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First of all I'm new to the game so don't make fun of me for missing something obvious. My friend plays space marines and fills all of his HS slots with devastators. So far all I have is a Farseer, 2 units of Dire Avengers, a Wave Serpent, and some rangers. I was thinking about getting some banshees and unloading them right next to the devastators, but when I tried it with proxied units either he focused fire on the wave serpent and blew it up in the middle of the board with mass missle, lascannon fire or I drop the proxies of next to the devastators and they are ripped apart by bolter fire because they can't assault the turn that disembark. I also thought of using dark reapers but they are expensive and it isn't really finding a counter just fighting his units with eldar equivilants with doesn't seem very reliable as that boils down to luck. Any help would be apriciated. Also, this doesn't go strickly for devastators also the other races equivilents such as reapers, lootas, and biovores.

For eldar just make sure you are in cover and rain down the massive numbers of str 6 shots that you fancy space elves can supply. Other than that Harlequins are just about perfect for getting to CC unscathed because of their veil of tears ability. Infiltrating your pathfinders to a good position and using sniper rifles is a great tactic especially if you gave them the +1 or two cover save ability as this will render the AP of thedevastators weapons useless.

For Biovores, just stay in your serpents until that unit of genestealers is in blade storm range. There isn't much a biovore can do to a transport vehicle so just sit tight. The same goes for dark reapers, with only str 5 they will not be dropping your vehicles very often so ignore them or better yet just block their line of sight with clever positioning of you vehicles when you disembark and deal with them when it is convenient. Lootas present a whole different challenge seeing as how many of them you can cram into a list and that they can threaten light vehicles like the wave serpent. The best way I can think to get rid of them is with a Fire prism or two. Baring that I would spend the first turn with the serpents behind cover move 12 jump out and blade storm the squad with both squads of dire avengers and hope for the best.

Thanks that was helpful.

Two things - Dark Reapers in cover, use cover ignoring power and AP3 your way to victory. However, that is fighting fire with fire.

Fight with Air - As a new player, chances are you haven't figured out how to pull off assaults from transports. The trick is waiting.

If a transport moves and is not open-topped, a unit may not assault on the turn it disembarks. However, if a unit disembarks BEFORE the vehicle moves, it then gets it's normal movement, and can charge in the same turn.

The classic SoF attack (Serpent of Fury) is to fill about three with your choice of DA's, Banshees, Harlies, or Seer Council, then use that 24" jump to get them into a wall formation somewhere less than 12" from your intended target. Closer if you expect them to run away. Put your most valuably loaded Serpent in the middle to protect the sides. Now, cross your fingers and hope.

Assuming your super-resilient skimmers survived the turn (and they should, 4+ cover to shooting and Eldar defensive wargear, 6 to be hit in CC), rotate in place (doesn't count as movement), unload, move, run (fleet) and THEN move the Serpents to a supporting position. NOW charge, and you didn't have to spend a turn sitting in the open.

EVERYONE needs to understand this tactic, it's the intended method, according to the rules. The only reason to disembark after moving is to rapid-fire, such as with Marines or Dire Avengers, because at the beginning of the next turn, the squad can re-embark before the transport moves, and take off in the transport.

If assaulting is your goal, learn to be very crafty in how you approach the enemy, and stay embarked as long as possible.

Great post there general, took the words right out of my mouth.

You might be able to pull off the Fish of Fury Tau Tactic with Dire Avengers Blade Storm if you use the long flight pole base. That means fly up drop out and blade storm the Dev Squad. The will gain a 4+ Cover Save from the Skimmer but so do you. And all those that are about hate on me, True LOS is in effect, eldar and tau infantry can see under a DF or WS transports. They can see they can shoot. It is just as as a Trukk mounted Big Shoota shooting over a large close combat.

GeneralRetreat wrote:

Assuming your super-resilient skimmers survived the turn (and they should, 4+ cover to shooting and Eldar defensive wargear, 6 to be hit in CC), rotate in place (doesn't count as movement), unload, move, run (fleet) and THEN move the Serpents to a supporting position. NOW charge, and you didn't have to spend a turn sitting in the open.

Even though rotation doesn't count as movement, I'm pretty sure it happens on the vehicles move, so you couldn't rotate, disembark, then move the vehicle. If you rotated, that would be your only Serpent movement. That's how I've always interpreted it, but if you've got a reason to think you're right, I'd be happy to hear it. Eldar are my 3rd army.

Rotating in place does not count as movement, but occurs during the movement phase. Seeing as how there's no order to actions in any phase except as the player chooses, I've never seen a reason why a transport cannot turn, disembark cargo, then speed off. It makes sense when you see it on the table, and I can't think of any rules that would preclude it.

Maybe I'm just playing it wrong, idk.

If your opponent sees this as a problem, just get a little closer still, you want to make sure that where the squad disembarks is 13" or less from the target. Honestly, I always measure my charge to the back of the unit to allow for shooting casualties, which will inevitably be taken from the front ranks in an attempt to deny you the charge.

Anyway, park the noses of the serpent almost on top of the enemy, Tank Shock them if you can, then disembark, THEN move the transport out of the way (it's a skimmer, so jump it over behind the enemy, that's where your unit will end up anyway), and THEN move the Banshees (for ex) their normal 6" to the target. You should be guaranteed a charge without fleet, even.

As you get braver and more confident with this tactic, you can loosen it up a bit and learn to park a little further away or a little closer, all dependant on the battlefield situation.

Pip: Yeah, shooting from behind the transport is a great for, say, Dire Avengers who do NOT want to be assaulted. They grant the enemy cover saves, but volume of fire overcomes that, and the transport will block a charge. The OP was asking how to succeed in Assaults from vehicles. He's making the classic mistake of assuming that infantry _must_ disembark at the end of a vehicle move, when they end up stranded on the ground for an entire enemy turn. I'm trying to show him how to use the "Poor Man's Assault Ramp" version.

Eldar do, of course, make this entire tactic much more dangerous since practically the entire army can Fleet.

Biophysic wrote:

GeneralRetreat wrote:

Assuming your super-resilient skimmers survived the turn (and they should, 4+ cover to shooting and Eldar defensive wargear, 6 to be hit in CC), rotate in place (doesn't count as movement), unload, move, run (fleet) and THEN move the Serpents to a supporting position. NOW charge, and you didn't have to spend a turn sitting in the open.

Even though rotation doesn't count as movement, I'm pretty sure it happens on the vehicles move, so you couldn't rotate, disembark, then move the vehicle. If you rotated, that would be your only Serpent movement. That's how I've always interpreted it, but if you've got a reason to think you're right, I'd be happy to hear it. Eldar are my 3rd army.

Nope rotation does not count as any movement so would not effect the assualt
A way my tau friend deals wiht my devies and this could carry over to eldar is he gives me two choices
choice A. his tanks on one flank coming at em with alot of guns and fire warriors
Choice B. seemingly meaningless Kroot but there are a ton of them and will bog my devies down in CC for the rest of the game
but thats just me

We ran into this issue in Adepticon 09 about transports. On Page 67 of the LRB under the first bullet under Disembarking. A vehicle passengers may disembark after the vehicle has pivoted. However, if the vehicle pivots and diembarks it's passengers it may not move any further.

The key point is if the vehicle has not moved from its starting point it may disembark and then move normally. If the vehicle makes any kind of movement to include pivoting and then disembarks the vehicle may not move what so ever the rest of the movement phase.

For FoF or WSofF the vehicle can move as far as it want and per Page 57 of the LRB the vehicle may max any number of turns it wants as long as it does go over it's max movement. So a Rhino moves around woods and the stright line distance from the Starting Point to the Stopping point is 4" but it takes 12" to move around the Rhino may move the max 12" around the woods but face it's AV 10 rear to the woods as pivoting does not count against the max distance movement but does count as moving when it comes down to loading and unloading passengers.

Have consulted with rules oracle and am changing postion to agree with Pipboy101. On the same page of the BRB the option to disembark and assault after turning is specifically mentioned as being impossible. So to disembark and assault in the same turn you need to expose your rear to enemy fire unless you move lateral with his forces.

Yep, you guys are right. Thankfully, I already addressed this in my last post.

Thanks for all of the advice

When in doubt, use Dinobots.

Firstly, don't get banshees. Instead, raise funds and buy multiple units of Striking Scorpions. Get the shadowstrike power, outflank, and assault said shooty troops. As good as their guns are, they will fall like wheat to a scythe in combat. The scorpions will then be feared, shot at, and killed, allowing the rest of your army to advance unmolested. They get even nastier with DOOOM!

Banshees > Scorpions Vs MEQs. Especially with doom. Get them instead. Though given they will die faster.

There are a few strategies that will help deal with devastators as an Eldar player.

Devastators Use Heavy Weapons
HB, ML, MM, LC ... all of those weapon loadouts cannot move and shoot. This puts the marine player at a disadvantage, as they are forced to 'pillbox' to bring their devastators to full use. Using cover or terrain to block LOS can lower the effectiveness of these units considerably.

Vulnerable to the assault
As has been mentioned above, a clever use of serpents will allow for you to assault his devastators quickly and easily. An assault oriented eldar unit will make short work of the devastators, but will be vulnerable afterwords.

AP3 weapons FTW
Utilizing weapons with AP3 or less can very quickly kill devastators. This can be done via fire prisms and dragons very quickly. In fact, I am hard pressed to think of a single Eldar army that would not benefit from 3 fire prisms. One or two rounds of firing will remove the devastators

Ignore them
What is he equipping his devastators with? If he is putting nothing but LC or ML on them, congo-line aspect warriors up the board right onto him. If he is using HBs, then get go 'mech so the HBs have no viable targets.
In other words, modify your army to make his devastators of very limited use.