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I'm having issues as a new player trying to defeat high armor foes. I think that I may have bought the wrong models when starting. Here's what I have;
Avengers x26
Farseer x1
Warlocks x3
Wraithlords x2
Wave Serpents x3
Swooping Hawks x6
Warp Spiders x5
Fire Dragons x8
Rangers x6

So looking at what I have and our group has the following armies being built (all of us are new)
Tau
Space Wolves
Necron
Dark Eldar
Tyranid

I've done well against the Tau, not so much against the SW and Necron.

If anyone has any good tactics with what I have against some of these races, I'd be much obliged for some help. Also buying a bunch of Banshees is on my list of priorities just may have to wait a few weeks. Any suggestions would be awesome.

Defeating high armour foes with shooting, or close combat?

Probably Shooting

Then you have a lot of options.

Lot of shots: Dire Avengers

Long Range shots: Dark Reapers

Superior cover saves: Rangers (upgrade to pathfinders)

Do you plan on having your army all shooty?

delete

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/402275.page
There is the link to Akaen's Eldar guide. I agree with most of it but I think he's a little harsh on certain units. Basically, you need to choose between foot Eldar or Mech Eldar. Hybrid is possible too, but balancing it is difficult. And then there are all bike lists but I haven't tried that and I hear it's hard to pull off.

With your models you could go either way, but may need some more models. I can't possibly recommend Rangers or Pathfinders as MEQ killers. If you do the math they're just not great at it. Certainly worse than Dire Avengers and Guardians with Scatter Lasers. If I use my rangers I do it because I like them.

Generally with Mechdar you should have 1-3 mounted Dragon units (I like 1-2 because spam is boring), some mounted troops and some Heavy Support. I always fill up heavy slots because we can get some amazing damage out of them. For troops I like tri-Flamer Storm Guardians. Ask if you're not sure about that unit. I also like Blade Storm Dire Avengers or units of 5 that never get out of their tank. Get a Farseer with doom if you have lots of S4 or guide if you have lots of S6 on BS3 units (like War Walkers and Falcons).

Of what you have/will buy, you could do 3 Serpents filled with DAs, Fire Dragons and Banshees and run that as a mechanized strike wing. They're the mobile strike force that will cripple a section of the enemy army. In the center of the board run two WLs, more Dire Avengers, and Warp Spiders. Yeah that part isn't optimal but it would be okay for now without buy anything other than Banshees. Units that would help in the center: Avatar, War Walkers, Defender Guardians, Wraithguard. Be careful in balancing the points though. As general advice on this strategy you need this battle group to be sturdy and hopefully mobile enough to bring the fight to the enemy so your mech wing can smash their army as it breaks against the sturdy rock advancing up the center.

That's just for what you've got now. Personally I like mech and if you can spend $ I would look into more tanks.

I have found Fire Dragons to be the greatest things in terms of popping any armor on the board. Put them in a wave serpent and turbo boost them towards the tank. This gives them a 4+ cover save and the ability to get right in their face.

I also prefer Mech eldar mainly because their vehicles are actually fairly tough to bring down. Any weapon is at str 8 and its immune to melta...its nice.

Everything Dnanoodle said is spot on. I prefer Fire Prisms for my heavy support choice, but thats mainly because I'm running all mech eldar. You can check out some of my battle reports to get a feel for how Mechdar run. Good luck man. their a great army.

your asking a pretty broad question.

Eldar thrives with quick attacks , and overloading odds vs certain enemy units.

A jetseer council is a great unit with 3++ armor saves. most heavy slots are good. HQ you basically bring a farseer or autarch. Elites should be 3 FD squads, or 2 FD squads and a CC unit. Troops should be cannonbikes or DAVU in serpents. Dont bring fast attack. War Walkers/Fire Prisms are cool and you can guide walkers.

Wow, thanks for the help everybody. I've toyed with the Mechdar element of DA's with Bladestorm in a WS. That was impressive except against Terminators. I've seen a few of your videos Bad Sheep, that's the reason I got vehicles to begin with. Also I did score some Banshees off of eBay so I'm rocking those ladies too. I'm also thinking about experimenting with some Jetbikes but it's an expensive experiment...

So since a WS can hold up to 12 models (non-wraith) could it hold two separate squads of 6 then?

I forget which page it is in the rulebook (must be the first page about transports, though). But anyway, you can only embark one unit in a transport with up to two attached independent characters. So you could do, for example, 10 Dire Avengers with an attached Farseer and Autarch.

Jetbikes are a very expensive experiment. And a Jetbike Council can take insane amounts of time and money as well. My Council is custom and the Shining Spears I'm making are too, but I don't really like the basic GJB models, so I'm just gonna play other stuff for a year or two because I think they'll redo that model when they get around to the codex.

Good luck with your Eldar, man! They're a really satisfying army to kick ass with =)

How many Banshees do you have? I mean, Banshees gave Space Marine Terminators Invul saves. If you want a really kick-ass formation dedicated to killing Marines, take a Farseer with Ten Banshees.

Oh yeah it didn't even occur to me to ask that because I assumed he got 10. Ogryn is totally right. I always run 10 with an Executioner-equipped Exarch and a Doomseer. Be careful with slaughter all your opponents and getting shot the next turn, though. Sometimes they kill too well

Would you call killing Marneus Calager, and TH/SS Assault termies "killing too well"?

Go on my man a new eldar player some say our race is finished but dont listen to the lies :-)

I`ve played eldar since 2nd ed and theyre still great. A lot of folks on web believe you`ve got to run eldar either fast or foot dont believe that either. I personally believe you`ve got to have a good mix of both in order to be consistently good with the eldar. They require a finer touch but can still beat any army out their. I believe with your collection so far you could easily aim for a good mix of styles and still have success. With that in mind i will look at your list/collection and offer some advice on how i think you could use it to good effect. Also just to let you know i almost always run a 2kpts list and the following will be wrote with that in mind for me.

I would deifinitely get 10 banshees or scorpions, stick them in a serpent, back them up with the dragons in the other one and also the spiders but i reckon you want 7/8 spiders.
Even throw in the hawks when fighting tau/ig/nids but i wouldnt bother against MEQ.
As a decent hq to go with this i would recommend Yriel/Autarch. This is a similar role to how i use him and it works well. I wouldnt recommend throwing these units at anything without some kind of Autarch or somesuch and Yriel is the best out there for me. SS and EML on the WS and away you go. This will give you a fast moving force with a bit of punch. This is almost the same as what i run in this part of my force except i have scorpions instead of banshees and GJB instead of SH and a fire prism backing them up.

The rest is a solid core of goodness for me and is really the heart of an eldar army.
2x10 DA`s is a given these days, equip exarch to taste. Personally i`ve found defend to be the best option, it is essentially defensive grenades, bladestorm only reallly looks good on paper. I run the exarchs with PW+SS and defend. I run my 6 man squad with the guns on the exarch and defend. That would leave you with 1 WS to give to a unit of DA`s for further afield objectives and to help the fast force.

Rangers almost everytime, if youre taking pathfinders only take 5 or they become too expensive.

I`ve tried and tried to avoid it but i couldnt, if you want to take a farseer that aint on a jetbike then its got to be eldrad. Believe you me i tried to use the main seer but for what he does for the army you just cant beat eldrad.

Now stick eldrad between the DA`s and you can guide both them in the same turn and then use doom for the banshees or pathfinders or hawks. Use youre rangers to hold any handy points as the DA`s will be moving to closer ranges. For me its not the job of avengers to hold points, thats for the guardians and rangers to do.

You`ve also got 3 warlocks, well thats enough for a seer council. I recommend 5, really handy little unit to hang tight with seer/eldrad. This gives a bit of fight to this little part of the force. Make one a spiritseer if your using 2 wraithlords.

Talking of which, for me with these two backing the core force up, well i thinks its the icing on the cake. I recommend EML and BL on both. This makes them good shooters able to deal with tanks at range while the rest close in.

The way i would play this, and i do, is by using the seer, DA`s, rangers and WL`s and a solid core to the force able to deal pain at range to tanks etc, with the rest as a fast moving force able to dish out the hurt .
As with all types of eldar armies timing is everything and with the fast force i find aiming for turn 3/4 and it all hitting at once is best bet.
Dont be afraid to spend that extra turn manouvreing into position because when you punch it needs to be a sore one for your opponent or you will get overwhelmed/done in.

I like this type of set-up and it took me years of work and practice to get right but when i saw youre collection i thought hold on this guys got a good start here. So that was my tips on how to use this lot. Hope it helps.

Go with the models you like, I find that eldar can work if you bother putting the effort into learning how to use the different units instead of just spamming win buttons. Try out some combos and after a few games you get to really get a feel for what works for you.

That was how I figured out my eldar army anyways

Viable anti tank options are also Falcons and Fire Prisms. A Falcon with an EML can deal 3 shots at STR 8 each turn, which gives good chances to penetrate everything to armor 12 (especially when guided).

Fire Prisms have STR 9, but are more flexible especially against horde armies like orcs since you can disperse the prism cannon.

Ogryn wrote:Would you call killing Marneus Calager, and TH/SS Assault termies "killing too well"?

I call that fantastic =) But units with amazing invul saves are not what I'm looking to put my Banshees on. If your opponent gets lucky with saves it could end really badly or take too long and result in too many casualties for the Banshees to hit another target effectively. What I was talking about was when a unit of Banshees tears through a unit of MEQs on the charge and gets wiped by a heavy flamer or plain bolter fire in the enemy turn.

Yeah, Heavy Flamers have seemed to become the bain of my exsistance. My boy with the SW likes them specifically for dealing my guys (or in the banshees case, girls). I only one 6 of them, so the goal of 10 is slightly out of my reach. I've pretty much come to the conclusion that I like the combo fast/foot. I've fielded my WL with the FS w/ a warlock entourage (all of them spiritseers, "It's the only way to be sure") two 10 man units of DA's with Bladestorm in WS, and backing them up with 5 man unit of pathfinders in cover and deep stiking SH and Warp Spiders. It was intence, I would love to be able to mount a 6 man unit of FD in the other WS and allow them to give the banshees a lift (unfortuantly it's not allowed). I've made up my mind to pick up some SS and some Harlies to really play with the diversity of the Eldar. How are the Pheonix Lords for HQ's they seem expensive but seem fun at the same time. I'm loving the support and tactics guys, keep them coming! Also I've counted out the Dark Reapers and the Heavy Support Weapon, but the D-Cannon seems fun, not sure if that's such a good call but they just don't seem good for a Heavy Support Slot.

The answers to some of those questions mostly come down to whether you play in a competitive circle or just for kicks with units that are not optimal.

The two absolute musts for me when I use Banshees are that they have to have a transport and that they need a full squad. From there I like the Executioner but wargear is more flexible imo. With a unit of 10 they can lose a few wounds and still put the hurt on another unit.

As far as the other units you mentioned, I love the way my Scorpions look but they aren't as effective as I want them to be against many units out there. But if you play against Guard, Tau or Orks a lot they're really solid. Harlequins I haven't tried but they look fun and deadly if you can survive crossing from 24" range into their assault range or 13-18" Just make sure to take Kisses and a Shadowseer. Annnd I don't like Dark Reapers and don't have Support Platforms but I haven't heard anything good about them. They also don't appeal to me because they compete for points and Heavy Support FOC slots with tanks, Walkers and WLs. But that's just my preference =)

Oh and I love my Warp Spiders even though many don't like to field them hehe

Listen to the veterans, but be careful with all the advice... Remember that AP- weapons give a -1 to the armour penetration roll, which severely hurts the spiders. Swooping hawks? Having 10-20 S3 shots isn't going to do you much good. Neither is the grenade pack as you simply can't rely on them coming in every turn.

I've played eldar against necrons, tyranids, orks, guard, and space marines... I can tell you that with the way the rules are right now there are a few things that always work, a few things that never work, and a few things that sometimes work.

Things that always work (as several have pointed out:
Fire dragons
Avengers in serpents
Banshees in serpents
guided war walkers

Things that sometimes work:
All jetbike armies--Very few models, very high cost.
Pathfinders/rangers--24 points per model that has 1 BS4 shot? It can be good, but with all the cover out there and the way rending works now vs/ the way it used to, they aren't nearly as effective at damaging tanks and MC's.
Reapers--35 points for 2 S5 shots that whatever it's shooting at will probably get cover from? Sometimes yes, sometimes no.

Just keep in mind that eldar are finesse and you have to have all the parts work together in a cohesive fashion. Everything needs support because here are the facts about eldar: They have universally low toughness, they have average/mediocre armour saves, and specialists are exactly that: They do one thing really well and fail miserably at most everything else. They are very rewarding but you must be smart and strategic... Eldar are not forgiving.

I'm against taking a full 10 man squad of banshees as again 6 should be able to win combat (esp if the enemy is doomed) and you save some points.

i have to agree 100% with the above post, eldar are not forgiving. You have to minimize your mistakes and mangle the enemy army as surgically as you can. Doing that you will be near invincible. But the practice of getting there is hard and long. One bit of advice: know your enemy's army as well as you can (i dont mean his list, i mean his codex) this will make it easier and easier to minimize mistakes.

Ok back to the original intent of this post. You shouldnt be having that much trouble with anti tank. Run your wraithlords with a brightlance each to deal with heavy armor. dont underestimate warlocks and farseer in close combat with vehicles (or if you wanted take singing spears making them able to shoot vehicles and take assaults both fairly effectively). The dragons are the premier antitank unit of course 5 of em is only 80 points.

Now i always take 5 rangers to sit on an objective in cover, thats it. Their shooting if it does anything is always a bonus. (one game i remember wrecking a razorback with them though )

You have a good mix of units, leave the hawks at home and you'll do just fine. Remember its not likely what you have but how you're using it.