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This is a problem that I have rarely overcome. I collect Eldar and my friend has Tyranids but he always defeats me and sometimes absolutely thrashes me. How can I beat him? If you have any tips on how to defeat Tyranids with an Eldar army please tell me.

EDIT: Here is a list of everything I have:
Farseer
Avatar
Asurmen
Warlocks
Autarch

Scorpions
Banshees
Wraithguard
Dragons

Wave Serpents

Guardians
Avengers
Rangers

Hawks
Spears

Walkers
Wraithlords
Falcon
Reapers


My Tyranid collecting friend has many gaunts (both hormies and termies) some stealers, a hive tyrant, thropes (including Malan'tai) lots of fex's, a few warriors, a tervigon.

You need to tell us what you're running and what you're opponent is running; your question is far too broad in scope to answer.

I constantly beat Nids with Eldar no matter what.
Please have a look into my last battle report at the respective board here at Dakka.

I hae to say that after looking the Eldar Codex over again, Wraithguard look like the best way of taking down all those T6 3+W TMCs.

A Seer Council would probaly be quite effective. Destructor is pretty good at removing his small bugs, and if you Fortune the Council, and Doom a Fex, with a Warlock with Enhance in there somewhere, means that the 'poor' Fex won't survive much longer

Do you have Eldrad? if not, use a "counts as" Eldrad instead of your seer. Seer council with all the singing spears and destructor's as you can afford. Doom the target, Fortune yourself, destructor all gaunts that come near, spear as many MC's as possible before assaulting to hopefully rid them of their final wound

Fire prism's arn't a bad idea for taking out gaunts purely because you can get rid of loads in 1 shot. and can hit MC's if you run out of little things to kill. Hope RoWarding hurts the zoans

War Walkers with duel Scatter Lasers are good for warriors ect, that many S6 shots are going to kill something

Enjoy the fact you can target his Tyrant freely because he hasnt got any Tyrant Guard

2 x 5 avengers in WS's just for a last minute objective rush.

- Gaunts (both hormies and termies)

Vulnerable to small arms fire, templates, and blasts.
Hit them with:
Sh. catapults (via Avengers), flamers (via Storm Guardians, Warlock destructors, WL flamers, etc...), large blasts and EML small blasts (via Fire prisms dispersed beam, EML small blasts).

Two fire prisms can cause massive amounts of damage to swarm units, second only to flamers in effectiveness. Swarms will tend to hug cover, making the large blasts much less effective overall.

- Stealers
*rainman voice* "Flamers, yeah... flamers work, use flamers... yeah..."

- Hive tyrant
Vulnerable to s6+ weapons, and small arms spam.
Hit them with:
Scatterlasers, Sh. Cannons, EML s8 shots, BL's, Avenger Bladestorms, and assaults from Warlocks/Harlequins.

- Thropes
Vulnerable to s6+ weapons, small arms spam.

- Fex's
Vulnerable to same as Hive Tyrant. Assaulting/ tarpitting recommended.

- Warriors
Same as Gaunts, s6+ weapons as well.

- Tervigon.
Vulnerable to Same as Hive Tyrant. Assaulting/ tarpitting rec.


That is a basic run-down of what should be hit by what, etc...

I am a pretty big fan of using Harlequins to take down MC's, as they can do very well at wiping them. Warlocks also work quite well, but you will have to be careful if you are using a Farseer in the squad, as it can be instagibbed in combat. Using Dire avengers, and/or flamer Guardians (w/ Destructor Warlock, in a Wave serpent), will give you support against the MC's, as well as a solid core army to take out Gaunts and the like.

If I can find the time, I will go ahead and put together a sample list with the units you have listed.

Wrexasaur wrote:- Gaunts (both hormies and termies)

Vulnerable to small arms fire, templates, and blasts.
Hit them with:
Sh. catapults (via Avengers), flamers (via Storm Guardians, Warlock destructors, WL flamers, etc...), large blasts and EML small blasts (via Fire prisms dispersed beam, EML small blasts).

Two fire prisms can cause massive amounts of damage to swarm units, second only to flamers in effectiveness. Swarms will tend to hug cover, making the large blasts much less effective overall.

- Stealers
*rainman voice* "Flamers, yeah... flamers work, use flamers... yeah..."

- Hive tyrant
Vulnerable to s6+ weapons, and small arms spam.
Hit them with:
Scatterlasers, Sh. Cannons, EML s8 shots, BL's, Avenger Bladestorms, and assaults from Warlocks/Harlequins.

- Thropes
Vulnerable to s6+ weapons, small arms spam.

- Fex's
Vulnerable to same as Hive Tyrant. Assaulting/ tarpitting recommended.

- Warriors
Same as Gaunts, s6+ weapons as well.

- Tervigon.
Vulnerable to Same as Hive Tyrant. Assaulting/ tarpitting rec.


That is a basic run-down of what should be hit by what, etc...

I am a pretty big fan of using Harlequins to take down MC's, as they can do very well at wiping them. Warlocks also work quite well, but you will have to be careful if you are using a Farseer in the squad, as it can be instagibbed in combat. Using Dire avengers, and/or flamer Guardians (w/ Destructor Warlock, in a Wave serpent), will give you support against the MC's, as well as a solid core army to take out Gaunts and the like.

If I can find the time, I will go ahead and put together a sample list with the units you have listed.

Thanks mate. This is great stuff. Don't feel like you have to create a sample army for me (as good as that would be). Thanks for the tips and I will use them as best I can when I next face him on Saturday 06/03/1010. I will post the battle report as well. My friend as a 'Dakka Dakka' account as well. He is called Serpentlord Scylla. We are going to be posting the report on our game come that Saturday and it should be done Sunday. I have made myself a list which I hope will beat him. Don't know what he is using though...

Lists don't win games, players win games.

Nurglitch wrote:Lists don't win games, players win games.

Lists just help alot
but your point is very true, especially with eldar

Nurglitch wrote:Lists don't win games, players win games.

I can beat any other army and infact have beaten every other army. I have defeated Tyranids before just not this guys army for some reason. I don't know why, I just never win. My rolling does suck really bad (once on Asurmens 2+ armour save I rolled 5 1's in 5d6) but that isn't mcuh of an excuse. I just really am sick of him laughing in my face whenever he beats me. I shake his hand at the end of all our games (because I'm sporting like that) but he will still mock my failure to defeat him.

Bad rolling is not an excuse most of the time, it is really more of a solid reason for losing. In a game based around dice, you simply can't rely on your skills alone. I have seen very few games where dice hit mathematical odds consistently.

Ever missed every single shot you fired? Ever failed every save you have thrown? FOR TWO ROUNDS!?

I have...

Having a solid list is key to being successful competitively. Failing to realize that is hilarious (this is not directed at anyone specific). Over the course of 100 games, the odds will become much more solid, and you will most definitely notice the weaknesses in any army, let alone a poorly constructed one.

In terms of your options, reidy1113, here are some simple ideas.

Depending on how many tanks you actually have, specifically transports, I would advise that you build a fully mechanized list. In a 1500 point force, 5-6 tanks should give you a rounded force.

Try out a Farseer with a squad of Striking Scorpions, stuck into a wave serpent. This squad can keep the farseer protected, and give you a decent countercharge unit.

For troops, I would mess around with 2 squads of avengers (exarch w/ B. storm, Dual S. cats), and 2 squads of flamer guardians (warlock w/ destructor). Give them all tanks as well. To round everything off, I would go with a squad of Fire dragons, also in a transport. Fire dragons can do serious damage to MC's, and if you wanted you could get a heavy flamer exarch, for added flaminess (make sure to get crack shot for him if you do, it is one of my favorite upgrades for eldar).

I would consider getting nothing but Shuriken cannons (Twin linked + underslung cannon), for all of your tanks. Scatterlasers are also effective, 4x6 (24) 36" s6 shots, is a practical way to get reliable wounds on individual MC's. With decent rolling, you could drop 4 wounds a turn. If you have the points, EML's are also a decent option (EML + underslung cannon), as you will gain an awful lot of flexibility from the setup. The EML small blast (s4/ap4) is a defensive weapon, so you can fire both guns while moving 12". This means that by turn 2 or so, your tanks can drop all their firepower onto chunks of your enemies force.

Taking on his army Piece meal is also a good way to approach most forces. Take down troops if possible, during flag-based games. Take down MC's, and shooty stuff, during annihilation games.

Having a points value to work with might help a bit, Eldar don't traditionally do well at smaller points values (like most races that have sub par troops generally). If he is laughing at you when you lose don't feel bad about both checking up to make sure his list/rules are legal and also running an absolutely nasty list tailored to beat Nids to show him up.

The key to winning with Eldar is to stay mobile, stay alive (these two are often the same thing, avoid the nastiest stuff) and mass your firepower to completely wipe things out. Even with the new codex the biggest issue Nids have is killing vehicles, most of the time they are really just trying to shake/stun/immobilise with shooting enough to reduce the worst of incoming fire and allow the big nasty stuff to get in close and rip the tanks in half in combat. So most mech builds being used by an intelligent player won't be a good matchup for a Nid army and Eldar are still one of the best mech armies around.

I wouldn't bother with Flamer Guardians, most of the time you will end up trading 1 squad of dead Gaunts for a dead squad of Guardians and possibly a dead transport as well which is a bad trade (Gaunts are fodder and Nids have far more units to work with than Eldar).

Recently I have found that there is basically no army in the game which can stand up to massed S6 fire from Scatter Lasers and Shuriken Cannons, (particularly if you throw Doom into the mix) as long as you have a couple of squads of Fire Dragons and a sprinkling of Bright Lances (for when you run into AV13+, but they are still useful against Nids). I'm trialing a list with 3 War Walkers with Scatter Lasers, 2 Prisms, 2 squads of Fire Dragons in Serpents and 3 squads of Avengers in Serpents with as many S6 weapons as I can fit (+- a few things depending on points, this is 1750-1850 range).

You shouldn't need to worry about the smaller bugs too much with these types of list, they can easily be squashed by massed fire when you need to (including DA who can disembark and wipe units out from slightly safer distances), everything else can be taken out with S6 shooting combined with Doom (on average you should drop 1 Trygon type (6W T6)or 5 Warrior type (3W T4-5) per turn) and you can always disembark Fire Dragons and Avengers if you need to do a bit more damage for a turn. Against other armies S6 shooting should stall pretty much any transport and cause massive numbers of wounds on everything and the Fire Dragons should deal with any Land Raiders etc.

A few other tips:
Use Doom, its awesome.
Don't leave home without Runes of Warding, will save you against Thropes if nothing else (they are also less likely to get the FNP and other powers up).
Don't try and beat Nids in combat unless you are running a large JetCouncil, it will just about always die painfully otherwise. T3 and bad saves doesn't end well.
Shoot Hive Guard asap followed by Thropes (Runes of Warding, short range and Energy Field on Serpents mean they don't fear them too much), then any other high strength weapons. At this point you should just be able to keep your distance with him, avoid all the stuff which needs to get in close combat to hurt you and just shoot him to death.
Don't take Rangers or Dark Reapers, they can't play keep away and won't kill enough to be worth it.
Don't use Wraithlords or the Avatar (or the Elfzilla list in general), Nids will almost always have more MCs than you + they have widespread access to cheap poisoned attacks.
Don't trade unit for unit when he has more than you to start with + makes new ones during the game.

If you can take out the Thropes nids will have a lot of difficulty with a mechanized dire avenger squad throwing out bladestorm and then jumping back in their transport on the turn that their guns are down.

A good tip is end of game tank shock on monstrous creatures if you have gone second.

If they don't death or glory, they are pushed off the objective.

If they do, they have a very good chance of being smushed dead.

Weight of firepower.
1500+ i'd usually take two farseers, doom the two closest units and lay multiple shots into them, Dire avengers are good for this as are Warp spiders just for the sheer amount of dice your rolling. I usually take some Fire dragons just in case something big gets to close and some harlequins as a counter charge unit (doom their target unit and watch rending do the rest)

Dire avengers with Defend and a shimmershield can also be surprisingly resilient in combat if fortuned.