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Hey there, I've made a new gaming friend, let's call him "Dave". Anyway he's a returning player from editions past and he will be rolling with the eldar. He seems to really love eldar walker heavy armies, war walkers seem to be his idea of a bread n butter unit. I having never played against them before could someone explain their role and the weaknesses/strengths? I'd like to learn more about my foe before I commit to war with it.

Last edition they were a steal at 40 point with cannons or 60 scatters. This edition they are 60/70 and gained open topped. To 'balance' that they gave it a 5+ inv and battle focus. Not at all worth it in my opinion. They were amazing last edition to throw 120 points into a unit that would outflank and wreck a side. They were a very good place to throw extra points into a unit that could actually do damage. Now they are so expensive that they cant be thrown away and have to stay back as far as possible. They still can do damage, but the increasing firepower of the game has made them struggle to compete and find a place in an army list. Add to that the Wave Serpent does similar damage to two war walkers and is much more survivable and there is rarely a reason to take them.

War walkers are very good units. Their job is to usually shoot tons of dakka, but sometimes they can be used to outflank dakka. They also make for good light/heavy AT depending on the loadout.

The two best loadouts are dual scatter lasers or dual lances. Scatters handle most everything but Av13+, while lances handle heavy armor. Scatter/star is also decent if you want some extra Ap2. Dual shuri or scatter shuri are good builds if you want to outflank them.

Mobile fragile heavy weapons platforms.

Basically, a cheap way to put 2 heavy weapons on the table, with a lot of mobility, but they can't take much punishment.

If you play with a lot of LoS blocking terrain they can move from out of sight, shoot, then move back behind cover so you can't target them.
They put out an insane amount of firepower with dual scatter.
Pods ruin their day even with a 5++.

I've been having some success running a squad of two both with dual lances, outflanking shooting up the heaviest armour in sight and the retreating to cover (battle focus). Rinse repeat. On a lot of occasions they've stuck around a lot longer than they've any right to. Just keep them away from massed small arms fire.

 ionusx wrote:
I having never played against them before could someone explain their role and the weaknesses/strengths? I'd like to learn more about my foe before I commit to war with it.

Strength - Shooting. They're a fire-support unit mostly. Expect them to be packing a whole lot of S6 shooting, potentially twin-linked. Either that, or a unit of 3 with 6 Bright Lance shots.
Beware the outflanking squad of walkers. They will come on and wreck the rear armour of any tanks they can, or douse a squad of infantry in wounds.

Weaknesses - Pretty much anything. Bolters will take them down. S5/6 is solid. Given their open-topped-ness, you just need a Pen from something Ap1/2 and you've kileld one.

Have not played in 7th, but in 6th I always ran two squads of three. One with scatters and one with bright lances. 210 per unit and I would destroy or cripple most units.

Terminator squads were a little difficult to deal with, but anything less and I did not worry about.