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hello everyone, i am new to warhammer 40k and i bought an eldar battle force last month
after learning how to build and paint, i finally got a decent looking army including:
10 guardians with supporting platform
5 dire avengers
1 war walker
and a wave ser.

i really wanna get thing started as soon as possible and play a real game with my friends

1)is there any tactics for dummy like me that i can start with, that is nice and simple..and using all the units above? ( i don't wanna waste those guys )
2) if so, what extra units do i need ( farseers, howlings etc) and how does the tactic work
3) and is there any tips and secrets for using eldar to win a game easily? (except i knw they are good at shooting and suck and contact fight)

thanks

You need an HQ, so a Farseer (or Eldrad), a Phoenix Lord, the Avatar, or an Autarch (or Yriel). I'd suggest a Farseer. Right now you shouldn't be concerned with "winning easily" as you're brand new to the game, and your list is basically just a random hodge-podge of units. This is no insult against you, it's simply how most players start off. As you find out what is effective, and ineffective, you should experiment with new units (see if your friends will let you proxy). The most important part of being new to the game is finding opponents who are willing to help you learn, rather than just opponents who are looking for easy wins.

Scrap the guardians, get more avengers

Be fast. Wave serpents are your friends. Farseer is excellent with Doom

Well, its a good starting point.
You need an HQ. Get a Farseer and give her doom.
Then I'd get 5 Dire Avengers, possibly from eBay.
This gives you 2 troop units.
Get another Serpent to mount both troops.
Finally, I'd pick up 1 or 2 more War Walkers, equip them equally with scatter lasers.
Start from there...

eldar_lenn wrote:10 guardians with supporting platform
5 dire avengers
1 war walker
and a wave ser.

i really wanna get thing started as soon as possible and play a real game with my friends

1)is there any tactics for dummy like me that i can start with, that is nice and simple..and using all the units above? ( i don't wanna waste those guys )
2) if so, what extra units do i need ( farseers, howlings etc) and how does the tactic work
3) and is there any tips and secrets for using eldar to win a game easily? (except i knw they are good at shooting and suck and contact fight)

Ok.. Your new and you choose Eldar, A brave move indeed.
Eldar are not a forgiving army, the majority of your army is toughness 3 with 5+/4+ saves. Add to that your pretty highly costed for points and you have a small army that dies easy.
Lucky for you Eldar are very good at what they do when regarding aspects. If your in the right place at the right time with the right unit you will crush all who oppose you.

- First off set a target, lets say 1,000 points.
- You need a HQ, to start with i'd advice a Farseer, give him spirit stones and runes of witnessing. For powers go with Guide and Doom (its a simple but effective combo to decimate enemy units with)
- After that you needs 2 units of Troops. Take your guardians, give them an eldar missile launcher. It has 2 fire modes so is one of the most versatile weapons, also with the low BS of guardians the blast marker shot isn't affected too much.
- For your second unit you have Dire Avengers, 5 of them won't do much, so buy another box which will give you 10 more. Now you have 15 of them, you don't need 15. Put a unit of 10 (with shooty Exarch) in the wave serpent with bladestorm.
- Now you need something that can take out heavy tanks, so get a box of Fire dragons and another wave serpent for them.
- With the serpents shuriken cannon is cheap and effective, but you might not fire it if your driving around full pelt anyway. Give them both spirit stones.
- Now we need your war walker, 2 scatter laser will give it 8 S6 shots, not to be sniffed at. I'd get 2 more of these and outflank them, or deploy where you can't be seen as war walkers are pretty weak on defence.
- Next we can get some Warp spiders, they are my favorite aspect and i always take them, one box of 5 should do, give the Exarch an additional death spinner and withdraw.

Farseer --- Runes of Witnessing, Spirit stones, Doom, Guide = 125
Guardians --- x10, EML = 100
Dire Avengers --- x10, Exarch, Twin catapults, Bladestorm = 152
Wave Serpent --- TL-SC, Spirit stones = 110
Fire Dragons --- x5 = 80
Wave Serpent --- TL-SC, spirit stones = 110
War Walker --- x3, SL x6 = 180
Warp Spiders --- x5, Exarch, death spinner, Withdraw = 142
Total = 999

Now you can play a game against most opponents, this is not an optimum 1k list, but it should do OK.
Play as many games as you can, against as many varied opponents as you can, with different missions.
After every game ask your opponent what you think your army needs, and you should write up a wishlist.
When you feel ready to go to 1500 point game you can add in some more unit you think you need.

Now for tactics with this list...
- You start the field with 2 serpents, preferably in cover, and your guardians, also in cover (on or near an objective if its an objective game, or in a hard to reach spot if its kill points)
- Your guardians can blaze away with their EML all game long and shurikan catapult anything that gets too close.
- Your Farseer should be in the serpent with your dires. He can guide the Dires, Doom an enemy. Then move your serpent closer to the doomed enemy... disembark Dires (not the Farseer) and Bladestorm. This should give you 27 BS4 shots and 5 BS5 shots, with Guide this should average 28.86 hits!!! On average (with doom) this will mean 21.6 wounds on T:4 enemies and 25.7 wounds on T:3 enemies. Now you can't fire next turn because you used bladestorm, so you should re-embark if you can ready to do the same again next turn. Remember Dires are troops so near the end of the game get ready to take an objective if your using them.
- Fire dragons. These will most likely kill any tank they are deployed within 6" of. Now that tanks occupants, or nearby friends will most likely kill those dragons easyily, so don't worry if they die. Remember those 5 dragons are worth 80 points... that tank could be worth anything from 100-250+. If they survive move off and target another or hop back in your serpent for later.
- War walkers. 3 of these will pump out 24 S:6 shots, only half will hit, but thats alot of shots and should shred things like orks and light vehicles. Be careful with them as they are only AV10 so can be taken out by the simple boltgun.
- Warp spiders. Deep Strike these somewhere they can do some damage, 5 with Exarch have 12 S:6 shots. They have no AP but can finish off small units, damage vehicle rear armour, or be a big distraction. These little guys have won me countless games. After their shots they can jump away with their generators to a safe distance. If you deploy them they are fast enough to keep up with your serpents and can lend support to them if needed.

So... the important bits...
1) Be in the right place at the right time with the right unit.
2) Pick off enemy units that are isolated so they enemy cannot maul your units in retaliation.
3) Be bold, and quick (Don't pansy around at the back of the board) Get in fast, do damage, and get away.
4) IMO, more shots is better than powerful shots. The more dice you roll to hit with the more hits, wounds and saves are caused. It's all to easy to miss with that single powerfull weapon, and Eldar is not a forgiving army. (might be why i like Dires and Spiders so much)
5) Dont be afraid to loose, you will still learn something, even if its what not to do next time.
6) Target priority. Stick to it! Pick a target and don't stop until its dead (unless the enemy messes up and a nice juicy target presents itself), even one lone marine can do serious damage and tie up a small Eldar unit.

If you need any help on anything in particular PM me, i've been playing Eldar for 6 years and the W/L ratio on my sig is this year only.

I'm going to warn you ahead of time that eldar are a hard force to play. that said, if you find you're losing horribly at every game you play, don't stop playing, don't even switch. The eldar are tactically challenging, but if used correctly, they are unstoppable.

thanks for the advices

Yea I agree eldar are difficult, I've lost every game I've played so far probably 5 or so just unoffical(lessthan 750points) I didn't have an HQ or any elites just a troop of 10 guardians with a platform and 5 rangers and a falcon I made from legos and cardboard. I lost every game against my friend who has an ork army with Old Zogwart every time I played him I inflicted probably 50-75% casualties on his guys with the mediocre force I had. So take these guys advice to heart and get some more models. The suggestions are all good ideas.

Welcome to Warhammer!

Your best bet is to take advantage of the large youtube community and watch tons videos on tactics and strategy. Remember, strategy is your overall plan for the battle, and tactics are how you get there.

This guy has multiple videos on a Saim-Hann army, but the general concepts of an eldar army are the same. You will want to think of your army like water, moving a great deal and being where you need to be.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h05PVp2ek5Q

Eldar are not an easy army to play, but are devastating in the right hands!

thanks!

Heya,

Welcome & enjoy your eldar (good choice ). Dayve has given some very good advice, I'll focus on what you've got already.

10 guardians with supporting platform
5 dire avengers
1 war walker
and a wave ser.

Well, firstly you have a few weapons options on the platform/walker... So if at all possible magnetise your weapons so that you can try them all out (search on google, I'll put in a link explaining this later); at least DON'T glue your weapons in place so that you can switch them around. The weapon loadout you want will vary between games and as a newbie you should be trying different tactics

Guardians
The Guardians are fragile (they die easily) and they cannot hope to win combat against anyone, this is troublesome because their weapons are so short ranged they can only get a single round of shooting off before being charged (protip: eldar tactics for your point range involve tying up opponents in combat with you guardians so you can counter-charge with something nasty, or arranging it so that guardians can fire without getting charged).

So, what to do with guardians? Their shooting can be nasty (2 shots each), and they become a lot more survivable [56% save vs. 33% save] when fortuned. The Heavy Weapon platform is both a curse and a blessing

upside: - Depending on the weapon it's a Tank/Infantry Killer that is shielded by your guardians (10 wound artillery piece).
- Heavy weapon can move & shoot unlike any other race's infantry (vital because guardians NEED to move & shoot to boost the effective range of their catapults)

Downside:- The weapon has a low BS and there is only 1 per squad, so you don't kill tanks very reliably.
- Generally the optimal range for the heavy weapons and the guardian catapults are very different (ie. I don't want a very expensive bright lance to be within charge range of infantry).



Dire Avengers
The backbone of many eldar forces, good shooting and can hold their own in combat.

Their party trick is bladestorm, which unleashes 2 rounds worth of shooting in one go (but can't shoot the next turn) so you generally charge the target afterwards... Dire Avengers aren't great in combat, so for most targets you hope to give the dire avengers a numerical advantage through shooting and after striking first in combat (high initiative) there'll be so few enemies left to strike back that the dire avengers don't suffer much.

War Walker
Mobile shooting platform. Fragile BUT packs a punch, they are MUCH MUCH better in a group of three (all with the same weapons) because whatever they aim at WILL die. Also, a single walker can feasibly go down if shot by a squad with no heavy weapons, and is incredibly likely to be destroyed by heavy weapons fire.

The trick with a single walker is to use cover to hide it from enemy heavy weapons, keep it out of range of small weapons fire from squads whilst being able to shoot your desired targets.

Wave serpent
Transport, shoots okay at light targets and gets troops to places. The best uses are getting a nasty unit up close to the enemy without casualities (fire dragons and banshees are the favourites, dire avengers popping out and doing the bladestorm trick is good too), reorganising the position of your army or getting troops to objectives later on in the game.


DEVELOPMENT AIMS
- You NEED a farseer, no question. Eldar are fragile and hit hard, farseers make you more resilient (fortune) and hit harder (doom) - fantastic.
eg. armour saves: guardians 33% save to a 56% save
dire avengers 50% save up to 75% save
Consider that a space marine has a 66% save... Of course there is subtlety in that a dire avenger gets no save against a weapon of AP4 whereas a marine does.

- Pad out your dire avengers to a 10 man squad minimum.

- You NEED a close combat squad!! Nothing in that battleforce is effective in HtH, so you have a situation where you need to avoid your opponent the entire match UNLESS you've whittled down his numbers...


TACTICS
I suggest loading out your guardian platform with a scatter laser, it helps with the poor accuracy AND the desired targets for the scatter laser are the same as what your guardians will want to shoot at, minimising waste. EML is also a good choice but expensive (as Davy explained, plus can kill a vehicle at a lucky push).

War walker can be more anti-horde with a scatter laser or an EML/bright laser for anti-tank. Outflanking with the walker makes it a viable tank killer with the scatter laser. I'd advise the scatter laser generally.

Bait & kill with the avengers/guardians working together.
Turn 1: Get the avengers to shoot
Turn 2: Target in range of both the guardians AND the dire avengers; shoot (use bladestorm) and charge with the dire avengers.
Turn 3: Very little will survive that
Unfortunately this tactic relies on having the bulk of your troops in one place and moving at foot speed, not very eldarish. It might be better to trick someone by baiting them with the guardians and then surprise them with the dire avengers springing from a wave serpent that has jumped across the board.

Strategey I like personally with WW is like previous poster said scatter lasers or EML but then guide them with farseer so with a squad of 3 WW with a scatterlaser and EML on all 3 could be hiiting close to 15 times or more on a good roll then farseer doom the unit war walkers are attacking and they are going to get devestated.

Love the tactic above, but Doom+guide on a farseer (or 2 farseers) at low points levels is too many points in characters. I'm only mentioning this because the OP is building eldar from a battleforce so is probably at low point games at the moment. A good plan for the future, but not now.

We're short on manpower at the best of times, so I like to get a fair few bodies on the table.

fine then farseer guide+doom with 10 guardians 12" meatgrinder or same thing with DA. Thats what I'm going to do to my friends ork army tomorrow we're gonna play like 1000 points and just guide and doom all over the place, on my guardians, rangers, harly's, warlocks, maybe even maugen ra.