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So in a week I will face my brother in laws ultra marines for the first time since they got a new codex.

The only thing he has told me is that it will be pretty low model count. So I'm guessing Centurions, Terminators and Land raiders.

As this is my second Eldar army it's pretty small (first one sold years ago). This is what I thinking of fielding:

HQ
Farseer (go with Storm guardians)
Farseer on Jetbike (goes with jetbikes)

Troops
5 Rangers
10 Storm Guardians with warlock and in Wave Serpent
3 jetbikes
3 jetbikes with warlock

Elites
7 Striking Scorpions with exarch

Fast Attack
2 Vypers
1 Crimson Hunter

Heavy Support
1 Fire Prism
1 Wraithlord double bright lances

This ends up at about 1500 pts

Left out is:
1 wraithlord with sword
3 Support batteries
1 Hornet
1 Karandras

I don't have time to get any new stuff (the crimson and Wave Serpent is the new stuff).
Also I believe there will be Grav weapons as I've fielded so much artillery and wraithlords before.

what is that serpent upgraded with. (hint: give it scatter lasers,shuikne cannon, and holo fields)
what are vyeprs upgraded with

seams pretty good for what you have.

need moar wave serps (2-3)

You are in luck. With all of the AP2 and pseudorending Eldar have, low model count 2+ armor should be an easy pick.

Your farseer on a bike should consider a singing spear with spare points. Not required, but S9 shots are useful. As for the farseer in the serpent, I would consider dropping him as you can't cast powers out of the serpent. A few powers are worth it to cast on the serpent/guardians, but I think the points are better spent elsewhere.You could get 3 shadow weavers and change by dropping the seer.

Troops are solid for what you have. Give your storm guardians fusion guns though. More AP1 for terminators, and melta for a raider. Remember, even shuriken pistols can pseudorend and ignore 2+ armor. As for the warlock, storm guardians don't really need their benefit all that much. Conceal or protect are nice, and the other powers are situational. Either drop him or move him to a better squad. Give the wave serpent a chin cannon, holo fields and scatter lasers.

The scorpion exarch NEEDS a scorpion claw. No exceptions. S6 ap2 at I6 is just too good to pass up, particularly when you expect 2+ saves left and right. The rest of the scorpions are mostly ablative wounds, but mass attacks and shuriken pistols are still nothing to sneeze at. They require some finesse, but if you can get them to charge the centurions you are golden. No overwatch from them means you go in and just drown em in attacks, while tarpitting for a few turns. You could drop these for your hornet if you wanted.

Vypers are okay depending on load out. Dual shuricannons or shuri/starcannon are good anti meq/teq builds. Are you going squad or running separate? I suggest separate to divide your threats up. Squad them if you end up running your hornet. The hornet would be a good addition with dual pulse lasers. Deadly quick, a bit tougher than a vyper and 4 bs4 pulse lasers will make all marines cry.

Consider an exarch for your crimson hunter. Also consider starcannons over lances for the exarch. Unless you see a LOT of land raiders, you should have enough lance, melta etc to take out 1 or 2. That said, lances are still great against terminators and centurions, and having extra tank killing power is never a bad thing.

Prism needs holo fields much like the serpent. The wraithlord is fine as is, remember dual wrist flamers and sword if you have points. I would add in your shadow weaver batteries. At S6 they force wounds on marines easily, they also pin due to barrage, can hide, and have pseudorending as well. Also S7 against tanks. Take your warlock here to get protect/jinx or conceal, depending on your scenario, terrain, # of grav guns, what you roll etc. They are a dirt cheap, but very lethal squad.

 raiden wrote:
need moar wave serps (2-3)

What a constructive statement. OP is fielding all of the serpents they own, and they have no time to get anything else. Also, simply spamming serpents does not instant win. In fact, white scar bikers can really own serpent spam. Grav guns ignore cover and serpent shields, with lots of S5 HOW and krak grenades. T5 bikes reduce the damage from S6 spam, and will catch serpents.

OT-Beware of bikes, and kill them ASAP. Or tarpit with your wraithlord.

Serling grav weapons do not ignore cover, also it is my opinion that marine bike with get killed by serpents rather easily because of their small squad size with a wave serpent putting out a max total of 4+3+7 shots or a min of 4+3+2 all of which are strength 6 and 7 you can only make so many 3+ saves.

But wave serpents biggest weakness is drop pod assaults with meltas to the rear it means bye bye serpents.

I guess I should clarify that against anything with AV, grav weapons are considered to ignore cover cause they don't roll on the damage table, just auto immobilize. I know the ruling is debated, but as far as I know most people lean towards this interpretation.

Alot of replies.

The Vypers can have anything. But they do have underslug Shuricannons. Right now they're listed with dual shuricannons but all is magnatized.

Forgot about the fact that the farseer can't use powers in the serpent. Most think aabout keeping her on (Chapter house mini).
But I thought that she would be a resilent warlord in the Wave Sepent.

NO I won't get more serpents don't like the serpent spam and think the shieldgun is the worst rule written since Draigo.

No fusion guns for the stormguardian. Built them in last ed when the tri-flame stormsquad was a nice thought.

Claw and Crushing blow on the scorpion exarch.

the jetseer and the jetlock is from chapterhouse as well and got spears both of them.

The crimson is still in is box wrapped in plastics. I saw a video on magnetizing the plane as both crimson and wraithfighter but it looked pretty complicated as it was about ten magnets on different places.
Is there really a place for the wraithfighter?

About the support batteries I've played them every game against him so far so thats's mostly a mind trick leaving it out.

The wraithlord is built from bits so only shuricats on the sniper lord (which I bought two 1:72 scale german world war 2 sniper rifles and will use the stocks to make it look like a huge rangers with an extra rifle slung over its shoulder).
And that's why I need the 5 rangers.

The second wraithlord got the sword and is modeled as a tracking striking scorpion. The flamers as madiblasters and the sword as a huge chainblade.

having 2-3 serpents isnt serpent spam. its just using a few really good units.
flamerws look like melta guns to all of those enemies you will go up against, its a good enough proxy.

TBH: based on what you have, redoing modeling when clearly all the models of the same type are going to be treated the same, is not what I usually do. I just say "hey dude this looks like a flamer, but all the rest of these guys only have meltas, and he's with them, and not different, you cool with my not having a melta modeled on when clearly he's a melta dude, based on unit?" type of thing. If someone objects to that, then you really should find new people to play with. Even in tournament settings, now that GW doesn't do prize support, its like if your opponent knows what everything is, and its not intentionally deceitful and everyone is okay with it, I have yet to meet someone who complains.

As far as the list:

HQ:
1 Farseer w/ Bike + Mantle of Laughing God + Spear - 160
1 Farseer - 100

Troops:
2x3 WrJb - 2x51 = 102
5x rangers - 60
10x Guardians w/ Serpent w/ TL Scatter, Holofields, Ghost Walk Matrix, Underslung Shuri-Cannon - 245

Elite:
7x Scorpions +1 Exarch (8 total models) w/ claw, crushing blow (str 7), stalker (challenge beast)

FA:
2x Vypers w/ 2xShuri-cannon, Holofields, Ghost Walk 2x85 = 170

Heavy
Nightspinner w/ Holofields, Ghost Walk (this is your Fireprism model, which come from the same kit, so either magnetize or just say: "look dude, not dropping another $XXX.XX for another thing that is CLEARLY pretty much same model with different rules")
3 Weapons batteries w/ D-Cannons - 3x55= 165
Wraithlord w/ 2x flammer (free), Scatter Laser, Star Cannon

First of all, Not all of these upgrades are optimal, but the units you could fill in in their places, are worse. If you want to customize it, you can probably drop almost 100 points if you dropped all the Ghost Walk matrixes, since generally you shouldn't need them. I normally like Crystal Targeting matrixes on my Nightspinner, but that is because its great for burninating the tau/eldar/ig/(insert generic turtling shooter army here) country side. Also you can drop the Shuriken Cannon on the Wave Serpent, you can only fire it if you don't move really much at all, you should always be moving a lot with it though to get the best angle. As far as serpent spam, I tend to go more towards balanced eldar and never run more than 3 tanks (including nightspinners), and never more than 2 serpents in general. The vypers tbh don't really need anything other than Shuriken cannons b/c of the psuedo rending and the ability to be anywhere, to be used effectively you have to be in range to use the bottom cannon anyway since you only have choice of that or TL Catapults. Since you're going to be in range for that, you have really only 2 options for its main gun: Scatter laser to TL the cannon and put out 1 more shot, or another Cannon. I always go dual cannon, because if you get the SL, then you don't have as much "rending" on infantry and vs tanks, its nearly as efficient. For the Scorpions, you can pretty much drop everything off the exarch but the claw, and even reduce troop size (if you're worried b/c you only have 7 "true" Scorpion models, bring in Kandras, and say that badass of badassery is actually not Kandras, but just an exarch) down to 4+1exarch. They aren't the best, but you could also do a lot worse with them. They will actually be a threat still though, if not dealt with, but easy to kill and takes a while to get to melee. Also Spear on the Farseer is to fill points, occasionally nice to have, but not game changing usually.

The Strategy is:

You get as close to middle of the board as you possibly can in deployment with your D-Cannons. This creates a mini-invincible protection bubble. This is going to be your main way of dealing with AV 14. The only reason you should have issue with that is if he brings a Land Raider, which if it has Termies, he needs to drive forward into your lines to be effective. This creates the focal point of your army. You deploy your snipers, Wraithlord (read gunboat/counter-assault) around there too, to babysit and dakka. You park your foot farseer with snipers, so that he can just chill like a villain and guide/pres those back units. Drop down your Nightspinner nearby, make sure it moves at least a fraction of an inch each turn for its Holofields. Take your LoLseer at first and hide him/her out of site, where you can probably do w/e with whatever powers he rolled (doom, put him up front, if not hang back cast basic stuff, etc) then turbo boost him up towards enemy to safety behind cover (12" move + 36" boost = cross board turn 1, ready to support whatever you have going on turn 2), or w/e since its marines he can't really be touched in shooting 2+ cover rerollable = win. Jetbikes start off the board. They are reserves that are ONLY used for objectives, unless they happen to be right near a really really weak unit or its end of the game and you NEED those plays to be made. DO NOT USE JETBIKES AS OFFENSE. Vypers and wave serpents with guardians go up the board edges (depending on deployment, the purpose is to essentially get them into a flanking position, so that the enemy can't just march forward uninterrupted, or to herd them towards your D-Cannons. Apply serpent shield liberally especially if you only have one hull point left since its gone regardless of pen or glance. Guardians are SUPER-DUPER killy for their points. I think i mathhammered out that 10 guardians can dakka marines and kill on average like 4 now. Anyway, point is they are a sacrifical unit that you use when the time is right to make a decisive strike, but then they'll get focused and die soon after anyway, Just as Planned (takes focus off of more important costly units, that are harder to kill, but if ignored can deal significant damage over some time) The trick I usually use with them, is to turboboost serpent first turn, next turn move 6" either rotate 90-degrees if I need a little bit more forwards or just keep it as is. Then unload 6" (you can move a transport 6" then unload a normal 6" move), to get into 12 inch range to dakka, then you battlefocus as much as you can into some terrain/out of LOS/annoying spot. This works best if you end your turbo boost about 23" away from what you want to shoot next turn. The whole thing is mostly about making them come to you, and to wear them down, but be flexible enough to deal with w/e they have. If need be MOVE UP the D-Cannons, and don't shoot for 1 turn, that'll mess him up something serious. People just don't do that. Alternatively you can drop a bunch of the extras I mentioned and add an Aegis wall (you can even take a Quad-Gun) for like a total of 85 points or something ludicrous (maybe its 100 idk) and put the farseer on that while casting powers from the ranger squad. What this does is make the D-Cannon squad like 3 times as durable. Scorpions just infiltrate them to a decent spot that they won't die turn 1 or 2 and force them to split their focus as much as possible while trying to get at least something to earn their points back (or put on same side as Serpent and Vypers but near to enemy's deployment zone (if not in it) so that you can essentially meet those guys up together especially having guardians dakka followed by Scorpion assault can be "super-effective"

Anyway...any questions just ask or PM me.

 Dr. Serling wrote:
I guess I should clarify that against anything with AV, grav weapons are considered to ignore cover cause they don't roll on the damage table, just auto immobilize. I know the ruling is debated, but as far as I know most people lean towards this interpretation.

This might be clarified in an FAQ some day. In our RTTs, we play with cover save.

 Dr. Serling wrote:

 raiden wrote:
need moar wave serps (2-3)

What a constructive statement. OP is fielding all of the serpents they own, and they have no time to get anything else. Also, simply spamming serpents does not instant win. In fact, white scar bikers can really own serpent spam. Grav guns ignore cover and serpent shields, with lots of S5 HOW and krak grenades. T5 bikes reduce the damage from S6 spam, and will catch serpents.

OT-Beware of bikes, and kill them ASAP. Or tarpit with your wraithlord.

he can drop a prism and use it as a serp.

while grav guns do ignore cover and shields on serps, they have to roll 6s to do anything

BUT, he is fighting ultramarines. so telling him what to look out for in a white scars list won't help much

 raiden wrote:

 Dr. Serling wrote:

 raiden wrote:
need moar wave serps (2-3)

What a constructive statement. OP is fielding all of the serpents they own, and they have no time to get anything else. Also, simply spamming serpents does not instant win. In fact, white scar bikers can really own serpent spam. Grav guns ignore cover and serpent shields, with lots of S5 HOW and krak grenades. T5 bikes reduce the damage from S6 spam, and will catch serpents.

OT-Beware of bikes, and kill them ASAP. Or tarpit with your wraithlord.

he can drop a prism and use it as a serp.

while grav guns do ignore cover and shields on serps, they have to roll 6s to do anything

BUT, he is fighting ultramarines. so telling him what to look out for in a white scars list won't help much

Indeed, White Scars won't help. Against Serpents, some flyers would definitely help, like Storm Talons and Ravens.

Just shoot the gravy guns with mass 36" firepower and call it a day.

But yes, but RAW, they ignore *vehicle* cover saves, because cover is only taken vs a pen or a glance.

qballony wrote:
TBH: based on what you have, redoing modeling when clearly all the models of the same type are going to be treated the same, is not what I usually do. I just say "hey dude this looks like a flamer, but all the rest of these guys only have meltas, and he's with them, and not different, you cool with my not having a melta modeled on when clearly he's a melta dude, based on unit?" type of thing. If someone objects to that, then you really should find new people to play with. Even in tournament settings, now that GW doesn't do prize support, its like if your opponent knows what everything is, and its not intentionally deceitful and everyone is okay with it, I have yet to meet someone who complains.

As far as the list:

HQ:
1 Farseer w/ Bike + Mantle of Laughing God + Spear - 160
1 Farseer - 100

Troops:
2x3 WrJb - 2x51 = 102
5x rangers - 60
10x Guardians w/ Serpent w/ TL Scatter, Holofields, Ghost Walk Matrix, Underslung Shuri-Cannon - 245

Elite:
7x Scorpions +1 Exarch (8 total models) w/ claw, crushing blow (str 7), stalker (challenge beast)

FA:
2x Vypers w/ 2xShuri-cannon, Holofields, Ghost Walk 2x85 = 170

Heavy
Nightspinner w/ Holofields, Ghost Walk (this is your Fireprism model, which come from the same kit, so either magnetize or just say: "look dude, not dropping another $XXX.XX for another thing that is CLEARLY pretty much same model with different rules")
3 Weapons batteries w/ D-Cannons - 3x55= 165
Wraithlord w/ 2x flammer (free), Scatter Laser, Star Cannon

First of all, Not all of these upgrades are optimal, but the units you could fill in in their places, are worse. If you want to customize it, you can probably drop almost 100 points if you dropped all the Ghost Walk matrixes, since generally you shouldn't need them. I normally like Crystal Targeting matrixes on my Nightspinner, but that is because its great for burninating the tau/eldar/ig/(insert generic turtling shooter army here) country side. Also you can drop the Shuriken Cannon on the Wave Serpent, you can only fire it if you don't move really much at all, you should always be moving a lot with it though to get the best angle. As far as serpent spam, I tend to go more towards balanced eldar and never run more than 3 tanks (including nightspinners), and never more than 2 serpents in general. The vypers tbh don't really need anything other than Shuriken cannons b/c of the psuedo rending and the ability to be anywhere, to be used effectively you have to be in range to use the bottom cannon anyway since you only have choice of that or TL Catapults. Since you're going to be in range for that, you have really only 2 options for its main gun: Scatter laser to TL the cannon and put out 1 more shot, or another Cannon. I always go dual cannon, because if you get the SL, then you don't have as much "rending" on infantry and vs tanks, its nearly as efficient. For the Scorpions, you can pretty much drop everything off the exarch but the claw, and even reduce troop size (if you're worried b/c you only have 7 "true" Scorpion models, bring in Kandras, and say that badass of badassery is actually not Kandras, but just an exarch) down to 4+1exarch. They aren't the best, but you could also do a lot worse with them. They will actually be a threat still though, if not dealt with, but easy to kill and takes a while to get to melee. Also Spear on the Farseer is to fill points, occasionally nice to have, but not game changing usually.

The Strategy is:

You get as close to middle of the board as you possibly can in deployment with your D-Cannons. This creates a mini-invincible protection bubble. This is going to be your main way of dealing with AV 14. The only reason you should have issue with that is if he brings a Land Raider, which if it has Termies, he needs to drive forward into your lines to be effective. This creates the focal point of your army. You deploy your snipers, Wraithlord (read gunboat/counter-assault) around there too, to babysit and dakka. You park your foot farseer with snipers, so that he can just chill like a villain and guide/pres those back units. Drop down your Nightspinner nearby, make sure it moves at least a fraction of an inch each turn for its Holofields. Take your LoLseer at first and hide him/her out of site, where you can probably do w/e with whatever powers he rolled (doom, put him up front, if not hang back cast basic stuff, etc) then turbo boost him up towards enemy to safety behind cover (12" move + 36" boost = cross board turn 1, ready to support whatever you have going on turn 2), or w/e since its marines he can't really be touched in shooting 2+ cover rerollable = win. Jetbikes start off the board. They are reserves that are ONLY used for objectives, unless they happen to be right near a really really weak unit or its end of the game and you NEED those plays to be made. DO NOT USE JETBIKES AS OFFENSE. Vypers and wave serpents with guardians go up the board edges (depending on deployment, the purpose is to essentially get them into a flanking position, so that the enemy can't just march forward uninterrupted, or to herd them towards your D-Cannons. Apply serpent shield liberally especially if you only have one hull point left since its gone regardless of pen or glance. Guardians are SUPER-DUPER killy for their points. I think i mathhammered out that 10 guardians can dakka marines and kill on average like 4 now. Anyway, point is they are a sacrifical unit that you use when the time is right to make a decisive strike, but then they'll get focused and die soon after anyway, Just as Planned (takes focus off of more important costly units, that are harder to kill, but if ignored can deal significant damage over some time) The trick I usually use with them, is to turboboost serpent first turn, next turn move 6" either rotate 90-degrees if I need a little bit more forwards or just keep it as is. Then unload 6" (you can move a transport 6" then unload a normal 6" move), to get into 12 inch range to dakka, then you battlefocus as much as you can into some terrain/out of LOS/annoying spot. This works best if you end your turbo boost about 23" away from what you want to shoot next turn. The whole thing is mostly about making them come to you, and to wear them down, but be flexible enough to deal with w/e they have. If need be MOVE UP the D-Cannons, and don't shoot for 1 turn, that'll mess him up something serious. People just don't do that. Alternatively you can drop a bunch of the extras I mentioned and add an Aegis wall (you can even take a Quad-Gun) for like a total of 85 points or something ludicrous (maybe its 100 idk) and put the farseer on that while casting powers from the ranger squad. What this does is make the D-Cannon squad like 3 times as durable. Scorpions just infiltrate them to a decent spot that they won't die turn 1 or 2 and force them to split their focus as much as possible while trying to get at least something to earn their points back (or put on same side as Serpent and Vypers but near to enemy's deployment zone (if not in it) so that you can essentially meet those guys up together especially having guardians dakka followed by Scorpion assault can be "super-effective"

Anyway...any questions just ask or PM me.

Wow alot of text. Nice answer.
Regarding the D-cannon no go zone that's what I've played in the last two matches against him so I've mindtricked him into thinking that is what I'll bring again. That's why I'll bring a different list this time.
The Prism is BTW magnatized. I must have missed saying I got 15 scorpions in total.+ 4 exarch and karandras.

The Crimson Hunter I believe will be very important. He doesn't like fliers and I don't think he will bring any. and as he believe I will play my semi footslogging list and he don't know that I got the crimson the skies will be free.

I will not let my prism get shoot of the board first turn this game (it has never survived longer in my game against him. it's his second hate object after the triple d-cannons (it took out 15 terminators one game).

The mantle is a interesting thought. I never used it.
Anyone who can tell me the basic strategy?

So the match i played and I won.
Played relic and 5-4 was score.

He did actually bring:

1 Terminator chapter master with double hammers (not the smartest but I like it).
5 assault termies (3 claws 2 hammers)
1 Ironclad dread
all this in a
1 Storm raven

10 scouts with telion
10 tacticals with rhino

1 Thunderfire cannon
1 Tri-las Predator

1 Aegis with Quadcannon

Not that hard to beat but he got extra points for slay the warlord as trait and I got a good start on the relic.

I took out the aegis first turn and moved my jetbikes and scorpions up to his defence line. Let the wraithlord mve for the relic with some rangers to pick it up.

He took out my fire prism (history repeating it self) before it did anything (killed some air though). Giving him first blood.

My vypers took out the rhino leaving the tacticals far from everything. They returned by taking out one of the vypers and stunning the second.,

My Crimson came in and killed his predator. His raven came in and killed my crimson.
My wave serpent saved the day and shoot its shield for 4 shoots. 2 hits. 1 penetrating. 1 wrecked. And suddenly there was terminators falling from the sky. The dread was shot out by my wraithlord.

By now his scout was getting beaten by my scorpions and his darn thunderfire was gone. but the techmarine was tying up my jetbikes (and did for 3 turns). Then I got Linebreaker.

Turn 5 he killed my warlord farseer in challenge. Rolled 2 extra VP. By now 4-4 in VP.

Turn 6 was rolled by chance and I got to charge his terminators with my Wraithlord. The issued challenge gave me 1 VP for slay the warlord as the chaptermaster bite the dust.

Very short and not that good battle report. But I won.

Martel732 wrote:
Just shoot the gravy guns with mass 36" firepower and call it a day.

But yes, but RAW, they ignore *vehicle* cover saves, because cover is only taken vs a pen or a glance.

grav guns have 18 inch range not 36.
unless your saying the serpents shoot them at that range, which makes since.

does anyone have a link to an articel about this discussion about grav ignoring cover? because it would really make a difference where i play.

to OP, nice job. lucky with storm raven kill, but that happens.