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So I play Eldar and have not won a single game since 6th dropped. I don't know what I am doing wrong. Pretty much every chapter of space marines I come up against wrecks my face. Drop pods in first turn and melta all the things. There are Salamanders, 2 Space wolves, 2 Tyranids with lots of FMC, 1 cron player who doesnt use wraithstar or flying circus, a screamerstar demon player and a knight titan player who runs 4 of them. Everything I put down on the table gets wiped off with little to no problem and I don't understand that if Eldar are so "overpowered" in 6th edition why I am having such a hard time even coming close to winning games. Today i played 3 1500 point games and lost all of them 6-2, 5-1, 4-1.

I need help dealing with my meta. Scatter lasers are just not cutting it. Volumes of fire but massed 2+ and 3+ make it so I can kill practically nothing and get my serprents blown away (especially in the first turn with 5 man melta gunners in a drop pod). Centurions are out there, vindicators are out there Hive Crone with their haywaire attacks. I really need help learning my meta because I'm getting sick of traveling 30 miles to not even stand a chance. I don't care about losing if its a close game but i get crushed every game.

It's not your meta, and eldar aren't overpowered if you don't play them in an overpowered fashion.

It sounds like you're having problems against everybody, not something in specific. Without knowing more about the kinds of units you're fielding, and how you're playing with them, then there's not we can do to help.

Todays army consisted of an Autarch with Warp spider gear, 10 warp spiders, 30 dire avenger, 3 wave seprents and 2 crimson hunters.

Your list is not terrible by any means. Perhaps you were just unlucky? Did you just get owned by alpha strikes? 4 knights and screamerstars are pretty insane, but regular marines should not be that bad.

If your having trouble with armor, dire avengers do a fine job with their shuriken weapons. 2 hunters can make quick work of FMC's and armor.

Perhaps it is your strategy, or your just having bad luck.

Fighting against wolves they come down turn 1 with 5 marines all having Meltaguns and pop my transports like they are a bad joke. Centurions laughed at all my stuff. I find it hard to believe that Grav guns get 5 shots each at AP2 and 36" range.

Well 5 marines may kill one transport, but you will still have the other two. Have you been giving up first turn? First turn is key to Eldar so that we can take full advantage of our movement and Jink abilities. Also to help deal with melta death squads from Drop Pods you can deploy yourself in what I call the clover. Place all of your transports back to back in a circle so that any shooting goes against your front or side armour, this lets you get your 2+ pen to glance save which can usually protect the vehicle. Also grav cannons that the Centurions have are 24" range, and only damage your vehicles on a 6, they are Salvo 3/5 so if they move, only 3 shots each.

5 marines in one pod will kill 1 transport but 2 sets of them ruin 66% of my transports and allow the rest of his army to burn down my dire avengers especially with a rune priest that has living lightning and since space wolves haven't been updated he gets to pick the powers he wants.


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And no I haven't been giving up first turn. I got initiative stolen from me twice today and the last game i didn't win the roll or seize.

Okay, just checking on the initiative, people sometimes make that mistake with crimson hunters in their list in an attempt to take out opponents fliers. Your best bet if you are having troubles (in my opinion) is that clover, they will not destroy 66% of your transports if you do that.

Im thinking about just running a Jetseer army. I never wanted to do it but I have the feeling that its coming soon.

You're doing something wrong if they destroy your wave serpents so easilly. It's one of the toughest transports in game. Place them in cover and get a free 3+ or 4+ cover at worst. There are a dozen of threads about how some eldar units are broken.
Anywayz, as i see, your meta is highly competitive in a cheezy way. But your list is not weak also, so u'll be fine as soon as you realize how eldar work. Maybe you should swap armies with those marines or crons for once.

danny1995 wrote:
they are Salvo 3/5 so if they move, only 3 shots each.

Remember that centurions are relentless, so they are always getting 5 shots.


Remember to take first turn if possible. Remember to always roll for night fight (that extra cover save really helps), and don't be scared to bubble wrap your transports. Meltaguns are far less scary outside of 6 inches.

Melta-guns only have a 12" range so a 6" melta range. You need to use guardians and terrain to keep the drop pods out of that 6" zone. Hell, it wouldn't be too hard to put a full 12" buffer around the wave serpents. With the serpent shield you should be downgrading everything to a glance, and without melta the guns become much less accurate, plus 5+ cover from guardians. Without melta, against side armor and 5+ sv, 5 shots will hit 3.33 times, glance 1.66 times and make you lose 1.1 hp, which leaves your serpent very much alive. Your serpents can then kill the marines or just move 12" away which should keep them out of melta range for the rest of the game.

remember the manouvrability of the serpents. put them on the back of the board so nothing can get their rear armour. coax his pods down as far from the rest of his army as possible and deal with them straight away. then go for the rest of his army when the fliers arrive. if you're going second remember to deploy as far from his guns as you can, that wonderful typo gives the serpent shields a 60" range, not 6", so just blow his troops away and win on objectives.

 Xerics wrote:
Fighting against wolves they come down turn 1 with 5 marines all having Meltaguns and pop my transports like they are a bad joke. Centurions laughed at all my stuff. I find it hard to believe that Grav guns get 5 shots each at AP2 and 36" range.

Pretty sure they're 24".

Mavnas wrote:

 Xerics wrote:
Fighting against wolves they come down turn 1 with 5 marines all having Meltaguns and pop my transports like they are a bad joke. Centurions laughed at all my stuff. I find it hard to believe that Grav guns get 5 shots each at AP2 and 36" range.

Pretty sure they're 24".

Effective 48 with Tigurius.

 ductvader wrote:

Mavnas wrote:

 Xerics wrote:
Fighting against wolves they come down turn 1 with 5 marines all having Meltaguns and pop my transports like they are a bad joke. Centurions laughed at all my stuff. I find it hard to believe that Grav guns get 5 shots each at AP2 and 36" range.

Pretty sure they're 24".

Effective 48 with Tigurius.

He was playing a salamanders army and pretty much chewed right through everything I had.

Your basic army composition is not bad, though it might struggle against drop pod lists

 Xerics wrote:
Centurions laughed at all my stuff. I find it hard to believe that Grav guns get 5 shots each at AP2 and 36" range.

grav cannons do get 5 shots at ap2, but only at range 24". If your opponent was playing them with range 36", it will have given him a major advantage. Salamanders don't have a way to boost it.

my serprents blown away (especially in the first turn with 5 man melta gunners in a drop pod).

Deploy your serpents so that units arriving from drop pods cannot get into their rear arc. Serpent shield is very good defense against melta, he should not be able to reliably pop your transports on turn 1 unless he's building his entire army around a drop pod melta alpha strike (and even then, it's very improbable that he would be able to kill all three wave serpents).

Volumes of fire but massed 2+ and 3+ make it so I can kill practically nothing

Your basic troops a have rending, and can reliably slaughter MEQ and TEQ. Just be sure to exploit battle focus to get out of LOS after you shoot. He's going to be spending his first shooting attack targeting your transports, so your troops will be safe from bolter fire (and in any case, your Dire Avengers get armor saves from that). If you can't get out of LOS of a squad of marines, just go ahead and assault them - eldar have an initiative advantage, and can kill one or two marines before they fight back.

And no I haven't been giving up first turn. I got initiative stolen from me twice today and the last game i didn't win the roll or seize.

Seize the initiative is a stupid mechanic, leave it at that. If you know you're going second vs a drop pod army, then deploy your troops defensively.

At 1500 points, you have a fair amount of tools at your disposal. Your list looks solid, something that can be quite effective. Are you still new to Eldar? When I first started (back with the 3rd edition codex), I lost 10 or 15 games before I started winning. They have been and still are a finesse army, though serpents help with their volume of fire.

So let's talk about your meta right quick. From what I've read, most opponents are building alpha strike lists. You have some solid advice above my post, especially with hiding rear armor, or deploying serpents extremely defensively on the back of the table. Both strategies work well if you plan on taking first turn but are worried about a seize (which can happen as you mentioned).

Here are a few things I haven't seen mentioned:
The double hunter strategy is great. One of them works well enough, but two allows for two flying gunboats of str 8 ap 2, putting a dent in any single unit. Don't over extend them, hang back with vector dancer and paste a unit a turn. Remember, flyers only have a 45 degree arc of fire, so you can position the hunters in such a way as to snipe out heavy weapons in a squad, characters (LoS will fail eventually), or any other high priority targets. They're great for reaching out and blasting things that want to be hidden.

Next, the autarch is an interesting hq choice. You have him configured to run with the spiders, which is fine, but have you considered a jetbike instead? Same points as a warp jump generator, but grants him T4 and insane speed. Mantle of the Laughing God works well on him, as does a fusion blaster to hit tanks. His stealth and shrouding works always, so put him in cover turn 1 and just deal with a dangerous terrain test, but keep the 2+ rerollable cover save. If you want to continue running him as a spider, I still recommend a fusion gun.
What are you rolling for his warlord trait? Personal tree works well on a jetbike as a Solitarch (the mantle build above) or with the spiders.

Lastly, and the biggest point I want to mention, is to limit your opponents alpha strike. So you say they have a bunch of pods? Your list is 1 hq, 3 troops, 3 fast attack. Of these, 2 units are flyers and must start in reserves. So this boils down to 5 units (autarch, spiders, 3 serpents), meaning at minimum you are required to have 2 units start the game on the board. Have you considered reserving your serpents? Starting 30 dire avengers on the table, strung out and in your deployment zone in cover means all the pod meltas are wasted shooting t3 units. Reserved serpents coming in on a 2+ thanks to the Autarch will severely hamper anyone's day, especially if the hunters arrive as well.

The last piece of advice I have is to not get stuck in a single pattern of how you play. Try out new things in every game, keeping the ones you like, scrapping the ones that don't work. Win or lose, you should take away something from every game. Ask yourself too what your opponent did that resulted in their victory, or hopefully their defeat.

Take it or leave it as you see fit. Hope this all helps!


edit - what I get for posting late night and sleep deprived! ; D

Are you running Holofields on your WS?

DA's are good, don't get me wrong, but I like guardians for cheapness. I'd consider dropping the second hunter (good at alpha-striking tanks, but in your meta he's going to get shot down).

Fire prisms are pretty good against armour.

I'm not sold on the autarch (though I see he has good synergy with the 2 hunters). He just doesn't seem to do much for being so fragile.

With some shuffling I think you can get to four serpents, which will give your opponent target overload. That means you're going to be able to alpha-strike with hopefully two serpent's guns plus disembarking guardians, which should wipe marines off the table.

Lol, if you don't want to bubble wrap your serpents, deploy them in reserves, this means you can have them come in after the deep strikers making their meltas worthless.

As for FMC spam just shoot them weight of dice will work.

And against screamer star just hit him.

Lots of vehicle killing drop pods? Put vehicles in reserve!

Or deploy them in cover, with rear armor against the table edge.

Focus things down. Find the biggest threat to your list and kill it. Move away from everything else. Don't try to engage their whole army with your whole army. Engage part of their army with your whole army.

niv-mizzet wrote:
Lots of vehicle killing drop pods? Put vehicles in reserve!

Or deploy them in cover, with rear armor against the table edge.

Focus things down. Find the biggest threat to your list and kill it. Move away from everything else. Don't try to engage their whole army with your whole army. Engage part of their army with your whole army.

I tend to leave one juicy target in the corner of the board...then hope for mishaps and pod clustering...once pods are down...those marines are stuck where they are.

In one tournament I found that the Firestorm Redoubt is also excellent for hiding your serpents away from pod range by blocking off a corner.

I beat the space wolves last night with a list with no vehicles in it. I think I just can't use vehicles in my meta. Too much Tank hate for how much they cost. Also I don't think he knew how to deal with eldar that had no vehicles.


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I guess the way to beat my Meta is to use units that nobody uses ever uses...

So banshees are back?? (just kidding, stay in that box)

I find that playing random unit types that arn't the "norm" only works once or twice, then people figure it out.

This is the List I used.

Farseer: Jetbike, RoWiw, RoWard, Shard of Anaris
Farseer: Jetbike, RoWiw, RoWard, Singing Spear
Warlock x8: Jetbike, Singing Spear
Windrider Jetbikes x6: x2 Shuriken Cannon
Windrider Jetbikes x6: x2 Shuriken Cannon
Wraithknight
Wraithlord: Flamers, Scatter Laser, Bright lance
Vauls Wrath Batteries x3: Vibro cannon


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Nobody here has ever used or played against Farseer council and it was my first time using it as well. I didn't even know bikes had hammer of wrath on the assault. It was a pain in the rear against space wolves with their 4+ deny on every power when i was assautling his bikes...

At my LGS running seer council is risky, if you play vs a GK stormraven army your probably dead unless you have some interceptor. Or as is mentioned SW denying fortune means painful shooting faze is coming.

if fortune gets denied you could always use stealth from a warlock and turbo boost for a 2+ cover

 Xerics wrote:
Fighting against wolves they come down turn 1 with 5 marines all having Meltaguns and pop my transports like they are a bad joke. Centurions laughed at all my stuff. I find it hard to believe that Grav guns get 5 shots each at AP2 and 36" range.

Suppose the enemy starts the game and the enemy fields Pods:
First, you could keep some Serpents in reserve.
Second, you could use terrain and bubble wrap the Serpents with cheap units like Guardians, or some allies. Then meltas should have a hard time.

If you go first and expect some Pods to arrive, then go flat out with your skimmers if necessary.

The Centurions will always be churning out those 5 grav shots, because of SnP, but remember SnP cannot fire Overwatch and cannot Sweep, so charge away at them!

Interesting. Well i figured how to beat them anyways. Guardians in cover with a star cannon. They didnt like that too much nor getting shot at by a wraithknight. I instagibbed 2 that were out in the open as I had AP2 and STR10 weapons.