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Cool, so my brother has played Eldar on and off since 5th but is struggling to win at the moment. He mostly plays against power armour armies (grey knights, blood angel, wolves and chaos)

I am letting him proxy heaps to get a better understanding of whats good and not, so he has access to anything.

So to all the experienced player of dakka, what are some good tactics for the eldar and how to use them effectively.

A second option is that I am thinking of doing dark eldar, so having them as allies is also an option

Cheers.

Yeah, it appears that Eldar is struggling in the 6th edition, especially at larger pt games. However, I think Eldar can do well at the 1500 pt level.
Eldar armies need synergy to do well. Good HQ combos are
Fortuneseer, Avatar, Guardians walking in the Avatar's fearlessness bubble,
Fortuneseer, Seer Council on jetbikes,
Fortuneseer, PL like Karandras or Fuegan, or Archon or the Baron, Seer Council on foot.

Pathfinders are decent for scoring, Warwalkers with scatterlasers are a steal, Wraithlords with eml and brightlance can give decent fire support, dual Fire Prisms are good allround tanks.

Thanks for the help

The only thing he has not uses yet is warwalkers but that is something to think about next time.

So synergy is important, Amy one else have something to say?

Farseers are basically required, for runes of warding and psychic buffs.

War walkers are really good. So are wraithlords, fire prisms, night spinners and warp hunters. Max out the heavy support choices. Fire prisms require pairs, and wraithlords do best in pairs as well.

I find that fire dragons are currently the only consistent way to remove heavy armor, ie landraiders and monoliths. I was running 2 fire prisms and a falcon against a pair of landraiders the other night, and it took my 3 tanks all game to kill one, but one turn of suicide wave serpent loaded with fragons took care of the other in 1 turn. Of course the were promptly annihilated the following turn.

I'm really enjoying 2 farseers with codex powers still, I find the brb ones too inconsistent to reply upon. Doom and fortune are where it's at, and guide for those bs3 units like war walkers.

I like dire avengers and pathfinders still, though both are very over costed, but it's all we have. I still tend to stick lots of stuff in wave serpents over walking. I dislike that most everyone out ranges our squishy troops, hard to compete against rapid fire when we are stuck with assault 18" and 12".

Good advice keep it coming guys

He likes to take 10 dragons in a wave serpent, however this always gets blown up before getting close. Is mech or foot a better way to go about?

Cheers

I play hybrid lists mostly. I try to maximize my S6 volume of fire while fielding just enough stuff to have an answer for av14 and flyers. Got 2 units of 5 fire dragons in serpents. One has an exarch with tank hunters, crack shot and heavy flamer. If the enemy doesn't have a lot (or any) av14 I put him on my quad gun and let him go to town on medium av vehicles and flyers. 10 in a unit is mostly a waste because they're so good they're always target priority 1. Take 5 and just sacrifice them to take down a prime target. Then use their old wave serpent to pick up a scoring unit or to hunt rear/side armor with S6 shots.

Then yeah, like others said War Walkers are a steal with Scatter Lasers. They do amazing damage with guide and are just so cheap. Even unguided they're the most cost-efficient source of S6 hits we have, with Warp Spiders coming in a close second if you dont buy the assault upgrade. Their BS4 brings their cost:hit ratio in line despite their relatively high price. Very deadly units, both of them.

And yeah Eldrad. He's great with book powers or code powers. Helps you get so much more out of units when you can guide and doom. I did well once with a Bright Lance Guardian unit with Eldrad attached. He cast prescience and that other book power that ignores cover. Worked nicely.

I don't go into battle without Dark Reapers. I know some people think they're expensive and overrated, but they always help me chop up marines from range.
Other than that make use of the psychic powers with the Farseer, and dire avengers with bladestorm. and Fire dragons are great I don't take them in a WS but I probably should.

I second the group of 10 fragons being too many sentiment. I think 5 is max and will do the job of blowing up what you need blown up. Then they will die.

@cox.dan I have no experience with reapers, what's your exarch decked out with, I may try them out next game. Also what size unit?

 Kohala wrote:
I second the group of 10 fragons being too many sentiment. I think 5 is max and will do the job of blowing up what you need blown up. Then they will die.

@cox.dan I have no experience with reapers, what's your exarch decked out with, I may try them out next game. Also what size unit?

5 (including Exarch with tempest launcher), I like to keep them in the back out of bolter range and in some trees if I can help it.

Eldrad seems like a steal for his points. 5 powers, keep doom, swap 4 out for divination, keep prescience. A deadly combo is doom and the reroll successful saves divination power.

 schadenfreude wrote:
Eldrad seems like a steal for his points. 5 powers, keep doom, swap 4 out for divination, keep prescience. A deadly combo is doom and the reroll successful saves divination power.

It's all or nothing can't split. You can however take another farseer and keep the eldar powers with him. War walkers are good but dies very quickly so you need to get them cover and fortune them. Wraithlords are still great for counter assaults. I could see a funny list using the landing pad and putting squads of scatter walkers on it with the shields up and using eldrad and his mate to fortune/guide the warwalkers all day haha. The LOS off that thing would be great and the rerollable 4++ would be stupid annoying. Also don't foprget to allie with DE, they can make some insane combos and gaining a few venoms to crop down MEQ is always handy.

Well, currently, I'm only playing with Eldar at smaller pt levels, mostly 1500. Its too bad that there are no RTTs at this level these days. Here a foot army is fully enough. I had good experience with it. Have a look at my battle report vs Tau in the Dakka forum.

For the fire dragons, take 3 units in Falcons with or without holofields

Dark Haemonculus wrote:
For the fire dragons, take 3 units in Falcons with or without holofields

Serpents are sufficient. They have decent weapons, are cheaper and are more resilient vs. melta or high-strength weapons. But don't expect them to live very long. They are now very vulnerable in assault and hull stripping is bad news.

actually serpents are only 25pts cheaper, and 25pts for 2 S8 Ap2 shots a turn isnt bad.

Get warwalkers. Lots of them, with scatter lasers and babysit them with a farseer. Get them cover, reroll the saves with fortune and melt people with the guided scatterlaser goodness.

Firedragons are really nasty now too.

Martel732 wrote:
Get warwalkers. Lots of them, with scatter lasers and babysit them with a farseer. Get them cover, reroll the saves with fortune and melt people with the guided scatterlaser goodness.

Firedragons are really nasty now too.

Warwalkers are great. In fact, the squadron rules have improved in the new edition.
However, I wouldn't fortune them. Leave them on their own, eventually outflanking. There are more precious units out there to be fortuned (like Council, Harlies, Avatar). If they go down, let them. Don't care. Every shot against them is one shot less to the rest of your force.

No, don't outflank. You want them shooting from turn one, melting away enemy squads. Reserves are the devil in this game. You need as much throw weight on turn 1 as you can get.

And in many ways, they *are* the most precious unit in an Eldar army. HQs like the council or elites like the harelquins will never do the damage of a war walkers squadron. Even a 5++ rerolled makes them considerably harder to kill.

Well, in the 5th ed, I often ran two WW squads, one with scatterlasers and one (much cheaper) with shuricannons. Both or the latter one did outflank depending on the enemy. But there, the units were able to charge upon arrival. This is no longer possible in the new ed.

In my last game I ran a Seer Council and a Harlie unit and they ripped a whole Tau army, see the section on battle reports.

You can just use two farseers or farseer plus Eldrad. Eldrad babysits the walkers and the jetbike farseer is with the council. Pretty standard, really. You don't have to pick and choose. At 2K points, you can get even more farseers in you need.

Starcannons are even better now because of AP2 and the renewed popularity of terminators. Armies like BA get FNP against them now, but with the volume of fire, who cares? BA aren't much of a threat anymore anyway. I guess C:SM with FNP could cause some trouble with a starcannon squad.

But even the cheapo shuriken cannon walkers are very, very vicious. If there are some random ruins on your side of the board, two 4++ saves makes things very hard on your opponent unless they have some way to ignore cover.