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Pretty sure there is a better forum area for this (correct me if I'm wrong for posting it here)...but what do I do to avoid getting nuked vs MEQ as Eldar? I've only started playing about a month ago, but my first 750pt game went something like this:

Space Marine player deploys.
Eldar player (me) deploys.
Move scouts.
Round 1: SM turn>
SM Drop pods dreadnaught and blows up Wave Serpent with Multi Melta, 1/2 of my DA squad is nuked. Predator's Auto Cannon shreds my War Walker to immobilized, hellfire missile nukes 8 of my 10 guardians, Tac Squad frag missile finished it off. Deathwind missile from drop pod drops 2 more of my DA squad, they fail a morale check and die, and now its my turn.

I now have a Doomseer, another Wave Serpent, and a unit of Rangers........needless to say I threw in the towel, there was absolutely nothing I could do besides trying to score a kill or two with the Farseer. It didn't help that I failed obscurity saves, and he scored 4 scatter hits...but it seems like I did something completely wrong or Eldar are just terrible vs MEQ or at this point level. Kits looked something like this:

HQ = Farseer with Doom and RoWA
Troops= 10x Guardians, 10x DA, 5x Rangers
HS = War Walker
Transport = 2x Wave Serpent

Vs (If I remember Correct)

HQ = Librarian
Troops = 2x 10m Tac Squad with 2 missile launchers
HS = Dreadnaught, Predator
Transport = Drop Pod, Razorback

Any words of advice or consolation? I feel violated...

Also, apologies if in the wrong spot

Should go in 40k tactics. I will alert the mods so they'll move it.

If you were having major troubles with the librarian (my favorite HQ), try to instant death it. They have only 2 wounds, and no type of invulnerable save or eternal warrior what have you. I'm assuming that Eldar have some type of strength 8 weapon you can smack him with. Maybe place some anti tank firepower close to your tanks so that any deep striking meltas will have an unpleasant surprise, come your turn. I'm sorry, but I don't know much about the Eldar army. Assuming that you're talking about a space marine scout's hellfire bolt round (did it use a small blast template?), all I can say is concentrate AP 4 firepower on them, and they shall quickly perish. If the unit using hellfire rounds was called "sternguard veterans", or simply "veterans" (as they're commonly referred to), they should just be shooting regular bullets that always wound on a 4+ (usually only good for taking down monstrous creatures, as [afaik] Eldar basic troops are T4, so 4+ is the same), and he might have been accidentally cheating. Assuming that he is a fresh player, similar to yourself. It sounds like he has the Assault on Black Reach box (multimelta dread), with some other boxes. If you could tell us exactly what he has, (lascannon turret on razorback? heavy bolter?), we will be able to help you better.

The war walker is normally outflanked in order to ensure it gets at least one round of shooting.
Some terrain or the table edge to the back of the Serpents could have helped against the first turn melta.
The drop pod can not shoot on the turn it arrives. Vehicles that deep strike count as moving at cruising speed that turn.
Who fired the hellfire missile, and what does it do?

The only things called "hellfire" in the regular space marine codex is a 4+ poisoned small blast template that scouts can fire out of a heavy bolter their squad is carrying (I don't remember the exact name for this wargear), or "hellfire rounds", which as previously stated, make a regular bolter fire 4+ poisoned bullets. So a 24" 4+, rapid fire.

What do you mean by 'hellfire missile', the name doesn't match up and killing 8/10 guys is unusual for anything but ordnance or a flamer. If it took out 8 guys, that's an indication that you're deploying badly, you shouldn't be packed in that tightly. Flamers, whirlwinds, vindicators, and lots of other weapons love to hit bunched guardians. You need to use terrain and 'bubble wrap' your guardians around the walkers to keep them safe, though it mostly looks like you had a storm of bad luck combined with his good luck on turn 1. It also looks like your list has almost nothing for AV, you're going to want to work in a decent number of heavy weapons to crack transports, lots of armies will present only AV to you on the first turn.

micahaphone wrote:The only things called "hellfire" in the regular space marine codex is a 4+ poisoned small blast template that scouts can fire out of a heavy bolter their squad is carrying (I don't remember the exact name for this wargear), or "hellfire rounds", which as previously stated, make a regular bolter fire 4+ poisoned bullets. So a 24" 4+, rapid fire.

Would you like to let the OP answer?

The force listed can't possibly fire either of those weapons. I've accounted for all but 5 of the points spent. Who fired it and what exactly it did are pretty important for finding out whether the battle is simply misreported or if his opponent was cheating.

Raxmei wrote:

micahaphone wrote:The only things called "hellfire" in the regular space marine codex is a 4+ poisoned small blast template that scouts can fire out of a heavy bolter their squad is carrying (I don't remember the exact name for this wargear), or "hellfire rounds", which as previously stated, make a regular bolter fire 4+ poisoned bullets. So a 24" 4+, rapid fire.

Would you like to let the OP answer?

The force listed can't possibly fire either of those weapons. I've accounted for all but 5 of the points spent. Who fired it and what exactly it did are pretty important for finding out whether the battle is simply misreported or if his opponent was cheating.

My apologies to all, spent a bit looking for the weapon in question and I haven't found it yet...although it may have been the hellfire bolt round, It was likely a mistake or incorrect terminology on my part (the SM player in our group is a strict adherent to rulebook/codex guides), so I'll ask him tomorrow. All I know is it was a blast/large blast weapon and if I remember correct it was mounted on his razorback, or fired from it. It was also a once per game shot, I believe. I'll have to ask him tomorrow.

The drop pod can not shoot on the turn it arrives. Vehicles that deep strike count as moving at cruising speed that turn.

I'll bring that up next time, I don't think he knew this rule. All of us are rather new to the rules as it were, so its possible he was playing several things wrong.

Trouble with Librarian

No, he didn't disembark it from the Razorback. I didn't have any issues with it previously with RoWA, in fact I gave him Perils last time we played.

If I'm remembering correctly he used 2x 10m Tac Squad with 2 missile launchers (may have had a Scout Squad...fairly unsure about his troop choice, I only briefly read his organization chart after the game, and don't know a ton about SM. HS = Dreadnaught (Black Reach Kit, correct) and a Predator. Transport = Drop Pod, Razorback (Heavy Bolter on top I believe).

Hologram wrote:My apologies to all, spent a bit looking for the weapon in question and I haven't found it yet. It was likely a mistake on my part (the SM player in our group is a strict adherent to rulebook/codex guides), so I'll ask him tomorrow. All I know is it was a blast/large blast weapon and if I remember correct it was mounted on his razorback.

The Space Marine Razorback can't be upgraded with any blast weapons. I'm curious to find out what actually happened.

Still working on clarification

It might be the Whirlwind's Incendiary Castellan Missile. Whirlwinds do look somewhat like upgraded Razorbacks, and the Incendiary Missiles could have wiped out his entire guardian squads (it ignores their armor and cover save).

EDIT: Calculated the points (and taking account that the Razorback was really a Whirlwind) and assuming everything was going bare-bones, he is exactly 25 points under the limit. If his pred had heavy bolters he would just be on the limit. Anything else and he probably would have been a fair bit over it.

MechaEmperor7000 wrote:It might be the Whirlwind's Incendiary Castellan Missile. Whirlwinds do look somewhat like upgraded Razorbacks, and the Incendiary Missiles could have wiped out his entire guardian squads (it ignores their armor and cover save).

EDIT: Calculated the points (and taking account that the Razorback was really a Whirlwind) and assuming everything was going bare-bones, he is exactly 25 points under the limit. If his pred had heavy bolters he would just be on the limit. Anything else and he probably would have been a fair bit over it.

That sounds spot on, my guardians were technically in cover and it ignored it completely.

His predator had Heavy Bolters as well. Thank you much for clarifying that for me.

Hologram wrote:
Space Marine player deploys.
Eldar player (me) deploys.
Move scouts.
Round 1: SM turn> ... killz ur d00dz
Game ends: "I threw in the towel"

There is not really much you can do if half your army gets killed before you've even started playing. First turn advantage is an inherent flaw in nearly all turn based games from chess to pool, and It is prevalent in 40k also.

For example imagine you show up to 1500 game; where it is supposedly agreed that each player begins with 1500 points (sounds fair). Lets also imagine for convenience that each army inflicts 30% of their own remaining points cost in damage each turn.

Your opponent goes first with 1500pts remaining, so does 450pts worth of damage.

Now it's your turn... Notice how both players were supposed to begin with 1500 points, but what really happened is your opponent started with 1500, you have started with 1050 (not really so fair at all). 1050pts remaining = 315pts of damage to your opponent.

Round 2: your opponent's turn again: 1185pts remaining = 355pts in damage to your army. Notice here that your opponent is actually doing more damage on their second round of shooting, than you could manage on your first.
Your turn: 695pts remaining = 208pts worth of damage.

Round 3: Your opponent has 977 points remaining, does 293pts of damage.
You have 402pts remaining, you do 121pts of damage in return.

Lets end the game here. The result is that you have 402pts worth of troops remaining, your opponent has 856pts worth of troops remaining (more than double what you have). It's pretty obvious what went wrong... 30% of your army died before you even started the game. This started you spiralling down the slippery slope to loserville. I'm not going to bother trying to explain slippery slope any further, since you can just read all about the concept in detail HERE

The best thing you can do is try to reduce the first turn advantage as much as possible before the game starts. Perhaps use denser LOS blocking terrain so that you and your opponent can't just blow each other to hell on the first turn. And try to deploy your troops in strong defensive positions, where they are hard to draw LoS to, get a cover save, and have plenty of terrain or units around to ward off deep strikers. It can also be beneficial to hold units in reserve. At least that way you can bring them on blasting.

Damage from the whirlwind (and blasts in general) could have been reduced by spreading the unit out more. You're allowed 2" between models, so with a little care to deployment he shouldn't have been able to tag more than three men.

As stated above, using cover to block LOS so that shooting is minimal is probably your best choice.

You can reserve your entire army as well(works better with an autarch). That works well against big first turn shooting armies.

It also does seem that you were unlucky in terms of your rolls and cover. The podding dread that shot at you should have waited till second turn to shoot, so it could have been a different start to the game.

You should always infiltrate the walker. Did you use the Wave serpent Energy Field rule (all weapons str 8)? Wave serpents are super resilient, and should almost never(unless in melta range) get taken out. If you move at max speed you get 4+ cover, and the Wave Serpent is hard to kill to start with.

phyrephly wrote:It also does seem that you were unlucky in terms of your rolls and cover. The podding dread that shot at you should have waited till second turn to shoot, so it could have been a different start to the game.

The Dreadnought itself, which did the most crippling damage, was legally able to shoot in that round. The pod it came in couldn't shoot that turn but it only killed two guys anyway. Walkers and other vehicles have much different rules concerning moving and shooting. To stop the Dreadnought's shooting the most obvious countermeasure would be to make sure the Dread can't drop behind it. The other major way around it would be to start the game with the serpent off the board as you said. If the Serpent and its passengers could have survived the first turn I'd expect things to go much better for the Eldar player.

The Eldar list looks off somehow but I don't know enough about Eldar and your preferred style of play to tell specifically what could be improved. Dakka should have some Eldar tactics articles somewhere. I'd suggest reading those if you haven't already.

The list is actual good. I would swap the 5 man pathfinder squad for more war-walkers. 5 Rangers are the same points as 3 War Walkers with Shuri Cannons.

Thanks for the input regarding reserves...I'll try putting a serpent or a walker or 3 on reserve next time. Also our board is pretty barren in terms of cover, there's a tower and a straight ruined wall and that's it...

Also I'm going to try to get some more walkers with less costly weapons on them (currently fielding bright lances and starcannons on my walker and one wave serpent has TL bright lances..)

I'd suggest:

Doomseer with RoWa
10 DA's with bladestorm earch w/duelshuricats
Wave serpent
5 pathfinders
5 Fire Dragons
Wave serpent

Then see if he has the balls to drop in a Dred.

Don't know how the points will be like, but if you can get EML's on the transports, do it.

If it can be fired from a razor back, he might be talking about a hunter-killer missile.

Hunter Killers are not blast weapons, so it could have only ever killed one Guardian.

And beware of the Whirlwind. It's alternate missile loadout will ignore the armor on the majority of your army (although this time it will grant you cover saves). In addition it'll wound you on a 2+ making it much more deadly. Castellans will also make slag out of your rangers easily. And also note that in the new rules, Whirlwinds are equipped with both missiles during the game, and can switch between them to fire at you (in short, they are the ultimate weapon against footslogging eldar).

Also remember the Wave Serpent's energy field ignores the extra d6 from melta so it just counts as a Str8 Ap1 attack. Its still good but far from the auto pen that it would be against other vehicles

This is easy for a new player to forget, I know i did a couple times starting out

Hologram wrote:
Also I'm going to try to get some more walkers with less costly weapons on them (currently fielding bright lances and starcannons on my walker and one wave serpent has TL bright lances..)

Starcaonnons = bad. Bright Lances are good but expensive.

Your real options on the WW are EML and ScatterLasers. Even with ScatterLasers, Infiltrate many STR6 shots against rear/side armor. They can still kill some tanks.

So, he has no transports for his Tacticals? I would get me som fire prisms, they are always nice. There is no point in taking FDs at a 750pts lvl when you have prisms/BLs

I would go for something like this. You would need to get two Prisms but they should be included in any eldar army anyway

DoomSeer = 80

10xDAs = 120
Serpent (Scatter) = 115

10xGuardians (Shuriken) = 85
Serpent (Scatter) = 115

2xPrisms = 230

alspal8me wrote:Also remember the Wave Serpent's energy field ignores the extra d6 from melta so it just counts as a Str8 Ap1 attack. Its still good but far from the auto pen that it would be against other vehicles

This is easy for a new player to forget, I know i did a couple times starting out

Yea I forgot it a few times already, but not that time...he still rolled a 6 on damage roll and blew it up. lol.

Starcannons are bad

I thought they'd be decent against MEQ because of the low AP and the fact that each one gets two shots? That's my logic on it, anyway.

It'd be a 3+ to wound, (re-roll with Doom), and ignores his armor on his infantry? Against vehicles I'd rather use BL or the EML, but Scatters just seem too...weak against MEQ infantry.

Also after talking with my SM friend (and opponent), the weapons that were fired were as follows:

Razorback with a Hunter-Killer missile immobilized my walker. Drop-podded Dreadnought blew up my Wave Serpent with Multi-Melta and the blast killed 4 DA. Autocannon kills 2 more Dire avengers. Deathwind missile (From Drop Pod, we now know this can't be done due to moving at Cruising Speed) killed 8 Guardians, Tactical Marine Frag Missile kills 2 more Guardians. Dire Avengers fail the Morale Check and are run off the board.

Thanks all for the input and sorry for being slowed in describing the fight at first, I was obviously not thinking clearly. Basically everything that happened was luck, but I appreciate the input and will hopefully not fail as bad next match. I also suffered from a severe lack of cover on our board. We basically have the dice bowl (as a tower that provides total LOS), and some ruined walls and craters. Nothing much in terms of cover for my vehicles.

As an Eldar player I wish I could give you some advice, but I make so many bad choices and tonight I just got horribly gubbed by Space Wolves that I'm just not very confident in what I could say.

Starcannons are alright, but they are expensive. You're also firing them on BS3 which is not recommended in any way shape or form. Scatter Lazers have the same strength and more shots so they do the same job against tanks. Against infantry, it's basically rate of fire vs sure kills with extra cost. War Walkers aren't going to survive very long even if they outflank, so keeping them cheap and cheerful reduces the knock it will have on your army, and if they they manage to blow up a tank or 2, so much the better.

I have a question about drop pods though. The guy I was playing was using a special drop pod... I can't remember the name.. it may be the Hellfire Droppod if that exists? It basically lands then shoots missles in every direction hitting everything within 12" for D3 large blasts. However having just read that deep striking vehicles count as moving at Cruising speed is this even possible? I'm trying to find out but I can't seem to find it in the Space Wolves codes or Imperial Armour.

zonino wrote:I have a question about drop pods though. The guy I was playing was using a special drop pod... I can't remember the name.. it may be the Hellfire Droppod if that exists? It basically lands then shoots missles in every direction hitting everything within 12" for D3 large blasts. However having just read that deep striking vehicles count as moving at Cruising speed is this even possible? I'm trying to find out but I can't seem to find it in the Space Wolves codes or Imperial Armour.

Sounds like the Forgeworld Deathstorm drop pod from the IA volume 2 rules update. It looks like it's allowed (indeed required) to fire on the turn it lands because of its special rules. You can think of it as a kind of machine spirit. This unit replaces the Deathwind drop pod with similar rules from before the update which of course had the codex overtake its name.

Raxmei wrote:Sounds like the Forgeworld Deathstorm drop pod from the IA volume 2 rules update. It looks like it's allowed (indeed required) to fire on the turn it lands because of its special rules. You can think of it as a kind of machine spirit. This unit replaces the Deathwind drop pod with similar rules from before the update which of course had the codex overtake its name.

Oh yeah so it is I see it now. Yeah the guy has a love affair with that Drop pod, as well as the Lucius Pattern one. It's a bugger to fight as Eldar since he takes 5 drop pods, so if I just put everything in reserve, he holds off with the Deathstorm and Lucius Pods until later.

Add the fact that he literally puts flamers on everything and suddenly my only option to reliably fight him becomes Mechdar, which I hate with the undying fury of 1000 suns.

Another way is to not use totally broken OT Pods from forgeworld. Dreads assaulting on the turn they arrive is just slowed.

Yes I can somewhat agree with that, especially since the Eldar Forgeworld stuff is so crap by comparison.

You basically get 2 pieces of overpriced garbage, 4 pieces of Flyers you can't use in normal 40K. Oh, and the Night Spinner.