list there is heavy emphasis on walking infantry. That is a bad idea, as they will get shot up quickly. Instead of Harlies, some Scorpions outflanking are better. Against MEQ Scorpions are decent due to their 3 s4 attacks and 3+ save, and an exarch with a claw will kill one or two marines on his own.

Also, rangers or bikes are better to sit on objectives. Unless you plan on always playing extermination, then you will need one unit to sit on your objective. Rangers have cover saves, which while they are ignored by an increasing amount of units is still better then DA, who would have a worse cover save and worse range.
36' range allows the snipers to support the DA somewhat without exposing your troops to fire in the open.

The Avatar and the Wraithlord are good, but slow. They work best when you have other units pressuring your opponent. You should try to keep them together, and run.

The DA and the farseer are vulnerable while walking around, as you saw. They really need a transport, but in low point games a 110+ wave serpent is pushing it. You could trade them for 7 bikes and an autarch with lance. This will kill two marines in shooting and the autarch will take three in assault, wiping out a combat squad of MEQs.

As a bonus the autarch can threaten tanks, and helps bring the scorpions in earlier. If you turbo boost first turn in front of the running avatar and wraithlord, both the bikes and the monstrous creatures will get cover saves.

Uhh... outflanking scorpions are worthless. Any unit that moves at infantry speed and has no ranged firepower should not be considering outflanking.

Also the veil of tears makes harlequins very durable against most ranged shooting. Most opponents will be afraid to shoot the harlequins because if you don't make your 2d6x2 roll the unit loses its shooting entirely for a turn.

willydstyle wrote:Uhh... outflanking scorpions are worthless. Any unit that moves at infantry speed and has no ranged firepower should not be considering outflanking.

Also the veil of tears makes harlequins very durable against most ranged shooting. Most opponents will be afraid to shoot the harlequins because if you don't make your 2d6x2 roll the unit loses its shooting entirely for a turn.

On the contrary, Outflanking or infiltrating Scorpions are quite useful. If you have objectives within 12' of a board side or large enemy troops in cover the will be able to assault units inside on the turn they arrive. 2/3rds of the time they will appear on the side you want, and with an autarch they have a good chance of appearing on turn 2. In the board layout described it sounds like either side would have worked, so it really would only be an issue of when the scorpions arrive. If you go cheap, a big biting blade makes the exarch S7 on rear armor of all those tanks for 5 pts.

Harlies, while veil of tears helps, still suffer from a large amount of shots at close range. Both IG and marines can ignore them, then move up and rapid fire them down at 12 in. And the harlies have to walk for a minimum of two turns before they can charge. With such a small squad, harlies really can't take any casualties from shooting or they will not be able to win the assault. The best use of them in the above list would be to provide a cover save to the DA, but that means that they will take the brunt of the enemy firepower.

Durandal wrote:Harlies, while veil of tears helps, still suffer from a large amount of shots at close range.

At "close range", the harlies should be in range of assault. Their veil of tears means they will be eating shots up to about 12-14", but with fleet, they should always be 13+ inches away, ready to pounce on something. They shouldn't be taking too many shots at all, you just have to learn how to keep them skirting the edge of their range, just like Tau stealth suits.

So you stop at 13+ inches away. I move a IG squad forward 6, first rank fire second rank fire, and my 60 pt squad kills 5 harlies. Even if I lose the entire IG squad to the assault by the remaining harlies next turn or to shooting by the DA, I've still come out 20 points ahead.

Unlike Tau suits, Harlies must be in CC to be effective. They cannot sit back and shoot burst cannons at 18'. So they must close the gap, and the longer they take to do so the less effective they are. Plus, now that they cannot consolidate into new units a good player will have the expendable shield squad in front to take the charge, then rapid fire the harlies once they kill it.

The responses have given me a lot of food for thought. I havn't had a chance to play the guard player again since then, so I havn't had a chance to test out some of this stuff. I have bought some additional units including a couple of Serpents. It pains me to put in multiple transports at such a high cost in a 1000 point list, but I am not sure I have much of a choice. I am not particularly keen on running Elfzilla after having done the same thing with my old Nid army, so I guess mechanized seems like the best option at the moment.

On a side note, I have heard the term Multi-Charge used in reference to Orks a whole lot. That is another army I don't play very often. In the old edition that was done with Sweping Advances, but with the change to that, I don't suppose that is how its done anymore. Is this a special rule with Certain units that I am just unaware of, or does it just refer to charing a squad, wiping it out, then charging another squad the next turn?

Multi Charge refers to charging two units with a single unit in the assault phase. Orks have lots of bodies to do this with, eldar not so much.

Ahhh. That makes a lot of sense. I fail at understanding things.