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Had my first game against the new Eldar dex, and gotta say, those fire prisms and wave serpants are brutal. How does dakka deal with the new eldar and especially with these new weapons?

What kind of ork build are you running?

3 BW w/ Shootas, BW w/ MANz, Biker Nobz, Lootas this time around.

Eldar crapped all over AV 14 so I won't be trying that again. And 2+ so I won't be using *that* either. And cover, so no need to bother with that. And AV 12 or less, so vehicles are out. And hordes, so I'll be leaving those at home...

AV 14 vs eldar is an excercise in futility, if they brought lances.

Unfortunately they also have the tools to neuter just about every other ork build too...if they brought the right ones.

You just have to hope they guessed wrong.

Damn, thats what I thought. And when the tools to kill anything are "fire prism" its pretty hard to feth that up.

I suppose in that case, since I'll only ever face these guys in a tournament I imagine, the question becomes "what tools are they likely to bring"

Though "how the hell do you kill Prisms and Serpents" are still very good questions as well. I suppose the answer though is just more Lootas

Well, if you ally in another 15 lootaz from dread mob heavy support, you should be able to kill 2 serpents a turn with your 60 deff gunz....

When playing Eldar (and to some extent, Chaos Daemons) it really feels like new codex trumps old codex, similar to playing against 5th ed GK.

You reckon 4 units of 15? I was considering 4 units of 10 but the 15 would be insane.

Don't know how good a pure gunline Ork army would be. Probably not very, and I'd regret it whenever I faced something that would be fun to play with regular Ork builds

They work pretty well, but most of us picked up orks instead of IG for a reason.

I've been Running gunline recently with Lootas and SAGs. It runs better than it sounds. Objectives have been my issue, But I usually don't have much issue with not taking out scoring units either.

VS eldar:

I would run 2 sets of 15 lootaz with a warboss with MA in each. It allows them to move 6" a turn, he absorbs a lot of the ignore cover wounds, and can simply distribute anything else that grants a cover save. 15 lootaz are about as good as anything in the game at knocking down wave serpents.

ADL are your friend. Yes, WS shields ignore cover, but just about nothing else does.You effectively double your survivability vs the majority of their army. Also that quad gun is nice for the boss to man.

War bikers have sufficient dakka to take out most of eldar infantry and are fast enough to keep up with eldar movement. Also they can simply assault and wreck transports if needed.

battlewagons will only be useful at using the def rolla. Everything else wont be useful as even if you do pop a vehicle in assault, the majority of eldar damage is from the infantry inside. You want to be playing shooty orks that can double as assault if needed.

Lobba/zaap guns are nifty vs eldar. Lobbas are great at getting reapers and other back-line or hidden eldar inf. Also you can overload wounds onto things like warlocks or even farseers with barrage. Zaap guns are much harder to use, but with ammo runts allowing rerolls on missed high-str shots and being arty you can get a lot of mileage at damaging enemy back-field vehicles like those prisms.

I think zephoid is onto it, but I would suggest a skyshield instead of ADL. It grants an invulnerable save rather than a cover. Furthermore I used a SAG w/BP and had a fun game. I haven't been having fun recently just getting tabled with the new codices right and left.

I've found that the best way to tackle Eldar is to take away their best advantage - speed. Bring lootas to blast them wherever they go, jets to mash them from the skies, and bikes to keep up with their incredible manouverability. Don't bother going after the vehicles with your jets: they don't work. Instead, kill as many ground units as you can. One jet should be able to take out most if not all of a ten man squad, so go after the fire warriors and other expensive units. Save the vehicles for the lootas and bikes.
What I've learned about the big boy, the wraithknight, is that while he's pretty fancy in CC, he can only cause 3-4 wounds per round. Throw a bunch of boys at him and tie him up. Don't let him do ANYTHING, but don't go all out and try to kill him with your biker nobs or something. That guy is too hard to kill to try, so just treat it like a land raider and keep it contained.

Spydermonkey hit the nail on the head. as an eldar player myself, I can attest to the annoyance of bikes.
Eldar absolutely NEED positioning and mobility advantage so that we can pick which units fight which units. We are low toughness, and small squad size meaning ANY unfavourable engagement will have a sort of "chain reaction" through our army, due to the specialized roles.

This is mainly why we use Wave serpents. It allows us to better position our small, squishy squads near who we want them to fight. Yes, Wave serpents are especially strong now, but that is just an added bonus. Eldar players have been using Wave serpents forever, even when they didn't have amazing damage output.

Bikes (as well as other high mobility options) take away our positioning advantage, allowing the opponent to have more say in who fights who. Not good.

Lootas work because of their range. Eldar need to get into range as quickly as possible, Lootas can sit at the very back of the table and shoot everything all game. And boy do they shoot.

I'd also like to note that eldar - in general - are bad at close combat. Yes they are WS 4 and I5, but they have bad saves, low toughness, and especially LOW NUMBERS. Suicide some trukks into his face and assault. Even if you lose a few orks to the explosion you should have more than enough to clean up any foot units he has.

Aside from "what to bring" you should also consider "How to use what you brought". Look at their units and consider which of your units will be the toughest for them to deal with. Then focus the majority of your fire early on what can kill that unit the easiest. Avoid trying to use jets as your "money unit" as the mobility of the eldar allows them to easily kite it, and flyers should rarely be used as anything more than support.
-To give advantage to your bikes: kill the fire prism and anything AP3 or less (and hope he doesn't roll 6s on his bladestorms).
- to give advantage to your lootas: focus his high mobility units and anything with large blast. tie jetbikes/wraithknight up in close combat, shoot wave serpents, turbo your bikes over to his long ranged units.


Things that are universally easy for eldar to kill:
- blobs of foot soldiers: fire prism templates, mass shuriken fire, warp spiders, war walkers with scatter lasers are all common in any eldar list, and they all have either templates, or insane amounts of shots. avoid large units of boys that have to walk across the table.
- expensive vehicles: lances,prisms, fire dragons, and wraith anythings will kill anything you put a lot of points into usually by turn 2. use barebones vehicles that can get their job done in a turn or two.


This is all general advice, and there's always going to be a LOT to consider, but I hope this at least helps you get a grasp on how to effectively recognize what your opponent is thinking, and hopefully helps you think of some ways to counter him.

Thats very helpful mate, and gives me all the excuse I need to get my biker list back out (which I missed so much ;_; ). Thanks heaps

I got a hold of the Eldar codex for a little bit and leafed through it. I found out I was hampered by my opponents... lackluster description of the rules. For instance, serpent shields don't apply to rear armour. He never told me that until I got into CC at which point I was told they don't apply to melee, but nothing about rear armour. Nor did he explain the fire prisms until they unleashed hell on my BW fleet.

Do Eldar (or Tau) get any 'ignore crew shaken on x+" abilities? Because Zapp Guns cause automatic crew shaken on any hit and I reckon that'll put a major damper on fire prisms and wave serpants

So I'm thinking
~Wazdakka, as Zhadsnark is off limits
~Bikerboss + Nob Bikers
~Warbikers as troops, maybe three units of 10 or so
~30 Lootas or 40 Lootas and a small Shoota mob to hold objectives (allied detach. requirement)
~3-4 units of 1-2 Grot Bomm Launchas (1 shot, S8 Ap3 TL Ordnance Barrage Pieplate) for alpha strike and more dakka
~Big Guns, Lobba or (never thought I'd say it) Zapp

Nail the Serpents with Lootas ASAP because they can bypass my bikers 4+ smoke cover. GBL alpha strike from cover, targetting troops in the open, fire prisms (if they don't have shields), 1 HP serpents or war walkers. Zapp guns either draw fire and die (good, as they're cheap and resilient) or shaken any eldar tanks.

Once the scary crap is out of the way the bikers move up or move on from reserves and dakka/assault/deny/hold objectives

Spirit stones allow their vehicles to ignore crew shaken on 2+ and crew stunned on 4+, 10 point upgrade.

That sounds like a great starting point for a game, but make sure that your strategy is fluid. eldar are incredibly strong on the offensive, but weak on the defensive, so look for opportunities to negate or counter any play he makes.
Thinking "my lootas will shoot his wave serpents first" is generally a bad idea, because while the wave serpents usually are a great target for them, that thinking might prevent you from seeing an even better target on occasion.

also I"m not sure what you mean by "fire prisms (if they don't have shields)." I'm unaware of any shield technology of upgrades that fire prisms can take... Power fields are only for war walkers, and Serpent shields are only for wave serpents... Holo fields just give +1 to cover save.

But using Zapp guns to auto shake is a good idea so long as he doesn't take spirit stones.

also - Tau do not have anything that ignores Shaken results to my knowledge.

Yeah, I got ahold of the codex again and just saw that ignores shaken thing. Kind of pisses me off tbh, seeing all this stuff and comparing it to Orks (ie, Fire Prism vs Looted Wagon... what a joke!)

I imagine that spirit stones aren't really used on Wave serpents, with the understanding that they're gonna ignore all the pens anyway, but I know if I was taking Fire Prisms I'd certainly be putting the stones on them. Not sure if the Zappers are worth it anymore- 4+ to hit, 4+ cover save, then 2+ downgrade Pen or 2+ shaken save... nah, they're useless now

For your bikers I would say 'eavy armor is actually worth it in this case (gasp!) as your cover will be ignored.

All bikers and nob bikers have 4+ built in... which means they don't care about serpent shields now that I think about it.

They're also fairly good against the Fire Prism blasts as well. Today is a good day for the Biker horde!

 Dakkamite wrote:
Yeah, I got ahold of the codex again and just saw that ignores shaken thing. Kind of pisses me off tbh, seeing all this stuff and comparing it to Orks (ie, Fire Prism vs Looted Wagon... what a joke!)

I imagine that spirit stones aren't really used on Wave serpents, with the understanding that they're gonna ignore all the pens anyway, but I know if I was taking Fire Prisms I'd certainly be putting the stones on them. Not sure if the Zappers are worth it anymore- 4+ to hit, 4+ cover save, then 2+ downgrade Pen or 2+ shaken save... nah, they're useless now

Remember that it has been 8-9 years since the last Ork codex, and codex creep over that time...

Orks will get their time in the sun again soon, with a bit of luck

I'm hoping for a Feth-You-All cannon, with a chance of sudden catastrophic explosion

I quite like the power level of the Ork codex, its the others that have gotten too over the top IMO.

But hey, this is the edition of OTT and random shenanigans, Orks should come out of it pretty damn well I should hope. Fingers X'd we get something to make melee a good idea again

 Dakkamite wrote:
I quite like the power level of the Ork codex, its the others that have gotten too over the top IMO.

But hey, this is the edition of OTT and random shenanigans, Orks should come out of it pretty damn well I should hope. Fingers X'd we get something to make melee a good idea again

Daemons already got that covered. We need Orks and Nids to make it even better.

Anyone else notice how many Orks players go on to run daemons? I always wondered why, guess I know now.

I'm actually planning on getting Orks as my next army. I just love the way they play. I don't even care if they're not currently competitive, they're just so much fun. And what is the game for if not fun!

Lots of good advice in this thread

One thing though, the zzap gun is always inferior to the kannon, before considering point costs - even when shooting land raiders or terminators. There is literally no reason to ever bring it to a competitive game. If someone cares, I'd even dig my posts for the whole math on it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Bojazz wrote:
I'm actually planning on getting Orks as my next army. I just love the way they play. I don't even care if they're not currently competitive, they're just so much fun. And what is the game for if not fun!

Rumor has it that we get our codex either in January or April. I'd wait until then at least, since many models you buy now might become useless then. In addition, orks currently have to play differently from what they were designed to do, which isn't as much fun IMHO.

 Dakkamite wrote:
Anyone else notice how many Orks players go on to run daemons? I always wondered why, guess I know now.

I am pretty sure after painting ~200 orks they probably want an army where a good list can be 25 models.

I am an eldar player so I will talk from that corner.

The fireprisms are not really as good as you are indicating. Overall they are considered on the low end of the HS options. If you are seeing wraithknights then you may have to stop running battlewagons or if you are not making it far enough before the eldar player gets into your side arc. However a single fireprism with guide support has a 44% chance to even pen your tank. After KFF and rolling results that goes to 15% chance to explode the tank. This is not great if you are running 2-3 battlewagons. Are you running just 1 wagon or several?

The biker list would be extremely annoying. Waveserpents depend on staying out of melee to survive and most eldar players bring little to no units that can survive against biker boyz. Just don't forget to bring something to deal with the eldar units that can mess up biker boyz, ie wraith-pretty much anything. Warwalkers/spiders need to be priority in this type of list as they can quickly chew through your bikerz.

You shouldn't worry to much about spirit stones as almost no one takes them. They are bordering on reasonably priced but if you run a mechdar list the 90+ pts you would spend on them can get you a unit of spiders.

As a side note. If your opponent is bringing mechdar I have been seeing a lot of ork players stomping them with just an all out rush of naked boyz to overwhelm and trap them. Don't forget that mechdar builds will have few template weapons. Shoot the prisms/nightspinners with your lootas and kill them immediately and you don't have to even space out. If you don't have to space out then this fixes ~80% of the problems with assault as you loose less movement to casualties.

It really isn't 6th ed codex creep per se that is the problem. It is that the orks is not even at a 5th edition level of power. The 6th ed dexs are not particularly more powerful than the 5th just better internal balanced with more options. After all you do have an AV14 front vehicle for 90pts, the best troops in the game, and the best HS in your elites slot... you just have difficulties with the support cast in any of those lists.

 Jidmah wrote:
Lots of good advice in this thread

One thing though, the zzap gun is always inferior to the kannon, before considering point costs - even when shooting land raiders or terminators. There is literally no reason to ever bring it to a competitive game. If someone cares, I'd even dig my posts for the whole math on it.

I used to think that too, but kannons don't cause auto-shaken and I have a very strong dislike of pie plates. Since spiritstones are apparantly left out alot, this could easily be a good enough reason to swap over. Like I said earlier, I *never* thought I'd see the day when I'd want to take Zapp Guns

If you dig out the maths I'd be keen to take a look though.

The fireprisms are not really as good as you are indicating. Overall they are considered on the low end of the HS options.

Low end? Good god. This thing is like, exponentially better than our version (Looted Wagon) but its considered the "low end"?

*head explodes*

Just don't forget to bring something to deal with the eldar units that can mess up biker boyz, ie wraith-pretty much anything. Warwalkers/spiders need to be priority in this type of list as they can quickly chew through your bikerz.

Cheers for pointing that out. It'll be hard to use bikers against an opponent when I have no idea what they need to be afraid of.

This is not great if you are running 2-3 battlewagons. Are you running just 1 wagon or several?

I ran four, and lost two of them on turn one. Didn't help that it took me three turns to make a single cover save across my whole army though. While I'm sure this is more a freak case of good luck for the other guy, I can't help but feel that Battlewagons are pure, unadulterated garbage after seeing it happen. Not that they ever seem to do any better in any other game though...

Edit; How many big monsters in that 25 model list? Because I'm a tad sick of hordes myself, hence why I've been going for Bikers

This thread is really helpful for me on both ends because I'm getting my girlfriend into 40k with eldar and I love my orks

On topic, Eldar are about as destructive as space marines, and in several ways more so due to their insane mobility, but they take wounds almost like boys when you pin the buggers down.

And I would recommend a not horde army when you play orks, after a while the losses can get to you , just remember that whatever army you pick don't run them like orks.

 Dakkamite wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
Lots of good advice in this thread

One thing though, the zzap gun is always inferior to the kannon, before considering point costs - even when shooting land raiders or terminators. There is literally no reason to ever bring it to a competitive game. If someone cares, I'd even dig my posts for the whole math on it.

I used to think that too, but kannons don't cause auto-shaken and I have a very strong dislike of pie plates. Since spiritstones are apparantly left out alot, this could easily be a good enough reason to swap over. Like I said earlier, I *never* thought I'd see the day when I'd want to take Zapp Guns

Zzap gunz only shake on damaging hit, which is pretty hard to archive by itself.

Math from long time ago:

Jidmah wrote:
Not, it's not. A common misconception is that a Zzap Gun rolls 3d6 for armor penetration(which is actually better than a rokkit), but it does not. The first 2d6 can't go above 10, which hampers the Zzap Gun's anti-tank potential drastically.

Chance of 2d6 being 10 or higher: 16.66%
Chance of 1d6 armor penetration being 4 or higher: 50%
-> 8.33% to penetrate
-> 2.77% to glance

Chance of 2d6 being 9: 11.11%
Chance of 1d6 armor penetration being 5 or higher: 33.33%
-> 3.70% to penetrate
-> 1.85% to glance

Chance of 2d6 being 8: 13,88%
Chance of 1d6 armor penetration being 6: 16,66%
-> 2,31% to penetrate
-> 2,31% to glance

Total:
14,34% chance to penetrate AV13
6.94% chance to glance AV13

A rokkit has a 16,66% chance to penetrate and a 16,66% chance to glance AV13. Even the ordnance reroll for the SAG doesn't close the gap, not even including mishaps.

A little more up to date:

Jidmah wrote:Assuming our favorite target, the rhino, Zzap gun lazy math tells us that 3d6 will not scratch the paint 50% of the time(as the first 2d6 cap out at 10, it actually happens more often). A kannon will penetrate 50% of the time (4+) and glance 16.66% of the time, giving you a 66.66% chance to take off hull points. This actually gives a full battery of kannons a 12.5% chance to simply blow any AV11 vehicle off the table, assuming you use ammo runts whenever possible and you don't roll any explosions.

Neither of those are for the AV12 in question, but you get the idea. I know I also did one to calculate the chance of nine zzap gunz failing to harm any vehicle at all over the course of five turns, which turned out to be as high as 20%. I can't find the post anymore though.

 ansacs wrote:

 Dakkamite wrote:
Anyone else notice how many Orks players go on to run daemons? I always wondered why, guess I know now.

I am an eldar player so I will talk from that corner.

The fireprisms are not really as good as you are indicating. Overall they are considered on the low end of the HS options. If you are seeing wraithknights then you may have to stop running battlewagons or if you are not making it far enough before the eldar player gets into your side arc. However a single fireprism with guide support has a 44% chance to even pen your tank. After KFF and rolling results that goes to 15% chance to explode the tank. This is not great if you are running 2-3 battlewagons. Are you running just 1 wagon or several?

Firprisms are certainly not 'on the low end' of the HS choices, more in the middle. Ranking the HS choices, the only things that seem to be being played above them are Warwalkers(SO much use out of these), Wraithknights and Wraithlords. That leaves much more lower than it in the heirarchy.

The reason they are used more than the other choices is the prevalence of AV 12 Fast Skimmer Saturation. Putting out those Prisms(which are VERY versatile in their ability to affect unit types) gives another vehicle that STR6+ weapons need to prioritize with the Wave Serpents carrying scoring units. I find that Prisms last as long as Wraithknights do in the average game, cost less, and typically kill about as much value of the enemy.

Lets try to keep this more about "What orks should take to beat up eldar" and less about "What eldar should take as a HS slot choice", as the latter has been debated across the forums since the new codex release, and will undoubtedly derail the thread rather quickly.

To summarize, Fire Prisms are not always taken due to the wide variety and high quality of all the heavy support choices in the eldar codex, allowing the players to pick which unit best serves their army composition. It just so happens that your opponent prefers Prisms.

Ansac's advice about protecting your bikers fits in perfectly with mine. choose your "money unit" and direct your firepower at anything that can kill it easily. The problem with warp spiders is that they can deep strike near your bikes and get some (almost) guaranteed shots off before you can shoot them, and still jump away to safety afterwards, so unfortunately, chances are they're going to get some of your bikers no matter what you do. Try to plan for this, if you see your opponent running warp spiders.