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Strength and Toughness are key stats in melee combat.

Eldar have difficulty vs. MEQ in melee, especially against BA, and SW that thrive on close combat.

If we look at stats, WS is often a wash. At most, you get 15% more hits than the opponent. IMO being lower in Strength, Toughness, and Save, are not compensated for by initiative, where Eldar have the advantage. It doesn't help to go first if you rarely kill anything.

I have been playing Eldar for a while now, and I get the whole "pick your battles", "finesse army" thing. Really, I get it. I understand that we have a speed advantage. I understand that we have S6 spam, and great vehicles. I don't want it all. I just want to come up with a few tactics that will help me win a fist fight now and then. It is demoralizing to get pasted every time I go toe to toe with MEQ's. I know I shouldn't do that, but c'mon, you guys know that sometimes it is unavoidable.

So I am looking at options. I have tried Fortune, Doom, Jetbike Seer Council, S6 Spam, etc. Psychic Hoods are a big problem. It is also difficult when opposing melee armies are just as fast as you are. So many transports, and so many cover saves. No matter what you do, you can't float like a butterfly and sting like a bee (from 36") for a whole game. They are going to close on you eventually.

I would like to hear some ideas. I have tried to pop transports, but with a turn of smoke, extra armor, etc., most transports get across the table before I can kill them.

I am looking for good tactics, and specifics that I can plug into my army, and see results. I own plenty of every model in the codex. I typically play 1850 up to 3000 points. I fight a bunch of orks, chaos, BA, SW, SM, and an IG tank company.

One thing I have thought of lately is to include a squad or 2 of jetbike guardians with a warlock. A squad of 6, can surround and assault a Rhino. The witchblade will have 3 attacks, and autopenetrate. Trapping a squad or two of marines inside sounds good, but it still requires some luck. I would like some thoughts on proper execution of list and tactics to support that strategy, but moreover, what else can work?

Eldar has some decent hand to hand models, but the problem is that there are more attractive choices in those slots. If you really wanted to, you could run an Avatar and/or Wraithlords as counterassault. But really, you're still going to get stomped by any real h2h unit.

When your army relies on maneuver to win, and you get outmaneuvered, and you lose...it shouldn't be that much of a surprise. No offense.

As I mentioned, I play 1850 to 3000 points. The problem really is at the higher point levels, where there really is no place to hide, because the table is full of models.

At a recent trny, I won the first 2 rounds vs. Chaos (nurgle mech), and Orks, but got wiped by a Blood Angle army (Stormraven, 3 Dreads, 2 Librarians, et.) My psychic powers were nullified, and I couldn't generate enough shooting to kill them before he was on me.

My goal in the thread is to look for ways to beat CC units, when cover saves are so effective at protecting CC units as they race across the table.

Harlequins + eldrad + avatar = kicking MEQ ass in close combat like no tomorrow.

D-cannon battery and Tempestlaunchers get multiple barrage blasts (and make the hits count). Take care of coversaves and armour, but are very vulnerable to deepstrikers.
Perhaps nightspinners to slow the enemy down, and massive bladestorming.
Lots and lots of Bladestorming DA. this rather than s6 spam.

I dont think you are to take CC out with your own CC. Eldar are good when doing what the opponent is not. Still, harlies with kisses and hit and run could be very useful.

Most likely you are also unlucky, cant help you with that.

Run your Craftworld eldar as dark eldar

When faced with a superior enemy, attack his strength.

CC armies require the ability to get close. Take this away from him, and he doesn't get to use his strength. Take away his transports quickly, run away with superior speed.

This might require some sacrifice. Toss some fire dragons into their lead transport. It should die, and you have a dangerous unit he must deal with. In addition you have an annoying transport that must be removed blocking movement.

Borrow the Tau piranha tactic of movement blocking with vypers (use squadron rules to block transports, if he rams or downs one, put the hit on a different model than the one blocking).

Another option is to heavily use reserves. An autarch army with outflanking, deep striking, and infiltration units is an option. Coming at him from multiple angles could force him into splitting his forces.

Illumini wrote:Harlequins + eldrad + avatar = kicking MEQ ass in close combat like no tomorrow.

Uh, no not really, a rerollable 5+ save for a few T3 models? A single rhino dump bolter/flamer barrage wrecks this whole unit and for this many points (Harlequins + eldrad + avatar) there will be 4:1 marines. Worst advice I have heard in a while.

I don't think there is a solution for Eldar beating meq in HTH, they don't have anything like Thunder Hammer Terminators, at all.

The only way to win is not to play.

I Mech up my entire army and don't play any infantry at all, at 1850 about like this:

ELDRAAD
YRIEL
SEER COUNCIL 5 BRIGHT LANCE SERPENT

5 AVENGERS BRIGHT LANCE SERPENT
5 AVENGERS BRIGHT LANCE SERPENT
5 AVENGERS BRIGHT LANCE SERPENT
5 AVENGERS BRIGHT LANCE SERPENT

FIREPRISM
FIREPRISM
FIREPRISM

Run, hide, snipe AT, play a distance game, any troops who get spilled are written off. Be evasive in KP games and make last turn Tank Shock attacks to contest objs in those sorts of games.

Eldar need some help IMO these days.

I wouldn't advise taking out any close combat dedicated units with any Eldar unit in close combat.
Popping transports with some FD/lances cam slow the enemy down.
Combine that with combined prism fire and multiple shot weapons like scatter laser spam on DA's and thats one unhappy enemy unit.

Do not try to take on the entire enemy force head on, pick a part of it, and annihilate it.
Start on one flank and roll it up, thus creating more room.

You should play smaller points, or larger tables. If you do not have room to outmanouver your opponent, youve already lost.

I have used this against marines before, once vs vanilla and once vs SW in my old league game. This was actually my army segment meant specifically to deal with MEQs. It was a 'take-all-comers' kind of league so I had to try and throw in a bit of everything and this was the part I deliberately had to precision whack at MEQ. Yeah it costs a bundle (700-i800ish) but when half my oponents were MEQ it made sense that half my points were used on a nice solid spank combo.

I can't vouch vs. BA or but it hammered SWs (15 dead blood claws in the first use, 2 squads of long fangs later in game) pretty easy, but it was old codex SW. vanilla tac squads and devs were not even a second thought in that game versus generic codex.

Its really not that complicated:
Wave serpent + full squad of banshees
Wave serpent + full squad of avengers doom+guide+stones seer attach to avengers

To be sure, I load my WS with every defense/move upgrade I can afford on, minimal twin linky weapon shuricannon woot woot.

I don't have my Codex handy but I think the serps came out to 300 points, the squads another 300 ish, and a little over 100 for the seer, so yeah its 750 points give or take. Quite an investment.

Now what to do with it?
your turn:
Haul ass into position for a drop-and-charge, using each serpent to block anyone from backhatch blocking the other serpent. I have used a Vyper to do this also as an 'escourt' just so nobody can get within 2" of the backhaches without killing it first. Vypers are meant to be annoying little gnats.

his turn: he can either scurry out of charge range, foolishly attempt to hit the fast skimmers, or stand around ignoring them and worrying about something else.

your next turn: doom the appropriate target, guide the banshees, move the avenger's serpent (or escourt Vyper) away from the banshee backhatch... drop the avengers out, drop the banshees out... bladestorm and shoot the serpents guns at whatever lurks nearby to countercharge (or if nothing just soften up the main target), then charge the doomed squad with the guided banshees. You will seldom miss and you get 2 chances to wound and they get no save.

his hext turn: he will probably shoot up a bit with whatever is left nearby, or he might still countercharge, in which case throw the avengers in during your turn so 'defend' can help tarpit. If everything got nice and hacked up during your drop turn though, you just hop everyone back in the serpents and haul ass off to the next target for a repeat.

I would go for the heavy weapons (dev/fang/etc) first if possible, or a big squad of regular power armors. With star engines you should be able to land wherever the hell you want. With two serpents, one intended to move with assault guns popping out, you can be pretty sure the stationary one will still have nobody blocking its backhatch when it gets back to your turn.

Augustus wrote:

Illumini wrote:Harlequins + eldrad + avatar = kicking MEQ ass in close combat like no tomorrow.

Uh, no not really, a rerollable 5+ save for a few T3 models? A single rhino dump bolter/flamer barrage wrecks this whole unit and for this many points (Harlequins + eldrad + avatar) there will be 4:1 marines. Worst advice I have heard in a while.

I don't think there is a solution for Eldar beating meq in HTH, they don't have anything like Thunder Hammer Terminators, at all.

The only way to win is not to play.

I Mech up my entire army and don't play any infantry at all, at 1850 about like this:

ELDRAAD
YRIEL
SEER COUNCIL 5 BRIGHT LANCE SERPENT

5 AVENGERS BRIGHT LANCE SERPENT
5 AVENGERS BRIGHT LAN CE SEtRPENT
5 AVENGERS BRIGHT LANC'E SERPENT
5 AVENGERS BRIGHT LANCE SERPENT

FInREPRIoSM
FIREPRwISM
FIREPRISM

Run, hide, snipe AT, play a distance game, any troops who get spilled are written off. Be evasive in KP games and make last turn Tank Shock attacks to contest objs in those sorts of games.

Eldar need some help IMO these days.

If you play the harlies right, they won't be exposed to enemy fire, veil + fleet + good play = very hard to kill harlies. With doom support, they can rip right through most units. In the last game I played, my thunderhammer termies+libby got slaughtered by the harlies, and the harlies didn't take a single casuality (he had some luck with the fortuned saves, but that is still impressive and he would have won the combat anyway)

Your advice is pretty much to not play eldar, or at least play the most boring way possible, that is poor or at least narrow advice. Harliequins with reliable psychic support (eldrad) is the best cc unit eldar have to offer IMO, and it is pretty damn good. It will destroy ork mobs, it will destroy thunderhammer termies, assault marines etc. There aren't really many other units that can do the same to such a wide range of targets. They are of course harder to play than f.ex: thundercav, but they will reward good play.

Avatar is not needed, but in a foot list, he is pretty amazing for his pts. Fortuned he will not die, and he can easily take on normal MEQ squads (not thundercav/termies etc of course, but there is little that can in most armies). He won't kill as much as the harlies, but he is cheap, very tough and will chew his way through most non-super-units

Illumini wrote:If you play the harlies right, they won't be exposed to enemy fire, veil + fleet + good play = very hard to kill harlies. With doom support, they can rip right through most units. In the last game I played, my thunderhammer termies+libby got slaughtered by the harlies, and the harlies didn't take a single casuality (he had some luck with the fortuned saves, but that is still impressive and he would have won the combat anyway)

Drop pod.

Pretty much anything in a drop pod (or mycetic spore) with a flamer template can gut those Harlies on T1. You can try to hide them in a transport, but that gets real clunky with Musical Chairs-style deployment swapping unless you take Falcons just for the Harlies.

Since when do drop pods and spores land on turn one? Since when does anything (except daemons) deepstrike on turn one?

Shining spears + Jetbike Autarch(mandi blasters, fusion gun, laser lance, jet bike)

The attacks they dump out is outstanding.
Shooting nets you 2 S8 shots, 4 S6 shots, and then you charge in with 14 S6 power weapons and 3 S8 power weapons, all at init 5 and 6.

They will wipe a 10 man marine squad on the charge.

It's comparable to what a full bashee squad + doom with do, only the bikes don't need the doom; which, frees you up to take both (fortune the bikes, doom for the banshees)


-Matt

Since drop pod assault requires you to drop half of your pods on the first turn. its both the bane and benefit of using drop pods.

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:Since when do drop pods and spores land on turn one? Since when does anything (except daemons) deepstrike on turn one?

Drop Pods have landed on turn 1 since the advent of the Drop Pod Assault rules...DA codex, I think? Certainly from the current C:SM onwards.

Spores don't.

Harlies wreck MEQs. Mine are all-stars in most games.

If you run a doom/fortune seer with them he turns invisible as well and they can run around with relative impunity and crush MEQ targets. Toss Yriel in the mix and you have a powerhouse unit that is usually overkill.

You can put them in another unit's WS to protect them if needs be, and if yo know pods are coming, use deployment to protect your harlies until the pods drop at which point the killer clowns from outer-space will roll whatever gets out.

I have never had a problem with my assault units staying in the fight, typically my harlies much a few units and survive the game.

Perhaps you should rethink you tactics a bit? Not trying to sound snide, but that may be the problem. I can see how on a crowded table it get's complex and you may want to shoot for limited multiple assaults to keep your units locked in combat.

As Reecius said, you can limit the impact of Drop Pods via deployment. I always do. Against a DP-heavy force, you can just Reserve, too, and make them a liability.

Exactly!

The best counter to a pod force is to reserve up then react to them. I just played in a tournament with my Footdar recently in that exact scenario. Podding wolves went first, my army reserved and the harlies and WLs came on and went right through his units (objective was to get into enemy deployment zone). I charged right off of the board edge. That won't always happen but once podding units are down, they are pretty slow and easy to play around.

Janthkin wrote:

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:Since when do drop pods and spores land on turn one? Since when does anything (except daemons) deepstrike on turn one?

Drop Pods have landed on turn 1 since the advent of the Drop Pod Assault rules...DA codex, I think? Certainly from the current C:SM onwards.

Spores don't.

Huh, I suppose not knowing something like that is the downside to gagging whenever I try to read the Space Marine codex. Though in retrospect, I should have remembered that, since it got used against me by a SW player a while back. He conceded before his second turn.

I like the HB plus DA idea, as well as the Harlys.

I own all except harlequins. Hate the models, and won't/can't paint clown suits.

Solution: Buy Dark Eldar Wyches and convert.

Placed the order today.

Good luck with it!

Bashees with doomseer and yriel also hit hard as hell, but harlies are the tip of the spear so to speak. They can take on any unit baring AV14 rear armor and do well.

Illumini wrote:Your advice is pretty much to not play eldar,

Well, yes, thats essentially correct.

Augustus wrote:The only way to win is not to play.

There you have it. I love Eldar too but their list is fraught with overspecialized fragile junk, minor abilities and flavor aside, harlequins, howling banshees and striking scorpions are all in the same role, the heavy support slots are way overloaded and all the troops are terrible, because they are all fragile, underpowered in shooting, bad at assault, short ranged, grenade-less or some combination of most of these. The OVERSPECIALIZATION is usually the problem.

Illumini wrote:If you play the harlies right, they won't be exposed to enemy fire, veil + fleet + good play = very hard to kill harlies...Harliequins with reliable psychic support (eldrad) is the best cc unit eldar have to offer IMO

If huh? 1st off, Harelquins can move 6, fleet D6 and charge 6, average this is a 15.5 inch effective range, generally speaking. Marines in rhinos can move 12, disembark 2, basewidth an inch and rapidfire 12, this effective range is 27 inches, give or take, say 20 for the flamer, assuming they have one. The dump fire marines are extremely common, most armies being built around them, or cheaper razorback equivalents, the harlies and eldraad can't really hurt the embarked marines, while even one mass fire will really hurt the harlequins, rough math: 20 shots, 13 hits, 9 wounds, 3 saves, 6 dead harlequins. This leaves just 4, to fight the melee, with a flamer too, this would be even worse. A drop pod can ensure this kind of attack T1, and probably with the flamer as well! This kind of marine squad is only 200 points or so, and the compbination Eldraad/Harlequin squad described in the example with 'veil and Eldraad' is twice that (Avatar aside).

Eldraad and a max squad of harlies will not beat 2 rhino borne tac squads, they just cost way to much and have overly specialized abilities, furthermore they don't score and have no antitank capacity or range. They also really come apart if the marines can ever nullify the Fortune.

Illumini wrote:With doom support, they can rip right through most units....thunderhammer termies...

With doom support they cost double most units. And doom support is a big if. See at 300 points or so, a little 10 man unit still needs psychic help to be effective...

Illumini wrote:the most boring way possible, that is poor or at least narrow advice.

Agreed, it is narrow. That's because the list of capable units in the dex is narrow. Mechdar is the only combination that is consistently effective in all 3 mission types versus most opponents, because it minimizes the weaknesses of all the Eldar infantry and takes out the over dependency on psychic support.

Of course eladr are hard to play, and perhaps their codex is in need of uppdate to face 5th editionss power dexes. Still, lots of people seem to get great results with them despite the common notion that all units are far to expencive underachievers. I cant believe its just luck.

@Augustus

You know you stuff, but in this case I totally disagree with you.

Eldar are still a tournament winning army, just not the unstoppable juggernauts of 4th ed.

Just because a rhino borne tac squad has greater range than Harlies do in a vacuum doesn't mean they will get smoked by them in every encounter, or even in most. It is a rare event for my harlies to ever get shot when I don't intentionally put them at risk.

Eldar are an army of force multipliers. I know it's cliche, but they really do take a skilled hand and all of a sudden their expensive, fragile units become very good. And that is the way they should play, IMO. As an expert's army.

I got knocked out of Ard Boyz Semis by Mortetvie's Eldar with my hard as nails Missile Wolves. They are still a powerful army in good hands.

But at any rate, to each their own. I still love to play my point ears, and my Harlies still routinely win me games as a dominating unit. YMMV.

Reecius wrote:I got knocked out of Ard Boyz Semis by Mortetvie's Eldar with my hard as nails Missile Wolves. They are still a powerful army in good hands.

Player 's problem.

You know that the Doom power is there for a reason, right?

What's wrong with being s3? Oh noes, Marines are t4, they're supposed to be stronger and tougher than pretty much everything else in the universe.

Reecius wrote:Exactly!

The best counter to a pod force is to reserve up then react to them. I just played in a tournament with my Footdar recently in that exact scenario. Podding wolves went first, my army reserved and the harlies and WLs came on and went right through his units (objective was to get into enemy deployment zone). I charged right off of the board edge. That won't always happen but once podding units are down, they are pretty slow and easy to play around.

I must give it to you, Reecius: You are one creative mind. But running a reserve-based list seems rather... Risky, perhaps? I'm a 'nidz player, and Reserve-based strategies has never really seemed to work for me (mostly due to a unmatched skill at rolling 1's on my reserve rolls on 2+ rolls )

Though, i often hear people suggest these reserve-based lists more often than not, which just makes me wonder (i'm planning on building an Eldar army pretty soon, so this makes me very curious, indeed!).

Rapidfire marines will kill about 3 fortunes harlies. 16 shots = 10,72 hits = 7,2 wounds
1 wound goes on eldrad on re-rollable 3++, so that's saved
2,78 wounds go through the fortuned 5++, so 3 dead harlies.
Then you have the flamer, with 3 hits, it will down one more.
The remaining 6+eldrad will rip apart those marines in return.

Harlies also ignore terrain (or roll 3d6 if Eldrad is attached), so they can use terrain very efficiently on their approach. If they have cover (which they should be capable of getting often), the number of dead harlies drops to 2,55, not exactly a terrifying prospect for the eldar player.

If the eldar player let you catch the harlies out of cover with 2+ rapidfire squads, he has done something wrong, and is punished for his mistake, that is just the way it is with fragile "expert" armies

Eldar have access to everything, but they can't fight strength with strength- they aren't cheap enough for that. You have to be crafty, and work around your opponent's strength.


As my old Ju-jitsu sensei liked to say, you don't box a boxer, or wrestle a wrestler. You have to fight them in ways that your opponent is uncomfortable, because they're better at fighting the way they like to than you are. Because of the flexibility of the army, you are a generalist force.

I think the best idea so far is to bladestorm these close combat units. If the table is getting too crowded for maneuver, then you need bigger tables, or you need to focus on clearing pockets . Local force superiority is how Eldar win battles if they can't avoid their enemy entirely.

Reecius wrote:@Augustus

You know you stuff, but in this case I totally disagree with you.

Eldar are still a tournament winning army,... YMMV.

Thanks Reecius. Obviously I'm not the authority, just another voice out here.

I've enjoyed our back and forth.

I really love the Eldar army, and I agree my suggestion is narrowly designed YMMV and I regret sometimes that it doesn't have the diversity of more varied forces. But in my experieneces vs and playing Eldar, the other options come apart, when the interlinking fails, usually because fortune gets nullified or transports get shot down or farseers die, or miss their psychic check rolls.

I'll agree that Eldar can still be a tournament winning army, I did well once in hardboys with the mechdar spam versus a variety of opponents. Mostly I think that's because people don't expect it and it's outside the standard armies of rhinos and MEq, an evasive, mobile, dynamic army is hard to deal with positionally, and nullifies enemy melee and light fire fairly well, and =with 2/3s of the missions being objectives, skimmer spam is just excellent.

I just wish Eldar troop and Elite units were better models in wider spectrums, and could be effective sans psychic power enhancement.