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I am on a losing streak with my Eldar. My buddy plays Orks. He is more experienced than I am. So to help with our games, we have been playing "talking" games. We openly discuss our strategy and ideas while we play the first 4 turns. We basically try to make each other into better players, by helping each other while we play. The first game, my dice were awful and I lost. The last 3 games we have played we used my avearge dice tables, so bad dice was not a factor. I lost all 3. I have used different lists, but we discuss the lists ahead and I am not playing a suck list. (jet bike warlocks w/ fort/doom seer, hybrid mechdar w/3 FD units and war walkers, mechdar with DAVU Falcons)

It simply seems that Orks have more options, hit harder, survive longer and have a leg up on Eldar no matter what I do.

I wish GW would errata codices, so that ALL armies stay viable.

It is really getting stupid for me to keep playing Eldar.

Bah! you are giving up faith too easily my friend . The problem- as you admit, is that your friend is more experienced then you. The Eldar Codex has a fair enough matchup against orks. It would also help if we knew what sort of list your friend is using.

This is advice usually given to people about RTS games, but you should take pictures and make a battle report next time you play your friend. Then post your army list, link to the battle report, and ask what you are doing wrong / how can you improve.

If we actually know what is going on in these games I think we'll be able to help you considerably more.

Eldar has a certain learning curve, which Orks do not (Orks are more of a point-and-shoot/assault army, especially certain builds).

You should look at his list and find suitable counters. Striking Scorpions will hit Boyz hard, given that they can outflank with Infiltrate and can bring up an absurd amount of S4 attacks. Biting Blades will also shred light vehicles should you get tarpitted by a Kan or Dread.

If you dont want to get within arms reach of them, get a squad of Dire Avengers. With 18" range you should have no problem staying far from Slugga Boyz, while opening up a can of ninja-star whoppass on them.

To deal with kan walls, take one or two Fire Dragon squads at bare minimum and stick them in a Wave Serpent. This will deal with the entire squadron of Kans as you'll more than likely immobilize the entire squad at once, destroying it outright since they all count as a squadron. The sheer number of high strength shots can also be used to take down Nobz and Dreads.

eldar are just plain rough... they can be very competative and powerful, but they are also very difficult to play. also if you don't show up with the right army you are screwed from the start. I've played a person who tabled my orks turn 3 but i've also manhandmled the same player with a different list(i rotate a few with different fluff, i choose randomly by rolling a dice for which list to field) , its kinda partially luck of the draw with eldar, but i have seen good eldar players do very well but they all say it takes time to learn the army, i plan on getting some eldar myself once i finish my ork army

You are correct. Without list tailoring, and assuming an equivalent skill level between the players, Eldar will always lose to Orks.

I wouldn't say that, Eldar have good fire power and mobility. Trick is to dodge Ork's and break LOS. I lost against Eldar once out of my 3 Games with them, 1 W 1 D 1 L

Same list everytime, 500P. He took harliquins and there Night fighting type rule really messed with my Looted wagon. Hey-ho.

ArmyC wrote:I am on a losing streak with my Eldar. My buddy plays Orks. He is more experienced than I am. So to help with our games, we have been playing "talking" games. We openly discuss our strategy and ideas while we play the first 4 turns. We basically try to make each other into better players, by helping each other while we play. The first game, my dice were awful and I lost. The last 3 games we have played we used my avearge dice tables, so bad dice was not a factor. I lost all 3. I have used different lists, but we discuss the lists ahead and I am not playing a suck list. (jet bike warlocks w/ fort/doom seer, hybrid mechdar w/3 FD units and war walkers, mechdar with DAVU Falcons)

It simply seems that Orks have more options, hit harder, survive longer and have a leg up on Eldar no matter what I do.

I wish GW would errata codices, so that ALL armies stay viable.

It is really getting stupid for me to keep playing Eldar.

Not so. I've been beat a fair few times by canny Eldar players. Some of them even tabled me.
I think really what it might be is that the ol' Eldar hit and miss curse is at work here. something is off, either in your list or in your tactics when dealing with the 'skins, and until you find out what it is and fix it, you're looking at a bit of an uphill struggle. However, once you do crack it, you'll suddenly find your buddy is virtually powerless to stop you doing whatever the hell you like.

Also, dont rely on cookie cutter lists. One thing to remember is if you didnt make the list yourself, most likely you wont know how to use the stuff in the list.

While not taylored, ive faced a few eldar armies with 9 walkers all with scatters.
Doesent matter whats on the recieving end, it will hurt alot.

Before anyone says about anti-tank, they were running alot of Fdragons for that.
Not to everyones tastes, but still nasty.

You are playing mechdar too much my friend, go footdar for a change. Mass bladestorming Avengers, paired with 2 Striking Scorpions squads. Use Wraithlords for anti-tank capabilities. Just add a few Serpents for transports and there you go. Speed isn't everything.

Actually, TH up there has a point. Some Bladestorming may well help you shift some of your mate's mobs off the battlefield.

OP;

Without knowing more about what you are each running, its not really possible to give advice. Except for "Eldar do not suck."

For 60 points or so, you can stop an entire ork army in its tracks. Is that useful? I don't know. I don't know what kind of Orks he's playing, nor what kind of Eldar you're playing.

Gorskar.da.Lost wrote:Actually, TH up there has a point. Some Bladestorming may well help you shift some of your mate's mobs off the battlefield.

This. Mind War the Nobz in the boyz squads to death, doom them and bladestorm. I haven't seen anything more effective at killing boyz short of artillery and Basilisk batteries in Apoc.

I've got a good friend who is a very competitive player. He says he's got to play the same build multiple times before he learns all the ins-and-outs, figures out the synergy of the units, and can make some intelligent changes to improve performance.

I'm not competitive, but I played my Adepticon army about a dozen times before I knew enough about how it worked to know what the problems were that originated from the list & not just my screw-ups, then made one tweak at a time to attempt to fix the perceived weaknesses. I ended up with a decent army that I knew reasonably well and was competent with. Even than, after the 4 addition games at the tournament, I've modified it again in order to take into account the lessons I learned at Adepticon.

So my advice... put up your list and let the experts here tweak it for you. Then for a while anyway, just get a whole lot of practice with it. Don't concentrate on how the game turns out but instead concentrate on how you're using your units and how they all work together. Focus on the things that work in each game, and look for how to incorporate those things in the next game.

In this way you slowly separate weaknesses in the list from your own weaknesses as a player. Your play gets stronger and in the end you can make very knowledgeable decisions about how to tweak the list to best compliment your style of play.

War Walkers with Scatter Lasers will ruin his day, I assure you. Fire Prisms will do the same, and Dire Avengers with Bladestorm can mess up a mob of boyz no problem. Eldar's strength is mobility; fight him where you want to fight. A friend of mine had a similar problem, but it boiled down to him saying "every army is overpowered but mine" - turns out he just bought one of everything, and as a result his army was not specialized and had no focus. You've just got to build a cohesive army and work on tactics from there.

Doom and guide kills orkz dead.

Mind war the PK and roll them with banshees, or hell even storm guardians.

You seem to be spending too much on vehicles, a problem our local eldar player has. Mix it up.

Storm guardians again, I swear by them. With warlock for the melee upgrade (name I can't remember) stuff actually fears storm guardians.

Wraithlords, without the ork PK you effectively tarpit them all game long.

War walkers kill stuff dead, again no hidden PK means you can tarpit them all day long if you charge them first.

Shoot, weaken, charge. Don't let the orks charge you.

Remember, eldar have options, but they require synergy.

I need to emphasize what SRM and Gitsplitta are saying.

If you completely change your list after every defeat you will never learn how to play an army propery. The best thing you can do is get a good all comers build, have it tweaked by people in the Army List Forum (but be careful to weed out the really bad advice ), then stick with it for a while.

The more you play with an army the more you understand what the units can and cannot do and how they interact with eachother, and the more you develop the good instincts which are crucial to playing any Eldar army. Knowing when to fight or flight can easily make the difference between turning draw into a win, or a defeat into a draw.

Brother SRM wrote:War Walkers with Scatter Lasers will ruin his day, I assure you.

Absolutely. The key to taking down Orks isn't in using expensive zippy vehicles or psychic powers; it's solid armour and constant fire. Dire Avengers with Bladestorm are a good Troop option in this scenario (just avoid being charged after unloading the clips).

His list

Boss w/KFF and 15 lootas in Battlewagon
Thraka and Nobs in a Battlewagon
3 Killa Kans
3 Killa Kans
Deff Dread
15 lootas walking
20 Shoota Boys walking
20 Slugga Boys walking

My list

Dual Autarch (PW and fusion gun)
10 DA in W Serp w/ Scat Las
10 DA in W Serp w/ Scat Las
4 Guardian Jetbikes
6 FD in W Serp w/ S Can
6 FD in W Serp w/ S Can
10 Warp Spiders
10 Warp Spiders
3 W Walkers w/ Scat Las
3 W Walkers w/ Scat Las

I struggled to get through his kan wall intact to get to his battlewagons

He is insane with KFF rolls. He makes cover saves like they were 2+.

The first problem is that you are running double autarchs. One should be sufficient for all of your Master Strategist needs. 2 Autarchs is only better than a single Autarch on turn 2. Once you reach turn 3, the extra Autarch brings nothing to the table. Don't forget that Autarchs only benefit you if you play through reserves, and generally against Orks you need to be on the table- yes even with the warp spiders.

You also need to remember that farseers are by far the best HQ in the codex. You are seriously handicapping yourself by not taking one.

I insist that you make a battle report out of your next game. Let us peer inside and see how things are going down. Its all well and good to think something is impossible, until a third party looks at the situation and analyzes some things.

I play BW orks and run a fairly tuff list (or netlist if you wanna be a douche about it) And elder are the race I fear to play...It turns into a race for him to kill my lootas so he has the whole table to zip around and contest objectives or engage on his own terms.

So the KFF is your problem then it seems.

Solution: Take off both autarchs and run two farseers with doom, guide and mindwar, with appropriate upgrades.

Put both in the DA squad serpets and for gods sake take those scatter lasers off them, either put a more useful gun or take something worthless to save points. Scatter lasers do excellent on warwalkers, not on wave serpernts.

The guardian jetbikes can come off, they are simply a free KP at this point.

I must insist that you have too much str 6 in the army, with all the warp spiders, please adjust the other guns to compensate some, but keep the war walkers as they are.

Simply flat out and keep moving as you try to mind war the models giving you issues. You need more ranged anti-tank or you will never destroy that battlewagon in time to get to mindwar that HQ.

Scatter Lasers are your friend, mate.

Yeah, Autarchs aren't going to be doing much for you - even with Fortune in effect you're going nowhere fast in close combat with that many attacks directed at you.

My Wood-Eldar Dakka Army rarely sees combat, but I heavily use DA/WS/Bladestorm combos. I occasionally employ a Wraithlord for tying certain units down, and a lone Bikeseer with Fortune and Blade for Dread' hunting. Warp Spiders are far too short ranged to really be useful against such a dangerous melee army.

To add in a bit of a controversial option, you could put in a squad of swooping hawks with a sunrifle. The exarch himself will pump out 6 pinning shots a turn, and you have grenade pack drops if you take skyleap. If you're really desperate, you can drop them near his tanks and assault with haywires and hope your dice are good.

Is Mind war Actually useful against Nobz in boy mobs? The chance of actually killing it is not that high (usually his LD is 10, too), plus he gets cover against it. Also, if you are within 18" of them, you are in danger of getting Waagh!-Charged. Dooming the exact same unit and firing guided scatter lasers into them should be way more effective, from the view of someone on the receiving end.

For the OP: If playing Seize Ground, Eldar is usually one of the harder armies to beat for me, while I usually steamroll them in Annihilation. The only reliable way to kill all your tanks and walkers are lootaz, if you take care of them, he should have a hard time stopping you from outmaneuvering his army.

That's funny. I have a friend who plays Eldar and he's never lost with them to my friend who plays Orks. He is very good, one of the best players I've seen.

My general observation with Orks is that it's really about the numbers game. Rather than small amounts of high strength fire, massive amounts of templates and low strength fire will thin them out much better. There's some good advice on this thread, don't lose hope!

Personally I think it always boils down too experience. I've seen some pretty awful lists beat better ones because the player was more versed in the art of Warhammer.

I before have used my 500P army in a combined game which was 1500P a side My 500P wiped out 1000P of space marines for about 100P of losses. Just because I was more experienced. That and I had some boomguns

It's about making a list you find fun and works for your tactics. For example my tactics are ambush, hide back out of LOS then pop out blaze everything and try and get the charge. Works a charm.

I've been writing some Eldar lists myself recently & they have to tools for the job, no doubt.

Eldar Missile Launchers are my choice support weapon - able to take out light vehicles as well as a blast & pinning function! Night Spinners are great also and underrated IMO.

To me Farseer's are essential as they give you what you need to win battles - more dice rolls.

Eldar can beat Orks but they are very tricky to find a balanced list & are still one of the hardest armies to play as they're fragile and specialised. I know this may sound crazy but try proxying Storm Guardians w/Flamers & a Warlock with Destructor/Embolden - Orks still burn as they always have done - combine with a Faseer and Doom/Fortune you should be able to stick about in combat as well. Take out his Troops & in most games you've drawn - anything else is a bonus. Warp Spiders aren't that great IMO - Personally I'd rather take as many Guardians or Dire Avengers & as many Missile Launchers as possible - try proxying it

40k really isn't that complicated. It's simply about using the right tools for the right job, knowing your army and your opponent's, gauging movement and making the most of cover. I find too many games rely on a few dice rolls at key points to obsess over abstract generalship. Even the best 40k players aren't as tactically astute as any real general (although some laughably think they are). It's about taking out the biggest threats to your units and hoping you hit/wound/penetrate them enough to make it stick. If you know what their army is about (Orks = Run & Charge with a few pot shots) then try and second guess them. Walk round to their side of the table and look from their perspective, ask yourself what you will do if you were playing with your opponent's army. It sounds stupid but you may gain a better perspective on any given battlefield situation.

It's about making a list you find fun and works for your tactics. For example my tactics are ambush, hide back out of LOS then pop out blaze everything and try and get the charge. Works a charm.

Exactly. If you have fun you'll never lose - this said against Orks, it's about Templates & avoiding their charge at all costs.

My buddy has played 40k since 1st edition. I started 2 summers ago.

Here is a different list that I am thinking of. I actually have a little more experience using this type of list.

Farseer (doom, mind war, stones, RoWit)
10 DA w/ WS Star Can
10 DA w/ WS Star Can
11 SGrd (2 flamers) w/ WL (dest) w/ WS S Can
10 SScrp w/ Ex (shadow) w/ WS S Can
10 FD w/ WS S Can
5 FD w/ WS S Can
1 F Prism
3 W Walkers Scat Las
3 W Walkers S Can

I might try to squeeze an autarch in there, or another Farseer. Sounds like the crowd here would choose the Farseer.

Is that too Mech?




Automatically Appended Next Post:

juraigamer wrote:Simply flat out and keep moving as you try to mind war the models giving you issues. You need more ranged anti-tank or you will never destroy that battlewagon in time to get to mindwar that HQ.

I'd love for Mind War to work so well, but isn't it a crap shoot, and I have to hop out of the transport to use it?

Mind War should ignore cover saves. How can trees and rocks stop a mind attack?