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Hi All!

I play Eldar in a small community where my only opponents are Necrons and Ultramarines.

Currently the Necrons are not giving me too much grief but the Ultramarines are starting to prove problematic. One common tactic is where a turn 1 drop pod lands combi melta sternguard next to my 3x War Walkers and melts all three before they get a shot off. The other issue is double Thunderfire Cannons removing the cover save armour on my Harlequin squad. Any tips? (aside from the obvious, leaving the Walkers in reserve).

We mostly play 1250 points and the models I have at my disposal are below (normally ALL of these models feature in my 1250 list).

I would also like any suggestions of things to drop and things I really should get.

Thanks!

1x Eldrad
10x Guardians
3 x Guardian Jetbikes
4 x Dire Avengers + Exarch
6 x Harlequins + Shadowseer
1 x Wave Serpent
3 x War Walkers
1 x Wraithlord
4 x Warp Spiders + Exarch

Put your warwalkers in cover or on top of a skyshield landing pad and have Eldrad fortune them.

scimitar wrote:
Put your warwalkers in cover or on top of a skyshield landing pad and have Eldrad fortune them.

Thanks for the reply!

In cover seems the best bet as long as my deployment gets some - they might be behind cover but not in cover which means the sternguard get to melt them anyway. I won't be able to get fortune off on them if I don't get first turn so I can't really rely on that...

Hug the side of the table? Preferably with some terrain nearby. Drop pods that scatter off the edge still mishap. It's only terrain/units they get to correct for. If you keep all your units together, he might not be able to find a clear spot to land. But you don't have a lot of bodies to bubblewrap around the walkers...

 Nevelon wrote:
Hug the side of the table? Preferably with some terrain nearby. Drop pods that scatter off the edge still mishap. It's only terrain/units they get to correct for. If you keep all your units together, he might not be able to find a clear spot to land. But you don't have a lot of bodies to bubblewrap around the walkers...

I haven't tried bunching everything up yet (fear of templates!) but that's not a bad idea! I guess I can hope for turn 1 and if I don't get it, use Eldrad to re-deploy into table-edge hugging format...

Exclusively against Necrons/Marines, are Scorpions worth taking over Harlequins?

Melta range is 6'', you can meat shield that distance, probably use guardians as sternguard bolters are a little bit good at killing. Not sure the bodies will give a cover save for the walkers but you can try.
Otherwise you hide them be hide skimmers for the first turn. Dead skimmer is bad but when the fire dragons come out and burns up reasonably expensive sternguard.

Sternguard have a good number of attacks and bolter shots, so I would be apprehensive trying to assault them.

Also drop pods can land in dangerous terrain and treat difficult as dangerous. It is only impassible terrain and you that reduces scatter.

If your going second put the war walkers in reserve with outflank, sternguard cant touch them if there not on the table!

TFC's removing cover on harlies, yeah thats nasty.....maybe use eldrads divination power to redeploy to a place where the TFC's cant see you(or even just 1 cant see you) it needs TLOS as its not barrage

hope this helps

If you are going second (meaning no fortune) then make sure the TFC cant see any harlies. And if thats impossible make him be able to see very few, as minimal as possible. It can only kill what it can see now. If you are going first, then you have fortune and hopefully The unis it being lead by something with with 2+ or 2++(invuln) save like an archon or the baron. If so, let him blast away and waste shots while the restof your army isnt being shot at by the damn thing.

Smart thing is to bubble wrap the walkers so that the pod ccant drop within 12" of them. Then no melta. Sure the guardians will get slaughtered... but they only cost you 100 pts. Now your walkers can scatter laser the balls off that 180+ pts unit.

I am finding that outflanking the walkers when going second is one of the best strats i use. They are so fragile they need to have the alpha strike.

Outflank or simply stick them in Reserve and try to let your opponent go first is the best defense for your War Walkers. The only downside to this is you can't cast Guide/Fortune on them the turn they arrive. To mitigate this, positioning and target selection is key to get the most out of them as it will be likely a top priority in your opponent's following turn.

Simple question; why are you War Walkers on the board turn 1? You should be outflanking them.