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A friend of mine is Eldar, he plays them a lot but he seems to have some opprotunities with his flying circus list he plays. I was hoping we could help talk about the basic tactics of this army style learning the best options to get where you want, do what you want, and prevent things like assault after doing these things.

What do you mean by Flying Circus? In WHFB, that usually means a lot of monstrous creature type thingies that fly around, but Eldar don't have those.

Flying Circus is Harlequins in Transports I assume.

I'm sorry but the days of the flying circus is over due to the Shadowseer.

In a vehicle you can be shot down and lose models, it's also not an assault transport to boot.

With the Shadowseer, you have all the prorection you need; completely voiding a vehicle.

Iranna.

Strange, it's commonly referenced in our gaming store as such but I suppose it would be called parking lot here. Mainly using Wave serpent spam.

What's in these wave serpents? Harlequins?

Hmmm i'm honestly surprised this isn't more translated between us but I made assumptions lol so here I'll start over.

Hello, I have a friend who has been following a theme of play which involves using a large number of wave serpents, dire avengers, fire dragons and a far seer as his core. he normally either dables with some war walker support or wave serpents. he has wondered thing like deploying a line of wave serpents side by side and unloading his entire army behind the wave serpents shooting 'underneath' the vehicles and loading in and getting away from the enemy next round if possible.

If not possible they fleet away while the wave serpent takes the pounding for them since they made a wall of impassible vehicles which makes it nearly impossible to charge the infantry allowing the vehicles to GTFO if they are still alive after moving 12 and disemarking.

it seems valid, but things seem a bit off with how it operates. I've been offering my help but i wanted to know what everyone here thought supposedly it's a common tactic.

I suggested shining spears as an additional assualt deterrent against MCs like Trygons or dreadnoughts.

Big Mek Wurrzog wrote: he has wondered thing like deploying a line of wave serpents side by side and unloading his entire army behind the wave serpents shooting 'underneath' the vehicles and loading in and getting away from the enemy next round if possible.

I'm not sure you're allowed to fire "under" grav tanks with the TLOS rules...

It's usually easier to shoot between rather than under, because of TLoS.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/User:Flavius%20Infernus

Fire dragons can kill vehicles or wipe out heavy infantry units this way without being countercharged.

In my experience, there's typically not much point in having Dire Avengers shoot at anything because they can't efficiently damage anything worth damaging. Personally, I keep my DA units to minimum size with no upgrades, and put the guns I want to shoot (scatterlasers and shuriken cannons) on the wave serpent.

That's a very fun and successful army: 3 units of Dragons in serpents, 3-4 units of DAs in serpents (all serpents with one or both str6 guns), then add a couple of falcons with EML or some warwalkers and/or vyper squadrons, and that army is a contender.

I use that sort of army: 3 FD units, 4 DA units, all 5-man in scatter laser serpents. Then 1 holofielded falcon carrying 5 DA and a basic farseer, 2 fireprisms, and yriel.

I actually am quite down on them. I play against similarly-tuned up opponents, most of them using newer and gnarlier codexes, and I always feel at a disadvantage in my army's total shooting power and/or resilience. I do a lot better in objective games than annihilation.

I think the key to winning with the army is how you maneuver in the bigger picture (all your army on one flank, coming on from reserves, target priority etc) which I am pretty confident at; but also how you micromanage your units. IE what Flavius Infernus has just posted about how you move your transports, the range you disembark your men at, etc. I keep telling myself I need to be more precise about that sort of thing.

In any case, advice for someone playing against such an army: pen your opponent in so he can't turboboost without being close to your units. Once assaults and short-range shooting start tanks will begin to go down, and eldar infantry out of their transports are so feeble they won't have much chance.

Lord Rogukiel wrote:

Big Mek Wurrzog wrote: he has wondered thing like deploying a line of wave serpents side by side and unloading his entire army behind the wave serpents shooting 'underneath' the vehicles and loading in and getting away from the enemy next round if possible.

I'm not sure you're allowed to fire "under" grav tanks with the TLOS rules...

Does this mean I can't shoot under a valk/vendetta? If you can draw LOS from two models...

We played it like they could but it was cover. Hmmm here let me get an example for you guys. So the idea was something like this...

The "W" represents Wave serpent's and their deployment before letting out the troops. The "I" is the infantry's positioning prior to shooting. And the "Spears" is obviously the shining spears meant to be the mouth of your deployment area. And "E" stand for enemy infantry, which is to represent how hard this is to assault through.

I hope this makes sense...

..............E ............ E ................E

W
I .....W
.......I ......W
...............I

.......................SPEARS

1500 Pts - Eldar Roster

Total Roster Cost: 1494

HQ: Farseer (1#, 163 pts)
1 Farseer, 163 pts = (base cost 55 + Spirit Stones 20) + Doom 25 + Eldritch Storm 20 + Guide 20 + Mind War 20 + Singing Spear 3

Troops: Dire Avengers (11#, 302 pts)
9 Dire Avengers, 108 pts = 9 * 12
1 Dire Avenger Exarch, 44 pts = (base cost 24 + Bladestorm 15 + 2 Avenger SC 5)
1 Wave Serpent, 150 pts = (base cost 90 + Spirit Stones 10 + Star Engines 15) + Shuriken Cannon 10 + TL Scatter Lasers 25

Troops: Dire Avengers (11#, 302 pts)
9 Dire Avengers, 108 pts = 9 * 12
1 Dire Avenger Exarch, 44 pts = (base cost 24 + Bladestorm 15 + 2 Avenger SC 5)
1 Wave Serpent, 150 pts = (base cost 90 + Spirit Stones 10 + Star Engines 15) + Shuriken Cannon 10 + TL Scatter Lasers 25

Elite: Fire Dragons (6#, 250 pts)
4 Fire Dragons, 64 pts = 4 * 16
1 Fire Dragon Exarch, 36 pts = (base cost 28 + Firepike 8)
1 Wave Serpent, 150 pts = (base cost 90 + Spirit Stones 10 + Star Engines 15) + Shuriken Cannon 10 + TL Scatter Lasers 25

Elite: Fire Dragons (6#, 250 pts)
4 Fire Dragons, 64 pts = 4 * 16
1 Fire Dragon Exarch, 36 pts = (base cost 28 + Firepike 8)
1 Wave Serpent, 150 pts = (base cost 90 + Spirit Stones 10 + Star Engines 15) + Shuriken Cannon 10 + TL Scatter Lasers 25

Fast Attack: Shining Spears (5#, 227 pts)
4 Shining Spears, 140 pts = 4 * 35
1 Shining Spears Exarch, 87 pts = (base cost 47 + Withdraw 25 + Star Lance 15)

The idea is that you float around in the wave serpents till you see an optimum position to hit like this, trying to turbo boost if you are in hot water. Once you set up a "kill zone" you disembark and fire like crazy throwing blade storms and spammy strength 6 forcing most enemies to hit those wave serpents which should have ideally moved 7 inches or more before disembarking. If you lose serpents that sucks but it's better than dying inside the transport those squads that can next round load up and try to tank shock, pivot on the spot at the end of the movement and deploy a similar shield again next round. Obviously bailing out is the final retreat but it seems like a pretty flexible choice Cause even if the enemy is close so few enemies can laugh at the profile of charging spears which lock the enemy trying to rush around the serpent wall, getting out of combat with withdrawl is needed which seems unlikely considering the amount of shooting this list would have.

so it goes like this

1. Drop Serpent wall in location
2. Shoot accordingly but focus on using meltas first.
3. Determine how likely enemy will be advancing on you
5. If soon, position Shining spears to intercept at a distance.
6. Receive enemies' turn (remembering cover saves for infantry)
7. depending on bladestorm and distance of enemy consider avenue out (Charge with spears, embark and bail out of location, or all in)
8. If troops lost transport head to cover asap and de-attach farseers as soon as possible to connect to new unit.

if the models can draw LoS under the Wave Serpents they can shoot.

Most likely they will be giving cover to the targets but thats hardly a major issue.

The wave serpent wall works because your force sticks together, its simple. I usually throw on star engines to my fire dragons and turbo boost to block their movement, especially when they deploy in a big block. It keeps them together so you can template with fire prisms and bladestorm at will.
F= fire dragons D= dire avengers T= enemy tank

..T..T..T
....T...T
..F....F....F
....D....D