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I've been trying to make an Eldar army to take on marines, without resorting to serpent spam. My opponent has started running BA and SW with 5 drop pods, each drop pod has a SW tac squad, two have dual melta's and the other three have dual flamers.

He also takes two rune priests and a BA Libby, 3 long fang squads all with 5 missile launchers and a BA dev squad with two missiles and two lascannon. Oh and two landspeeders with missile launchers

Here's a list I've just knocked up any feedback would be appreciated, as I've not played much 6th ed

HQ - Farseer
HQ - Autarch - Banshee mask, fusion gun, reaper launcher, warp jump generator

Troop - 6 Dire Avengers inc Exarch with power weapon and shimmershield, in Wave Serpent, Crystal targetting matrix, holo field
Troop - 10 x Guardian with scatter laser

Elite - 5 x Fire Dragons inc exarch with firepike and fast shot, in wave serpent, crystal targetting matrix, holo field
Elite - 5 x Wraithguard with d-scythes in wave serpent, crystal targetting matrix, holo field

Fast Attack - 7 x Warp Spiders

Heavy support - 5 x Reapers inc Exarch with fast shot, night fighting and starswarm missles
Heavy support - 3 x walkers, scatter laser and bright lance on each
Heavy Support - Wraithknight with two wraithcannon

Are the crystal targetting matrixes worth it? It means I get a 3+ jink after flatout and can still shoot one weapon. Autarch could possibly lose banshee mask, think the DA Exarch had the power with the 4+ save, could lose that as he has shimmershield.

Your thoughts?

*edit* Suppose I should explain tactics too!

Warp Spiders to bounce around, hopefully taking out the landspeeders, then concentrating on marine, Autarch with them to add a little extra punch with the fusion gun and reaper launcher for marine killing, as jump pack makes him relentless he can fire both weapons
Wraithknight will probably focus on blowing up the drop pods if we're playing for VP, plus he terrifies my opponent, hence all of his heavy weaponry - which I intend on staying out of rang of if possible
Fire dragons and Wraithguard either zoom up the board and start shooting marines, or the dragons may hang back to take out drop pods. (probably a suicide mission due to the amount of missile launchers in my face)
Farseer - depends what powers he gets and what warlord trait, if he gets ignore cover he's going with the reapers
DA - were only shoe horned in so I could take an extra wave serpent
Guardians - just hide and hold objective
walkers - try and keep out of range of missles and attack drop pods and tac squads that come out of them.

I can stya out of range unless were playing long table edges (dawn of war I think)

Your list has three huge problems; excess points spent on worthless upgrades (such as the CTM), not enough Troops by a mile, and total lack of focus. Right now it is a mish-mash of units with no real synergy to it as far as I can see, and Eldar is all about finesse.

The simple way to beat Marines with Eldar is this; bring more dakka.

I used to run 3 vypers with scatter lasers and shuriken cannons for extra dakka, but they didn't seem to do much apart from blow up due to the amount of missile launchers my opponent brings. I have to get into range of them to shoot him, so he usually wipes out my vypers and walkers with ease. He hides behind an aegis and makes most of his saves which is why I've invested in the d-scythes.

What troops choices are recommended, I had been taking scouts but again they didn't do much apart from get flamed grilled

CTM can be ditched to free up points if they're not worth it

Well this is the problem you have when you limit yourself by refusing to use more Serpents.

Change the Lances on the Walkers to start anyway. Based on what you've told us about his list you don't need them. Get a Starcannon, Shuriken Cannon, or a second Scatter Laser instead. A second unit like this is probably more favourable here than the Reapers.

The key to using footdar really though is Battle Focus. With those Walkers for instance you should be deploying behind terrain (out of LOS if possible) and then walking out, shooting, and Battle Foucssing back in.

Dark Reapers eat MEQ for breakfast. But in your list I got the feeling you won't be able to protect them enough. I made the experience that Dire Avengers in a WS in sufficient numbers (6 would be too few) which head directly for those units threatening the Reapers will work. The Warp Spiders could do the same trick, but you will generally not have those hit.

Also I think you Wraithknight stands out as the only real tough thing. In most games it will probably be a fire magnet for 2 or 3 turns and die, while there are no units that profit from being unharmed from S9 or S8 fire.

So maybe I'd take 2 Wraithlords instead of 1 Wraithknight. Or maybe cut down on points (e.g. less War Walkers) and use more Dire Avengers. And don't underestimate those Guardians in 6th, with Bladestorm they even shoot down some Terminators charging at them or deep striking.

I'm not refusing to, I only have two models, I could use my falcon and fire prism as counts as I suppose

I've got pretty much everything in the codex and wanted to use more units other than 6 serpents (especially as I only own 4 grav tank models haha)

I used to take twin scatter laser walkers in 5th ed, so I will try going back to that load out, due to the fact he hides behind his aegis having AP2 might not be as beneficial as having the 6 extra shots

I can free up 60-70pts by ditching the CTM, exarch power on DA that gives 4+ save and the banshee mask on Autarch so that would get me some scouts.

Would you ditch the wraithknight, replace it with a wraithlord and spend the extra points on another wave serpent?

I wouldn't take only one Wraithlord, in most games where I played a single one got focused down quickly and there was nothing else left that could use the bought time.

Exactly what Godless said. Lack of focus in your list is apparent. Don't take this the wrong way, but it seems like you've blindly taken units that you feel are good at killing marines and have forgotten the single most important thing about Eldar, which is your army must come together coherently.

First of, lose the CTMs. They're good on the Nightspinner, possibly the Fire Prism and that's it.

Second, give both your HQs jetbikes, give your Autarch the Mantle of the Laughing God, Fusion Gun and Laser lance and go marine hunting. Or take a Spiritseer to go with the WG.

The rest of the list needs serious rework too, War walkers, WK and Dark Reapers are good, but Reapers really need a Serpent to protect them from alpha strike. Also, I'd honestly take Scatterlasers/Starcannon combo on the War walkers though. Or double Scatterlasers.

Add in more Warp spiders. Take 10 of them or 2 smaller squads of 7/8. I'd leave out the Elites. FDs are still good, but Wraithguard without a Spiritseer is a waste, imho.

For troops, I'd definitely take 2 jetbike squads of 3, they're just that good. And take 2 squads of either 5 Dire Avengers in Serpents, or 10 Guardians in Serpents. Both have their uses.

Yeah the reason he has so many missiles is because I bougt a Wraithknight, shame to have a £70 model sat on the shelf though.

What would you ditch to get a 2nd wraithlord in , reapers or walkers? I find the dakka on the walkers to good to replace with a lord and I love the reapers against marines, especially if I roll for ignore cover on the warlord table

I can ramp up the DA to a full ten man squad now I've got rid of those wasted points, is the shimmershield worth taking and is it even worth taking an exarch for that matter?

would you take a 2nd 5 man DA squad or a scout squad?

the wraithguard are a huge point sink, but last game they wiped out two tac squads and got a few pens on the drop pods (unlucky rolls on vehicle damage chart meant they survived though)

Don't take Wraithlord, they are pants, plain and simple. They are very slow, so will take ages to reach combat (if at all), and if tooled to put out a lot of Dakka, cost twice as much as a Walker putting out the same amount of Dakka. 2 is still way better than 1 though. But the Wraithknight is better than 2 Wraithlords. With Jump he is a much bigger threat to the enemy, with W6 he is much harder to neutralise, and his guns add something that nothing else in the army has.

Quick question about Guardian and DA, now guardians are also BS4 and woulkd be zooming across the board in a wave serpent so can get in range, are they a better choice than DA as they can also take a heavy weapon? or does the better save on the DA outweigh this?

I'm very partial to the DA. On foot they are unquestionably better, but in a Serpent it's a toss up.

I recommend you try both and decide for yourself.

Thank for the advice it's really helping. I don't think I can viably take both the Wraithguard and the Wraithknight for the points cost as I'm only playing a 2k force.

I only have 4 grav tanks that I can use, so which squads would you put in them? Guardians, Fire dragons and 2x DA?

With the reapers I usually have them in cover and because I have the wave serpents and wraithlord to shoot at, they generally get left alone, with certain deployments they can be quite easily avoided though. Would it be better to have them in a wave serpent instead of one of the DA squads? As they can now move and shoot, would walking them on be a workable option? They'd get to come on where they want along the table edge and are going to be in range, the Autarch gives +1 n reserves so good chance of them coming on when I want. Plus they'd avoid the first lot of drop pods coming in and could target the guys who get out

I'll definitely revert to twin scatter lasers on the WW although the starcannon is actually quite tempting for any marines that venture out of cover - plus I'd get to re-roll misses due to laser lock.

I think I only have 4 jetbike models as I didn't really use them in 5th ed, should I give one to the autarch and take a squad of three with cannon?

I use 1 GJB for my Autarch/Farseer and 3 for the squad, like you say.
It works well, as the squad can reserve, and the HQ can zoom around, or join them (unless it has the mantle).

The reason I have used a Wraithlord recently is to guard my local objective, and as bodyguard to Reapers.
It might be a waste of points, but seemed to prevent anyone zooming in to take them out.
One benefit to 2 WLs over a single WK is tarpitting.
And, what would be a one-shot-kill to a WK would only drop a pair of WLs to half-strength.

As for the DA/Guardian thing, the only difference when shooting is the range.
The extra I, armour save and Ld a DA gets does not matter when shooting. Guardians can take a Warlock, to help with most of these.
I do prefer DAs, but only as it's easier to paint half the amount

OK, reworked the list on my break (god bless battlescribe)

HQ - Farseer
HQ - Autarch, warp jump pack, fusion gun, reaper launcher

Troop - 10 x DA in WS
Troop - 10 x DA in WS
Troop - 12 x Guardian in WS with Shuriken cannon

Elite - 7 x Fire Dragon in WS (overkill?)

Fast Attack - 10 x Warp Spider

Heavy Support - Wraithknight with wraithcannons
Heavy Support - War walkers SL and SC
Heavy Support - 5 xReapers inc Exrach with fast shot and starswarm missile

Is 7 Fire Dragons overkill, should I take extra reapers instead?

Gapow wrote:
Is 7 Fire Dragons overkill, should I take extra reapers instead?

If your meta means 7 FDs is too many, drop a couple.
Unless you're up against AV14 a lot, 5 should be enough.

Also, I usually keep 1 troops choice out of a transport, so you get to run one empty while still holding your objective.

Yeah I'm possibly only facing AV12 drop pods and some land speeders, unless he throws me a curve ball and re-does his list completely.

Good point, I suppose it depends on the objective. If it's purely VP's then I'll just fly everything over, if I need to hold objectives then I can run an empty one, which can blast away with its fancy pants gun

He generally has all 3 HQ choices wandering about by themselves too, despite me telling him numerous time to put them with a squad, D6 ST7 hits against one guy could be fun

Gapow wrote:
OK, reworked the list on my break (god bless battlescribe)

HQ - Farseer
HQ - Autarch, warp jump pack, fusion gun, reaper launcher

Troop - 10 x DA in WS
Troop - 10 x DA in WS
Troop - 12 x Guardian in WS with Shuriken cannon

Elite - 7 x Fire Dragon in WS (overkill?)

Fast Attack - 10 x Warp Spider

Heavy Support - Wraithknight with wraithcannons
Heavy Support - War walkers SL and SC
Heavy Support - 5 xReapers inc Exrach with fast shot and starswarm missile

Is 7 Fire Dragons overkill, should I take extra reapers instead?

I think 7 Fragons is unnecessary, 5-6 should do the trick, unless you want them to hunt both Termies and Tanks. Also, did you mean to put Starshot or Starswarm missiles on your Reapers? Because I always give them both, so they can pull double duty as anti-infantry and AT.

the list looks great, but you've done exactly what you said you didn't want to do: resort to Serpent Spam. Don't listen to the typcial silliness that is spouted, being one of two things: you MUST spam Serpents; or you MUST bring the Avatar for Fearless. A month ago I won a tournament with no Avatar and 2 Wave Serpents. Everything else was on foot.

4 isnt serpent spam.... and he has alot of other stuff. fire dragons for anti tank is only needed in 5s. not sure why you took out wraith gaurd... those are so so so so good vs marines. i run two squads... and those are what do the most damage.

Well I won my game 13-8 on VP and the revised list did quite well, I did miss my d-scythes though and think I could've really used them once I got into his deployment zone, it was a toss up between those and the Wraithknight and I'm not sure I made the right decision. Having said that I think he got me 3 VPs, and just a say killed his points worth of models, also he took out a vindicator on turn 1 which could've caused me problems. I'm sure the fire dragons could've handled that though and left the d-scythes to go on ahead.

I don't think four WS is spam and I finally got to do something with my guardians, other than just sitting in a crater out of range of everything hoping to survive, they actually got some VPs for once. My opponent had four drop pods, so we had four transports each, so kind fair I thought, althought WS are way better than DP.

thank you all for your help earlier, it helped me get my head round Eldar in 6th ed a bit. I'll definitely need to try out the jetbikes at some point, but at least I have a good base to experiment from. My footdar list wasn't cutting it against my opponents gun line/DP heavy list and my attempts at changing it up lacked the relevant synergy to be effective

Oh and I did mean Starshot missiles on the exarch, I take reapers to be anti MEQ so didn't want to spend extra money on starshot missiles for all of them, but ST8 is instagib for his HQ and I take fast shot so he still gets two shots. It also handy in case I need some extra anti tank, if the FD and WK aren't puling their weight

Better list, though 6 Dragons is enough statistically to do the job against absolutely anything.

Congrats on the win.

Congrats!