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So, I am an Ork player and my friend plays Elfdar. He really has a bit of a "if I'm not winning I am not having fun" attitude about most things he does, which is fine in my mind. Some people are like that and its ok. The problem is, out of about 10 or more games now, he has yet to win a single one of them. Orks and Daemons(me and his girlfriend) are the 2 he plays the most as of recent, and I was wondering what kind of tips I could give him. Preferably more tactic wise instead of list wise(although suggestions are welcome). None of us really go hyper competitive lists(He should due to his mindset, but for whatever reason he really wants to do a mixed list of Eldar). My orks are slowly becoming a bit more mechanized and including more anti vehicle weapons. What kind of answers to eldar have to infantry? I figured if I could suggest him the next unit to get being one that will help him deal with more infantry he would win a bit more. I don't really care if I win or lose, just so long as I have a good time and a large deadpile, but I have a tough time "throwing" games without making it obvious, which just makes him even more upset.

This is an interesting question. It is always tough to manage the attitudes of other players, especially when it sounds as though you are somewhat stuck in playing this person and you'll have to deal with this for as long as he wants to play. As he is your friend, I'm sure that you enjoy his company and you have fun together. While you're playing, I would focus on that. Try to keep the games friendly and upbeat as much as you can, though I can certainly understand his frustration at having lost 10 games in a row. Your own attitude can effect him more than you might think. What's really important though is that you can't let his curmudgeon attitude affect your own enjoyment of the game, as you have spent many hours I'm sure building your list and emotionally investing yourself in your models' capabilities, and it's not fair to you for him to ruin your own experience. Not to mention that you just want to have an enjoyable game against your friends. In any case, on to the strategy!

Dire avengers with their bladestorm ability are probably the best shooty answer to the hordes, as a squad handing down 30 S4 AP5 shots will cut down the boyz in an unseemly manner.

When it comes to CC, he might want to focus on a large farseer/warlock squad, as they will go before you and their witch weapons will always wound on a 2+. If they are properly fortuned they will be a tough nut to crack from your counter attacks or any shooting you might have.

He may want to back up this with a couple Wraithlords and the Avatar, as your boyz won't even be able to hurt the Wraithlords without a powerfist and a fortuned avatar will reliably cut down 3 boyz a turn and will barely have to worry about retaliation.

Striking Scorpions could do some damage against the hordes as well, so long as he deploys them correctly so that they don't get whittled down before they get to assault.

he'll probably need some wave serpents with the DA to take objectives, and some anti-tank to bust your transports, but it can definitely be done.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh, I almost forgot my own favorite unit. A squad of 10 warp spiders can ruin a horde army's day. They are tough to lock down in assault with their assault phase move and the Hit and Run power, and they can even mess up vehicles and his GF's daemons by virtue of their million S6 hits

Bozman wrote:This is an interesting question. It is always tough to manage the attitudes of other players, especially when it sounds as though you are somewhat stuck in playing this person and you'll have to deal with this for as long as he wants to play. As he is your friend, I'm sure that you enjoy his company and you have fun together. While you're playing, I would focus on that. Try to keep the games friendly and upbeat as much as you can, though I can certainly understand his frustration at having lost 10 games in a row. Your own attitude can effect him more than you might think. What's really important though is that you can't let his curmudgeon attitude affect your own enjoyment of the game, as you have spent many hours I'm sure building your list and emotionally investing yourself in your models' capabilities, and it's not fair to you for him to ruin your own experience. Not to mention that you just want to have an enjoyable game against your friends. In any case, on to the strategy!

Dire avengers with their bladestorm ability are probably the best shooty answer to the hordes, as a squad handing down 30 S4 AP5 shots will cut down the boyz in an unseemly manner.

When it comes to CC, he might want to focus on a large farseer/warlock squad, as they will go before you and their witch weapons will always wound on a 2+. If they are properly fortuned they will be a tough nut to crack from your counter attacks or any shooting you might have.

He may want to back up this with a couple Wraithlords and the Avatar, as your boyz won't even be able to hurt the Wraithlords without a powerfist and a fortuned avatar will reliably cut down 3 boyz a turn and will barely have to worry about retaliation.

Striking Scorpions could do some damage against the hordes as well, so long as he deploys them correctly so that they don't get whittled down before they get to assault.

he'll probably need some wave serpents with the DA to take objectives, and some anti-tank to bust your transports, but it can definitely be done.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh, I almost forgot my own favorite unit. A squad of 10 warp spiders can ruin a horde army's day. They are tough to lock down in assault with their assault phase move and the Hit and Run power, and they can even mess up vehicles and his GF's daemons by virtue of their million S6 hits

I really can't thank you enough. Hopefully my attitude doesn't ruin his fun too much(although in our last game he did mention he was very unhappy that I used unit coherency to control 2 objectives. Mostly I just wanted to see if I could do it) I'll either direct him to this thread next time he is here or make these suggestions. I ended up checking out the eldar codex I was looking for things that could deal with hordes. How are fire dragons? The combination of anti tank and the flamer option of the exarch seem like they could help greatly against both mech armies, the monstrous creatures of daemons, and hordes to a point. He definately gives me a good time, when we play, it just ends up being in the end he is always sour that he lost. Also if something happens that immediately destroys a unit he typically wants to just forfeit(Sweeping advance or running off the table specifically)

@Bozman

Do warp spiders have hit and run?

EDIT: Nevermind, I should have finished reading your post lol. I never knew they had that, but it seems pretty obvious. Surprised my eldar bud doesn't use em. But he does like his striking scorpions.

You might want to try switching your armies for a game. Maybe your friend has incorrectly interpreted some basic rule of the game or of his army, which would explain a strong tendency towards losing games.

By the way he'd handle your own army, with which you are familiar, you might see whether the difference in outcome from your usual victories results from tactics or rules comprehension, since in that case the army composition couldn't be held responsible.

(In "scientific terms", control the most variables you can so the difference would be explained by the remaining variables.)

Eldar deal with hordes in two ways. The first is taking plenty of S6 shooting, Scatter Lasers and Shuriken Cannons are great as the can do both anti infantry and can handle light armour. However this isn't usually going to be enough to deal with a true horde as they will usually be getting cover so not enough will drop. Warp Spiders are also pretty good, not used as much due to the limited range (and not being vehicles so don't fit that well in a mech list) but still good for massed S6 goodness.

The other way is with flamers, the most common loadout for Storm Guardians is 2 Flamers + Warlock with Destructor (Heavy Flamer) + a Serpent, which is going to completely ruin an Ork Mobs day even without support. With a couple of Serpents tank shocking the Mob into a nice bunch (just don't clip the Nob and you are fine) then they could easily toast an entire unit. Fire Dragons can get a single Heavy Flamer but its usually better to stick to Fusion Guns (and avoid the Exarch entirely) and focus on vehicles and other tough targets. You also can get a crazy number of Destructor templates with a Warlock Squad/Seer Council but they are unit which usually require you to build your entire list around them so I wouldn't recommend them. There are also Prisms which give you a large pie plate option (but don't ignore cover) or the (shudder) Night Spinner which is perfect for dealing with hordes (but thats about it so they aren't that great) as it ignores cover.

I should also probably mention that one of the main ways that Eldar 'deal' with infantry (particularly assault infantry) is to run away from them. Almost everything in the Eldar list can move and fire and has no reason to get into combat, so should back up wherever possible. Being completely meched up is another advantage, its tough for infantry to deal with a vehicle in combat when they need 6's followed by 6's and can only glance.

Bladestorming Avengers are often talked up as anti horde but really struggle due to the abundance of cover in 5th. Outside of cover a Bladestorming unit would shred an Ork Mob, but in cover they won't do much damage at all (even if you add in Doom/Guide). The Avatar is pretty terrible against Orks, he barely makes a dent in an Ork Mob who will avenger roughly 1 wound per round back at him + the power klaw. 5's then 6's is annoying but when you are rolling 50 odd attacks per turn it will still bring him down. A Wraithlord is even worse, sure the Boyz can''t hurt him but he kills 1-2 per turn and as pretty much every Ork Mob has a Nob with a Klaw he just gets stuck in combat until he dies to it. The rare exception is when you have sniped the Nob out of the unit with Mind War, in which case a Wraithlord can happily tarpit an Ork Mob for an entire game (don't expect him to kill or break them though).

As an aside, how many points are you guys playing? Orks have very good troop units and Eldar have very weak troops, so playing lower point games (where a large chunk of your points have to be spent on troops) will definitely give the Orks an advantage. I generally avoid playing anything below 1750pts with my Eldar, you just can't fit enough in to get an competitive list otherwise.

Yea what kind of Eldar lists does your friend run anyways? This will help more to answer what he shouldnt do. Again, cant suggest DA with blade storm. Seriously that just messes up boyz like nobodies business. Make sure to "suggest" the exarch with the dual catapults as it adds even more shots.

Also what kind of Ork lists are you running? The main problem with Eldar is they are far easier to lose with, then win with. It takes a special relationship with that army to be good with it.

Had to sleep, so hopefully I can still get a bit of responses.
Eldar list(more or less, excuse my poor memory) is about 1350
with eldrad, maugan ra, some warlocks, 10 dire avengers, 10 guardians with a platform, 5 pathfinding rangers, 5 harlequins, a warwalker, and I think a falcon

For my 1350 or so I have started doing biker boss with power klaw, big mek with either SAG or KFF if I have the points, 12 trukk boys(shootas), 12 trukk boys(sluggas), 18 or so footsloggin boys(sluggas I think), a kopta with a buzzsaw, then 2 kanz with rokkits

How the games normally go:
he stays in his deployment zone, puts the harleys in the falcon, has the rangers in cover, shoots at me and kills about 3 or 4 boyz. then usually immobilizes a kan. Then I move and can't reach him except with kans, who miss.
Then he shoots at me more without really moving.
Then I waaagh/assault and destroy his tank and/or warwalker with power klaws.
lately I have been losing in the meatgrinder for killpoints(at least thats what him and I think, since we havent done much killpoints as of late) but my ability to claim multiple objectives since he doesnt move really hurts him.

Yeesh that eldar list is all over the place. 2 SC is especially interesting since this is less than 1500. A lot of points sucked for HQs. only 2 vehicles make them easy prey for anti tank weapons such as your klaws and kans

that sounds about right actually, it looks like your friend is trying to do one of Eldar's weaker builds without the units that make that build strong- hence his inability to fight back against your orks.

His list is almost entirely foot slogging, as falcons are long range support tanks which need to be guided.

Were he to get an Avatar, 2 Wraith lords, up his Harlie squad up to 8 or so, and 2 more guardian mobs with platforms he'd do significantly better.

use some proxies, and have him try a list like this

Eldrad

Avatar

8 Harlequins- 7 kisses, shadowseer

2x 10 Guardians + Warlock- missile launcher, conceal

10 Guardians- missile launcher

2x Wraithlord- 2 flamers, bright lance, sword

Falcon- scatter laser

comes out to 1347 points, and works with a bit more synergy than his does, to expand this sort of list a squad of 10 wraithguard + a conceal spirit seer, is a good body guard for Eldrad, especially with alot of counter assault to bail them out of combat. Just keep em away from termies.

akaean wrote:that sounds about right actually, it looks like your friend is trying to do one of Eldar's weaker builds without the units that make that build strong- hence his inability to fight back against your orks.

His list is almost entirely foot slogging, as falcons are long range support tanks which need to be guided.

Were he to get an Avatar, 2 Wraith lords, up his Harlie squad up to 8 or so, and 2 more guardian mobs with platforms he'd do significantly better.

use some proxies, and have him try a list like this

Eldrad

Avatar

8 Harlequins- 7 kisses, shadowseer

2x 10 Guardians + Warlock- missile launcher, conceal

10 Guardians- missile launcher

2x Wraithlord- 2 flamers, bright lance, sword

Falcon- scatter laser

comes out to 1347 points, and works with a bit more synergy than his does, to expand this sort of list a squad of 10 wraithguard + a conceal spirit seer, is a good body guard for Eldrad, especially with alot of counter assault to bail them out of combat. Just keep em away from termies.

This is when things start getting a bit more difficult to be honest. He is a member of dakka and has asked for army list help on here before, but upon recieving advice very similar to that he decided he didnt want to do a dedicated list, he wants to do a mixed one. Ill suggest that to him though, since I know once he starts actually using a list that will suit him better he will have more fun, its just getting him to actually change his mind that is the tough part haha. I will definately suggest doing the proxy list for a quick game.

For sure. The thing with the eldar codex is that it designrf with the intention of specialist units which synergize with eachother. If an eldar list lacks synergy... The frailty of the units starts to show, and the eldar player will fall flat on his face.

The eldar are not space marines, we can't just toss whatever we please together and the marine statline will make the list passable. If an eldar list doesn't compliment itself, it will almost never win.

Hmmm upon reading this thread it almost feels like your talking about me. I am definitely willing to try out the proxy list its just that If I end up wanting that list I don't have the money to buy all those models and I dont have the time to make customs of those models. My current project is making Wave serpents from scratch to reduce cost. I see all your comments about me being curmudgeony and stubborn and I'm like this for the following reason:

I don't want to do what everyone else is doing because those are the only smart ways to do it. I play this game because I want my army how I want my army not how everyone else has thiers because that is what's pretty much guranteed to work.

I don't excel at objective games because I don't have transports yet. When I'm defending an objective I drop bodies like nobodies business, but that's because I don't really have to go anywhere. When I have to grab an objective I cant really get there fast enough because I have to put all my forces into dealing with the people coming for my objective. I think I will start doing better once I get some wave serpents because then I will have transport other than my strongest long range fire support.

Last game Kynelius talked about how he capped two objectives with one unit due to coherency. That freed up the rest of his army and my girlfriends entire daemon army to charge right on into my deployment zone. So the whole game all of my strength had to be focused on protecting my objective and at least 2 scoring units. In the second turn I think though both of my heavy supports were taken down. My falcon was blown up mostly due to my stupidity thinking about what happened when I got home, then my war walker was immobilized in the middle of my deployment zone blocking my pathfinders line of site the entire game and making moving out of my deployment zone tough. After my falcon was destroyed I really had no chance because I lost some very heavy fire power and my only means of fast transport, while my opponents objectives are all the way across the board, the only way I could have even tied the game was if I completely ignored all combat with my DA unit and Eldrad's unit and just fortuned the both of them the whole way across the board while skipping shooting and only running. Needless to say I wouldn't have gotten very far.

The Major problem with my army that I see currently is that I lack transport. I can roll in Kill point games, I will drop bodies in kill points games; but due to my lack of transport I won't do well in objective games. Other than that I feel that I just need to beef up my smaller units.

More thoughts? also thank you for this thread everyone I really appreciate it.

Well, as a transport-loving loon, I think I can help you there.
My orks, which are actually a mix of units, work well for two reasons.
1. There is a large core of transported units that can whizz around pinning attacking units down and halting advances as and when I need that to happen. In addition, there are two units which I have termed "Sledgehammers." They are heavy combat units which can bulldoze aside any unit that is pinned down by one of my zippy squads. With Eldar, this may take the form of shooting rather than combat, but I imagine that it can still work; pin a unit in place, manoeuvre something else in there to kill it dead.
2. Once the enemy is pinned, my footsloggers can roll up the table as happy as they please, because the enemy is too busy dealing with the immediate threat.

Now, with Eldar, my suggestion is a nice group of fast units in objective games, like jetbikes or wave serpent-riding DA. Three of these racing into your opponent's deployment zone and BAM: now they're the ones on the defensive. This gives you enough time to roll any foot troops up the board as the enemy should focus on the nearer stuff.

Course, I'm no expert with Eldar, so take this with a pinch of salt. Hope this rambling dialogue helped.

Well, never lost vs. Orks with my mech Eldar army.
A full Seer Council charging a full Ork mob can wipe out the Orks on the charge.

Punisher: For those objective-based games, you don't necessarily need transports (although that would help). You do need highly mobile troops, though. Eldar's main strength is their mobility, and apart from Rangers and Dark Reapers, everything in the army can move and shoot. Use that to your advantage! Never stop moving, always be thinking about how you're going to be capturing the objectives.

I know it's difficult to move towards that huge Ork mob running at you, but a DA squad moving up and Bladestorming can make short work of them!

Also, reduce your HQ points! That's a huge portion of your army in 2 guys. Drop Maugen, reduce Eldrad to a Farseer (he's great, but you need 1500pt games minimum to use him) and take some more mobile infantry.

Sounds like a plan grakmar.

Punisher91090 wrote:Hmmm upon reading this thread it almost feels like your talking about me. I am definitely willing to try out the proxy list its just that If I end up wanting that list I don't have the money to buy all those models and I dont have the time to make customs of those models. My current project is making Wave serpents from scratch to reduce cost. I see all your comments about me being curmudgeony and stubborn and I'm like this for the following reason:

I don't want to do what everyone else is doing because those are the only smart ways to do it. I play this game because I want my army how I want my army not how everyone else has thiers because that is what's pretty much guranteed to work.

I don't excel at objective games because I don't have transports yet. When I'm defending an objective I drop bodies like nobodies business, but that's because I don't really have to go anywhere. When I have to grab an objective I cant really get there fast enough because I have to put all my forces into dealing with the people coming for my objective. I think I will start doing better once I get some wave serpents because then I will have transport other than my strongest long range fire support.

Last game Kynelius talked about how he capped two objectives with one unit due to coherency. That freed up the rest of his army and my girlfriends entire daemon army to charge right on into my deployment zone. So the whole game all of my strength had to be focused on protecting my objective and at least 2 scoring units. In the second turn I think though both of my heavy supports were taken down. My falcon was blown up mostly due to my stupidity thinking about what happened when I got home, then my war walker was immobilized in the middle of my deployment zone blocking my pathfinders line of site the entire game and making moving out of my deployment zone tough. After my falcon was destroyed I really had no chance because I lost some very heavy fire power and my only means of fast transport, while my opponents objectives are all the way across the board, the only way I could have even tied the game was if I completely ignored all combat with my DA unit and Eldrad's unit and just fortuned the both of them the whole way across the board while skipping shooting and only running. Needless to say I wouldn't have gotten very far.

The Major problem with my army that I see currently is that I lack transport. I can roll in Kill point games, I will drop bodies in kill points games; but due to my lack of transport I won't do well in objective games. Other than that I feel that I just need to beef up my smaller units.

More thoughts? also thank you for this thread everyone I really appreciate it.

I know I am digging up an old thread (sorry about this), but I just wanted to make a couple of points.

If choosing your "own" list is whats fun for you, then you should have fun losing or winning with the list. If you don't have fun losing with your "own" list, then you need to re-evaluate how you feel about "not being part of the in-crowd". As Akaean mentioned, Eldar lists are difficult if you aren't using all the units effectively in a synergestic manner.

When you start playing a new game, you have to come to terms with the fact that you will be losing. I used to play Magic: The Gathering. I played for about 7 years. For the first 5 years I was "ok". In the last 2 years I managed to move to being 7th in my country. During that time I built my "own" decks(and didn't win all the time). This drives you to realize that either you need to get better(not always possible), or follow what everyone else is doing.

The point I am trying to make is that you have to have fun when you are winning AND when you are losing. See every loss and a learning experience, let it make you better. You know you can win KP games, so now try different tactics with the Objective Based games. See if you can use your current list to pull a win by using a strategy that your friend wont be expecting. Very rewarding if you win when the odds are against you. If you just can't manage the win, maybe it's time to start follow the crowd.

That said, there are alot of good comments from the other users in this thread. Start by optimizing the HQ slot. At 1500pts drop the second HQ, and swap Eldrad for a min-farseer. In a 1500pt game my farseer is only 95pts. That leaves me with 1400 pts of goodness to get the cool stuff. You can be succesful with a hybrid list, its just harder, and that much more rewarding.

But don't let your need to win impact the way the people around you interact with the game. It's just a game. And remember that even when you are losing, you are learning.

It sounds to me that the both of you seem to have just started and don't have a lot of stuff. If that's the case, trying going down to a local store and teaming up together against 2 other players. By interacting with each other in team games you'll naturally learn both of your armies. On top of that, you'll learn how to win together, so it isn't one person beating the other person over and over.

Scuddman hit the nail on the head. I just started in late August this year so I don't have much stuff yet. I just have what I have I dont really have the money to go out and buy the models I need to improve my army. If I dropped maugen ra and eldrad for just a reg farseer I would have like 350 points almost I would get two more units of gaurdians and a wave serpent for my DA's. Thing is I dont have the money currently to do that. I could definitely do that after christmas for sure or I would get more harlies and some scorpions or some such thing.

Also I like winning I dont necessarily hate losing I have had fun In pretty much every game I've played even if I lose. I dont like playing a game where I know its pretty over for me by the end of turn 2 thats no fun knowing that essentially no matter what you do your going to lose. I don't mind a draw or even losing as long as its not all at once. I can stand losing almost all my guys by turn 3 or 4 but if half my force is gone and the rest is trapped in my deployment zone by the begining of turn 3 I still have 2 turns of "this blows" left to go.

Hope that clears up any assumptions of me being only win driven. I like this game I ejnoy playing its not really playing anymore at the point that I'm referring to, at that point its more just being dragged along.

Well since you guys just started and are strapped for cash (hey I hear ya lol) The 2 of you can EASILY make up vehicles out of foam board and the like. Just ask for the basic footprint/dimensions of say a vyper or whatever, and build a proxy from foam boad. That stuff costs like $1 a sheet and you can use hotglue or hell Elmers glue works well with the stuff.

I used to do that back when I first got into the game (Its been 10 years this summer WOW) and as long as you dont "cheat" and make the vehicles bigger/smaller then you should itll all work out. That way you can toughen up your lists without really spending anything but the time to throw them together. Presto now youve got waveserpents (or whatever the hell you Eldar folk use) for your DA squads.

@kingCracker we are on the exact same wavelength there man I have made a Falcon out of legos and carboard and am currently working on a wave serpent made from cardboard and empty GW boxes. I will eventually need like green stuff to smooth edges but other than that its looking good I may try foam for my next vehicle and see if thats easier. The only problem with proxying stuff is vehicles are easy to do individual troops not so much because for my army I want to get another 2 or 3 units of guardians so to make 30 more individual proxy models is gonna be so much work (not to mention they will probably look like crap)

Punisher91090 wrote:@kingCracker we are on the exact same wavelength there man I have made a Falcon out of legos and carboard and am currently working on a wave serpent made from cardboard and empty GW boxes. I will eventually need like green stuff to smooth edges but other than that its looking good I may try foam for my next vehicle and see if thats easier. The only problem with proxying stuff is vehicles are easy to do individual troops not so much because for my army I want to get another 2 or 3 units of guardians so to make 30 more individual proxy models is gonna be so much work (not to mention they will probably look like crap)

You really don't want to proxy individual models for long term use. The time and effort required to make individual models that you aren't ashamed of would 1) be very rewarding if they look good, and 2)usually end up being too much work for what you want to do(Save money)
In our games pun, if you wanted to just use paper discs the size of a base, as long as we marked what they were I would be ok w ith that to help cement what you want your army to be, that way you don't make a purchase you will regret(damn pathfinders with rail rifles. WHY WOULD I DO THAT?)

home made vehicles/monstrous creatures/titans? AWESOME
home made infantry? Not so much

Kynelius wrote:home made infantry? Not so much

Unless you're really skilled with clay or know how to do home metal/plastic casting. Then, it can work AMAZINGLY well.

Yea I'm not I can do vehicles and even those are medicore at best. Hoping to improve on my second try though big bucks no whammies on the from scratch wave serpent.

Grakmar wrote:

Unless you're really skilled with clay or know how to do home metal/plastic casting. Then, it can work AMAZINGLY well.

I felt that almost went without saying, but your point stands.

Well look at it this way, you made 2 wave serpents. Congrats you saved somewhere in the area of $70 or more? Cool, now you can afford troops

Look on ebay,craigslist, you know places like that. and I mean LOOK! Like daily if you have too. Eventually youll find that awesome deal, and itll make your month for sure. Worse case in doing it that way, is youll have to strip paint. Or darn. And remember if it gets that far. Superclean is the way to go. Its under $10 for a gallon jug and you buy it at walmart/autozone. Just wear gloves it likes human flesh

Buy used.

I mean..

"Build your hobby off someone else's broken dreams."