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I have had a ot of people ask me about my list that I won the Wild West Shootout with, and wondering why I did so well with it. So I will try to de-construct my list to try to shed some light on how it works, and why I did so well with it.


My design philosophy.
When I build and army I ask myself if I can take on common builds, and if I am able to beat the “arch types” (Shooting, Assault, Combo) of the most popular armies? If not, then I tweak the army until I have an army that I think will win against a lot of them, and a chance against others.

With that design concept in mind, what units I gravitate to are units that can fill several roles. That is why one of my favorite heavy weapons is the missile launcher. Not only is it good against hordes with the frag. missile, but against MEQs with AP3, and against vehicles with Strength 8.


Here is my list:

HQ
Eldrad

Avatar

Elite
5 Fire Dragons
Exarch w/Dragon’s breath flamer

6Harlequins w/5 Kisses, 2 Fusion Pistols
Shadow Seer w/Kiss
Troupe Master w/Power Weapon

Troops
10 Guardians w/Brightlance
10 Guardians w/Brightlance
10 Guardians w/Missile Launcher

3 Eldar Jetbikes w/Shuriken Cannon
Warlock w/Singing Spear, Destructor

Heavy Support
3 War Walkers w/Scatter Lasers
3 War Walkers w/Scatter Lasers

Falcon w/Missile Launcher, Shuriken Cannon, Holo-Field, Spirit Stone, Star Engines, Vectored Engines





So here is a breakdown of my units and their roles:



HQ Units

The Avatar
• Fearless-The Avatar is the glue that keeps my army together. His fearless bubble is needed to keep LD 8 troops from running off the board each time they lose a few guys. He is important for just this role, and if he did just that, it might be worth his points.
• Assault- This guy is a killer in assault. Think of him as a flightless Bloodthirster. WS 10 (WS4 needs 5s to hit), Strength 6 and 4 attacks means that he is putting a hurting on whatever he is on b-t-b with.
• Anti-tank- He gets with other greater daemons don’t…a melta gun. At BS5 his threat radius is greatly improved. He can also assault. Now that you get to ago against back armor, and gets 2d6 armor penetration dice for being a monstrous creature and he can tear vehicles apart.
• Hard to kill- The Avatar takes an incredible amount of damage before doing down. He is immune to Flamers and Melta which can’t be overstated in this current anti-orks and anti-vehicle builds. Try going up against a Vulcan based army and see what they have that can hurt him. He has a toughness of 6 so he will shrug off most assault and small arms fire. But what makes him really durable is his 3+/4+ save. If you have a Farseer and can Fortune him, then he will easily save what few wounds get through. In fact, it takes almost a whole army shooting at him for a couple of turns to go down, and if they are shooting at him, they are not shooting at anything else.

Eldrad
• Redeploy- When you go first, your opponent gets to set up second and react to your deployment. This ability neutralizes a lot of that counter-deployment giving you a huge advantage when you go first.
• Psychic Powers- Since Eldrad is the only one who not only gets to use all of the Eldar psychic powers, but 3 a turn he is a gigantic force multiplier. I can’t stress this enough. The ability to lay down Doom, Guide and Fortune where you need them as well as Mind War and even Eldritch Storm is huge.
• Defense- A 3+ inv save means that he is hard to kill and very survivable. You are not afraid to throw him into an assault or take the odd wound or 2 that his squad takes.
• Offence- Eldrad is a lot better in assault because not only does he wound on a 2+ but his attacks are power weapons.

Elite

Fire Dragons
• Anti-tank-They do one thing and they do it well, killing vehicles. Since 5 Fusion Guns should be enough to kill what they are shooting at
• Anti-infantry- The Exarch gets a Dragon’s Breath Flamers so when you are fighting armies that do not have a lot of high AV vehicles, or monstrous creatures you can at least BBQ some Hordes.

Harlequins

• Anti-Tank-They have Fusion Pistols so that they can kill every vehicle, and rending in assault to take down everything but Land Raiders and Monoliths.
• Assault- This is where they shine. With their stats, they can kill almost every assault units out there including most armies’ best assault units. Giving the troupe leader a power weapon means they can kill the tough armored units like terminators.
• Defense- They do have an Inv. save, but it is only 5+ so you do have to be careful assaulting large units that get to swing back. But they reason why they are the best counter assault unit is Veil of Tears. You do not have to worry about them being shot up, or taken out before you need them. The ability to roam freely around without worrying about getting killed before you need them is very important.

Troops

Guardians
• Anti-Tank- They are armed with Brightlances to take out the heaviest of armor at range. Alternatively they can be armed with Missile Launchers to give them added range.
• Anti-Infantry- What people underestimate is the destructive power of massed Guardians. Ten Guardians will do 10 wounds to T4 opponents with the correct use of Guide and Doom. When you have them grouped together, they can devastate your opponent. This short range killing is often overlooked.
• Speed- They can move and shoot a heavy weapon. This makes then able to move around for the best shot, and they are able to move to objectives and not loose any firepower, and come on from reserves and shoot at full effect. They also have fleet if you need to assault for some reason.
• Durability- They are durable do to their numbers. They are fearless so you have to kill them to a man to stop them shooting their heavy weapon. With proper positioning, they should be able to benefit from a 4+ cover save. Another thing is that most anti-infantry weapons are close range, and short of heavy bolters and the like, it is very hard to kill them outside of 12”. Also they are so far down on the target priority that they are almost never shot.
• Troops-They are Troop units for holding objectives, and that is always a good thing.



Guardian Jetbikes
• Speed- Jetbikes are fast. Not only do they move 12” in the movement phase, but they move 6” in the assault phase, and when they need to they can also turbo boost 24”.
• Anti-Tank- They have a Shuriken Cannon for strength 6 side shots, and a singing spear for strength 9 shooting and assault.
• Anti-Horde- The Warlock has Destructor for anti-horde and the squad has Shuriken Cannons and TL Catapults to help out.
• Troops- They are a fast moving troop unit, needed to get to objectives in a hurry.
• Durability- They have a 3+ save and a 4 toughness which is good by Eldar standards. They ability to turbo boost for a 3+ cover save, and their 6” Eldar Jetbike move in the assault phase helps them to get out of rapid-fire and assault range, or to duck behind cover.



Heavy Support

War Walkers
• Anti-Infantry- This is the role where they excel. They can blast away at anything and before long they will go away. They do not care about you standing in cover, because you get an armor save anyways, but through shear volume of fire, they can decimate your opponent.
• Anti-Tank- Although not their primary role, they can chew up enemy armor. Besides the high army value you find in some heavy support choices, most vehicles are armor 12 and less. War Walkers get so many shots, that even glancing hits on AV 12 will do damage.
• Durability-War Walkers are a squadron so you can normally allocate the hits to one chewed up walker. Also they can be obscured for a 4+ cover save and shear number of them makes them hard to silence.


Falcons
• Speed-The ability to move 6” and shoot all of your weapons, 12’” and shoot one weapon, 12 and more to get an obscured save is nice. Also the total move of 24”+12” with Star Engines makes it get to where you need it to be.
• Transport-The ability to carry 6 models is great on such a fast moving tank. If a guardian squad gets chewed up you can embark it to not only save the guardian squad, but to make your Falcon scoring. Also you can get a 6 man Harlequin squad and transport them for assault and short ranged anti-tank, and then the Fire Dragons for vehicle removal, or to flame some infantry.
• Anti-Tank- I use my Falcons as a gunboat for the most part. They are a fire platform that can shoot 2 strength 9 shots and 1 strength 8 shot. They can move around for some strength 6 shots to.
• Anti-Infantry- Although not a specialty of the Falcon they can also do an ok job of shooting infantry. They can shoot the pulse lasers, and frag grenades and still move 12”. 6” and under they can shoot the pulse lasers, the missile launchers, and the shuriken cannon to do some damage.




So as you can see everything has an anti-tank role, and an anti-infantry role. Depending on whatever army I am up against, everything can be used against it. Mech, Infantry, or a combination of both, I have the tools to deal with it.

Now there are some weaknesses in my list. I can’t take out a chaos army that has a lot of oblits. To kill them you need a lot of strength 8 AP2, and my 4 shots at BS3 leave me at a huge disadvantage.

There are a few different strategies with building a good take-all-comers list, and I like this kind of reactive army.

Very interesting - and I found your battle report a great read!

As an aside to this, if faced with this army, how would you try to take it down? And this has nothing to do with me frequently facing eldar armies...

darkkt wrote:Very interesting - and I found your battle report a great read!

As an aside to this, if faced with this army, how would you try to take it down? And this has nothing to do with me frequently facing eldar armies...

I second this.

I would like to add on to what I said in the battle report thread. This army has a completely different design philosophy then the one I use on my eldar. I use a full mech council list, and have always played elves with the belief their best strength is the ability to kill quickly where it hurts. Your army is much more of a meat grinder type list. Something I find surprising with eldar. I run my marines with a very similar concept to this list, and DarthDigglers ard boyz marine army. It works well, though as I said its shocking it works well on eldar.

Congrats to you blackmoor, for busting up the meta game and being a great commander.

Back at the end of 4th ed this was my favourite style of Eldar list, but I have always struggled with 5th ed Eldar...

Thanks for the reinvigorated hope in Eldravatar guardian footslogger lists Blackmoor!!

If you were going to change your heavy support slots at all, what would you swap for the walkers if anything (one or both squads)? Just curious.

Cheers,
Ibushi

darkkt wrote:Very interesting - and I found your battle report a great read!

As an aside to this, if faced with this army, how would you try to take it down? And this has nothing to do with me frequently facing eldar armies...

I'll take a swing at answering this. Here is my standard 1750 list that I would except to face this army with.

Librarian w/Null Zone & Avenger

10 Marines, Lascannon, Plasmagun, Powerfist, Razorback with las/twin-plas

10 Marines, Lascannon, Plasmagun, Powersword, Razorback with las/twin-plas

10 Marines, Missile Launcher, Plasmagun, Powerfist, Razorback with las/twin-plas

10 Marines, Missile Launcher, Plasmagun, Powersword, Razorback with las/twin-plas

3 Attack Bikes with Heavy Bolters

2 Attack Bikes with Multi-meltas

Predator with AC/LC

Predator with AC/HB

Thunderfire Cannon

In an objective mission, I would combat squad down. Sergeant + 4 bolters go in the Razorbacks. Heavy weapon, plasma rifle and 3 bolters find covered positions near home objective from which they can launch fires down range. Predators and Thunderfire ideally find covered support positions. Attack bikes hide behind something in case Blackmoor seizes initiative/goes first. If I win the roll to go first, the plan is to alpha strike the avatar. Everything goes into him before the psychic powers can come into play. In this case, I would fire the tac squads and razorbacks first, then the las-sponson pred, then the dakka pred and finally the HB attack bikes. The thunderfire cannon will shoot at the center of the guardian horde with airburst, letting Blackmoor take his 5+ saves and just hoping that even a bad scatter still hits something. The MM bikes will hang back, waiting to react to his Falcons move or any outflanking war walkers. Depending on the number of objectives and their placement, the Razorbacks will probably start creeping towards him on turn one but only moving 6 a turn so that they can keep the lascannons in the fight. I'm in no hurry to get the psychic hood within 24" of Eldrad because I don't want to expose my HQ and a scoring unit to his shuriken catapults this early in the game and I want to time my assaults on his guardians carefully.

If I go second in an objective mission, I begin targeting guardians heavily with my HB bikes, Dakka pred and Thunderfire trying to kill a scoring unit a turn. The Razorbacks try to take objectives away from the ones the Avatar is protecting and my anti-tank focuses on the warwalkers and the Falcon. I'll basically concede the avatars bubble and an objective or possibly two because I don't want to sink the firepower into killing him once Eldrad's powers have kicked in. The Harlequins I try to keep out of the fight by avoiding them and using rapid fire weapons up close to reduce their numbers if I can't avoid them.

In a kill point mission, I just want to turn the game into a long range fire fight. I don't combat squad, keeping my army together in a tight castle and daring him to close the distance. Warwalkers and falcon become primary targets because I want to reduce his long range anti-infantry and mobility. If I can knock out those pieces from a distance, then I buy myself time to deal with his infantry in subsequent turns because I'm not taking away long range firepower to deal with a threat inside my lines. The MM bikes hang back to guard against outflanking warwalkers and opportunity shots at the Falcon.

Overall, most of my army has to be reactive. I need to be patient and use my shooting to force Blackmoor to move a squad into a vulernable spot so I can isolate and destroy it and not let him do the same to my army.

Hope this helps and makes sense.

Take care,
Mike K.

darkkt wrote:Very interesting - and I found your battle report a great read!

As an aside to this, if faced with this army, how would you try to take it down? And this has nothing to do with me frequently facing eldar armies...

Panzerleader has it right, but it really depends on your army and what you can do.


If you are a shooting army:
If you ever catch the Avatar unfortuned, you need to take him down.

If you have enough anti-infantry fire in an objective mission you can try to take out the Guardians. If you can kill enough of them it will make me very nervous.

If you are playing a kill point mission and you are in a long range firefight, you need to take out the War Walkers. There fire is devastating and will shred your units.

If you are an assault army:
I would try to engage as many guardians as I can and try to neutralize the Harlequins. There is not too much you can do to the Avatar, but you can get into a massed assault and do a lot of wounds, the fearlessness can be used against me and I would lose a lot of model do to no-retreat. You will also need to take out the Harlies, it will greatly diminish my counter attack.

This list would give my 4 Battlewagon army a hard time that's for sure. Eldrad's redeploy ability would hurt the most because I would be hoping to get my diversified Nob squad across the board quickly to take out the Avatar.

I am in the same camp as Ibushi. Thanks for posting this information. I ran a very similar styled army for quite awhile before retiring them for my Orks. I've tried the internet popular versions such as Mech Eldar with and without Jetbike Seer Councils. While they can be tough armies, I've found them even more unforgiving when against a bad matchup. Losing the capacity to shoot with multiple shaken Wave Serpents/Falcons/Fire Prisms really made my army one dimensional: I go for late game tank shocks. All in all, not a very fulfilling game experience; either for myself or my opponent. And in many tourney enviornments, it can be quite easy to lose points for people's perceptions of 'cheeseball' moves late game. I'm not saying it's right or wrong, just saying it exists.

Not sure if this past year's worth of tourney winners will change the mindset, but it is definitely worth noting the need for duality in units.

Question: Weapon loadouts between Guardians and War Walkers. While I think Scatterlasers work well, what's your opinion in substituting 1 or 2 Scatterlasers for EML? Additionally, would you be losing too much anti armor if you utilized Scatterlasers instead of Brightlances for your Guardians?

Thanks for a great post Blackmoor. My experience at last GT and discussions with friends about listbuilding and metagame has lead to a preliminary conclusion that listbuilding on the internets is viewed in too strickt a manner.
Still, on first glance I wouldve concluded that you lack mobility and (appart from Eldrad and the Avatar) durability. I stand corrected, obviously. Impressive results from an impressive general. Nice to see that your list (and for instance Darth Diggler's earlier) leads to a more broad discussion on what is tacticaly viable.

/Bow

Cilithan

Great post, thanks Blackmoor!

Stuff like this really gets me thinking about my own tactics. I've settled comfortably into mech for my DA but I'm now thinking of running a foot horde with the sacred banner that grants fearless. Might be a fun list to test.

Couple questions.

How do you deal with flamers or heavy flamers or other things that ignore cover? Seems like they could run through your troops pretty fast. I could be wrong, just wondering. (like if an Aircav list dropped 8 flamers on your troops or marines dropped 3 heavy flamers)

How do you deal with heavy assault units, like TH/SS terminators or nob bikerz? Especially when they avoid your avatar and just wipe troops with fearless combat resolution.

Finally, don't you have a tough time protecting your war walkers since any 50% of penetrating roles will destroy them?

Timmah wrote:How do you deal with flamers or heavy flamers or other things that ignore cover? Seems like they could run through your troops pretty fast. I could be wrong, just wondering. (like if an Aircav list dropped 8 flamers on your troops or marines dropped 3 heavy flamers)

Blackmoor is really good with gunner placement, whenever I face this army with mechvets, it seems like the edges of his guardians always have a gunner on them. this leaves me with three options. Drive up flush to the spread out unit, curve a template and get 2 guardians. Drive up to a units flank, stop one inch away and cover two or sometimes three guardians with the template. The last option is the one I always pick, tank shock the unit from an edge, and then get 4 under the template. Since he always has a gunner on or near enough to the edge, he seems to always get a death or glory, and thanks to the way the guardians work, he can fail that death or glory and still have a gunner to fire the platform.

Outside or his maneuvering and his awareness of that vulnerability, mobile heavy flamers do seem to put some real fear into the list. You just have to catch him on an objectives mission

Timmah wrote:Finally, don't you have a tough time protecting your war walkers since any 50% of penetrating roles will destroy them?

In the games he and i have played, they die really fast. He is aggressive with them, they almost always contribute in a significant way, but they aren't survivors

Timmah wrote:

Finally, don't you have a tough time protecting your war walkers since any 50% of penetrating roles will destroy them?

Also War Walkers aren't open topped anymore. Only 33% of penetrating hits destroy them, just like other closed-topped vehicles.

I've been finding them surprisingly durable for AR10 vehicles. Because they're walkers, you can park them in most ordinary ruins on most gaming tables without worrying about the dangerous terrain tests that vypers have to undergo and easily get the 50% cover for the save. If you have the resources to also fortune them (and use hit allocation to minimize damage), and they can stand up to several volleys and still have one or two shooting.

Mine also often seem to wind up in assault for some reason. With str5 and 2 attacks base, they're actually better than a lot of other Eldar units in HtH.

Flavius Infernus wrote:Also War Walkers aren't open topped anymore. Only 33% of penetrating hits destroy them, just like other closed-topped vehicles.

50% of pens destroys ANY vehicle in a squadron.

Immobilize=destroyed (wrecked)

Technically if you tank shocked correctly you could probably get about 6-8 of them under a flamer template couldn't you?

Timmah wrote:Technically if you tank shocked correctly you could probably get about 6-8 of them under a flamer template couldn't you?

The way I play tank shock, models don't get bulldozed forward. My interpretation is that you determine the final position of the vehicle, then reposition any models that will be underneath or within 1" by the shortest distance possible. In many cases, that pushes the infantry models to the sides of my chimera hulls, rather than in front of them.

The wording of the tank shock section is notoriously vague, and I'm not convinced that my interpretation is the only valid one. But under my interpretation you couldn't get six 25mm models that were previously deployed in a single rank over 1" apart bunched up enough from a single tank shock. Multiple vehicles can fence in and create some dense formations, but I rarely get a chance to make moves like that in game.

Shep wrote:

Flavius Infernus wrote:Also War Walkers aren't open topped anymore. Only 33% of penetrating hits destroy them, just like other closed-topped vehicles.

50% of pens destroys ANY vehicle in a squadron.

Immobilize=destroyed (wrecked)

Oh yeah. Wow, I hope I didn't cheat that by mistake, but I don't think it came up. It's easier to remember the squadron rule for skimmers somehow.

So wait, though, that means that vypers in a squadron go down on a 3+--or on a 2+ for an AP1 weapon. Ugh.

I've never liked this style of Eldar, but I know you have been running it successfully since 4th. (Although I would go crazy being forced to use guardians in 5th)

With the exception of the Eldrad/Avatar combo, it doesn't really look that scary on paper firepower wise, but very resiliant at taking and holding objectives.

Couple Questions:
-I'm assuming you use the redeploy for the Warwalkers?
-How survivable is the squad of aspect warriors that doesn't borrow the falcon for the first 3 turns?
-flamers don't scare you to death?

I'd say if you like the list and win with it more power to you.

IntoTheRain wrote:
Couple Questions:
-I'm assuming you use the redeploy for the Warwalkers?

Not really.

I set up the way I would set up without the redeply. Since the amount of units you get to redeploy are random, and with seize the inititive, I don't take nothing for granted. But more often then not it is the Falcon that needs to be re-deployed with the Fire Dragons to get closer to the vehicles.

-How survivable is the squad of aspect warriors that doesn't borrow the falcon for the first 3 turns?

What units is that? The Harlequins are quite survivable with the protection of veil of tears.

-flamers don't scare you to death?

Flamers scare me a little. But my army for the most part is hanging in the rear with the gear. You have to come to me for a turn or 2 to get to have some fun with the flamers, and then you have to deal with a pissed off Avatar and the Harlequins. Also I can spread out some to minimize the damage. You need a lot of flamers to do some real damage to me.

I'd say if you like the list and win with it more power to you.

Thanks. I am going to modify it a little the next time it makes an appearnace.

Thanks for the write up.

It is cool to see this because I have been using my new foot eldar list lately and I have yet to lose with them, against all accepted wisdom. I use really similar tactics to you, and they work well for me too.

The things that give me the hardest time are long range ordnance, indirect ordnance, and either fast or ranged flamer templates (like scrochas, hellhounds, or deepstrikers). What have you done to counter these?

I have to ask you what you would do to counter the mech rush eldar army list, or a dark eldar army. It seems as though an army that could spam loads of vehicles and just stay at range would give you fits.

Reecius wrote:Thanks for the write up.

It is cool to see this because I have been using my new foot eldar list lately and I have yet to lose with them, against all accepted wisdom. I use really similar tactics to you, and they work well for me too.

A few people have said that too me. There are people who are out there that are running footslogging Eldar and having success with them. Others still think you can’t win without being Mech or have Seer Councils.

The things that give me the hardest time are long range ordnance, indirect ordnance, and either fast or ranged flamer templates (like scrochas, hellhounds, or deepstrikers). What have you done to counter these?

I only play in tournaments so that helps out. Because of that I have the protection of a take-all-comers environment. Since nobody knows what army they are going to face, they can’t really load up on the weapons that will take my army out. Somebody could take a ton of flamers and really hurt me, but you can’t take that to a tournament because you will end up drawing a space marine player that will laugh at you.

Against Hellhounds I stick my Avatar, and his trusty sidekick Eldrad, out in front of my army and dare anyone to come close. If he is 10” out in front of the guardians that means that he is in Melta, and charge range to any Hellhounds that are trying to get at his friends.

With ordnance I try to do everything I can to keep them from firing. In my game with Shep I dumped fire into those Medusas so they would not shoot. Otherwise I would have to hunt them down with the Falcon and Co.

But it has a lot to do with threat priorities and taking out templates are the first that have to go down.

Blackmoor wrote:

War Walkers

• Durability-War Walkers are a squadron so you can normally allocate the hits to one chewed up walker. Also they can be obscured for a 4+ cover save and shear number of them makes them hard to silence.

What kind of terrain are you using that allows you to get cover saves for your War Walkers? I'm genuinely interested.

Or are you playing 50% obscured = 50% (the height of the model) obscured? Because that's not how the rule reads to me. You have to have 50% of the actual MODEL (which is mainly the body at the top of the legs) obscured to get the bonus. Simply having the legs covered by terrain shouldn't be enough to get you a cover save as the majority of the 'model' (not the height of the model) is uncovered.

Eidolon wrote:I have to ask you what you would do to counter the mech rush eldar army list, or a dark eldar army. It seems as though an army that could spam loads of vehicles and just stay at range would give you fits.

What would I do against Mech Dark Eldar?

Something like I did in game #1 below:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/250049.page

What do I do against Mech Eldar? Do I go first or second?

If I go first I start on the board. He either stand and fights, or he goes into reserve. If he starts on the board, I cripple him turn #1. If he goes into reserve, he comes on piecemeal against my whole army, and I like my odds.

If I go second, it would depend on a lot of factors like his firepower and terrain. If I think I can take a turn of shooting and still be an effective army I would stand my ground and try to slug it out with him. If not, I go into reserve and hope I can hurt him when I come on.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

yakface wrote:

Blackmoor wrote:

War Walkers

• Durability-War Walkers are a squadron so you can normally allocate the hits to one chewed up walker. Also they can be obscured for a 4+ cover save and shear number of them makes them hard to silence.

What kind of terrain are you using that allows you to get cover saves for your War Walkers? I'm genuinely interested.

Well, sometimes I use an Avatar, or a Falcon. They make OK terrain in an emergency. At the Wild West Shootout I moved the terrain off to the sides so I never really go to take an obscured save. I was making a general statement about War Walkers, not saying that I used it.

Or are you playing 50% obscured = 50% (the height of the model) obscured? Because that's not how the rule reads to me. You have to have 50% of the actual MODEL (which is mainly the body at the top of the legs) obscured to get the bonus. Simply having the legs covered by terrain shouldn't be enough to get you a cover save as the majority of the 'model' (not the height of the model) is uncovered.

Are you saying that shooting through windows at my walkers I should not get a cover save?




I was speaking in general where there is high terrain to use to your advantage. I can use it to get a clear shot at what I am aiming at, and with the return fire I had enough obscured (like 2 walkers out of 3) to get a cover save. Or if what I am shooting at gets a cover save as well because there is a lot of terrain inbetween, that is not a problem.

PanzerLeader wrote:

darkkt wrote:Very interesting - and I found your battle report a great read!

As an aside to this, if faced with this army, how would you try to take it down? And this has nothing to do with me frequently facing eldar armies...

I'll take a swing at answering this. Here is my standard 1750 list that I would except to face this army with.

Librarian w/Null Zone & Avenger

10 Marines, Lascannon, Plasmagun, Powerfist, Razorback with las/twin-plas

10 Marines, Lascannon, Plasmagun, Powersword, Razorback with las/twin-plas

10 Marines, Missile Launcher, Plasmagun, Powerfist, Razorback with las/twin-plas

10 Marines, Missile Launcher, Plasmagun, Powersword, Razorback with las/twin-plas

3 Attack Bikes with Heavy Bolters

2 Attack Bikes with Multi-meltas

Predator with AC/LC

Predator with AC/HB

Thunderfire Cannon

In an objective mission, I would combat squad down. Sergeant + 4 bolters go in the Razorbacks. Heavy weapon, plasma rifle and 3 bolters find covered positions near home objective from which they can launch fires down range. Predators and Thunderfire ideally find covered support positions. Attack bikes hide behind something in case Blackmoor seizes initiative/goes first. If I win the roll to go first, the plan is to alpha strike the avatar. Everything goes into him before the psychic powers can come into play. In this case, I would fire the tac squads and razorbacks first, then the las-sponson pred, then the dakka pred and finally the HB attack bikes. The thunderfire cannon will shoot at the center of the guardian horde with airburst, letting Blackmoor take his 5+ saves and just hoping that even a bad scatter still hits something. The MM bikes will hang back, waiting to react to his Falcons move or any outflanking war walkers. Depending on the number of objectives and their placement, the Razorbacks will probably start creeping towards him on turn one but only moving 6 a turn so that they can keep the lascannons in the fight. I'm in no hurry to get the psychic hood within 24" of Eldrad because I don't want to expose my HQ and a scoring unit to his shuriken catapults this early in the game and I want to time my assaults on his guardians carefully.

If I go second in an objective mission, I begin targeting guardians heavily with my HB bikes, Dakka pred and Thunderfire trying to kill a scoring unit a turn. The Razorbacks try to take objectives away from the ones the Avatar is protecting and my anti-tank focuses on the warwalkers and the Falcon. I'll basically concede the avatars bubble and an objective or possibly two because I don't want to sink the firepower into killing him once Eldrad's powers have kicked in. The Harlequins I try to keep out of the fight by avoiding them and using rapid fire weapons up close to reduce their numbers if I can't avoid them.

In a kill point mission, I just want to turn the game into a long range fire fight. I don't combat squad, keeping my army together in a tight castle and daring him to close the distance. Warwalkers and falcon become primary targets because I want to reduce his long range anti-infantry and mobility. If I can knock out those pieces from a distance, then I buy myself time to deal with his infantry in subsequent turns because I'm not taking away long range firepower to deal with a threat inside my lines. The MM bikes hang back to guard against outflanking warwalkers and opportunity shots at the Falcon.

Overall, most of my army has to be reactive. I need to be patient and use my shooting to force Blackmoor to move a squad into a vulernable spot so I can isolate and destroy it and not let him do the same to my army.

Hope this helps and makes sense.

Take care,
Mike K.

Excellent analysis.

Yeah, it does look like those windows would do the trick perfectly.

Mmmmm. . .humble pie!

Blackmoor:

Where does Eldrad go? Does he stick with a unit? By himself? Do you shift him back and forth between attached units so that he can't be singled out?

I haven't the time to posit an analysis on how I think my take-all-comers list would handle this, and that kind of theoryhammer wouldn't serve much purpose anyway, but I will note that I'd be anxious to kill Eldrad to get rid of his powers so that I could deal with the Avatar later and I'm curious how you play him and where.

Jeesh. Thread Necromancy.