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Hello Dakka,

I'm not sure whether I should have put this in Army Lists or Tactics, but I think army lists is more relevant.
So I got to play with the Eldar codex on Saturday with my club for the first time since it came out. I don't go for the best lists out there and I play more for fun rather than competition, but I am not a fan of coming to the club and getting mashed by the tournament winning lists every time I turn up. This time around I was facing Flying Chaos Daemons with Chaos Space Marines allies and needless to say, it wasn't fun at all.
His list was something like this:
HQ: Fateweaver for his daemons and I don't know what his CSM warlord was, Choas Lord maybe?
Troops: 2 squads of 10 plaguebearers, CSM, I can't remember what they were.
The rest was an assortment of Princes with wings, a bloodthirster and a hell turkey.

My list was:
HQ
Eldrad Ulthran – 205

Farseer w/ Runes of Warding, Runes of Witnessing and Spirit Stone of Anath’lan – 140

TROOPS
Dire Avengers (10) Exarch w/ Power Weapon and Shimmershield and Battle Fortune – 175

Dire Avengers (10) Exarch w/ Power Weapon and Shimmershield and Battle Fortune – 175

Rangers (5) – 60

Windrider Jetbikes (3) w/ Shuriken Cannon – 61

DEDICATED TRANSPORT
Wave Serpent w/ TL Bright Lance, Holo Fields and Shuriken Cannon – 145

Wave Serpent w/ TL Scatter Laser, Holo Fields and Shuriken Cannon – 145

ELITES
Striking Scorpions (6) Exarch w/ Scorpion’s Claw and Stalker – 152

HEAVY SUPPORT
Fire Prism w/ Holo Fields – 140

Fire Prism w/ Holo Fields – 140

Dark Reapers (5) Exarch w/ EML, Flakk Missiles and Fast Shot, 4x Starshot Missiles – 212

FORTIFICATION
Aegis Defence Line w/ Quad Gun – 100

TOTAL – 1850

What happened was, playing "big guns never tire" when we deployed, he put all of his grounded FMCs in a corner pre-measuring all the time so there was no way I could shoot him as I had first turn. I flew my Prisms up and took a few pot shots at fateweaver and took a wound off. Next turn he flies his units forward and casts grimnoire (?) with fateweaver to increase a prince's save to a 3+ inv and then the other FMCs cast psychic shriek and a flamer template, practically killing any of my models not in a transport. By the end of the game I had one prism left, Eldrad, three Dire Avengers and a few Scorpions. He had his princes camping objectives thus I couldn't get any objectives.


Everyone there runs competitive lists there now, such as Space Wolves, Riptide tau lists, flying daemons and the only nid build tervi spam biomancy flyrants. With all of these, I don't want to lose badly, I'd rather have a close game than getting tabled. I'm by no means used to the codex yet, so any advice as to how I can beat these lists with a non allied Eldar list would greatly help me.

Thanks,

Tyranid Horde

It sounds like you hand some tough enemies, but Eldar certainly have the tools to deal with them, and most of them are already in your list!

From the top: Eldrad is not the super hero he once was, and is usually going to rank a bit subpar compared to your run of the mill farseer for his cost. Farseers in general need to be on foot or a bike to get their buff powers rolling(guide, doom, fortune, prescience, other divination) and if you have them some telepathy offensive powers supplement. Runes of warding are meh as you can deny most psykers on a 4+, or at least a 5. Most of the powers you worry about are blessings anyways, but against the deamon list the runes are nice. Runes of witnessing are not very critical either, as you are not taking powers for certain, so failing a guide or something is not a big deal. The spirit stone is okay if you get a 2 warp charge power worth casting, but it strips your invul so best for a jetseer. I would consider dropping eldrad for a normal seer or other HQ(or something else) and taking your other seer stock(maybe a singing spear). You really only need a single footseer to hand out guide and other cool stuff.

The Dire avengers are decent in a transport and with a 5++ and some CC ability they make good shock troops against lots of what you see. However, the exarch should toss battle fortune. You are paying another 50% of the cost of your T3 model to increase his invul by +1. Not worth it with a shimmershield.

Rangers are not bad, but against vector strikes, flame templates and any other ignore cover they are just going to die. Use them as cheap fire magnets, objective campers or place them to where you can snipe at MC's. Snipers are good against MC's, and your meta seems to love them.

Jetbikes are fine too, but beware the ignore cover love prolific in your opponents lists.

The serpents are major powerhouses, but you can make them even more deadly by taking a scatter laser instead of a bright lance. The laser can twin link the shield AND chin cannon, making for decent AA as well as mass dakka when needed. Protect these, as your opponents have very little that can easily down them outside of assault.

Scorpions suffer a lot against the lists you fight, but can still bring a lot of pain. I would bring more, probably a full squad of ten. Drop stalker, it is near worthless as you should wound most stuff on 2+. If your in a fight with an MC, you want monster hunter instead. For half the cost you re roll ALL failed to wound rolls for the ENTIRE squad in shooting AND assault(10 scorpions with pistols, 10 mandiblaster hits, a bunch of plinking with chainswords, you see how it adds up.) Your meta is monster heavy, and if your scorpions can grab a riptide or even shoot some dakka at a prince your looking at some serious damage. It will make your opponent think twice about them!

Prisms are fantastic, but not that great against MC's. Just the nature of the beast. Fortunately they are not that easy to kill, and are variable and cheap enough to be used in a TAC format.

The reapers with starshot missiles are very dangerous, and your opponents will know that. Guided, these are outright nasty at sniping down an MC or just dishing out dakka. I would just take starshot on the exarch instead of the eml, but keep fast shot. For AA, you have serpents and guided S8 missiles are not bad. Against a turkey it will burn them dead before they can shoot back anyways, and S7 is not very scary. Do add night vision to them though, as their range is "48 and you don't want night fighting to take away their mojo. Since this confers to the squad put your farseer on the quad and he benefits too!

You might want to try to get another serpent in your list with just guardians, or something. Consider another HQ, or just a single seer to get more bodies on the table for more dakka. Psychic boosting is worthless if it has nobody to boost. Hope this helps!

Wow, thank you so much for getting back so quickly Dr. Serling!

I'll gladly take the advice on board, and I will make a fresh list tomorrow as it's fairly late over here right now. I do have a fair amount of extra Eldar units that I can use too, if they'd be any better than the units in my list. I have 2 squads of guardians, a crimson hunter and wraithknight (both WIP), another squad of avengers, three war walkers (are they an auto take like they used to be?), a falcon which could be converted into a serpent, a vibro cannon battery and I believe that's it. Anything useful from the above list?

Guardians got a lot better in the new dex, both for 10 man in a serpent or on foot with a weapon platform. A hunter is dead lethal AA, but it has to get the first shot or it will fall. War walkers are still the powerhouses they once were, but now they have more options other than Scatter/scatter. Due to laser lock, you can go scatter/starcannon or shuricannon, and double bright lance is not bad either. Wraithknights are great stock, damn hard to kill for most armies and the S10 guns are fantastic. The other good build is scattershield, cannon and scatter laser. Not bad, but expensive. Falcons are still pretty meh, better used as serpents. Vibro cannons got a lot better, and are pretty cheap for what you get. The vibro cannon or shadow weavers make a great hiding place for a farseer(T7!) and benefit from guide. Overall your list is not bad, but basically everything you own can be added in or tweaked if you want to play around. I would certainly try to get some more of your collection in your list to give you the dakka needed to take out a flying circus, or riptide spam, psychic choir, etc.

Eldrad doesn't bring enough to the table, try another farseer or better yet a Spiritseer in his place.

You can drop the Quadgun down to the Icarus, with the Fast Shot Exarch manning it its Heavy 2.

I'd then drop the Scorpions, should be enough to get you Troop Wraithguard in a Serpent.

Thanks for your help gents, so I've rewritten my list taking your advice on board. What you all think of this?

HQ
Farseer w/ Spirit Stone of Anath’lan and Runes of Witnessing – 130

Farseer w/ Runes of Witnessing – 115

Warlock Council (1) – 35

TROOPS
Dire Avengers (10) w/ Exarch, Power Weapon and Shimmershield – 160

Dire Avengers (10) w/ Exarch, Power Weapon and Shimmershield – 160

Rangers (5) – 60

Windrider Jetbikes (3) – 51

Guardian Defenders (10) w/ Scatter Laser Platform – 110

TRANSPORT
Wave Serpent w/ TL Scatter Laser, Holo Fields and Shuriken Cannon – 145

Wave Serpent w/ TL Scatter Laser, Holo Fields and Shuriken Cannon – 145

Wave Serpent w/ TL Scatter Laser, Holo Fields and Shuriken Cannon – 145

HEAVY SUPPORT
Fire Prism w/ Holo Fields – 140

Fire Prism w/ Holo Fields – 140

Dark Reapers (5), w/ Exarch and Starshot Missiles, Night Vision and Fast Shot – 217

FORTIFICATION
Aegis Defence Line w/ Icarus Lascannon – 85

TOTAL – 1838

This is an interesting list it had a strong castling middle of troops/reapers/warlock/farseers while having 5 skimmers to bring shots.

If you still have trouble I would suggest going in a single route instead of two.

Either bring all MEQ small dire avengers and fire dragon squads in wave serpent spam with 1 6 man bike squad, farseer on bike, 2 prisms.

Or build a very durable shooting core with support batteries and another unit of guardians / warlock, maybe some wraithguard/lord/knight sitting behind the aegis.

In Terms of improving the current list you might look into dropping the dire avenger squads to 5 no exarch and scrounging a few points off of the farseers to get 10 warp spiders.
They will out shoot the dire avengers and allow you to move around with the skimmers therefore not committing to castleing.

None of the upgrades on the farseers are going to help against tournoment lists.

Also the ranger squad could probably be substitued by another objective grabbing bike squad.

The only problem I find with having Fire Dragons on the board is that they and their transport go down, fast and too fast for my liking. They are pretty expensive too for unit that probably won't kill the MCs in one go, which will result in getting crushed.

Exact how can he deploy outside of your Reapers' 48" range and your Rangers' 36" range and then proceed to move 24" and cast the 12" Psychic Shriek on you?

Nightfighting was in effect, I deployed first, I moved forward to try and get some shots at him, he flew over and it seemed he managed pretty well at staying out of range.

I also question how what you said happened, happened given the range of your shooting and the limited range of all the powers his fliers had. Thinking perhaps you might have been duped. Anyway, personally I would drop the Avengers altogether or make them 5 man min squads. 10 Guardians with a Bright lance or Starcannon are going to do wonders for you for 50 less points (the cost on your current Avenger squads is 160, not 150). Bright Lances and Starcannons are the best platform weapons for me since they are AP2.

Rangers are kind of meh IMO, therefore I would drop them entirely along with the Firesabre on the Farseer (shouldn't get into combat, ever).

This should free up enough points for the Warp Spider squad, which as mentioned will tear up basically everything.

Probably enough points there for another Warlock or two if you so desired.

Thanks for telling about the Avengers, I've updated the list and I've dropped the firesabre, and should I drop the Rangers and put in a bare bones jetbike squad?

Thinking back on the game now, I do think I was duped, he must have been moving his models too far forward to get in range or something.

Out of curiosity, what benefit is having a minimum squad of avengers compared to a full one? Is it just freeing up points to spend on fast attack units and elites?