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a local eldar player has been winning most every time unless we all tailor our lists to beat him, and tailoring to beat someone is lame. his tactics are simple.
his army.
lots of transports and tanks with holofield etc. with troops inside and eldrad.
his tactics.
he puts everything in reserve and then maneuvers so that late game he can tanks shock units off of objectives or deny kill points. its been very effective. i only just beat him by sheer luck and the skin of my teeth. two marines on the contested objective survived 18 attackes by howling banshee. NOT ONE WOUND. you cant count on this happening ever so... any suggestions.

More anti-tank!!

Also, he can't really tank shock a vehicle off an objective....try playing mechanized.

good point. the problem is how easy it is for eldar to kill vehicles. the lance weapon that they have are great for killing tanks. and he has a lot of lances available. its like playing fantasy he has so many lances.
any other advice like good threads here or on other forums.

What armies do you play? Each army has a different way of fighting Mech Eldar.

Some things to remember:

If a wave serpent turbo boosts the passengers can't get out.

In most circles you can't tank shock when using star engines so the max moved is only 24 inches for a tank shock or ram.

He can't use his powers the turn his farseer comes in from reserve.

You can play the reserve game as well. He puts everything in reserve? Well that’s great because once they show up there will be nothing for him to kill.

Also, in objective games try to always go second against someone who will try and tank shock you off of the objective.

Putting a walker in the way of an objective to gain death or glory is fun as well.

Energy fields on wave serpents don't help with attacks to the rear armor, so if you have fast moving melta. Get at him from behind.

Wouldn't Eldar love the enemy coming in from reserve as well (unless they are DE I guess)? I mean Eldar skimmers can move 12" and fire, whereas you will have to go 6 max if you want to shoot + isn't fighting the enemy piece meal what Eldar want to do anyway?

If you aren't on the table when they come in they can just turbo boost and even if you do come in after them, well, 4+ cover save.

With an autarch they'll have more on the field than you too...

Could you explain why putting things in reserve is good?

Lot's of Marine players rely on Melta weaponry to destroy Vehicles ever since 5th edition came out. These weapons work great against non-fast Vehicles, as it is fairly easy to get within range. The Eldar player will however, use his movement to avoid most of those Melta weaponry, making it very difficult to destroy his Vehicles. In addition to that, Wave Serpents have the Energy Field, which makes Melta weaponry even less reliable.
To destroy Eldar Skimmers, you will want some long range, high strength weaponry (S7 or S8 will do).

As other have already said, there are two things that will prevent your opponent from contesting an objective through Tank Shocking. The preferable way is to block his Tank Shock with a Vehicle of your own (empty Transports or Weapon Destroyed Vehicles are best for this). The second option is to Death or Glory the Vehicle. This is more of a gamble then the first option is, so I would prefer to use the first option if at all possible.

And just to clear this up: Eldar are NOT that great at destroying Vehicles. The Bright Lance you think is so cheap and strong really isn't that good. Every unit that can take it has BS3 (except the Wraithlord), it has a single shot and costs a bucketload of points. If you think Eldar Bright Lances are bad, try playing against Dark Eldar and their Dark Lances.
The only unit that can reliably destroy Vehicles are Fire Dragons. They are short ranged and will die once they have disembarked from their transport.

Wave serpents with bright lances cost 135 points minimum. A krak missile or autocannon kills that 135 points just as well as it kills a 55 point chimera.

Play mechanized, and play units that have good firepower/point and you will do well.

Honestly, howling banshees are bad enough that if he is using him he probably doesn't have the best list he could have.

number9dream wrote:Wouldn't Eldar love the enemy coming in from reserve as well (unless they are DE I guess)? I mean Eldar skimmers can move 12" and fire, whereas you will have to go 6 max if you want to shoot + isn't fighting the enemy piece meal what Eldar want to do anyway?

If you aren't on the table when they come in they can just turbo boost and even if you do come in after them, well, 4+ cover save.

With an autarch they'll have more on the field than you too...

Could you explain why putting things in reserve is good?

Because the Eldar player is comming on the board first he needs to place his units some place on the board. You can overload the units if he spreads them out or control the range of the engagement by showing up far away from his concentrated units. You can come in the opposite board edge or even outflank ( in an IG, or Khan based SM army). while turbo boosting does provide a cover save you can make it so that he is out of position.

Not sure if this is possible in 5th ed, but I heard of a 4th ed win where a guy infiltrated against an all reserve army so that there was no place for him to come in and his army was technically wiped out. But that is a bit extreme and depending on how you interpret the rules/what FAQ you use I suppose a tank could tank shock onto the board.

Otherwise the only thing I have to add is that his army is going to be coming in piece meal. With good range decent S multiple shot guns (autocannons or assault cannons come to mind) you should be able to focus 100% of your points against 50% of his, then 33%, the 20% etc. And coming in off table, especially if he is moving 24” means you won’t have anything shooting at you before you get rounds off with all your army.

Honestly, aside from the buzzing around just to survive and tank shock off objectives I’m surprised he is doing so well. Going second would be huge against an army like this, there is no downside to the deployment and you get a chance to retaliate last turn when he flies onto objectives. Might be worth an Inquisitor and Emperor’s Tarot is your imperial.

If you wanted to tailor against this (and I admire that you don’t) Assault cannon dreds seem like a good option to me. The assault cannon has a pretty decent shot at poping the transport (multiple shots will help get past any cover saves) and the 3 s10 attacks on the charge gives you approx 50% chance of auto pening on the vehicles butt. Or you could charge the unit that was inside, and with only a few exceptions eldar units don’t have a lot to deal with walkers in HtH. Additionally the dred isn’t technically isn’t losing anything being shot at by bright lances (which I also agree are overrated, good but overrated)

Skimmers can fly over infiltrator lines

There was a bike army that managed to lose to infiltrated kroot at the European Team Championship last year IIRC, pretty epic picture of the winning team with a GIGANTIC grin on their faces lol

(Was posted here but not sure where)

ArtfcllyFlvrd wrote:Not sure if this is possible in 5th ed, but I heard of a 4th ed win where a guy infiltrated against an all reserve army so that there was no place for him to come in and his army was technically wiped out. But that is a bit extreme and depending on how you interpret the rules/what FAQ you use I suppose a tank could tank shock onto the board.

Otherwise the only thing I have to add is that his army is going to be coming in piece meal. With good range decent S multiple shot guns (autocannons or assault cannons come to mind) you should be able to focus 100% of your points against 50% of his, then 33%, the 20% etc. And coming in off table, especially if he is moving 24” means you won’t have anything shooting at you before you get rounds off with all your army.

Honestly, aside from the buzzing around just to survive and tank shock off objectives I’m surprised he is doing so well. Going second would be huge against an army like this, there is no downside to the deployment and you get a chance to retaliate last turn when he flies onto objectives. Might be worth an Inquisitor and Emperor’s Tarot is your imperial.

If you wanted to tailor against this (and I admire that you don’t) Assault cannon dreds seem like a good option to me. The assault cannon has a pretty decent shot at poping the transport (multiple shots will help get past any cover saves) and the 3 s10 attacks on the charge gives you approx 50% chance of auto pening on the vehicles butt. Or you could charge the unit that was inside, and with only a few exceptions eldar units don’t have a lot to deal with walkers in HtH. Additionally the dred isn’t technically isn’t losing anything being shot at by bright lances (which I also agree are overrated, good but overrated)

I want to say it was at the Baltimore or Las Vegas GT where a white scars player (No Tanks) put everything in reserve and the tau player covered his board edge with infaltrating kroot. Auto win for Tau as the bikes couldn't come on. There is a picture out there of the tau player with his kroot on the board edge giving a big thumbs up.

Nah, it's from ETC unless it happened in both places
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_SJlNbnnVRhY/Sp0ytDxTPwI/AAAAAAAADvw/ZxQvlTIii10/s1600-h/aegd.jpg

Mm, image doesn't want to imbed :s

There is a different picture that I've seen, and I guess it happened many years ago.. Hmmm now I'll be searching for it.

It couldn't happen in 4th ed as you couldn't put all of your units into reserves voluntarily.

IG Hydras.